There is an excellent article in the Washington Post by Cecilia Kang on what happens to your data when a service goes under or is acquired. The results range from the good (Google takes over, imports all your data and makes the user experience even better), the bad (you’re data gets sucked into a vortex never to be seen again), and the ugly (your data is sold to the highest bidder).

So remember – what is free today may be gone tomorrow. Always good to have a backup plan.

Some of the tips were basic things that, if you read lists like this you’ve come to expect.  For example, an old favorite, create small attainable tasks for yourself instead of a great big complex one.  I, personally, enjoy the satisfaction of checking things off my To-Do list and have been known to add a task to my list simply to experience the momentary feeling of satisfaction that comes with checking them complete. Shower, Check!

However, there were some new and interesting tidbits on this list.  Specifically, how detrimental multitasking can be to your productivity.  As a project manager, multitasking is almost written into my job description.  Or is it? I have to wonder if the expectation that we need to multitask is hurting us – both as a profession and as a society?  Is the expectation self-imposed (or self-inflicted)?  The article recommends turning off your email for an hour – or (gasp!) three.  Could you do that?  As a company we are making a concerted effort to update the status message within our IM or sending out an email to staff (heads down – trying to concentrate – emergencies only) when we can’t have interruptions.  Doesn’t the fact that we have to tell people we are concentrating indicate that most of the time we don’t have the luxury of being able to do so?

The article states that when you multitask, your IQ drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, 5 for women. Besides explaining a lot about my husband, I found this kind of shocking.  It feels like a catch-22: I don’t want to shut off communication avenues in case I am needed, however, I could be a more productive employee if I did.

Is the pendulum of multitasking creeping toward its edge? How far will the propensity to multitask have to go before the pendulum swings back?  Personally, I am going  to be better about using the offline mode with email.  Checking email hourly is reasonable and a solid first step in inching my pendulum back toward center.  I’m curious what the expectation is in your work environment – and does it differ from what you feel comfortable doing?

• web-based card sorting to learn how your audience groups and labels content
• tree testing to validate your navigation
• task-based “first click” testing to get insight into how people navigate your site
• usability testing on clickable prototypes, to evaluate a new site structure / IA

And there are new tools being introduced all the time.

So, which approach is best for your website? Are some more effective than others? Do low-cost, rapid methods produce the same results as traditional usability testing studies?

If you’ve found yourself asking these questions and would like to hear opinions from a range of experts, check out the panel I’m proposing for SXSW 2012: UX Smackdown! User testing techniques in the ring. After registering for the SXSW panelpicker, you can give a “thumbs up” vote and leave comments to help this panel become a reality.

The panel speakers are:

• Aviva Rosenstein is lead UX researcher at Salesforce.com — you may recognize her from UIE’s recent Web App Master’s Tour!
• John Whalen of Brilliant Experience has over ten years of user-centered design experience and has most recently presented on the topic of persuasive design
• Kyle Soucy of Usable Interface has created interfaces for everything from web sites to touch screen devices. You may have seen her speak at a past UPA or IA Summit conference, or read one of her articles at UX Matters.
• Michael Summers of SUMMERS Consulting has watched over 1000 consumers make real end-to-end purchases on the web. He was one of the earliest adopters of eyetracking technology for UX research.

I would love to have the opportunity to pick their brains and get some UX testing tips — if you would too, head on over to the Panel Picker to vote and comment before Friday’s deadline!

Those of us who develop those little boxes know better. That little search box tells us something very important: what do users want from our website, and more importantly, are they finding it.

But to get at that information, and make any necessary fixes, you’ll need the right tool.

Many a CMS gives you built in search functionality. Some are robust, some not as much. When looking at your CMS search tool, consider the following:

• Can you figure out what are the most popular search terms on your site? Does your CMS offer search reports? Or, at the very least, is the query parameter in the URL (http://www.mysite.com/?searchterm=puppies) so that your web analytics package can help you do the analysis?
• Do the search results make sense? Sometimes, it seems we can’t figure out why some of the CMS search robots think the way they do. Do a few searches on your site for some of your major keywords. Are the results showing you what you expected?
• Can I make changes to the search results? If the answer to the above is no, do you have the ability to manipulate the search results? Can you exclude certain items easily from your search – individual pages and entire folders? Can you reorder the search results? Can you “feature” results if someone types in a particular keyword.
• Can I search minisites? Not all your sites are at www.mysite.com. Can you search your subdomains? Other cross-domain mini-sites?

