I’ve recently been giving advice to some pre-launch startups about their user interface and initial set of features.  After re-reading one of the emails I sent, it seemed to me that the concepts are pretty universal and maybe apply to your project.

• Less Is More. If you can remove features from the service in the near term, it is beneficial for everyone.  Your developers will have less work, your users will have less learning curve, and you’ll more clearly be able to interpret early usage data.  If you’re not familiar with the term Minimum Viable Product, google it, might be helpful.
• Use Sensible Defaults. Whenever possible, pick something for the user, and only allow them to change it if they need to.
• Stub Future Features. To get better ‘interest’ data on specific future features, you can create links/buttons to non-existent features.  ie:  ’Click Here to Change the Answer Duration’ –> This feature is not yet implemented, but we want to see how many people would be interested in using it.  Would this feature be useful to you [Yes] [No] Leave us additional comments…  You can count clicks and get very direct comments about each prospective new feature.

After researching and working on various landing page optimization projects, I’ve compiled a checklist, if you want to design your own effective landing pages to optimize conversions:

• Large, clear, concise Primary Headline
• Large, germane product shot when appropriate
• Large, direct Call To Action (CTA) above the fold
• Multiple additional CTAs throughout the page
• Minimize off-page navigation
• Short, prioritized Key Features list
• 2 Columns
• Testimonials
• Pricing
• Human face(s) for testimonals or in images
• Highlight search terms (of referred traffic) in page
• Use A/B and Multivariate Testing
• Optimize page for fast loading
• Measure, Tweak, Repeat

3 Key Questions:

1. What is offered?
2. Why the prospect should care?
3. What does the prospect need to do?

A few other optional ideas you might want to consider:

• Orange may be the best color for CTA buttons
• Design for least-common-denominator browsers – could be 800×600 and/or mobile

Steve Jobs has completed the third chapter of what I see as a 4-part story to take over entertainment.

In chapter 1, he built a little film company called Pixar that helped a bigger company Disney stay relevant during an otherwise tough time for the mouse.  Since Pixar’s films represented the lion’s share of revenue during their relationship, and Disney never developed any of their own digital skills, they picked up Pixar – along the way making Steve Jobs the single largest shareholder of Disney stock.

In chapter 2, while music industry exec played ivory tower games and attempted to turn off the internet with attorneys and fruitless DRM efforts, Steve took the novel approach of vertically integrating music distribution with the personal computer and a line of devices that turned digital music into mobile assets that you could pack in your pocket. These efforts have put Apple on a path that today controls over 70% of digital music sales and could account for 28% of all music sales in 5 years.

In chapter 3, Steve decided that he could apply his smarts to the telecommunications industry, in one fell swoop, creating more innovation with the iPhone than the industry had seen since the creation of the mobile phone itself – fundamentally changing the way people interact with their phones.

Obviously much more can be written about each of these chapters, as well as the previous period which led to this series of breakthroughs, however the point of this post is a prediction about what I believe will be the next major chapter in the Apple Story:

CHAPTER 4: Re-inventing Television

Image: Dan Wiersema (http://www.danwiersema.com/)

Like music distribution and the mobile phone, the television industry finds itself in a transitional period.  The industry has been devoid of significant innovation since the advent of color.  HD, cable, satellite, DVRs, and now Internet TV are fairly obvious, incremental improvements, but even these improvements lfailt to deliver a fulfilling user experience.  It’s the same vacuum that was felt by the music industry, and the mobile phone user before Apple delivered their solution.  It’s a huge market to boot, and Apple now knows everything it needs know to enter in a meaningful way.

Here are some of the factors that frame this prediction:

• Apple has significant investments in flatscreen manufacturing with Samsung and LG
• the current Apple TV box is a test, to learn things about the market and user experience
• The experience of flattening hardware ala MacBook Air enables Apple to fit lots of gear in the back of an LCD case
• A line of high quality, flatscreen TVs with wifi + storage + an elegant remote + great media browsing UI would be a leap ahead for the TV marketplace (my Motorola DVR remote control has more buttons than my computer keyboard – count ‘em) – clearly an area where some iPhone like UI magic could assist

I’d suggest that Apple’s entry into the convention TV marketplace is inevitable – guessing when is a much harder task. Analyst Piper Jaffray suggests it will be in 2011, but I think we might hear something as soon as at the June 2009 Developer Conference.

There are many more reasons why this is a great next step for Apple – share your thoughts in the comments.

mod_graphics is a new Apache module built using ImageMagick that allows you to generate simple graphics from a web site using a REST-only syntax.  Currently, the module has 2 primary features:

• Circles – generate circles of any size with a specified foreground and background color
• Gradient – generate a 1 pixel x any length rectangle that has a 2 color, linear-gradient fill in horizontal or vertical orientation

This is the first ‘labs‘ experiment that I’m posting on the site.  It’s a simple widget that allows you to visually explore the price, capacity and size of hard drives from an online retailer.  It’s an experiment in alternative ways of comparing items that makes it easier to assess all the options and (in this case) find the best deals.

SATA2 Internal Hard Drives

This experimental widget lets you explore real-time prices for SATA2 hard drives at one of the better online stores for computer gear.

Updated hourly

Read more about how the widget was constructed here.

It would be great to see more innovation from e-tailers in the variety of ways they help you find products.  Faceted navigation, and sophisticated search are requirements today, but visual search can also be a powerful tool.  Take a few minutes to explore the visual search tools at Etsy if you haven’t seen them before.  They make it fun and interesting to shop for regular stuff.

A simple visualization like the drive comparison, gives you 4 dimensions of information to share with the user – 2 dimensions along the X and Y axis, as well as bubble color and size.  There is a lot that can be conveyed using those extra dimensions.  It’s much easier to find high-lights and low-lights than with textual search results lists – as you find on most sites today.

It’s possible to add animation as well, which can introduce time-series into the mix – possibly an enhancment for the future.  Animated data visualization is something that both Google and Microsoft have expressed interest in, so it’s something to keep an eye on.

Use of screen real estate - lost in translation

Doing a bit of research today to compare the two primary presidential candidates on some key issues.  I was shocked when visiting the John McCain homepage to find that apparently John might also be an Obama supporter!

So much so in fact, that they have given him the best placement on the homepage, as well as an aesthetically pleasing graphic with a clear association between the powerful word ‘Love’ and Barack’s smiling face.  Clicking the graphic takes you to two videos which give you the ability to vote for the best song for a video about how the media is in love with Barack Obama.

After a wave of misses and gaffes in the last couple of weeks, you would think the McCain camp might be able to get it right with their own online efforts.  Instead they give their most valuable screen real estate to a competitor, in what I suppose is an effort to convince voters and other media players that the McCain camp is getting a raw deal.

Unfortunately, this effort falls flat with me – and I imagine many others as well.  The homepage placement, headline graphic, and even the videos are neutral to – pro-Obama, and I think it’s safe to say that no media exec is going to flinch at the montage therein.

In my experience, sarcasm doesn’t translate well in email or the web.  Better to keep on point.

Dear John,

More than anything else, Americans want to see you and Barack Obama fight a good fight in this presidential campaign.  No whining, minimal mud slinging, just ’straight talk’ about the issues and how you and your team can help take us into the next decade.

Please have your online marketing team go back to the drawing board.

Sincerely,

Concerned Netizen