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February 28, 2008

Nice Kudos for Cisco.com Video

Remember the commentable videos we mentioned recently? Web analysts SiteIQ recently took notice and wrote a very nice review in an article entitled Why Cisco.com Gets Video (and other websites don't), which kind of says it all.

Some excerpts:

• "Cisco.com’s video datasheets are a unique video format that sets new standards across the IT industry."
  
• "Cisco.com has added to its best practice video behaviors with a new twist on the theme. It has started posting videos that allow Cisco’s product engineers to comment back to customers who post comments on the site. "
  
• "Although Cisco.com’s videos are hardly the beauty contests seen on most other sites, they have a clear and compelling purpose. They are short (under 4 minutes), to the point—and focus on the kinds of product information and expert discussions that prospects need when they are making a buying decision... I give Cisco.com’s current video strategy and behaviors an A+."
  

We point out this post because (1) it's irresistible to brag, but also (2) we would really like to see all sites (your site, perhaps?) using a lot more video. If done correctly and simply video can make your site come alive and be an incredibly useful resource to your customers and partners.

Technorati Tags: Web Video Design Web-Design CustomerExperience

Tunes: Cardigans: Lovefool

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February 21, 2008

Cool: Plan Your Own Datacenter Deployment

There has been so much cool stuff happening on Cisco.com in the last month that I am just barely keeping up. Something we updated a couple of weeks back is worth a look: The "Data Center Design Best Practices Tool":

You can access this newly updated tool right on Cisco.com, and it now includes a very much end-to-end approach to planing called DCAP 3.0.

(From the DCAP web page: This third phase of DCAP testing builds on the previous phase by tying many of the individual data center elements together through the use of business applications. While the previous phases of testing focused mainly on the individual performance of siloed technologies such as LAN, SAN, global site load balancing, and WAN optimization, DCAP 3.0 delivers end-to-end data center deployment. Adding Oracle 11i E-Business Suite and Microsoft Exchange 2003 was a key deliverable for this phase of testing. These applications were built into the topology to demonstrate how each individual element could work together to provide a robust data center deployment. DCAP 3.0 also brought the addition of bladeservers to provide a more real-world environment.)

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Datacenter Networking Design Web-Design CustomerExperience

Tunes: Adriana Caseloti: With a Smile and a Song

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February 18, 2008

Video Captioning

As a part of our continuing efforts to better your Cisco.com experience, recently we upgraded the look of our closed captioning:

Before:

After:

Can you tell the difference? We eliminated the high-contrast black outlining on the characters (top version) and instead moved to a translucent bed that we overlay the text onto (bottom version).

Not only does it look nicer, but it's more readble!

Technorati Tags: Web Video Design Web-Design CustomerExperience

Tunes: Tom Cochrane: Life is a Highway

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February 14, 2008

I Love Genuine Video

First, let me admit that of course I am very fond of the talking Cupid and Easter Bunny.

But, for genuine customer interaction, my favorite video of the week is of Security Technical Marketing Engineer Tom Fulton. Tom is answering a customer's question (via video) about security features on the Cisco 1800 Series Integrated Services Routers:

The neater thing is, this is a video comment back on a question that a customer originally attached to a video! Talk about double recursion!

Have a look at the video comments feature we've added on some of our product pages.

Technorati Tags: Web Video Design Web-Design CustomerExperience

Tunes: Who: The Real Me

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February 08, 2008

More on Search Improvements

A while back we posted an entry about the wonderful new Cisco.com search, which is currently in Beta and which I heartily recommend trying.

Here's a nice visual overview of the of the features, courtesy our Search gang.

Some key features include:

• Interactive "type ahead" search assistant suggestions as you type your search
• Sorting options
• "Facets" that let you filter and pivot results by category and topic

For more about the new search, see our earlier posting, and be sure to try the new Beta search on Cisco.com.

Technorati Tags: Search Design Web-Design CustomerExperience

Tunes: Weezer: Beverly Hills

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February 04, 2008

Cisco.com's New Small & Medium Business Area

We recently revamped our site area for Small & Medium Business, and we think the changes are a nice improvement.

Before:

After:

Here are some details of what we changed and why...

Before: Main Page

A nice collection of information above, but there's sooo much happening on this one page: It's a jumble of technical, product, and business information all together. For instance, if you're a business person looking at this page, would you instantly know what "integrated technologies" are? And, would some of the "big company" content linked here be of use to you?

After: Main Page

The redesigned page above is more focused. We think it provides a nice path to useful information whether you're more business-oriented (where we show kinds of "I need to..." solutions that map to some of the new challenges of running a company) or more product-oriented (where we link to newly designed pages that showcase products and product categories). Also, there's a nice spot at the top for showing videos of Cisco's products in action.

See the new Small & Medium Business Main Page live.

Before: Technology Solution Area

While the example above is a fine page with lots of useful information, it's a rather daunting list of things to read. There's no real coherence to the experience here: What should I read first? Of the dozens of links, which are the critical things to look at? If I have limited time, what's the short overview of what I need to know?

After: Product/Technology Page

We combined some brief technology overviews with case studies and overviews of our product series.

See this new product category page live.

Also: A Business Solution Example

In this new design (in this case showing a more business-oriented page), we showcase a real-world case study in an easy-to-digest video, and then have organized the information into more bite-sized chunks under tabs. The same types of information are available as before, but they're better organized and presented with more context.

See this new solution page design live.

And, a new look for product pages:

For product series pages, such as the one depicted above, we've organized information into easy to scan tabs. All of the technical background is still available (see the models page, which links to background on all the product models).

See a live new product series page.

Technorati Tags: Small Business Design Web-Design CustomerExperience

Tunes: Weezer: Beverly Hills

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