Posts filed under 'Interesting Facts'
Why care about web usability?
How usable is your website? Could there be features that are confusing your users or giving them a less than favorable customer experience?
Research indicates that usability offers a better return on investment than almost any other business action. A good experience is essential for a customer to return to your website. If a website is difficult to use or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave.
The business benefits for improving web usability include:
- Improve overall customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Increase productivity
- Decrease training and support costs
- Increased sales and revenues
- Reduce development time and costs
- Reduce maintenance and support costs
Incorporating ease of use into your website will actually save you money. Reports have shown it is far more economical to consider user needs in the early stages of design, than it is to solve them later. For example, at one company, end-user training for a usability-engineered internal system was one hour compared to a full week of training for a similar system that had no usability work. Increased usability will reduce the number of support calls and the about of time spent by staff providing assistance when users encounter difficulties.
A Usability Expert will help ensure your site is intuitively easy to use, appropriate to the task, and accommodates your user’s needs. Your users will achieve their goals effectively and efficiently and will enjoy interacting with your website. Products and services look better, demo better and sell better, as they are more intuitive to use and more effective.
Synopsis from article written by our Usability Expert, Lori Robertson.
Add comment February 23, 2010
Super Bowl 44 as a Dow Jones Indicator
Prior to February 7th, there will be investors predetermining the Dow Jones Trend based on the outcome of Super Bowl 44. Will it be a bear (but not a Chicago Bear) market versus a bull market? Believers in the Super Bowl Indicator (SBI) accept that when an AFC team wins the Super Bowl then we can expect a decline in the stock market; whereas, if an NFC team wins then we can expect an increase in the stock market.
Including 2007, the SBI had an 80% success rate. Perhaps this is why Snopes.com, a site famous for debunking scams, could not give a definitive “True” or “False” answer. Instead, after some discussion about the SBI, the site leaves skepticism up to the reader. Snopes does post a warning from columnist Floyd Norris, “Anyone foolish enough… or credulous enough to believe a football game can forecast the stock market, probably should hire a money manager, or a psychiatrist, or both.”
At this point we are left wondering whether the Colts or the Saints will tell us if the recession will end soon or continue, perhaps stronger.
From the looks of the half-time show, you might want to invest in stocks for Diamond Foods and Dr Pepper Snapple among others. These companies will spend between $2.5M and $2.8M for a 30-second commercial to strengthen their branding. With THE WHO as the main attraction, the networks are indicating that an estimated 100 million viewers will be tuning in to be entertained by “rock’s most influential and robust performing artists.”
Now that’s an indicator you can bet on… GO TEAM GO!
Add comment February 3, 2010
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