SEO? Don't bother...</h1> <article> <h1>SEO? Don't bother...</h1> <p>David Anderson — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:26:38 +0000</p> <p>In a recent conversation with a colleague, I pointed out that we don't have an "SEO practice". We don't worry about SEO.</p> <h2> <p>Say what?</p></h2> <p>I'm no expert, but as far as I'm concerned, SEO is a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, you have keyword optimization (in all its forms). Even though our content naturally contains the keywords we want to use, we do not focus on keyword optimization. Why not? Because <a href="http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049695/Top-Google-Result-Gets-36.4-of-Clicks-Study">keyword optimization doesn't matter</a>. We could spend hours optimizing keywords with nearly unmeasurable results. Optimizing keywords alone won't move any of our pages into the top 10 Google results.</p> <p>The other prong is in-bound links. Another colleague asked me a few months ago what could be done to make one of his pages appear higher in Google search results. I told him he needed to find all the places where his prospective students would look for his program and ask the people who maintain those pages to link to his page using the terms where he wanted better results. I haven't heard back from him, not even a "Thanks". I'm not surprised: it's a daunting, non-trivial project. One that could take tens, if not hundreds, of hours of work. No one wants to do that.</p> <h2>What then?</h2> <p>Build relationships. <a href="http://www.buffalo.edu">Our university</a> may be a little different from others. Undergrads spend their first two years fulfilling various requirements and can take some electives that could apply to their intended major. But they can't enter the department until their junior year. As far as I'm concerned, undergraduate admissions is all over recruiting undergrads. They may come here thinking they want to get into a particular program, but many change their minds along the way. In my school (within the university) , we don't recruit high school students, we recruit from the undergrad pool.</p> <p>At the master's and PhD level, we have faculty who do direct recruiting across the country. They build relationships with faculty at other schools: that's our SEO. On the website, the faculty and their research are the most important content to prospective master's and PhD students. Their faculty profiles have information about their publications, grants, et cetera. We regularly publish news, at the school and department level, about faculty and student research, accomplishments, presentations and the like. These things show the vibrancy and activity within the departments and school, something our prospective recruits identified as important.</p> <h2>This doesn't apply to everyone</h2> <p>We're a school within the university, so we don't have an undergraduate admissions staff. We have admissions staff at other levels. But we're under no delusion that investing significant effort in SEO and positioning would provide a return on investment in the school's reputation or the quality of prospective students who apply.</p> <p>Your mileage may vary.</p> </article> <article> <h1>The most strenuous thinking your faculty have ever done about their department</h1> <p>admin — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:05:32 +0000</p> <p>Colleges, universities and most other post-secondary education programs come in two varieties: <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html">accredited</a> and unaccredited. Accredited programs are those we're most familiar with and include everything from small liberal arts colleges to major state universities. Post-secondary and post-graduate educational institutions in the United States are generally accredited for two reasons: education and degrees/certifications from unaccredited institutions are viewed as less valuable or even invalid and peer accreditation is required to be eligible for federal funding.</p> <h2>How accreditation works</h2> <p>Without going into too much detail, your school and its programs have one or more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation_in_the_United_States">accrediting agencies</a> they have to report to at regular intervals. Your faculty and staff will work like crazy, writing a report for the accrediting team, for the year leading up to the accreditation visit. The team will come, examine the program, and leave. Later, your administrators will receive a report. In most cases, your school/program will be accredited for a number of years.</p> <h2>What you want</h2> <p>You want to get your hands on that report. <em>It is the hardest thinking your faculty have ever done about their program.</em></p> <p>You'll probably get push-back from administrators. It's not immediately obvious to them why this is important to you. More to the point, though: these reports contain very sensitive information and administrators are very, very careful about who has access. In your request, reassure your administrators that this is for your information only and none of it will make it directly to the website.</p> <p>Make sure you ask for the report in electronic format, even if it's a scanned version in PDF.