With a whole host of different actions available to the average web user, do we need to differentiate between these actions in order to allow a more educated result from web interaction? And, in turn, would this encourage further interactions if a user knew what led behind each of those interactions.

This is one of the most difficult and challenging decisions a designer has to make. Setting up a style guide so users know what a particular link does is more important than most realise.

As a simple example, Wikipedia clearly defines the difference between external and internal links with the addition of a simple graphic at the end of each external link. This signifies not only that it is an external link, but a link which will open up in a new window. Genius.

So, what are the actions which are needed to be classified?

• New page or same page
• New window or same window
• Request new data or change visible data
• Overlay or not overlay
• Action another program (mailto:, torrent, media etc.)

Obviously it’s ludicrous to include different iconography for each of these elements within the same link.

Some obviously don’t work together. You can’t have an overlay and new window. You can’t action a new program and have that accessed within the same page.

But how do we proceed? Does it make people’s lives easier to show all of these? does the performance of the website increase with the indication of link actions? The informed user exists somewhere between the lands of confusion and unknown.

We have to remember than not everyone is as clued up or as smart at using a website someone else has created, especially when they have only seen it for about 15 seconds!

Confusion by quinn.anya, on Flickr

Whether it’s Google Analytics or another analytical application for measuring and analysing the online performance of your website, I can see many similarities between people’s opinions of analytical software and closed circuit television (CCTV).

Google have started to offer a brower plugin for Internet Explorer (versions 7 and 8), Google Chrome (4.x and higher) and Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and higher) which allows users to opt-out of being tracked by Google Analytics.

Some web and real life users believe that we’re entering a world of being constantly watched everywhere we turn, and some people even starting of accusing Google of knowing too much about us. Taking into account the information about Google collecting Wi-fi data, street-view privacy invasions and other data they are annonymously mining, it may have an element of truth, but does it really matter?

I’d like to liken the widespread use of Google Analytics to the days when CCTV started to become prevailant. CCTV is now pretty much everywhere, with the exception of your bedroom! I would say that now it’s generally regarded as useful, rather than an invasion of people’s privacy.

Ok, so they’re not the same thing, but I think they have similar motives. Where CCTV provides insight and protection (for both watcher and watched), GA provides insight and the ability for webmasters to improve online experiences by observing what people do on their websites. Tracking people’s progress, which in most cases is completely anonymous, leads to finding problems, introducing new features and gradually improving the performance of the overall system. Surely this is beneficial to all web users?

So, i’d like to plead with people – please don’t opt out of Google Analytics tracking. Help us make the web a better performing, more accessible and supportive environment!

CCTV meets Consumerism by The B@man, on Flickr

The redesign I stumbled across when logging onto HSBC internet banking recently got me thinking about how we use the internet. I’ve coined the term Action Prompting Voids (APV’s) to describe what I found!.

In this particular case, HSBC have added to the usual current and savings account details with some additional categories of services and products which I might have with them. Except, I don’t have those services or products. I’ve blanked out the first two rows within the interface, but the bottom three areas are blank.

The first thought which runs through my head is, why are those boxes empty? “Do I need a loan and mortgage, a pension or some insurance?” And then, “wait, didn’t I have some insurance once with HSBC? Do I need it again?” It actually makes me feel like I’m missing out or that I have forgotten something, even though I may or may not have these items with other banks  / building societies or other financial institutions.

This method of displaying a void where possible purchases or investments can be made is actually rather clever. It is a  void, which prompts the action of the end user in which to fill it. On a basic level, the same approach it used with website shopping baskets. “Your basket is empty” is actually saying “Please buy something!” or “put something in here so that it’s not empty.”

I’m sure that this somehow relates to our intrinsic humanistic need to fill, fulfill or complete things. One of the reasons computer games are so addictive, and applications which involve gaming or rewards, such as foursquare, are pretty addictive.

Other simple uses are the watched items notification on eBay, baskets on ecommerce websites and goal / reward medals on foursquare.

So, can we use these blank areas, action prompting voids (APV’s), to encourage people to complete actions with the reward of filling in a bit of web real estate?

The quantitative results of multivariate testing are extremely useful to improve the performance of a marketing campaign. It helps turn a great design into a well performing campaign which delivers important and valuable results.

Multivariate or A-B testing is generally used as a method of comparing two or more different versions of a web page on a live web site. This technique can be used for many different comparisons:

• Completely different website designs
• Slight differences in layout or page design
• Colour variations
• Iterative link enhancement
• Improve performance of interactive elements
• Imrove the buying process or more complicated set of pages.
• Guage performance of different images
• Headline and body copy

Google is well known for testing 41 shades of blue against each other to acheive the optimum performing page. The BBC uses multivariate testing to increase the performance of links. The quantitative results are hard to argue when the testing is done with live users, on a live website and within the actual space it’s going to be added.

But, what else can we use it for?

The process which leads people into a website, the advertising and marketing campaigns, often features some very excellent and creative work to lure people into a website or landing page. These campaigns often contain a lot of creative input and value, but within the short space of time they run, MVT is often overlooked. The use of multivariate testing could improve the performance of marketing campaigns by using multiple versions all the way along the campaign route:

• Online Ads
  • Different calls to action (CTA) (copy and prominance)
  • CTA’s in different position (per ad format)
  • CTA’s in different position in timeline?
• HTML Email
  • Different CTA’s
  • Layout
  • Use of images
  • Use of copy
  • Type of calls to action
• Landing Page
  • Different CTA’s
  • Differing number of form fields
• Final Destination
  • Decrease drop-off rate after download / sign up / purchase
  • Is the CTA thank you page the home page?
  • Where do we ultimately want people to go?
  • Can the thank you page performance be improved?

