When you think about doing user testing, do you cringe? Do you imagine all the hours and effort, it would take to design the test? And then you’d have to carry out the test with so many participants who will likely feel uncomfortable about performing the test in front of you! Plus, then you’d have to spend time compiling the results and trying to draw conclusions about what to change on the site or software.

And oh gosh, what about all the time it will take to find the right software? And how much does that software cost anyway?

So many questions and worries! Well fret no longer – we assure you, it is not Rocket Surgery!

In his book “Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems,” Steve Krug calms the fears of all those who are intimidated by user testing. If you aren’t much into reading or just need a quick overview to convince you it’s worthwhile, here you go. Krug’s 6 “maxims” included in his book are…

1. “A morning a month, that’s all we ask.” User testing doesn’t have to take up oodles of time. There is no need to test with 10 people and then spend an entire day analyzing the results of those tests and deciding what you’re going to change. In one single morning you can do 3 user tests and then debrief with your team over lunch. Don’t spend more time that you actually have to!

2. “Start earlier than you think makes sense.” You don’t have to wait until the website is completely finished to start testing. In fact, it’s best to start testing in the beginning design stages because it’s often easier to make changes then. If users don’t respond well to the use of hot pink as your background color, it’s good to know sooner rather than later because you can more easily change a Photoshop file than a coded website. Those initial design tests can be ever easier with resources such as Krug’s “Five Second Test.”

3. “Recruit loosely and grade on a curve.” Don’t get so caught up with finding the “right” users to test your site or designs. Be flexible on the type of user you’re recruiting. If your target audience is familiar with technical terms required for understanding some of the content on your site, but a test participant doesn’t know that jargon, it’s okay. You can note that the test subject doesn’t understand some of the words, but you don’t have to change all of the terminology. You are just making sure that the user can navigate the site, understands where to go and what to do.

4. “Make it a spectator sport.” You should not be doing all of this alone! Get others in your organization involved. Invite anyone and everyone in your organization to be observers for the test. The more eyes watching what users are doing, the more diverse and comprehensive your observations will be. The requirements for participation as an observer are as follows: attend all user tests, attend the debrief meeting, enjoy the snacks in the observation room during the test and submit your lunch order for the debrief meeting in a timely fashion. That doesn’t sound so bad, right?!

5. “Focus ruthlessly on a small number of the most important problems.” The odds are that your users are going to be perturbed by lots of different things on the website, but the truth is, you can’t fix everything. So, focus on fixing the top 3 most important items, as decided on at the debrief meeting. These things should give you the most bang for your buck in improvements, and also not take up the most time. After you make those 3 most important improvements, you can test the site again to see if any other big complaints come up.

6. “When fixing problems, always do the least you can do.” Make the smallest change possible that will make a difference in the user experience. If a user was having trouble spotting the “Sign up for our e-newsletter” button, you don’t necessarily have to move the button and recode the template. Instead, change the color, add a graphic, and/or make the font larger. Often little changes make a huge difference.

So there you have it, a quick and easy overview of User Testing and the book “Rocket Surgery Made Easy”. User testing will help you as a web designer/developer/ project manager create better websites for clients. And if you’re a potential client thinking about a new website project, talk with your project manager about a possible user test or two. It will only help create a better website for you. Now… get to testing!

1. Collaboration is key.  When you start a new project with a marketing firm, you don’t want them throwing your goals and ideas out the window and going in a completely different direction without considering your own plans.  Make sure your chosen firm listens well, is knowledgeable, and offers suggestions and solutions without overriding your needs.  
2. Project management means good communication.  When we say “project management,” we’re not talking about setting a timeline and getting back to you when our part is finished.  Ideally, your project manager should feel more like a coach and teacher. When a project is managed properly, it means your marketing team works with you side by side during each step of the process.  Don’t expect them to hold your hand the whole time, but do expect that they will answer questions promptly, tell you where the project stands, and make sure you know what needs to be done next to keep the whole project on track. 
3. Let us be your trusted guide.  Look for a marketing team that is confident, helps you understand everything, and doesn’t talk down to you.  They should exude a feeling of “Yep, we know what we’re doing.” Realize that it’s impossible that they know everything, but they should know the right questions to ask and where to go for answers.  As the Brits like to say, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Their work should speak for itself – whether the end product is a website, identity materials, SEO or social media recommendations.
4. Make sure they “teach you to fish.” Don’t let your marketing firm hand you a spanking new website without teaching you about what to do with it after launch. The great thing about your digital marketing initiatives is they can CHANGE all the time. Look for a marketing firm that will teach you about search engine optimization, Google Analytics, and content management. Then you’ll have the knowledge to improve your marketing materials and keep bringing in the big fish.
5. Something your target audience LOVES:  Ultimately, you are paying for an SEO strategy, a new website, or new branding materials that will boost contact and communication with your target market. Hopefully, all this communication will lead to happy customers – existing and new.  Your marketing efforts should help customers relate to you in an emotional way that encourages them to trust you. Ask customers for feedback, and make adjustments based on their needs.  When your customers LOVE your marketing efforts, you can see and feel the LOVE in new sales and positive feedback.  And you gotta love that!

