I was recently getting very frustrated because I was constantly getting results from Google in French in both IE8 and Google Chrome due to having either a Windows installation in French or other similar French language preferences even when going into “Manage Search Providers”, I couldn’t find the option to obtain UK or US but mainly English based results!
This is what I found out that may help you too!
The solution if you want the results from Google that you type in the top right hand corner of IE8 to be in English, is to click on the link below and choose Google Search as your default search provider: http://www.ieaddons.com/en/search-helpers/
When I went into Manage Search Providers and clicked on Find More Search Providers I was also getting an error page!
Christopher Blizzard demonstrates how the upcoming Mozzila FireFox 3.6 can change the page orientation if your device has an accelerometer system (Thinkpads, Macbook pros). You can see how this works in the video below:
Following on from the Twitterer is a mainly a narcissist article, the currently trendy term of “Consumer intelligence” seems to be giving clients the jitters (so agencies see it). Companies that understand the need for a consumer “pull” strategy where the emphasis is on the consumer, fits with the need to quickly respond and listen to the consumer, analyse new behaviour and habits. In a very interesting Ad-Age article the journalist explains that companies feel they don’t need agencies as much!
There is a great quote from the CEO of Unilever Paul Polman:
“Maybe the most extreme example of this is to be found in consumer-generated content, where we have invited consumers to develop communications for Omo and Vaseline as a complement to those generated by the company, and in the case of Peperami, we have even dispensed with the agency in favor of exclusively ‘crowdsourced’ content.
“However well traditional advertising agencies read the signals and recognize the need for radical change in their capabilities,” he said, “few agencies can address all the communications needs of a brand. … This is making the management of agencies increasingly complex, and raises challenging questions on how best to measure the value added by the respective partners and consequently how to manage remuneration.”
The current economic situation pushes clients to search for financially viable solutions, or at least good ROI you can present to your boss. From an agency perspective, we know this is without being prepared to accept a reduction in scope or speed to market. Although the speed to market aspect can often be better managed by agencies, the “same scope, with reduced budget” is just not always possible. Sure you can provide cheaper solutions but that generally implies a reduction in quality, even though clients may agree to it. Clients rarely anticipate the reactions from their project sponsors and hierarchy and it can fall back on the agency.
Clients who have previously externalized their marketing and branding requirements are now looking to internalize what they had given away to agencies over the years according to the above article. The likes of Forrester are pushing to get marketing and brand managers (sorry Forrester prefers Brand Advocates) to be use ‘invaluable’ Forrester insight and work in house rather than go through agencies as much.
Would this have anything to do with some of the larger digital agencies producing detailed market reports (ex: Digital Outlook) and complex dashboard systems that provide the same type of ‘insight’ Forrester is selling to clients?
I’m not sure Forrester is my idea of a company capable of seeking and identifying trends in the digital arena to serve as a catalyst for the client’s brand coverage but hey I work in an agency so I would be biased. Without denying the importance of the number crunching and analysis, it is just a small ingredient of the digital marketing mix.
Although the above article does not touch on the details or definition of an agency I think there is a tendency to consider them all to be the same. In the same way that Jon discusses how both Forrester and Gartner don’t go into enough details in their Content Management comparison reports, I feel they do the same when discussing and comparing agencies. Good digital agencies do provide support for the above areas mentioned by Forrester and far more. The intricacies and issues of implementing complicated technical solutions are part of a digital agency’s normal day. They also have a good understanding of all the other ingredients of the digital marketing mix, how it all works together down to the small details that Forrester don’t even touch on!
Just came across a great post over on the Made by Many blog that provides an insightful history of wireframes and how designing webpages has evolved over the years to see the convergence of information/experience architect and designer ’savoir-faire’ and far better wireframes in the process
Yes the article is called the future of wireframes but it’s also the history of how we got where we are now…
I just came across a post on Jeff Atwoods ‘Coding horror’ site (can’t even remember how I ended up there), and a post about blogging, more specifically the reactions you can get from irate people. I’m not sure his recommendation to ignore people is ‘the’ solution but it’s an interesting point of view and account of his own experience with flame wars and irate people with comments like “I stopped reading your blog years ago“! Interesting read, especially for people that blog themselves…
PS: Sorry I remembered he has a good review of the Dell XPS M1330 and I had recommended this laptop to a client, Anne-Sophie, webmaster of the Adecco France website and reminded me she was also happy with her red laptop!