</p> <p>I've been through two <a href="http://www.middlestates.org/">Middle States Association</a> reviews in my career at two very different institutions. In the first, I worked in the college library. In the second, I was in IT. I've also seen a little bit of the massive amount of work that went into a <a href="http://www.lcme.org/">Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)</a> review. It is very hard work and it is very thorough. In the case of the LCME and American Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the review includes student feedback. </p> <h2>What you'll find</h2> <p>A lot of very dense text about the school or program, from stem to stern. In some cases, the report must address deficiencies identified during previous visits. The report will talk about, in great detail, the educational programs. You'll find useful statistics, information about how the program meets or exceeds the accrediting agency's standards for education, what the students think et cetera.</p> <p>If this is your first pass through one of these reports, a lot of the information might not make sense. Most accrediting agencies have information on their websites that should help you understand what your faculty are addressing. </p> <p>You'll likely find many references to supplemental material: you want that stuff too. And there'll be mentions of other kinds of reports: required student evaluations of the program, business plans, strategic plans and more. You want those too. Again, sensitivity applies: the information in these documents is very near and dear to your administrators.</p> <h2>What do you do with it?</h2> <p>In my practice, if forms the basis of my interviews with my subject matter experts. Many of the questions about program requirements, especially at the post-graduate level, are the exact same questions prospective students have. </p> <p>I usually read through any given report two or three times. I keep a personal information manager (<a href="http://www.milenix.com/">MyInfo</a>) open in another window. As I work my way through, I extract nuggets of information to my PIM. On my first pass, I don't worry too much about organizing the information; I usually align it later with the information architecture. On subsequent passes, I try to group similar topics together. </p> <p>I make a lot of notes directly in the application (Word or Reader); I usually put my questions in the document and pull those out (and group them) for my interviews. I've found that most of my questions, asked in an open-ended format, provide the necessary jumping off point for faculty to talk at length.</p> <h2>Unrecognized accrediting agencies</h2> <p>Not all accrediting agencies are equal. There are many, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrecognized_higher_education_accreditation_organizations">many accrediting agencies that are not recognized</a> as authorities. Students who attend schools accredited by these agencies are not eligible for federal aid. I've never had experience in a school accredited by one of these agencies, so I can't speak to the quality of their processes. Proceed with caution. </p> </article> <article> <h1>Why you need a content strategist</h1> <p>David Anderson — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:24:51 +0000</p> <p>A good content strategist brings copywriting, IA, design, and other critical skills to your organization. She will have an encyclopedic knowledge of your website, your marketing/communications in other arenas (print, bulletin boards, social media), your departments, et cetera. She'll keep her eyes and ears open to every bit of information about your school.</p>  <h2>Her job is to identify and act on the opportunities for your school</h2> <p>She'll synthesize all that information at the right time to a deliverable.</p> <p><strong>Content strategy is a full time job. </strong>Don't try to saddle your writer with content strategy: he needs to focus his efforts on his craft, which is also a full time job. Don't ask someone who's not completely enthused to do the job. It's hard work: you have to go out and dig for information. You have to talk to people all across the campus. You have to be in meetings. This is not a job for the person who wants to sit in his office.</p> <h2>What about my "webmaster"?</h2> <p>It pains me to put this in writing, but many of the webmaster positions I've seen are "puter-uppers". In so many cases, the webmaster position started in the IT department and it's been a glorified gatekeeper. Some of my colleagues have clawed their way out of this definition (and kudos to them!) but, by and large, the position is still defined by "put this up on the web."</p> <h2>Content strategy extends beyond the web</h2> <p>Content strategy is communication strategy. Not just web and print, but communication at all levels: email, interpersonal, organizational. A good content strategist will push to change and improve communication throughout the entire organization. After all, what good is the best website if you have a <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/05/the-20000-phone-call.html">department chair or secretary who's just going to screw the pooch for you</a>?</p> <h2>Do you really want a camel?</h2> <p>If you <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_camel_is_a_horse_designed_by_a_committee">need a horse, why do you keep relying on processes that result in camels</a>? <strong>You need to put your content strategy, your communication strategy, in the hands of one person</strong>. If your aim is mediocrity, then, by all means, let a committee do the work.