I found a what looks like a great resource when doing competitive keyword research for “web usability“. (By the way, it doesn’t look like I’ll ever rank in the top ten for this term). I came across usability.gov a US Department of Health and Human Services website dedicated to usability research. The sub-result for usability.gov is their usability guidelines. I thought, “Wow, what a gem! How did I miss this for so long?” I clicked on the link to download the PDF only to bring my computer to a griding halt. I had to restart my firefox and AIM and then reopen the site and download the PDF to my computer. I didn’t realize it was a 161 megabyte PDF. Aren’t PDFs supposed to be small and portable? I know I’ve seen at least 300 page books in a just a couple megabyte file. Come on usability.gov what’s going on here?

I know what your thinking. Apple overtake Windows in the next 5 years? Windows has had a stranglehold on the landscape of home computing, but as time and technology has passed, has Windows jumped the shark? Is it possible the goliath Bill Gates developed gradually outdated itself, and made itself irrelevant by it’s lack of innovation and control?

1. Overall market share is on the rise

“Market Share” reports that as of December 2006 Mac’s market share is 5.67% which is up a .29% from the month before, and 1.34% since August 2006. 1.34% is 4 months is phenomenal. If Apple Macintosh continues this trend in the next the year will be at 9.69% at the end of 2007 and 20.10% of all operating systems by 2011. This alone will put Mac in great position for the home-based user market. I propose that this and the following factors will assist the rising market share.

2. iPod v. Zune (or other MP3 players)

iPods have become as American as apple pie and baseball. How often do you see a jogger with a color coordinated Nano attached to their armband, or a runner with a shuffle clipped to their outfit? iPods have become a staple of modern America. They are inexpensive, high quality, high density, and overall well made product. Simplicity and style make this little gadget an absolute powerhouse. How does that affect Microsoft?

The Zune is Microsoft’s “iPod killer”. It’s proved to be nothing spectacular, and the functionality of it has really become a null set. The Bluetooth transfer won’t transfer all the songs because of DRM rights. They are expensive, and bottom lines just aren’t as cool as the iPod.

The iPod has developed a social appeal. It comes in colors, can be engraved. Matching socks, covers, clutches, designer bags. They come dedicated to bands, or linked with cars. I can download video and play it on my iPod, play games, keep my schedule. Even colleges have got in on the act. Duke University gives an iPod to every new student, so that they can download the lectures onto their iPod for better study habits.

The iPod is so much more than a mp3 player, it’s a status symbol, it’s a movement. This causes a definite “halo effect” surrounding the iPod. If the iPod is this freakin’ cool, what about the Apple TV, the iPhone and ultimately what about a Mac?

3. Windows Vista

Windows Vista has started leaking it’s price structure. $99 for Vista Home Basic, $159 Vista Home Premium, $259 for Windows ultimate is how they break down. What’s it really offering? Some people pan it, calling it a Longhorn 2, which would be a touch over rated. Some people declare it just a better way to piggyback “Viruses, Infections, Spyware, Trojans, Adware”, an abbreviation of V.I.S.T.A. People have even argued the name means “Hen” in Latvian.

When is too much too much? Finally they put a graphic intensive operating system up, years after Apple has done so. Apple has everything in house so out of the box, they can tell you that the software you buy will work. Vista has no promise that the Adobe suite will even work on Vista out of the box. All Photoshop users will have to pump their breaks about even using their software until an update comes out.

4. Usability

BSOD, the infamous blue screen of death. Control, Alt, Delete and restart explorer. IEEXPLORER is not running. I don’t believe an Apple user knows much of what those mean. They press the power button, move their Mighty Mouse down to their Dock and their applications appear. Icons off the desktop mean less RAM being used, and better speed. As preposterous as this is, it’s painfully true.

Apple computers don’t install files into registry, which if you de-frag will send your computer into a death spiral. You turn on your computer and you know it’s okay instantly, it’ll smile at you. Un-installing is as simple as dragging the program icon to the trash, and the computer deletes it off. There is no mess, making it virtually indestructible. Apple prided it’s self on the ability for anyone to be able to sit down for the first time and navigate without much hassle. Microsoft never understood that, and Vista doesn’t seem to stray far from the path of the past.

5. Power of the bloggers

I Blog, it’s what I do. I understand what trends are and how to ride them into a successful path. Apple is the hip thing. It’s pleasing to the eye, easy to use, fast, durable, and fun. People look at you as a family when you purchase an Apple. Apple users put the stickers they get in their new computer boxes in their car windows. Apple knows that if they stay on the cutting edge, and keep loyal people around them, you can’t fail. They don’t sell out, and that dogged attention to their fans keeps people coming back. iPods are chrome, Apple logos light up with a functional happiness that everyone around you knows. Your laptop is part of you, and everyone sees that you are hip, trendy and in the know.

