Cameron Olthuis

UX Magazine launched it’s beta site the other day and I have to say they’ve missed the point. For a magazine that’s about user experience they sure haven’t done a very good job with the home page.

So what’s the problem? The layout!

The design is very well done, unique, and one of the best I’ve seen. The concept is great. But the user experience suffers with the layout.

The layout on the homepage is confusing, it’s hard to tell what’s what. What articles do I want to read? What category do they belong in? Where should I go next to find the information I’m looking for?

My advice. Just click one of the three buttons up top. Design, Tech, or Strategy. The rest of the layout is simple.

I hate getting writers block, it’s so frustrating when you have some free time to sit down and write and you’re just stuck. Before you know it the kids either need attention or it’s so late that if you don’t go to sleep now you won’t survive the day tomorrow. Time is money and writers block is like a tax.

Well I just discovered a good way to prevent writers block. It might be common sense to you but it’s rocket science to me and it’s really helped

In the past I’ve found that I was wasting a lot of time trying to write catchy titles for my blog entries. I was not only wasting a lot of time but I was also creating a block that would prevent me from completing the entries. By the time I ‘d come up with the good titles I’d forget all the good ideas I had just a few minutes ago. Then I’d spend the next hour staring at the screen trying to finish. Sometimes I’d get frustrated and just end up deleting what could have been a good blog entry.

Tonight it hit me, when I get an idea for a blog entry just go ahead and start writing the entry, forget the title. I can always worry about writing the title later, in fact they usually end up better that way. Use my creativity for the writing and then pull a title from the entry, simple isn’t it.

If this helps you pass it on.

The one feature wordpress really needs is autosave. My computer just froze up when I was the middle of a really long blog post. Just think how nice that we would be if wordpress automatically saved an entry if your computer froze. I’d sure be in a much better mood right now.

Needless to say I have to start from scratch on that entry, so if you’re listening how about adding that feature somehow. I’m not very familiar with the programming end of things but I’m sure with the technology these days it can be done.

It’s really hard to predict the future of the web, with some many cool new technologies it’s anyones guess which one’s going to be the next big thing. Why does it have to be just one? If it makes your internet experience more enjoyable and efficent you’re all for it right?

One of the technologies I’ve really been getting into lately is RSS. RSS (aka XML), allows you to easily create one or more of our own personal web pages, you decide what information is displayed there by subscribing to RSS feeds. You can use it to get the latest news, weather, sports, blog entries, events, and pretty much anything you can imagine, all on your own personal web page. I use my Yahoo! , it ties right in with my email account so it’s convenient. If you don’t already use RSS I suggest you start, it’s a very effecient way to get all the lastest information you’re looking for in one page.

Lately all sorts of web companies have been offering RSS feeds for all sorts of different things. I just learned that New York Times Job Market (source: Micro Persuasion) offers an RSS feed, if you’re looking for a job you can now track openings as they’re listed on New York Times. No longer do you have to check the New York Times everyday to see if there’s new job listings, the RSS feed will tell you.

RSS really is going to play a big role in the future of the web. It’s definitely one of the next big things to watch that’s taking over the web. Thanks to RSS you’ll soon be able to incorporate most everything you do online into one experience. By allowing you to get all the information you want in one place, it increases effeciency and saves time. Best of all it’s a very easy to use, even for the average person that isn’t computer savvy.

So what does this mean to marketers? I think it means there’s a big need to figure out what products are marketable using RSS. I ‘ve already started working on some for different clients. I believe these will offer a valuable service to our users, and will be things they’ll actually want to use. RSS feeds can really set your company apart, at the same time providing a very valuable service. Don’t go overboard with it though, not everything needs RSS.

I’m certainly looking forward to more companies offering RSS. For example, won’t it be cool when we’re shopping for a certain product on eBay and we can see all the listings as they come in, without having to actually visit eBay. It can get pretty annoying spending the time looking for new listings only to find there aren’t any. What about keeping track of items we’re already bidding on? Now I’m sure someone already offers a eBay software that does this but I’d really like to see these things coming from the actual companies.

I predict RSS will be one of the big things next year, if not THE big thing.

Subscribe to my RSS feed.

Merlin Mann has a good post on 5 ways to get on del.icio.us homepage. If I ever write anything good enough I’ll have to give it a try.

For those of you who don’t know what del.icio.us is click here.