Seminar 10: March 2008 User Experience Overview & Keyword Copywriting 1
Q. When I type into the Google toolbar it makes suggestions. Where do these come from? Are the influenced by purchased keywords?
A. They are common phrases. They do tend to be weighted towards the USA. There is no need for Google to weight towards purchased keywords as their revenue is doing very nicely.
Q. When designing wireframes to what extent can you break the standard format?
A. You risk losing users if things are not where they expect. So a wireframe is a great way to test novel ideas.
Q. if you assume that website are either informational or e-commerce to what extent is design driven by those requirements. Is usability the same for both?
A. Some aspects are common, e.g. navigation. The main thing to get your site tested with your users. There are some sales-orientated conventions. You are still interested in “success” for an informational site.
Q. I work for a synchrotron site. Most people cannot spell this! Also we have fibres/fibers as keywords which have different spellings in US and UK English. What do you suggest?
A. You can have pages that use both spellings. News pages are a great way of adding content and they will have the spelling depending on the source of the news. Avoid mis-spelling if you can. Pay per click might help. I would not put alternative spellings into the meta-data. It would not work unless it was on the real page as well.
A. Like Viagra, for example? You have to tread a careful line. We had a lingerie site that could have been confused with porn. However if your content is genuine you should be OK.
Q. How do you know which key-words are black-listed?
A. Yes, a gambling site would be an example of a difficult one. It is tricky. You should try to write good content with those words and phrases in proper sentences. Look for synonyms where possible.
Q. On an e-commerce site if you have a link on a product for more information should that be in a new window?
A. Pop-ups are on the wane. People are used to using the Back button to navigate. Usability testing is key to seeing what works best. Web 2.0 allows you to open a dropdown that can then be closed.
Q. Have you done online questionnaires? I was thinking of a one line question to determine how interested they are.
A. Dave Fletcher has a link to lots of sites that off that service. You should make it as unobtrusive as possible.
A. Yes, you can apply that to ordinary pages. As long as it is not overdone then it is OK for Search Engine Optimisation. Of course, there are single words, 2 or 3 word phrases would be more valuable.
