Thursday, October 11, 2007
New Redesign
Last week, I launched a redesign to the Office of Admissions homepage. This redesign was completely fueled by statistical reports from our web analytics software. Besides our homepage, our highest traffic destinations were the majors section and the calendar. Click-through testing found that these areas were not as easy to find as they should be.Therefore, the redesign focused on bringing these areas to the home page. The majors are now available right in the center, and the calendar is integrated into the footer - and every page on the site.
I will run official reports in a month and analyze the data in more depth, but early indications show more click-throughs to the majors and less searches for events.
You can check out the new, more functional design at: http://admissions.unl.edu
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
A Digital Revolution
Wow! I just went to digg.com to check out the latest news, and I have stumbled across a new digital revolution. The 16 hexadecimal digits (as of this post, the HD-DVD key was posted to this article at the bottom) that are used to unlock the HD-DVD from their content protection system have been cracked and posted around the internet. And digg made an attempt to keep the numbers off their user generated content site. Whoops!
In reply, the AACS has sent cease and desist letters to Google and many bloggers commanding them to take down the key. One such place was digg.com, and the founders at digg agreed to remove the stories. This set of a whirlwind of protest, where hundreds of digg users have started creating sites mentioning the 16 hexadecimal digits in creative ways. UPDATE: After witnessing the uproar by the digg community, Kevin Rose has changed his mind. Apparently, digg will no longer attempt to remove these stories.
It is fascinating to see all the resistance by the digg community. At one point, every story on the front page made reference to the number!
This just goes to show, in today's modern world the users control your site.
photo from downloadsquad.com
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
JOOST Invitation
Brent Roos is offering an invite to Joost for anyone that plays along with his game. Basically he would people to write a short essay of why they think they should receive an invitation. Based on the comments of his site, everyone who visits his site is either illiterate or doesn't know how to follow instructions. Based on that, this simple paragraph should be enough!
However, I believe in the spirit of sharing and I am excited about trying Joost, so why not explain my reasons. Besides, Brent has a link to a funny YouTube/Google video. I hadn't seen it before and it got me to stay on his site for a while.
For those of you who are not familiar with Joost, it is an IPTV service, a way to get TV over the internet. Currently, the content is lacking (no Heroes, 24, Lost, or SportsCenter), but the technology is promising.
Many of you are familiar with Real Nebraska, our online video recruitment objective. As more and more schools begin to follow our trend, we must come up with new and exciting ways to keep our objective fresh. Enter IPTV. I'm not convinced broadcasting our content through IPTV is the way to go, but I would like to take the opportunity to explore in more detail.
So Brent, if you read this - how about an invite?
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Getting Real
The team over at 37signals embrace the new web design 2.0. They start with the interface and then work backwards. The interface is what the customers/users see; make that the best it can be and then add the functionality.
It seems to be working just fine for them, Basecamp, Campefire and Backpack all seem to be doing well.
They recently released a book on their philosophy of "smarter, faster, easier" web applications. After the first chapter, I'm hooked. Check it out for free online at: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php
From the first chapter:
Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.