POST DIGITAL

ON: Listerine + Twitter

I ♥ Listerine!  As many of you know Twitter added a lists feature which has been helpful in crowd-sourcing the stream. This feature set has prompted developers to begin augmenting the lists feature with new applications that take it a step further.  The creators of  Webapp Listerine make adding contracts to your lists easier.

Listerine allows you to drag and drop or double click your contacts into a list. Its a fantastic new tool.

Clean up your feed: http://listerine.syndeolabs.com

ON: Making A TweetCloud

I hear ya - WTF is a tweet cloud?  Its a tool that analyzes most common terms used in your tweets.

Using tweet connection, think of all the uses you could configure or customize in rich media or a site.

Check it out at: http://tweetcloud.icodeforlove.com

ON: Coke's Facial Profiler - Part 2

In October, I introduced you to Coke's Facial Profiler. Using Facebook Connect Coke was building a database of images to help match you with your twin. I sat fascinated by the sophisticated nature of the execution.

Phase II of the project launched last week. (http://apps.facebook.com/facialprofiler/)  Using the industry’s most advanced facial profiling software, the Facial Profiler matched me against a vast database of faces collected by Coke Zero (there are already over 105,000) to find my look-a-likes.  The results will were delivered soon after I accepted the FB connect prompt.

I found the details about my doppelganger based on the privacy settings for her Facebook profiles. I am still pondering whether I will connect with her.

There is a fun feature called the “Match Bank,” where users will be able to rate which matches they think are the best. By combining human feedback into the Facial Profiler equation, this will help improve the accuracy of future matches.

Check out a few of these matches:

      

     

It's amazing how close this software gets.

While this seems to be a fun game - the use of my public information fascinates me. 

What is value of my public information to coke? Could executions like this lead to an advanced ways to connect me to the topics I love?  Could you use this type of personalization to put me closer to a product experience? Could the future of Social/CRM 2.0 lie in the a individual's public data?

Will the new digital divide be the difference between those of us with public data and those of us who have not shared their data?

ON: Mini Postitweets

A simple execution. This is a Mini branded positive news tweet stream.

About Postitweets: "We all know there is plenty of negative news in the world and we think it’s time to start focusing on all the good. Positweets is the destination for all the latest positive news and updates from Twitter. Here, you can see what others are saying and post your own #positweets!"

It's filtering mechanism aggregates fun stats & animated graphs.The site was created by Slash7 in collaboration with Federated Media. FM represents more than 100 of the world’s most respected websites, blogs, and social networking applications. Positweets has enlisted the help of "positributors" including @AlleyInsider, @BoingBoing, @Trendhunter and @venturebeat, who will be sharing positive vibes using the #positweets hashtag.

This execution demonstrates a strategy that positions the Mini brand as a filter. That is not new - but the players behind it are.  Could paying social media influencers to propagate an idea or subject matter be the model that turns the ad industry on its head?

Visit the site at http://positweets.com

ON: The "Above The Fold" Design Myth

An artist's job is to rethink the boundaries of their medium.  Whether it's a canvas or a web browser, our job is to improve its value and use.  Since 1994 web designers, digital gurus and usability pros have debated the topic of designing "above the fold".  The term "above the fold" is a print term that refers to the location of an important news story or a visually appealing photograph on the upper half of the front page of a newspaper.  In the early days this print term was adapted and used in web development to refer the portions of a web page that can be visible without scrolling.  When I started designing web pages most users were unfamiliar with the concept of scrolling.  It just wasn't a natural thing for them to do . As a result,  I would design web pages so that all content would be “above the fold”.   When I was designing e-commerce sites on   AOL, page-level vertical scrolling was not permitted. As AOL moved away from their proprietary screen technology to an open web experience, we enjoyed the luxury of designing longer and wider pages.  That was 15 years ago!  A lot has changed.

That Was Then. This Is Now.
According to ClickTale's scrolling research, Today, 91% of the page-views had a scroll-bar. 76% of the page-views with a scroll-bar, were scrolled to some extent. 22% of the page-views with a scroll-bar, were scrolled all the way to the bottom.  As screen resolutions vary greatly, HTML design has improved and browsers have become common place in a users life the time has come for the term and the practice to die! 

The "fold" simply does not exist.  There is significant research, design methods and technology  that renders the "fold" theory useless.  Research like ClickTale's Scrolling Research Report V2.0 - Part 1 and Part 2 completely unravels the "Above the fold" myth.  The most compelling test they ran was proving ‘Absolute Scrolling Reach’.

"This graph below shows us how much time visitors paid attention to each section of different-sized web pages as they scrolled through them. ‘Absolute Scrolling Reach’ measures the distance from the page top (in pixels) that a visitor scrolls down the page."

Let's think about it for a moment.  If you subscribe The “fold” theory, you are assuming everyone uses the same size monitor, monitor resolution and Web browser.  More over, you must also assume we all have the same number of toolbars. Obviously there are too many factors involved to identify a consistent fold location.  The "fold" is just silly!  scrolling has become a natural practice in surfing the web. Scrolling is also associated with most Web 2.0 design.  Big, clear text and spacious content implies longer web pages.

Web 2.0 Design
Today, I design my pages to use liquid layouts that stretch to the current user's window size in order to avoid frozen layouts that are always the same size. Great consumer centric design does not give equal weight to all the content in a site. It puts its most valuable messages at the top and throughout the design.  If you present compelling content and use proper design queues and tools then your users will find and grab your content.  Here are a few examples of mainstream sites that are designed "below the fold" for millions of uses everyday.

Facebook

The New York Times

YouTube

Where was the fold? 
Did you scroll?  of course you did.   (you are scrolling now)

Advertisers currently want their ads above the fold, and it will be a while before that tide turns. But it’s clear that the rest of the page can be just as valuable to contextual advertising.

Look at the 2010 Ford Mustang site. 

They get it. I scrolled up and down, clicked and shared.

If its good they will scroll.
It is imperative that we begin to educate our clients and account teams that this is no longer a best practice. It really never was. Open up your design and stop cramming stuff above a certain pixel point. You’re not helping anyone. If your content is compelling enough your users will read it to the end.

Educate your peers and clients with these recommendations in mind:

1. Your content is king. If your page contains lots of engaging content, users will scroll to the bottom to view it.
2. Keep important new content that helps users understand the main purpose of your site above the 600 pixel mark.
3. Design universal navigation and business information that can be modular.  It should allow users to manipulate and control its placement. It should also appear above the 600 pixel mark.
4. Minimize your written text and maximize images and video, the web is now a converged 3D medium. Users would rather you engage them instead of asking them to read.  Remember they do scan pages.
5. Use design cues like icons, cut-off images and text blocks to help users expect additional content below the screen.
6. Try to keep browser-less applications within a given screen space and make sure the inputs and outputs of the application appear within that space.

Join me, lets help dispel the urban design myth by sharing this data.

Research used for this post:

• ClickTale's HeatMaps
  
• ClickTale's Scrolling Research Report V2.0 - Part 1
• Jared Spool UIE Brain Sparks:Utilizing the Cut-off Look to Encourage Users To Scroll
• Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: Changes in Web Usability Since 1994