May 12, 2008
How to Use a Storyboard 'Comic' to Help Design Your Web Site (Video)
That one-day crash course I'm teaching on B2B Web design had an unexpected highlight with participants: We did an interactive session on "design comics," which are a quick way of plotting out web experiences and including a human touch. And then we showed how to put together PowerPoint comics based on the session, like the one below:
This was a big hit, so I thought I would share the technique with our Cisco.com audience.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 06:04 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
May 07, 2008
Web Design is Like Building a House
People often ask me to explain why there are different Web design roles and how they fit in creating a Web experience: "Martin," they say, "can I just go find an artist somewhere to redesign the experience on the business-to-business section of the Web sites that I just inherited?"
Unfortunately, usually not. For anything complex, you probably need to have more talent on board than just the proverbial 'artist with purple hair.' Creating a Web site or even a section of one is a lot like building a house, where you need an architect, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc. who come on board during the life of the project as needed.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 06:30 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
April 17, 2008
Cisco's Support Site Wins ASP Award
A couple of weeks after getting great reviews from the folks at Site IQ , The Cisco Support website made the Association of Support Professionals (ASP's) Top Ten Support Sites again this year. We are honored and happy to see the value we are bringing to our user base being recognized by the industry professionals.
Posted by Abdul Halabieh at 08:34 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
April 13, 2008
We're a Webby Award Honoree
It's nice to be recognized, and I'm proud to say that we're a Webby Awards Honoree 5 times over this year.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 06:48 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
April 07, 2008
How We Design for Cisco.com
Here's a video I put together showing a little bit about how we design new areas for Cisco.com (and showing quite a bit of my messy office!)
Posted by Martin Hardee at 06:54 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
April 03, 2008
Interesting Interview on Cisco and User Experience
My colleague Cordell Ratzlaff is featured in an interesting interview about Cisco, user experience, and how he and his team are applying the magic he perfected at Apple and frog Design to create great products and end to end experiences for Cisco. Worth a read.
P.S. Cordell is a featured speaker at Adaptive Path's upcoming MX design management conference, which is also mentioned in the article.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 08:30 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
April 02, 2008
And in case you can't get enough Cisco user experience
I should probably mention also that I am teaching a full-day course at this year's Nielsen Norman conferences about using consumer web design techniques for corporate and B2B sites.
So, you can see Cordell in San Francisco at MX (April 20-22), or Martin in New York (April 11th) or London (May 23rd) or San Francisco (June 20th) at Nielsen Norman.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 08:45 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 31, 2008
Good Web Coding Advice
We on the Web team are enjoying this "Design Code" video on YouTube. Nicely done and somewhat more enjoyable than reading a W3C manual!
Posted by Martin Hardee at 09:51 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 30, 2008
Wikinomic Scoblization Coming To You!
Here is a really interesting online panel coming this next week via the Cisco Interaction Network:
It's called "Applying Web 2.0 to Your Business" and features Wikinomics coauthor Don Tapscott, FastCompany.TV Director and famed business and technology blogger Robert Scoble, Social Computing Analyst Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research, and WebEx Connect Senior Director David Knight.
It's Thursday April 3rd, 1 PM EDT / 10 AM PDT / 1700 UCT
There's more online at the Event Sign-up Site
Posted by Martin Hardee at 11:59 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 28, 2008
Cisco New Support Wiki
We just released a wiki for our partners and customers to add their wisdom and learnings on top of Cisco’s documents. This augmentation of knowledge gives our user community a medium to share knowledge and improve their overall effectiveness.
Posted by Abdul Halabieh at 01:30 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 27, 2008
My Dog is in Network World (but the Support team deserves the biggest tail wag!)
Thanks to Brad Reese at Network World Blogs for the kudos on our recently updated support area and for including a picture of my dog and me on the web site. It's an honor!
In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out it wasn't my dog (or even me) that did the bulk of the work in redesigning the Cisco.com Support area, though we were cheering the team along all the way.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 01:30 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 24, 2008
Nice Dissection of Cisco.com's New Support Area
Web analysts SiteIQ have some nice comments about Cisco.com's newly designed support area, which they hail as an IT industry best practice.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 07:44 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 18, 2008
I wish I spoke more Chinese...
But I still love the Cisco China Human Network section, which I think is very creatively produced...
Posted by Martin Hardee at 02:40 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 12, 2008
Cute Flash Movie on the New Search
This may be a little over the top, but there's a cute flash movie about our new Cisco.com search -- complete with roaming sports cars -- lurking as a kind of Easter egg on Cisco.com. Enjoy.
Posted by Martin Hardee at 06:00 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
March 07, 2008
Your Wonderful Comments on Cisco.com's New Search
We've gotten some really nice comments and constructive critiques of our new beta search (to go live as the main search very soon). Here's a recap...
Posted by Martin Hardee at 09:50 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
