Sunday 30 January 2011

Improving website performance - McGovern case studies

In recent weeks Gerry McGovern has been sharing success stories of major companies who have worked with him. Gerry's techniques are remarkably straightforward but require incredible focus and ruthlessness when it comes to content.

Social media use by UK universities

Brian Kelly of UK Web Focus at the University of Bath has summarised corporate activity of Russell Group universities on Twitter and Facebook.

Thursday 27 January 2011

Better content by design

An interesting article and podcast by content strategist Kristina Halvorson, looking at how focused and hardworking the content on your webpage really is. Much like Gerry McGovern, she's emphasising the need to focus on your users' tasks ahead of marketing yourself.

New BBC website accessibility tool

The BBC launched a trial of their new website accessibility tool, My Display, last month.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Social media use in the public sector

I've been reading around a number of reports and articles on the use of social media in the public sector - how to make best use of the tools available and encourage responsible behaviour amongst staff. It's interesting that the same points are coming up again and again.

Saturday 15 January 2011

What not to measure

A quick reminder from Gerry McGovern about why judging your website by the number of visits you get is not a particularly clever thing to do.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Online surveys - a lesson in what not to do

Jared Spool recounts his recent experience of completing a survey for United Airlines, revealing 19 things not to do.

Your user experience vision

An excellent article (with loads of resources) about developing a user experience vision for your website or service - and why you need one in the first place.

Customer support free webinar - Gerry McGovern

Gerry McGovern is presenting a free online seminar on Web customer support best practice on Monday, 17 January 2011.

Xbox Kinect interface usability

Nothing to do with university website management, but an interesting article nonetheless. Jakob Nielsen's appraisal reminds us of the underlying usability principles that apply to all interfaces. Plus you may have bought one this Christmas.

Friday 7 January 2011

Reading behaviour trends

Interesting article about how interaction with the web is affecting our attention spans and the way we read.