Frank TALKER

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I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Rudyard KIPLING 1865-1936 English Writer & Poet Just So Stories (1902) The Elephant's Child.

Friday 8 October 2010

metaphysics:

epistemology:

ethics:

politics:

esthetics:

Posted by Frank TALKER™ at 14:23

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Commodity Status

Blog postings will always be commodity content: There is a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on the work of somebody else. Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic - and they are definitely easy to write. But they do not build sustainable value. It feels distinctly disappointing when you are searching for something and get directed to short postings in the middle of a debate that occurred years before, which is thus now irrelevant.

Blogs are a fundamentally-different user experience from that of immersion in a comprehensive treatment of topic. The blog style is a linear sequence of short, frequent postings commenting on the hot topic of the day:

In-depth v. superficial;

original/primary v. derivative/secondary;

driven by author expertise v. reflectively driven by other sites or outside events;

It is also reasonable to assume that posting quality is more variable than expertise for several reasons:

Sometimes people toss off a posting in a minute. Other times they spend hours;

sometimes a writer happens to know a lot about the topic at hand, possibly because they have just spent several months working on that exact problem. Other times people know nothing - which does not (unfortunately) keep them from voicing their opinions;

sometimes people get a blinding insight. Other times they post more out of duty than anything else.

Even if you are the top expert in the world, your worst posting will be below average, which will negatively impact your brand. If you do start a blog, screen your postings: Wait an hour or two, then reread your comments and avoid uploading any that are average or poor. (Even average content undermines your brand. Do not contribute to information pollution by posting material that is not above the average of the writings of other people. Plus, of course, follow guidelines for blog usability.)

The beauty of the Blogosphere is that it's a self-organizing system. Whenever something good appears, other Blogs link to it and it gets promoted in the system and gains higher visibility. Thus, the postings that are better than an expert's very best attempt will gain higher prominence, even though they are written by people with lower overall expertise.

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes

Summary:

Blogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues,
making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.

Blogs are a form of website. The title="Nielsen Norman Group: research reports about the usability of websites, intranets, and email newsletters"
href="http://www.nngroup.com/reports/">thousands of normal website usability
guidelines therefore apply to them, as do title="Alertbox: Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html">this year's top ten
design mistakes. But weblogs are also a special genre of website; they have
unique characteristics and thus distinct usability problems.

One of a weblog's great benefits is that it essentially title="Alertbox: The End of Homemade Websites"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20011014.html">frees you from "Web
design." You write a paragraph, click a button, and it's posted on the
Internet. No need for visual design, page design, interaction design,
information architecture, or any programming or server maintenance.

Blogs make having a simple website much easier, and as a result, the number
of people who write for the Web has exploded. This is a striking confirmation of
the importance of ease of use.

Weblogs' second benefit is that they're a Web-native content
genre: they rely on links, and short postings prevail. You don't have
to write a full article or conduct original research or reporting. You can
simply find something interesting on another site and link to it, possibly with
commentary or additional examples. Obviously, this is much easier than running a
conventional site, and again indicates the benefits of lowering the barriers to
computer use.

As a third benefit, blogs are part of an ecosystem (often
called the Blogosphere) that serves as a positive feedback loop: Whatever good
postings exist are promoted through links from other sites. More reader/writers
see this good stuff, and the very best then get linked to even more. As a
result, title="Alertbox sidebar: Zipf Curves and Website Popularity"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/zipf.html">link frequency follows a Zipf
distribution, with disproportionally more links to the best postings.

Some weblogs are really just private diaries intended only for a handful of
family members and close friends. Usability guidelines generally don't apply to
such sites, because the readers' prior knowledge and motivation are incomparably
greater than those of third-party users. When you want to reach new readers who
aren't your mother, however, usability becomes important.

Also, while readers of your intranet weblog might know you,
usability is important because your readers are on company time. (As an example,
see title="Nielsen Norman Group: download FREE 287 page report - Intranet Design Annual 2006"
href="http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/2006/">IBM's use of intranet
blogs - among the ten best intranets of 2006.)

Usability Issues

To reach new readers and respect your existing readers'
time constraints, test your weblog against the following usability problems.

1. No Author Biographies

Unless you're a business blog, you probably
don't need a full-fledged title="Alertbox: 'About Us' - Presenting Information About an Organization on Its Website"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/about-us-pages.html">"about us" section
the way a corporate site does. That said, the basic rationale for "about us"
translates directly into the need for an "about me" page on a weblog: users want
to know who they're dealing with.

