User-Centered Design - Kelikuru.com

Looking for a bright domain name is the cornerstone of building a strong brand in the internet world. Not only can it help SEO,  users will also find it easy to understand what the web site’s  about upon their first-time arrival. To start a web site and make it notable, TG suggests to acquiring a good domain name.

Check out this site and find out the owner, make your quotation and get your beloved domain.

http://whois.sc

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written by TG \\ tags: Recommended Sites, Usability

How to become a usability professional? - a question that caught TG by surprise a few weeks ago while  discussing tips and tricks of optimizing landing pages.

To tell the truth, TG cannot answer it off the top of my head. UI design, usability are something TG has done for a while, they come to me in such a natural manner that it acts on my instinct rather than a logical thinking - despite there’s a compelling need to do data analysis in support of argument.  The desgin work appears to be a routine car-driving experience; when to start an engine,  withhold a brake, roll up and down the window do not require a deep thought at all.  

I feel therefore I am

One thing TG can be sure is that as a designer, regardless of what areas you are specialized in, we need to become affectionated and would be better to develop a sense of empathy. Trying to feel what our users feel - their happiness and pains.

“Feel” 感觉, is absolutley abstract but it fits TG so well that it gets me connected to the rest of the world. A song TG finds it enjoyable and it’s the driving force within myself to perfect my job for our users. This version is particularly amusing -  Stand by me - Timon and Pumba

Regret to my training 

TG is so thankful to the colleague who inspires me of rethinking what, how and why I am pursuing the career now!! My remorse to her is my messy, unprepared training!

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written by TG \\ tags: Usability, User Experience Desgin

TG like browsing Youtube to look for great music video, movie clips or online advertising and got them embedded.  The price is perfectly right — no charge at all!! Yesterday, TG found Youtube made a small but significant change in its embedded video.

As usual, TG played a favorite movie clip with an embedded link, when it came to an end, Youtube displayed a number of other choices, that’s usual; yet it added another UI element at the top.

Guess what it is? It’s a search box!

TG don’t know when and how Youtube come up with this idea. It’s a brilliant though.  Not only does its small deployment increase its stickiness, engaging the users in Youtube environment,  it also enables users to get quick access to a barrage of video - a user-centered tactic. TG was addicted to it, kept trying searching for another 30 mins..

Congratulation Youtube!!

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written by TG \\ tags: digital media, Online video, Usability, User experiences, YouTube

In a time of financial crisis, it is far more important for us to work harder to improve our quality of work. TG was reminded to tell everybody in usability field that UPA China will host its User Friendly 2008 in Shenzhen. It’s expected that the event will bring all brains togather, sharing experiences and developing insights to create great design. 

The seminar will last for 4 days, starting from 24 to 27th Oct. If you are interested in it, you can visit UPA China website

written by admin \\ tags: China Internet, Usability

User interface design (UI) and Search engine optimization (SEO) should intertwine even though they are target for different users: human vs search engine robots.

The more TG works on UI design, the more TG feels that we should factor in SEO in creating a user-friendly site. SEO should be considered part of the site-building puzzle. There’s no one glove fits all though. One of TG’s friends working in a large bank in Hong Kong revealed that their team paid less attention to SEO techniques since they were so established that their customers were perfectly loyal to the bank…

TG is speechless and amazed if it does happen!

There are many common areas in usability and site optimization world. If you take a brief look, you will be amazed how closely they are :

• Text-based navigation is recommended to cater for the need of the majority users. Should graphic navigation be deployed, use descriptive alt text on the imges. One of the best ways to present an “Alt” text is Name/Country such as, Craft candle (China)
• Make use of descriptive keyword breadcrumb navigation to enable users know ”They are here”
• Give a page name on each page and highlight it with <H1>. tag. Both human and spider consume <H1> header, bold text <b> and body text <p> in the same order

“Just as every corner should have a street sign, every page should have a name.” Steven Krug

• Recommend to use external CSS files to keep the page light and structurally organized. Good for scanning and indexing 
• Use bulleted lists and bolding when appropriate
• Create content in context, build linkages to related articles and content in the second or third levels
• Create a sitemap for easy access and quick reference
• Copy should be concise, clean and keyword-specific. Most importantly, use layman term not bots
• Good layout means usable to human and spider
• Avoid duplicate content, not to confuse users and robots

 Now would you see them as a pair of high-heels walking on the street? Haha!

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written by TG \\ tags: Keywords, Search, search marketing, SEO, Steve Krug, Usability

Why using Nofollow tag?

The tip was given by TG’s friend who’s a SEO specialist. I think it would be nice to share with others who are designing user interface. In such an event that you don’t want Google to follow a specific link, crawling the link that you don’t think it’s appropriate, you can use the tag.

For example: <a href=”back to top.php” rel=”nofollow”>back to top</a>  Having this Nofollow tag in place, the back to top link does not get ranked in Google image and search result page.

First and foremost, you don’t want your site, which has a couple of back to top links, ranks high under “back to top” in search result pages or image search pages. Your users will not search through “Back to top” anyway. The keyword ranking should be more specific and meaningful to users such as, electronic cars, green industry etc. They can be of more representative of your business.

TG did a keyword search “Back to top“,  in Google image. It showed the following, TG is not sure how useful it would be

As a web site administrator, you should let Google index the content that are useful to your users so as to increase your site’s page view. According to Google webmaster tool,

Using nofollow on these links enables Googlebot to crawl other pages you’d prefer to see in Google’s index. However, a solid information architecture — intuitive navigation, user- and search-engine-friendly URLs, and so on — is likely to be a far more productive use of resources than focusing on crawl prioritization via nofollowed links.

written by TG \\ tags: emarketing, Keywords, Search, SEO, Usability, User Experience Desgin