Don’t trust your gut instinct
In an age when computers can crunch numbers and do analysis on a vast scale, the deep flaws in our intuition and gut instinct are becoming more and more apparent.
Direct Instruction is a rigid, highly structured form of education. The teacher has very little control and must follow a series of scripts and formulas. […]
Great websites are boring to manage
Great websites help you complete simple, common tasks in a fast, efficient manner. They are boring to design and manage.
Is your website for your web team? Is it for your marketing manager? Is it for your communications manager? Or perhaps your branding manager? Or maybe some senior manager or politician?
Should it really be for […]
Are you measuring the right things?
Having enormous quantities of people visit gargantuan numbers of pages on your website is the only metric that matters. (Santa Claus is a woman who lives in the Bahamas.)
Health websites around the world have been thriving as a result of swine flu. Millions upon millions of new visitors and countless millions of new page views. […]
Website management: you can’t automate everything
The biggest challenge a website manager has is to understand how humans work, not how content management software or search engines work.
I recently did a workshop with a bunch of engineers in the audience. I was explaining the essential need to understand your customers by observing their behavior. “I don’t want to waste 30 minutes […]
Future of web management is evidence-based
This is the age of evidence and fact-based decision-making. Gut instinct and feelings need to be kept firmly in check.
In March 2009, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, spent a week working on the floor in one of Amazon’s distribution centers. No, it wasn’t a PR stunt. There were no cameras and no interviews allowed. […]
How many webpages can one person manage?
The Microsoft Office Online team that manages the Excel website has five people and looks after about 1,000 pages. That’s 200 pages per person.
We are still in the early stages of web management. Many web teams lack authority and resources. This generally results in very large unmanaged websites.
In a choices-overloaded world, it is not what […]
Your website can thrive in a recession
Properly managed, your website is the most cost-effective environment in which your customers can complete their tasks.
While U.S. retail sales grew just 2 percent in the first nine months of 2008, ecommerce sales grew by 8 percent, according to a JPMorgan analyst. Amazon’s sales revenue grew by 31 percent over the last twelve months.
The Web […]
Top task performance heavily influences branding
If a customer cannot complete their top tasks quickly and easily on your website, why would they trust you to help them with other tasks?
You’re in a giant shopping mall. You urgently need to go to the toilet. You go to the Information Desk. There’s a big queue. After waiting for ages your turn […]
How to manage an intranet
Traditional managers often lack the skills required to understand if an intranet is successful or not.
I was once talking to a manager about how the intranet could save staff time and make things easier, when he shook his head dismissively. “It’s not the job of management to make life easier for staff,” he told […]
Hidden costs of self-service
A self-service website can only be effective when people can complete the tasks they came to complete.
The toll booths on a motorway I regularly use were removed recently. In their place is an automatic system called Eflow that captures your car registration. You then have a number of options for payment.
I happen to […]
