The taxonomy is exhaustive: it consists of 52 terms grouped into seven broader categories. It is — I think — an impressive piece of work.

But I’m not sure it’s actually very useful.

Scientific versus subjective taxonomies

Taxonomy is an attractive latinate term that confers a certain objectivity. There are, I think, two broad types of taxonomy, namely scientific taxonomies — the sort that categorise objective, physical entities, such as butterflies — and subjective taxonomies, which attempt to categorise abstract concepts, such as customer service.

Some subjective taxonomies err towards objectivity more than others, normally as a result of attaining a certain respectability and through agreement on underlying concepts over time. Ontology, epistomology and philosophy of the mind are established areas of philosophy, for example. Within customer service we could maybe state that customer experience is an established sub–term of customer service, but terms such as coaching, IVR and performance management are either too faddish, too vague or not connected closely enough to customer service alone to be included within the taxonomy.

Without agreement over concepts users — even experts — will find it difficult to relate content to taxonomical terms. What exactly are performance management and diversity and language?

New subjective taxonomies should be general

This is not to argue that newer areas of study shouldn’t have taxonomies. By using broad, general terms and sub–terms that have gained traction within a subject area publishers will be able to guide users through their content. Over time more thorough taxonomies will develop. Who knows; perhaps one day there’ll be university departments dedicated to areas such as customer service, something my employer would no doubt love.

• Download the 133 theme for WordPress (version 2, ZIP, 16K)
• See the live demo

Flicking and reading

The thinking behind 133 was to provide a theme that gave the reader nothing to do apart from read and flick through posts. It was built on Sandbox and took a grand total of 133 minutes to write (geddit?)

It’s been my second most popular theme (surprising, considering it wasn’t listed by Smashing Magazine), perhaps providing evidence that there’s a demand for design that promotes reading and little else (see Readability and Today’s Guardian).

Screenshot of the 133 theme.

To get an idea of what it does it’s best to list what it doesn’t:

1. no search
2. no archives
3. no tags or categories
4. no navbar
5. no menu
6. no comments
7. no Twitter integration (there was in version one, but it was pointless)

Usage

Excerpts

The theme makes use of excerpts by displaying them on the front page and above posts on single pages. If a post doesn’t have an excerpt, the front page will display the whole post instead, and the single page won’t display an excerpt (obviously), nor an abbreviated version of the full post. In short, feel free to use excerpts but don’t worry if you don’t.

Images

The content column is 560 pixels wide. If you add the class pull to an image it’ll place it in the empty left hand column. Pulled images must be 265 pixels wide; if they’re not, they’ll be resized. (Note: you can apply the pull class to any element). Centring images and floating left and right work in the normal way.

You can also incorporate full page images (the theme is 855 pixels wide in all) by adding a wide class to images.

Asides

I’m a fan of (proper) conversational asides in blog posts. Wrap anything in aside tags and 133 will pull them into the left hand column. (Warning: WordPress can be somewhat moody with asides; check your HTML after making any amendments).

Additional information

The theme will attempt to display the following info from behind the scenes:

Users → Your profile → About yourself → Biographical information is displayed in the footer.

Settings → General → Description serves as a tagline and is displayed in the header, aligned right.

Behind the scenes

The theme has been re–written from the ground up. It’s now marked up in shiny HTML5 and I’ve used the Google Font API to sprinkle some IM Fell DW Pixa around.

(A by–product of all this is to reduce the size of the zipped theme to 15.7K, including a screenshot. The stylesheet weighs in at 291 lines, including comments.)

It looks different

The structure is essentially the same: three columns, the first left mainly empty, the content placed off centre to the right. Titles are now set in IM Fell DW Pixa and body copy remains 100% (16 pixels). If you’re on Windows you’ll get Georgia. If you’re on a Mac or Linux you’ll get Palatino. Everyone’s happy.

The content column has been widened from 500 pixels to 560 pixels.

Image from Wikimedia

Perhaps you’re fond of these latinate words. What era does the word evoke? Victorian, Edwardian, perhaps; probably the past.

