Testing is a big part of our digital campaigns. Whether it’s targeting or graphics or images or messaging, we test and measure, and revise and iterate to improve results. Here's an example of a very small test, that yielded surprising results.

Have you ever just given up on a website because of usability flaws? You know what I mean: you've tried to use a website, but it feels like the publishers purposefully wanted to keep you from buying their products, completing your registration, or whatever it is you set out to do on their site. Sometimes, if the user experience is so thoughtless, it doesn't take very long before a customer abandons the site and goes with a more "frictionless" competitor.

I like to think website redesigns are a bit like kitchen remodels:

1. Just as kitchens are where everyone congregates at a party, so are websites the heart of every organization's brand. Like Nick pointed out last week, websites still rule. Redoing your site or your kitchen is a major part of your brand (or home).
2. Without proper planning—hell, even with proper planning—website redesigns can have little surprises that come along the way.
3. Website redesigns only happen every once in a while, and most people aren't contractors web developers.

In 1999, the first website went live.  You can still see it here.  Fast-forward about two decades, and Wired magazine has declared "The Web Is Dead," stating "one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display." The article asserts that internet-accessible apps will supersede the web - essentially, the website is obsolete!

Someone asked me early Monday morning if I’d ever used Vine. Oddly enough, I’d just used it for the first time the night before to take a video of my sleeping foster dog. Someone asked me early Monday morning if I’d ever used Vine. Oddly enough, I’d just used it for the first time the night before to take a video of my sleeping foster dog. (I needed proof she could stop moving.)