• Search Engines Searches (people search keywords and get your page in the results)
• Direct Links from Web Sites (including blogs)
• Advertising Links (including banners, PPC and text-link ads)
• Returning Visitors
• Non-web links such as newsletters, newsgroups, bookmarks, word-of-mouth, name recognition

Occasionally I'll try out a few new web apps that appear to be geared towards the Web Design crowd. My most recent experience has been with "Five Second Test", a web designer app that gives designers the chance to have random visitors share their impressions of the web designer's site; more specifically, their impressions as to which areas of the prospective website are the most attention-grabbing.

Designers can upload images of their website layouts, allow random people to look at them, and then get feedback from those visitors about what caught their attention within a 5-second time limit.

Here's an example of what random visitors thought of my site: http://fivesecondtest.com/manage/LXgsaXRq/results  (the words in the boxes are the words that my visitors felt best described the areas that they clicked on first)

Check it out:  "http://fivesecondtest.com"

I've had my experiences with Photoshop brushes, Illustrator brushes, and Paint Shop Pro brushes. I've even used a drawing tablet in each of them, but I always ended up being disappointed with the ability for those programs to have the same kind of natural feel as a basic pen or pencil. Then I came across LiveBrush. If you like to draw smooth, flowing, brush-like images, you've GOT to check out LiveBrush. Check it out here: http://livebrush.com

There are literally thousands of e-commerce sites on the internet today. Does anyone know about yours?

How many people know that your e-commerce site even exists? Do your clients, whether they be students, businessmen, teenagers, octagenarians, or just the general consuming populace, think of your site first when they need to purchase one of your products? So what if they don't? Who cares, right? You have a few hundred visitors each month, right? That's enough to make a profit, or at least break even... so why should you care whether your visitors are lining up by the thousands?

Many businesses are kept from greater e-commerce success by one simple fact: They don't have the extra time to devote to improving their website usability.  The time, effort, and expense of getting a website "up and running" was exhausting enough... No one wants to spend countless more hours "re-designing" their home page, or re-thinking the flow of their product categories... [ad nauseum].

However, the kind of work that is necessary to get your e-commerce to be faster, sleeker, more pleasing, and more effective, is much less than you think. The key is to focus on only those things that will bring you the most improvement with the least amount of work involved. So, what are the things that are most important to focus on? Well, here are some qualified examples:

1. David Leggett, who writes for a popular user-experience blog, "UXbooth.com", states these things for starters:

a. SITE ID   (make it clear to the visitor what your site will give them)
b. Page Name   (never leave a user wondering where they are)
c. Navigation by Browsing   (clear navigation menus, top, bottom, or side)
d. Navigation by Search   (for those visitors who are looking for something specific)
e. Current Location    (akin to what you see in many shopping carts, like "payment", "update address", etc)
f.  Tagline / Site Description  (almost like a motto or slogan, but more of a short description of what your site does)
g. Clear Visual Page Hierarchy  (this is most effectively done with headers)

(http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/quick-usability-checklist/ )

A commenter on this same blog post,  Taylor Regan, had this to add to David's list: "This is what you want to say: "This is who we are, this is where you are, this is what you can find here, this is how you can find it, and this is what makes us awesome."

Today's post is just the beginning... I'll continue to collect the most clear information I can. Stay tuned for more ideas.

In my continuing efforts to study, peruse, search, and cram all the User Experience information I can glean from the web, I have found the articles on "Uxbooth.com" to be extremely fitting to what I'm looking for. Here are 5 of my favorite articles thus far:

http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/quick-usability-checklist/

http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/a-few-lessons-from-real-world-usability/

http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/5-more-tips-to-make-website-headers-more-user-friendly/

http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/tools-for-sketching-user-experiences/

http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/6-things-to-include-for-a-user-friendly-footer/