Last year, I blogged about some projects we’ve done using Cisco TelePresence for usability testing and customer interviews. We have also begun using Cisco TelePresence quite a bit for collaborative design.
Posted by Martin Hardee on November 04, 2009 at 11:30AM
This past week, Web usability expert Gerry McGovern spent a couple of days with us here at Cisco. We’re always working on improving areas of our Web, and Gerry has been helping us on some detailed research on customers’ and …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on October 30, 2009 at 06:15AM
Amid the excitement around last week’s announcement of the Cisco Integrated Services Router Generation 2 (ISR G2), you might have noticed that we did a nice upgrade to the ISR web page on Cisco.com. The new page contains a lot …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on October 26, 2009 at 05:50AM
Some new video profiles on Cisco.com show how small businesses are using technology to change things pretty dramatically in their operations. I love these short videos because they make technology concepts (which could otherwise seem abstract) very tangible. …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on October 20, 2009 at 05:55AM
To be completely honest, I don’t usually spend much time on companies’ annual report web areas. But I’m making an exception for the new Cisco Annual Report—I’m really pleased with the online format, which is really elegant.
Posted by Martin Hardee on September 29, 2009 at 05:55AM
“Crowd sourcing”—the idea that the greatest ideas come from amongst creative throngs of experts—has certainly come into its own. Companies have been at it several years now, and at Cisco we certainly have several of our own examples range from …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on September 14, 2009 at 05:45AM
Not that you would ever watch cartoons at work, but I was noticing that TBS.com has a "boss button" on its site, just like on PC video games.
Posted by Martin Hardee on August 27, 2009 at 05:50AM
In days of yore, if you visited any design shop, you'd see scores of printouts, sketches, and other design work tacked and taped on walls throughout. In fact, in our design teams at Cisco we still do a lot of …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on August 24, 2009 at 05:45AM
The other day I was blogging about how ready-made off-the-shelf templates can be just the ticket if you have a small business and need to update your web presence. But what if you’re in a much bigger company, and you …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on August 18, 2009 at 03:35PM
A friend of mine was making a point the other day about the difference between art and design. Paraphrased, it goes something like this: Art is when you make something interesting, touching, inspiring or beautiful. Design, on the other hand, …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on July 27, 2009 at 05:45AM
Interesting postulation from a recent BusinessWeek post and podcast.
Posted by Martin Hardee on July 25, 2009 at 09:07AM
Not a week goes by that I don't get asked by someone about good books or courses about how to improve the user experience for products and web sites. It turns out that User Experience Designer Whitney Hess gets the …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on July 06, 2009 at 09:01AM
In our Web design group, we spend most of our waking hours looking at things online. This is a matter of necessity, of course, since everything we do ends up online, and also because we collaborate with teams worldwide electronically, …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on June 22, 2009 at 05:55AM
One of the fun, but hidden, aspects of The Realm animated adventure is the chat capability we build into our Cisco.com security pages. For instance, when you visit then latest episode ("Virus")... And you click through to the pages for …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on May 05, 2009 at 06:21AM
Over the last 18 months, I've given a talk pretty regularly called "Design your web site from the bottom up." The idea is that many people will arrive on a page deep within your site via a search engine of …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on March 08, 2009 at 10:15PM
Remember the Cisco.com Product Gateway page we updated while back? This one below? We have just added something new that you can't see: The new Product gateway page is "smart." First, some of the content at the top is personalized …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on February 28, 2009 at 06:00AM
Blended into all of the excitement from last week's MacWorld and CES events was an interesting new area of Cisco.com we launched for our Cisco Eos product. Eos is a platform that allows media companies to scale a community-based entertainment …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on January 16, 2009 at 06:02AM
Here's something for the web teams among you who have been pondering whether and where to use iconic pictures on your web site. There's a something to be said for using icons to dress things up: Icons can be attractive, …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on January 05, 2009 at 04:00PM
If you've ever managed a web project, you know how vexing it can be to get started with a clear scope and direction, especially if a redesign is part of the agenda. Maybe you've worked on a web project in …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on December 10, 2008 at 05:30AM
We just updated the design of our main product page on Cisco.com. Here is the new design: This new design is intended to: Help you find the right product categories quickly, by virtue of being much quicker to scan Group …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on November 24, 2008 at 09:40PM
Collaborative crowd sourcing is evolving above and beyond the norm through 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life. The use of Wikitecture in Second Life is emerging as something significantly different and is proving to be a successful way that …Read more.
Posted by Dennis Mancini on July 18, 2008 at 12:00PM
In the world of perpetual Beta, "final" never really is. A case is point is the recently launched, segment-savvy home page from the design team at HP.com: There were many pros and cons chronicled about this "black page" design, but …Read more.
Posted by Martin Hardee on June 05, 2008 at 10:23PM
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