Zoey Kroll's blog

My session Show Don't Tell: Guerilla Usability Testing at Drupalcon San Francisco will outline quick usability testing strategies to bring users to the decision-making table.

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Idealist.org just hatched a campaign to create a decentralized and adaptable network of idealists. Within the first few days of launch, people from over 140 countries have signed up. For what? Well, I'm not quite sure, and Idealist.org isn't either. This is a network experiment and, as they explain on their site, it will transparently evolve with feedback from the participants.

In addition to its activist merit, the campaign is an example of an ingenious brand-building strategy. Idealist.org's website offers the standard features for sharing the idealist logo on social networking sites and forwarding to friends. More significantly, however, participants conflate a personal attribute and the organization's name as one and the same. Strong brand names offer that kind of potential. I'm an idealist, are you?

I'm part of another decentralized network of idealists: CivicActions. Decentralization provides CivicActions with strategic advantages; the organization can quickly tap local technological and cultural trends, work with the best talent in the world, and communicate with a global audience. I'm a CivicActioner, are you? We love to partner with smart, idealistic organizations and individuals. Contact us and let's get the conversation started.

As part of any major web redesign effort, CivicActions recommends a brand re-assessment. Cone Inc., a communications company specializing in "cause branding," recently stated that because of undeveloped branding efforts, "some organizations may be leaving millions of dollars in potential unearned revenue on the table." The company recently released a report of the 100 top Non-profit brands.

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Website Redesign Glossary - Entry 5 Breadcrumb: An element on a web page (usually directly below the page title) showing the click path a user traveled to arrive at the current page. For example: Home > About Us > Our Staff Usually the terms are active links, which enable the user to retrace their click path (or skip back several clicks). Breadcrumbs, especially in deep sites with multiple levels of navigation, improve usability because they help users understand where they are now as well as the overall structure of the site, and navigate back to the pages they've visited. The term "breadcrumb" comes from the trail Hansel and Gretel left to try to find their way back home.

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