The books we read are light but insightful. Our firs book is Steve Krug’s Rocket Surgery Made Easy, a DIY guide to inhouse usability testing. Next month it will be Scott Belsky’s Making Ideas Happen, which is about getting ideas out of your head and into reality.

If you’d like to stop by, our first meeting is at Busy Bee Cafe on the 19th of May, 2010. More details on our Facebook event’s page. Currently there are about 10 people RSVPed. I’m blown away by the positive response! I even had to call the establishment to set aside the loft area.

Seriously awesome stuff going on these days.

Related posts:

• Triangle Web Women, creating a custom Twitter background
• My Fizzled Durham presentation: Everything I needed to know about Social Media I learned from Pikachu

I’m very excited and honored to be working with the UX Boys. New comics are headed your way, so keep an eye on the articles at UX Booth!

I offered to go first to help break the ice and calm my nerves for the rest of the night. I even got a few laughs out of the crowd! All in all,  I think I did well for someone who hasn’t given a talk to a room of strangers since grade school. But to be sure I covered all before I went live, I did a test run at Slideshare and passed it around to friends to proofread. This version still has some typos, but I’ll try to upload a rectified version after this crazy week is over!

The presentation was much shorter than I had originally made it. My original took 9 minutes! So I had to cut a lot of more in depth bits. I didn’t even get to go into how the latest generation of Pokemon games ship with a pedometer that allows you to take the game with you while you walk and play! (I cannot wait for my preorder!)

Related posts:

• lovemysmartcar.com: How viral media can be deterred with social media
• Check out my illustrations at UXBooth.com!
• WordPress: Best of 2009 and Trends of 2010

There are more comics in the article. Andrew did a great job, so give it a read!

I’m so happy.

I’m happy because fewer clients are going to ask for Purple Ponies that can “do Flash.”

I’m happy because I won’t have to spend hours explaining to clients why Flash is a bad idea for accessibility, maintainability, and SEO. I can just point at their phone and shake my head.

I’m happy because people with Flash-based sites are going to want redesigns and conversions of their old sites. (This of course means more business for people like me.)

I’m happy because dodgy Flash-by-nighters are going to have to learn how to make sites that aren’t invisible to search engines and screen readers. That is good for both the hapless client and the whole of society!

I’m happy because real Flash gurus who could read the writing on the wall have already started looking into Flash alternatives and shouldn’t be harmed by this trend one bit.

But what makes me happiest of all is knowing that I made the right decision when I took one look at the proprietary format back when Flash was hot stuff, squinched up my face and thought, “You’d be better off learning Javascript in the long run.”

Thank you, Apple, for indulging me in this brief bout of schadenfreude.

Why am I going on about a WordPress function when I promised WordPress plugins? Because this feature eliminates the need for many image-fetching plugins like Get The Image, a number of which I have recommended in the past. Today, I am removing them all from my essential WordPress plugins cheat sheet.

One of the star plugins this year was W3 Total Cache, which dealt a mighty blow to both WP Super Cache and WP Widget Cache when Noupe started using it to combat getting slammed by links from Twitter.

2009 also saw Google and Facebook pimping their APIs. There were several plugins for both that allowed users to post comments or content using their pre-existing Facebook or Google profiles. Sadly, the Google Friend Connect integration plugins I tried were a bit twitchy, but I can recommend WP-Facebook Connect.

WordPress Plugins hit the ground as the first “WordPress App Store.” (But it has nothing to do with iphone apps, which does make one raise an eyebrow at their decision to subtitle the store as such.) It’s arrival was greeted with interest and a bit of trepidation. I’m still not sure what makes a $49 version of a free plugin a “pro” version or if it is worth a monthly fee to clients so they can update to the latest version when it comes out. I applaud the folks behind WP Plugins for trying to help plugin authors find a way to monetize their efforts nonetheless, and it will be interesting to see what the norm will be when authors have sorted out what the market will bear. Also, a very promising plugin I’m particularly keen to try in the new year is the $10 A/B testing plugin. Good value!

Overall I felt 2009 saw more improvements in WordPress itself than breakthroughs in her plugins. Long time favorites like All In One SEO Pack remained on top of the heap, and you still need Yoast Breadcrumbs if you want to make a proper CMS of the thing.

