This morning, because a client had to let their tech person go, I spent three hours changing all their passwords. Email passwords. Web hosting account logins. Database logins for various WordPress sites.  It’s the tech equivalent of changing the locks. In one case, we had to create a new Web hosting account and move the entire site to the new account in order to separate it from the former tech person’s personal info.

It’s intense work, since you’ve got to be certain that it’s done right, and after a while all those random, industrial-strength passwords start to look the same.

Still, kudos to them — they not only had a decent list of what needed attention, but they also had many of the passwords easy to find (…and now that I’ve changed them all, they have a new list).

Most companies just let the IT guys do their thing and don’t bother to keep track of what’s being done. Which works great, as long as the IT guy is still your IT guy.

Below is an email thread of my communication regarding a really bad user workflow. I need to point out, this is not sour grapes — I understand slim odds of winning anything of value. I’m mad that someone at Noah’s approved this.

Here’s the summary: winning is not “instant,” there’s too much data mining, and the only way to find out what you’ve won is to print a sheet of paper and read your prize from there.

(Actually, ePrize is at fault here… but Einstein Noahs hired them to run a contest, and I’m a customer of Noah’s. So, like most customers would, I blame them.)

On Sat Oct 30 12:13:25 2010, misc@brianwold.com wrote:

This contest was created by the Office of Customer Annoyance, right? We’re regular Noah’s customers, but traveling right now, so I used my phone’s browser to enter the code. First off, here’s some basic insight into the contest mentality: did I win?

Dunno. After I entered all the requested information (unnecessary, but I’m sure the marketing people are having a gold mine with all that free customer data), my browser tells me that I didn’t win a trip. Sad, but I understand the odds. Still, every cup is a winner, right? So, what did I win?

Dunno. You have to print the coupon. Really? Did the fine folks in your Office of Customer Annoyance consider that some people have phones that can connect to the interwebs? Ain’t technology cool — but there’s a problem, isn’t there… how am I supposed to print that instant win prize that took me 15 minutes to almost win?

Guess I’ll go chew on my cold bagel.

… [a few days later] …

On 11/3/2010 7:26 AM, ePrize Customer Service wrote:
Hello,

Thank you for contacting us regarding the Einstein Fall Beverage Sweepstakes and Instant Win promotion. If you are experiencing difficulty printing your offer, please note that the coupon you received was limited to a single view/print opportunity to eliminate fraudulent activity. Please make sure you are connected to a printer prior to entering.

For another chance to win instantly, please use the following code: 7D9XGHNN43X7

Should you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us by replying to this email.

Sincerely,
ePrize Customer Service

… [a few minutes later] …

Wow, kinda missed the point, huh?

Re printing issues: A simple mobile browser check could have headed off this problem, and alerted those on non-printing systems that the process would fail before they spent time and effort. See, when users invest time in something, they sorta want to be able to complete it. And when they can’t, they get frustrated, and that’s not how a fun contest should work. (Right?)

Re security: you’re kidding, right? Printability is probably the worst way to eliminate fraudulent activity, not to mention that it simply doesn’t work. One, nothing is stopping a person from printing multiple copies of a certificate, or sending it as a PDF to their friends. Two, your game codes are not unique, so the random assignment of any prize must not be dependent on the actual game code
used — otherwise the odds of winning using the generic code listed below and in the official rules would be different than the odds of winning using a printed gamepiece. And all of that has nothing to do with printing or the ability to print. (Come to mention it, why then use the codes at all? Seems like a wasted exercise… unless you just want to make it harder to play the game).

Re the game: There’s a fundamental disconnect here — the game occurs in the store, but unless I’ve lugged my printer into the store and found a plugin for it, I can’t play in the store. I have to either write my code down, snap a picture of it, or bring my cup along with me to a place that has a computer and a printer. Why would a company make it that difficult to participate in the contest (unless they want to discourage people from playing the game).

I see that ePrize is not an Einstein Noah Company. Y’all have a system you’ve developed (which sadly, some developer didn’t think through very well) and you’re trying to make a profit with it. Got it. Maybe in some future version you’ll fix these problems.

Also sincerely,
Brian

“Hey, B, we’ve just finished the poster for our big event…. so I’m going to have the artist send it over to you to put on the Web site, okay?”

Sure, no problem. Your 20-inch by 40-inch, glossy, paper-printed poster is going to look great on the Web site. It’ll be 3% of its original size, with text too small to read, color differences and dimensions that don’t match the original. Should be awesome.