</p> </article> <article> <h1>Amateur hour is over</h1> <p>David Anderson — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:51:38 +0000</p> <p>A number of years ago, I did a presentation called <a href="http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20050321091725/http://www.highedweb.org/2004/tracks.html">"Higher Education's Web Offenses"</a> at a <a href="http://www.highedweb.org/">HighEdWeb</a> conference. I used one of my favorite Mark Twain pieces, <a href="http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/rissetto/offense.html">Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses</a>, as the basis for my presentation. The point I tried to make was that colleges and universities were still (in the mid 2000s) leaving important business decisions to unqualified amateurs. Here we are in 2011 and we're still expecting amateurs to make important business decisions</p> <h2> <p>It's not just that they can't write</p></h2> <p>We've tried cajoling, browbeating and bribery. But the simple fact of the matter is that <strong>most people cannot write.</strong> I see more evidence every day than I care to admit. Why we continue to let people who cannot construct a sentence, let alone a paragraph, write our most important business communications is beyond me.</p> <p>But the real problem is that <strong>we're in the business of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copywriting">copywriting</a></strong>, even if we don't want to admit it. I've been working in higher ed for 20 years and I am very familiar with with just how anathema "marketing" is to the faculty; the reality we must not just face but embrace is that we <strong>are</strong> selling a product.</p> <h2>There is no cultural relativism</h2> <p>Where mere description was more than sufficient 15 years ago, we must go above and beyond now. We are not competing on a level playing field of peers: our content, our sites are viewed in the context of all sites on the internet. Our readers expect our sites to be on par with the best-produced, well-funded, and best-written sites out there.</p> <p><strong>Expecting a department secretary to be an expert copywriter isn't cognitive dissonance, it's suicide.</strong></p> <h2>You need a full team</h2> <p>I'm preaching to the choir here: <strong>your core web marketing/communications team should include a copywriter, designer, information architect, content strategist, and photographer.</strong> I know: I'm way off the deep end.</p> <p>You can skimp on some of these requirements if you have a CMS with well-designed templates and that'll reduce your need for a designer and information architect. Depending on the capabilities of your CMS, you'll still need someone with some design skill: individual pages and subwebs within your site will require some design work with the CMS tools.</p> <p>Can you get by without a photographer? Maybe. Do you have a deep and very current library of professional images? My guess is likely not. What about your students? Do you have an art department? Journalism or communications major? Chances are real good that you have several students on campus who'd love to do a photography internship.</p> <p>That leaves us with the copywriter and the content strategist. <strong>The core of your website is the writing. You must have the best copywriter you can afford.</strong> Retrain the writer(s) you have, if necessary. By hook or by crook, your writers must shift gears and embrace copywriting. Your school cannot afford the alternative.</p> <h2>What about the content strategist?</h2> <p><a href="http://www.attentionmessageaction.com/content/why-you-need-content-strategist">That's the subject of a whole other post.</a></p> </article> <article> <h1>Journalism ain't what it used to be</h1> <p>David Anderson — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:43:44 +0000</p> <p><a href="http://2010.newsweek.com/top-10/heated-rivalries/facebook-vs-myspace.html">Another journalist</a> advances the "MySpace is garish; Facebook's minimalism is better" argument. As I <a href="http://www.attentionmessageaction.com/content/throwing-baby-out-bathwater">pointed out in another post</a>, conscientious restraint (Facebook's minimalism) is a marker of bourgeois fashion. To wit:</p> <blockquote><p>"... while Facebook was spare and organized, MySpace pages were given to garish fonts and epilepsy-inducing images."</p> </blockquote> <h2>If I'm not there, nobody's there</h2> <p>Nick Summers observes that MySpace has flattened (around 125 million) while Facebook continues to grow. That's a lot of "nobody" still on MySpace. Summers is right in one respect: <em>his</em> people (white) have generally fled MySpace. No one he knows is there anymore. That doesn't mean it's not valid. MySpace remains a valid and active place for 125 million people. They're just not as <a href="http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/may_jun08/alumni_profiles6">white as Summers</a>.</p> <h2>Who do you want to reach?</h2> <p>This is the rub: who are you trying to reach? If it's a largely white/asian audience, Facebook is the ticket. If you're trying to reach African-Americans and certain other socio-economic status groups, you're more likely find them on MySpace. See <a href="http://www.danah.org/papers/2009/WhiteFlightDraft3.pdf">danah boyd's research</a> for greater detail on the division between Facebook and MySpace.</p> <p><strong>Ignore MySpace at your own peril.