Interaction for impact in advertising

Some examples of particularly spectacular advertising. The first one uses eye-tracking technology for a bit of user interaction!

The ads are from different awareness-building campaigns run by Amnesty International. As per usual, they can teach for-profit organisations a thing or two about persuability!

In the first example, the image, displayed on the side of the bus stop shows a woman being beaten by her husband, but, as soon as someone looks at the advert, the image changes to a photo of happy couple. The caption reads: "It happens when nobody is looking".

The second one shows a young boy walking towards you carrying a machine gun. The image carefully blends into the actual environment.

The third and final one, also from Amnesty International, splits the image in 2 horizontal parts: the upper one shows the top half of a healthy woman in a safe environment screaming to be heard, whilst the bottom one shows a girl from the waist down living in poverty and in the clutches of someone else. Together, the 2 parts make one woman. The caption reads: "Make some noise for those who cannot be heard".

Google Insights for Search great for SEO keywords

As I'm getting involved more with SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, I've been experimenting with the tools available.

Here I wanted to mention 2 Google tools which can be used for identifying keywords: Google Trends and Google Insights for Search.

Google Trends has generally been considered a useful tool for SEO.
By discovering the lastest popular search terms, webmasters hope to discover which keywords to incorporate on their website or what topics to write about in order to attract more readers and bump up the position of the website on the search engine results page.

The data provides inspiration and new content can be created - or updated - based around these trends.

To be honest, I found Google Trends interesting to play though a little too limiting to be really useful. Having said that, Nicholas Prudhon does have a great introductory article precisely on how to use Google Trends for SEO purposes.

But, the other day, I got a lot more excited about the newer Google Insights For Search (version Beta).
In reality the 2 tools are very similar, but Insight additionally provides:

• Greater accuracy through the use of category filters
  
• Suggestions from current top search terms and terms that are on the rise
• Greater use of graphics for data visualization.
• Extra bits of info which is useful when it comes to identifying the best keywords for your users at this moment in time and in relation to their geographical location.

...and the more user-centred the information is, the better.

Let's look at some examples.

Using these tools you can also easily spot interesting seasonal variations. For example, when comparing "usability, interaction design, user experience, interaction design, seo" (you can compare up to 5 terms at a time), work-related searches such as these drop off around the end of the year the world over, while for obvious reasons more commercial searches shoot up.

On a local scale, if we compare searches for "usability" in the UK, with "usabilidad" in Spain, while there is a drop off for both terms during July and August, in Spain these searches completely flatline, reflecting the reduced working hours of the summer months and the tendency for offices to close entirely during August.

"Usability", UK, all years:


"Usabilidad", Spain, all years:

This information can help you plan and prioritise your web work. For example, with "usabilidad" it would make sense to redesign or do backend updates and testing over the Christmas period, and release articles regularly January to July and September through to November.

From these graphs we can also see that "usability" only took off in Spain in 2006 and that, in both countries, this term is in decline, which may mean there is a better term to optimise for.

This is precisely where Insights is much more useful as it includes top related terms as well as rising searches providing alternatives and ideas.


One of the trickiest aspects is checking that the term you are looking for only has one meaning or use, especially in the case of acronyms. This is less of a problem if you are comparing search terms of 2 or more words, eg. "web usability" ("web" providing the context), as opposed to "hci" which may have more than one definition.

In both cases, if the search throws up some news articles, you can tell if the results are relevant or not. For example, in the case of HCI (human-computer interaction), a sudden peak in Spain in February was sadly not due to greater interest in this field, but rather a Government program offering tax benefits to businesses that help their employees have access to home computers! (hogares conectados a internet).

However, with Insights you can also filter the search through categories such as Internet, Beauty, Online Communities, Business, Sport etc, giving you much more accurate results.


It's still worth checking in Google, Wikipedia and/or a dictionary just how many definitions exist for a term so that you know that the trends you're seeing are actually related to the meaning you have in mind and other definitions are not being mixed in, leading to false results. That way you can modify the choice of terms you're comparing if necessary.