C’mon, people. Of course the poster won’t fit on the site. Of course, if you shrink it to even 10% of its original size, the text will be unreadable. And the proportions for the artwork on your site’s template are not even remotely the same. And in case you didn’t know: colors look different on a lit computer screen than they do reflected off a printed page.

Media is designed to fit a space and to be effective within its environment. For example, on a poster, you might have a small paragraph of text at the bottom, which includes all the little, important details. Your poster might be designed to balance that text with the artwork. If it’s a postcard or flyer, it might have design elements on both sides, or leave space for folding.

I’ve had clients (looking for a fast solution) ask to just remove the text, crop the images, and jam it into the Web page. Then, when they discover that the colors clash with the colors of the Web site, or that the balance is off now that things have been moved around, they decide they need another round of changes.

Sure, we can shrink it to a tiny size and cram it into the Web page, pushing aside any other page items that get in the way. Sure, we can link to a popup image that’s as big as the average monitor. Sure, we can stretch it to different proportions and hope no one notices. But there are better choices.

Before you tell the artist to send over artwork that I can’t use… plan ahead. Include all the different versions, shapes, and uses into the design process. Think about how you want to tell the story in each medium. On the Web, for example, we might distill the whole poster down to a teaser concept, with streamlined artwork, and then link to a subpage that has all the details. Or we might use Flash or other animation techniques to split the story into multiple panels and show them consecutively. (Try doing that on a poster!)

I was watching an actor’s demo reel recently, and the way they had cut it, the first frame had him making an odd face. Once the video had loaded and was streaming, the scene unfolded and the actor looked great.

Problem was, we were on a very slow connection, so the video took a long time to buffer. While we waited… we stared at this guy’s mug, his face twisted into an awkward pose. I’ll have a hard time remembering what that guy naturally looks like, now that his weird expression is burned into my brain.

So if you’re creating videos, pay special attention to the first frame. It may become the most memorable one.

A lot of SEO companies offer tempting promises: we’ll get your Web site on the first page of Google. To which you’re supposed to say, sounds awesome — sign me up!

But there’s more to that statement, and what they’re not telling you is critical. I’ll explain… but if you don’t know much about SEO, you might try this post for some background.

First off, Google results are based on the keywords a person searches for. If you search for “Los Angeles,” you get different results than if you search for “cats and dogs.” In fact, the results for “Los Angeles Web site consulting” are different than “Web site consulting Los Angeles.”

So the first problem with the claim above is that it’s incomplete. You’re going to get me on first in the results… for what keywords? Until we decide what keywords I’m targeting, you can’t guarantee anything.

Second problem: What you do matters, but so does what your competition is doing. You can optimize all day long, but if your competition is also optimizing, your rankings might not improve. Granted, smarter, more diligent SEO work can beat out haphazard SEO work. But these SEO companies aren’t promising to be smarter… they’re promising to get you on the first page — a vacant promise if the competition is using the same SEO techniques.

Third: who’s searching for those keywords? You can be first in a results list, but if no one is actually searching with that keyword string, it’s useless. Example: a local business organization recently was proudly telling me that they are “first in Google.” I chuckled a little, then asked what the keywords were. Business Referrals Los Angeles. Wow… that sounds pretty great. Even I was kinda impressed, cranky old bat that I am.

Until I ran a keyword frequency check to see how often that keyword phrase is searched. There are several services out there for this; I used the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Surprise — there are so few searches for this phrase that that the result was “not enough data.” It’s the old tree falling in the forest scenario: you’re first on the list, but no one will ever know.

So be careful. As I’ve said before, some SEO companies are charging a lot to make fancy promises and deliver very little.

By now, we all know that static Web sites are boring, right? (Right?) And that search engines prefer sites that are updated more frequently. But all those content changes don’t just write themselves. So… how do you do it? How do you get your site updated more often, and with what?

First step: take a page from the magazines, and develop a content schedule. Look at your business year, and any thing that might affect your key customers… do you have sales at particular times? Include them in your schedule. Do you go to tradeshows? Launch new services? All of these things are fodder for new or revised content on your site. Make a calendar, or include this schedule on your electronic calendar and set reminders so that the work gets done.

Second, consider the repetition paradigm that many teachers use — tell ‘em what you’re going to teach, then teach it, then tell ‘em what you taught, then quiz them for knowledge. For example: our sale is coming, our sale is here, our sale was awesome, here’s what people are saying about our sale. If you don’t have a lot to talk about, it’s one way to vary the messages.

