I am currently speaking at a conference in Oslo, Norway. It has been a great conference and from what I can gather the first of its kind in the country. It is always so encouraging to see the web community coming together for an event like this.

The conference organisers have done a great job, especially as it is their first conference on this scale. However, two things beyond the control of the organisers have given me pause for thought. I have found myself marvelling at how easily we put people (our users in particular) into predefined stereotyped boxes.

Marketing to the geek stereotype

My first thought was about the host of the event. This is a job I have done myself a number of times and one I am doing again at the upcoming Future of Web Design conference in New York. Essentially it involves introducing the various speakers, engaging in a little light banter with the audience and generally ensuring everything runs smoothly.

Often this job is done by the conference organiser. However as in the cases where I have hosted events, the organisers of FrontEnd 2010 decided it would be more sensible to get somebody to do the job for them.

Although I haven’t asked, I would guess that the person they chose is some form of professional entertainer. He is relaxed, confident and obviously enjoys being on stage. However, he knows nothing about the web or the web design community. Worse still he has done no research into either the industry, speakers or most importantly audience. He has instead made massive assumption.

It is obviously that in his mind all ‘geeks’ are all young lads who like to think about sex and will enjoy innuendo and risky humour. His comments have often been massively inappropriate despite an audience made up of a considerable number of women.

Vlue, Shutterstock

Was this the organisers fault? Not at all. After all if you employee a professional you expect them to know the audience and do their research.

The second example of misjudging the audience was was made by one of the sponsors. With the same misconception of geeks this sponsor felt that the best way to attract people to his booth was to drape it with scantily clad woman and hand out semi-erotic calendars.

Misjudging your audience has wide reaching implications

It’s not that I have anything against half naked women or even the occasional risky joke. My problem is that they both misjudged the audience and damaged their own reputations (or in the case of the host that of the conference itself).

Also they have perpetuated a stereotype that is already preventing women from entering the sector. As a community we have worked hard to squash sexism and encourage more female speakers, bloggers and contributors. Like their male counterpart women have a lot to offer the web design community. However, they still seem to have to fight against the immaturity of both the community itself and outside influences like our host and sponsor.

Alienating the influencers

I guess it could be argued that although these approaches maybe in bad taste they work from a marketing perspective. It is certainly true that the host did make some people laugh and the booth girls make their sponsor the most memorable.

iJammin, Flickr

However, ultimately the benefits are outweighed by the damage to their brands. It certainly did not go down well with the speakers (both male and female) who felt that these people undermined all that had been achieved in creating a favourable environment for women. Any marketeer will tell you that the last people you should alienate are the influencers who have a voice and audience within the community you are trying to reach. In short don’t piss off the speakers

How does this apply to me?

So what is the lesson here? My aim is not to berate these individuals but merely to draw a lesson for those of us who are trying to reach an audience whether online or off.

The lesson is simple. Make sure you really know your audience and don’t simply reduce them to a stereotyped characature. Be sure you understand what motivates them, what their values are, and fully grasp how they will respond to the way you chose to communicate with them.

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I recently came across this superb post entitled “Why I hate working with perfectionists” written by Karl Mendes. Karl perfectly summed up a growing problem I am seeing among many website owners and web designers. It is a subject I feel so passionately about that I felt I had to throw my hat into the ring.

The problem

The problem began with certain high profile web designers who I will kindly call somewhat elitist. These web designers liked to describe themselves as perfectionists. They believe in an obsessive attention to detail and an unwillingness to compromise their desire for perfection.

Because of their reputation this idea has begun to seep into the culture of web design even going as far as some website owners.

On the surface this all sounds great. Surely we should strive for perfection in design? Isn’t it good to have an obsessive attention to detail?

The problem is that there is no such thing as perfection.

Patrick Breig, Shutterstock

No such thing as perfection

Perfection is very much in the eye of the beholder. In my opinion it takes an incredible amount of arrogance to say my idea of perfection is somehow more valid than yours.

Of course it could be argued that a designers perception of design perfection is more valid than that of a website owners. The problem is that relentlessly seeking perfection in one field often undermines others.

For example, an obsession with detail is a huge drain on time and money. You may go someway towards reaching a mythical design perfection but at the same time you undermine any perfection in return on investment!

Equally design perfection may clash with a perfection in code. In short pure perfection is not possible even if it wasn’t so subjective.