</strong></p> </article> <article> <h1>On throwing the baby out with the bathwater</h1> <p>David Anderson — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:55:04 +0000</p> <p><a href="http://doteduguru.com/idauthor/jameskm03">Kyle James</a>, in his post <a href="http://doteduguru.com/id3701-social-network-failure-what-happened-to-myspace.html">Social Network Failure: What Happened to MySpace? #fail</a>, speculates on why MySpace "failed" and if Facebook could have a similar future. It's been two years since his post and Facebook has only grown. Based on what I've read, that comes as no surprise.</p> <p>The most interesting part about his post to me was his assessment of MySpace's aesthetics, especially in comparison to Facebook. He might not have realized it, but he's on to something. Here's the quote:</p> <blockquote><p><a href="http://doteduguru.com/id3701-social-network-failure-what-happened-to-myspace.html">”MySpace is like the wild wild west or Las Vegas of social media, dirty and <strong>ghetto</strong> [emphasis mine] ... It’s like an abandoned Detroit neighborhood.”</a></p></blockquote> <h3>Ghetto demographics</h3> <p>Kyle is spot on in calling MySpace <em>ghetto</em>, according to social media researcher <a href="http://www.danah.org/">danah boyd</a>. In her paper <a href="http://www.danah.org/papers/2009/WhiteFlightDraft3.pdf">White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook</a>, danah reveals that "the choice between MySpace and Facebook became racialized" as early as 2006. If you want to know, in depth, why MySpace "failed" and Facebook succeeded, read danah's paper.</p> <blockquote><p>"To the degree that some viewed MySpace as a digital ghetto or as being home to the cultural practices that are labeled as ghetto, the same fear and racism that underpinned much of white flight in urban settings is also present in the perception of MySpace."</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Teens have self-sorted between Facebook and MySpace along racial divides.</strong></p> <h3>What you need to know from danah's research</h3> <ul> <li>Facebook appeals to teenagers who see college as a rite of passage.</li> <li>Teens from less-privileged backgrounds are more likely to be drawn to MySpace.</li> <li>Black and Latino teens prefer MySpace; white and Asian teens prefer Facebook.</li> <li>Parental education as well as ethnicity are significant predictors of social network site choice.</li> <li>Conscientious restraint (Facebook's minimalism) is one marker of bourgeois fashion.</li> <li>The flashy style associated with MySpace is a online equivalent of conspicuous consumption associated with urban black culture.</li> <li>Affluent (white, Asian) panicked parents drove their teens from MySpace to Facebook.</li> </ul> <p>danah's research speaks to the whole "predator" scare with MySpace issue but that only reinforced the racial divide. It didn't create it.</p> <h3>Why should you care?</h3> <p>What are your recruiting goals? Do they include groups that are predominantly on MySpace? Do you have a presence on MySpace? That's why you should care.</p> </article> <article> <h1>From start to finish: a short trip through content strategy</h1> <p>David Anderson — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:11:35 +0000</p> <p>The <a href="http://medicine.buffalo.edu/">University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (SMBS)</a> was recently partner in a major web revamp project at the University at Buffalo. As a result of that project, we employ content strategy every day in our communications practices.</p> <p></p><p>Called the Web Content Initiative, this multi-year project had a number of goals. Chief among them was changing how we "do" our websites. Instead of the usual new coat of paint, this project re-examined all assumptions and practices from the very start. We examined a lot of practices, from the micro to the macro, and selected those we thought were strongest and brought the best ideas to our project.</p> <h3>Start with the content inventory/audit</h3> <p>The content inventory/audit told us what we had and gave us the opportunity to review the quality of the material. We had a good start but almost all of the content needed significant work. From the content audit, we knew we had some 'bragging points' about the school: points of pride in the basic sciences and translational medicine arena.</p> <h3>Mental models</h3> <p>At the same time, we began <a href="http://twitter.com/indiyoung">Indi Young's</a> <a href="http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/">mental model process</a>. I believe mental models are invaluable in learning your audience's concerns, task needs, headspace. With that information, you can group tasks/needs and identify commonalilities in audience segments.</p> <p>This snippet from our larger mental model document shows how content (below the thick grey line) should support the audience task towers. M1 and M3 refer to Matchseeker levels. Matchseekers are one type of audience segment identifed during the mental model process.</p> <p>The matchseeker tasks (the boxes in the upper towers) are supported by several content areas but I'm going to focus on the 'research highlights & accomplishments' area for now.</p> <h3>Information architecture</h3> <p>The image at right shows an "on the ground" view of content needs. As you "zoom out" in the mental model chart, you get a picture of how that information should be aligned and organized. At the start of the project, we did considerable research into how other schools and organizations built their sites, again from macro to micro, so we had some basic design patterns to inform our starting point. We also used books like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Design-Sites-Patterns-Creating-Winning/dp/0131345559/">The Design of Sites</a> and design pattern sites to make sure we weren't going to far afield from user expectations.