By now, almost everyone in the web professional world has heard about the disturbing and violent threats to Kathy Sierra, author of the well-known Creating Passionate Users blog. The escalating vicious attacks and death threats culminated this past week in Kathy canceling public presentations, stopping her blog writings, and hiding out in her home. Reading Kathy’s blog about her experience was saddening, frustrating, and just downright scary to me.

In an effort to stem the increasing viciousness seen in blogs and websites, Andy Carvin, founding editor of the Digital Divide Network has declared today, March 30, 2007 Stop Cyberbullying Day. Andy’s hopes are that people will start talking about cyberbullying, and hopefully, employ strategies to combat it.

Robert Scoble has joined in the effort, commenting that Kathy’s situation has made him physically ill, concerned about his own safety, and declaring he will not post any articles to his blog this week in support of Kathy.

I was uplifted to hear how the web development community have joined their voices in outrage over Kathy’s situation. The last few days I’ve spent time learning more about how I can raise awareness about cyberbullying, and I’ve listed some resources below:

• Safe Internet Day
• Stop Cyberbullying
• Cyberbully
• National Crime Prevention Council – videos

Sasha Verhage, MSU alum and Design Lead for Google, will share observations of working in a fast-paced industry priding itself on “disruptive technologies.” His presentation will talk about his experiences at Google, Yahoo, and e-consultancies, introduce and clarify emerging trends and buzzwords, including Live Testing (also known as Bucket Testing), AJAX, Search Engine Optimization, and Open Content.

This talk is Monday, April 2nd, Room 145 Com Arts Building, Michigan State University from 4-5pm.

http://cas.msu.edu/about/newsevents/show/1367

Show your support and your smarts! Download this Refresh Detroit icon and it on your web site with a link to Refresh Detroit.

Sample code for Refresh Detroit icon

At User Interface Engineering, Jared Spool has posted an interesting article discussing the difference between usability and user experience. Jared’s article describes a customer buying a camera online, and subsequent issues with getting the camera from the brick and morter store.

Though the customer was able to accomplish their goal of buying a camera online (usability), the customer ended up walking out of the store without the camera, resulting in a negative user experience.

As web professionals, even those of us involved with usability and user experience, I believe we often only focus on the online conversion or CTA, and not what happens afterward in the office or retail store. In Jared’s example, the online experience of ordering the camera went well, the customer found exactly what they wanted, and ordered the camera online.

Unfortunately, the good feeling the customer experienced in ordering the camera online disappeared after discovering the camera was out of stock at the store.

Your thoughts? As Jared asks, what can we do to improve the total overall user experience?

Digitas in Detroit has several positions open in interactive marketing and design, usability, account management and strategy. If interested, contact/email your resume to Lannhi Tran.

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