Newspaper Association of America Engagement Begins (November 2006)

We are pleased to welcome the Newspaper Association of America as a new client. We are currently providing the association with staffing consultation and recruiting services.

AAMVA Launches Redesigned Web Site (November 2006)

The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) has launched two redesigned Web sites, www.aamva.org and www.irponline.org.

Olkin Communications Consulting provided audience analysis, user experience and content strategy, information architecture development, usability analysis and testing, design management, and content management consulting and training for both Web redesign projects. The sites are built on Microsoft CMS 2002.

Click to read a profile of the AAMVA project.

U.S. Navy Launches Redesigned Web Site (November 2006)

The Commander, Naval Installations Command, has launched the redesigned Web site for its headquarters, www.cnic.navy.mil.

Olkin Communications Consulting provided audience analysis, user experience and content strategy, information architecture, template specifications, and design guidance for this Web redesign. We also developed a project methodology and template specifications that will be used in the migration of more than 100 other Navy Web sites to the Stellent content management platform.

Click to read a profile of the U.S. Navy project.

Usability Article by Jacqui Olkin Featured in Association Publishing Magazine

Web usability is a hot topic in the association world, but many organizations need information on what it is and how to achieve it. Our new article, Site Checking (PDF), in the Sept./Oct. issue of Association Publishing magazine, offers guidance on usability for Web site, intranet, and software development projects. It also outlines usability techniques and ways to calculate usability's ROI.

Click to download the article Site Checking (PDF 1575 KB), Association Publishing,Sept./Oct. 2006.

Click to read our previous article in Association Publishing, Enhancing the User Experience (PDF 818 KB), Association Publishing, March/April 2006.

Online Collaboration to Cut Costs, Speed Projects for NBPTS (October 2006)

Olkin Communications Consulting is helping the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), based in Arlington, Va., implement online collaboration for committee work. NBPTS committees work on mission-critical projects and comprise educators from all over the United States. The new online collaboration processes and tools will save money by reducing the number of in-person meetings, and will cut the duration of committee projects by approximately half.

The Wildlife Society Signs on for Consulting Services (October 2006)

The Wildlife Society has engaged Olkin Communications Consulting to help the Society update its Web presence and online capabilities.

New Partnership with Internet4Associations (September 2006)

Olkin Communications Consulting is pleased to announce its partnership with Internet4associations®, a technology products and services firm. Internet4associations® provides integrated Web content management, association management software, and hosting services to more than 300 association clients. www.internet4associations.com

Click to read the official press release.

National Association of Realtors Web Reorganization (September 2006)

Olkin Communications Consulting is developing user experience concepts and information architecture for a phased reorganization of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Web site, www.realtor.org. This work will prepare NAR for an eventual redesign of the Web site.

Katie Couric's The Brand New Kid: Educational Materials in Development for National Touring Musical (August 2006)

Olkin Communications Consulting has written educational materials to accompany a new children's musical based on Katie Couric's book The Brand New Kid. The musical will premier at the Kennedy Center in November 2006 and will tour nationally.

Click for information about our previous work for the Kennedy Center.

508 Compliance: Don't Forget the Content Providers (July 2006)

Section 508 compliance is an important requirement in Web development efforts. The goal of compliance is to make Web interfaces as widely accessible as possible, including to people who use adaptive technologies such as automated text readers. Accessible Web sites rely in part on designers and programmers, but true Section 508 compliance involves others, as well.

Content providers and managers have an important role to play in ensuring that content, graphic assets, and media files meet Section 508 guidelines. Make sure that they and everyone else who works on your Web site are trained to understand and meet Section 508 and other relevant accessibility and usability guidelines.

For help interpreting and applying Section 508 and other federal and industry usability and accessibility guidelines, or for a Section 508 compliance evaluation of your site, contact us.

Does Your Web Site Support Sales? (June 2006)

A recent usability study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that business-to-business (B2B) Web sites are considerably less usable than business-to-consumer (B2C) sites. In his June 1 column on www.useit.com, usability guru Jakob Nielsen reported that B2B sites are often organized and written from an "insider" perspective, making it hard for prospective customers and partners to learn about the companies and their products or services. Many B2B sites also were found to lack the information that fosters sales and long-term relationships, including pricing product support information.

Make sure your site tells a good sales story to your target audiences. Whether your company is B2B or B2C, e-commerce enabled or not, you probably have marketing or sales goals of some kind. Maybe you offer memberships, conferences, or training. Perhaps you offer services for which deals are closed offline. Maybe you are recruiting new hires. Whatever your business and your business objectives, your Web site should tell a clear and compelling story about who your company is, what it offers, and why people should do business with you.

For help making your Web site a more powerful marketing tool, contact us.

Navy Web Consolidation Project Begins (May 2006)

We have been engaged by Evolvent Technologies to assist in the consolidation and migration of 100+ Web sites on behalf of the U.S. Navy. We are responsible for project methodology consulting, content management consulting, information architecture, content strategy, design management, and usability. The sites will be migrated into the Stellent content management system and must comply with federal guidelines for public Web sites and Section 508 accessibility guidelines.