Third, share the responsibility. Assign everyone in your company (or everyone in your marketing department) to write one Web site message. Be sure the writing is quality, but don’t worry too much about differences in writing style. Instead, personalize your company by personalizing the messages: “Alice, our head of marketing, writes…” or “This just in from Carlos in Manufacturing…”

Fourth, think like a PR specialist when you look for news. Beyond your regularly scheduled content, you’ll find surprising and often unexpected things are newsworthy… and therefore worthy of including on your Web site. Be careful to keep the focus on your core business, but oftentimes your customers like to know that there’s a new employee, or that Jenny had her baby, or that you’ve just picked up a new client, or that the new heating system is saving 21% in utility costs.

Finally, integrate your social media strategy. Be sure that your messages are consistent, and synchronize them (announce the surprise sale at the same time). You can include your Twitter and Facebook feeds on your Web site, or go the other direction and include your blog or article posts on social media sites… or both.

It can be hard to get the content ball rolling, but once you get a system in place, it becomes a part of the way you do business, and you’ll be better off for it.

Business owners: your Web site might be talking behind your back. People naturally infer things from design, and the same holds true for your Web site.

Example 1: I was visiting a Web site recently for a company that is supposedly all about networking: connecting people with other people. But their Web site sends a very different message. There’s no personality on the site, and even finding contact information for the people in the company was a challenge. The design is outdated and the main point of their service is lost in hopeless clutter.

What does an old-fashioned, out-of-date Web site say for this company? Something like: We’ve gone out of business. Or maybe: We’re so far behind the times that none of this stuff matters to us.

Not good.

Example 2: Looking at the Web site for an event planning company. They’ve clearly used a pre-designed template and then plugged in some art and text. The Home Page has a black-and white photo that might be a party… or might be a speakeasy in the 1920s.The design is not exciting. The example photo is not exciting. Care to guess what the parties are like?

The subtext: We plan parties, but you might not want to attend them.

For smaller, lesser known businesses, the Web site is perhaps the first point of contact with new customers. These days, the first thing people do when they hear about a new business is look it up online. Whatever the core values of your company are, your Web site design and layout should support them. It’s hard to generate new business if your site is stabbing you in the back.

When I start an Information Architecture or User Experience project, there are some fundamental questions I ask myself (and the client). Getting good answers is crucial to moving forward.

• Who’s the primary audience?
• What’s the business goal (…or goals, in priority order)?
• What is currently working?
• What is not working (and why)?
• What is the tech environment or constraints? (for example, modern PCs or Macs, iPhones or other smartphones, touchscreens, kiosks)
• What is the competition doing?
• To evaluate their current systems, what metrics are they using (if any)?

Sometimes, my client has these answers already. Other times, it’s part of my job to get these answers, and then turn them into actionable IA and UX recommendations.

For my clients, I do a lot of little stuff for free. Sometimes the client notices, sometimes they don’t. For example, I was reviewing the old Web site for a new client today, and I noticed that the folks who built their old site never put in a “favicon.” (That’s the little icon that shows up in your browser next to the URL. See mine? It’s a letter B in a blue circle.)

So as I’m making a mental note to design them a favicon based on their company logo, I’m thinking: you’re getting this for free… and unless I explain it, you’ll probably never know that things like this are not automatic.

A good consultant anticipates their clients’ needs. A great consultant knows when to ask and when to just do. I hope I’m the latter; I certainly aspire for it.

Still, I’m more and more telling my clients about all these little things. Otherwise, later, they’ll find out about them the hard way… such as when a different consultant doesn’t do any of those little things.

Ok, need your opinions on this: do you mind waiting for heavy Web pages to load? It kinda drives me nuts (see Please Wait…Loading…), but maybe the rest of you don’t mind.

Today I was on M&Ms Web site, to vote for Orange as my favorite color (poor Eric K, he’s in last place right now…). Here’s the loading screen… after about a minute. Those numbered disks — not quite M&Ms — drop in from the top, stay there for a while, then fall away so the next numbers can fall in.

So… The animation is interesting for about ten seconds, then I’m bored and getting angrier by the minute. If I’m waiting for a game to load, or the daily crossword, maybe the wait is worth it. But really, M&Ms? You’re going to make me wait… to vote. (And to add my name to your junk email list.)

C’mon. Be better.