Here’s a recent article I wrote for AnnArbor.com…

Last week I was talking with a friend in Wisconsin about how she markets her successful small company. While she talked about the variety of tactics she planned to use in 2011, she had an insightful realization.

“I’ve heard people say a thousand times ‘marketing is everything.’ It’s the life blood of your business,” she said. “But really, everything is marketing. It’s not just my online ads or monthly email blast to my customers — it’s everything my company does.”

She continued, “In fact, if you’re in a committed relationship, you understand the meaning of marketing. You know how to attract a partner (or customer), and you know what it takes to stay in that relationship and keep each other content.”

My friend is right. Marketing is about customer relationships — not just initiating them but sustaining them. And like all relationships, every little thing you do and say matters.

As we approach the end of January, most companies are one month in to implementing this year’s marketing plan. They’ve determined their marketing, communications and advertising initiatives, and they’ve allotted money to be spent on each of these items. They’ve assigned someone to implement each step in the plan, and it’s likely that those implementing the plan have job titles like “marketing director” or “communications coordinator.”

But marketing is not just the responsibility of the people in your marketing department or the agency you hired to help with your next advertising campaign. Marketing is everyone’s responsibility. Every person in your organization is a representation of the company, and everyone impacts customer relationships. Marketing is…

• The way your team members answer the phone.
• The way your office or manufacturing area looks.
• Each invoice you send.
• Every email that leaves your office.
• Your parking lot (and your un-shoveled sidewalk).
• The way your president behaves while she’s out to dinner at a local establishment.
• The frustration someone feels when they can’t find your contact information on your website.
• The efficiency and kindness employed when a customer calls with a question or complaint.

All of the seemingly small things you do may increase or decrease the likelihood of someone purchasing your product or service for the first time or the 20th time. Your response to a Facebook posting could make the difference in someone’s decision to recommend you to a friend. Marketing is truly all-pervasive and a long term relationship. It’s in everyone’s job description, and it’s the sum of all parts.

Carrie Hensel is co-founder and CEO of Inner Circle Media and co-founder of the Women’s Exchange of Washtenaw. She writes this monthly column with other members of the WXW board of directors.

“Form follows function – that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”  – Frank Lloyd Wright

Here’s a great blog post explaining that good design focuses on meeting the needs of the user not just decoration and aesthetics. Many highly successful websites today (Google, Craig’s List, Apple) have few aesthetic embellishments. So are these utilitarian sites really “undesigned”? Or are they fulfilling users’ needs in by quickly providing easily readable information?

The author (Yaron Schoen) astutely argues that these sites are actually successful because they are “based on the essence of design” – they are uncluttered, easy to read, and full of white space which makes for an enjoyable reading experience. Schoen says, “This is good design, not undesigned. What may seem obvious for our print counter parts, we web folk (especially myself) are finally starting to understand what content design truly means and I think we should embrace this as a better evolution of web design.”

While it may look easy, it’s no simple task to plan and design websites that simply and quickly present information to users. Most websites you see today include unnecessary details, too much information, poor organization, and decorative ornamentation that decreases usability, confuses users, and negatively impacts the business success of the site.

When web teams focus first on meeting the user’s most pressing needs, then they can create a comprehensive and cohesive plan for a website where every element has an obvious purpose. Navigation, layout, and content (copy, graphics, etc) should steer users to readily get the information they are seeking and quickly accomplish tasks on the site. During design reviews with the web team and client, it’s important to keep asking “how does each element in this mock-up enhance the user experience and direct the user through the website?” If the element is just a decoration without a purpose, then it’s not necessary and probably shouldn’t be there. In this way, form will enable function, and the end result will accomplish its intended purpose.

