My Brain is a Big Mesh

Just got back from Mesh. However, I've been so preoccupied with the website relaunch (yes I'm sorry to still be harping about this - at least the end is in site - June 18 is the go live date) that I haven't been able to sleep. So it's been hard dragging my extremely tired ass, attached to my stressed-out mind to this conference.

But I'm glad I did. Maybe it was the free Red Bull they were giving out, but despite my relaunch-withdrawal-induced insomnia, I had a great time, learned a few things, and talked to a lot of interesting people.

Mesh also had the unexpected benefit of having me home before 9pm so that I had time to blog and tag.

Spending the last couple days hearing and discussing all the cool things people are doing on the web, made me realize what a relaunch bubble I have been in lately. Not only has my dear blog languished, but I haven't tagged anything to del.icio.us in almost a month. I may love my del.icio.us bookmarks even more than you dear blog, so when I tagged Interaction Camp today (which I'm hoping my kaput ass can make it to this Saturday morning) I felt like I was reconnecting with a long-forgotten friend (a feeling not dissimilar to a friend request from someone barely remembered from highschool).

Okay, so back to Mesh.

First, I loved the setting: MaRS. Great mix of a heritage and new building.

Second, the attendees at this seemed way more friendly than any other conference or seminar I have ever been to. And they were very interesting and knowledgeable - I finally feel like I have found others in the know (I've been questing for a group of Internet professionals in Toronto and have been disappointed as some are too badly organized, some are full of amateurs and others are really only for marketing-types). So it was exciting to meet people with a similar background and passion for the Internet. Wish it wasn't just for two days though.

The keynotes, panels and workshops were good - particularly since the organizers had gathered impressive speakers both well-known and lesser-known experts.

I think the most useful things for me was the 15 Minutes of Fame that allowed innovative companies to introduce their wares. I'll be trying out at least a couple things from this and will be blogging about this later.

Mesh was a happy interlude - reaffirming my love of the Internet and love of talking about the Internet. Now back to the grind...

Website Accessibility Full of Barriers

I’m trying to make the relaunched website I’m working on more accessible to people with disabilities.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) publishes standards for accessibility. The W3C have done a good job of organizing this information and I applaud this initiative. However, there are problems with their standards:

Some are no-brainers
Who’s using blinking text anymore? I haven’t seen it on any site – even cheesy ones – for 5 years or more. Although Facebook should take note of this for allowing those recent annoying flickering ads that were seizure-inducing to anyone. Does the blink tag even work any more?

Some can’t practically be done
For example, marking up quotations as such – while the {blockquote} tag is ideal for block quotes (we’re not using it for indenting anymore) and it is well supported by most browsers, but for in-line quotations the {q} tag should be used. That's fine except that Internet Explorer doesn’t support it and that represents most of our site’s traffic.

Some items are very time-consuming to do and of limited value
For example identifying the target of a link. Normally, this should be apparent from the context of the text, and if it isn’t then that’s bad writing. There are a few items that are of dubious value, and in checking out a Canadian website trumpeting website accessibility even they are not doing some of these items.

Some items require programming effort
There are some items I would like to do but require a programmer. For example,specifying tab order through forms and providing server redirects rather than meta redirects. The work that can be done simply, has the best chance of actually getting done.

It’s practically impossible to have a fully accessible site, but with some effort I think we can do some things that will help, specifically:

1. Using alt text in images. I was doing this already, though some others working on our site haven’t been. I’m going to get everyone to commit to doing a better job of alt text, particularly with graphs
2. We already used the header tags (eg. {h1}, {h2}) so we’ll continue doing that and we also use lists correctly too.
3. Not using tables for layout at all
4. Not using {blockquote} for indenting
   
5. Got rid of all that blinking text that we used to have so much of
6. Allowing users to increase the text size
   
7. Not using colours that are problematic for the colour blind
8. Recoding our tabular data into accessible tables.

Regarding the last point, I’m having a lot of trouble finding the best way to do an accessible table. Here’s what a colleague and I have come up with. Please help me out with any suggestions on how to do a table.

Accessible table???
{table class="xxx" summary="This table shows how the age of Mary and Betty makes a difference in their admission cost to movie tickets.}
{thead}
{tr}
{th} {/th}
{th}Mary {/th}
{th}Betty{/th}
{/tr}
{/thead}
{tbody}
{tr class="XX"}
{th}Age{/th}
{td}53{/td}
{td}64{/td}
{/tr}
{tr class="XX"}
{th}Admission cost{/th}
{td}$15{/td}
{td}$10{/td}
{/tr}
{/tbody}
{/table}

Please let me know if there’s anything we should be doing different.

