Tijdens zijn masterclass in Utrecht dit voorjaar kreeg ik 34 inzichten die ik graag met je deel – in het Engels. Ik vergat ze die dag te twitteren, maar ze passen allemaal binnen 140 tekens

Wat ik leerde van Gerry McGovern:

1. We’re driven to the web by a need. The need isn’t: information.
2. Don’t do big redesigns. Don’t launch and leave. But constantly improve the top tasks.
3. Great websites are the product of constant refinement
4. Don’t manage individual pages.
   Manage journeys, tasks.
5. Web: we’re sitting on an goldmine but we’re treating it like a coalmine.
6. What word describes web site visitors best? Impatient.
   The same answer is given worldwide.
7. Create fast experiences.
8. The customer’s time is the most valuable resource.
9. Great web sites save you time.
10. Giving a web site to a communicator is like giving a pub to an alcoholic.
11. The best web sites are ugly and functional.
12. Every piece of information shoud solve a problem: a task.
13. Web writing = constantly thinking about journeys.
14. Most web sites have 1 supertask. This is what 80% of visitors want to do on your site, so you should put 80% of your time into it.
15. Don’t design for the exceptions.
    Design for the majority.
16. Links are loners.
    Don’t put hyperlinks in a paragraph of text.
17. Great web site: you can start the top task on the homepage.
18. #1 task on the web: compare.
19. Give people the facts.
    No marketing bullshit.
    No photos of smiling faces.
20. Nature of the human is to be tribal.
    Customer = stranger.
    Company = our family



Gerry McGovern

21. If you really like your web site, it’s probably not working.
    If you’re bored with it, it’s probably working.
22. Don’t make a target group oriented homepage.
    Make a task oriented homepage.
23. We read on the web like we’re on an escalator, or driving 100 km/h on a motorway.
24. Great web sites make difficult decisions. Like Google.
25. Web is used for high volume, highly simple tasks.
    The more complex and less volume, the less suitable to do it online.
26. Self service cannot work without constant observation.
27. Never start a sentence or a header with your company name.
    People already know they are on your website.
28. We prefer not to test because it forces us to change things.
29. Classic marketing: Get you to do something we want you to do.
    Web marketing: You’re doing things, how can we help you do it better?
30. The perfect intranet:
    A survivor’s guide to a shitty week.
31. Best SEO strategy: do someting really useful.
32. Always lead with the need.
    Start sentences and headers with a task.
33. Always add a call to action at the bottom of a page.
    People that scroll that far down are really interested.
34. Web site is not a murder mystery.
    Tell them who dit it in the first sentence.

Gerry McGovern heeft de Customer Carewords-methode ontwikkeld om de top tasks van je website te ontdekken. Resultaat is een lijst woorden die bezoekers van je website in hoge mate triggeren tot conversie. Nederlands licentiehouder van de Customer Carewords-methode is Sabel Communicatie.

Niet te missen: McGovern’s gratis webinars. Bekijk zijn presentaties en hoor het vaak hilarische commentaar van de meester zelf.

Lees meer Twitter-verslagen:

• Steve Krug’s Don’t make me Think-workshop

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Ik ging naar de workshop en zette alle 57 inzichten die ik toen kreeg op Twitter – in het Engels.
Beleef de workshop van Steve Krug alsof je er zelf bij was!

Voor iedereen met interesse voor:

• Website usability
• Simpele, goedkope usability tests
• Leestips
• Gratis tools

Wat ik leerde van Steve Krug:

1. Steve recommends reading Forms that work
2. 20% of people is search dominant
3. The main thing you can spot in eyetracking is reading
4. Give important content a graphic treatment and it will look like an ad, and nobody reads it
5. Geruststellend tekstje onder action button is bij Amazon soms een linkje, bv Change payment method onder bestelknop
6. Elements that promote credibility of websites – Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab http://captology.stanford.edu/
7. Clarity trumps everything, should be number 1 priority for websites
8. Nobody in the history of recorded time has ever taken home a video tape recording of a usability test, so don’t tape them
9. Steve watches his own gaze patterns when using the web for daily tasks, surprised at the amount of reading he does
10. Gaze patterns of individual users more insightful than heatmaps so record SOME sessions
11. One of the hardest things about testing: start early enough. Start before you have a lot worth testing
12. It’s pretty much impossible to get rid of all the usability problems, so get over it
13. Often it’s really easy to find the most serious usability problems
14. Consistency is an overrated usability principle. Forget about consistency when you gain clarity by being inconsitent
15. 3 main questions during usability test: 1. What are you thinking, 2. What are you looking at, 3. What did you expect would happen
16. Motto when fixing usability: What’s the smallest change we can maken that might solve the problem?
17. The more whitespace around something, the more people will notice it
18. Visual hierarchy: things that are important look important, by making them bigger
19. Jared Spool: Redesigns don’t work, do evolution as opposed to redesign
20. Simple, frequent user testing is what will always make a site better, not bringing in outside experts
21. User testing pretty much always works, producing very valuable results with minimal efforts
22. Bare bones usability testing: a morning a month
23. Bare bones usability testing: 3 or 4 users in each test
24. Don’t use same test users more than once on the same site: if you’ve used them, you’ve burnt them
25. Usability testing is like live theatre. Get as many people to watch because everybody finds it interesting
26. Use any trickery to get people to watch, eg ask your manager saying it would be great for the morale of the web team if she pokes her head in
27. For most testing you can use most anybody. They will still run into the same problems as someone from your actual target audience
28. Use free screen recording software: Camtasia or Morae (Techsmith.com) of CamStudio
29. Don’ts in usability testing: 1. Collect data on who test users were, don’t keep extra information
30. Don’ts in usability testing: 2. Ask exit questions about your brand + the usability of your site coz they’ll be unreliable
31. Don’ts in usability testing: 3. No big report, just draw conclusions over lunch with the webteam Steve Krug demonstreert een discount usability test met een workshopdeelnemer
32. After usability test figure out with webteam which 3-4 problems you are going to fix and who is going to fix them
33. Use screen recording during user test and e-mail some recordings to people
34. Discount user test: drag 3-4 people in and have them look at your homepage to figure out what the site is about
35. Discount user test: have them perform typical task that they can choose themselves
36. Discount user test: ask them to think out loud
37. Discount user test: have them do the same process with 1 or 2 competitor’s sites
38. Use sample usability test script and just read it aloud during test, don’t improvise
39. Use a USB microphone to avoid technical problems with sound card, test user voice really clear!
40. Stick to what you saw in a test. If a help text is unclear fix that help text, don’t change whole way you write help texts
41. When you start prototyping find a site that does what you’re thinking of doing and test that
42. Choosing tasks to test: what have we built that we can test, or test sketches, linked wireframes or HTML of a few pages
43. Recommended read: Paper prototyping
44. Choosing tasks: What task do you wake up thinking about, What tasks are people likely to do, What tasks crucial 4 business
45. Test real tasks that people would have done IRL, free range browsing tasks are good for testing
46. Give them a task and give them a scenario for the task to get some context (don’t get carried away on the context)
47. Test a task: supply specific information the user would actually have or get it real and let them use their own information
48. Writing scenario for user task: don’t use telegraph style and before giving the printed task read it aloud to him
49. A user test should not last longer than 1 hour per user
50. Clear your browser cache between user tests to erase visited links
51. In user test scenario avoid using words that will appear on screen
52. Most seducing book on Steve’s reading table: Neuro web design – What makes them click by Weinschenk, definitely buying it
53. Another good read: Building findable websites
54. Lists are surprisingly similar when website stakeholdes are asked to list most important tasks for users on their website
55. Tell test users to not use search
56. Tips for paying test users: gifts, some of your software, amazon gift certificate
57. Moderated remote testing Webex, Gotomeeting, Uservue, record it at your end with Camtasia or Morae

Lees meer Twitter-verslagen:

• Gerry McGovern’s Killer Web Content-masterclass

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