It must be about a year ago that I discovered Prezi. It’s an online presentation application with a twist – literally. See, unlike the slide deck format that we’re all accustomed to, Prezi uses a single-page format coupled with animation tools. So, instead of flipping page to page, you pan, zoom, twist and stop on an area of your presentation as you progress through it, almost like traveling through a map.

While a powerful and unique way to express ideas, I found Prezi to be highly complex – so much so that I was hesitant to invest the time to learn it. Apparently I wasn’t the only one as the company just update the service in order to simplify the menu options and improve ease-of-use.

According to the Company, text is easier to edit, and the new editor has half the menus of the previous version – all while adding more features (if you want them) including the ability to embed YouTube videos.

I have renewed excitement for this tool which will pair nicely with my Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch Tablet.

The Prezi business is a freemium model offering free and premium versions. The “Public” (free) version enables you to create, show and share Prezi’s online and present offline. However, your content is always publicly viewable and has a Prezi watermark. You’re limited to 100 MB of online storage.

For $59/year ($4.90 monthly) the “Enjoy” version adds the ability to make content private and remove the Prezi watermark, which should be enough for most people. Your account is limited to 500 MB of online storage.

If you want to the ability to create Prezi’s offline then you need Prezi Desktop, which is only available in the “Pro” version which includes 2 GB of online storage for $159/year ($13.25/monthly).

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a sample Prezi is worth a million. Check out this short Prezi that provides an overview of all the new changes:

Disclosure of Material Connection: http://dsclzr.us/0

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Prezi Simplifies Unique Presentation Tool, Yet Still Adds New Features is a post from: TechStartups.com

What got me excited about this post enough to want to share it and write a bit about it was the analogy that Nielsen used to move forward his notion that the human mind is not optimized for the web and the interactions that it demands of users.

As Nielsen points out the human mind is the same one that we were carrying around with us for the last 10,000 years. That is like computing cursor position with an abacus. We’re better than that and often we make interactions overly complex due to this lack of understanding.

What is being built by web designers today are experiences that are disjointed and incongruous with the way that our minds can process information. Links that have multiple functions are a new fav of designers that prove this concept fully. To a designer the type of interaction their link provides may seem contextual if it opens a floating div on click but based on typical interaction a user will expect to be taken to a new page.

Good web design, that design that focuses on usability, is a synthesis of the understanding of the human  mind, interaction principles and efficiency. Typically what we are presented with is laden with extraneous information that competes for out attention or forces and interaction type that not similar to other standard types. Which leads to inefficiency and users that never complete the funnel.

One example that Nielsen gives is that of coupon codes that are copy and paste. First a user must discern which code they need, copy it, find the link to get to the site they need to go to for redemption and then paste it in at the next site. His recommendation is to simply add the code to the link. It simplicity like this that can keep users happy, keep them coming back and motivate them to recommend you to others. They might not even know why they are recommending you, but deep inside it is elemental.

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Web Usability and Them is a post from: TechStartups.com

For those of you unaware, Engadget put on a new face this week and restructured the way stories are found on their site. As part of this new design they began sculpting links with a technique that I’m dubbing URL graffiti. Say what?

They are engaged in a brilliant new system of taggery that shows the maturity of blogs that have thousands of items of content and want to gain the value that they often represent. One method that they have chosen for this is filtering with user chosen tags (graffiti) attached to the end of a tag URL. Example: http://www.engadget.com/tag/att,3g,sony

Why is this brilliant?

It shows a step forward by Engadget and their designers to finding solutions to create value from the long tail. For the public and their own writers there is now an ability to treat all of this content as a reference system. You could also call it a knowledge base, library or archive. Whatever your chosen term, this simple approach to content filtering is hot.

What does it mean?

Access to an entire body of work via multiple tags can begin to yield better search results without forcing a user into a situation where they need to use an ‘advanced search’ feature. These are usually blocks of form elements that easily overwhelm a user’s sense that they can find what they are looking for with ease and underwhelm them with your information architecture skills.

Take the full example URL above with graffiti as an example – then click these three links with varying tag graffiti on the end of them in succession:

1. http://www.engadget.com/tag/att // All ATT tagged content
2. http://www.engadget.com/tag/att,3g // All ATT and 3g tagged content
3. http://www.engadget.com/tag/att,3g,sony // All ATT and 3g and Sony tagged content

As the results wane you are given a better picture of content within Engadget’s archive that meets the tag requirements. In this purest form it is advanced search functionality without the mess.

How to use it?

I found this feature because Engadget was already using it in posts. Their writers can use it to create a better picture of previously written content for users that click through. It can also be used by them as a an internal search capability for research on a topic. When you have multiple authors the chances are high that at some point there is another post or a few within the corpus that is similar and a can be used for reference.

In this current iteration this feature for users is a bit limited. Users can tack on their own graffiti to the URL and get results for these topics, but it is more of a command line interaction. It is powerful but not very user-friendly.

How can URL Graffiti from Engadget be improved?

This is a powerful system for content filtering that needs just a few tweaks and can become a ridiculously valuable to the publisher and to users.

1. Autodiscovery feed added to page
2. Link to this feed in the top section
3. Ability to add a ‘.rss or .xml’ to query for feed access
4. Button to change tag search to ‘OR’ instead of  ‘And’ to increase results pool
   1. Currently all searches are ‘AND’
   2. Ex. ATT and 3g and Sony
   3. New would allow ATT or 3g or Sony
5. Text input box with URL graffiti loaded in it for editing to add new tags
6. Number of results displayed on page

Below is a comp of some of these changes added into the interface. By no means is it perfect but it is a good start to adding some additional value to users. Click the image to see full size.

For your next client or startup keep this URL graffiti approach in mind as an efficient way to solve content filtering. If it is built in from the beginning you can ensure that you are creating a continued value, even if diminishing, for your content. Let your users throw some graffiti on your work.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

URL Graffiti From Engadget is a post from: TechStartups.com