Haydn Thomsen's Web log

Doggelganger - Recognition

2011-06-26T22:25:00.000+12:00

Doggelganger has now officially had the most traffic and involved the most hard core hosting infrastructure for a short term campaign site I have produced.

Without getting into boring specifics we're nearing on 2 million visits, 750,000 matches, from over 200 countries. Hosting infrastructure and application architecture has been steadily evolving to meet the needs of the application and interest it's attracting online, in social media, in foreign and domestic media and probably most of all from people who have used it -> loved it -> and shared it.

If it's done one thing for me it's opened my eyes to the possibilities hosting in the cloud will offer truly successful & viral large scale web applications AND more importantly some of the application and hosting architecture planning work that MUST be done in advance to plan for campaigns go nuts like this one. Retrofitting apps designed for 50,000 Visits to handle 2 million Visits can be a 'mare if you don't have a great team.

It's been great this week to get some recognition:

At Cannes - Bronze in Direct Response Digital - Check it out
On The FWAs Public Shortlist - http://thefwa.com/shortlist/doggelganger

Full credit to Aaron, Levi and the team for the idea, Colin & Paul for the build and also Greg at Oxigeno for supplying awesome Hardware and ongoing network support & consultancy to keep the hosting solution evolving. And of course everyone else at Colenso, Glen at NEC, the brave team at Mars / Pedigree. Nice one.

Doggelgänger – a human to canine pairing innovation to help find homeless dogs homes

2011-05-30T22:53:00.001+12:00

Colenso BBDO, in conjunction with PEDIGREE, has created a campaign using facial recognition software to connect homeless dogs to their human doubles.

The state-of-the-art interspecies comparison software analyses your facial features and compares them with a nationwide database of real dogs looking for adoption.
Find your match now at doggelganger.co.nz

Colenso BBDO named 2010 Interactive Agency of the Year

2011-01-04T07:25:00.002+13:00

We were awarded 2010 Interactive Agency of the Year at the B & T Awards in Australia on December 2010.

http://www.campaignbrief.com/nz/2010/12/bt-awards-colenso-bbdo-aucklan.html

and

http://www.bandt.com.au/awards.aspx

Pretty good for a team of 4 full time 2010 staff:
Aaron Turk - Creative Director
Haydn Thomsen - Senior Digital Producer
Simon Koay and Tim Smith - Digital Creatives
During the year we also had Matthew Visser join us and used some of the best freelancers or companies I've ever worked with - especially Salted Herring - http://www.saltedherring.co.nz

Evolution is judged Site of the Day by FWA

2010-10-16T08:03:00.004+13:00

The Evolution game was judged Site Of The Day by the FWA on October 15th. It was developed for Frucor's V Energy Drink - NZ's most popular energy drink.

FWA stands for Favourite Website Awards, an industry recognised internet award program and inspirational portal, established in May 2000.

FWA is the most visited website award program in the history of the internet, with over 100 million visits as of August 2010.

Check out evolution on FWA - thefwa.com/site/evolution

or play the game itself and help my KPI's (campaign closes on 19th October :-) - vrepublic.co.nz/evolution

Credits
Awesome creative, copy, idea, making it happen - Aaron Turk
Beautiful illustrations and artwork like no other - Watermark
Development - David Colquhoun
Client who trusted us - Frucor
And all the suits on the V account at Colenso BBDO; Jessica, Stefanie, Tim & Angela
Producer - me

Colenso BBDO: Work and Recognition

2010-08-21T11:59:00.008+12:00

Kapiti Art Project
AWARD TYPE: Axis
YEAR: 2009
CATEGORY: Screen Content
AWARD: Online Film
PLACING: Bronze
ADVERTISER: Fonterra
URL: Kapiti Collection Website
Senior Creative Interactive: Aaron Turk
Interactive Production Company - Salted Herring
Interactive Producer - Haydn Thomsen