Related posts:

• lovemysmartcar.com: How viral media can be deterred with social media

lovemysmartcar.com's logo

Fending off bad viral PR is a lot like surviving grade school. Say you’re in class and you or someone near you farts (it doesn’t matter who actually did the deed). The guy next to you shouts, “Hey everybody! Johnny farted!” and the classroom immediately starts laughing at you. There are two ways to combat this negative publicity. You can insist that you didn’t do it. “No guys! Honestly it wasn’t me! It wasn’t! Honest!” But no one will be listening to you because they’re all too busy laughing. They will believe whatever interests them most, and won’t hear you. Or, you could retaliate with a snappy comeback, “He who smelt it dealt it!”

Now everybody is laughing at your accuser.

When I saw pictures of what was obviously not a smart car in an accident with two trucks, I knew I could either reply to every post and tweet I could find with, “That’s so obviously not a smart car, stupid!” (don’t ever do this), or I could turn the tables on whoever first released the photo as that of a “smart car.” It was important not to attack the intelligence or the cars of the people laughing at the picture and spreading it. Angering them would only cement their dislike for the car and would more likely than not spur them into further spreading the rumor out of spite. I needed to attack the viability of the source and get the people spreading the pictures laughing with me.

A quick trip to Snopes turned up no article about a smart car accident, so I trawled auto forums until I found post where users identified the wheel in the photo as not belonging to a smart car. Additionally I drew upon my own knowledge of Photoshopping pictures and composed a post debunking the fake smart car crash photo. I included smart car crash footage from YouTube to underscore the lack of evidence that the car could have been a smart while increasing the relevance of the post. And lastly, I found out what keywords people would be searching for this photo with, and I optimized the whole post to reflect keywords.

Before my blog was even a month old, before I had even finished its design, Google had my post listed as the number one result for “fake smart car crash”, “fake smart car accident”, “fake smart car photo”, and “fake smart car picture.” I had 1500 unique visitors over the span of a few weeks and 2700 by the end of the month. I posted the link to my article in reply to a few tweets and on one forum. From then on out, people would find my article via search and post links to it in any conversations that arose about the topic. That’s how social media works best. With today’s technology it’s easy to spread lies, but luckily, it’s just as easy to spread the truth.

A week after my post, the photo was posted on Snopes, and is now roundly debunked, not showing up at all in the Twitterverse.

Do I think love my smart car singlehandedly thwarted the viral photo? Not at all. Snopes and the natural cycle of viral birth and decay can take most of that credit. But I can proudly say that for a full week before Snopes debunked the photo, whenever people went looking for “fake smart car crash” or what have you, they at least found my post which discouraged the falsehoods surrounding the picture. If those 2700 people took what I wrote to heart, that’s 2700 people not believing a lie. I’d say that’s a win.

Part 2 of this entry will come when I put the finishing touches on the site. I’ll go into more depth about the nifty code I used, the inspiration behind the design, and it’s public reception when I officially launched it.

Related posts:

• My Fizzled Durham presentation: Everything I needed to know about Social Media I learned from Pikachu

The dialog element was just a glorified definition list.

Originally, this was the suggestion for how to use <dialog>:

<dialog>
<dt>Brenda</dt>
<dd>I love Coco Wheats!</dd>
<dt>Jason</dt>
<dd>I prefer Malt-O-Meal.</dd>
</dialog>

Look familiar?

<dl>
<dt>Coco Wheats</dt>
<dd>A cream hot cereal with a cocoa treat.</dd>
<dt>Malt-O-Meal</dt>
<dd>Like Coco Wheats only with malt instead of coca powder.</dd>
</dl>

Yes, <dialog> is unabashedly based on the definition list. It doesn’t even try to hide the “data term” and “data definition” tags as it appropriates them. Admittedly, most people either don’t use or don’t know how to use definition lists because the official definition list specification is rather sketchy. But that’s no reason to hijack its structure! Personally, I do not think the definiton list structure is perfectly suitable for dialog markup because:

1. It allows multiple definitions for one term (or quotes for one speaker… I feel it would be better to lump these into one element and use paragraph elements to break up longer monologues).
2. There is no way to indicate time.
3. There is no way to make comments, as in an interview when the author inserts an explanatory note or in a play when the scene changes)

Why do we need dialog markup, anyway?