It's a simple matter of trust. Anonymous writings have less credence than
something that's signed. And, unless a person's extraordinarily famous, it's not
enough to simply say that Joe Blogger writes the content. Readers want to know
more about Joe. Does he have any credentials or experience in the field he's
commenting on? (Even if you don't have formal credentials, readers will trust
you more if you're honest about that fact, set forth your informal experience,
and explain the reason for your enthusiasm.)

2. No Author Photo

Even weblogs that provide author bios often omit the
author photo. A photo is important for two reasons:

It offers a more personable impression of the author. You enhance your class=new
title="Nielsen Norman Group, full-day training seminar: Credibility and Persuasive Web Design"
href="http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/credibility.html">credibility
by the simple fact that you're not trying to hide. Also, users relate more
easily to somebody they've seen.
It connects the virtual and physical worlds. People who've met you before
will recognize your photo, and people who've read your site will recognize you
when you meet in person (say, at a conference - or the company cafeteria if
you're an intranet blogger).

A huge percentage of the human brain is
dedicated to remembering and recognizing faces. For many, faces work better than
names. I learned this lesson myself in 1987 when I included my photo in a
HyperCard stack I authored that was widely disseminated on Mac-oriented BBSs.
Over the next two years, countless people came up to me and said, "I liked your
stack," having recognized me from the photo.

Also, if you run a professional blog and expect to be quoted in the press,
you should follow the title="Nielsen Norman Group: Designing Websites to Maximize Press Relations - Guidelines from Usability Studies with Journalists"
href="http://www.nngroup.com/reports/pr/">recommendations for using the Web for
PR and include a selection of high-resolution photos that photo editors can
download.

3. Nondescript Posting Titles

Sadly, even though weblogs are native to
the Web, authors rarely follow the title="Jakob Nielsen: list of writing guidelines and research on how people read online"
href="http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/">guidelines for writing for the
Web in terms of making content scannable. This applies to a posting's body
text, but it's even more important with headlines. Users must be able to grasp
the gist of an article by reading its headline. Avoid cute or humorous headlines
that make no sense out of context.

Your posting's title is title="Alertbox: Microcontent - How to Write Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject Lines"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980906.html">microcontent and you should
treat it as a writing project in its own right. On a value-per-word basis,
headline writing is the most important writing you do.

Descriptive headlines are especially important for representing your weblog
in search engines, newsfeeds (RSS), and other external environments. In those
contexts, users often see only the headline and use it to determine whether to
click into the full posting. Even if users see a short abstract along with the
headline (as with most search engines), user testing shows that people often
read only the headline. In fact, people often title="Alertbox: F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html">read only the first
three or four words of a headline when scanning a list of possible places to
go. Sample bad headlines:

What Is It That You Want?
Hey, kids! Comics!
Victims Abandoned

Sample good headlines:

Pictures from Die Hunns and Black Halos show
Office Depot Pays United States $4.75 Million to Resolve False Claims Act
Allegations
(too long, but even if you only read the first few words,
you have an idea of what it's about)
Ice cream trucks as church marketing

This last headline works on a
church-related blog. If you're writing an ice cream industry blog, start the
headline with the word "church" because it's the information-carrying word
within a context of all ice cream, all the time.

In browsing weblog headline listings to extract these examples, I noticed
several headlines in ALL CAPS. That's always bad. Reading speed is reduced by
10% and users are put off by the appearance of shouting.

4. Links Don't Say Where They Go

Many weblog authors seem to think it's
cool to write link anchors like: "some people think" or "there's more
here and here." Remember one of the basics of the Web: Life is too
short to click on an unknown. Tell people where they're going and what they'll
find at the other end of the link.

Generally, you should provide predictive information in either the anchor
text itself or the immediately surrounding words. You can also use title="Alertbox: Using Link Titles to Help Users Predict Where They Are Going"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980111.html">link titles for
supplementary information that doesn't fit with your content. (To see a link
title in action, mouse over the "link titles" link.)

A related mistake in this category is to use insider shorthand, such as using
first names when you reference other writers or weblogs. Unless you're writing
only for your friends, don't alienate new visitors by appearing to be part of a
closed clique. The Web is not high school.

5. Classic Hits are Buried

Hopefully, you'll write some pieces with
lasting value for readers outside your fan base. Don't relegate such classics to
the archives, where people can only find something if they know you posted it,
say, in May 2003.