Changing The Way You Fly
AWARD TYPE: Axis
YEAR: 2009
CATEGORY: Digital
AWARD: Website Design and Art Direction
PLACING: Gold
AGENCY: Colenso BBDO
ADVERTISER: Air New Zealand

changingthewayyoufly.co.nz website taken down so see Air New Zealand Changing The Way You Fly website
Creative Director - Aaron Turk
Account Director - Cath Bosson
Senior Creative Interactive - Aaron Turk
Interactive Design - Simon Koay
Interactive Producer - Hamish Wanhill & Haydn Thomsen
Developer - Tim Smith

Alzheimer's New Zealand - Early Warning Signs
AWARD TYPE: Axis
YEAR: 2009
CATEGORY: The Big Awards
AWARD: 360 Axis
PLACING: Silver
AGENCY: Colenso BBDO
ADVERTISER: Alzheimer's New Zealand - Early Warning Signs
CREDITS: Executive Creative Director - Nick Worthington
Art Director - Lisa Fedyszyn & Jonathan McMahon
Copywriter - Jonathan McMahon & Lisa Fedyszyn
Account Director - Gemma Findlay
Planner - Hayley Pardoe
Agency Producer - Phil Newman
Agency Radio Producer - Gemma Heyes
Interactive Design/Developer - Tim Smith
Interactive Producer - Haydn Thomsen

360 + Axis on Caanz Website

Vodafones 10th Birthday, Pass the Parcel

AWARD TYPE: Axis
YEAR: 2009
CATEGORY: Mobile
AWARD: Mobile
PLACING: Bronze
AGENCY: Colenso BBDO
ADVERTISER: Vodafone
REEL: Vodafone Pass The Parcel reel on Caanz website or on my Carbon Made portfolio

Executive Creative Director - Nick Worthington
Account Director - Jenny Wildner
Account Manager - Celeste Pulman
Planner - James Hurman
Senior Creative Interactive - Alexandra Spirat
Interactive Producer - Haydn Thomsen
Digital Strategy - Adam Good
Mobile Development - Run The Red

Code Blacks win Full Code Press 2009

2009-05-17T20:30:00.002+12:00

Yeah baby.

It was hard, it was cool and we did it - winning the FCP2009 vs the Australian team. Towards the end of the 24 hours I realised it was less about the competition and more about doing something great for our clients and team mates. But I still wanted to win.

The test Rainbow Youth website can be seen here (may break once site is live live)
There's a FullCodePress YouTube channel that has heaps of interviews with the teams, and judges and others. Probably really lame unless you're one of them.
And heaps of other stuff floating around the the InterWeb

Selected for the Code Blacks

2009-05-09T09:47:00.002+12:00

I am privileged to be a part of the 2009 Code Blacks - The NZ team of Web Geeks travelling to Sydney on May 11th to take part in the 2nd FullCodePress competition.

The rest of the team are/seem to be very experienced and well known in NZ Web circles. Not exactly sure how UI was selected as PM but it may have something to do with my very much fly by the seat of my pants approach to project management. Although I have trained and been involved in many different 'official' or company project management methodologies from Prince 2 to Shift and Intergens fairly solid waterfall methodologies and even dabbled in Agile, I find that if you are working with true professionals who are good at what they do then a more relaxed approach can win every time. Think good communications, visual tools where ever possible and just go for it.

Many people will not agree but it always seems to get the job done - and done well.

What's Next After Web 2.0?

2008-10-12T22:49:00.003+13:00

Average Article on ReadWriteWeb on what impact the finanical crisis is having on where Web technology is heading including some picks and trends by their 'experts' which are all to predictable...

What's Next After Web 2.0

To sum up in a few words; Semantic, Google, Acquire, Web Services, Open, Facebook.

Come on! There's nothing new here.

The Google Reflex

2008-06-16T11:52:00.003+12:00

Read this interesting article on Gen Y insights blog themarketingstudent.com about the different ways Gen Y'ers and Baby Boomers shop.