If, after reviewing these criteria, you’re not entirely satisfied with your search engine, you may want to consider replacing your CMS search engine with a third-party tool (keeping in mind all downsides of free tools).

Google is the number one name in search, and so it’s no surprise that they offer some of the best third-party tools out there for your site. Here is a brief overview of those Google Tools that may be right for you.

• Google Custom Search Engine. This is a great, robust search tool, and it’s free. And for non-profits, you can remove the served up ads. It’s super-easy to implement, and you can do a lot to customize the look and feel to match your site. You can also promote certain pages to go with certain keywords. And CSE will respect your robots.txt, the same way that Google does, helping you fine tune your search results. You are required to place Google branding on your search box and search page. For some, adding Google branding to your site can be an issue. If that’s the case, you can also use…
• Google Site Search. Google Site Search is CSE with a few pluses. Like the ability to remove the Google Branding, use an API for search results, and create custom XML files (which can help you “manipulate” search results if you need to. There’s just a price tag attached – from $100-$2,000 a year. Most non-profits can probably make due with the $100 or $250 a year service.
• Google Mini and Google Search Appliance. These are the heavy hitters. Using either of these can involve hosting the search machine yourself. If you need a lot of control of your search pages, or you have tens of hundreds of domains, and hundreds of thousands of pages and people looking to search them, you want to look here. One of our clients did.

So take a look at the search on your Web site. Is it all it could be? If not, consider your other options.

Beaconfire used Mobify to create the Zoo’s mobile site.  The free Mobify service allows us to pull live content from the site, present it in a way that is specifically optimized and designed for mobile users, and create HTML templates that are only served to those users.

The result?  We create a fully dynamic site using content from the CMS-managed desktop version and deliver it in a highly usable format for mobile devices.

The Mobify version of the site has been streamlined to provide the most useful information for people on-the-go but still includes a link to the full site for those who want a deeper dive into the information.

So, who’s up for watching the penguin feeding at 3:30?

AP Style Guide Drops the Hyphen from Email

Finally! It is perfect timing too because Beaconfire has just switched over to using the AP Style Guide with the launch of our refreshed logo and website. Before this announcement, there was an internal staff debate whether we could all handle the shift to using “e-mail”. Now we don’t have to decide.

Oxford English Dictionary Features OMG and LOL

Just announced this month, the Oxford English Dictionary Online has decided to include noteworthy initialisms OMG and LOL. Already on the list are IMHO (‘in my humble opinion’), TMI (‘too much information’), and BFF (‘best friends forever’).

Web and Mobile Marketing

Key Tips for Mobile Web Design Strategy
Mobile websites are becoming more common as businesses and organizations realize that a growing number of people access the internet over their smartphone. Microsoft Tag predicts that mobile usage will overtake desktop usage by 2014.

With that in mind, perhaps you’re an organization who already has a website, but wants to engage more users through mobile, or you’re creating a totally new website and starting fresh. In that case, you need to consider implications for a mobile website from the start. Check out Mashable’s 10 Key Considerations for Your Mobile Web Design Strategy.

Google Analytics Rolls Out New Dashboard

Google will be launching a new Analytics in the near future, and to get things started they’ve begun rolling out the newly designed dashboard to select users. The new dashboard will be customizable with user-selected widgets and give you the ability to have more than one dashboard in order to track multiple initiatives.

Color Mobile Photo App Takes Social Interaction to a New Level

New App Alert – Color, made by Color Labs, allows you take pictures and then share them with people within 100 feet of you. Keep in mind that the sharing of these new photos takes place with anyone in that 100 foot radius who is also using Color. For example, we tested in our office today and saw some shots of another business’ team meeting, including white board notations. Just keep in mind that if you’re going to use Color, you may want to be selective about the photos you take. The app is available for iPhone and Android.

A new and unimproved zodiac threw some of us for a loop.  No one was ready to give up their sign – but especially not the newly minted Ophiuchuses (Ophiuchusi?).  Fortunately, CNN came to the rescue and the hubbub receded.

Watson may have walloped the competition on Jeopardy but Marissa is still our favorite contestant.  Are you smarter than a supercomputer?

