“Twitter is a search engine that indexes conversations about content.” - Kevin Ryan

I thought this just summed up the Twitter search experience very nicely.

This info-graphic from Mike Aruaz is very enlightening. He has written about the differences between the friends you have in person and the ones you maintain online. You know, like in Facebook:

…online friendships are different from what we’ve traditionally called friendships. Digital technology has affected the number of relationships you can maintain, and the intimacy of those relationships, effectively enabling us to create fans who feel like friends… www.mikearauz.com

It’s increasingly important to consider the different levels of visitors your website or web application enjoys. If you know who’s visiting you and why they are coming then you can begin to create content or make changes to your app that’s specifically geared toward their interests and needs. This isn’t always easy to figure out, but this graphic is a really great representation of an accurate model you can use to map them out, or at least get you thinking about them to start.

This week we focus on Kevin Bryan’s portfolio site, designthis, and the site of Camp Creative Group.

01. YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client.

02. IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.
Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age.

03. SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
There is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

04. PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.
Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. So professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

05. LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’

06. STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t change your sense of integrity and purpose.

07. HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed. That is why your mother always said, ‘Don’t hang out with those bad kids.’ Mama was right. Thought changes our life and our behaviour. I also believe that drawing works in the same way. I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain in the same way as the search to create the right note changes the brain of a violinist. Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at, which is not so easy.

08. DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
Schools encourage the idea of not compromising and defending your work at all costs. Well, the issue at work is usually all about the nature of compromise. You just have to know what to compromise. Blind pursuit of your own ends which excludes the possibility that others may be right does not allow for the fact that in design we are always dealing with a triad – the client, the audience and you.

09. ON AGING.
Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life.

10. TELL THE TRUTH.
‘Do no harm’ is an admonition to doctors concerning their relationship to their patients, not to their fellow practitioners or the drug companies. If we were licensed, telling the truth might become more central to what we do.

Make sure and read the whole thing if you can.

1. They fail to connect.
2. They lack a compelling offer.
3. They lack reasons why.
4. They lack scarcity.
5. They lack proof.
6. They lack a clear call to action.
7. The lack good copy.

Particularly I like #6, I scream about this a lot to clients and I say it over and over again. The further boil this down Michel says:

Focus on the “power of one.” That is:
One message
One audience
One outcome

This week we talk about two ‘green’ web companies, Studio 7 Designs and EnviraMedia.

Users want the message to be clear
Users want context to see if they fit
Users want consistency
Users want to be heard without having to shout
Users don’t want the shiny (unless it’s in context)
Users want to be guided (without being guided)

This is all about giving the user what they want expect and not what you the designer or developer think is a cool feature or the way you think it should be done. I’ve had the privilege of taking part in a good amount of real user studies on website’s i’ve worked on in the past, every time it is an eye opening experience and I learn something new about how people use the things I design. I couldn’t recommend more doing a simple usability test on something you are working on. Do it right now, go grab a friend put them behind the site you’re working on ask them to complete a task that is one of the main things the website is supposed to do and watch. Simple as that!

My absolute favorite part of Patrick’s post is this:

What does work are sites are are intuitive enough and forward thinking enough to provide a path for the user to go. The elements of user experience should be defined enough so the site acts the way the user thinks it should act i.e. the user shouldn’t have to learn it, especially for consumer facing sites. It’s about predictive user experience.

I know i’ve posted a few Ted talks, you’re probably like “dude, enough with the Ted posts”. Seriously listen to what J.J. Abrams has to say, he’s quite possibly this decade’s master storyteller.

In the name of Web 2.0 we at WebHostingSearch.com are now handing out an award to one site each month that stands out from its competitors. The award is for Best Web Design with particular focus on great usability and accessibility. 21st century web design is so much more than color schemes, flashy banners and glossy buttons. Few understand the importance of usability and accessibility in web design so what better reason than to reward the ones who do.

Thank you Eva and all the rest of the team at WebHostingSearch.com we do truly appreciate it!

BTW: WebHostingSearch.com is really a great resource for web hosting service information, the site has reviews on all the major hosting providers as well as articles and video tutorials on hosting applications.

Tumblr is possibly one of the easiest ways you can run your own blog on the internet, and it’s FREE. In their own words:

Tumblr 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. Even use your own domain name.

Tumblr really is a blogging engine at heart, but it’s more like a purist cross between a blog and Twitter. It really shines if you are looking to make short/quick posts, post pictures or video files. The thing is it’s not as intimidating as a full featured blog, the system gets out of the way because it’s so simple and you don’t have to worry about all the moving parts. You can just focus on what you’re posting and get on with your life.

Recently Tumblr has rolled out some basic analytics and social tracking features. The activity dashboard is insightful if you use Tumblr a lot, but doesn’t really get very deep, though you can setup Google Analytics to run on your Tumblog. They’ve also rolled out a directory of top users/posters, likely to fuel more usage as much as just show off the top users, much in the same vein as wefollow.com for Twitter users.

The real beauty for me is that Tumblr treats different media with respect. It’s not just about different posts, it’s about what media type you are delivering them in. It handles quotes and dialogs differently on posting as it gives video and images special treatments as well. The other really special part is the ability to follow and favorite other posts and Tumblrs. You can amass followers as with Twitter and they can re-blog your posts and mark them as favorites which in the world of social networking is a beautiful thing. One final thing that is super sweet is Tumblr’s native ability to suck in an RSS feed and let it roll in line with your posts. This is a really nice feature and they really take out any ambiguity about it and make it really easy.

Tumblr is really growing quite rapidly in user share, they’ve rolled out a slew of new features and updates to the core system over the past year that is really bringing it up to a level of maturity that makes it an option to no longer be ignored. However, in the end an experienced blogger is likely to feel that Tumblr falls short of their needs, and it may. With its lack of built in commenting or trackbacks or Wordpress like plugin architecture it just isn’t a full featured blogging engine. Hence it’s not an apples to apples comparison. There’s a lot of argument amongst Tumblr users about the lack of commenting on Tumblr. Almost half seem to want it (and if you do you can add a commenting system for free) and the other half really like the fact that it doesn’t out of the box. The point being, Tumblr is just a different flavor of blogging than something like Wordpress, but I think it’s going to fit most needs for us in the future.

If you’re looking to get going quickly, Webmonkey has a most excellent write up on getting started with Tumblr. Of course the only way to experience it is to go get an account for yourself.