Baby Boomers trust the sales person, traditional advertising and marketing and often relinquish control of a transaction. In a store they can often be heard saying "Which one would you buy....", "What would you recommend..."

Whereas Gen Y have developed a distrust for traditional sales and marketing. Before they visit the store, they have researched online, read reviews and know everything they need and what to buy.

Most likely starting with Google. It calls this the "Google Reflex". I know this has been true for me when researching products or services for a very long time - I have almost got to the point where I think shit website = shit company or product.

How do Sales and Marketing teams handle this?

New Zealand On Air

2008-06-12T11:46:00.002+12:00

Cool site that Sam sent me - OURNEWZEALAND

Maybe my brother should have made a small vid of his latest fishing adventures and skited to the world - not just me.

How come he gets to go fishing every day, while I work. Check it out.

Cool Brand Tags

2008-05-13T15:08:00.001+12:00

This is kinda cool. The idea is that you are shown a logo and enter a word that associate with that brand and then you can see all the "tags" that others have given that brand in a big tag cloud.

E.g. The tag cloud for Walmart shows that the word "evil" is pretty big - but "cheap" is even bigger!

Brand Tags

Does marketing on Facebook actually work?

2008-04-25T20:08:00.007+12:00

I'm not so sure yet but Facebook have published a book to tell you how to do it - "Facebook Insider's Guide to Viral Marketing"

Here's a synopsis

"Many businesses, from leading global brands to favorite local bands, are enjoying tremendous impact using Facebook Pages for free viral marketing. Check out some key strategies from the most successful businesses on Pages:

1) Regularly adding engaging and useful content
2) Letting fans participate in the conversation
3) Expanding their distribution with Facebook Ads

We’ve collected some of these winning strategies—along with the nuts of bolts of how to create and manage a Page—into an Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing"

Great Extensible CSS, JavaScript, AJAX Article and Examples

2008-04-02T11:15:00.003+13:00

I never thought I'd be posting about code but I couldn't resist - the Highly Extensible CSS Interface is a series of 4 articles, tutorials, an awesome working sample website and fully downloadable source code which are too good to ignore. If you're a NZ user interface designer/coder and want to lift your game this is a great place to start.

Links to the full demo site, tutorials and downloadable files are collected nicely on this page .

Here’s what to expect:

Part One: The Foundation - brief discussion of importance of producing visually rich interfaces with semantic, accessible, and portable markup underneath.
Part Two: CSS Selectors & jQuery - Articles shift into discussion of code (and start losing me :-)
Part Three: Adding Ajax Interactivity
Part Four: Testing for Extensibility

YouTXT no more. Long live YouTXT

2008-04-02T10:29:00.003+13:00

My time at YouTXT has come to an end. YouTXT the business continues and I'm sure will grow to be successful under Sam Allen's awesome leadership but I am no longer a Director or shareholder.

Some recent developments.

Awesome work by Sam and JD. I wish them all the best and will keep a keen eye on their progress.

Find out more about YouTXT on their blog or website.

My boy

2007-10-07T23:30:00.000+13:00

My son is one of my favorite topics lately - and I suspect for a long time to come. Now 7 months old - here's some pics.

The Chemical Brothers

2007-10-07T22:55:00.000+13:00

Hmm.. I think I'll go to the Chemical Brothers in February.

Get a baby sitter, and a small posse together, and make a night of it.

I am not their biggest fan today but their music is a part of my history growing up in the mid 90's and early 2000's and so many good memories. Their big beat, techy electronica along with the big warehouse and venue trance (shame) parties of the day got me hooked on electronica. My musical taste may have changed (for the better) but I still love hearing the cheesy big tracks like Elektrobank, Hey Boy, Hey Girl and Block Rocking Beats.

I've never seen them live but their live shows are meant to be sick (am I too old to use that word :-) Seeing these videos on YouTube from Glastonbury earlier in the year has twisted my rubber arm.

