the intimacy of user experience

The Intimacy of User Experience

simple techniques to create a meaningful and lasting relationship with your web audience

09 July 2013 • #UNHCS13Neil Larson, Technical Lead, New & Emerging Media

Forming a Connection

Establishing Your Presence

First Impressions

Building the Relationship

Lasting Impressions

This correlates to…

Key Concepts

Psychology• Who your users are, how will they find you, and what are

they looking to learn?

Design• How your design & layout choices affect your audience

Content• How your content is perceived by your audience

Usability• Level of ease in navigating and exploring your site

How will they find you?

Hyperlinks

Other siteSocial mediaEmail or IMQR codes, texts

Typing in a URL

• Short• No extraneous characters• Real words with meaning• Character clarity

Web Search

Google or Bing

SERP snippet is your calling card…

Typing in a URL

This is bad

How will they find you?

This is better!

Typing in a URL

How will they find you?

it will probably be:

Web Search

How will they find you?

…but don’t bank on it!

SERP: Search Engine Results Page

Paid advertising via Google AdWords

Organic (natural)search results

SERP Snippet

Page Title (meta)URL

Description (meta)

SERP SnippetPage Title (Meta Tag)

• Include the name of your site, not just the specific topic.

• Use Vertical Bar to separate entities• Approximately 65 characters

SERP SnippetPage Title (Meta Tag)

Drupal users take note if changing your title…

Your URL alias may change as well. If you have already shared the link through social media or otherwise, uncheck the ‘automatic alias’ box so that your URL can remain the same.

Webpage URL

• Concise but relevant• Consider using keywords or phrases• Separate words with hyphens• Use real or recognizeable words, keep

abbreviations to a minimum• Tildes (~) denote amateur websites

SERP Snippet

Bad URLsSince spaces can’t exist in URLs, this may cause some confusion. Most people are used to deciphering strings of text

Avoid tilde characters and try to get around using “weighty” words like ‘adult’ in your URL.

Link shortener services like bit.ly are great, but especially for print situations, be sure to customize them with real words. In this case the last two characters are unclear. After two failed attempts to type in a URL, most users will give up & move on…

Bad URLs

come on, really…?

Description

SERP Snippet

• 150 – 160 characters; think of this with a Tweet-composing mentality.• In other words, be compelling.• If description field is non-existent, search engines will grab either the first

text that appears on your site, or possibly some arbitrary text instead, which might not have a lot of relevance to your site!

• Drupal users: check in with Web Solutions for a way to optimize your meta descriptions

Preview your SERP snippets!

First Impressions

• Headers• Layout / Design• Body Text

First Impressions

• Headers• Layout / Design• Body Text• Images & Multimedia

THESE ARE BAD!!!

First Impressions

• Headers• Layout / Design• Body Text• Images & Multimedia• Video

Next Steps: Building a Strong Relationship

Site Content

Usability

Lasting Impressions

MemorabilityTrustCore StrengthEmotion

neil.larson@unh.edu