The discussion at FatDUX this morning focused on Nescafé. And which spoons each of us used to make coffee (note to self: we have a perfectly good, very expensive coffee maker. Why are folks drinking this instant crap?)

It seems that coffee measures are not standardized. They’re not even close. In various drawers, I found no fewer than six different measuring “instruments”. And their capacities ranged from less than 1 gram to over 10 grams. No wonder our morning coffee ranges from dishwater to mud.

Here’s what we have:

From left to right, we have a very expensive coffee spoon from Georg Jensen designed by Arne Jacobsen, followed by a more traditional silver teaspoon. Next, we have a miniature scoop. The wire-handled measuring spoon is an Ole Palsby design from his Eva Trio series of kitchen utensils. Finally, there is a black plastic scoop that came with a bag of coffee, and a smaller, white plastic scoop that came with some tea.

Let’s see what they can hold (the first number is heaping, the second is level), measured with real, ground coffee, not the instant crap.

Jacobsen      <1 gram (<1 gram)
Traditional      3 grams (1 gram)
Scoop            4 grams (3 grams)
Palsby            9 grams (8 grams)
Black plastic  10 grams (7 grams)
White plastic   4 grams (< 1 gram)

The directions on our instant coffee suggest “one heaping spoonful per cup”.

Hmm. How many different cup sizes do we have…?

How this relates to interaction design
In the field of interaction design, we know that standardization often improves usability, although it can stifle creativity and innovation in the hands of pedantic rule-followers. Could it be that we should be chosing our standards with greater care? That there are some generic patterns that benefit from standardization and “best practice” whereas there are others areas that should be avoided if they impinge on artistic value?

Take for example, the Ole Palsby measuring spoon above. It holds more coffee than almost all the other devices. In terms of volume, it doesn’t equate to any of my standardized cooking measuring spoons (teaspoon, tablespoon etc.). So where did this design originate? Did Palsby pull the size out of thin air? In truth, he could have chosen a more reasonable size without compromising his design. I wish he had – my wife insists on using one scoop per cup, plus “one for the pot”.  When made with this scoop, her coffee can be used to patch bicycle tires.

On the other hand, Arne Jacobsen’s spoon was designed for stirring, not measuring. To change this design would also mean changing its basic function, which would be wrong from an artistic point of view (and a usability POV as well).

So, what do YOU think should be standardized? And why? Does anyone have standardized rules for standardization? If so, I hope you’ll share them here.

OK. Here’s the deal. You’re shipwrecked on some desert island. Lots of coconuts, fish, and other food – plus a magic spring that spouts water, beer, wine, cocktails, and Coca-Cola. There is also a power outlet for your iPad.

Alas, your iPad has very limited memory and there is no wireless. So which 10 movies would you want to view over and over again until you’re rescued? Here’s my list:

Footlight Parade (1933)

Casablanca (1942)

The Big Sleep (1946)

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Some Like it Hot (1959)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

The Godfather (1972)

The Right Stuff (1983)

Good Night, and Good Luck ( 2005)

Believe me, I have a zillion movies I’d like on this list. But honestly, if you really had to narrow it to 10, what would they be?

I’m a pack rat. I admit it. My wife, coworkers, casual acquaintances, and even strangers on the street tell me to throw stuff out. But I never do.

So, here I am cleaning up in the FatDUX Copenhagen server room. Loads of artifacts from my previous lives.

Basically, what you see here is every mobile phone and every laptop I’ve owned since the early 90′s. We’ll take the laptops first, starting in the back row, moving to the front, left to right:

MacBook 160. The very first MacBook. Good machine. I wrote two books on it. This was one of the very first MacBooks in Denmark, purchased in the fall of 1992 in the U.S. Keyboard converted to Danish about a year later.

Powerbook G3. The so-called “Wall Street” model without a USB port. Very inconvenient, but the machine did serve me well for a couple of years. About 1997.

Acer TravelMate 350. Fantastic machine, fast, lightweight, but a crappy keyboard for touch-typists. This is what happens when hunt-and-peck engineers try and squeeze the three Danish letters (a, ø, å) onto a small piece of keyboard real estate. Note the optional wireless card sticking out the left-hand side. About 2001.

Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7010. The best computer I’ve had. Bar none. But the hard-disk died and my supporter cost me EUR600 before concluding that the machine could not be fixed. About 2005. So that led to…

Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7230. The upgraded version (2007) of the previous machine. But not without some quirks. In the meantime, I did manage to get the old hard-disk replaced on the P7010, so I’ll probably go back to the older machine.

Apple iPad 64GB 3G. Wonderful for sharing photos, listening to music, and surfing the net. I do like it, but not for serious work that requires typing. Also seriously lousy presentation capability. The FS P7230 is still the workhorse that follows me to conferences. Summer 2010.

And now to the phones:

Motorola “brick” – about 1990. Very clunky, but a real “gee-wow” piece of kit back when everything else in the world was wired. Very Gordon Gekko. Actually, the correct name for this is a “CommNet 2000, ultra Classic by Motorola”. Today, it really IS an ultra classic. I can’t remember, but I think this might have been an NMT telephone rather than for the GSM network.

Motorola Micro Tac 5200. World’s first flip-phone. The antenna is actually a placebo – it does nothing at all! About 1994. This was the first dual-band phone. “TAC” stood for “Total Area Coverage”.

Ericsson GH 174. Really heavy piece of crap. Never liked this much – but it was a company phone so it wasn’t my decision. About 1994. I can’t remember why we got this phone, which was actually an out-of-date model by the time I got it.

Nokia 2110. Absolutely one of the best phones I’ve ever owned. And a true classic in terms of keyboard layout. This phone set the standard for much that followed. About 1994-5. I switched to a Nokia 3210 in 1999, but I forgot to include it when I took the photo.

Motorola Timeport. My first tri-band telephone that enabled me to work in the USA. Very sexy blue screen, but an unfathomable menu structure. Summer 2000.

Sony Ericsson T68i. Notice the natty clip-on camera. This was my first telephone with a color display. Very poor resolution (101×80 with 256 colours), but hey, color was incredibly neat back around 2002. And it had Bluetooth! I also owned the earlier Ericsson T68 (prior to the merger with Sony).

Nokia 6670. Still one of my favorite phones, despite the early S60 operating system, which qualifies it as one of the very first smartphones. Never got caught in your pocket thanks to the rounded corners. And the 1.0 megapixel camera was pretty good, too. Good MS Office integration. About 2004.

Nokia E70. Another great phone. With the advent of SMS, this phone was great as the keyboard unfolds like two wings on either side of the screen for really fast QWERTY input. Summer 2006.

Apple iPhone 1st generation. We bought a bunch of these in the U.S. and jailbroke them. Fantastic bragging rights back when no one else in Europe had them. I gave this one away to one of our art directors because I was constantly looking for somewhere to charge it, which drove me crazy. My friends at Apple told me, “Eric, you know better than to buy the first generation of any of our products…” Even so, three years later, the unit is still in service. Summer 2007

Nokia E71. Although the Symbian 60 operating system is still difficult to work with, this phone basically did all of those great phone things that I needed – like making phone calls. And it almost never needed to be recharged. Spring 2009

HTC Desire. This is an Android 2.1 smartphone. Devours power like I devour marshmallows. I’m constantly looking for a power outlet. But it can do a lot of stuff when it feels like it. (FatDUXling Andrea Resmini tells me to turn off the Wi-Fi to conserve energy). Unfortunately, European data-transfer rates are crazy, so I’m forced to turn off pretty much everything most of the time. For example, if I just leave the phone on for a day, it will download about 93 MB of data. I don’t know where this data comes from or where it goes, but it’s a lot. And when I go to the United States, 1 MB costs about USD 10. So, at a potential cost of USD 930 a day, this thing scares me to death each time it beeps. So much for smartphones. Spring, 2010.

Now, that I’ve showed it to you, I’ve really got to get rid of this crap…

Over the years, I’ve personally written over 30 mission and vision statements for clients throughout Europe. As internal documents, these are incredibly important. We (management and I) invest a lot of energy in defining the business position and the strategy that will help achieve this. But, to be honest (and despite the current fashion), these mission/vision documents don’t really stand up very well when companies broadcast them on a website. An internal tool is just that – internal.