There's 3 others in the series

Change of tack

2007-10-07T22:13:00.000+13:00

I've decided to broaden the content of Web NZ to include some of my other interests. I'll still post on anything I find interesting in the online world, on YouTXT, Usability, what I'm up to professionally and New Zealanders doing cool things - like Dave ten Have and Ponoko making it to TechCrunch. And then, by all accounts making a big splash in a very big pond by getting named "..the most original idea.." by the review panel.

I admit, it took me a little while to get my head around what exactly Ponoko is or does but it is one of the most original ideas I have heard in a long time. In a world where most "new" web businesses are just different takes on existing ideas - done differently and occasionally better, Ponoko is a modern day example of "Kiwi Ingenuity" that sets the bar for NZ software companies. I have worked briefly with founder David ten Have (or Dave5) who was my boss at Trade NZ about 10+ years ago, and John Lewis from Intergen who is a kick-ass coder with serious business nous. They are both really smart guys and I wish Ponoko the best of luck.

Go TUANZ. Awesome promotion.

2007-09-12T20:03:00.000+12:00

This is great example of a NZ organisation using YouTube to promote their cause.

Is it viral? Is it effective? I think so.

In the 10 minutes since I 1st saw it in the Google reader widget on my iGoogle home page, I have watched it, posted a comment on Rod Drury's blog, emailed it to one friend and am now adding it to my blog. I think so.

Career update

2007-08-20T20:12:00.000+12:00

I've left Intergen and began contracting with Ferrit.

Intergen are a great company and I learned alot from my time there. I'm proud of the work I did while in the Auckland office and rate them as the best medium to large Microsoft development shop in NZ.

However, Life goes on...

By their own admission, the Ferrit website has plenty of room for improvement and I'm looking forward to the challenge over the coming months. They have a vision, a great team and resources which is a good start towards a successful project.

My SMS information service business YouTXT continues of course. Use of the free service continues to build slowly and we have had some success. Check out some case studies of how people are using it on the YouTXT blog. We have also had some serious interest in customised solutions. Hopefully I'll be able to announce something soon...

Finalist in FullCodePress competition

2007-07-05T14:56:00.000+12:00

It seems I've been shortlisted as a finalist for the FullCodePress competition against Australia on the 18th August.

What is the FullCodePress? Officially, "...the brainchild of the people at Webstock and WIPA. In essence it’s a geek Olympics!" but to me it's more like the C4 48 hour film festival for websites.

I'm stoked to have made the final 3 - Fingers x'ed because the winner is drawn from the hat.

2007 Web 2.0 Award Winners Announced

2007-05-21T06:36:00.000+12:00

SEOmoz has announced the winners of their annual Web 2.0 awards. Although there were a few surprises it was great to see Threadless recognised as the premier Web 2.0 retail site - something I've been saying for ages :-)

There were no kiwi sites there but it was great to see Grant Robinson get a mention for his truly addictive "Guess-the-Google"

It also made be stop and think that so many of these winning sites are part of (almost) everyday life on the web. Think about it -

Del.icio.us, Digg - Social tagging / news
LinkedIn - isn't everyone?
YouTube
Google - iGoogle is my home page + Google Reader, Docs, Analytics, AdWords, Gmail and Blogger
Picasa organises my photos on my machine and online
LastFM is what i listen to at work (and it listens to me too)
And that's just for starters - there's many more that did not win awards such as TradeMe

YouTXT Blog up and running

2007-05-15T07:32:00.000+12:00

The YouTXT Blog is up and running.

OK - It's only got 1 real post talking about some of the big brands using SMS Marketing in New Zealand - but it's a start...

Web 2.0 Twilight and Challenge

2007-04-20T21:43:00.000+12:00

I just got back from Intergen's Twilight seminar on Web 2.0 and I've got to say I was impressed. John Lewis was an excellent presenter and made some interesting points and especially liked his 4 part "web 2.0 challenge" to all the attendees...