</p> <h3>Content alignment</h3> <p>Once we had the IA, we aligned all the content from our inventory with the proper sections of the IA. In this case, our research points of pride ended up in <em>Research Highlights</em>, under the larger heading of <em>Research</em>.</p> <h3>A content strategy guide</h3> <p>I hesitate to gloss over this step too much as it was absolutely crucial to helping our new-to-web-writing-but-very-experienced writers understand what they needed to accomplish on each and ever page in the new site. I cannot overstate just how helpful the overview IA and content strategy guide delivered by my colleague Eileen Ruberto was. We tried to implement a site without benefit of this guide and, while it was eventually launched, there was significant confusion, rework, and last minute work.</p> <h4>A sidebar: working from just an IA</h4> <p>The first site in the chute in our project was the <a href="http://medicine.buffalo.edu/phdprogram">Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Biological Sciences</a>. We had an IA (in a Google Docs spreadsheet) to work from as our guide to page content. The chief problem was that each page has multiple content areas: the main content well and the sidebars. The initial IA called for content in both left and right sidebars; as delivered, the left sidebar content was deprecated.</p> <p>Within each page, there were what I'd <em>micro-content areas</em>. The <a href="http://medicine.buffalo.edu/phdprogram/departments_and_curriculum/laboratory_rotations.html">Laboratory Rotations</a> page is an excellent example of these micro-content areas. On the left, all but the <em>Related Links</em> portion of the menu is built automatically. The Related Links must be explicitly curated.</p> <p>On the right, we have content that supports the 'flexibility of our program' and social validation message needs. While our writers knew about and had prepared the individual profiles behind the teaser blocks that appear on the right, they were unaware of the need to wordsmith the headings and finely edit the teaser text.<em> This additional content requirement was not reflected in the initial IA spreadsheet.</em></p> <p>But it's the main content well that proved so challenging. Almost every page has an <em>introduction statement</em>, at the top in larger type, that summarizes the content (and messages) of the page. Our writers had prepared the main body content for each page but were surprised when the introduction statement element was revealed.</p> <h3>The content strategy guide</h3> <p><a href="http://www.attentionmessageaction.com/content/page-table"></a>Eileen's implementation of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Content-Strategy-Web-Kristina-Halvorson/dp/0321620062">Kristina Halvorson's page tables</a> (page 96) was the lifesaver. In the example on the right, you can see how each area of the page is described (<a href="http://www.attentionmessageaction.com/content/page-table">see it larger</a>). The message focus is readily available to the writer as are instructions about what the content needs are for each section. Because this was still an iterative process, you'll see a bunch of "TBD" areas. For the most part, though, the writers had the tools they needed to complete a page.</p> <p>If you <a href="http://medicine.buffalo.edu/research/research_highlights.html">look at the page as published</a>, you can trace the connection between the messages and how they were delivered. I'll take you through each point:</p> <h4>Key points in positioning (specifically, impressive faculty, state of the art facilities)</h4> <p>The impressive faculty are discussed and pictured in the teasers on this page. State of the art facilities, as it turned out, was more than could be shoehorned into this page and we featured it in areas like <a href="http://medicine.buffalo.edu/research/core_facilities.html">Core Facilities and Shared Resources</a>.</p> <h4>At the SMBS, you'll have access to the labs, facilities, and resources you need to be successful</h4> <p>This is implied by the list of points of pride on this page. It's also supported by <em>Current Research News</em> in the Related Links area. Again, the specifics about our labs, facilities, and resources were taken to Core Facilities.</p> <h4>A school with an international reputation for excellence in areas of basic science and clinical translational research</h4> <p>The quality of the points of pride selected for this page speak to the international reputation and translational research. Basic science research is more challenging to reflect and we trumpet that in our News and Events section.</p> <h4>SMBS continues to extend their impact at the local, national, and international level</h4> <p>The points of pride on this page range from historic (pacemaker, Lippes Loop) to more contemporary (COURAGE Trial, Bio-Blower).</p> <p>You'll see that the example cited in the Content Description area of the page table (development of surfactant) is on this page (Infasurf). The teasers on this page lead to full descriptions of the research highlight. Where appropriate, we link to the faculty member's profile and their department, providing an easy connection for prospectives to learn about a faculty member they might study under or collaborate with.