Personally I am the opposite of a perfectionist. I am a pragmatist.

Choose pragmatism every time

The thing that angers me so much about perfectionists is the sense of superiority. Most perfectionists I know in web design are those who work on huge projects with massive budgets. They have the luxury of being able to spend months working on a user interface. The problem is they still look down on those who don’t achieve their level of ‘perfectionism’ even if they don’t have the budget.

These are the people that sneer at websites thrown together in a WYSIWG editor like Dreamweaver. Admittedly many website should not be built in this way. However for some sites this is perfectly valid. For example I have built my youth groups website in iWeb. It’s absolutely shocking. However, am I embarrassed by it? Not at all. It is the right solution for the project…

• It had no budget.
• I had no time to build something.
• It’s going to be looked at by a handful of people.
• The target audience don’t care what it looks like as long as it works.
• It does not need to impress anyone.

Is it perfection? Absolutely not. Was it the most pragmatic solution in the situation? Absolutely.

That is the problem with perfection, it does not allow for context.

Karl summed it up for me when he quoted 37Signal’s book Rework…

They claim to be perfectionists, but that just means they are wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task.

Amen to that.

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This morning I tweeted the following…

I was amazed by the response I received.

To many it would appear that long hours are a badge of honour. They either represent how ‘overworked and hard done by’ they are or that they enjoy work so much that they don’t mind working 24/7.

But do those arguments really stack up? I don’t believe so. Let me explain why…

I have to work long hours. I have so much work.

Most people claim that the reason they work long hours is because they have too much work to do. However in my experience work expands to fill the amount of time you give it. The more hours you allow yourself to work the more work there will be to fill them.

In my opinion it’s not about how many hours you work, its how smart you work.

Despite what some of my colleagues at Headscape like to think, I output a lot of content. I…

• Write blog posts like this
• Do online seminars
• Record podcasts
• Speak at conferences
• Consult on client work
• Act as Headscape’s R&D department
• Am heavily involved in the sales process

…and so on.

People often ask me how I get so much done. Well, I can tell you one thing – it’s not because I work long hours. In fact I try and keep very strictly to an 8 hour working day.

I believe that you can achieve more by being organised, rested and motivated, than you ever can by working late into the night.

There maybe some satisfaction in pulling multiple all nighters but I don’t think it means you get more done.

Of course some claim it is not because they have to work long hours, its because they want to.

But its not work

One guy on twitter justified his long hours by quoting confucius…

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life

I can sympathise with this view. However, I believe that ultimately it is short sighted.

When I was young I took this attitude. I worked ridiculous hours because I loved what I did. I couldn’t get enough of the web and was never happier than when I was creating stuff online.

Today things are different. I am still as passionate about the web as ever but I have learnt that having time away from the web is incredibly important.

Participating in life beyond the web provides a valuable perspective that can be missed when you are constantly on the job.

Spending time with my family, friends and doing non web activities actually makes me a better web designer. It enables me to realise that not everybody cares about the web like I do and the web is not the whole world to most people. It also shows me how real people interact with it. Finally, it opens me up to sources of inspiration that otherwise I would miss.

However, although these arguments are valid they pale into insignificance when compared to the plain truth that it is not healthy to obsess over a single thing.

To be a broad, rounded human being we need to engage in non web related activities. Do you have any hobbies outside of the web? Do you socialise with non web people? These are all important not just for our mental health but also to provide perspective in our work.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that pulling the occasional all nighter is wrong. I also recognise that occasionally you need to hustle (as Gary Vaynerchuk would say) in order to make a life transition such as going freelance.

I am just saying that we should not be proud of our long hours. We should recognise them for what they are… an evil necessity.

At the end of the day nobody reaches their death bed wishing they had worked longer hours.

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Nobody likes to think of themselves as a failure and no website owner likes to dwell too much on the shortcomings of his website. However, all websites have weaknesses and it is important we know exactly what they are in order to do something about them.

What is more, all websites develop new weaknesses over time. As content is added, structure is changed and designs are tweaked, we introduce problems into our sites that were not previously there.

We therefore need a system in place that continually monitor for failures so that they can be addressed quickly before causing too much damage.

Torian, Shutterstock

Implementing such a system does not need to be onerous. It simply consists of three simple reviews that should take place on a monthly basis. These are…

• Monthly user testing
• Identifying dropout points
• Analyse search queries

Let’s begin with user testing.

Monthly user testing

Steve Krug’s latest book Rocket Surgery Made Easy takes usability testing in a radical new direction that is both perfect for identifying the constantly evolving weaknesses in our sites and also inexpensive to implement.

He proposes an ongoing programme of quick and dirty user testing that takes place every month. The idea is that on a set date each month you schedule a morning of user testing with only 3 participants.

Your entire web team watches the user testing and analyses the results over lunch. By the end of lunch you will have identified the biggest problems that need to be addressed before the next month’s testing.

Jason Alley, Flickr

This is a great approach for detecting and eliminating problems on your website. It is…

• Lightweight – Only requiring one morning a month for testing and debrief.
• Regular – Ensuring that it picks up on problems that creep into the site over time.
• Action orientated – By the end of the session you have a plan of how to tackle the failings in your website.
• Fixed – Because the user testing is always on the same day every month it is less likely to be bumped for more ‘important‘ things.
• Prioritised – With only a short time to test and debrief the emphasis is placed on the most important failings rather than being caught up in nuances.

Although user testing is useful it should not be used in isolation. Testing only 3 participants enables lightweight and regular testing, but it does have its limitations. Ultimately 3 people are not going to be representative of the whole and even if they were, they are not interacting naturally with the website. For that you need to look at web statistics.

Identifying drop out points

Website statistics can be very enlightening when used correctly. Unfortunately few people know what they are looking for and so either give up try or never get past page views and unique visitors.

One aspect of web stats that is particularly interesting is exit points. Where do users leave your site? This may help identify potential points of weakness in the site and areas you wish to test in your next user test session.

Most statistic packages make it easy to view a list of top exit pages. However make sure you are viewing pages with the top percentage of exits, because popular pages will be exited more often. Look for pages that are popular but are also exit points. These are the biggest problem areas. Google Analytics actually allows you to view pages that meet this exact criteria.

Once you have this list ask yourself the following questions?

• Is this the final page in a call to action process? For example is this an order confirmation at the end of a purchase process. You would expect pages such as this to be a typical exit point.
• Has the user visited any other pages before exiting? If the user has viewed only this one page then the chances are they were simply at the wrong site. To make sure check the dwell time. If they were only on the page a few seconds before leaving then it is fair to conclude they had arrived by accident. Also check how they arrived on the site. If they came via a search engine, what search term did they use? If the term wasn’t relevant to your site then don’t worry.
• What type of content does the page contain? If the page is a blog post for example the chances are the user was more interested in the content than anything else you offer. They will read the one article and then leave. Obviously this is not what you want and should work hard to encourage them deeper into the site. However, the reality is that pages of this type will have a higher exit rate.
• Is the bounce rate significantly higher than elsewhere on the site? If so this could indicate a weakness in the page.

If users have viewed multiple pages and then given up on a particular page, it is a problem which needs addressing. Possible problems could include…

• No obvious next steps – Are you telling the user what to do next.
• Too many options – Too many choices can cause users to give up.
• The content fails to convince – Is the content of the page telling the user what they want to hear, or are you saying something that alienates them?
• Too much content – Is the page packed with large amounts of densely written copy. This can put users off.
• The content is not relevant – They have arrived from a search engine query and the page hasn’t provided what they want. Instead of looking elsewhere in the site they have returned to the search engine to view another result.

Unfortunately although web stats can be very good at identifying problem pages it is not so good at diagnosing the cause. That is why it is important to user test as well.

Of course another possibility is that a user has given up simply because the site doesn’t appear to have what they are looking for. That is where you need to analyse search queries.

Analyse search queries

What users searched for provides an excellent insight into potential failures of your website.

Take for example the top search queries that lead people to a page with an exceptionally high bounce rate. Which of those queries cause most of the bounces? What are the user expecting to find on the page and do not? The page must be relevant in someway otherwise the search engine wouldn’t refer them. However, perhaps the way you are presenting the information is wrong. Does the search term give any indication of how you could be presenting things better?

What about the terms that create the highest bounce across the site. Sometimes users find themselves on a site that a search engine believes is relevant but doesn’t directly address their issue. Could you retailor your content to more directly address these search queries?

However it is not just external search engines you need to be looking at. What about your internal search engine?

When a user arrives at your site after entering a search term into Google, you can be sure that at least some content on that subject exists. Otherwise Google would not have referred them. However, when a user types something into your site search, there is no guarantee it will be a topic you have addressed at all. This is a perfect way to identify content lacking from your website.

Repeat each of the top searches yourself and look at the results. Are you addressing the search terms directly? Are you addressing them at all! If not you have identified a weakness that needs dealing with.

Rinse and repeat

The secret to success when it comes to irradiating the failures on your site is to establish a monthly cycle of work. Each month you need to user test, delve into your web stats and analyse your search results. By combining these three techniques you should be able to establish a programme of work for the coming month. By repeating this process month on month you can slowly evolve your site so that its shortcomings have less and less of an impact on conversion.

Of course, this is not all that can be done to identify problems with your site. These are simply those that have worked best for me. What about you? How do you find the shortcomings on your site? Do you even do this kind of ongoing maintenance? Let me know in the comments below.

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Somebody recently asked me on formspring what the most important aspect of web design was. Without hesitation I replied business objectives even though that was not on the questioners list of possibilities.

To me this was the obvious answer. However, as soon as my answer hit twitter it became apparent I was in the minority believing this. The overwhelming response was that I should have said ‘user experience’.

The logic went something like this – if users are not happy then they will leave and you will have no business.

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more, but people are missing the point. The reason user experience matters so much is that bad usability prevents a site meeting its business objectives.

Anybody who knows me, knows that I am passionate about accessibility, usability, design and any other aspect of web design you care to mention. However, I believe in these things not as an end in themselves but as a way of enabling a website to meet its business objectives.

I don’t make a site accessible because I believe it should be accessible. I do so because ultimately I believe it will help the site meet its business objectives.

I don’t make a site usable because I believe it is some lofty goal that should always be attained. I do so because I believe that without happy users no website will meet its business objectives.

Is this all semantics?

You may think that I am being picky and that actually this is just a matter of semantics. However, I disagree. It is a vitally important distinction. Without it we allow things like user experience to take priority over achieving business objectives.

Ultimately websites need to pay their way. This means that when user experience and business objectives truly clash then business objectives must win. Admittedly most of the time a better user experience benefits the business objectives. However that is not always the case.

Take for example an ecommerce site. Most users hate registering. They would prefer to make a transaction and then leave. However, from a business perspective we want them to register. If they register they are more likely to place a repeat order and we also have more opportunity to market to them.

If you take a pure user experience perspective need you wouldn’t force users to register. However I suggest that the business objective trumps the user experience. Admittedly you may lose a few users. However, if the benefits of registered users outweighs the lost customers then it is worth it. Obviously you do all you can to minimise that loss, but ultimately the increased profits are more important than alienating a handful of users.

Of course, you have to take the long term view. It could be argued that the handful of users might be very vocal in their dislike of your site and alienate the others. Equally you might reduce customer satisfaction in those who do purchase, reducing the likelihood they buy again. These are all valid points. However, my point is that these things only matter if they damage the business objective of increasing sales.

So go on, tell me I am wrong? I dare you! -)

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Good help is hard to find.

This A List Apart article starts by reminding us that “one of the most fundamental rules of user experience on the web is that developers are rarely qualified to evaluate it”. For those of us that design and build websites, we’re computer literate and don’t struggle with simple tasks that other users of our sites may find complicated.

Author Lyle Mullican explores a variety of methods of providing help content to users, explaining how tone can work in your favour and which presentation methods – such as inline help, modal boxes or tooltips – work best for which situations.

If you’re a designer or developer who is often tasked with writing or providing help content, give this one a read.

User experience books for beginners

I’d place money that the majority of people reading this post have read ‘Don’t make me think’ by Steve Krug, it’s often quoted as one of the ‘must-read’ books of our industry but if you wanted to delve more into the world of User Experience, where should you start?

Well UX Booth to the rescue! They’ve compiled a list of books which give a thorough overview of User Experience, with Christmas on the horizon, it might be time to build up your Amazon wish list!

Self-motivating through creative blocks

We work in a creative industry and are called upon for a near-constant stream of ideas, solutions and suggestions which makes creative block a particular nuisance, especially when we’re paid for our creativity.

This article over at the Web Designer Depot explores some of the most common causes of creative block, such as working too hard, lack of sleep, stress and fear and suggests some tried and tested methods of breaking out of the situation, most of which are easy to do, like taking a walk and getting away from the screen, and some really interesting tricks for self-motivation like implementing your own reward system.

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Those damned customers, sometimes they are more trouble than they are worth! On one hand they say they like choice, but when you give them too much they stop buying.

Choice paralysis is a well known problem in retail. Numerous tests in supermarkets have shown that if you offer a customer too many varieties they are less likely to buy than if there are only a few.

Africa Studio, Shutterstock

However, despite choice paralysis being a well known phenomena, most ecommerce websites seem to ignore it. I come across too many ecommerce sites with…

• Too many products in one category.
• Complex ways of customising products.
• An overwhelming selection of special offers.
• Endless categories and sub categories of products.

It is hardly surprising then that many of these sites suffer from a dismally low conversion rates.

Unfortunately website owners often perceive this low conversion as I sign that they are not giving users what they want. This leads them to add even more choice, which results in still further paralysis.

The answer actually lies in a very different direction and begins by limiting choice.

Limit the users choice

In a now famous supermarket study only 3% of shoppers purchased jam when confronted with 24 varieties, while 30% purchased when given only 6. Although the 10 fold increase is interesting what fascinates me are the people not exposed by the raw data.

A good number of those 27% approached the jam section with a particular jam in mind. They knew what they wanted and went to purchase. However, the range of alternatives actually placed doubt in their mind. Was their normal choice of jam the best option available? Should they try something new? These questions created enough anxiety to actually stop them purchasing.

fresher, Shutterstock

The lesson here is that choice paralysis is not just something suffered by those who arrive undecided. It can actually prevent a committed buyer from placing an order.

Although this is a scary thought the answer is obvious, reduce your range of products. On one level this seems counter intuitive, but on another it is an obvious response to the problem of choice paralysis.

However, reducing choice is not the only response. There is also a need to clearly differentiate between the options available.

Clearly differentiate between choices

Choice paralysis is not just to do with the number of choices available. In fact it can be acceptable to offer a large number of choices where the differences between those choices is clearly defined. Unfortunately the choices we offer often have significant overlap.

Computer manufacturers suffer from this problem. When buying a computer, making a decision can be hard when the only difference between models is technical specifications. Most people do not understand the difference between 2GB and 4GB of memory.

Apple does a great job at overcoming this challenging by reducing the choice and differentiating between their products.

For example, if you visit the Apple website you can easily compare different macs and read a clear description about what makes each model unique.

If you are looking for something light then go for the macbook air. If you want something small go for the mac mini. Although they do mention technical specifications these are secondary to the simple descriptions.

However don’t fall into the trap of thinking this need to differentiate only applies to product lines. It also applies to navigation and product categories. Take for example firebox.com. What is the difference between the top level labels ‘geek’ and ‘technology’?

Clearly differentiating choice has to apply to all aspects of your site from product range to site navigation. If you must have overlapping choices then you may wish to consider hiding less popular choices to avoid confusion.

Hide less popular choices

Unfortunately in the real world website owners do not always get to choose what goes on the website. We aren’t in a position to slim down the product range or redesign it entirely so that products are more distinct. In such situations smoke and mirrors can produce the same effect.

Although you may not be able to remove the choices available to users, you can hide less popular ones to give the impression of a clearer choice.

We faced this exact problem when working on the Wiltshire Farm Foods website. They had a huge number of meals organised into an extensive list of categories. What is more there was a real need to ensure consistency between the website and the printed brochure, so we had no choice but to keep the categories they had. This left us with a confusing site structure. For example if somebody wanted to order a ‘beef pie’ did they look under ‘beef’ or ‘pies and pastries’?

Our solution was to hide less popular categories and focus the user on the most used forms of navigation. For example we knew more people navigated by ‘beef’ than ‘pies and pastries’ so we hid the latter. However, it was still available for those who wanted to see all pies.

This approach gave the impression of a clearly defined choice without removing the additional options for those who wanted them.

Of course, so far we have focused on users who have a fairly clear idea of what they want to start with. What about those who are even less sure?

That is where suggestions come in.

Make suggestions

When faced with overwhelming choice often the most effective way of encouraging users to make a decision is to suggest a course of action. This well known technique is used by the vast majority of ecommerce websites in the form of ‘special offers’ or ‘staff favourites’.

However, although these suggestions go some way to alleviating choice paralysis they do not connect with users on an emotional level. Just because something is on special offer or has been suggested by the staff, does not mean it is right for the individual user. After all today’s astute customers know these suggestions are more to benefit the retailer than themselves.

Amazon uses a slightly more convincing approach on its UK homepage with its ‘what other customers are looking at right now’ section. As humans we have a tendency to follow the crowd in new or unfamiliar circumstances and so will look to the choices of others for inspiration.

Although this is undoubtably more successful than the ‘special offers’ approach, it still does not fully harness how we overcome choice paralysis in the real world.

When faced with overwhelming choice offline we turn to friends and family for their opinion. In particular we look to those who share similar tastes to our own and whose opinions we trust.

Some ecommerce sites are replicating at least some aspects of this behaviour with sections entitled ‘people like you bought’. This plays off of our inherent group mentality and goes a long way to overcoming choice paralysis.

This thinking ultimately ends in enabling users to see what ‘friends’ are purchasing. Facebook has already done some experimentation in this area. However, I suspect it will not be long before Amazon implement a social network of sorts on its own website.

Although suggestions are a useful way of easing choice paralysis, sometimes it is possible to avoid asking users to make a choice at all. That is where good defaults come in.

Set good defaults

The best way to avoid choice paralysis is to avoid choice entirely. It is surprising how often we ask users to make decisions where we could easily do so.

We tend to pass the responsibility of choice to users for a two reasons.

First, we become obsessed with edge cases. Even though we know the majority of users will make one choice, we worry about the minority who want something different. The problem with this mentality is that the user experience of the majority often suffers in order to cater for the whims of the minority.

Second, we believe that users want choice because that is what they say they want. However, research shows there is a difference between what we say they want and what makes us happiest. Giving the user choice may make them feel temporarily more in control, but ultimately they are more likely to suffer from buyers remorse.

So what is the solution? Am I proposing that we ignore the minority for the sake of the majority? Should clothes come in the single most common size on websites? Should computers not come with the option to preinstall lynx instead of Windows? Not at all.

Instead we must default to the most common choice while allowing the option to customise. Why make people choose between Windows and Lynx when the vast majority is going to choose Windows? Set the default to Windows with the option to edit it if required.

This principle applies not just to the selection of products but also to the forms at checkout. I have seen too many websites that require users to select from a number of previous delivery addresses when you could simply default to the last address used.

Good defaults have the wonderful ability to reduce cognitive load on users while not taking away the choices available to them.

We are not vulcans

The underlying point that I am making in this post is that we are not hyper-logical vulcans. However much we would like to think otherwise, we do not make rational decisions. We do not carefully weigh the options and make a decision, especially when faced with overwhelming choice. We simply do not have the mental capacity to do that on a conscious level.

Instead we fall back on the subconscious, relying on gut reactions and emotional decision making. This often makes us feel uncertain and out of control. Sometimes this feeling is so powerful we would prefer to make no decision than make the wrong one.

With that in mind we need to make every effort as website owners to avoid overwhelming our users with choice.

But what about you? What have you done to overcome choice paralysis? I would love to hear your advice in the comments below.

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iPhone and iPad development GUI Kits, Stencils and Icons.

If you’re developing anything for an iPhone or iPad, sooner or later you’re going to want some stencils to sketch ideas, GUI kits to mock up the screens in your favourite graphic/wireframe design tool, or some icons to throw into your UI. This post over at SpeckyBoy rounds up some of the best resources for all of these and more. This is definitely one to bookmark for later.

20+ New apps for websites and designers

Quite why this couldn’t have been called ’25 new apps’ we’ll never know, but this list from the Web Designer Depot contains some great tools that I’ll be using in the future. This is quite an eclectic collection, with inspiration sites like Ember and Dribbble, checklists for launching your website, tools to allow you to test how fonts will render on the web and much, much more.

HTML5 Boilerplate

Starting a new site build? want to use HTML5? Then give HTML5 boilerplate a try. This is a base structure of files, folders and scripts to give you a solid foundation to build any HTML5 site upon. Cross-browser support, mobile optimisations and progressive enhancement is all baked in from the start along with awesome-er features such as sample unit test suites and javascript profiling for the more adventurous of us.

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Hello all. It is that time of year again. You know what I mean, the time when every web designer who likes to think of themselves as a speaker asks you to vote for their talk at SXSW. I think this is the closest thing we have to an election in the web design community!

Thanks to your support I have been able to speak at SXSW for the last three years. And this year I want to speak again so would very much appreciate your vote.

However unusually I am not the only person from Headscape who wants to speak this time around. Marcus Lillington, Relly Annett Baker and Rob Borley have all been asked to join potential panels and I would very much appreciate it if you took the time to vote for them as well.

I know this is a ridiculous exercise, especially as half of you are unlikely to even intend. However your vote would be appreciated and I’ll buy you a pint when next I see you!*.

The talks being proposed by us Headscapers are as follows:

Unbelievable eCommerce: Increase Sales By 10000%

Many believe the secret to a successful ecommerce site is to copy Amazon. However, that rarely works. Your website is not Amazon. Instead it has a unique offering that caters to a specific audience. Once you realise that you can achieve unbelievable things. In his talk Paul explains how he took one ecommerce website from relatively successful beginnings to unbelievable heights. In only 5 years he and the team at Headscape increased sales on the site by a staggering 10,000%. What makes the story even more unbelievable is that the average customer is over 80 years old! This single example will act as a case study that guides you towards better understanding your audience and growing your online sales significantly.

Vote for this talk now

Project Management for Humans

Whether it’s on the front lines or behind the scenes, Project Management is critical to every discipline in web development projects. Keeping your internal project team and your clients happy while making sure that the project runs smoothly are not easy tasks, but you don’t have to be a robot to run a project! Simple humans can make sure a project is delivered on time and on budget. This session will cover the basics on how to manage your project like a pro and keep your clients happy. A group of seasoned project managers will share their experiences (and horror stories) on projects they’ve worked on, and point to specific, useful methodologies that have helped them to gracefully manage large and small projects alike.

Vote for this talk now

We’re All Salesmen – The Truth About Selling

The simple truth is that selling your service is hardwork, probably much harder than actually doing the work. Whether it’s design, development, seo, business development whatever, it’s tough out there and we’re going to try and help you to make it a bit easier. Our panel will attempt to demystify the sales process, give you tips on how to sell better and hopefully help you increase the time you spend working and decrease the time you spend selling. Every detail of your interactions with the world make up part of your sales pack, whether it’s your blog, your flickr feed, your tweets, your clothes and so on it all makes up part of the sales experience. Equally spending hours answering questions that nobody asked won’t do you any favours… Drawing from all levels of industry expertise, from reluctant salesman to seasoned professional we’ll delve into the secretive world of sales and give you some tips on how to win more work with less stress.

Vote for this talk now

The Little Voices Made Me Do It

@RellyAB (of Headscape) and @nicepaul invite you on a voyage of discovery of their work – as a content strategist and a UX designer respectively – and how their two little boys, Thing 1 and Thing 2, have moulded (or is that muddled?) their thinking about online experiences for everyone, age 1 to 101. An authentic experience is promised with Lego and sweets for attendees who play nicely and at least one tantrum guaranteed. Just don’t make @RellyAB use her Mummy Voice.

Vote for this talk now

I do appreciate you taking the effort to vote. Its a silly thing but it means a lot.

*This is in no way a binding contract. Drinks limited to one per person or less if I am feeling tight.

Similar Posts:

• Podcast 53: Ecommerce Usability
• Why speculative design is wrong
• Are you always looking for a new challenge?
• Podcast 22: How your website sells
• When good shopping sites go bad

On the 19th August I am holding an online seminar entitled “40 better ways to work with clients“. I describe the seminar as follows…

We all suffer from problem clients. However, sometimes the problem is not with the client but our ability to work with them. In this presentation Paul will share 40 practical tips on how to improve how you work with clients.

Unfortunately a number of people have told me they will be unable to attend due to time differences. With that in mind I have recorded a video of the presentation for those who cannot make the live event.

Below is a trailer so you can see what the presentation is like.

You can download the video and an accompanying PDF for only £9.25 using the link below. If you have already signed up for the seminar do not worry, you will get this package after the seminar at no additional cost.

Buy this video for only £9.25

Please note the video is a .mov file so you will need the Quicktime Player installed.

Similar Posts:

• Fight the System Video
• 40 better ways to work with clients
• Fight the system.
• The Benefit Of Web Standards
• Your design sucks