Apple is elitist. From the Genius bars at their store, which gave out Evian water to their shoppers, to the chrome iPod backs that give them a sense of fashionable bling. Bloggers love the fact that they can be set apart from the rest. A cut above and beyond the normal user. If something is easy, strong, and makes them stand out, why not use that to their advantage. To be on the cutting edge, breeds success. Apple gushes confidence at the seams, and anyone who is caught using one usually does as well.

Overall, Microsoft put itself out too far. The early technology push really benefited their company as they had the money to throw at technology. Now that Apple is posting $1 billion dollar profits, they have money to throw away, yet they don’t. Apple sees computer use as a lifestyle, something you should enjoy, but not control you. Something that says what you do, not who you are. It should show your work ethic, but not become a work ethic. As people find the ease of use, the linking of their lifestyle, the ability to record TV, bring it on their iPod as they commute to work, use their iPhone to schedule all your meetings, and your Macbook Pro to run anything you could need to. Why would you buy a T-Mobile Motorola phone, a Dell Inspirion and a TiVo, and attempt to connect them with stress and failure? Apple levels the playing field makes the interchangeability and mobility the most important thing. With these points alone, Apple puts up almost 2% market share growth each year. If they do that for 5 years, you will see “switching” won’t be an exception, it will be accepted, and almost old hat as people abandon the Microsoft “Vista” for a clearer view of the Apple future.

One of the simplest things a webmaster, who is running a web metrics package to track site statistics, can do to boost micro-conversions (clicked links, clicked ads, etc.) and macro-conversions (sales) is to start a master log of changes. I just implemented this technique recently, after realizing what dummy I had been over the last couple years for not having one.

I had been changing things and running tests to see which versions of pages were converting better. When I would go back and look at metrics as soon as a few weeks back, I couldn’t remember what changes I had made to the site that could have been responsible for any kind of numbers spike. I’m constantly checking my metrics, and comparing 2 date ranges, but I would never know why the specific conversion rate I was looking at would be lower or higher for 2-3 day stretches. Now I keep a spreadsheet log of the change that was made, expected result, actual result (which I fill in after I have enough data), who made the change, and the date it was started and stopped (if it was stopped at all). When looking back at my metrics I can link any conversion or other KPI (key performance indicator) movement to a specific change.

More importantly, I can also do a reverse look up on my log sheet. I can see what changes I have already tested and what the results were. So If I already tried a pink background color, and my page bounce rate skyrocketed, then I know not to make this mistake again. Before I implemented my master log, I would have to do a lot of repeat testing for lack of recalling what I had already tried, or what the results of the test were.

The master log is a way of knowing, historically, what works and what doesn’t on your site. Implementing a master log can save you time, money, and frustration by giving you hard data to look at over a defined period.

Now, I’m not one for trying to rehash and rekindle old arguments. Matt Cutts has already stated that currently valid code isn’t taken into consideration for rankings. He also made mention that 40% of sites have code errors, so it would be hard to simply discount that content from the rankings.

I will argue, however, that having Valid XHTML / CSS or close to it should be and in the future may be an indicator of trust to the search engines. I’m not saying valid code will ever be a huge indicator of trust, but maybe just a smaller piece of the trust puzzle, like having a privacy policy.

In the not-too-distant future, close to valid code will be a mark of trustworthiness, mainly because its an indicator of quality. If a webmaster takes the time to make sure his code validates, generally that webmaster takes an interest in producing quality content as well. As far as search engines are concerned, good quality sites should be trustworthy sites, if only for the reason that most spammers and arbitragers probably aren’t going to take the time to fix any validation issues. The name of the game with spam and arbi is to get many sites up at once with “auto content generation” (to put it politely) which is less likely to be clean code . This being said I don’t think any small validation errors should take away from your trust (people do make coding mistakes), but the WYSISWYG code generation or just plain sloppy coding is a far cry from the quality of code that I’m talking about.

My main interest in valid XHTML and valid CSS is accessibility, but hey, if I take the time to make my site accessible by search engines and humans, shouldn’t I be rewarded for that somehow? So how about it Google, can I get some more trust over here?

Now that I subscribe to over 100 blogs with Google Reader, I skim posts making a mental note to come back later and read the whole thing. Instead of browsing through all the posts again to get back to the post I want to read, I would like to just search for the topic or keywords.

Is there some reason there is no search feature yet, considering Google is supposed to specialize in search? Is it not technically possible to search RSS feeds? As I understand it, Google Reader archives the posts so it doesn’t pull them from RSS everytime so that shouldn’t matter. I see that you can “star” posts and come back to them later, just like you can in GMail, but unlike GMail there there is no search function. (aside: I think the “star” function is about as useful as a screen door on a battleship, both in GMail and in Reader.)