Users front and centre
Re-imagine your UI
Free your data
Getting better, the more people who use it

John works for Intergen as a whiz-bang producer in our creative team. Check out more of his wize words on his blog umamiblog

Check out the presentation

Or download the presentation as a PDF - You can also find presentation material from other Intergen Twilights here.

Lastly - if you're interested in taking up John's challenge - Intergen is prepared to help you for free. Contact me at work on haydn.thomsen@intergen.co.nz

YouTXT - Creating and Sharing Information by SMS

2007-04-15T18:09:00.000+12:00

I’m pleased to announce that a new service that I’ve been working on has gone live! YouTXT is a service that brings TXT marketing to smaller organisations.

Some of the benefits to businesses:

Free to setup, no ongoing costs for the business
Easy to use site for managing TXT codes
Detailed reports on campagin effectiveness
Our success depends on your marketing success, we’re motivated to help you succeed!

If you are offering a service and would find benefit by allowing potential customers to TXT for more information then this would be a fantastic service for you. YouTXT is a small business that’s looking to help small businesses succeed by enabling this type of service to businesses that don’t have multi-national sized budgets for marketing. We really look forward to seeing how you guys use this service and I’m really excited about the prospects for some new features we’ve got planned.

More detail about how the service operates can be found on the site. If you would like to discuss with us about how this service could be adapted to your organisation please feel free to contact me.

My partners in this venture are the stars - JD from Mindscape, and top notch creative Sam Allen
Check it out here: http://www.youtxt.co.nz

All the cool kids are doing it

Usability Twilight - Part Two

2007-03-22T16:39:00.000+12:00

The Intergen User Experience & Usability Twilight was great, and the most successful in terms of attendees that Intergen has ever hosted. Approximately 100 attendees came to the Grande Plaza in Auckland and feedback collected on the night was excellent.

Thanks to all the speakers who did a fantastic job...

Natasha Hall – TradeMe User Experience: Speaking on the importance of creating a good user experience
Shailesh Manga – Optimal Usability: What is Usability and why should it be employed in projects
Henry Poppelwell - AMP: How AMP engaged usability in their last project, and perspectives on the benefits of doing so.
Miriam Walker - Usability Professional Association (UPA): Introduction and summary of what they do.

Intergen have started a blog to continue the discussion - I'll let you know when the presentation materials are available.

UPA "Interactionary" Event

2007-03-09T07:06:00.000+13:00

At the latest Usability Professionals Association meeting, I had the chance to team up with Sahilesh Manga, Blake Lough from Optimal Usability, and Sam Allen from Intergen in a "Interactionary Session". We had 10 minutes to solve a design problem revealed on the night and design a solution. You are judged on teamwork, process, user focus and the final design.

The problem was to design a dump truck remote control for a child - with a broken right arm. It was fun and I thought we kicked ass but unfortunately the judges didn't :-) We lost by 16 to 15 1/2 out of 20 to a Ninetend Wii like controller (which I hate to admit - was quite cool).

Anyways lot's of fun, and the UPA meetings are definitely worthwhile. If there's one in your neighbourhood I recommend you go check one out. You don't have to be a member to attend.

Dapper opens up the web

2007-02-03T00:10:00.000+13:00

Dapper is one of the more interesting applications I've used in a while. It is pretty cool.

Essentially, Dapper lets you create an API for any website which you can use to access the content of your choice, without needing to use RSS or programming. Once you choose, group and tag the specific information you want on a web page, it is stored as XML and can be accessed programatically or transformed into many formats including HTML, RSS, Google Maps, Email Alerts and more.

Simple uses include creating an RSS feed for a site that doesn't have one. More advanced is the mash-up site Magg which aggregrates the "latest and greatest movies" (their words - not mine) from various websites including Google, YouTube, MySpace etc. I'm still waiting to see a more commercial use however....

I only tried it yesterday and the UI is reasonably intuitive but the process for creating a Dapper takes a couple of go's to get used to so if you want to try it out - start with the demo on the home page.