Marketers and advertising experts were trained to help their clients find their Unique Selling Proposition, but this can be difficult when all law firms, all accounting firms, and all consulting firms seem to do the same thing.

Hard sells like “”Our thoughts are assembled faster than anybody else’s in the profession!” don’t work for law firms. Nor do empty claims like “We listen” or “We are honest.” In fact, making statements like those can cause folks to ask “Are they really that honest if they have to tell me they’re honest?!”

Rather than using a hard sell, law/accounting/consulting firms can do a few things in their marketing messages to set themselves apart in meaningful ways…

1. You can state the facts – “Every client’s account is managed by a partner, no matter how small the account.”

2. You can describe specific problems and explain how you fix them – “The strategies we design for controlling the flow clients’ regulatory compliance have increased their productivity by 35%.”

3. You can show who the actual experts are. For example, you could run an ad with a photo of a partner in your firm, identify her by name and say, “She has been counseling clients on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance since the day the law was passed.”

In these ways, you’ll do more showing and less telling/bragging, and your target audience members will actually begin to feel that they can trust you because you are capable, creative, thorough, helpful, and great listeners (but you never actually used any of those words in your copy).

Read the entire article on RainToday.com at - Pitching Your Law Firm: Skip the Hard Sell.

1. Advanced URL Control — Unlike WordPress, Drupal gives you precise control over URL structure. Each item of content in Drupal (called a node) can be given a custom URL (called a URL alias). In WordPress you are generally limited to one type of permalink URL for all posts. You can override the “post slug”, but it’s much less precise than Drupal’s URL aliases. You can also automate custom URL structures for each different content type with the Pathauto Module. The Global Redirect Module will automatically 301 redirect the internal Drupal URL to the custom URL alias. Unlike many other content management systems, Drupal’s content pages have nice clean URLs.
2. Custom Content Types and Views — You can use the Content Construction Kit (CCK) and Views Modules to create new content types and create advanced custom views for them without writing any code. A few examples of “content types” are “blog posts”, “news stories”, “forum posts”, “tutorials”, “classified ads”, “podcasts”. You can create as many custom content types as you would like and display them in many different ways. Most content management systems would require writing code to accomplish these tasks, but there is no programming knowledge required to do them in Drupal. Here is a quick & basic intro to Views called How To Build Flickr in Drupal.
3. Revision Control — You can configure Drupal to save a new version of your pages every time they are editing. That means that you can go back to view or revert old revisions if you want.
4. Taxonomy — Drupal has a powerful taxonomy (category) system that allows you to organize and tag content. Each Drupal “vocabulary” (set of categories) can be limited to certain content types. For example, you could have blog contents that allowed free tagging (similar to WordPress categories), while your news section might have a different vocabulary (set of categories) that could only be selected from an existing list of categories. You can also have hierarchical categories, with single or multiple parent categories. Drupal’s advanced taxonomy features, combined with CCK and Views, allows you to easily target all of those long-tail keywords that you researched in Wordtracker.
5. User Management — Drupal was designed for community-based Web sites and has strong user role and access control functionality. You can create as many custom user roles with custom access levels as you need. For example you could create the following roles, each with different levels of access to your features: “anonymous visitor”, “authenticated user”, “moderator”, “editor”, “webmaster”, “admin”. You can keep the advanced user management features (like multiple blogs) turned off if you don’t want them, enabling them later if your site grows to a point where you would like to add more community features.
6. Page Titles and Meta Tags — Drupal’s Page Title Module gives you custom control of your HTML <title> elements, while the Meta Tags Module gives you control over your pages’ individual meta description tags. This is difficult in some content management systems, but it’s easy with Drupal.
7. Excellent Documentation — Documentation includes the official handbooks, the massive API Reference, numerous tutorials, blogs, videos, and podcasts, and the excellent new book Pro Drupal Development. There is even a Drupal Dojo community where you can learn how to become a Drupal ninja.
8. PHP Template — Drupal uses the PHP Template theme engine by default. Theming in Drupal is easier than theming in WordPress and doesn’t necessarily require any PHP knowledge. Drupal’s Theme Developer Guide is a great resource. I also recommend reading Chapter 8 in Pro Drupal Development.
9. Drupal Cookbooks — If you want a feature that is not built into Drupal by default, chances are that someone has already written a code snippet for it and posted it in the code snippets section of Drupal.org.
10. Large and Friendly Community — With so many major sites using Drupal, it’s not going away soon. For an idea of the size of the developer community, take a look at the long list of community-contributed modules. The Drupal forum is highly active and are a great place to get your Drupal questions answered. You can also find Drupal support on IRC chat on channels #drupal-support and #drupal-dojo. To meet other Drupal users in your area, visit Drupal Groups.