Highlight a few evergreens in your navigation system and link directly to
them. For example, my own list of almost 300 Alertbox columns starts by saying,
"Read these first: title="Alertbox: Introduction to Usability: fundamentals and definition"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html">Usability 101 and class=old title=Alertbox href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html">Top Ten
Mistakes of Web Design."

Also, remember to link to your past pieces in newer
postings. Don't assume that readers have been with you from the beginning; give
them background and context in case they want to read more about your ideas.

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation

A timeline is rarely the best
information architecture, yet it's the default way to navigate weblogs. Most
weblog software provides a way to categorize postings so users
can easily get a list of all postings on a certain topic. Do use categorization,
but avoid the common mistake of tagging a posting with almost all of your
categories. Be selective. Decide on a few places where a posting most belongs.

Categories must be sufficiently detailed to lead users to a thoroughly
winnowed list of postings. At the same time, they shouldn't be so detailed that
users face a category menu that's overly long and difficult to scan. Ten to
twenty categories are appropriate for structuring many topics.

On the main page for each category, highlight that category's evergreens as
well as a time line of its most recent postings.

7. Irregular Publishing Frequency

Establishing and meeting user
expectations is one of the fundamental principles of Web usability. For a
weblog, users must be able to anticipate when and how often updates will occur.

For most weblogs, daily updates are probably best, but weekly or even monthly
updates might work as well, depending on your topic. In either case,
pick a publication schedule and stick to it. If you usually
post daily but sometimes let months go by without new content, you'll lose many
of your loyal - and thus most valuable - readers.

Certainly, you shouldn't post when you have nothing to say. title="Alertbox: Information Pollution"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030811.html">Polluting cyberspace with
excess information is a sin. To ensure regular publishing, hold back some ideas
and post them when you hit a dry spell.

8. Mixing Topics

If you publish on many different topics, you're less
likely to attract a loyal audience of high-value users. Busy people might visit
a blog to read an entry about a topic that interests them. They're unlikely to
return, however, if their target topic appears only sporadically among a massive
range of postings on other topics. The only people who read everything are those
with too much time on their hands (a low-value demographic).

The more focused your content, the more focused your readers. That, again,
makes you more influential within your niche. title="Alertbox: Diversity is Power for Specialized Sites"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030616.html">Specialized sites rule the
Web, so aim tightly. This is especially important if you're in the class=old title="Alertbox: B2B Usability"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/b2b.html">business-to-business (B2B)
sector.

If you have the urge to speak out on, say, both American foreign policy and
the business strategy of Internet telephony, establish two blogs. You can always
interlink them when appropriate.

9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss

Whenever you post
anything to the Internet - whether on a weblog, in a discussion group, or even
in an email - think about how it will look to a hiring manager in ten
years. Once stuff's out, it's archived, cached, and indexed in many
services that you might never be aware of.

Years from now, someone might consider hiring you for a plum job and take the
precaution of 'nooping you first. (Just taking a stab at what's next after
Google. Rest assured: there will be some super-snooper service that'll dredge up
anything about you that's ever been bitified.) What will they find in terms of
naïvely puerile "analysis" or offendingly nasty flames published under your
name?

Think twice before posting. If you don't want your future boss to read it,
don't post.

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

Having a weblog
address ending in blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc. will soon be the equivalent of
having an @aol.com email address or a Geocities website: the mark of a naïve
beginner who shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Letting somebody else own your name means that they own your
destiny on the Internet. They can degrade the service quality as much
as they want. They can increase the price as much as they want. They can add
atop your content as many pop-ups, blinking banners, or other title="Alertbox: The Most Hated Advertising Techniques"
href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20041206.html">user-repelling advertising
techniques as they want. They can promote your competitor's offers on your
pages. Yes, you can walk, but at the cost of your loyal readers, links you've
attracted from other sites, and your search engine ranking.

The longer you stay at someone else's domain name, the higher the cost of
going independent. Yes, it's tempting to start a new weblog on one of the
services that offer free accounts. It's easy, it's quick, and it's obviously
cheap. But it only costs title="Domain name registration at GoDaddy.com"
href="http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-2384032-10378406">$8 per year to get your
personal domain name and own your own future. As soon as you realize you're
serious about blogging, move it away from a domain name that's controlled by
somebody else. The longer you delay, the more pain you'll feel when you finally
make the move.