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Nokia reveals a mobile phone literally made for sharing
Nokia recently undertook a survey of consumers in emerging markets and exposed a new trend: mobile phone sharing. Apparently, more than 50 percent of those surveyed in India and Pakistan, plus almost 30 percent in Vietnam, either already share or would be willing to share the use of their mobile phone with family or friends. Alex Lambeek, Vice President of Entry Devices with Nokia does not as the name suggests deal with doorbells, but rather the lower end of the handset product line. Lambeek reckons that phone sharing is a logical trend in the less mature markets, saying “more and more…

Your home page is NOT your index; it’s your store front
Space. Designers want to preserve it and clients want to fill it up. Whether you’re a designer, a writer or a client you’ve all participated in this debate. What goes on the home page and what does not?

Space. Designers want to preserve it and clients want to fill it up. It’s not that the copywriters, marketers and others don’t like space. It’s just that they have some important points they want to make, and there is only so much room in that quarter page magazine ad, 2 page-spread, catalog, or Web page. But wait, Web pages aren’t restricted the way print is. We can make it wider—everyone has larger monitors these days. Or we can make it longer—people can scroll. No wait, we read somewhere that people don’t like to scroll. Put it all above the fold. Or put it above the place where I’d have to scroll on a 17″ monitor using a browser that has 5 toolbars. (In other words, the space we’d have in that quarter page print ad.)

Whether you’re a designer, a writer or a client you’ve all participated in this debate. What goes on the home page and what does not? At one point you may have even thought the matter settled. But then Joe in operations suggested that it would be imperative for people to get to the transportation section in one-click. If that’s on the home page, then Sally feels it is equally important to include the section on ergonomics, Brad wants to include the President’s Day sales specials, and Sonia in Plumbing Supplies has just offered up the latest kitchen sink—in scratch resistant stainless steel.

Everyone’s ideas are important. Any of these could be compelling to your reader, and supportive of your goal of selling widgets, clarifying the calculus, promoting an event or what have you. So how do you decide what goes on the home page?

Establish your home page priorities

Your Web site has one or more goals, educational, commercial or otherwise. The Web site project team has additional specific goals. They may want to sell out the stainless steel sinks to make room in the warehouse for next year’s ceramic models. They may want to promote their research to help pave the way for the grant application due in March. These are all worthwhile, but when it comes to the home page I find there are three things we should make clear to our users.

Tell them where they are.

Your home page should make clear the name of the organization and the nature of your business.

Encourage them to come in and look around.

Give them a taste (but just a taste) of what you offer, so they want to learn more.

Provide clear directions to the entrance.

Show them how to enter and navigate your space.

That’s it. If you can achieve these three steps, the rest will follow and Sonia will be able to unload those stainless steel sinks. O. K., I admit that is easier said than done. But let’s compare our site to something more tangible, with which we’re all familiar.

Your home page is like a storefront

In America, particularly in areas of urban sprawl, the well-designed storefront is rare. But if you’ve spent any time in Europe, large American cities, or small towns whose retail districts have not yet been replaced by box stores and strip malls, I think you’ll know what I mean. A store front usually has a large sign over the door (like our Web banner) proclaiming the name (and often the nature of) the business. If you are walking down the street in the hopes of buying hiking boots, the sign over Larry’s Leather Shoe Emporium will make you stop. You’ll look in the window.

If you see patent leather heels surrounded by shiny fabric, you’ll continue walking. That wasn’t the right place. If you see products by Merrell and Columbia sitting next to backpacks and logs on a field of crushed leaves, you’ll recognize that they may very well have what you need.

Next you will look for the door. Ideally it will be obvious. If there are two doors, you want one to be clearly marked as the entrance. You don’t want to walk up to a door and find a 3 x 5 inch sign with an arrow saying, “enter next door.” If you can’t find the entrance you may keep walking. But if the door is clearly marked, you will come inside and look for the hiking boot section. Ideally the store will have clear signage and displays, so you can pick out your boots and make your purchase. (Inside navigation will be the subject of a later article.)

Don’t clutter up the window

I use the store metaphor because it’s easy to visualize. An appealing display of items we want or need will entice us to enter. A cluttered display (with some exceptions) will not.

