Content Management Matters ™

September signifies the beginning of many things: school, autumn, major league baseball playoffs. It also brings the Web 2.0 Expo. Scheduled for September 16-19 in New York City, Web 2.0 Expo is set to make attendees a part of the 2.0 experience by offering on-stage sessions, keynote presentations, workshops, panel discussions and demos, as well as opportunities for participants to engage face-to-face.

What better excuse to go to San Francisco in August than to attend UX Week 2008.

Touted as the premier user experience conference, UX Week 2008 offers a mix of inspiring presentations from recognized thought leaders and hands-on workshops delivering takeaway skills. Intended for user experience professionals at all levels -- directors, managers and practitioners -- the schedule offers day-by-day registration and features engaging and interactive daily themes.

Quantifying design is a concept that many consider blasphemous. Yet, we realize that the value of design is under scrutiny. Often we are asked "what is the value of good design?" or "how much does good design cost?" As we know, 'good design' is subjective and can vary greatly, depending upon your organization, audience and product.

To better understand what 'good design' is, it's best to evaluate if your design is fulfilling the needs of its users. To help simplify the process and to outline useful design strategies, the folks at Rosenfeld Media offer Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior.

Sitecore recently announced the coming version of their flagship web content management system and today the product is officially out the door.

Our technical and editorial teams had an opportunity to test drive the new Sitecore 6 product last week. And with this latest version out of the gates today, we thought it apropos that we share a bit of what we saw.

In a very few words, version 6.0 is a nice corner-rounding release that demonstrates both that the company cares about its customers and that it has a successful process of building client feedback into the product development cycle.

Earlier this week, BusinessWeek rounded up a smattering of web experts to compose the 10 Commandments of Web Design of 2008.

With help from a variety of sources, including Steven Heller, co-chairman, MFA Design program, School of Visual Arts, Don Norman, co-founder, Nielsen Norman Group and Martin Wattenberg, founding manager and IBM Visual Communication Lab, a heavenly list of do's and don'ts was compiled.

There's a new competition in town that seeks to award design and its impact on community. The Spark Awards, entering its second year, is focused on designed change.

Change for the better: studied, researched, cognizant of criteria like sustainability, suitability, context, inventiveness, process, universality—and yes, beauty.

Oh writers. No one has time to read what we write anymore. Even more reason to make what you do write concise, clear and effective.

Writing for the web, no matter how many times we say it, is different that writing for print. Readers are not likely to read every word. They're going to glance, skim and scan their way through your content, most likely with a cup of coffee in hand or checking email simultaneously.

With such a wayward bunch of users, what's a web content writer to do? Chris Nodder, user experience specialist at Nielsen Norman Group thinks you simplify content to make it as accessible as possible. Most users are visiting your site through a search engine rather than going directly to a site's home page, so why not make it easy to find what they want.

Nodder offers up some "Sign Posts" indicating "where else readers can go for more specific information and related resources such as white papers".

No matter how good you think your Web site's design is, accept that it can always be better. Web design is no place for the content. You must forever resign yourself to the fact that your site's usability is not going to be perfect. This is not to say your site isn't good. In fact it may be great -- but it could be better.

Or so says Jakob Nielsen in his recent article, Extreme Usability: How to Make an Already-Great Design Even Better.

Creating a successful e-commerce experience can be tricky. Making it engaging can be downright challenging. Keeping up with the evolving web skills and demands of online customers often means upgrading technology and making sites more interactive -- but at what cost? And who's time? And for what? Having a better understanding of how to execute a strategic approach to an engaging e-commerce experience is the key.

Thank goodness then for Human Factors International (HFI). They will be hosting a free, live webcast on Thursday, June 26 at 3:30 PM (EST) about Optimizing e-commerce UX: Create websites that empower customers, are effortless to use and create a joyful shopping experience.

The future of Web design is coming. In two weeks. Are you ready?

I speak of course about the conference Future of Web Design scheduled for April 17 and 18 in London. The conference features internationally-renowned design experts and alluring workshops such as Creating Sexy Style Sheets and Elastic Thinking: adaptable design in a world of uncertainty.

FOWB boasts the opportunity to learn from the best to become the best. A very tall order, indeed.

On day one, you will be whisked through the day chock-full of dynamic speakers who will extol on such topics as:

• Finding Inspiration For Design
• User Experience vs Brand Experience
• Designing the User Experience Curve
• Getting your designs approved: 12 Simple Rules
• Print is the new web
• From Design to Deployment
• Unconventional ways to promote your site
• Evolving the User Experience

On day two, you will delve into the aforementioned workshops. By the time the after party rolls around, it will be hard to determine the experts from the attendees!

Only full conference passes and the conference-in-a-box, a handy-dandy pack that contains all of the great content that you'd experience from the conference without the hassle of traveling, are still available for registrants so hurry!

Acumium LLC is stoked, and for good reason. A recent survey on Web Content Management User Experience conducted by the Gilbane Group has given Acumium the highest rating from respondents for their "ease of navigation and use of feature-functions".

No matter how you feel about measuring your site's stats, whether you think it to be an unfortunate driver of style over substance or as the gold standard of usability, the truth is that user experience (UX) metrics are factored into most marketing and design strategies.

Yet, there hasn't always been a clear method of how to best interpret and use UX metrics. Until now.

The results of a new study about blogging behavior were released last week.

According to the study, a surprisingly small eight percent of us have our own blog, but "8 out of 10 Americans know what a blog is and almost half have visited blogs."

Nonetheless, progress is progress.