I came across a discussion of the term on the Content Strategy Google Group. It’s interesting to note that the contributor from the offline world dislikes curate; for her, it’s redolent of a patronising approach to presenting knowledge:

I think that my problem with the term, coloured by my background, is that it can be perceived as too grandiose, old-fashioned, bureaucratic and somewhat  alienating. As I read your comments and sift through some of the information in the various links, I am definitely having second thoughts about it as this new appropriation of the term certainly brings with it a wider sense of scope and a responsibility to audience that is quite different to that of a formal curator role in a museum. Amy Thibodeau

While the online world just can’t wait to appropriate it:

As someone working for an organization (and not an agency), “curation” is a great way to describe the strategic content work we do. Hillary Marsh.

What does this interest in the past tell us? At a design level it’s playful and textural (when done well) or annoying and kitsch (when not). It also indicates what the online world lacks; when anyone can set up a website and express an opinion, and when the medium is so modern, language, typography and imagery that suggest gravitas, learnedness and history (and even exclusivity) are attractive, especially to people who make their living from web design and writing. It confers legitimacy and professionalism.

Can you think of any other words that have been appropriated? The architecture of information architecture, perhaps?

The notion of tethering content delivery to a particular proprietary platform or hardware device is admitting defeat Arc 90

This is a great read, by the way, and tops off an interesting few days in the online reading world. We’ve had Safari 5′s reader, Today’s Guardian and Arc 90′s post.

But it’s not just admitting defeat, is it? In the same way that it’s not just the publishers and advertisers’ fault that online texts are so difficult to read. Designers are complicit too, both in their enthusiasm to design for closed, proprietary and downright expensive formats and in their willingness to create pages that are chock full of noise and hard to scan content.

I like the fact that Arc 90 and Phil Gyford have made open, web texts more readable, rather than concentrate on, say, the iPad. There’s a political element to this: Information — and its proper presentation — shouldn’t just be the reserve of those who can afford to spend a few hundred quid on what’s essentially a toy. Websites remain the most accessible, democratic medium.

After completing the purchase I actually got up from my desk and told a work colleague how pleasurable the shopping experience had been. It was that good.

Good, they said.

Step forward Typekit:

The Typekit payment form

That’s all I had to complete; no address, name or passwords–that–were–set–two–years–ago. No getting up from the desk to ask someone for information, no rifling through paperwork, no phone call home.

It didn’t feel risky or insecure: the micro–copy was clear, reassuring and trustworthy, and there was no small print or legalese. Instead, a plain statement that told me cancelling would result in an automatic refund. More good.

I wonder if some payment forms are made difficult in order to reassure users that they’re somehow more secure. Or that more fields = more serious.

The new front page has fewer stories and an airier, classier look

What’s good about it?

• simple navigation that allows readers to find content they’re interested in (just nine top level sections; interesting that Puzzles makes it to the top). The use of images for nav bar links is strange: It blurs the text. I’m sure Times would have proved an acceptable font.
• so I don’t have to scan 200 front page stories. The print version of the paper points the way to a clear, logical online structure. Note, 25 May: The site went live today. There’s still too much stuff on the home page, in my opinion.
• it’s called The Times rather than timesonline: after all we do know it’s online because we’re looking at it on a screen

This simplification makes the whole thing look a lot classier.

I was thinking that the comments section will be greatly improved by the paywall (after all, you’re paying to comment; no more anonymity, name calling or baiting):

The new comment form; there's a (hefty) character limit

But that doesn’t mean people will pay. I don’t think people are as loyal to an online newspaper as its print counterpart. We’re like magpies, choosing bits and pieces, getting pointed to various publications via a million sources. There’s also a lot more free choice online. Note, 25 May: Clicking on a link to be presented with a login dialogue is one odd experience on a newspaper site. There’s something very counter–intuitive about it.

Yes, some paywalls work, but, as 37 Signals point out, only the ones that help you make money.

Where have my lovely adjectives gone? is what they’re thinking but not saying. Most people are very polite and will save their disapproval for another time (or person. But I digress).

Untrained web writers often make these mistakes:

• they assume that not having much to say about their product or service means it somehow lacks gravitas, substance &c.
• they think words can mask the fact there’s not much content
• they think that writing unadorned by adjectives is dull
• they think that short, simple, active sentences are dull
• they think that their adjectives enhance the description of their product or service; that they help paint a picture
• they think bullet points, bolded keywords and short, bitty paragraphs look ugly

The problem with adjective–laden writing is that readers couldn’t care less whether your product is innovative and new because they haven’t come across a product that is unoriginal or dated in the last 10 years of browsing the web. These types of adjectives have less than zero meaning.