Vision statements are particularly dangerous. Like watching two people make out in a darkened cinema, the better the content, the more distasteful it is to an outside observer:

“We’re going to be number one in our market by…[action item].”

The more effective the action item, the less likely it is that you’ll want to broadcast this information to your competition.

“Don’t write naughty words on walls if you can’t spell”
The “boilerplate” text printed on the rear cover of a brochure, or the front of a website is equally political. Enthusiastic sales reps and other unskilled laborers think that adding useless adjectives and overworked buzzwords will improve the message.

I just looked through some of the strategic mission/vision stuff I’ve written the past 10 years or so. Curiously, the text that was screwed around with the least, often belongs to the companies that have done the best.

As a public service, I have glued together some of the blather and buzz I’ve witnessed into a single, universal boilerplate.

About [the company]
Headquartered in [someplace], we are leaders in [something]. Since [sometime], our client-centric core competencies have represented the highest standards of quality and reliability, coupled with service that truly delights. We align our customers’ needs with current best-practice usage paradigms and thus enable people to seamlessly leverage their abilities and maximize their efficiency in a truly proactive manner. Our ongoing commitment to sustainable innovation ensures that we will remain the preferred supplier for our clients around the [world, region, country, neighborhood, wherever].

 Use it with my blessing. It’s free and could save you thousands of euros in short term copywriting fees. But hey, no one reads this anyway…or do they?

My two cents…

1. “There is no definition, so we can make up our own.”
No. The definitions are there, although the details may differ. User experience (UX) deals with how people interact with stuff – it represents the sum of their reactions and subjective perceptions. So, don’t go off on your own until you’ve bothered to do a simple search on Google. If nothing else, it will keep you from making a complete fool of yourself by confusing UX with usability.

2. “If the experts disagree, then the discipline isn’t really mature.”
No. Experts disagree in all fields. Doctors argue about the best treatments. So do designers. If you’re looking for a “mature” field, stick to horseback riding, which hasn’t changed much the past couple of hundred years. Instead, consider that most fields are “evolving”. User experience is one of these.

3. “User experience is only about computers and stuff.”
No. User experience is all around us. Eat a freshly picked strawberry. That’s a user experience, too. The problem seems to stem from the word “user”, which turns up in “user-friendly” and other computer-worldly clichés. But until we find a better word, it will have to do.

4. “If it’s on a screen, it must have something to do with IT.”
No. Just because a book is printed on paper, it doesn’t mean Tolstoy was working for the lumber industry. Granted, computers may be involved. But in the online world, UX focuses on what goes on the screen and less on how it got there.

5. “User experience is a subset of [some other discipline]”
No. User experience is the umbrella under which many other highly structured activities take place – from information architecture to service management to graphic design to usability evaluation. If you put UX on equal (or lessor) footing with other disciplines, it’s easy to ignore it in favour of something more tangible – yet the forest continues to exist even if you only focus on the trees. And like a real umbrella, you’ll first notice you’ve lost UX when it starts to rain.

Got a myth to add to the list? Post a comment – the floor is yours.

I counted the number of dishwashers I have personally purchased over the past 25 years.

Five.

Two of them have been great. Three of them have been lousy. The last one I bought (about two months ago) is the worst of the lot. You’d think I’d learn to choose a good one, but this just hasn’t happened.

What I want from a dishwasher
I figure a good dishwasher should do four things:

- hold a lot of dishes

- wash dishes

- dry dishes

- not break dishes

As someone in the user-experience industry, I don’t think this is an unreasonable set of basic requirements.

“Easy to use” is also a good quality. I’ll get back to that.

Usability testing in real life
My mom had an old GE dishwasher which served her faithfully for over 30 years. When it broke a couple of years ago, I bought a new GE for her. But she insisted the dishes didn’t get clean. So I investigated the next time I returned for a visit. It seems you have to slam the door shut much harder than a 90-year-old is able. Honestly, I practically had to kick it shut myself. In other words, the machine never actually washed the dishes because my mother lacks the strength to shut the damned door.

Lesson One: Make sure you can actually start the machine.

The decline of civilization
In 1985, I bought my very first dishwasher for myself. A Bauknecht. Good German machine. Very quiet (39dB). And it was a dream to operate. It did everything you’d want a dishwasher to do. The first time I used it, I was convinced that every dish in the world deserved a ride in this wonderful contraption.