Why do people type the URL in google and not in the browser's address bar?

- A question often asked (incredulously) by web teams looking at their data logs!

The answer is simple: it's usually quicker, requires less mental effort and is generally more fruitful to find the correct website address in a search engine than attempt to do so in the brower's address bar.

Let's see why that is:

1. Web addresses are difficult to type given the non-semantic elements and punctuation: http://www. my-site ...hyphen or underscore .com, .org or co.uk...?).
2. Web addresses can be hard to remember (was it british-airlines, ba, british_airlines, britishairlines...?).
3. They normally have to be 100% correct if you type them directly into the browser - although things are improving in this regard.
4. When you get the URL wrong, with a browser you get a dead end error page, though this is not the case with the search engines! Compare:
   

Search engines on the other hand forgive your spelling mistakes, make helpful suggestions and aren't picky about punctuation!

It comes down to basic usability principles - or common sense! In plain English, these are:

• Don't make me think
• Don't expect me to remember
• Forgive my mistakes, to err is human (and so am I)
  
• Be flexible with alternatives
• Give me an escape route

In conclusion, search engines are more generous than browers in all of these aspects, cause less frustration and make life easier. Just what good design is all about!
Perhaps the solution is to permanently replace the address bar with a search box...?

Users @lycos.com, the last to hear about the end of Lycos mail?

Imagine my surprise when I hear from Amazon I had better change my registered email address because in a couple of weeks my lycos email address will cease to exist and I'll be in a spot of bother if I want to buy anything from them!

Luckily for me this makes good business sense to Amazon: much better to send out mails than risk angry and frustrated customers who might just go elsewhere if they can't prove they are who they say they are and clog up customer service resources in the meantime.

But couldn't Lycos mail have sent us a farewell email? a little bit of warning, so we could forward things like mad and update accounts as required?

Or maybe they did and it got filed in their over-zealous spam folder system...

Oh well, goodbye Lycos mail, hello...?

Update!
Clarification straight from the horse's mouth:

" The reports and rumors that you are hearing about an impending shutdown concern Lycos.co.uk and their European services such as Lycos Mail UK (@lycos.co.uk) and the Tripod UK hosting. It is Lycos.co.uk that has announced their shutdown. The UK company licensed the Lycos/Tripod name and some technology years ago, but has NOTHING to do with the original/core Lycos and/or Tripod services that are run here in the USA."

Nerdy film, Helvetica, recommended!

Prompted by the 50th birthday of the Swiss typeface Helvetica last year, the documentary by Gary Hustwit looks at the astonishing prevalence of Helvetica in the signs and logos of the urban landscape that surrounds us.

Those interviewed generally belong to either the Helvetica is great or Helvetica is dull camp: control and restraint versus creativity and free expression, legibility versus visual communication, old versus new - there's no sitting on the fence with this one!

The joy and enthusiasm for the work of the cheerful typeface designers interviewed is definitely the best advertisement I've seen for any profession!

You should at least have a mild interest in design before thinking about watching it...

The uncertain future of the computer mouse: retirement, longevity ...or evolution?

The computer mouse's 40th birthday has created great debate as to whether it's time for its dignified retirement or whether it could go on to be around for some time to come.

Arguments in favour of its retirement:

1. Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)
   
2. Anything being 40 years old related to computers is a rare phenomenon, and automatically assumed obsolete
3. There must be a more futuristic, gestural Minority Report-style alternative, right?!
   

Arguments against:

1. It does the job
2. It's cheap
3. It's robust. Let's face it, it's one of the few pieces of computer equipment that never breaks
   

However, what I expect and have been expecting to occur for some time - though it doesn't seemed to have happened - is not for the mouse to retire, but for it to evolve.