Relaunch Frenzy

Anyone that's worked in the Internet will be able to share the pain I am currently going through.

I am relaunching the website for the company I work for. Relaunch hell is well under way!

While I am getting help, the company I work for is fairly small so as I'm leading this project, I'm also doing a lot. So the inner-most circle of relaunch hell!!! (I do have some great help, but no one ever haves enough help for a relaunch, right?)

Yet there are some real wins for this relaunch that I have been pushing for that make it all worthwhile, including:

• site architecture moved from organizational to client-focused and terminology more user-friendly
• stripping formatting code from the main web copy and making awesome use of CSS
• switching to XHTML
• adding elements of website accessibility for disabled users
• new design - with more real estate
• much more engaging, flexible homepage
• adding navigation aids, such as breadcrumbs, colour-delineated channels, awesome Quick Links feature (I blogged about this earlier)
• adding a lot of content to fill in gaps as identified by our search logs & focus groups
• printer-friendly version added for every page
• improved page cannot be found page (so users don't get that useless default 404 error)

And some other things. But I'm too tired from all this relaunch work and Facebook fix.

So forgive me blog readers if you don't hear from me until this is over in late June.

To fill in the Webslinger gap, I have a great idea...

I hear that I have blog readers but so far I think only 4 people read it. So if you read this blog, prove it!

Let me know what your tip is for surviving a relaunch!

Or let me know what last-minute things I should add or any general relaunch tips. Let me hear it - I can use the support and frankly this will be only social interaction I'll be getting until relaunch.

Facebook is cyber-crack

It was exactly 10 days ago today that a friend, Lisa, invited me to join Facebook. I heard of Facebook but had no idea that it was open to anyone other than university students (Facebook opened their doors to anyone as of Sept. 2006).

It's only been ten days but it's been ten days of a cyber-crack induced haze of Facebook addiction. In that short time, I've gone from a Facebook virgin to Facebook tramp. During this time, I've forsaken my previous devoted amours of LinkedIn and even you, dear blog.

In honour of ten days of Facebook bliss, here are my ten favourite things about Facebook:

1. it's the most fun social networking site - LinkedIn may be more useful but isn't much fun and MySpace may be more popular, but it sucks
2. you can post embarrassing photos of your friends and tag their name to the pic and then all their friends will see the photo and join in the laughs
3. great way to find old friends and actually reconnect for free. You can find friends by searching by their name or joining your past school's inevitably pre-existing Group. Classmates.com, the granddaddy of social networking sites lost their edge by insisting on charging for this same functionality
4. their event feature is like other sites (e-vent and Upcoming) but these sites make you get your contact network to these sites, whereas Facebook easily integrates with your existing network for private events and it also allows public events, or a combo of both
5. as they say, Facebook is a stalker's best friend - Facebook's homepage makes it very easy to see exactly what your friends are up to (and it's way more fun than Twitter!)
6. has same cool Group functionality as Yahoo or Google but as with point #4 you can tap into your existing network rather than try and get them to come to another website
7. lots of sites try to encourage community by having members fill out Profiles but only Facebook seamlessly creates a network out of Profile interests. For instance, I had no idea so many people (320 in fact - some even under 50) shared my love of Golden Girls - now I don't feel so alone!
8. has no annoying audio clips that start to play automatically when you visit a friend's page, like MySpace does
9. let's you block "Friends" without their knowing it, which I have used to tune someone out without any awkward unpleasantness
10. with ten friends you can too play the Friends Game! It's oh so much fun!

Yes, Facebook offers the addictive highs of cocaine and heroin, without the body-ravaging side effects.

Try it now! C'mon all your friends are doing it...

How to pay online with no credit card

My colleague, Michelle, at Scotiabank will be happy to know that I read all of their digital marketing and educational material. As such, I recently noticed that it is now possible to use your debit card online, through Interact Online.

I use my credit card to shop online, as I am not worried about the security (particularly since I don’t do business with those types of merchants in the first place) and I love/am obsessed with Air Miles, which my credit cards offers with every purchase.

For those without a credit card or reluctant to use it online, however, buying products or services online has long been a fundamental roadblock.

