Marko Hurst

A short and sweet – only a 20 minutes – talk that I gave at Henry Stewart DAM 2010 last week.

When it comes to onsite (enterprise) search engines these days there is a misperception and an over reliance on using algorithms or algorithmic search only to serve search results. With the exception of good eCommerce sites I don’t think I’m too far off when I say that the results you get blows chunks – serve irrelevant results – on most sites. So is all lost? Are we doomed to bad search and forced to browse forever? No, of course not. The solution is not another peice of technology, it’s something we’re all (or should be) familiar with – taxonomy.

Let me break it down as simple as I can…

IF YOU WANT TO SERVE MORE RELEVANT RESULTS , HAVE BETTER FINABILITY OF CONTENT, AND GREAT RETURN ON INFORMATION (ROI) YOU WILL LEVERAGE TAXONOMIC SEARCH!

A bit dramatic? Sure, but I needed to make a point.

If you use taxonomic search properly I GUARANTEE (as a consultant and being Sicilian I RARELY ever do that) you will get better more relevant results. Guaranteed.

Recap:

1. Stop relying entirely on an algorithm to deliver search results
2. Start leveraging metadata & taxonomies to deliver MORE relevant search results

Enjoy and good luck with achieving better search results!

“User Experience By The Numbers” is my presentation I gave at JBoye Conferences Philadelphia 2010 on May 5th. This presentation shows how user experience (UX) professionals can start using web analytics to inform the experiences they design by focusing on Behavioral Metrics and using onsite search and SEO to inform site content for a better experience.

1) Behavioral Metrics – which are what I feel everyone, but especially UX folks should be focusing on. Behavioral Metrics actually capture and show a user’s behavior, which is in contrast to site and aggregate metrics (visits, visitors, page views, etc).

2) Content & Keywords – By understanding your visitors natural language  you can apply that knowledge to you site and improve your SEO, SEM, content, URLs, metadata, labeling, taxonomy, ontology, site navigation, etc.

Both of these methods are a huge step in the direction of leveraging both qualitative & quantitative data and is very easy to learn. GUARANTEE if you use these two methods it will have a MAJOR impact on improving the experiences you design.

Good luck & enjoy!

This was my talk give the NYC UPA. It discusses what I call ” Designing Outcomes”, which is a type of ‘backcasting’ that I’ve found works better than other methods I’ve used for determining what steps need to be taken to achieve a specific goal. It does this by starting out with your desired outcome, end state, and moving backwards to the present.

For an example and tool to use this technique download the excel worksheet which shows a real client example from a women’s hair care line from a few years ago.

Yesterday I spoke on a panel at the 2008 Clickability User Conference : The Failure of Great Design – Learning To Adapt To Audience Need. My other esteemed panelists included: John Broady, Executive Director, Omniture; Tien Tzuo, CEO, Zuora; Clare Munn, CEO, The Communications Group.

Good riddance to the days of Render once, repent forever! Today’s cutting edge design is informed by user feedback delivered through real-time analytics built into the Web Content Management platform. From A and B versioning to pages instantly revised by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, our panelists are experts at the art of responsive (ahem) intelligent design. Learn how these design firms manipulate the subliminal for measurable results.

The choice of panelists was to have four very distinct views about how analytics affects “design”. Coming from and working for four distinct types of companies you would imagine that it would have been a street brawl up on stage. But, it was actually quite the opposite. While we approached a problem based upon our primary discipline, on every question and topic we were given we simply built upon and added to the previous panelists answer. At first I thought it might have been boring for the audience, but afterwards (much to my delight) I found it was quite the opposite. Here you had someone from one of the world’s largest analytic providers, a Web 2.0 concept company, a design company, and myself from a UX & analytic background all agreeing on the shortcomings of analytic platforms and how analytics can and should be used to improve every design. A true ‘merging’ if you will of technology, business, design, & analytics to create the ultimate user experience.