Key characteristics of my ideal Future Mouse would be:

• Future mouse makes use of opposable thumbs (much like a TV remote control)
  
• Future mouse doesn't require your arm to be lifted, pushing out your shoulder and tiring your wrist: it would be a lapmouse (goodbye RSI)
  
• Future mouse does not require any strength: it requires a gentle squeezing rather than clicking
• Despite being a lapmouse, it would also work in the conventional manner, on top of the table (it's extremely versatile, you see)
  
• It wouldn't feel like such a hard plastic, but more of a ball of putty (could be quite a satisfying combination of a stress ball and work tool, - improving the user experience)
• Being futuristic, it would of course be extremely green, made of biodegradable plastic perhaps
  

Well, time will tell...!

However, should the mouse retire suddenly, I only hope individuals, hardware companies and town councils find some way to recycle all that plastic! :-o


Related reading:

• The First Ever Computer Mouse Demo, courtesy of the BBC
• An article published on ft.com back in September, Gestures will force mouse into retirement.
  

The Mobile Web and URLs

One of the issues floating around my head while I enjoy a quiet Sunday afternoon is what to do about a site's url when its mobile baby brother comes along?

Website addresses already cause a lot of confusion (Was it .co.uk; .com or .org...?), but typing on a keyboard means it is fairly quick to try different options, and google usually lends a helping hand if we get it wrong.

What's more, having to type "http://" thankfully died long ago and a lot of sites forgive you for not typing "www.".
So, basically URLs have got quicker and shorter and so much the better.

Not so it seems with the mobile web: a few I've accessed require the http://www. and produce an error without it! Not great when typing on a mobile. Furthermore, if you type the usual url you may have to endure error messages, over-sized text and images and extreme levels of scrolling unless the site has been adapted for mobile access.
If there is a mobile web version, you may not get redirected automatically or even offered that alternative as you enter the site.

Furthermore, it seems there are already a number of variations at large in regard to the url for mobile versions: some web addresses end in .mobi, others in .mobile, some begin with an m. and some stay the same. Terrific.

So, imagine you've just been given a new mobile, internet enabled and subscription included, and you want to start surfing. You want to check your email and the news and maybe the odd music video.
What would you type?!

Let's look at the pros and cons of each one from the perspective of a mobile user.

.mobi
Pros:

• It's short and sweet and dodges the whole .com, .es, .org confusion.
• It's pronounceable

Cons:

• It's not a proper word, and what's to stop people trying .mob, or .mobile?

.mobile
Pros:

• It's a proper word so easy to spell AND pronounceable

Cons:

• It's longer than average (com, net etc) so takes longer to type, -but at least predictive text could guess it.
• Maybe Americans would want to type .cell and native speakers of every other language their own cultural or linguistic equivalent.

www.m.
Pros:

• It's slick and sexy, very web 2.0.
• It's short
  

Cons:

• It adds another full stop to the url, which can be a pain to type (did I type a full stop or a comma? where was the punctuation button again?)
• It can also increase cognitive load and confusion: Do I need to type the www. like in the old days? Did the "m" go before or after the "www."?
  

Same url for desktop and mobile sites
Pros:

• The computer does the hard work. You connect from a mobile device, the page adapts accordingly.
• No extra memorising required on the part of the user.
• Greater confidence and security that the site really is the site in question, reduced concerns about phishing.

Cons:

• Doubts about whether the page you're viewing has been adapted for mobile device. Is all the content here?
• There may be a delay in detecting the correct version (language, device etc)
• Takes away choice from the user; it's likely that the user will sometimes want to read something they saw earlier that day at work for example.
  

.com/mobile
Pros:

• Intuitive, matches the model of pretty urls considered best practice, although it's not strictly the same (it's more of a microsite than a page)
  

Cons:

• The length
• Still have to remember the site's domain
• Another forward slash
  

I would personally vote for being offered the option of going to the mobile version when I try to access a site from a mobile (I might not know it exists), and for .mobi or /mobile for being the clearest domains.
That along with punctuating being made easier on mobile devices, and of course for not having to type http://www!

Time will tell which one(s) take!