Microsoft complained that they didn’t see the point in adding semantic tags for marking up conversations, something people currently use p and div elements to do. (Do recall that Microsoft doesn’t exactly have a stellar track record for leading the Web browsing experience to new heights of excellence.) They are also concerned that adding such an element to the HTML 5 spec would make more work for them.

Most discussions on this matter only use chat logs as examples of what dialog markup could be used for. Yes, chat logs seem rather trivial in the grand scheme of things. But what about plays? Interviews? Dynamically generated comics books? (Not to push my own cause!) Okay, excluding that last one, the other two are potentially big deals. Imagine if screen readers adopted a different tone when reading transcripts to the visually impaired. Imagine if we could use this to convey great plays of yore to little kids one day. None of this would happen tomorrow of course, but it can’t happen at all without proper markup.

We are told that plenty of people are currently using the paragraph element with a sprinkling of non-semantic tags and a few extra classes to get by and that that’ll have to do. To me, this sounds a lot like microformats. The semantics harpy in me wants special tags.

Ideas for <dialog>

For simple conversations

<dialog>
<speaker>Brenda</speaker>
<line>I love Coco Wheats!</line>
<speaker>Jason</speaker>
<line>I prefer Malt-O-Meal.</line>
</dialog>

For plays

<dialog>
<time>11:20am</time>
<speaker>Brenda</speaker>
<line>I love Coco Wheats!</line>
<speaker>Jason</speaker>
<line>I prefer Malt-O-Meal.</line>
<time>11:30am</time>
<aside>They have finished eating.</aside>
<speaker>Brenda</speaker>
<line>I think I ate too much.</line>
<aside>Brenda burps</aside>
</dialog>

For chat logs

<dialog>
<time>11:20am</time>
<speaker>Brenda</speaker>
<line>Hiya Jason!</line>
<time>11:30am</time>
<speaker>Jason</speaker>
<line>Sorry, I was away from my computer!</line>
</dialog>

How would you markup a conversation?

I kept running into articles about “how to get the most out of Twitter,” articles from people who promised that with Twitter, you could “build a publicity powerhouse” and “harness the power of the masses.” This is of course, a very tall order for the microblogging site to fulfill. This contrasts nicely with the opinion of a coworker of mine, who stated that, “Twitter is a waste of time.” And they’re not the only person who thinks so!

I agree with neither of these sentiments. Twitter is useful, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all of marketing or promotion. It’s best to think of Twitter as a supplementary item, like a MySpace page or Facebook presence. It can be useful on both a professional and a personal level. In this article, I’ll try to dispel some Twitter myths and provide some insight to how you can get the most out of your Twitter account.

There are 3 things to do on Twitter.

1. Listen
2. Broadcast
3. Respond

It is said that there are two kinds of Twitter users, Listeners and Broadcasters. Listeners range from the doting sycophants of celebrities to information hounds, licking crumbs of knowledge off the plates of Broadcasters. Broadcasters simply post a lot. About everything. To the point of sometimes annoying their Listeners

Of course this is a gross generalization. I find that most people listen and broadcast. Some people are just more enthusiastic about posting!

There are 3 ways to use Twitter.

1. To learn from your peers (web designers, embroidery enthusiasts).
2. To let other people know what you’re doing (to promote something, to let your friends know where you are drinking).
3. To keep in touch with other people (peers, family, customers).

These correspond roughly to the three aforementioned actions.

I used to use LiveJournal to let my friends and other comic illustrators know what I was doing. After all, the comics community was stronger on LiveJournal than anywhere else, so I would get lots of feedback from and chances to communicate with other professionals in my field. But then I got a job working in-house for a large marketing company doing graphic and web design. I just didn’t have the time to write long-winded blog posts about comicky things anymore. I found that Twitter’s microblogging format allowed me to make several short posts over the period of one day, which helped me keep in touch with those friends of mine that had Twitter. Additionally, the web design community is stronger on Twitter than LiveJournal, so I get to learn from and socialize with a set of people who help me improve my craft. I also post links to useful web desgn resources and articles. Sometimes I even promote new articles I’ve written or things I’ve worked on!

