How To Create An Ecommerce Website That Sells (Bogdan)

We have all had the same experience regarding ecommerce websites. We go online looking for a particular product. We type the keywords for the thing we desire into a search engine. We get a bunch of results, and it seems as though one company has exactly what we’re looking for. So, we click through to the website and we are instantly disheartened by the unprofessional looking landing page of the company. If you are like me, when you see a poorly designed website, you probably leave the site and try another. At least for me, my thinking is that if the company can’t go through the effort to make a professional looking website, then they probably do not put much effort into other things like customer service or timely delivery, etc. (topdesignmag.com)

Design Principles: Visual Perception And The Principles Of Gestalt (Steven Bradley)

In 1910, psychologist Max Wertheimer had an insight when he observed a series of lights flashing on and off at a railroad crossing. It was similar to how the lights encircling a movie theater marquee flash on and off. (smashingmagazine.com)

Why Clients Aren’t Interested in Your Proposals (Stef Gonzaga)

An entire work day. That’s how long it took to create the 8-page project proposal you wrote, edited, and packaged to perfection for a potential client. It’s the third one you’re sending out this month. (sixrevisions.com)

Shortening UX to UI time: a different approach to MVP design (fakecrow)

Design teams that handle user experience and user interface will know; when working on an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), we are often on tight deadlines, have limited resources, and a great need to test and iterate. At Fake Crow, we’ve been seeking a way to cut down the turnaround time between delivering UX elements and UI comps, allowing more time for rapid prototyping and testing. (fakecrow.com)

The First World’s biggest addiction (David Cain)

My people have a ritual, and in fact I performed this ritual as I sat down to write what you’re reading. It goes like this: I take a spoonful of special seeds and grind them down into a powder. I run hot water through the powder, and collect the dark liquid that seeps out. I take the cup of hot liquid and bring it to my desk because I believe drinking it will make for a better working experience. (raptitude.com)

Leveraging Eye Tracking to Create an Engaging User Experience (Frank Guo)

Eye tracking is a very powerful research technique that can help you design engaging experiences by illuminating a pathway for capturing user attention. It’s also a misunderstood technique. Many are lured by the “sexiness” associated with heatmaps and gaze plots but fail to implement the findings properly, and therefore get lots of data but glean little actionable insight. Others avoid eye tracking altogether because of perceived complexity of the technique. (uxmag.com)

Companies struggle to keep up as more customers turn to Twitter for answers (Cynthia Boris)

This past January, Simply Measured monitored 32 dedicated customer service Twitter accounts. They tallying up the number of incoming and outgoing Tweets, calculated response times and posted their results in a brand new report. (marketingpilgrim.com)

The Definition of a Long-Tail Keyword [In Under 100 Words] (Sam Kusinitz)

A long-tail keyword is a keyword phrase that contains at least three words (though some say two or more is considered long-tail). (hubspot.com)

Design research: What Testing Won’t Tell You (Lynsey Thornton)

Just like their real-life counterparts, our relationships with digital products and services have a tendency to change, to mature over time. So when the UX team at Shopify sought to improve the product’s onboarding process—one that normally takes several days or weeks to transpire—we chose to employ a rather unusual approach. (uxbooth.com)

Save 20%: Task Analysis Boot Camp-What You Need To Know Before Design

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Course Description: Document the user experience of your website, app, or product BEFORE you design with a task analysis. Price for the week: $39 (Originally $49)

Optimal Techniques for Strategically Displaying Web Forms (Eva McKnight & Lance Padgett)

Incorporating web forms into your website isn’t always the easiest thing to do; they often look very sales-driven, and don’t always flow well with your designs. But we need forms because they are the ultimate way to capture important user-contributed data. (sixrevisions.com)

7 Steps to an Effective Landing Page (James George)

A landing page is an effective way to drive sales for any business. The majority of websites share a similar range of assets — about us pages, contact pages, etc. But a great landing page is something that takes time to produce. Landing page designs will vary, depending on the industry that you’re in. However, most effective landing pages have a few key elements in common that make them successful. (sitepoint.com)

Bing makes a visual splash with new Product Ads for search (Cynthia Boris)

In case you haven’t noticed, visual imagery is in like Flynn. Pinterest, Instagram, expanded photo options on Twitter and Facebook – it’s a byproduct of our lightening fast, mobile world. If we can see it, we’re more likely to choose it and buy it. So Bing is bringing that idea over to the search page with their new Product Ads. (marketingpilgrim.com)

How to Use Visual Hierarchy To Create Clear and Easy-to-Read Web Pages (Pamela Wilson)

Imagine you’ve entered a cave. Your eyes slowly adjust to your surroundings and begin to make out the shapes and forms around you. You see three doorways: they’re equal in size, and all the same distance from where you stand. How do you choose where to go first? (copyblogger.com)

Usability Tip: One Main Call-to-Action Item Per Task (Tammy Guy)

One of the best ways to learn what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to UI and usability is to look at as many samples as possible and test out pages, comparing and evaluating how certain elements are being treated. This online poll from Fame10 was linked to through the Fox News mobile app. In the survey, users are asked to submit their answers through radio button selections. (uxmag.com)

Content-out Layout (Linda van Deursen)

Grids serve well to divide up a predefined canvas and guide how content fits onto a page, but when designing for the web’s fluid nature, we need something more… well, responsive. Enter ratios, which architects, sculptors, and book designers have all used in their work to help set the tone for their compositions, and to scale their material from sketch to final build. We can apply a similar process on the web by focusing on the tone and shape of our content first, then working outward to design fluid, ratio-based grid systems that invite harmony between content, layout, and screen. (alistapart.com)

5 Must Read Perspectives on Social Media Marketing Strategy (Lee Odden)

The eternal debate in marketing: Strategy before tactics vs. Tactics to develop strategy. So many companies have become comfortable reacting to industry trends and competitors with tactics, that they end up with wasted effort, poor performance and plenty of frustration. This is especially true in the world of social media marketing as companies roll out social media tactics only to be left wondering in 6 months what the ROI is. (toprankblog.com)

Content Marketing: Tips from your peers on making use of internal resources (David Kirkpatrick)

A recent MarketingSherpa Blog post, “Content Marketing: Interviewing internal resources,” covered one technique for including internal resources in your content marketing. Today’s post features sources who each an array of quick-hit tips on the topic. (marketingsherpa.com)

Responsive-Design Intranets with Smart Content Prioritization (Kara Pernice)

An intranet implemented with the responsive design technique enables employees to access all intranet content on any mobile device or computer. A responsive-design intranet (or public-facing website) has only one codebase but typically has different user experiences for desktop and smaller-screen mobile displays, perhaps a third UX for tablets, and possibly even more user experiences for other devices and screen sizes. Since designers are able to choose how and where the content and features should appear on each device, a responsive intranet can create the best possible UX for employees no matter which device they are using. (nngroup.com)

Designing for Your Objectives (Rachel McCollin)

Whenever I’m working with a new client, the first question I ask them is what they want their website to do for them. Often, they don’t know. They just think a website is something they should probably have. Because other businesses have them. (sixrevisions.com)