While the addition of Google Reader Trends was semi-interesting, I don’t think it was very helpful or needed. A search function on the other hand would be very useful, and make Google Reader much more usable at the same time.

One of the most common usability mistakes I hear is, “Well, If Amazon does it, it must be good.” Yes, Amazon.com is a very usable site with millions of dollars in site design and usability testing, I’m sure. I think a Nielsen usability study a few years ago set the Amazon Standard of Usability (I coined this phrase ) by saying it was by far the most usable site on the Web. The word started spreading that if you wanted a usable e-comm site emulating Amazon was the way to go.

Jacob Nielsen actually revoked Amazon.com’s most usable site status in 2005, and does a nice job summing up why you shouldn’t emulate them in this article.

The real crux of the matter is that while Amazon’s Information Architecture (IA), layout, design, etc, may be extremely usable for their customers, that doesn’t mean the same set up will be usable for your customers. Let me give you an example. Many sites have copied Amazon.com’s checkout process and moved to a required registration. This works for Amazon because they have many, many repeat buyers that like to have Amazon hold their information to save them time. If you sell an one-time-buy, get in and get out item on your site (for instance an ebook), and you make customer’s register before they buy even though they will never need your item again, you may just scare them off for good.

Before you go off and try to copy everything Amazon does consider if its the right thing for your customers.

I can build traffic to a site much quicker with several thousand PPC keywords than by trying to get content ranked organically. In setting up some of these few thousand word PPC campaigns, I stumbled across a great stratagem for organic keyword targeting for both e-comm and affiliate sites. Rather than relying on a questionable keyword tool to find keywords that I actually want to organically rank for, I can merely look at my highest converting Adwords keywords through my analytics package.

By using keyword tools you may be able to hash out some great keywords that you build some content around… only to find out that that traffic isn’t converting. On the other hand, by actually testing out the keywords first in PPC you’ll get a good idea of not only what kind of traffic that term brings, but also how well it converts.

Like I said, you may already have thousands of PPC keywords for your site. Words that you never thought of trying to get ranked organically, but kick butt on PPC. You may want to take those words and make some content around them (assuming you have some ranking power in the major search engines) to capture that FREE traffic.

Jesper has an interesting post describing some of the pros and cons of using CrazyEgg to generate heat maps (a color coded map of where the clicks are happening) on your site.

Results depend on how users use the mouse. Results will be skewed by users that don’t use mouse, users that use a laptop with trackpad or another device for moving the cursor around on screen.

I haven’t had a chance to play with CrazyEgg yet so I can’t chime in with my opinion yet. Most of the sites I actually own contain a lot of Javascript links, so I’m not sure if CrazyEgg can track those clicks or not. Maybe I’ll test it out on this site.

You see these two buttons all over the Internet. One has a significantly different meaning that the other, if only subconsciously. For most e-commerce sites on the web I would recommend using “Add to Cart”. “Buy Now”, although a strong call to action, implies an immediate commitment to buy. Visitors to your site can get scared away from clicking the button altogether if they think they will now be committed to buy.

“Add to Cart” implies that the item can sit in their shopping cart and they can think about it for a while with no commitment to buy. Yes its true that we may want the customer to purchase impulsively. Still though, people like to add items to their cart. They may not be ready to purchase right away, or they may want to seek out more information about the product.

As a case-in-point, one of the speakers at this year’s PubCon, gave the example of the EBay “Buy It Now” button. Every time he sees this button hes afraid to click it because he thinks EBay may now force him to buy this item from the seller.

Don’t take my word for it, though. You should try both and run your own A / B test to see which one converts at a higher percentage.

Pretty much every website I’ve ever been involved with starts to get out of hand with features and useless doodads eventually. Especially when the site has remained stagnant for a while. Picture this: 5 - 6 people sitting around a small conference table somewhere, talking about how to “improve” their current site. One of the higher ups gets the idea that it would be pretty sweet if we made the entire site INTERACTIVE; just convert the whole thing over to flash. Sound familiar? About once a month I have to talk people I work with off the ledge of committing Internet suicide by adding new great features that the boss thinks the customer really wants.

Even I have to remind myself sometimes to Keep It Simple Stupid. In my mind, this is really the key to a user-friendly site. Take all the stuff that doesn’t contribute to the sale and get rid of it. I made a big boo boo one time by adding an interactive feature to a site that the customers absolutely loved. Unfortunately, it just served as a distraction from the buying process and conversions plummeted. People were still visiting the site, but just messing around with the new tool instead of buying things. We had to take the tool back off until we could figure out a way to make it assist the buying process rather than distracting from it. Looking back on it I want to slap myself for making that mistake in the first place: “Keep it simple, you r-tard!”

When designing or adding to your site, apply the K.I.S.S. method to everything: your homepage, your navigation, your shopping cart, your checkout. Less really is more! Now, good luck convincing the boss that.