Book picks similar to
The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web by Ahava Leibtag
content-strategy
nonfiction
ux
work-reading
Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide
Todd Zaki Warfel - 2009
Prototypes help you to flesh out design ideas, test assumptions, and gather real-time feedback from users. With this book, Todd Zaki Warfel shows how prototypes are more than just a design tool by demonstrating how they can help you market a product, gain internal buy-in, and test feasibility with your development team. TESTIMONIALS "When someone asks me about prototyping, I'll be pointing them to this book from now on." �Kim Goodwin: VP Design, Cooper; author, Designing for the Digital Age "Todd's text offers a comprehensive view of prototyping--from the role of prototypes in socializing decision making and achieving organizational buy-in, to the actual pragmatics of creating interactive artifacts. This is a solid book for those 'in the trenches'--the designers doing the actual work that ends up in the actual products we use every day." �Jon Kolko: Editor-in-Chief, interactions; Associate Creative Director, Frog "If you design applications and are stuck in the land of task flows and wireframes, you really need to pick up a copy of Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide. Todd offers practical, hands-on advice to jump start your prototyping and make your designs truly interactive before they are built." �Dan Saffer: Principal, Kicker Studios; author of Designing for Interaction and Designing Gestural Interfaces "Whether you're prototyping to explore ideas or to communicate them, Todd Zaki Warfel's smart, accessible guide will give you the tools you need." �Jesse James Garrett: Author, The Elements of User Experience; President, Adaptive Path
Storytelling Made Easy: Persuade and Transform Your Audiences, Buyers, and Clients — Simply, Quickly, and Profitably
Michael Hauge - 2017
HARNESS THE POWER OF HOLLYWOOD STORYTELLING MAGIC Renowned Hollywood story expert Michael Hauge’s Six Step Success Story formula gives your potential clients and buyers the emotional experience of success—and will move them to take action.
The Burned-Out Blogger's Guide to PR
Jason Kincaid - 2014
Meanwhile, countless entrepreneurs shot themselves in the foot with basic PR mistakes — spending far too much money hiring the wrong sort of PR people. The goal of this book is simple: to save entrepreneurs from the overpriced and ineffective PR gurus of the world — and to give them the tools they need to take on the media themselves (or at least, to hire someone who doesn't stink).
F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experience to Drive Demand, Revenue & Relationships
Randy Frisch - 2019
Truly effective companies (and marketers) create content experiences, drawing the customer into an immersive infinite scroll that mirrors the consumer experience of Netflix, Spotify, and other billion-dollar brands.Randy Frisch will push you to rethink how you approach content for complex buyer journeys. The current mindset is all about volume-the more content created, the better. But the reality is that almost 70 percent of content created within an organization is never used, and there's little point investing in content marketing if you're not leveraging the assets you create.In this book, Frisch unpacks the Content Experience Framework, arming your organization to deliver personalized experiences that leverage your content to engage your audiences at scale-as well as identify and ramp up the key players in your organization who need to own this process.
Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value Through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams
James Kalbach - 2015
But it's worse when people inside these companies can't pinpoint the problem because they're too focused on business processes. This practical book shows your company how to use alignment diagrams to turn valuable customer observations into actionable insight. With this unique tool, you can visually map your existing customer experience and envision future solutions.Product and brand managers, marketing specialists, and business owners will learn how experience diagramming can help determine where business goals and customer perspectives intersect. Once you're armed with this data, you can provide users with real value.Mapping Experiences is divided into three parts:Understand the underlying principles of diagramming, and discover how these diagrams can inform strategyLearn how to create diagrams with the four iterative modes in the mapping process: setting up a mapping initiative, investigating the evidence, visualizing the process, and using diagrams in workshops and experimentsSee key diagrams in action, including service blueprints, customer journey maps, experience maps, mental models, and spatial maps and ecosystem models
Get a Freelance Life: mediabistro.com's Insider Guide to Freelance Writing
Margit Feury Ragland - 2006
Learn how to:• Write compelling pitch letters • Network with the best in the magazine and newspaper industry• Understand the freelance market and detect its changes• Self-edit and rewrite your work• Manage tight deadlines• Negotiate contracts• Survive the financial ups and downs of the freelance lifeWith plenty of insider advice and tips from the most successful freelance writers and editors in the country, Get a Freelance Life is a must-have resource for turning your freelance gigs into a full-fledged writing career.
Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success
Ken Segall - 2012
It was also a weapon.Simplicity isn’t just a design principle at Apple—it’s a value that permeates every level of the organization. The obsession with Simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. It’s what helped Apple recover from near death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.Thanks to Steve Jobs’s uncompromising ways, you can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it’s structured, the way it innovates, and the way it speaks to its customers.It’s by crushing the forces of Complexity that the company remains on its stellar trajectory.As ad agency creative director, Ken Segall played a key role in Apple’s resurrection, helping to create such critical marketing campaigns as Think different. By naming the iMac, he also laid the foundation for naming waves of i-products to come.Segall has a unique perspective, given his years of experience creating campaigns for other iconic tech companies, including IBM, Intel, and Dell. It was the stark contrast of Apple’s ways that made Segall appreciate the power of Simplicity—and inspired him to help others benefit from it.In Insanely Simple, you’ll be a fly on the wall inside a conference room with Steve Jobs, and on the receiving end of his midnight phone calls. You’ll understand how his obsession with Simplicity helped Apple perform better and faster, sometimes saving millions in the process. You’ll also learn, for example, how to:• Think Minimal: Distilling choices to a minimum brings clarity to a company and its customers—as Jobs proved when he replaced over twenty product models with a lineup of four.• Think Small: Swearing allegiance to the concept of “small groups of smart people” raises both morale and productivity.• Think Motion: Keeping project teams in constant motion focuses creative thinking on well-defined goals and minimizes distractions.• Think Iconic: Using a simple, powerful image to symbolize the benefit of a product or idea creates a deeper impression in the minds of customers.• Think War: Giving yourself an unfair advantage—using every weapon at your disposal—is the best way to ensure that your ideas survive unscathed.Segall brings Apple’s quest for Simplicity to life using fascinating (and previously untold) stories from behind the scenes. Through his insight and wit, you’ll discover how companies that leverage this power can stand out from competitors—and individuals who master it can become critical assets to their organizations.
Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology
David C. Evans - 2017
The first generation of books on the topic focused on web pages and cognitive psychology. This book covers apps, social media, in-car infotainment, and multiplayer video games, and it explores the crucial roles played by behaviorism, development, personality, and social psychology. Author David Evans is an experimental psychology Ph.D. and senior manager of consumer research at Microsoft who recounts high-stakes case studies in which behavioral theory aligned digital designs with the bottlenecks in human nature to the benefit of users and businesses alike.Innovators in design and students of psychology will learn:The psychological processes determining users' perception of, engagement with, and recommendation of digital innovationsExamples of interfaces before and after simple psychological alignments that vastly enhanced their effectivenessStrategies for marketing and product development in an age of social media and behavioral targetingHypotheses for research that both academics and enterprises can perform to better meet users' needsWho This Book Is ForDesigners and entrepreneurs will use this book to give their innovations an edge on what are increasingly competitive platforms such as apps, bots, in-car apps, augmented reality content. Usability researchers and market researchers will leverage it to enhance their consulting and reporting. Students and lecturers in psychology departments will want it to help land employment in the private sector.
Unusually Effective: 25 Unusual yet Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies for Creating an Irresistible brand, Ultimate Business Growth and Massive Profits
Akshay Desai - 2015
An Absolutely No-Fluff guide to Unusual Social Media Marketing Strategies You have always wondered how some companies have made it big on social media and if you could do the same??Imagine if you could get your hands on all the behind-the-scene tactics employed by the successful brands..well, you don't have to imagine anymore...here's the answer;Unusually Effective: 25 Unusual yet Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies for Creating an Irresistible brand, Ultimate Business Growth and Massive Profits.Social Media Marketing is becoming a necessity, for a Small Business Enterprise and also for the large Corporate Mammoths...It is the easiest and fastest way to relay advertising and marketing products and services to your target market...And this book provides you the...Unfair Edge.The book is divided into 6 parts:
# General Strategies
# Video Strategies
# Image Strategies
# Hashtag Strategies
# Facebook Strategies
# Twitter StrategiesEnjoy 'Unusually Effective' and make your business achieve Mind Blowing Social Media Success
Google Analytics: Understanding Visitor Behavior
Justin Cutroni - 2007
This hands-on guide shows you how to get the most out of this free and powerful tool -- whether you're new to Google Analytics or have been using it for years.Google Analytics shows you how to track different market segments and analyze conversion rates, and reveals advanced techniques such as marketing-campaign tracking, a valuable feature that most people overlook. And this practical book not only provides complete code samples for web developers, it also explains the concepts behind the code to marketers, managers, and others on your team.Discover exactly how the Google Analytics system worksLearn how to configure the system to measure data most relevant to your business goalsTrack online marketing activities, including cost-per-click ads, email, and internal campaignsTrack events -- rather than page views -- on sites with features such as maps, embedded video, and widgetsConfigure Google Analytics to track enterprise data, including multiple domainsUse advanced techniques such as custom variables and CRM integration
Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Rules
Jeff Johnson - 2010
But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In "Designing with the Mind in Mind," Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling "GUI Bloopers," provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow. * The first practical, all-in-one source for practitioners on user interface design rules and why, when and how to apply them.* Provides just enough background into the reasoning behind interface design rules that practitioners can make informed decisions in every project.* Gives practitioners the insight they need to make educated design decisions when confronted with tradeoffs, including competing design rules, time constrictions, or limited resources.
