Web Experience November 2009 Archives

Great Web writing is link writing

Recently I posted a short video interview with web usability expert Gerry McGovern about why its so hard to create usable web sites.
 
But there are fairly easy things you can do to make your web site more usable (and, frankly, we can do the same here at Cisco on our Web sites).
 
Gerry has been helping us understand various experiences across our web sites, and one bit of advice he gives us at Cisco is “write simpler links.”
 
Here’s another video snippet from Gerry that gets right to the point.

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Posted by Martin Hardee at 06:05AM PST

Good old fashioned web publishing, modernized

For all of the TelePresence, WebEx, Flip video sharing, and other collaborative tools we use in designing and running our web sites, I’m always struck by how some traditional techniques still work, and how nicely new collaboration tools can blend with the traditional approaches.

This week, as you probably know, Cisco introduced some pretty exciting collaboration products, so it was interesting for me to see our pre-launch meetings where we used some of those same products to bring the launch together.

Here’s the San Jose portion of some of our Web team working hard Friday afternoon at checking dozens of pages, pictures, and videos (and scores of links). What you don’t see is the team members who are in many other locations, all connected in via a WebEx meeting and collaborating seamlessly through shared screens, online messaging, and audio conferencing. It’s interesting how, though people always like to gather together in a physical location, the folks who were in remote locations were very much embedded in the meeting, thanks to everyone’s shared focus on the WebEx screens.

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Posted by Martin Hardee at 07:30AM PST

More for fans of Cisco TelePresence (and 30 Rock)

I noticed this on NBC’s 30 Rock site… some behind-the-scenes footage of Alec Baldwin and team prepping for the bedbugs scene that features Cisco TelePresence.

It’s fun to see how over-the-top writing, over-the-top comedic acting, and precise editing and timing come together to make a scene really funny.

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Posted by Martin Hardee at 08:20AM PST

Actress Ellen Page goes home page

Academy Award nominee Ellen Page (from Juno, Whip It, and of course X-Men: The Last Stand) adorns our home page today, which links to a really cute video of her interacting with her home town doctor via Cisco TelePresence.

Enjoy!

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Posted by Martin Hardee at 06:33AM PST

Cisco TelePresence for Design Collaboration

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.

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Posted by Martin Hardee at 11:30AM PST

30 Rock Preview: Really funny vignette with Cisco TelePresence

NBC’s 30 Rock is one of my favorite shows. And I’ll be tuning in for sure this Thursday evening (9:30 EST / 8:30 CST / 9:30 PST) to catch a really funny bit where Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) encounters bed bugs, a Cisco TelePresence system and the GE board of Directors.

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Posted by Martin Hardee at 07:20AM PST