Imagine Larry’s store window with the boots and the leaves. Now lets add a stuffed deer, BB gun, hunting knife, camouflage vest, pup tent, Coleman Lantern, fake trees, a plastic owl, binoculars and a canoe. Is this a wilderness supply store or a shoe store? No matter, they have boots, so you’ll enter anyway. Now add sleeping bags, parkas, stuffed bunnies, a grizzly bear, a basket of easter eggs, and a mannequin of Little Red Riding Hood carrying an open basket overflowing with jam, cheese, sausages, wine and two crystal goblets. It’s an intriguing scene. You may stop and stare at the window for a moment. You may wonder what the display is about and you may wonder what they really sell here but you might not notice that pair of hiking boots sitting behind the bunny rabbits. Thus, you may keep walking.

Larry’s window, crowded as it may be, may still create an attractive display. But it’s also confusing. When presented with too many choices, it is easy to get confused. At that point the easier choice is to continue walking. The same applies to our Web site. If we don’t present simple and obvious choices, it is easier for the user to hit the back button and look elsewhere than to enter our site—even if we have the information or products they want. (View psychologist Barry Schwartz’s video below to learn more about the problems humans face when confronting choices.)

So what should we put on the front page?

As you are planning the page, think of the storefront and keep it simple. Include your name and a brief description that let’s people know they’re in the right place. Highlight 1-6 products, news items, special offers or announcements (not 1-6 of each). Include a simple menu with less than a dozen (6 would be good) choices that will take them to obviously distinct sections of your site. You may also include a search box, footer, related sites and other simple navigational aids, so long as they offer intuitive guidance rather than clutter. (If your site is a blog it is fine to include your primary content, i.e. your entries, on the first page, as this is standard blogging practice. I’ll address blogs another time.)

These numbers aren’t written in stone. Perhaps you really need 7 menu items rather than 6. It depends on the content. But when you justify 7 it’s easy to think that one more won’t hurt, and what about this bit, then suddenly you are up to 31 and your visitor doesn’t know where to look. Just keep thinking of that store front. While you are doing that, pretend you are the visitor, a person far less familiar with your content than you. Look at your site plan or design draft through their eyes. Does it allow you to make simple choices? Or do you have to think about where to go?

Test your content

It’s sometimes hard to tell how much is too much. Or your team may have marketing research that shows your target market wants to see 50 things on the front page. What they think they want may not be what they can really use, so test it. Create 2 front pages, one with the clutter and one with 6 menu choices. Get some volunteers (unfamiliar with your product or subject area) and ask them to answer 12 questions, the answers to which they will find in your site. Have them time how long it takes to find the the answers. For each question ask how easy or difficult it was to find the answer (on a scale of 1-6). There are many ways to test usability (I’ll write more about that later), but this one is fairly easy to implement, even on a shoestring budget, and it can give you some quick insight between what you think will work and what really does.

Homepage Design and Decision Making Resources

My friend Shirley, from Pownce, gave me the link to the Home Page Design article which offers a number of interesting insights into the role of your homepage. Other than that I thought I’d focus more on the psychology of decision making that really drives our need to make sites simple. To that end I’ve included Mano Singham’s articles on snap judgments and the Barry Schwartz video. These aren’t directly related to Web page design, but they underscore why our design choices are so important.

• UX Matters: Home Page Design
• Snap judgments (1): Mano Singham examines decision making in relation to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink
• Snap judgments and prejudices (2)
• Improving the quality of our snap judgments (3)

Ted Talks: Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

In this video, presented by TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Barry Schwartz explains how freedom of choice can be stressful and make us less happy, a notion counter-intuitive to those of us raised to think that freedom choice is better. I think it’s an idea we can apply to the content choices we present to our site visitors.

Tech Sector Braces For next Economic Hit
Keeping track of the economic news is getting nerve-racking - akin to watching a train wreck in slow motion. In the past 24 hours we’ve seen . . . - A Fortune magazine study showing that about 75% of Americans who think we’re either already in a recession or are heading toward one (no surprise to me — we in the media have been scaring people half to death over the economy over the past year. That sentiment has now taken hold among consumers in a self-induced prophecy. The trouble is, about two-thirds of the economy relies on consumer spending. So if Americans pull back financially, we…

Web Content: Not just YOUR words and pictures
If they read what you write, they may also want to read what you read. Webmasters and bloggers know this. That’s why we’ll embed links within our text, build pages with links to recommended sites and/or add linkblogs to our side bars. In a world where most of us don’t have the time to research and write everything we’d like to share, such resources add value to our existing content and give readers guidance on where to look for additional information.

