It’s easy to take web conventions for granted, like the fact that the logo links to the homepage, and is featured at the top left. Often, when we put our recommendations together, we put some basic information in about what should be where. Because our suggestions often reflect well-worn conventions, our clients accept them.

But once in a while, a client will ask the unthinkable: “How do you know that is the right thing to do?”

When this happens, you need to be ready to explain yourself, or you look like you are Just Making Stuff Up. Recently, one of our clients asked us about the search box – “Where should the search really be placed?”

In addition to our experience doing user testing (where we get to see people responding to various designs in real time), we look to studies like this one from SURL, and then look to build on our knowledge through documented experience where possible.

The SURL study shows the areas that the user looked to find internal search on a site, both for new and experienced users (the darker the area, the more likely a user looked in that area of the page).

Additionally, we can find case studies like this one (pdf), which walks through one site’s search change and the results. It shouldn’t be surprising that their efforts, moving the search box to one of the key locations identified in the SURL study, produced results.

So there you have it, for the search box anyway. Next up… well, what do you want to know about?

I know a lot of nonprofits who use Google apps. They’re easy to use, easy to deploy, and cheap. What’s not to like? …particularly for nonprofits on a low budget. However, there may be a consideration that is too easily overlooked, particularly for those nonprofits dealing with information and data of a sensitive, personal, nature. I’m talking about security. Baseline published an eye-opening article today (“Are Google’s Security Practices Up to Snuff?“) that might give some nonprofits pause – at least about some of the data/info they might be managing with Google apps. Is this a legitimate concern or a red herring? Sure would help if Google were more open about security practices and safeguards…

An important and highly useful evaluation framework for APIs is now available from Idealware — Getting Your Systems Talking: A Framework to Evaluate APIs and Data Exchange Features.

The API Framework includes an Excel evaluation tool you can use.

The creation of the framework was a collaborative effort led by Paul Hagen and Laura Quinn in partnership with NTEN. Beaconfire was the underwriting sponsor for the report and my colleagues Jeff and Alan were contributors.

APIs are all the rage … and for good reason. They represent a powerful and flexible approach to data exchange between systems. As we know from our own experiences, not all APIs are created equal. How do you assess if the API of a system you have is robust enough for your needs? How do you compare one against another? What’s important to focus on in these evaluations.

What Paul and Laura have put together with input from thought leaders across the sector is a highly useful framework for evaluating APIs. As Laura writes in the introduction:

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to evaluate data integration features. Some packages allow tremendous flexibility, some only allow a particular, prescribed method of data integration, while others don’t support any access to data at all. One may be powerful but completely undocumented (and thus nearly impossible to use), while another may provide access to only a tiny portion of the data that’s desirable or lack the scalability or security necessary in a robust system.

The framework for evaluation provides assessment criteria in six key areas:

• The APIs documentation
• API’s technology openness
• Security & privacy of the API
• Performance criteria (SLAs, managing traffic spikes, etc)
• API support — both from the vendor and the community
• Robust of API access and functionality

The report and rubric are a great contribution. Thanks to Paul, Laura, Jeff and all the contributors for this seminal effort.

“Fifty-seven percent of online adults have used the internet to watch or download video, and 19% do so on a typical day,” according to the Pew Internet and American Life project, which published its first major report on the subject this week.

You read numbers like that and it’s no wonder why so many nonprofit organizations are venturing into the wild world of YouTube. Here at Beaconfire we’ve helped a number of clients create new video for the web, or adapt their TV-oriented videos to display on the web.

Here are three quick tips for understanding the difference between TV and web video.

YouTube videos should be short. Producers should aim for about three minutes. One minute is even better. If you have a longer piece that was originally prepared for TV, give serious thought to having a videographer edit it down into short, self-contained pieces.

YouTube videos have a long shelf life. Some of the videos we’ve helped clients post continue to rack up impressive numbers of views and build the brand long after the campaign in question has wound down. Check back on your YouTube video every few weeks and make sure you update your reports on views.

