Humans first, please

March 4, 2009 —

If you’re doing it right, your goal is never to build an SEO-friendly site. It’s to build a usable site. The latter leads to the former. Not the other way around.

This isn’t to say SEO doesn’t work. It’s only to say SEO is a hack.

Blame the interns

August 13, 2008 —

Today, Nielsen named his picks for the year’s 10 best application UIs. Topping the list is Campaign Monitor, an excellent application for email campaign delivery. Nielsen attributes the app to Eyeblaster (Israel) and describes its use as integrated management of multiple advertising campaigns for media buyers.

But, Campaign Monitor is a Freshview gig. They’re from Sydney, Australia. Who knows which app he’s actually referring to?

UPDATE: Wilson tells me in the comments that the report is referring to Eyeblaster’s Campaign Monitor screen vs the email newsletter application (of the same name) that everyone linking in seemed to think he was referring to. I guess that means everything in this post up to this point is dumb.

I have a hard time reading Mr. N any way, and this report definitely triggered my standard reflex. Deane atagonized me, though, so I figured I should slow it down and read again. Maybe you should too. There are some real pearls in there. Like lightbox being named the Interaction Design Technique of the Year. And, in case you’re wondering, yes. Mr. N is talking about this year.