My Google Reader Shared Items

If they read what you write, they may also want to read what you read. Webmasters and bloggers know this. That’s why we’ll embed links within our text, build pages with links to recommended sites and/or add linkblogs to our side bars. In a world where most of us don’t have the time to research and write everything we’d like to share, such resources add value to our existing content and give readers guidance on where to look for additional information.

Recently I’ve come across some other good ways to share what you read, so I thought I’d share those with you today.

Publish your OPML file to share your blog subscriptions

A few weeks back I was reading an entry on David Bradley’s blog, Sciencebase, when I noticed something interesting in his footer. There, at the bottom, he has a section called “Geeky Fun Stuff” in which he shares, among other things, a link to his OPML file. That, I thought, is a really good idea. For those of you who don’t know what this is, an OPML file is basically a type of XML file that includes the links to the RSS feeds of the various blogs one reads through RSS Readers such as Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. Such services allow you to import and export these files so that you can easily switch services or add a batch of feeds to your existing service. Thus, if I wanted to subscribe to all of David’s feeds I could just save that file and import it into Google Reader myself. Or if I wanted to subscribe to only a few I could edit the file (in Dreamweaver or any plain text editor) to delete any I didn’t want.

If you are already using an RSS reader, sharing such a file is fairly easy. Just export your file from your reader and save it to your computer. If you don’t want to share everything, just open the file in a text reader, and delete the extraneous feeds—lolcats, curling news from In the Hack and anything else that may not be of interest to your readership. Once the file is ready, just upload it to your site and link to it as you would any other page.

Using Google Reader to share specific stories

Google Reader recently added some enhancements to its sharing features. I first noticed this when Robert Scoble posted a note on Pownce with a link to his Google Reader shared items page. When I went to view the page I realized that this could be a useful feature, one that made me want to revisit Google Reader.

When you visit a shared items page you will see a site that looks pretty much like a typical blog. Stories are posted on the left, information about the page owner is on the right—along with links to other resources, a feed, etc. The main difference is that the stories are things the page owner has read rather than written (though, if you subscribe to your own feed, you can share your own entries as well). Each story also includes a link to the original entry and the original source—so the material is not mistakenly attributed to you.

After viewing Scoble’s page, I immediately thought of my friend X, who says she wants to establish an online presence, but isn’t quite yet ready to blog. Sharing stories on a page she can link to might be a good way to get her feet wet and let people know what she is thinking about.. For those of us who already have one or more blogs and Web sites, the shared items page adds to our online mix and provides an easy way to share stories with our readership.

Getting started with Google Reader

Getting started with this is pretty easy. Just go to the Google Reader site and sign-in. If you don’t already have a Google account for Gmail, analytics, etc. you can create one there. Once your account is set up, just subscribe to some of your favorite blogs and start reading. A menu at the bottom of each story gives you the option to share the story so it will appear on your public shared items page. (There is some controversy about this, but you just have to understand that it’s a public page that can be seen by anyone who has, or discovers, the address. For us, that is what we want, so it’s not a big concern.) If you change your mind later, you can unshare the story the same way. You can also organize your subscriptions into topic folders and share topics rather than individual items. To learn more about using Google Reader visit the Reader Help Center.

If you don’t want to send readers to your Google page, but still want to share stories, you can also share a clip from the feed on your own site, as I have done on my “What I’ve Been Reading in the Blogosphere” page.

More sharing options

My Streamy Subscriptions

Google isn’t the only service that allows sharing, but aside from the hubbub regarding privacy settings (pertaining to how and with whom one is sharing—see links below) it’s very easy to use and will be familiar to a large audience. I’ve been sharing blog stories with groups on Streamy since last summer, but my Streamy shares aren’t fully public. Another friend has recently recommended Feed Each Other which looks promising and also produces a public page. StumbleUpon, while not a reader, is also a great way to share blog stories and other Web sites. (Stumbling is quite popular with insomniacs and is a great way to learn about other sites.)

These are all useful services, but how you share is less important than what you share. If you can find articles and sites that offer additional information on the topics you discuss, or even stories that add insight to your personality or world view, you’ll be providing a helpful resource to your readers.

