I wholeheartedly echo Andy Wibbels rant against PDF-file only press releases. And I will add my two cents worth. Please:
DO NOT create a hypertext link to a PDF file without warning the user, who expects the link to lead to an HTML page and not automatically download a document thus tying up her browser with a multi-megabit file transfer and subsequent Adobe Reader program launch. It is VERY annoying.
To get the latest on content management systems, see CMS Watch for independent evaluations of off-the-shelf, enterprise and open-source systems.
If you're building a site with advanced functionality such as database-driven dynamic content, document management, blogging, forums, and other other interactive features, you may be able to find a ready-made solution rather than build it from scratch. In fact, open-source solutions such as Joomla are free and available to all under a GPL license.
One caveat about open-source software: contentions within the development community can split the product into multiple divergent streams, so you end up with no support for the version you installed.
I'm a big fan of breadcrumbs. There's no better way to get oriented within a website, especially if you land on a deep content page as a result of a search query.
Jakob Nielsen recommends using breadcrumbs because they show your current location in the site, they give one-click access to higher levels, they're user friendly, and they take up little space.
That said, research shows that people don't use breadcrumbs. So it's probably not worth the effort to create them unless they're automatically generated by your Content Management System.
For more research-based recommendations on website navigation, see Research-based Web Design & Usability Guildelines.
Researching the options for secondary navigation on a recent website project, I found this succinct overview of the navigation samples, including examples of how and why they work. Options include:
For our purpose, we decided on pull-down menus that give users visibility into all the site content from the home page, using this site as an example.
It's great to see how people act on the advice of experts to achieve instant results.
When Janis Johnson wanted to launch a new website for Johnson Consulting, she followed business blogger Andy Wibbels' lead and used a blogging platform that's easy to setup and maintain with no IT support.
Janis organized the blog categories around her areas of expertise, giving her a prime platform to demonstrate what she knows through advice and case studies. Nice work!
I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Sterne, president of the Web Analytics Association and author of Web Metrics, for a story I'm writing about using email metrics and web analytics for campaign optimization. In addition to sharing some great tips, he pointed me toward his recent guest column on the Top 10 Things to Measure on Your Website. Here's the checklist:
Jim concludes with this sound advice:
"Set goals. Make changes. Track results. Repeat. Those are the instructions for a bigger, better, faster, stronger website."
When my story publishes in May, I'll post a recap of the best how-to tips I learned from such experts as ClickZ's Rebecca Lieb, email marketing strategist Elaine O'Gorman, SEO expert Bruce Clay, web analytics guru Judah Phillips, and interactive advertising veteran Paul Soltoff.
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen anoints the 10 Best Intranets of 2007 in his annual survey of best practices in intranet design. The best of the best share these characteristics:
The department responsible for a majority (37%) of the winning websites is Corporate Communications. Oddly, Nielsen says:
"If you had to select a single organizational placement for all the world's intranets, statistics imply that Corporate Communications is the best place. But in reality, we won't make that recommendation, since most great intranets are based elsewhere."
By elsewhere he means Information Technology or Human Resources, which own 27% and 19% of intranets, respectively. Why slam communicators? It must be some tech geek bias, because communicators are clearly the most qualified to deliver the content that makes intranets useful.
The 2nd edition of Steve Krug's terrific book, Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, adds three new chapters to explain why people really leave Web sites, how to make sites usable and accessible, and the art of surviving executive design whims. The 1st edition is one of my favorite how-to books. The 2nd promises more of the same useful tips.
Last summer I wrote about the next wave in online magazines. An anonymous reader recently left a comment with "a better example of what digital magazines should be like" and linked to Contract Magazine.
I checked it out and agree the format is very cool. It's powered by Pressto. Daniel Gonzalez, Technology Director for Parallel Publishing, a sales and service division of The McMahon|Willis Company charged with marketing this new publishing platform, says the technology will "help publishers of a wide range of print publications make the most of their investment in that print content, and at the same time, take their content to the next level and take full advantage of the digital medium."
If you clicked through the links in the previous paragraph, you quickly found that access to the site is restricted, or there's only a placeholder page. I found Dan by going to whois and searching for the owner of the Pressto Publishing domain name. Dan explains "Parallel was launched this past spring, and currently MW has several patents pending surrounding the Pressto platform, hence the veil of secrecy that surrounds our site(s)."
So, if you want to be on the leading edge of digital publishing, request a password to view a demo of Pressto. But first you have to agree to the terms of use.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, envisioned a Web of Trust, where the decisions people make about what they do online – read, buy, link – are driven by how much they trust the information they’re viewing.
I asked six business communicators: How does your online content establish trust with site visitors? Here's what they said:
