WebWord.com Newsletter Issue #48

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ISSUE #48
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                WebWord.com Newsletter
           "Technology. Humans. Experience"
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                 Newsletter Editor
                   John S. Rhodes 
                     John@webword.com
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July 2, 2000                        Newsletter #48
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Table of Contents

1. Trashy Supermarket Tabloid Memories
2. More About WebWord.com (The Women.com Story)
3. Growth of the WebWord.com Job Bank 
4. Editorial: The Small Pizza Restaurant 
5. My Linux Installation
6. Two Usability Questions


        
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ITEM #1

A new WebWord.com interview is now online:
--> http://webword.com/interviews/lampinen.html

"Trashy Supermarket Tabloid Memories"


We recently caught up with Dr. James Lampinen. In the
interview Jim mainly talks about two things: human 
memory as it applies to the legal system and human
memory as it applies to usability, marketing, and
web design. There are some great nuggets of wisdom
in this interview. I highly recommend that you at 
least take a quick look at it to see if there is 
something in it for you.

You can read the interview here:
--> http://webword.com/interviews/lampinen.html


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ITEM #2

More About WebWord.com (The Women.com Story)

For the last 6 months or so we have significantly
ramped up our operations. We completed some heavy 
duty usability testing for Astronet.com as part of a 
research initiative for Women.com. The project lead
inside Women.com told us that knowing how users 
navigated the site was worth $15,000. That is serious
value, and we are convinced that this information
can be used to improve profit margins and traffic by
several percentage points (the changes, and the 
details of the impact, are forthcoming).

While we are mainly a usability vortal, we also offer 
a wide range of services to help you understand your 
customers. We have partners that allow us to build 
advanced web applications, including Lotus Domino 
powered sites, user behavior tracking systems, web 
based email, and more. Our network of resources allows 
to even build cutting edge WAP and WML applications. 
Usability testing is our core competency but our
growing network can help you in several other ways.

If you need testing done today, or you need something
built, we can help. Please send us an email with your
business needs:  info@webword.com


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ITEM #3

Growth of the WebWord.com Job Bank 

About one month ago we announced the new WebWord.com
Job Bank. Well, the interest in this service has been
incredible. There are now 15 jobs posted! Skip directly 
there if you want:

>> http://webword.com/services/job_bank.html

There are several different kinds of jobs posted. If
you are interested in getting a job in usability and
you have the skills, you'll want to visit the Job Bank.
A few of the jobs have salaries posted. You'll be 
happy to know that a couple of them pay about $100,000.

If you are looking to post a job, it costs $50 up 
front, or $1,000 if the job is taken by an applicant 
through WebWord.com. The job will be listed for 3
months or until the job is filled and we are notified.

Do you want to know when new job are posted? Subscribe
to our notification service:

>> http://webwordjobbank.listbot.com/


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ITEM #4

Editorial: The Small Pizza Restaurant 

About two weeks ago I was eating lunch with Greg 
Benoit, a partner of mine at WebWord.com. We were at
a pizza parlor that we both like because they have
excellent Buffalo Style pizza (cheese, hot sauce, blue
cheese, and celery). As usual, the pizza was excellent.
A bit greasy, but excellent.

We went up to pay and my bill was $5.13 and Greg's
was something like $5.02. I paid $5.00 and Greg paid
$5.00. As we walked out we got talking about places 
like this restaurant. Not having to pay the extra 
change doesn't seem like a big deal but we both greatly
appreciated it. It felt very personalized and the
cashier (the owner) made us feel good.

We both agreed that we'd be more likely to return to 
the restaurant, tell other people, and leave a bigger
tip the next time we were there. For $0.15, you can't
really beat the return. It was a personalized, highly
targeted investment and it will help them compete and
ultimately stay in business. We liked the product and
the *service*. 

I wonder how much of this kind of attention can be 
translated to the web. Can small "mom and pop" web 
operations do the same sort of thing as the local
pizza parlors? I think so. By paying special attention
to individual users and their email questions they 
can make a better living. The usability of interpersonal
interactions can't be underestimated. The customer 
experience can be improved via better email responses:
quicker, better, personal. Also, if small web sites
can offload repetitive work with tools such as
autoresponders they can work on the higher value 
operations such as back end programming and tending
to their databases. Creating simple forms, online
questionnaires, tutorials, FAQs and so forth can 
go a long, long way.

The bottom line is that small web sites have the 
opportunity to beat larger companies with highly
personal products and services. Those bland emails
we all get from larger organizations just aren't the 
same as the ones from real individuals. Despite what
large organizations might think, psychological studies
indicate that people *can* read between the lines. 
People can tell if the person at the other end 
actually cares. Small businesses on the web, like the
real world, can compete based on how much they care
for their users, patrons, or clients.


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ITEM #5

My Linux Installation

I installed Linux on an old box about a week ago.
It took me about 1.5 hours. Here is a blow by blow
account of my installation.

  Machine details: 486 Pentium clone (Cyrix p100), 48Mb 
  RAM, 1.2Gig hard drive, 800Mb secondary hard drive,
  8Mb video card, 6X CD-ROM drive, floppy drive.

7:53 Insert boot floppy in A: drive (a friend gave
     this to me along with a CD-ROM with Redhat
     Linux 6.2). Boot up and hit enter.

7:55 Insert CD-ROM, selected English for language
     preference. System begins looking for mouse type.
     At this time, the system fails to find mouse and
     therefore fails over to text installation mode.

7:57 Chose KDE (instead of GNOME) window system that
     "rides" on top of X-Windows and Linux. Faced
     with problem of drive partions. I need to figure
     out "mount point" so that the partion can be 
     configured properly. I'm frustrated at this point.

8:08 By a miracle, figured out partioning needs. Select
     Microsoft Serial mouse for pointing device. Need
     to select a COM port. Another headache.

8:10 Create a password, add new user, and package 
     information begins being read. Video card located
     and installation log is created.

8:15 "Not enough disk space error" and D-ROM ejects.
     10 minutes of troubleshooting my partion 
     information is required.

8:25 Reboot for 3rd time. Installation begins again. 
     Smooth sailing through about 5 screens of 
     semi-useful information. Actual installation
     from CD-ROM packages occurs.

9:05 Installation still running. Dr. Pepper and 
     bathroom break.

9:15 Installation almost complete. Choose monitor type
     from a huge selection. The X System gets auto
     configured based on my earlier choices. "Success!"
     is displayed. Asked to remove disks and reboot.

9:22 Reboot, log in with username and password, KDE
     launches and I'm running a Linux machine.


All in all this was a pretty reasonable experience.
The installation was NOT as easy as a Microsoft 
Windows installation, and it was often mysterious, 
but I was able to get it installed in a respectable
time frame. Several things could be improved, but that
will be a topic for an interview or report. I hope this
account of my installation gives you some courage to 
try this yourself. If you have been curious, take the
plunge and install Linux.


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ITEM #6

Two Usability Questions

(1) A reader wrote to ask about resources available
    for construction of a FAQ. Specifically, the
    question was whether there are any usability 
    guidelines available on how to construct FAQs. 
    I know I have my preferences, as do many other
    people, but are there any real usability guidelines
    about this topic? Better still would be actual
    data from research. Got some?

(2) Like FAQs, I've been asked about the usability of
    web resumes. Again, I have my ideas. But, I'd
    like to know if anyone has any usability articles
    or research they could forward to me. I don't like 
    just having opinions on these matters. Have you
    any data to share?

If you have any information, please pass it along:
>> info@webword.com

If there is enough, I'll write a report and share it 
with the group. Thanks for your help!


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ITEM #7
    
What Can You Find at WebWord.com?

Job Bank
<http://webword.com/services/job_bank.html>

Articles (Moving WebWord)
<http://webword.com/moving/>

Discussion Board
<http://www.vicinities.com/webword/>

Expert Interviews 
<http://webword.com/interviews/> 

Recommended Books
<http://webword.com/books/booksindex.html>

Newsletter Archive
<http://webword.com/archive>

Weblog Archive
<http://www.webword.com/weblog>

Usability Reports 
<http://webword.com/reports>

Recommended Web Sites
<http://webword.com/hotsites.html>

Free Stuff
<http://webword.com/freestuff.html>


---- End of WebWord.com Usability Newsletter #48 ------



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