Screenshot of The MSPA annual conference web page: lots of text about Istanbul but who's speaking and what will I learn?

Readers want to know how the product you’re offering will help them, so a quick summary of its benefits will suffice. Structure this is in a way that helps them scan your text, paint pictures with, erm, pictures, and you’re pretty much there.

On paper (or screen) it may seem boring, and a million miles from the original author’s conception of their product, but your readers will appreciate it. Conversions really do increase after copy is stripped down to communicate a clear message.

Getting the boring message across

Ben Locker explains how clients don’t value simple copy. I try and demonstrate its purpose to colleagues by:

• involving them in the content writing process by showing them drafts and explaining why I’ve made certain decisions
• sitting them in on some simple, low–fi user testing. It doesn’t have to be related to whatever it is they’re interested in; witnessing how impatient real people are in real web situations is often an eye opener
• getting them to perform a fact finding task using a real site which uses overly complicated copy (note their frustration)

The key is getting clients or colleagues to see with the user’s (or customer’s) eyes. It’s not easy, but it can help build trust and make future work a lot easier.

According to Tumblr, a tumblog

…lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme’s HTML. Tumblr about page

Which is all well and good. It’s pretty handy being able to publish stuff quickly with a minimum of fuss. Reading or looking at other people’s stuff is a more patchy affair. Your mileage may vary, as they say, but I’d rather read a blog post about a video, image or story — 100 words is just fine — than just be pointed to it (indeed, these sorts of posts can often spark interesting ideas).

Image from http://iwersenimages.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/writers-block.jpg

It’s a shame when bloggers switch from standard blog software like WordPress to Tumblr (Cameron Moll, for example). Before, we benefited from an expert’s opinion and/or good writing, now we just get a stream of links and disconnected commentary. It’s a more passive experience: writer points to x and reader dutifully follows.

And although comments can be a pain in the backside, they have far more character (and interest, sometimes) than a list of trackbacks or, worse still, a list of x liked this-s. So what? These sorts of lists often indicate how well regarded the author is, rather than the value of what is posted.

Cameron Moll has moved from a traditional blog to Tumblr. And lots of people liked this.

I can understand why authors want to break free from the tyranny of writing several hundred words to a schedule. It’s hard work. And long blog post after long blog post gets monotonous for the reader. Perhaps a lot of what are now popular blogs started at a time when there was plenty to rail against (tables, websites built for one browser, unreadable typography etc.) and the didactic post was necessary to get the message about standards, readability etc. across.

After a while, the posts dry up and the author who still likes publishing stuff begins to consider the tumblog.

If you were to design a blog from scratch it’s maybe unlikely you’d base it on a series of discursive posts, and you no doubt would incorporate links to stuff. Perhaps the form needs a rethink.

Note that the title is a link to the same page. Incidentally, Customer Experience Matters is a great blog which I thoroughly recommend.

Customer Experience Matters is hosted by WordPress.com and uses the Regulus theme. Regulus is a very smart theme, and the author has published some excellent plugins (so I’m certainly not criticising the blog or the theme author).

What’s so annoying about these links?

Well, it’s not going to ruin your day encountering a title that links to the same page, but:

• users expect to go to a new place when they click a link. At least page anchors lead to another place within the same document; these type of links don’t lead anywhere new at all
• copying and pasting a title that’s also a link requires some manual dexterity (as I found out when tweeting the Customer Experience Matters page; I ended up clicking the link accidentally)
• there may be an SEO issue (at least, Chris was wondering about it). Headings that are links are perhaps viewed as links to other pages rather than actual headings

Fixing the problem

In WordPress, it’s pretty trivial. In single.php look for the page title; it’ll probably look like: <h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>. You need to remove the hyperlink, so something like <h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1> would do it.

Like I say, it’s more a tut tut than a huge usability issue, but these small annoyances can accumulate to create a frustrating user experience.

What do you reckon? And what’s your pet website peeve?

Everything you did yesterday and last year is viewed as a guarantee of what you will do tomorrow and next year. But what if you are facing an upheaval? What if you’re getting divorced, or you left the Mormon church? What if you’re ashamed of a major upheaval? What if you lost your job and can’t find another one? Joe Clark.

Consistency is an overrated virtue. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to think that something I wrote 18 months ago reflects what I think about things now. Or something I wrote a week ago, perhaps.