Ten years later, it died. Don’t know why. Just did.

I bought a new Bauknecht. Twice as expensive. There were several icons on the panel I never did figure out. Although touted as having the lowest noise level on the market, it was a lot noisier than the unit it replaced. In-depth interviews with my dishes indicated that they were satisfied with the quality of the washing, but not ecstatic.

Lesson Two: Don’t believe the brochure.

New house, new dishwasher
A year later, my wife and I sold our flat and moved to a house where we immediately started remodelling the kitchen. And we bought a Danish-made dishwasher from Vølund – completely hidden front panel, very elegant.

The Vølund was brilliant. The best machine yet. Easy to load, intuitive affordances (e.g. I could figure out where to put stuff inside the beast), great results. In fact, the only minus was that any Martini glass placed in the front-left corner of the upper rack would ALWAYS crack.

Two months ago, our Vølund died after 14 years of faithful service. Again, no particular reason, the dear thing just stopped working. Weeks passed before I could bring myself to let someone take it to the dump.

The trip to the store was a…trip
My wife and I liked the invisibility of our old Vølund (fully hidden front panel). So down we went to the local appliance store to find a replacement. Sadly, Vølund doesn’t make dishwashers anymore.

Why does a dishwasher WITHOUT a cabinet cost more than one WITH a cabinet? By a factor of about 25%? Price moves up to around EUR 600 for the cheapest “integrated” model.

“Ohh. You don’t want to buy that one. It has a nasty cheap plastic pan at the bottom. You really want a full-stainless washing chamber,” said the helpful salesman. Add another EUR 200 (and a new expression to my growing “I know all the cool technical stuff” vocabulary).

Lesson Three: stainless is better than plastic (I guess…)

LG – “Life’s Good” – for someone else
We briefly considered Miele, but I had worked in an ad agency that went through Miele dishwashers at the rate of one every three years (as we were doing their advertising, we felt obligated to use their products). So, in search of genuine quality, my wife and I decided on an LG from Korea. It cost on the wrong side of EUR 1000 but, hey, it was top of the line. Only problem, it doesn’t really do any of the stuff a dishwasher should do.

“Low noise level” says the brochure. But this is noiser than that 1985 Bauknecht.

“Saves energy.” Only if you don’t use it. The “eco” program doesn’t get the dishes clean. The “auto” program takes hours and hours to complete unless you want to dry stuff by hand.

Lesson Four: see Lesson Two.

Affordances…meh
The insides are arranged so that it holds lots of dishes, but I wish LG would send me a photo showing me how they intended the various 21st-century racks and shelves and baskets to be used. I can’t figure it out. In practice, it holds about 20% fewer items than my dear old Vølund. I’m seriously wondering if Korean dishes have a very different shape than Danish dishes.

Glasses break. All kinds of glasses. In many different locations within the machine. That’s why Martini glasses get washed by hand these days. Always. Think about it: I just spent EUR 1000 on a device that is now making me wash glasses by hand!

When this contraption runs, it smells like there’s some plastic burning. I’m afraid to run it at night or when we’re leaving the house. The smell makes me nervous, even though the installer says this is “normal”. Does that mean all my other dishwashers have been “abnormal”? Just asking…

Back in 1985, I just went out and bought my Bauknecht. And it was great. Today, there are too many choices, too many controls, too many decisions to make.

All I want is clean dishes. Is that really too much to ask?

I just came across an article suggesting no fewer than 60 ways to attract Twitter followers (http://is.gd/7maoX). It comes from @technotip (who is worth following).

I’m completely jazzed. I want followers. I crave followers. Followers are now my raison d’etre. Follow me @elreiss. My ego is suffering from hunger pains. FEED IT NOW!

Oops. Did I get carried away? (must remember to Tweet about this – check it out @elreiss)

Penis envy in cyberspace
You really have to laugh at some of these tactics. Number of Twitter followers seems to have become the social media equivalent of penis envy. And some of these scams are clearly the cyber-equivalent of a penis-extender. Henceforth, anyone who even considers running a Twitter contest will be added to my personal blacklist.