Just came across this advert for the .tel domain name. Even though it is not new I’d never seen it and I find it quite funny. Especially when you view it on Youtube a little banner at the bottom that invites you to buy the song on iTunes, “Sweet about Me” by Gabriella Climi…
The importance of experience architects in creating or updating a web site is often underestimated. There is a general tendency to fudge the initial user experience phase (sitemaps, personas with their specific user journeys and wireframes) or even skip it and jump straight to concept designs that are then fleshed out to ‘wow’ the client. The whole rationale that consists in understanding what functionalities and services are required on the site and structure them in a coherent manner, hopefully even test them before designing commences, is omitted. Defining the main functionalities of a site, then having an experience architect (who worked on that first phase) to sketch it out and analyse it should precede the functional specifications but most of all the design phase. Designers that have extensive web design knowledge as well as experience architecture knowledge are few and far between so you are unlikely to obtain the optimum result by starting with the design.
Card Sorting
The initial phases, when analysing the structure and organisation of an existing site in view of updating it ‘can’ benefit from card sorting. This consists of taking the different sections and seeing how users sort the different sections / areas into groups. It can help you understand how users would expect these different areas to be organised and therefore, where they would expect to find them. Different logical taxonomies may appear following the analysis as different user groups may sort cards in different ways. There are also 2 different types of card sorting, ‘open’ where no structure is predefined and ‘closed’ where participants are asked to place the cards in a pre-defined structure. Card sorting is not recommended to simply test a current site but should be considered as part of the process involved in defining the structure of a site that is being created or updated / redesigned. It can also help when adding or updating a new area to a site. As Nielsen explains more users are required in card sorting than in usability testing though. A fair amount of analysis is required to obtain useful findings.
Sitemap, user journeys, wireframes
By creating the recommended set of ’sitemap / user journeys / wireframes’ you are capable of seeing black on white the optimum route a person will take. The organization and categorization of content blocks should be logical but can be modified to optimise the user journey outcome. A site should usually provide several optimised user journeys for the different types of target users / personas that have been identified.
Simplify the site and structure
Generation Y as opposed to generation X and the baby boomers are more net fluent and savvy online, capable of delving through content until they find the information they feel relevant and trustworthy. Their experience and knowledge provides near instantaneous gut feeling about a site. Uncluttered, simple pages with straightforward navigation principles just feel good. A pleasant experience on a web site that easily allows you to find what you are looking for is memorable simply because it is unfortunately a rare experience. This new generation and generations to come are a primary targets, neglecting them is not an option.
Simplify the design and content
Simple ways of communicating, avoiding the ‘noise’ traditional designers want to apply in order to personalise or own their design can complicate things. Twitter, like SMS are two extremely simple ways of communicating, their restrictions simplify the communication.
Now is this to say that design is just powder in your eyes? Well, when applied by talented designers that know their target audience, how to play and innovate with the chosen medium and how to further optimise the previously crafted user journey, then obviously no.
A friend of mine works at the “Musée des Arts Décos” in Paris, we discussed this concept when applied to modern decorative art. I was comparing the concept to artists capable of choosing specific material(s) and their ability to amplify the user experience and overall design through the selection of specific material(s). The technology but also the interfaces mechanisms of web sites are in this perspective key elements that a great designer will know and use to further his / her design.
Accessibility, standards, usability and web 2.0
Web applications are becoming more and more complex to the extent that they are starting to compete with desktop applications (ex. Google Maps and Mail, Flickr etc.). The interaction provided as well as both usability and accessibility when relying on standards are far better. Although the ‘web 2.0′ term is often used as a buzz word (see Zelman’s web 3.0 article) the term has undoubtedly helped spread the idea of more savvy websites, thought through and help improve user experience.
Designing sites is a great opportunity, especially when you are lucky enough to be surrounded by clever and experienced people. When you can combine extremely talented people at all the different levels you require to build a website the results can be amazing. Although traditional advertising agencies are starting to learn that they need to further integrate the technical implications of the production of a website into projects, user experience is just as important and often overlooked by so many agencies. Design is considered the Holy Grail but this can hide some ugly surprises when the user experience aspect of the website is overlooked. Experience architecture when used in a rigorous way can really help to understand what will help the end-users of a site will be looking for, how and where to include it in your website.