This is mainly the digital process, but the techniques could also be used with press advertising. The call to action on an offline mailing could be split across two or more user groups in order to measure which one is more successful. Driving people to two entirely different pages, instead of driving people to one page with two versions.

Quantitative analysis of website desgn, development and the surrounding methods of acheiving a higher interest rate in the assets and collateral you are offering, is an extremely valuable and completely underrated method of acheiving a better success rate with a campaign.

MVT could even go as far as to measure the performance of Twitter posts (or other social media for that matter), and the content of those posts in their performance to deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right people, and engage people’s interest.

So, in summary…

Multivariate testing isn’t the most important aspect of campaign development, but it is the most underused and possibly undervalued. It’s often the part of the process which is handled by an internal team, for example at the BBC, Google or Moo.com where they have an ongoing concern for their continuing performance.

It could be used more widely in marketing campaigns, allowing collateral to start with multiple versions of ads and landing pages, and then remove the underperforming version once enough time has passed to realise their performance.

MVT is important within website design and development and has great potential to turn around underperforming elements, assets, pages, ads and campaigns.

It’s clear what they do from their annoying adverts. It’s interesting to see how far they go in order to rank highly for certain keywords like Sell Used Car.

More often than not, copy is created for a website based on the message that it needs to communicate to people, in order to aid a buying process or funnel visitors through to a certain place. Optimising a page includes important keywords for that page within the body copy, so that search engine’s calculate that the page is important and relavent to that keyword.

During the process of selling my Fiat Punto recently, I noticed something strange about the copy on webuyanycar.com. This page which attempts to communicate how selling your car through webuyanycar.com works, actually is a pretty well optimised page for several keywords.

The interesting thing here isn’t that the page is optimised, it’s that it’s been over optimised. This means that it reads well for search engines but when the genuine audience reads it, it doesn’t really sound like normal content.

Here is a quick example:

Find out more about used cars here on our used cars website for used cars. Used cars are the most interesting type of used cars on the used car market.

See how many times I have managed to cram the phrase used cars in here… crazy for human readers, but great for search engines. The titles within the page have also been filled with used cars phrases, which almost make them irrelavent.

What is this doing to our internet? It’s making websites and web pages very focused on a specific keyword or phrase, and in some cases almost changing the real content, meaning, and use of a page into something else. Are these pages useful other than for search engine optimisation?

Whatever the future holds for pages of website content, I managed to find out what the website was about and sell my car!

Unfortunately this isn’t a how to guide for linking photo albums on Facebook. The functionality to link currently isn’t available. This is all about how it could work, in theory.

1. Photo Albums

Photo albums can be added within Facebook, and the sharing properties of these can be set to allow friends, friends of friends, everyone or a customised set of people based on lists and specific names. This is brilliant, and all very well and good.

2. EXIF Data in Cameras

The next step, which I think would make photo albums more interactive, would be to link photo albums.  By using the EXIF data within a photograph, which is automatically recorded to the photo file on digital cameras and kept within the file as it’s uploaded, the exact timestamps between photographs can be assessed.

3. Functionality of Linking Albums

This data can be used to string multiple photos together from different people in a linked photo album. Provided that the times on the cameras are nearly synchronised, it could provide a better and more complete chronological view of a day, event, party or night out from plenty of different angles and viewpoints, heights and styles of photography.

I see the opportunity to merge multiple people’s photo albums and bring an overall view of one holiday or event. The overall photo album with mixed photos would make for a much better viewing experience.

So, Facebook, is this your next big new feature? It could be awesome!

I have just completed a new project involving the design and build of a new website for Quartz-Lite. The company specialises in providing quartz, granite and stone kitchen worktops for kitchens in the south west of England. The quartz worktop is a lighter version of quartz made with resin to provide a thinner and less expensive alternative to quartz, granite and marble. It’s also more durable, scratch and heat resistant. It is designed to fit around existing worktops or can be specified as a new worktop for a new build.

For the website design, I went for a simple design which aimed to include a large number of pictures for visitors to see previously completed kitchens, both new and renovations. The website navigation is simple and the content is aimed at driving visitors through the website and onto a contact page in a logical order. There are a large range of products available to view in detail and a gallery which showcases in detail many different projects.

The website employs a number of different javascript features. These include jCarousel and cyclelite which use the jquery library and lightbox 2. Using these various javascript libraries I have hoped to allow for graceful degradation as much as possible.

If you’d like to take a look at the website, you can do so here: Quartz-Lite – The ultimate stone work surface

One of the most useful firefox addons I have used, and one which I use frequently when designing and developing websites is FireShot. It is especially useful when creating screenshots and measuring existing website dimensions when doing re-designs.

The main functions available with the free version of the program enable users to capture a temporary image version of a website and copy to clipboard, save as an image, or even email and print the output.

To use the website dimensions tool, install the addon into your Firefox browser. Then click the “Edit Capture” button which appears in the lower right hand corner of the browser window. This opens up an external editor which can be used to simply drag out a box and measure various parts of your website, or another website without having to use an external editor like Adobe Photoshop.

FireShot is also available for Internet Explorer.