Creative approaches to say sorry more positively

Having worked on a number of web projects over the years, I still receive great examples of 404 page designs sent to me by my former team members. Why? A well designed 404 page can be an opportunity to build your brand when something goes wrong for your user and I attempt to bring them in all web projects I work on. If you're not a webmaster, you may not know what a 404 is, although you will certainly have seen them! Technically speaking Wikipedia describe it as 'The 404 or Not Found error message is a HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested.' Your users will describe it, to quote a great TED talk by Renny Gleeson  as 'a slap in…

Using customer surveys and feedback data as part of a methodology for improving customer journeys

If you want to improve your customer’s experience, listen to what your customers are saying.

Like any cliché, it is easier said than done... Over-simplification can be misleading and it misses the most important point: what are the drivers for customer to follow the path-to-purchase?

If you want to improve your customer experience you need to be focused on the path or the journey and the reasons behind it. Along the way you may find that some aspects you previously considered as the only way to do things are actually not enough. Marketing automation is not enough.

As shocking as it seems for some of us, many businesses worldwide still prioritise outbound marketing and customer acquisition; by speaking at customers, rather than inbound marketing and retention; actually listening to what customers are saying with the objective to provide a good…

If User Experience (UX) is a no brainer then why isn't it higher on the agenda?

There are many tools and resources available to help us ensure that the user experience is improved; whether its enhanced through  user testing, eyetracking research or third-party experience evaluation tools.

Vitamin's Talent's Infographic reminds us of the powerful impact of getting this right since:

97% of websites fail at the UX due to a poor customer experience.86% of users give up as they feel companies don't care.Developers spend 50% of their time fixing issues which could be avoided.

We also included this as an example of a full page interactive infographic.

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In this E-marketing Essentials interview, I ask web design and usability specialist Paul Rouke for the low-down on findability, which is increasingly applied as a discipline within usability projects, partly prompted by Peter Morville"€™s book "€œAmbient Findability"€. We define Findability, look at Findability methodologies, some of the biggest mistakes to avoid and as include some practical tips. Thanks to Paul Rouke for sharing his experience of findability applied to different types of commercial sites. Paul has over 8 years of experience in improving usability for transactional E-commerce sites based on over 6 years as lead user experience designer at Littlewoods Shop Direct (www.lwsdg.co.uk) and more recently with his web design and usability company PRWD (www.prwd.co.uk). He also writes at www.paulrouke.co.uk on usability, user experience and information architecture.

What is findability?

Q1. What do you see as findability? Why is…