Silverback – Usability Testing

I have yet to find a better program for usability testing. Silverback uses your built-in Mac iSight to record the facial reactions and mouse tracking of normal users interacting with your website. I highly recommend usability testing well before launching a site, and because Silverback is so cheap ($50) and easy to use, it removes all excuses not to.

Glengarry Glenn Ross and Web Marketing

I wonder if these two articles know about each other?

• Design To Sell: 8 Useful Tips To Help Your Website Convert
• Designing to Sell

The first one is from Smashing Magazine (which we’ll have to include in a future “stuff we love” article) and the second is from Zygote, a marketing blog from Egg Co. (neither entity I had heard of until yesterday).

37 Signals Breakdown from Zygote

The funny thing is that the Zygote article was published a week before the Smashing one. It might be a coincidence, but I have my doubts. Either way, they both have some great information on the [marketing] science of web design, unusual because 99% of web design articles focus on the art of building a website. Both articles come together on the AIDA technique. For those who haven’t seen Alec Baldwin’s famous monologue in Glengarry Glen Ross, AIDA is an acronym for:

• Attention – Attract the attention of the customer
• Interest – Raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits
• Desire – Convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs
• Action – Lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.

For more information, I highly recommend checking out the aforementioned articles. They finally help close the gap of how to properly plan a website’s development.

Remember the other famous acronym from Glengarry: ABC—ALWAYS BE CLOSING. “Only one thing matters in life. Get them to sign on the line that is dotted!” I’m going to make a bold statement; any other goal for a sales tool, including (and especially) a website, is masturbation.