</p> <h3>Full circle</h3> <p>Looking back on the mental model, you can see how the two task towers I identified, "Look for organizations with good reputations" and "Look for organizations that will support my growth", are "supported" by the Research Highlights page. I didn't say much about audiences but if you look at the example page, you can see that the audience is identified. Matchseeker in this case includes everyone from prospective student to prospective faculty. The Research Highlights page is important content for all our prospectives, on different levels.</p> <h3>How do we employ this on a daily basis?</h3> <p>The content strategy guide is one of several tools we use when developing new content for individual pages and to guide development of new sections and departmental sites. Having the key tasks identified at a section and page level is invaluable in staying on message.</p> <p>Early in the process, before we had the content strategy guide and page tables, I had some heated discussions with a colleague about communicating content, messaging, and task needs to our writers. My colleague insisted that the needs had been communicated to the writers, several times and over the course of several months. Unfortunately, when it came time to create and edit content, that information was not captured anywhere. <strong>Capturing and preserving the critical drivers for the site, sections, and pages are what make page tables invaluable.</strong> In my opinion, this is not an option.</p> </article> <article> <h1>Why not use personas?</h1> <p>David Anderson — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:50:52 +0000</p> <p>I'm a big fan of <a href="http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/">Indi Young's Mental Models</a>. Once you've seen and actually held in your hands one of the diagrams that comes out of her process, you'll realize just how flawed personas are.</p>  <h3>Let's pretend</h3> <p>My parents are artists: my mom is a visual artist (painting, sculpture) and <a href="http://tolearn.net/portfolio/scholarship/discoveryfiction.htm">my step-father is a published author</a>. I am very familiar with "let's pretend."</p> <p>I grew up immersed in writing culture. I read <a href="http://www.writersdigest.com/GeneralMenu/">Writer's Digest</a> for pleasure. I read books on how to write fiction because I had a passing skill at writing short stories. One of the recurring themes in self-help material for fiction writers is character development, also called a <a href="http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/char_sk.html">character sketch</a>.</p> <p>When <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_%28marketing%29">personas</a> first "hit the web" I immediately recognized what they were: character sketches. As a writer, you need to get in the head of your characters. You need to understand as much as you can about them to make them convincing. All the questions that go into making a persona apply to a character sketch for fiction. Writing fiction and getting "into" a persona are the same thing: let's pretend.</p> <h3>Personas require research</h3> <p>Personas are synthesized from interviews and background research you do on your users. They're a legit practice <em>if you have the time and mental energy to get into the persona headspace every time you need to</em>.</p> <p>I am sure there are diligent practitioners of the persona in the web industry. In my experience, however, they're too much investment for how little and how poorly they're used. And, this is the part that irks me to no end, they're constantly and continuously open to interpretation. Don't like how someone interpreted a persona's needs or potential action? Re-interpret it yourself. Voila, instant morass.</p> <h3>Mental models: ditch the superfluous</h3> <p><strong>People use the web to accomplish tasks.</strong> Indi's mental model process is built around identifying those tasks. You can group those tasks into a pseudo-persona but there's no detail about the type of sweater the person prefers nor his or her favorite color. It's all about the tasks.</p> <p>Tasks are easy. You can:</p> <ul> <li> determine if a given task is appropriate for your website</li> <li>figure out how to make a task accomplishable</li> <li>test the usability of your solution</li> </ul> <p>More to the point, <strong>you can create checklists from tasks</strong>. "Did we accomplish X? Yes or No?" Very simple. And you can stuff your page tables with appropriate tasks. "This page must support X task."</p> <p>Try that with personas. "Did we make the blue cardigan-wearing aunt feel good?" How the hell would you know?</p> </article> <article> <h1>Look left</h1> <p>David Anderson — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:21:06 +0000</p> <p><a title="Horizontal attention leans left" href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/horizontal-attention.html" target="_blank">Jakob Nielsen's latest missive</a> reinforces what you already know about the web: <ul> <li>your customers <a title="Canonical Intranet Homepage" href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050523.html">expect to certain customs</a></li> <li>they <a title="F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web" href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html">focus their attention where they expect content</a></li> <li>they look at other areas to a far lesser degree</li> </ul> </p><p> </p> </article> </main></body></html>