Why the tasteless self-promotion, @elreiss?
This is an experiment. OK?

In addition to retweeting stuff from folks smarter than I am and recommending articles, I occasionally have original thoughts. Looking through some of the past year’s tweets, I found around 50 that seemed to stand the test of time better than most.

WTF, @elreiss? Get to the point!
I’m not really out to build a huge follower base, but I would like to experiment a bit with the “content is king” notion. So please remember to “unfollow” if my tweets don’t contribute in some useful way to your own life and work. I’m keeping track of follower stats from day to day. Read ‘em and weep-or-whatever.

52 tweets I (@elreiss) wrote and like
Will the iPon be a brand extension of the iPad?

Why follow your Twitter followers if you don’t care what folks say?

This is a day for avoiding real work. Which is why I’ve been pondering cross-dressers who wear burkas. How would anyone know?

I wish it was as big a crime to be dumb as it is to be dishonest.

The more time I spend on social media (Twitter and beyond), the more I’m convinced our society is in deep shit.

Not all pithy thoughts can be compressed to 140 characters no matter how hard you try.

If the meek inherit our earth, it’s because the strong have abandoned them.

I’m more convinced than ever that “unwired” has become the new “organic”.

TV news interviews are great reality programming. There’s nothing as dumb as an “expert” if you get them off their area of expertise.

If it’s dangerous to talk to yourself, it’s probably even more dangerous to listen.

Good design can never rescue bad strategy. When did pretty uniforms last win a war?

If your competition sells cheaper, it’s called “dumping”. If you sell cheaper, it’s called “supply side optimization”.

America’s infatuation with reality TV suggests that many viewers can no longer differentiate between talent and celebrity. Scary!

False friendships are the emotional downside of most current social media offerings.

I love teaching. I learn so much.

Do arbitrary rules really deserve more than arbitrary compliance?

Ahh. What would the world be like without rhetorical questions?

Packaging designers should be forced to clean and organize a larder once in a while. Valuable lessons to be learned.

If I always knew what I was doing, I’d never learn anything. A little adversity can be a really good thing.

Changing the world is easy. Changing it for the positive is the real challenge. That’s because no one agrees on what’s good.

If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right.

Still trying to change the world, but I’m more and more convinced that the world would prefer that I just butt out.

Pitting UX against IA is like having your toolbox pick a fight with your wrench. UX is a cognitive container for a variety of skills.

How come “altruistic” is never a value word for companies? Sometimes you’ve gotta do stuff simply because it’s the right thing to do.

Words of wisdom: Don’t burn your bridges before you come to them.

Looking for statistics to confirm my fear that the idiots now officially outnumber those of us who know what we’re doing.

I’m frustrated that there are so many folks in the UX business who are famous just for being famous, not for any work they’ve ever done.

Call yourself an expert? Do you really have 10,000 hours of experience, or just one hour, repeated 10,000 times?

Are you passionate or provocative? Passion comes from the heart. But most provocation seems to stem from ego.

Rules are created when people take advantage of that which is unwritten.

If content is king, is context the kingdom?

Bailouts have become the back-button of the financial industries.

How long is “new media” new? Are we now working with “middle-aged media”?

Jakob Nielsen talks about designing his tweets: http://bit.ly/KLmzf. This is what most people call “editing”.

The blogosphere is the Gong Show of Generation Y.

“Thought leadership” means thinking about a community of practice, not thinking about leadership.

No discernable correlation between your popular searches and your popular pages? You have a serious information architecture issue to solve.

Never judge a book by the taste of the binding.

If you want to be a thought leader, it’s best to start your career by fine-tuning your thinking, not your PR.

“Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.” But does that really mean you have to put up with their silly twitter-chatter?

Words to live by: be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They’re often the same ones you meet on the way down.

The biggest threat to the future of the web is the neighbor’s kid, who is programming crap sites for legit businesses using FrontPage.

Maybe we designers ask too many questions. Maybe we threaten potential clients. Maybe folks don’t care if their website contributes to their business.

I’m seeing incredibly incompetent shops getting web work while really talented folks are out of work. What are the idiots doing right?

Responses to yesterday’s Twitter denial of service attack lead me to believe that some folks have serious addiction problems.