OPML, Google Reader and Sharing Resources

• fav.or.it - favorit RSS Reader and Blogging Platform
• Google’s new Reader Features
• Google Reader needs GPC (Granular Privacy Controls)
• Google Reader “Share With Friends” Feature Gets Privacy Complaints
• Google Reader Sharing FAQ
• Is Google Reader Sharing Too Much?
• OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language)

Voice and Tone: Writing to reflect your personality as well as your message (Part 2)
When I first broached this topic in October, I wrote about tone. Today, I’ll focus on voice, that certain aspect of writing that conveys the personality and/or style of the writer. Unlike tone — which is geared to your goal and audience — voice is about you, the writer. Just as your speaking voice remains recognizable under different circumstances — whether you’re reading stories to small children or arguing about the gift return policy at the mall — so, too should your written voice.

This is a waveform of me reading the title of
this entry. Our written voices can be as unique
as our spoken voices.

When I first broached this topic in October, I wrote about tone. Today, I’ll focus on voice, that certain aspect of writing that conveys the personality and/or style of the writer. Unlike tone—which is geared to your goal and audience—voice is about you, the writer. Just as your speaking voice remains recognizable under different circumstances—whether you’re reading stories to small children or arguing about the gift return policy at the mall—so, too should your written voice.

What exactly defines my voice or style?

Your voice and style reflect patterns you use in crafting sentences and paragraphs. Just as you recognize your handwriting by the shapes you make in lettering, you’ll recognize your written voice by sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation and other ways you present ideas. My writing often includes examples, metaphors or analogies—especially my fiction. I also have a habit of using em dashes for parenthetical remarks. This is a habit I acquired back when I was writing ad copy. The passive tense is one for which I sometimes have a predilection, as is my frequent use of the word “one” in place of he or she—to avoid those pesky gender issues. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. The English language allows for a great deal of latitude when it comes to developing a voice. Yours can be as unique as your fingerprints.

Why should my voice remain constant? Shouldn’t I adapt it to circumstance as I would tone?

Your voice is part of your brand as a writer. As you use your voice it becomes familiar to your readers. This helps them know how to interpret your prose and what to expect from you in the future. The voice you use today can offer clues into how you should be read tomorrow. If you changed the nature of your voice with each blog entry or paper, readers could get confused and misinterpret both subtle nuances and seemingly obvious statements.

Your voice also guides the hands that type. If you’ve developed a comfortable style, the sentences will pass from brain to keyboard more smoothly. If you are constantly reinventing your style, this won’t happen. Instead you’ll spend more time reworking your sentences, forcing them to fit into the mold of the moment.

A well-developed voice serves both writer and reader.

What if I get a job that requires me to write in someone else’s voice?

There may be times when you have to write for someone else, for example as a speech writer, or to ghostwrite the autobiography of Thomas Pynchon. The latter will obviously never happen, but as you become familiar with the nuances that make up your own voice you can also learn to pick up on the traits of someone else’s. This will make it easier to craft that speech or memo for your boss or client. If you ever got caught forging a note from your mother in order to skip school, you’ll know this is a skill that takes time to develop.

How do I find my voice? Won’t it just come naturally?

One finds one’s voice through reading and writing. By reading omnivorously you are exposed to a variety of styles and will learn which you prefer. By writing frequently you can fine-tune how you adapt such styles for yourself. I think much of this does come naturally. Everything you’ve experienced—from the conversations you heard as a child to the classes you took in school—contributes to the way you arrange words—both orally and on the printed page. But developing constancy requires practice. Just as a chef must both taste and cook a variety of foods to learn how ingredients will interact, so must a writer read a diverse sampling of literature and practice putting words to paper to understand how words flow together.

Writer’s must also adapt to the well-intentioned comments of their readers, be they teachers, friends, publishers or others. Our readers all have styles of their own and will usually be happy to give us input when we ask. Sometimes their ideas will bring new light to a murky paragraph; other times they may suggest change for the sake of change. By reading enough to be familiar with many styles—and writing enough to be familiar with your own—you’ll be better able to judge which ideas are which.

While researching this I read a variety of conflicting opinions on how to develop one’s voice. Some suggest mimicking the styles of others, while others say to focus only on your own voice. You may have to experiment to find what method works best for you, but the following resources may give you some additional ideas.

Voice and Tone Resources

• 5 Tips For Developing Your Writing Voice
• Finding Your Voice
• Individual and Appropriate Voice
• Putting Voice into a Paper
• Ten Steps to Finding Your Writing Voice
• Write Away: Finding your voice