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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.
Go ahead and start adding your perspective and learn from your colleagues viewpoints on the Support Wiki.
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.
The design project for the Support area was lead by Abdul Halabieh and an able team within our Cisco Services organization, along with help from a team from frog Design in Austin.
And, if you were among the multitudes who gave us feedback at Networkers or in our many lab usability tests, in many ways you were designers and instigators of this new design.
Thank you!
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.
(Click the image below to see a bigger version.)
Technorati Tags: Cisco Design Web-Design CustomerExperience
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...
A sampling from the many great positive comments:
“This works great. I love the filters, definitely helps me find what I'm looking for. I actually was led to content that I may have not normally reviewed.”
“The new 'search' concept is great!! The filter of results based on categories is a huge improvement.”
“Finally! what the [heck] took so long. the left side "filter by" was a long time coming.”
“Put this into production IMMEDIATELY”
“The new search, especially the sidebar filters, is absolutely GREAT. Implement this!”
“I love the new interface and the ability to quickly drill down on the types of documents I am looking for (specifically Design Guides, this time)”
"Looks much nicer, love search assist"
"Very useful. Could not find stuff 2 days ago on CCO - but can now find with the new search tool."
"Huge improvement." Ability to find release notes based on IOS - could not find before. Felt relevancy was better. Searched for: 12.2(18) sxf release notes - was able to get release notes.
"Certainly a step forward."
“Looks great when are you going to make it standard”
“It found the information needed at the first try.”
“The search result is more specific to what I need.”
And some constructive criticism:
“Please show more of the title at the top of each item. Right now it is difficult to differentiate between matches that have long titles that all begin with the same words.” (Title) - (We're working to fix this.)
“Negative: the Headers of the result links are too short.” (Title) - (We're working on this, too)
“Jeez, can you at least add more digits of the title???” (Title) - (And we're working on this one)
“tcp small servers works as a search, but not tcp-small-servers” - (And this one, too)
“I love the new interface and the ability to quickly drill down on the types of documents I am looking for (specifically Design Guides, this time). However, it would be even better if there is an ability to filter OUT things that I know I don't want.” - (We're studying exactly how to approach this kind of problem.)
Ability to use advanced operators to constrain the search (e.g., "inurl:", "filetype:") - (This is also in our "future consideration" list)
In regards to the breadcrumbs - "To me, it seems like it looks like everything else on the page….You'd probably want to emphasize it a little bit more, so someone could say, 'Oh, look! It's showing me that I'm narrowing it down.'" - (Future Consideration – we need to ensure it does not compete visually with the navigators. Stay tuned.)
Several suggested being able to see more search results on a page or to be able to define how many they would see. - (Another one for future Consideration)
Technorati Tags: Search Design Web-Design CustomerExperience
Posted by Martin Hardee at 09:50 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