While reading an article on SearchEngineLand I was happy to see that the experience architecture aspect of a site build was nicely touched upon. First impressions count. It really does give you an extra insight into the way the site can be successful when you try to understand how people will react to a site, what they are looking for and how designing it differently can help you help them find what they are looking for quickly without compromising the design.
The gut feeling is an important factor with today’s fast moving generation Z, the same gut feeling can be tested with various personas you have identified as your key target population to make sure that you don’t alienate your other personas from previous generations.
Quick note to say that there seems to be a twitter security issue based upon cross site scripting. Initially it was thought to be a virus but this post on NetworkWorld seems to indicate that it is in effect a cross site scripting hack . This basically means that should it be an XSS hack, Twitter are not high up there with their security standards. It won’t look good if what seems to be a phishing hack is possible on their site!
Update: the script used to infect all the Twitter users was crafted by a 17 year old from Brooklyn who claims to have been bored and was highlighting the vulnerability while promoting his own site! Twitter have “closed the hole” as per Geoff’s comment below.
So Google was one of the first large companies to actually use cloud computing extensively and now, as usual in the English language, there is a move to talk about ‘the cloud’, dropping the more geeky ‘computing’ part! Like other buzzwords, take web 2.0 or SaaS (Software as a Service) not everybody has the same definition. It is highly likely that some people will say that ‘could computing’ and ‘the cloud’ are two different things.
Seamless access to hardware and software: the Supercomputer
The main idea with ‘the cloud’, from an IT perspective, is to seamlessly supply extra resources to providers of IT services and by ricochet to end users of these services. Even though it is not a behemoth word like sustainability that continues to suck in so many different meanings, cloud computing is likely to evolve and cover more and more services. Hey it could even end up being synonymous with the Matrix type concept from the film!
In the case of IT infrastructure, people are interested in outsourcing their hardware needs which can be covered by what is called HaaS (Hardware as a Service). One of the most well known services of this type is Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud or EC2.
Does this remind you of passive terminals that connect to supercomputer?! It is not a coincidence that equipment like Netbooks are so successful in the current context of more and more key services, instantly available on the internet. Cloud Computing can help provide further such important services to people. The Cloud services currently available and Netbooks are however far more complex than the mainframe and passive terminal model.
HaaS and SaaS
The Cloud services provided can be viewed as building blocks. Both HaaS (Amazon’s and Google’s server farms) and SaaS type applications (like Google Docs, Salesforce.com and Sliderocket) are purchased without needing to worry about the risks involved in evaluating growing usage. In this sense cloud computing is also referred to as “on demand computing” where you just purchase the system and someone else worries about your evolving needs.
Utility Computing & Server Virtualization
If you are aware of solutions like VMWare that allow you to run several virtual instances of a server on a physical server, then you will quickly see the similarity with cloud computing whereby clusters of servers can provide hundreds of instances of virtual servers. Google’s need to ‘crunch’ huge quantities of data, which requires highly knowledgeable people in cloud computing or grid computing. Like Amazon, Google is now offering the public some of the cloud computing services that used to be restricted to their own projects and internal service requirements.
The ability for companies to tap in to this cloud of both services and hardware (data centers) in the same way you would just turn on the tap or the light, provides powerful and efficient “on demand” services and resources a bit like a utility grid hence the idea of utility computing.
The Cloud is in its infancy but is already proving to be an extremely efficient solution for small to large companies and even the general public though services like Google Aps etc. Could computing is also likely to take on many new meanings along the way
Take a look at the following video where numerous tech celebs explain what Cloud Computing is (audio is a bit shoddy though):
Tim O’Reilly, Dan Farber, Matt Mullenweg, Jay Cross, Brian Solis, Kevin Marks, Steve Gillmor, Jeremy Tanner, Maggie Fox, Tom McGovern, Sam Lawrence, Stowe Boyd, David Tebbutt, Dave McClure, Chris Carfi, Vamshi Krishna and Rod Boothby are asked “what is Could Computing?”.
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