Reviews

Sarah Worsham / Jun 9, 2009

Book Review – Don't Make Me Think, 2nd Edition

Most of us who are practitioners of website usability know that a good deal of good design, and good usability, is just applying some common sense. Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think (Amazon affiliate link), now in its 2nd edition, brings good web usability to the masses in a short format that can be read during a plane trip (which was one of Steve’s goals). Steve starts with the basics of web usability, what he terms “guiding principles”, and explains them in a way that will make sense even to CEOs. Once you understand these “guiding principles”, Steve uses them to illustrate general design principles that every website needs to get right. Each of the twelve chapters uses examples and big pictures (for the CEOS) to illustrate usability concepts, why they work and why they’re important.

Website usability is more important than ever with a large portion of business research conducted online. With the rise in popularity of smartphones and other mobile devices, having good usability on multiple platforms will be extremely important. The principles and examples used in Krug’s book will help any business understand the basics of getting their website into shape so that they can reach a much larger audience (and stop annoying their current customers).

Even web designers and usability “experts” will find something useful in Don’t Make Me Think (Amazon affiliate link), even if it’s just a great quote for a blog post on usability. I found some good quotes that you may see in future posts, but I also found some great new ways to illustrate usability principles that will help get the why across to businesspeople (which can be difficult, as we all are aware). Don’t Make Me Think (Amazon affiliate link) was a quick and enjoyable read, even for someone very familiar (and passionate about) with web usability. I recommend giving it a read, no matter what your business role.

If you’ve read the book, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition (Amazon affiliate link)

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Sarah Worsham / May 18, 2009

Need Quick Mobile Site? With Unity Mobile, Be Up in Ten Minutes

I played around with setting up a Unity Mobile site last week for a review I wrote over at New Media Hub. While the article is geared towards media publishers, I think it has some good info for anyone interested in creating a mobile website. And as the title of this article says, I was able to create one in about ten minutes.

Priced at $99/month, Unity Mobile provides all the tools for local media companies to create a mobile site fast. By using their templates, adding some images, text, and RSS feeds, a publisher can create and activate a mobile website in around 10 minutes. Revenue is generated via CPM or CPC based advertising networks with 50% of the revenue going to the publisher. While publishers cannot sell their own advertising, Unity’s system is ideal for local media who want to concentrate on delivering their content on mobile devices without worrying about finding advertisers. – Quick Mobile Site? Unity Mobile is up in ten minutes – Sarah Worsham – New Media Hub

You can try out Unity Mobile for free. They have 30 day trials, but even without the trial, you won’t be charged until your site actually goes live. If you happen to give Unity Mobile a try, I’d love to hear how it works for you.

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Sarah Worsham / May 14, 2009

EchoSign – Get Contracts Signed – Electronic Signatures Made Easy

Getting a contract signed by a customer is a must for many companies before they can get started on a project or ship a product. Or maybe you use outside contractors and need to put an agreement in place before they can start work.

The contract signing process can be long and drawn out and often costs time and effort to see it all the way through. However, it’s a necessity in the business world. And most of us put up with the hassle because it means actually getting paid (pretty important!). Since we’re a service company, we use contracts for all our customers and contractors. It often can take up to a week to get a contract signed and back in our hands.

Yesterday I tried out EchoSign, which automates the entire process. I uploaded a copy of the contract for the customer and EchoSign let me choose options such as who signed first and how it was signed (electronic signature vs. efax). Then it emailed my client a link straight to the contract for them to review and electronically sign. Once they signed it alerted me so I could sign. Then it emailed us both a copy of the signed contract. While the process took overnight to complete (because that’s when my client got around to signing it), I didn’t have to do anything other than upload the document and sign it when it came back. Easy!

EchoSign offers a free plan which includes one user, up to 5 signatures (from you) and 5 stored documents per month. The first paid plan starts at $14.95/mo for one user, unlimited signatures and up to 500 documents stored. All the way up to enterprise at $299/mo for 10 users and a customized amount of signatures and documents. They also add other features for the paid plans, such as account sharing, mobile scanning, pdf encryption, to name a few. (More info on their pricing plans)

For any company that needs contracts to do business, but spends a lot of time getting the proper signatures, EchoSign is worth a look. After the great experience I had with the last contract, I know I’ll be using it for all our clients and contractors.

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