An interesting discussion on allowing or not allowing blog comments sparked from this article.   Voices expressed opinions on both sides. Is there real value in the content of comments?  What about conversations that emerge among those who comment? As a blog author, are your obligated to respond to comments?   And while there was support for turning comments off to prevent conversations from degrading, I like Mark’s take on it. “Participating in the conversation by commenting is obviously just going to make more sense and be more convenient for most – including the really smart folks with something interesting to say.”

With phishing and spam schemes getting more sophisticated, it would be hard to be too careful when it comes to suspicious email.  Here’s a quiz to test your Phfishing and Spam iQ.  Take it, let us know how you did, and pass it on.

VISO Give is a new You Tube channel launched by BroadbandTV. They aggregate video content from nonprofits, sort it by org name and mission.  We like that the majority of the ad revenue will be donated back to the nonprofits.  Here’s a story on Mashable.

“L2 Digital IQ® Index: Public Sector measures and ranks the digital competence of 100 organizations across four dimensions: effectiveness of an organization’s site, digital marketing, social media, and mobile.” What’s your organization’s Digital IQ and how does it stack up?  National Beer Wholesalers of America – call us!

Firefox overtakes Internet Explorer in Europe and makes some of our interface engineers think about relocating – and anticipate the day that IE6 will be a thing of the past.

Don’t you love it when you’re reading one interesting blog post and it links you to something even better?   That very thing happened when I was reading this little jewel on UX Magazine about the versatility of news feeds and it pointed me in the direction of the NYT Skimmer.  The Skimmer presents NYT stories by section or topic in an iPaddish interface and allows you to CUSTOMIZE your view.

And, in case you forgot or didn’t already know, the agenda for NTC 2011 is online.

Facebook

• Understand the FB algorithms: The default view on Facebook, Top News, shows only a small selection of posts from your friends (and pages you’ve “liked”). If you switch to the Most Recent tab you’ll see how much content isn’t included. Facebook uses a sophisticated set of algorithms to determine which content you see on the Top News tab. An important factor is the number of likes and comments the content has received, so you’ll often want to ask questions in your posts and phrase updates so that it’s more likely people will “like” your post.
• FB Advertising: Facebook allows you to advertise either Facebook pages or websites that are external to Facebook. When you advertise your pages on Facebook, a “like” box will appear next to your ad, allowing people to become fans of your page with a single click.
• Facebook tab as landing page: Since your primary goal on Facebook is likely not to simply increase wall posts, you may want to create a custom default landing tab on your page. Many custom tabs include an arrow pointing to the like button or a registration form (possibly with an offer to induce signups). It’s also possible to show different content to Facebook fans and non-fans. Exclusive content and special offers that are only available to fans can be a great way to induce people to “like” your page.

Twitter

• Following others: Twitter users will often follow you after receiving an alert that you are following them. When using this strategy you may want to target your universe by searching for tweets with relevant words or hashtags, or follow reporters, bloggers, and others who are influential players in your field.
• Hashtags: You can tweet using relevant hash tags or use trending topics to increase the number of people who will see your content. You can also start a tag for a contest or conversation and encourage others to include it in their tweets.
• Write for RTs: Tweeted responses (i.e. tweets starting with @name) only appear in the feed of people who follow both you and the person you are responding to. While good for relationship-building, these messages do not show up for your full potential universe. Retweets, on the other hand, will show up for everyone who follows the person who posted the RT. Encouraging responses through questions can be less useful than brief tweets designed to be retweeted (thought they can help to build relationships)

Email

• Petitions and letters to legislators: This time-honored technique can help you build targeted lists while simultaneously engaging in efforts to support your lobbying initiatives. An eCRM advocacy tool like CapWiz and Salsa can help strengthen your grassroots advocacy program and make it easier to manage. This is an especially good tactic if you are encouraging compelling actions since the new emails you get are likely to take action again in the future.
• List acquisition: While blanket spamming can be counterproductive, acquiring targeted lists from trusted vendors like Care2 or Change.org can be a great way of expanding your audience. Be sure to segment your lists! Where it makes sense, you could also ask a strategic partner to send out an email to their list on your behalf, with a call to action that will help build your list. It’s recommended to use URL sourcing codes so you’ll be able to use your website analytics software to identify whether this tactic was effective (and should potentially be repeated).
• Special offers: Providing special access information on your website (possibly in conjunction with search engine marketing) can be a great way to expand your email lists. You can offer white papers (targeted to strategically desirable demographics), or allow people to sign up for webinars once they have provided their email address.

Do you have other techniques that have helped you to build your outreach capacity? Leave your tips in the comments.