Ultimately, insistence on formalized processes and standardized deliverables strives not to collect answers but to obliterate questions.

The sooner our pitches reflect the fact that most business decisions are made emotionally and not rationally, the sooner we will get rich.

Political correctness is just another way to hide prejudice behind euphemism. I far prefer straight talk and honesty.

UX certification? Reminds me of Groucho Marx’s comment: “I wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would accept me as a member.”

Gonna take flak from the American consultants…but…IMO ”It depends” is just an unnecessary click in the verbal clickstream.

Mashups can be SOOOO ugly. Here’s a new acronym: TIDE (Tight Integration of Diverse Experiences) Goes nicely with AJAX.

Amateurish SEO drives me mad. Keyword density is the worst fairydust of all time. Fact: you cannot bore people into buying something.

Again, if you like these, please follow me for a couple of weeks @elreiss and see if I continue to live up to expectations. If not, that’s cool – I’m not really out to build a huge follower base, but to experiment a bit with the “content is king” notion. And please remember to “unfollow” if my tweets don’t contribute in some useful way to your own life and work.

Hey, you can also comment right here! Let me know what YOU think about Twitter.

For about a year now, FatDUX has been sharing the following article with business leaders and potential clients around the world. The feedback has been tremendously positive. We’d now like to share it with you. Happy holidays.

Feel free to use this in your own work. Here’s an easy-to-distribute PDF (25 kb):

Download: 10 do’s and dont’s of web development

The 10 dos and don’ts of website development (that every CEO should know)With the current economic downturn and significant layoffs among sales staff, the web has become more important than ever as a means of communicating with customers/clients/membership. But I have yet to meet a CEO who likes website development. It makes business leaders uncomfortable. The web experts speak in a cryptic language – CMS, KM, XML, CSS. The site seems to take forever to build, costs more than expected, and invariably provides less value than the organization had hoped.

No one likes signing a big check without some idea as to what they’re getting. So if you’re a business leader, here are a few basic, non-technical tips that will significantly increase your chances for online success. And they let you do what you do best – lead.

1. Don’t confuse marketing with communication

Most marketing efforts are concerned with gaining the attention and interest of a particular target audience – often quite aggressively. But on the web, your audience has come to you voluntarily. So, lighten up on the promotional hype. Yes, your site can become an important sales tool, but it should do so in straightforward, conversational language. Don’t let an eager salesrep talk you into blinking banners on every page. Instead, regard your website as part of your service mix first and your marketing mix second. It’s about creating a valuable experience for your site’s visitors, about starting a dialog with your customers (and potential customers). Therefore, make sure your web team represents a good cross section of disciplines in your organization.

Do: View your website as part of your customer-service package.

2. Don’t view your website as a software development projectCreating and maintaining most informational websites is no more a “software project” than publishing your annual report. You write reports using a standard word processing program; you publish to the web using a standard content-management system. There are dozens of superb systems available, and hundreds of excellent add-ons (survey systems, social networks, video channels, wikis, etc.) so don’t let anyone talk you into building one from scratch. That’s also why this activity shouldn’t be handed over to your IT department. Granted, a site with very sophisticated functionality will probably require special programming, but don’t count on your in-house skills as being enough.

Do:  Whenever possible, purchase professional web-publishing software from a single-focus vendor (Important note: Microsoft, IBM, and SAP probably shouldn’t be on your shortlist, despite anything your IT department tells you).

3. Don’t couple unrelated initiatives

Just because one project concerning computers and customers is in the works, you won’t necessarily create synergy by tacking on other initiatives that also involve computers and customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a frequent sinner. But unless you have a huge budget and sophisticated needs, both your website and your CRM activities will be far more successful (and much cheaper) if you tackle them one at a time. Keep your intranet development out of this, too (although you can probably use the same publishing software used for your website). In other words, don’t let HR take over the project either. And don’t turn your website into a software development project.

Do: Deal with your website – and just your website. Then take care of the other stuff.

