usability

  • How to Lose Friends and Alienate People with Your Website

    How to Lose Friends and Alienate People with Your Website

    Once upon a time, I needed to rent a tuxedo for my teenaged son, who was a music student. I’ll end the suspense right now by saying that I succeeded. Not only were we able to rent the suit, along with the needed shoes (for some reason they’re not allowed to perform in sneaks) and…

  • Website Vocabulary

    Website Vocabulary

    Some years ago I wrote the content for a website that specializes in animal tissue and blood for research. We were working on terms like “mouse albumin,” “tyrosine hydroxylase,” and “tissue homogenates.” These are not common words that everyone will understand. They wouldn’t be everybody’s choice for website vocabulary. Another site was all about transporting…

  • What’s the “About Us” Page For?

    What’s the “About Us” Page For?

    The “About Us” page on your website is one of the trickiest to plan. You don’t really want people to land on it first, so SEO isn’t the main issue. Conversion is central.  The essential thing is to understand how people use this page. Many times, “About Us” pages are written as though they were…

  • Testing Your Website

    Testing Your Website

    How can you test your website, and why would you want to?

  • Your Website Is Not a Piece of Paper

    Your Website Is Not a Piece of Paper

    This very famous cartoon by Edward Koren has the caption, “Well, there’s your problem.”

  • The Call to Action

    The Call to Action

    We’ve had clients tell us they want a Call to Action page.