There are other open-source alternatives to Drupal, but here are a few reasons why I think that Drupal is better:

• Joomla – It’s not as search engine friendly out of the box as Drupal.
• Plone – It”s powerful, but Plone is written in Python and has certain server requirements. It is not as easy to extend as Drupal, and it’s harder to find people who know Python than who know PHP. Plone runs on the powerful, but complex, Zope 2.
• WordPress – WordPress is excellent, but if you need something more heavy-duty or are building a site that you might want to extend in the future you should be considering Drupal.

When clients ask our team at Inner Circle Media , “Who else uses Drupal?” here’s what we say…

• The Whitehouse
• Foreign Affairs
• The BBC uses Drupal
• Die Zeit (major German newspaper)
• Die Welt (another major German newspaper)
• The Cable News Network (CNN)
• Amnesty International
• Greenpeace
• The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO)
• The United Nations
• IBM recommends Drupal
• Fast Company
• America Online (AOL)
• Sun Microsystems
• Novell
• Yahoo!
• Harvard University
• Fedex
• Forbes
• Warner Bros
• 20th Century Fox
• MacWorld
• RackSpace (major web hosting provider)
• Sony Music
• Universal Music
• Led Zeppelin
• Electronic Arts (Game producer)
• Metallica
• REM
• Pink
• Rock Band (XBox game)
• Avril Lavigne
• J-Lo
• Britney Spears
• Tori Amos
• The Grateful Dead
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Even Barbie® manufacturer Mattel use Drupal

And that’s just the start of the list! Many of our own clients use Drupal too – including the University of Michigan School of Nursing, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, and Rick Snyder for Michigan.

1. Ditch the 3-Click Rule: Research shows that users will click as many times as necessary to find the information they are seeking as long as your website doesn’t frustrate the heck out of them. As long as your site is easy to use and logically organized, users don’t worry about the number of clicks it takes to accomplish what they came to your site to do.

2. Arrange Important Content in a F Shaped Pattern: In a test with over 230 participants, Dr. Jakob Nielsen’s eye tracking study from 2006 showed that website users scan web content in an F-shaped pattern. Other studies have shown similar findings – users scan your website starting in the upper left corner, then reading across and down. It’s important to point out that study participants likely came from countries where their language is written from left to right, and so reading patterns have been long established.

3. People Hate Waiting For Your Website to Load: Surprise! If you make people wait, they won’t stick around. For every second it takes pages on your site to load, user are that much more likely to be dissatisfied and leave your site.

4. People Don’t Like to Read Big Blocks of Dense Copy – They Like to Skim: Here’s another shocker. People actually read only about 28% of the copy on your website, so you better make sure they see what you want them to see. Use big headers, bold text, and bullets for important messages and instructions for what you want users to do next.

5. People Don’t Mind Scrolling! Long ago webbies said that your important stuff should be “above the fold” (a term borrowed from newspapers). Nowadays website users have become accustomed to scrolling past the fold and don’t seem to mind it at all. Furthermore, users are more likely to scroll and actually respond better to websites when the content isn’t crammed into the vertical space at the top of the page.

6. Arrange Your Layout Based on How Users Read: This tip is directly related to #2 above. You should layout important design components (navigation, copy, etc.) based on how your users read. In countries where users read left to right, put the important stuff on the left; the opposite is true in countries where users read right to left.

7. Use Ample White Space and Margins: Users have less reading comprehension when your website copy is densely packed in a wide column. If you want users to actually understand your content and respond favorably to your website, make sure to use margins around your text.

8. Little Things Sometimes Mean A LOT to Users: Pay attention to the details. Wording, color, and obvious buttons all matter a lot to busy website users. Check your site’s usage statistics to find out where users are getting hung up and leaving the site. Then make improvements to those pages.