4. Don’t be afraid to set measurable goals for your website

Your website can be an active part of your business plan. In fact it should be. Don’t just view it as your extended business card or think that a graphic redesign is going to help you attract new customers/clients/members. Your website should be assigned targets just like every other department in your organization. And don’t just go for easily measurable numbers. Merely increasing the number of visitors is a poor goal. Shortening the sales process is better. Increasing your conversion rates is great. Streamlining logistics is a good goal. Reducing manual intervention in a sales or service process is a good goal, too. And there are dozens of others that have a direct effect on the bottom line – even for companies that don’t run an e-commerce site. So get your web team to tell you which needs they have identified, the goals they have set, and how they intend to achieve them. Since most in-house teams have limited experience in web development, this is one of the key reasons for hiring an outside strategic consultant.

Do: Insist that your website become an integrated part of your company’s business activities.

5. Don’t confuse your needs with those of your visitors

You may want your website to communicate your company’s values, service offerings, products, or something else entirely. But visitors to your site will have their own agendas. Your web team needs to identify these needs and address them with relevant content and functionality. The simple truth is, unless a site fulfills the needs of its visitors, it will never fulfill the needs of the site owner. Give your web team the time and budget to do their homework and actually talk to potential users. Very few companies truly understand how their customers use the internet.

Do: Encourage research. Accept surprises that go against your basic assumptions.

6. Don’t view your website as a fixed-term project

Your website is a process, not a project. Unlike a printed brochure that might have a useful lifetime of a year or so, your site’s content should be reviewed regularly (even daily) so that it remains accurate, interesting, and dynamic. For the most part, maintenance only takes a few minutes a day. But someone has to keep the process going, studying the statistics that tell you who has visited and what they did, and adjusting the content so that it becomes even more compelling. And that means you need to allocate resources to this critical task. Your website needs to be included in your annual budget each and every year.

Do: Once you start the process, make sure to keep it going.

7. Don’t confuse print design with web design

You probably have an ad agency. For them, “concept” means look and feel. But on the web, the “concept” is what your site can do. Your brand consists of how your website “acts” just as your brand is affected by how your employees act. Don’t let an old-school art director force you to sacrifice usability for the sake of a design guide developed for printed communications.

Do: Acknowledge and embrace web best-practices that run counter to your design guide.

8. Don’t let personal opinion cloud your focus

When it comes to websites, everyone has an opinion. But don’t just assign tasks to the people who are most enthusiastic or most vocal. Instead, find people with proven expertise and then do everything you can to help them do their jobs efficiently. And as the project progresses, try not to let your personal taste get in the way either. The only opinions that really matter are those of your website’s visitors – not your friends, family, or the well-meaning wife of the chairman. Ask yourself: “Do I want to get my way or do I want to get rich?”

Do: Seek out proven experts and support their work.

9. Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions

There are no stupid questions. And no one should make you feel like you’ve asked one. But be prepared to remember the answer – asking someone to walk you through the same subject six times is bound to create friction.

Do: If in doubt, ask. Always.

10. Don’t hide in your office

Your active support for a web project can make the difference between success and failure. Make sure everyone on the team is pulling their weight – particularly those who are responsible for writing and updating online content. Make sure the team leader has access to you when policy questions arise. That said, don’t become a micromanager – hire the best and let them get on with it.

Do: Demonstrate your active support for the project. Keep the whole team inspired.

My thanks to the dozens of CEOs who have critiqued this piece. You’ve all contributed valuable information. Thanks for sharing with me so I can share with others.

As a guy in charge for our Zagreb office I’m thrilled and happy to share some news with you. First of them is our little anniversary – today marks exactly 2 months since we have been incorporated and established our first office here in Zagreb, Croatia.

We are the youngest FatDUX office worldwide and as such we see ourselves as an important part of the overall corporate success. We will embrace this blog as well as our Twitter accounts more actively in the future so for this first, introductory post, I’d like to introduce you to our office, our team.

But most importantly, I’d like to celebrate the fact that despite this global economic downturn that is hitting southern Europe and the New Europe countries especially hard – we are thriving, adopting to our client’s needs and, oh well, we are being innovative as much as we can.

Often it is being said that necessity is the mother of innovation – apart from that being just too often cited – there is actually truth in that. Also, one can argue that this current downturn and climate certainly affects the ability of the companies to stay ahead and innovate in a negative way.  However, it is also serving as a catalyser for change, opportunity to rethink your mission, your business and your overall business values.