While Interact Online helps remove some e-payment obstacles, there are still roadblocks:

1. one has to bank online (which is granted a large and growing number of Canadians)
2. only Scotiabank, RBC, TD, and soon BMO customers can use it
3. only a small number of merchants and few major businesses offer it (looking at the list of participating merchants, there wasn’t one I would be able to use)
   

Considering the last two limitations, it explains why I hadn’t heard of this service before, even though it launched in Dec. 2005!

The winner in alternative online payment is still, unquestionably, PayPal.

PayPal, in addition to allowing service via credit cards also hooks up with one's online bank to facilitate online payment. PayPal is offered at more, and more important merchants than Interact. (There are lots of things to love about PayPal. PayPal earned my loyalty ever since I first used it to buy my cherished Simpsons' Halloween figures on eBay, but that’s another post)

Finally, another option is emailing money. Scotiabank offered this service at least a couple years ago and I love it. Granted, I don’t like the additional service charge, but it sure is an easy way to send money. Never could figure out how to do an online bank transfer, but emailing money only takes a couple minutes – essentially all you need is a online bank account, your payee’s email address and a question to pose to the payee that only they will know the answer to. The downside of the ease of this service is there is no excuse now when borrowing money to not pay it back!

Breadcrumbs help hold a website together

In an upcoming website relaunch I’m working on, I’m making a few tinkers to the website. Overall, I’m trying to move the site from an organizational focus to a client focus – all in the hope of users finding the information they want and need quickly and easily.

One technique I’ll finally be deploying is breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs, for those that don’t know, are named after Hansel & Gretel. When being lead to their doom deep in the forest, Gretel threw breadcrumbs to mark their trail so they could return. To prevent you from getting lost in website wilderness, breadcrumbs are links on top of a webpage that show you where the page you are on is in the hierarchy of the site architecture.

Breadcrumbs don’t show you where you have been, as some believe they should, as that’s what the Back button and History files are for.

To see a sample of it, check out a HowStuffWorks’ article How Science Fiction Musicals Work. Note the links on the top-left corner that say “Main > Entertainment > Arts” – that’s breadcrumbs.

Jakob Nielsen Alertbox article yesterday Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful highlights the benefits of breadcrumbs and the arguments for and against.

Among the benefits Nielsen sites:

* Breadcrumbs show people their current location relative to higher-level concepts, helping them understand where they are in relation to the rest of the site.
* Breadcrumbs afford one-click access to higher site levels and thus rescue users who parachute into very specific but inappropriate destinations through search or deep links.
* Breadcrumbs never cause problems in user testing: people might overlook this small design element, but they never misinterpret breadcrumb trails or have trouble operating them.
* Breadcrumbs take up very little space on the page.

The only convincing argument against breadcrumbs is the time it takes to add them to an existing site. It’s not something that can be phased in, so adding this to every page in a website is a significant effort, hence the reason I’m timing it with a relaunch.

Online drives offline sales

I still keep hearing the criticism of the Internet that e-Commerce is a fraction of retail sales. For years, I have been trying to convince people that the influence of websites far exceeds the total amount purchased online. Online purchase totals are almost insignificant compared to the influential power of Internet vehicles to help consumers decide their offline purchases. And I'm not even factoring in the value of brand building online.

For instance, almost everyone, with a computer and Net connection, does at least some research online before booking a trip. But buying trips online is still rather difficult if you have complicated plans and it lacks the in-person assurance of having someone to advise you and to rely on if anything goes wrong.

Researching online but buying offline also applies to clothes, books and DVDs, property, investments, appliances & electronics, decorating products, etc.

Today, I found a study that confirms my point. Internet sources are the most-consulted sources of information for car buyers. Car manufacturers obviously have known this, as their websites are among the slickest looking and have the coolest functionality among any websites.

The fully study by Capgemini and sited in e-Marketer.com, shows that Internet sources represent three of the top five sources (the study was for buyers in the U.S., U.K, France, Germany & China). Manufacturer’s websites was the top source, even beating dealerships.

The top sources with their respective percentages of respondents are:

1. Manufacturer websites = 49%
2. Family & friends = 46%
3. Manufacturer-specific dealer = 46%
4. Information websites = 45%
5. Dealer websites = 43%
6. Specialist automotive press = 37%
7. Independent e-Tailer websites = 31%
8. Independent car valuation services = 29%
9. Print advertising = 25%
10. Used car dealer = 25%
11. TV advertising = 24%
12. Non-specialist press = 17%
13. Web forum and discussion groups = 16%

I think this case is now officially closed. I’m not even going to argue this point any more – though I may send them this link.