Facts, Opinions, Stories and Observations

Things we see, things we know, things we care about and a few questions that need answers.

Monday, November 04, 2013

Here is a clever way to lower the cost of content creation

by Tom Davis

Who would have thought that the 9 hour National Knitting Evening could attract over a million viewers in Norway. Maybe there is hope for this website after all. Welcome to Slow TV!

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

If You Will Not Ask The Right Questions - Why Bother to Ask At All?

by Tom Davis

We have all been in this situation: visiting a website we get a popup window asking if we would give the site owner feedback on your experience using their website. I like a good survey that tries to uncover the hidden thinking of an audience. But alas, most of these surveys are just a waste of time for both me and the site owner.

Monday, September 30, 2013

How to de-enhance mobile visitor engagement experiences.

by Tom Davis

Don't you hate those people who blab on and on about visitor engagement and how their UX design insures positive experience outcomes? You hear that a lot from the developers of big media sites. But sometimes they still get it wrong. Here is a story of a site that recently started to irritate me as a "mobile" visitor.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

You WILL Get Fries With That

by Tom Davis

Oracle needs your pennies Is this really an important update, or just another opportunity to try and trick you into installing a useless toolbar? Does a company the size of Oracle or Adobe need to trick us into installing browser toolbars and security software? Apparently so. Every time you update some of their software on your computer (like Flash or Java) they offer you things you do not need and thoughtfully check the box for you.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Email, Where Art Thou?

by Tom Davis

Here is a quote from a recent email I recieved from ReturnPath, a company that focuses on email deliverability for large emailers.

Nearly 25% of all commercial opt-in emails never make it to the inbox.

Note that it says "opt-in"... as in people asked to get these emails.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Website Maintenance Via the School of Hard Knocks

by Tom Davis

Why would my little website need "maintenance"? This is a truly naive question that has so many answers, but the news is highlighting two big reasons. One, if you live in a bad neighborhood you need to keep checking your locks. The Web is about as bad as neighborhoods get. Two, if you use an installation of Wordpress (or just about any other blogging or content management system) you have locks that are getting broken every day.