9. Don’t Rely On the Search Function Alone: This study shows that seventy percent of users prefer to navigate first, then use the search function if necessary, so make sure your content is intuitively organized so users can easily navigate. After you’ve ensured that layout, navigation, and content organization are effectively considered, then work on your search function.

10. Your Homepage is NOT the Be-All End-All: As search engines and social media sites evolve, it’s becoming less likely that users will enter your site through the homepage and more likely that they’ll search for a term that takes them to one of the interior pages of your site. Therefore, make sure it’s easy for users to quickly comprehend what your site is about and how to navigate from any page of your site. Furthermore, use landing pages for your advertising, communications, and social media efforts, so you can readily direct users to take action on your site.

Many marketing and advertising agencies talk about “integrated marketing communications” – which may sound like promotional jargon to folks who aren’t marketing gurus, so let’s clear up any confusion. Integrated marketing means that your marketing message and the tools used to deliver the message are fully considered, planned, and integrated, so the “campaign” or promotion rolls out in a comprehensive and cohesive manner.

Toyota‘s marketing efforts for the Sienna (their van) are the perfect example of integrated marketing. For years, Toyota ran rather dull ads that focused on the product (the van) and how customers thought the product was so great. Boring. Working with the ad agency of Saatchi & Saatchi, Toyota decided to take a new approach where the van’s features were no longer the focus. Instead, Toyota played up the positive effect the van had on the family who bought it.  Toyota released fun, goofy ads featuring two parents and two kids who use the van everyday. These were no ordinary ads – these parents were big dorks who played up the perils and rewards of parenthood while also promoting the trusted machine that transports their family to games, parks, school and work.

If you haven’t seen the ads, go see them NOW – http://www.youtube.com/sienna

Why did the ads work so well?

Let’s remember – in early 2010 Toyota had a global recall and a horrific PR nightmare. If they’d run ads, that said, “Trust us. We worked through our problems, and now our cars are safe again. Please buy them.” consumers would have said, “No way.”

Instead Toyota took the “showing is better than just telling” approach. Toyota showed a  family using the van, having fun, and being happy. And they used just the right amount of humor. Let’s face it – when you make someone laugh, they are thankful and they begin to trust you.

Clearly the integrated campaign was well planned and implemented. TV ads directed viewers to Toyota’s YouTube channel. The ads went viral and were shared by millions of people around the world. In fact, more than 5.7 million page views later, it seems Toyota’s campaign worked brilliantly. Moreover, Toyota created original online content to complement its TV ads. The “Swagger Wagon” music video was entirely ingenious (the parents perform a witty hip-hop song about their van), full of dorky goodness, and just what Toyota needed to do to help car buyers once again trust and bond with the company. What a great way to repair the company’s reputation.

In August, Dianne Marsh wrote her own excellent article called “What defines business success?” where she references my article and explains that many companies are choosing to stay small, and that “success” isn’t necessarily defined by your company’s revenues or number of employees. Bigger doesn’t always mean better when it comes to companies. I agree with Dianne – my own idea of success is not to grow a massive company. Success for me as a business owner means building and sustaining a good group of clients and retaining a strong, happy team. I’d also hope that my company contributes to our community (through volunteering, donations, teaching, and leadership).

Regardless of our own definitions of “success,” I do find it very interesting that there is still a huge difference between companies that are women owned and male owned.  Here are more stats from the Center for Women’s Business Research:

• 85% of all women owned businesses were sole proprietorships
• 6% of women owned businesses were incorporated (C corporations, excluding S corporations)
• The 6% of incorporated women owned businesses accounted for 45% of receipts of all women owned businesses
• Just under 69% of women owned businesses had under $25,000 in receipts, compared to 5% of all businesses with under $25,000 in receipts.
• Only 2% of women owned businesses had over $1 million in receipts, compared to 5% of all businesses with over $1 million in receipts.
• Only 16% of women owned businesses had paid employees
• 70% of women owned businesses operated in the retail and services sector

What does all this mean? The stats show that women are starting a lot of companies and increasing their revenues; but most of these companies are small, earn less than $25,000 per year, and do not have employees. While women-owned firms may define success in different ways, I worry that because most of our companies are very small one-woman shops, our abilities as business leaders may be questioned or ignored. Are we achieving our full potential? Are we making our voices heard by government, impacting public policy to our benefit, or positioning ourselves to participate in Michigan’s economy as the state recovers in the coming years?