This week’s remainders
February 7th, 2008
I just started blogging for the Web Analytics Association blog. My first post Communicating analytics results went up January 21 (but I forgot to mention it).
My favourite new ad campaign? Diamond Shreddies (for those who don’t eat Shreddies, they are square and haven’t changed in years). Would love to hear if they are tracking recall in stores when people come in and ask if “where are the diamond shreddies”.
Forget the tripod, this $1 image stabilizer works like a charm.
Recording a kick-ass podcast between two macs. It’s that easy.
Top Canadian web rankings from comScore and only one financial institution in the mix TD Bank Financial Group. I’d be concerned if I was RBC or one of the other big 5 banks. TD seems to be winning the reach game.
The folks at Bolt | Peters have released their Ethnio Recruiting online app. Nice.
Five ways to build sustainable word-of-mouth. Frankly I’d say that #3 alone would turn some heads: Call up 5 customers each week just to catch up. Listen to complaints and kudos first and thank them for their honesty. Then ask if they’ll tell a friend or colleague. Hey William, you should have Tamara try this for a few months.
Fluid is a nice new Mac app that gets your favourite webapps a home on your Mac OS X Leopard Desktop.
Happy Webbies. Now they just need to make t-shirts.Desktops, T’s and buttons all available.
The Usability Body of Knowledge is a project of the UPA.
OfficeMax has redesigned and the new navigation is worth a peek. One click access to specific products.
Google Docs - now with forms support. In Firefox you can watch as items are added on the fly.
Scoop on the soon-to-be-released Rubix from IndexTools. Sounds great. Can bring in external data, is fast, can segment across multiple dimensions and sounds like ease-of-use is well considered. Looking forward to viewing this. All bow before the ‘Dennis’.
UI Patterns is another interesting collection of user interface design patterns.
Two seminars worth attending: Web Form Design Best Practices with Luke Wroblewski (March 15) and Site Search Analytics for a Better User Experience with Lou Rosenfeld (March 18).
Changes: leaving the credit union
February 1st, 2008
A big week for job changes — William Azaroff was promoted at Vancity (congrats, well deserved, if not long-overdue), Ron Shevlin has departed from Epsilon. Now it’s my turn.
Yesterday I resigned from my position as Manager, Web Services at North Shore Credit Union. My last day will be February 29, 2008. A tough decision as I have a great role, a supporting team and manager and have worked hard over the past 5 years to build NSCU’s web strategy and roll it out.
Where am I going? I have accepted a position as User Experience Consultant at Habanero Consulting Group a Vancouver-based company that provides IT consulting services and solutions including business intelligence, collaboration, Dynamics, sustainment and websites/eCommerce. I will be in Vancouver for the interim then moving West East to join their growing Calgary practice around May of this year.
If you are a vendor/partner I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the contributions you have made in supporting our advancement of the web channel at North Shore Credit Union. If you are a peer (past or present), I have enjoyed having the opportunity to work with you and collaborate on projects in the Credit Union space — hopefully our paths will cross again in the future.
Omniture completes acquisition of Visual Sciences
January 17th, 2008
It’s official, the deal is done. The highlights:
- Omniture is going to continue to support the HBX product line and will continue to invest in Platform 5 and its applications under a new brand, Discover OnPremise. Additionally, Search and Publish will initially be integrated into Omniture SiteCatalyst through Omniture Genesis while we develop a comprehensive integration plan.
- A migration program is available for all HBX customers - providing a package of complimentary migration services and technology tailored to the specific needs and requirements of each customer. Counters the earlier highlight of “continuing to support the HBX product line” (should read “until we can kill it off).
You can view more on the Omniture site around the product direction, the migration program, support and training, etc.
BTW: if you are an HBX client, the login for HBX has moved and is well hidden on the Omniture site. You can login to HBX and other Visual Sciences applications here.
This week’s remainders
January 16th, 2008
Sorry, things have been quiet around here lately as I’ve been away on vacation. Back to regular posting this week, starting with these remainders:
Lovely Charts is an interesting online diagramming application.
Brian Eisenberg would love ScrnShots (I hear Brian has a screenshot collection to end all collections)
Anil Batra is doing a survey to understand bounce rates - take some time to fill it out.
Third Tuesday Vancouver is coming up on January 29 at 7pm. Speaking will be Brian Oberkirch on Social Media and Brands. Brian’s a great speaker and someone who’s social media opinion I really enjoy.
YSlow is a nice add-on for Firefox (p.s. You’ll need to install Firebug first). It analyzes web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on the rules for high performance web sites. YSlow is a Firefox add-on integrated with the popular Firebug web development tool. YSlow gives you a performance report card, HTTP/HTML summary, a list of components in the page and tools including JSLint.
Versioning CSS and JS files. Nice approach.
Luke W reiterates my long-held belief that metrics need to influence product design and strategy.
This week’s remainders
December 16th, 2007
Dennis shares his thoughts on what and how to measure online finance websites. Be sure to download the best practices PDF following the post.
Justin and Danielle from EpikOne are holding a 2.5 hour online training session about how to use Google Analytics to improve your business. A steal at $297USD. Signup online.
The Aviary web-based creative applications look interesting, but all those bird names are bound to get confusing if you’re not an ornithologist.
Building a wireframe? Jumpchart might help make it faster and more interactive.
Niklas Wolkert’s “sketchy” stencil for Visio is nice. Being a pen and paper guy I’m sure to try using this a bit. Full details on usage at guuui.com