Evolvent is a technology contractor to government organizations, the military, and nonprofits; the company provides application development and content management implementation services.

Communicating Value with Every Contact (April 2006)

In a marketing-saturated society, it can be challenging to get potential customers and clients to pay attention to your marketing communications and associate your name with the concept of value. Our new article on marketing communications gives tips on how to get their attention and earn their loyalty. This article is also published in the April 2006 Herndon Dulles Chamber of Commerce newsletter.

Web Redesign Article Featured in Association Publishing Magazine (April 2006)

The March/April issue of Association Publishing, the magazine of the Society for National Association Publications (SNAP), featured our article, "Enhancing the User Experience," (PDF; 818 KB) a case study on using stakeholder and user feedback to ensure the success of Web projects.

This summer, Association Publishing will publish our article on low-cost Web usability techniques.

Back to Basics: What Makes Web Sites Work (May 2006)

In a recent column on www.useit.com, usability guru Jakob Nielsen reports that what was most important to Web usability 10 years ago is still most important now:

• clear and consistent navigation
• good content
• helpful, unintrusive design

Nielsen says that some of the most costly business failures are caused by getting these basics wrong and alienating Web users who lose confidence in, or abandon, the offending Web site.

The message is clear: Get the basics right, and your site will be more successful. So what if you don't have a content management system, online event registration, or a stellar in-house Web designer? Making sure you have a well-structured, consistently laid out site filled with helpful content is the best thing you can do right now to make your Web site a successful business tool.

Not sure how to make sure your site is well written, well structured, and usable? Contact us—we can help.

Client Wins International Award (April 2006)

We were recently engaged by Bonnie Schwartz and Co., an event planning company, to write entry submissions for the 2006 International Special Events Society awards. We are delighted to report that the company won in both categories in which it entered, making it the second-most-decorated company at the awards this year.

If you need help writing competition entries for your event, publication, or Web site, contact us.

Where's the Meat? (March 2006)

A prestigious catering company recently engaged us for a design, usability, and content review of a new Web site they were about to launch.

Our reaction when we reviewed the site was, "Where's the Meat?" The site had lots of beautiful color photos but did not feature any menus—the thing most prospective catering customers want to see when they are getting ideas for their events. The content about the types of food the caterer could produce was inexplicably hidden in the About section of the site, in a drop-down menu.

The location of the food-related content and the drop-down menu were barriers to finding the information. Overall, the Web site was visually attractive but an ineffective marketing tool for the catering company.

The missing menus offer a useful metaphor. Content—whether food related or not—is always the meat of a Web site. It's why Web users come to a site. When you plan a new site or revise your current site, make sure that you start by thinking about the content that is most important to your company and to your target audiences. Then organize and label content so it can be located easily.

When it comes to design, form should follow function. Your Web design should be more than just pretty pictures—it should communicate your image and help guide users to the most important and useful content on the site.

If you ensure that content drives the design of your site, your Web users will never have to ask, "Where's the meat?"

Usability Experts Say, "Don't Jump" (March 2006)

The Nielsen Norman Group, the world's preeminent Internet usability researchers, have just announced that jump links, the hyperlinks that take users to a particular location on a Web page, violate usability conventions. It seems that these links—which often take users from a list at the top of a page to a text passage lower down on the same page—go against users' conception of what a hyperlink should do. In the users' mental model, a hyperlink should go to another page, not another location on the same page. Even when jump links take users to a particular location on a new page, the experience can be confusing if on the new page, main navigation is not immediately visible. It seems the sun has set on the jump link, and frankly, we are jumping for joy. For more usability news from the Nielsen Norman Group, visit www.useit.com, one of the ugliest and most usable sites you'll ever see.

The Esquires and the E-Mail (February 2006)

As though we needed another lesson in how not to use e-mail, two Boston attorneys have made a strong case for having difficult conversations in person and counting to ten before firing off an angry missive. A nasty e-mail exchange between a recent law school grad and her would-be employer was replete with insults, thinly veiled threats, and other unpleasantries. The e-mail was forwarded by one of the lawyers and spread rapidly, ending up in the Boston Globe and on CNN.com. Like so many unfortunate e-mail exchanges before it, this story reminds us: Do not put in writing what you would hesitate to say in person, and assume that whatever you write in an e-mail will be seen by someone other than the intended recipient. We are currently working on an article on "E-Mail Disasters." Stay tuned for more cautionary tales from the annals of e-mail history.

When Worlds Collide (February 2006)

We used to consider the "blogosphere" to be a realm of its own, somewhere resident in "cyberspace" but perhaps in another solar system. Leave it to a panda cub to bring worlds together. Tai Shan, the National Zoo's impossibly cute baby panda, was nicknamed "Butterstick" by the bloggers at DCist after the zoo reported his birth weight as equal to the weight of "a stick of butter." The name 'Stick stuck. It was used extensively by DCist and another blog, Wonkette. Now the mainstream PR agency responsible for promoting the National Zoo's annual ZooFari event has embraced the name Butterstick in its event marketing campaign. Perhaps you thought blogs were irrelevant to mainstream communications and marketing, but maybe they're just slightly ahead of the communications curve.