HTML Fixes for Kindle: Advanced Self Publishing for Kindle Books, or Tips on Tweaking Your App's HTML So Your Ebooks Look Their Best
Aaron Shepard - 2013
Have you ever opened a Kindle book to find that the font started out way too small or way too large? Have you tried to change to a different font while reading and discovered you couldn't? Have you jumped to a new chapter in a Kindle book and seen that the chapter heading lost its formatting? Has a Kindle completely ignored formatting you knew was in the book? According to Amazon, the simplest way to publish your Kindle book is to upload an HTML file you've saved from Microsoft Word or another app. By itself, that method can bring you maybe 80% of the way to a well-formatted, trouble-free ebook. But what about the other 20%? In this follow-up to his bestselling -From Word to Kindle, - Aaron Shepard takes your saved HTML as a starting point and tells how to quickly tweak and tune it to avoid common problems. Assuming no knowledge of HTML, he introduces the basics of the language, then reveals how to use find-and-replace and macros to touch up an entire book in seconds! If you're serious about Kindle publishing and you're technically inclined -- but not a full-fledged geek -- Aaron provides the tips you need to bring your Kindle book to the next level, making it something truly to be proud of. ///////////////////////////////////////////////// Aaron Shepard is a foremost proponent of the new business of profitable self publishing, which he has practiced and helped develop since 1998. He is the author of -Aiming at Amazon, - -POD for Profit, - -Perfect Pages, - and Amazon's #1 and #2 bestselling paid books on Kindle formatting, -From Word to Kindle- and -Pictures on Kindle.- ///////////////////////////////////////////////// CONTENTS Getting Started 1 WORKING WITH HTML HTML and Kindle HTML Export HTML Editing HTML Processing HTML Basics HTML Checking HTML Cleanup HTML Testing 2 HTML FIXES Fixes for Fonts Fixes for Paragraphs Fixes for Headings Fixes for Line Breaking Fixes for Pictures Fixes for Navigation ///////////////////////////////////////////////// SAMPLE Here are some of the things you can accomplish through changes in HTML. * Adjust bookmarks so headings retain proper formatting when jumped to. * Remove settings that stop the user from choosing their own. * Keep fonts from appearing much too small or much too large when the book is opened. * Make sure indents and other spacing stays relative to larger and smaller font sizes. * Avoid line breaks that leave short words dangling at the ends of lines or paragraphs. * Make up for features lost in translation from your word processor, like nonbreaking hyphens. * Stop -ghost hyphens- from appearing in the middle of words. * Keep pages of text from disappearing for some users. * Prevent the Kindle from applying its own defaults in place of your settings.
Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
Jeffrey Rubin - 1994
A daily tool of the trade for specialists. Handbook of Usability Testing gives you practical, step-by-step guidelines in plain English. Written by Jeffrey Rubin, it arms beginners with the full complement of proven testing tools and techniques. From software, GUIs, and technical documentation, to medical instruments, VCRs, and exercise bikes, no matter what your product, you'll learn to design and administer extremely reliable tests to ensure that people find it easy and desirable to use. * Requires no engineering or human factors training * A rigorous, step-by-step approach--with an eye to common gaffes and pitfalls--saves you months of trial and error * Liberally peppered with real-life examples and case histories taken from a wide range of industries * Packed with extremely usable templates, models, tables, test plans, and other indispensable tools of the trade
Making Websites Win: Apply the Customer-Centric Methodology That Has Doubled the Sales of Many Leading Websites
Karl Blanks - 2017
Almost all of them. Many never make a profit. Like chocolate teapots, they look nice but flop as soon as you pour hot customers into them. Others are successful at first, and then get crushed by competitors.This book is about how to buck the trend—to make websites that customers love and that are outrageously profitable. The unique methodology is based on the authors’ award-winning work growing many of the world’s biggest web companies—plus hundreds of smaller, market-leading companies in over eighty different industries. In this book, you’ll get What successful web businesses do differently (and others get wrong) How to easily identify your website’s biggest opportunities A treasure trove of proven solutions for growing businesses Discover how to grow your profits—by making winning websites that people love. Right now, the Kindle version is priced at a special rate. Just scroll up, click buy, and we'll see you on the inside!
Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook
Bill Buxton - 2010
It offers methods called design thinking, as a way to think as a user, and sketching, a way to think as a designer. User-experience designers are designers who sketch based on their actions, interactions, and experiences. The book discusses the differences between the normal ways to sketch and sketching used by user-experience designers. It also describes some motivation on why a person should sketch and introduces the sketchbook. The book reviews the different sketching methods and the modules that contain a particular sketching method. It also explains how the sketching methods are used. Readers who are interested in learning, understanding, practicing, and teaching experience design, information design, interface design, and information architecture will find this book relevant.