BBC goes iGoogle.. Personalized homepages become main stream!

With the modern wonders of RSS I’ve been syndicating the BBC's news feed and not actually visiting their site. The other day I logged on and noticed and significant overhaul. BBC's homepage now offers a completely customized experience. The page real estate is made up of customizable gadgets with feeds of tops news headlines and other information (weather etc) much like iGoogle or My MSN.

This approach now brings gadgets and personalization into the mainstream with the various types of users and different demographics that visit the BBC site everyday. It is a truly remarkable design, and one I encourage you to check out.

Before Business Requirments you need a Vision statement

This past week I sat down with a co-worker who took over an hour to describe a feature of an application we are building. After the download I was really impressed, this feature was the "killer app" and a high priority item in a product we were building. But I realized something was missing. We needed a way to distill his 40+ page document (filled with loose business requirements and wish list items) and his required 1 hour explanation to something more easily digested. What was missing was the Vision! I've talked about this process in the past and used the term "Definition statement". I was first turned onto this approach at Apple Tech Talk conference that discussed building applications for the iPhone.

The process was at times frustrating but it really forces you to step back and think about what you want to build, which features are important and where you need to make compromises. Our end game was to develop a one page definition or elevator speech that described our feature to the project team. The vision would guide development of this feature and serve as a mission statement or something to hold ourselves accountable to. Interestingly I just finished reading a blog around user experience, which referenced this approach was employed by the team developing Google Calendar (see screenshot above). Creating a Vision statement can be painful, but overall it is a really rewarding process that helps to get everyone on the same page.

Good user experience can improve your bottom line

I came across the following presentation when I was browsing on Slideshare and it really resonated with me. I often talk to designers or information architects about improving the usability of a web app by simplying things. For instance use more descriptive form buttons - "submit" is vague, include functionality such as breadcrumbs and site search as people expect them to be there etc. Essentially don't make me think!

One thing I often notice with new site designs is they are tested by power users, we know that the logo links back to the homepage, we know how to use utility nav and how to filter results in a datagrid. However the best test i've ever had is my wife or my mom. To be honest if they can't perform a task or find something on a new site chances are other users will have the same problem. Ultimately a bad experience frustrates users and ensures they will give up on your site and go to the next listing on Google.

I encourage you to view the following presentation by Brian Winter from CareerBuilder on providing a better user experience.

Interview with Jakob Nielsen

I just was over at e-consultancy.com and stumbled across an interview with Jakob Nielsen. Neilsen weighs in on AJAX, Flash, RSS/XML icons and his general feelings on usability as it relates to the web. An interesting read.

Agile development: Get more done with less - "Get Real" by 37signals

I've just finshed reading the book "Get Real" by 37signals (developers of Basecamp) and i've got to saw its a fairly controversial and radical way to look at developing web 2.0 apps using the Agile development methodology.

My key take aways from the book are you can get more done with less. Less people (superstar developers), no meetings, no information architecture and no web farm to start. I recently met with a client of ours at Hanson Dodge Creative and talked with them about the shift from the web 1.0 brochureware "website" to the fire breathing always changing web 2.0 "web application". Already a developer of desktop applications, his final words where "welcome to the world of software development" which is so true.

Modern day web apps are complex with true object orientated programming and 3 tier architecture:

• Presentation Tier (XHTML, CSS, XSLT, Flash, AJAX)
• Logic Tier (.NET, Web Services, API)
• Data Tier (Database, XML

So yes todays web 2.0 application is becoming more complex to build, 37signals "Get Real" offers a different methodology and approach to breaking things down and building web apps using their Agile method from inception through completion. If you haven't read it already you can read it free, buy the pdf, or book at 37signals site.

Web 2.0 and The Changing Role Of IAs

I found this great presentation on Slideshare that outlines demands and changes required by Information Architects with the shift to Web 2.0. Check it out:

CNN.com redesigned

I just noted CNN have completely redesigned their website. The new interface is alot cleaner, less cluttered, and has fewer graphic and widgets. And to me its more aesthetically pleasing:



I encourge you to check it out, and tell them what you think. Great job in my opinion!

Content is part of design to!

It seems so many websites really don't get it when it comes to content. I can't even count how many websites I’ve viewed where they have a killer header graphic, nice navigation and overall good looking page template and then when you look at the content it’s sad. There is no consideration given to how it flows, or make it enticing enough for the user to actually read it. There are just paragraphs stacked on top of paragraphs, generally at 8 point making it impossible to read!

In this era of everything being on demand and with the popularity of services like Youtube with its rich media, chances are if you haven’t made you content engaging users won't read it.
It’s easy to dress up page content to make it more appealing.

Here are some ideas:

• For one break up your content, no one will read a big blog of text! See BBC website for a good example
• Use call outs – Use CSS or graphical items to show excerpts of quotes from text
• Use underline, and background color to jazz up content, 37signals have perfected this technique
• Have a linking strategy, it helps people to deep dive and view other content on your site
• Provide content intelligence – Show a list of related content (see my taxonomy blog)
• Embed stuff… take a look at any blog: video, flash, images, audio are all ways to keep people interested and enhance the content
• De-centralized your content by providing a feed in RSS, getting people to read it in any form is still good!
• Add tools like text size, search, email, embed (digg etc) and print so people can interactive with it

So there you have it, hopefully some of these idea’s are helpful. I’ll leave you with some recent sites I visited that have done this well:

• http://www.articulate.com/
• http://meetmenow.webex.com/
• http://adage.com/