YouTube offers a tradeoff. If you host the video yourself, you may be able to insert clickable links into the video, so viewers can move straight from the video to your donation form, petition, etc… That’s good. But if you host the video yourself, you won’t be able to tap into YouTube’s huge built-in audience. That’s bad.

Here at Beaconfire, we’re as excited as anybody about Web 2.0 — but the good-old-fashioned listserv is the online community of choice for those with serious activist inclinations, at least environmental activists.

That’s the conclusion of a study we’re releasing today called Network of Networks: Email Lists, Nature Protection, and Pollution Control. After monitoring 64 environmental listservs for about six months and surveying the subscribers, we found that these groups are hotbeds of civic activism and social networking. Subscribers reported extraordinarily high participation in a wide variety of behavior such as writing Congress, calling radio talk shows, attending public hearings, and giving speeches — and they said they placed high value on the listservs’ role in helping them stay in touch with peers.

Of particular note for nonprofit organizations, concerned citizens formed many of these groups on their own initiative without any assistance or participation from a formal organization, and participants on most of these lists pay little attention to the activities of the national environmental groups. Those national organizations that figure out how to overcome this gap and successfully engage with these outspoken citizens stand reap some big rewards.

Download the report: Network of Networks: Email Lists, Nature Protection, and Pollution Control

It seems like we’re just digesting the differences between how broadband and dialup users behave, but now those dogged scholars over at the Pew Internet and American Life project have found another way to identify the true online elite �?? those who log on with wireless connections. Here are two highlights from their latest study:

Check email on any given day:

• Wireless laptop: 72%
• Broadband desktop: 63%
• Dialup: 54%

Get news online on any given day:

• Wireless laptop: 46%
• Broadband desktop: 38%
• Dialup: 31%

hese findings do raise questions about the chicken and the egg. Do hard-core Internet junkies get wireless connections to feed their addiction? or does the convenience of a wireless connection prompt users to log on more often?

Read the report to learn in painstaking detail about the differences among wireless laptops, wireless phones, and wireless PDAs.

Well, there are only 24 hours in a day afterall — and some YouTube.com enthusiasts are making time for the video sharing site by cutting back on the amount of conventional TV they watch. That’s according to a recent poll by Harris Interactive.

For now, the phenomenon is most pronounced among the usual suspects — younger males. This a group that won’t hit the civic and philanthropic “sweet spot” for a few more years. Which is another way of saying that a positive mention on 60 Minutes will impress your active supporters more than a cameo in the latest episode of LonelyGirl15 for at least a little while longer.

But the writing is on the wall that nonprofit organizations need to prepare for a not-so-distant future where the marketplace of ideas demands that they crank out new video productions pretty frequently. If you’ve produced a VHS, DVD, or TV show in the past decade, you can forget most of what you learned during those onerous, high stakes efforts. The online video world is fast evolving into something quite different.

Here are a differences to look for:

Small audiences. YouTube’s traffic is huge, but it is split among a mind-boggling number of choices.

Varrying degrees of effort and polish. Non profits shoot off emails regularly, and produce professional publications sometimes. Expect the same wide variety of investment in your web video efforts.

Distributed production. Basic video editing is about as complex as putting together a Power Point presentation. How many people in your office can put together a basic Power Point presentation?

Asset management challenges. Are you happy with how you store and retrieve your photos currently? Brace yourself for more of the same with your ever-growing collection of video clips.

With less than two weeks left before the mid-term elections, TechRepublic has compiled an amusing and bi-partisan photo gallery of the worst political sites. A veritable case study of really bad practices.

Total giving in 2004: $248.52 billion (increase of 5% over 2003’s amount of $236.73 bil)
Individuals: $187.92 bil (75.6%)
Foundations: $28.8 bil (11.6%)
Bequests: $19.8 bil (8%)
Corporations: $12 bil (4.8%)

Source: Giving USA and ePhilanthropy Foundation