The concept of crowdsourcing - letting a bunch your users create your product, or at least enhance it - is a staple of Web 2.0. Now, we see that European social networking site Mister Wong is crowdsourcing their corporate identity by holding a logo design contest. The contest ...

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At every Pubcon at which I’ve done a community building presentation, master community builder Brett Tabke has emphasized the importance of getting real community content as high on the page as possible. Brett is the architect of WebmasterWorld, the Web’s busiest webmaster community and one of the most successful ...

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“The SEO Playbook - Welcome to the Rabbit Hole Alice” is a must-bookmark post by Todd Malicoat, aka Stuntdubl, that compiles a massive list of search engine optization resources that shed light on every area of SEO. From content to links, from site structure to general SEO, Todd has ...

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ZDNet blogger Tom Foremski poses the question, “Is Search Broken?” Foremski’s thesis is that Google, Yahoo, MSN et al should be able to find Web content and figure out what it’s about without so much human intervention: (more…)

A few days ago, CNET reported that big retailer Target was sued by blind patrons because their website lacked standard accessibility features to accommodate visitors with impaired vision. While one can look at this lawsuit as yet another example of litigation run wild (one early report pegged the incident ...

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As I mentioned in my general post about the Stanford Web Credibility Project, I’m going to look at each of their points in some detail. The first guideline from their research is Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site. The researchers further ...

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Research seems to be ever more tightly focused these days… often, the real-world implications of such work is minimal, but one interesting specialized program is the Web Credibility Project, part of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. They have even invented the term “captology”: (more…)

No, we’re not talking about the “white text on a white page” kind of hidden content - that’s more commonly called hidden text, and isn’t a particularly useful strategy these days. We’re talking about finding web content in companies where such material is scarce. Why go on a ...

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A new study shows that visitors form a long-lasting impression of a website within a fraction of a second of their first visit. (more…)

Read human factors guru Don Norman’s latest book, Emotional Design, and it’s evident that Norman and his partner, web usability consultant Jakob Nielsen, must be turning into The Odd Couple. (more…)