A while back I did an extensive study on Evite alternatives, which unfortunately showed that there really wasn’t a full-featured product that could compete with the popular online invitation service.

Recently I came across a new option, Goovite, brought to you by Mark Hurst and the people of Good Experience. While Goovite, as the others before it have done, fails to compete with Evite on breadth of features, it does have several advantages and is probably the best alternative I’ve seen thus far.

One of the main problems with Evite is the clever response conundrum, the fact that people are hesitant to post responses if they don’t have something witty to say. This is heightened if the first few people who respond are funny. On Goovite, the responder can add comments, but they are only visible to the organizer, limiting this awkwardness. (The best solution would let the organizer decide how to share responses, but neither Evite or Goovite allows for this.)

Another problem with Evite is the email itself — all they offer is the title of the invite (and a link). Goovite shows the entire invitation text, allowing the reader to get all the information they need about the event without having to visit another page. (A link is needed to RSVP.) A better solution would be to allow the reader to choose yes, no or maybe directly from the email, but Goovite is still a step ahead of Evite’s lame “big envelope” graphic. One problem Goovite’s email does have is that the email is sent by “Goovite Inviter” (inviter@goovite.com), not the organizer of the event. This increases the probability that the email will be taken as spam, either by the software or the individual reader.

The Goovite invite itself is extremely simple and has no customization. I would, however, suggest that they improve the few things mentioned above before focusing on presentation. If the invite is easy and “inviting” to use, presentation is less important. Ultimately, however, usage would increase if the users could customize design.

Bottom line here is that Goovite is a solid alternative to Evite, but is not perfect. I may try it to see if my response rate increases (and I’ll be sure to let you know).

I’m trying out this new WordPress plugin for “related posts“, which, based on keywords, will list related posts on the individual post pages of this blog. In some cases, such as the iPodessey, it is right on the money. Other times, such as “Alternatives to Evite“, it is not as effective.

Either way, I’m going to leave it up for a while and see how it works. Let me know if you see anything strange!

One of the little things that I always see in usability testing that blows my mind is how people perform a search. This is a pretty common function, as it is used on pretty much every website, right? Most people who we test with type in a term, then, moving their hand over to the mouse, move the cursor to the “search” or “go” button to submit the search. Now, as a frequent computer user, I often wonder why they don’t just hit “enter”. Not that the manuever wastes many seconds each time it is done, but over the course of all the many times that one will type in a search, it seems silly that people would bother using the mouse to get there. This is especially common with older users, who do exert visible effort to get to that “go” button.

The learning here? That most computer users will not know or understand any functionality that is not explicitly shown on the screen. It is quite logical (to me, at least), that “return” or “enter” should submit a search request, yet I don’t ever see text confirming this. As an advanced user, I assume it anyway. Most people don’t.

In this situation, it is perhaps ok that people are clicking “go” because they are still finding what they are looking for. If there is not, however, another obvious way to do what is hidden from view, the user simply won’t find it. This is a perfect lead-in to a discussion of why dropdown are usually ineffective, but that’s enough for today…

One of the things people talked about this holiday season was how the high gas prices would improve online shopping. The theory goes that since gas prices are so high, people will turn to online shopping in order to save gas and therefore money. I do not buy this theory.

Around the same time that this idea was being discussed, I saw a news story about high gas prices. They interviewed several people and asked them what the were going to do about these prices. The common answer? “What can I do? I don’t have a choice.” Basically, people are going to pay whatever they charge (within reason, obviously — if it was $20 a gallon that might change things) because driving is just part of everyday life.

Maybe I’m completely underestimating this, but I just don’t see people staying home because gas is 50 cents or a dollar more a gallon. Online shopping, however, offers many more benefits than just saving money on gas…

It’s been a while since my last post, but I’ve been quite busy. Aside from the holidays, moving and being out of town, work’s been extremely hectic too. However, at Shop.org’s First Look conference recently, I came up with lots of blogging ideas, so hopefully I’ll be a bit more active in the coming weeks. (See, you can relax now)

Today, however, some catching up from the holidays. I ordered a number of items from Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and my experiences were far from optimal. Interestingly, before the holidays, Carrie Johnson of Forrester predicted that customer satisfaction with online shipping would to go down this holiday season. And, although satisfaction in general continued to rise this year (according to numbers from Shop.org), from my own experiences Carrie was right on the money.

A quick recap of my experiences: Read the rest of this entry »