It is challenging – for sure

When I’ve left the Microsoft Development Center in Copenhagen where I used to work as part of a really great and international user experience team – I was filled with mixed emotions. Leaving the Microsoft where I used to work and collaborate with for years (counting my Microsoft Croatia experience) and starting the new business from the scratch was huge endeavor. Truth be told – in my personal contacts, over Twitter and even via Facebook bunch of people were saying that I should accept the offers and stay in Denmark with Microsoft or some other company but just few said that I should return back home and start a new business with my team.

And here we are today – two months after official incorporation, after months of prep work, market analysis, team gathering and consultations. I’m bold, proud and thrilled to say that we are here and we are here to stay!

Our team

Our core team in Croatia is rather small but we are utilizing the broad network of our local and international contacts. Antun Debak is our creative director and our youngest employee – may that not fool you – he is extremely talented guy with years of experience working for some big names as a freelancer, Darko Čengija (pronounced as cheng-ee-ya) serves as our external consultant – he is employed at the Poslovna učionica not by FatDUX (though we treat him like he is one of us) and I (Vibor Cipan) am serving as a CEO of the FatDUX Zagreb office.

Three of us have meet several years ago and worked together and collaborated with Microsoft Croatia and their partners on various projects – from design, product development, coding, project management, copywriting… After all these years – it was quite natural for us to start on something together.

After my first meeting with Eric and Søren in Copenhagen while I was living in Denmark, I knew, intuitively, that one day we will be part of our FatDUX family. Months of negotiations, discussions, talks – and we had our deal. Today we are proud part of the FatDUX global family contributing to our client’s bottom line and their success.

How the sayin’ goes: We work hard and play hard. I know it is braggin’ but heck, we went to Rammstein concert for our first team building few weeks ago. Life is fun at FatDUX Zagreb and we love it that way.

Keep in touch

As I’ve mentioned – we will keep in touch on a regular basis now – utilizing this blog, Twitter and all other services we can thinks of. Yes – I guess you can get a clear picture that I’m a pretty much a huge fan of social networking and interaction – significant part of our local business and corporate communication strategy is being shaped by direct contact with. And yes – we love to talk. English, Croatian, Czech and virtually any other language (with a little help from our friends) works for us…

That being said – here is how to keep in touch with us and contribute. We sincerely want to include you in this conversation.

Antun  (@adebak) is on the Twitter – you can follow him there. He is also on LinkedIn. Darko is on LinkedIn too (trying to convince him to join the Twitter) and you can reach me on Twitter (@viborc), LinkedIn and my personal blog – UXPassion.com.

Be sure to follow us there and we also have our official FatDUX Twitter account so – follow us and let’s talk.

Keep in touch!
Pozdrav iz Hrvatske!

Hi Eric –
Bad news. I’ve been laid off due to cutbacks. That said, the company just hired two new people in my division and our profits are the highest ever recorded. In fact, my division now has sales of EUR 35 million. So let’s assume there are other reasons for letting me go.

I still need another year and a half of salary to make ends meet, so I’m desperately looking for a new job. Now most folks think it’s impossible for a 67-year-old to get a new job, but as you know I’m used to dealing with impossible challenges. I’m looking for something either in Denmark or abroad that lets me use my marketing talents, and maybe even do a little Flash programming if need be. Even jobs that only last a week or two are welcome.

If you hear of something, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.

Cheers,
S

Damned right we’ll keep him in mind!
Here’s some background on this fellow:

The incredibly narrow-minded management of this company has never really liked my pal’s out-of-the-box thinking. So each time he’s built up a profitable new business area (he’s created several), they take away his department and send him out to do something else. Recently, to get him away from headquarters, they packed him off to China. He taught himself Chinese and built up a multi-million Euro business selling his company’s products in a completely new market segment! When he needed interactive marketing materials and was denied a budget, he taught himself to program Flash (and he’s pretty good at it).

I’ve worked with this man for almost 20 years on a variety of marketing projects. He’s a real gentleman, his professionalism is exceptional, and he’s a seasoned innovator who produces measurable results. Not surprisingly, we’re going to try and work him into the FatDUX family. But in the meantime, if you hear anything, let me know and I’ll pass the word along.