Usability Twilight - Part One

2007-01-14T23:46:00.000+13:00

Intergen are hosting a Twilight session on Usability circa. March 15th (TBC) and it should be a good one.

I can't confirm all the speakers yet but it's likely to be 1 from a leading NZ website that is at the forefront of putting User Experience first, 1 from arguably the leading Usability Services company and of course the client endorsement from an Intergen project.

I'm assisting Sam Allen and Bryce Scanlen setup and run the Twilight, so if you want more information email me at work - haydn.thomsen@intergen.co.nz

Watch this space...

Apple launches iPhone

2007-01-12T07:20:00.000+13:00

So Apple has finally launched the iPhone... and what a phone it is!

Even though I've worked with Microsoft products, for Microsoft aligned companies and now for a Microsoft Gold Partner I am continually impressed by the innovation shown by Apple. From the iPod to the lovely new iMacs which are as close as a computer will get to a design classic Apple continually seem to be the 1st movers in user interface design, building products that people actually want, and doing really smart things with already existing technologies. The soft keyboard on the new iPhone is a classic example - touchscreens have been around for donkey's but by using it on the phone they have removed any constraints on the software placed by the hard keyboard. E.g. Too small, impossible to update. iPhone is all about the software.

Rod Drury has an interesting article on "Why Apple wins" with some great comments by his readers. He's even gone as far as buying some Apple shares which looks like a great investment!

Not to take the shine off the launch but it seems as if Apple didn't do everything in the right order and Cisco are suing them for Trademark infringement because they apparently acquired the Trademark for the "iPhone" name when they purchased Linksys. Here's the original iPhone - doesn't quite measure up does it...

Why Threadless is cool

2006-12-16T07:33:00.000+13:00

You know you've made it when you have a reasonably large fan blog that raves about how cool you are.

If that's the case then the t-shirt design site Threadless.com has more than made it - and "Loves Threadless - The Unofficial Threadless Fan Blog" has no qualms telling us all about it.

Threadless is an online community t-shirt store which has been around since 2000 and is run by a company called SkinnyCorp in the good old USA. I've bought t-shirts from there for about 2 years and seen it evolve into one of the best B2C E-Commerce sites around which epitomises Web 2.0.

The concept is fantastic - Basically it's a t-shirt store with an ongoing design competition. Two or three user-submitted designs are chosen each week to be printed and sold online based on the ranking given by Threadless members.

Here's a bullet point summation of why I think it's so successful and cool.

The user's are continually involved in the making of the website - they upload designs (Approx. 60,000 to date), rate designs, send in photos of them wearing the shirts, etc Threadless don't pay designers big fees for the t-shirts they print (Approx. 400 to date).

They have connected with their customers providing feedback on their products, and in part informing their strategy by introducing new product lines such as Threadless Select, Kids Tee's and Type Tees

The t-shirts they print have already been pre-approved by the target customer - and therefore have a good chance of selling

The execution of the site is excellent - it's design, ease of use and featureset are fantastic.

The t-shirts are cool and inexpensive - I own several so they must be.

Threadless Street Team - Affiliate type program where members get points ($1.50 discounts of their next purchase) for link referrals via websites or email which lead to purchases. Earn me a point by clicking on this link and buying a tee.

When you're considering a purchase, the site shows photos of real people wearing the shirt, and the odd celebrity such as Michael J. Fox and Zach Braff (Scrubs).

I have some support - Threadless.com won 2nd prize in the Retail category of SEOMOZ's Web 2.0 awards.

What do you think?

Google reader - wow!

2006-12-12T20:57:00.000+13:00

I just discovered Google Reader and it is great. It makes it easy to catch up will all the good blogs or feeds I read - and all in 1 place! You can sort by site, add tags and mark posts as read so that lists of posts don't get out of control. It has a great interface using expanded view and list view, and is very easy to use.

And what's even better is that it slots nicely into my Google personalised home page alongside my Gmail - Why would I go anywhere else?