So I do all three things: I promote, keep track, and learn.

Twettiquette.

In almost all of those “promote your brand on Twitter and become a GOD!!!” articles, they go on quite a bit about getting followers. Here’s the secret: Some followers are more valuable than others. There are a lot of people promoting their agendas online. And they aren’t really interested in hearing about your agenda. If you follow a real Broadcaster, someone who is just on Twitter to sell themselves or their brand, they may follow you back out of politeness. But if you’re trying to sell to someone who is trying to sell to you… even if they do retweet a few of your tweets, who are they retweeting them to? A large pool of Broadcasters who are more interested in twittering about themselves and growing their number of followers than listening. And trust me, when you get thousands of followers, their twitterings become a wash of background noise that you must either filter or ignore. So don’t just go following people willy nilly because they have large numbers of followers in hopes that they’ll read your tweets–they probably won’t, even if they follow you.

So start small. Follow your friends and coworkers, people you know and/or trust. When they post something of value, retweet it. That flatters the author and hopefully provides someting useful for your followers or introduces them to someone they would like to follow.  Don’t only post about yourself and your agenda. People don’t like the person who can’t shut up about themselves at parties, and they don’t like them online, either. (Unless you happen to be a celebrity of one sort or another, in which case, people will fawn all over you, but rest assured that someone, somewhere finds you boring and wishes you would just shut up.) Do respond to other tweets. It is okay for Twitter to be used, moderately at least, as a glorified IM client. Don’t be afraid to answer questions if you have answers, and likewise, don’t be afraid to query the Twitterverse if you need answers yourself.

Twitter Myths Revealed!

1. Twitter Myth #1: Twitter is a Waste of Time

   Only if you aren’t using it right! Truth is, you can use Twitter to stalk your rivals, learn from your peers, and keep abreast of trends in your line of work, and in general stay more on top of your game than if you sat in the ladies room reading trade journals all day. My Twitter is stuffed to the gills with industry top dogs, and I’m not ashamed to have it running on my desktop all day. And if my mother’s quiche recipe pops up under a link to a fantastic Photoshop tutorial, so much the better.

2. Twitter Myth #2: You can become an overnight sensation! Just use Twitter!

   No. No. No. You can no more become an overnight sensation on Twitter than you can on Facebook, MySpace, or any other social media platform. The whole, “If you tweet it, they will come,” mantra is misguided. Twitter is a supplement to a good publicity machine, not a replacement.

3. Twitter Myth #3: Twitter will help you make money! Somehow.

   Not really. People are very cagey about being sold to. Twitter will, however, let you better serve and reach customers. Case study, the CEO of Zappos has a Twitter account. When I first joined Twitter, I immediately started following him, thinking he would twitter about one of my favorite subject, shoes. However, most of his tweets were “blah blah I am on a plane-this,” and “blah blah I shook hands with so-and-so-that.” Not only boring, but frequent! Most likely Zappos employees gained more from following him than I would, so I stopped following him. But when I noticed that my searches for size 12 women’s shoes at Zappos.com were returning apparel listings as well as footwear (a fluke of their search system), I sent him a tweet to let him know, and he responded.

   Another case in point, whenever I work with a client who uses GoDaddy as a host, I inevitably end up twittering about how frustrating GoDaddy’s backend is for me. And GoDaddy’s personnel, ever vigilant on Twitter, immediately starts twittering back at me to ask how they can help. (Snark Attack: Funny, it’s faster for me to get help from them on Twitter than it is for me to find help in their client area!)

   So Twitter makes people accessible. That’s it. It doesn’t magically make people like you or bring them in great flocks to your site.

Twitter Resources

Here are the links I found useful on my Twitter Background Quest:

• DIY site Express Blog’s Brand Recognition: Creating a Custom Twitter Background
• Viget’s Pimp Your Twitter Background
• FreeTwitterDesigner.com is an online application that lets the Photoshop-less make their own Twitter backgrounds.

Related posts:

• Triangle Web Women, creating a custom Twitter background

Related posts:

• Check out my illustrations at UXBooth.com!