Apparently Microsoft has a RSS aggregator built into Outlook 2007 which will be convenient but until I upgrade from Office 2003 - Googles the one for me.

Check it out.

Web 2.0 - What does it mean anyway?

2006-12-01T11:31:00.000+13:00

Good Question!

While I don’t pretend to know what Web 2.0 really is, and I certainly can’t articulate it in a couple of paragraphs - I do have a firm view on what it is not.

Web 2.0 is not AJAX
Web 2.0 is not Ruby on Rails
Web 2.0 is not the Atlas framework
Web 2.0 is not a technology.

As far as what Web 2.0 means for Intergen and our clients, this article on the Boxes and Arrows website does a pretty good job of explaining what Web 2.0 means to the Enterprise - and potentially how we could learn to understand it better, use it within Intergen, and offer better solutions to clients.

A Web 2.0 Tour for the Enterprise

Lastly, it may all be bullshit - but what if it’s not.. Some NZ companies are already adopting Web 2.0 technology and values - TradeMe being a notable example - Do us as Solution Providers want to continue to be leaders? Or watch our competitors pass us by…

World Usability Day 2006

2006-11-12T22:03:00.000+13:00

World Usability Day 2006 is on Tuesday 14th November and New Zealand will be the first country to kick it off.

World Usability Day promotes the value of usability engineering and user-centered design and the belief that every user has the responsibility to ask for things that work better.

The party is coming to Auckland on Tuesday 14th November and to 'celebrate', the Auckland UPA (Usability Professionals Association) Cluster has Natasha Hall from Trade Me and Shona Bishop from BNZ speaking. It will be interesting to see what these two have to say.

For more info on the event see the "Usability at Trade Me and the Bank of New Zealand" Event Details and the UPA New Zealand website

Card Sorting and Usability Testing - Part One

2006-10-19T07:44:00.000+13:00

In the past couple of weeks, I've taken part in two practical exercises which have really hit home the importance of involving real users to improve the information architecture and usability of a website - and how the two are linked.

The 1st was a Card Sorting exercise while at a UPANZ seminar on Information Architecture by David Pomeroy, and the 2nd was sitting in on some Usability Testing sessions run by Optimal Usability. I'll cover Card Sorting today and the Usability Testing later.

There is plenty written about cart sorting in IA books and websites but I had never read a good definitive article, nor had the chance to take part in it. Although the exercise was really simple my take on it is that it is an exercise using a series of cards, each labelled with a piece of content that make sense to particpants (users). It would be great when creating a site map and helps identify the following:

How users see the information
How different groups of users react to the content
How many categories of information are there
What the categories should be called

I think it is an easy exercise to sell to clients because it is Simple (Hey - if I can do it... it must be), Cheap, Quick and involves real live users.

Since then, I've looked for good articles and this is one of the best on the Boxes and Arrows site. Card sorting: a definitive guide

I'd love to hear others thoughts or experiences...

How do I enhance my businesses reputation - without being obvious?

2006-10-10T09:05:00.000+13:00

Recently, a colleague of mine posted on his blog how customers can leverage the internet to communicate dissatisfaction with a businesses products or services to a huge online audience, it's potential negative effects and how this makes good customer service even more critical to successful business.

Well - I think that's what he meant anyway.

There are examples of New Zealand websites that are dedicated to this. E.g. http://www.mytradesman.co.nz/ where punters can review the work of sparkies, builders and plumbers etc for all to see. Along with the real horror stories, there are some great reviews of Tradesmen who had provided excellent customer service - which has got to be great for business.

However, I ask - how can a business leverage the internet to enhance it’s reputation and increase sales or grow it's business - apart from just providing better customer service?

I could create a Blog and rave about my products and services - Many companies already do this to good effect with ’sponsored’ blogs by exployees and evangelists. E.g. Microsoft, Oracle.
But the web user is pretty sophisticated nowadays, and take what they read with a grain of salt.

Are there more effective, less obvious ways of increasing a businesses reputation?