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  • The Wax and the Wane of the Web

    The Wax and the Wane of the Web

    When you begin to believe you have all figured out, everyone does change, in my opinion. Simply as you start to get the hang of injections, diapers, and ordinary sleep, it’s time for solid foods, potty training, and nighttime sleep. When those are determined, school and occasional sleeps are in order. The cycle goes on and on.

    The same holds true for those of us who are currently employed in design and development. Having worked on the web for about three years at this point, I’ve seen the typical wax and wane of concepts, strategies, and systems. Every day we as developers and designers re-enter the familiar pattern, a brand-new technology or thought emerges to shake things up and completely alter the world.

    How we got below

    I built my first website in the mid-’90s. Design and development on the web back then was a free-for-all, with few established norms. For any layout aside from a single column, we used table elements, often with empty cells containing a single pixel spacer GIF to add empty space. We styled text with numerous font tags, nesting the tags every time we wanted to vary the font style. And we had only three or four typefaces to choose from: Arial, Courier, or Times New Roman. When Verdana and Georgia came out in 1996, we rejoiced because our options had nearly doubled. The only safe colors to choose from were the 216 “web safe” colors known to work across platforms. The few interactive elements (like contact forms, guest books, and counters) were mostly powered by CGI scripts (predominantly written in Perl at the time). Achieving any kind of unique look involved a pile of hacks all the way down. Interaction was often limited to specific pages in a site.

    The development of online standards

    At the turn of the century, a new cycle started. Crufty code littered with table layouts and font tags waned, and a push for web standards waxed. Newer technologies like CSS got more widespread adoption by browsers makers, developers, and designers. This shift toward standards didn’t happen accidentally or overnight. It took active engagement between the W3C and browser vendors and heavy evangelism from folks like the Web Standards Project to build standards. A List Apart and books like Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman played key roles in teaching developers and designers why standards are important, how to implement them, and how to sell them to their organizations. And approaches like progressive enhancement introduced the idea that content should be available for all browsers—with additional enhancements available for more advanced browsers. Meanwhile, sites like the CSS Zen Garden showcased just how powerful and versatile CSS can be when combined with a solid semantic HTML structure.

    Server-side languages like PHP, Java, and.NET overtook Perl as the predominant back-end processors, and the cgi-bin was tossed in the trash bin. The first era of web applications started with content-management systems (especially those used in blogs like Blogger, Grey Matter, Movable Type, and WordPress ), with these better server-side tools. In the mid-2000s, AJAX opened doors for asynchronous interaction between the front end and back end. Pages could now update their content without having to reload it. A crop of JavaScript frameworks like Prototype, YUI, and jQuery arose to help developers build more reliable client-side interaction across browsers that had wildly varying levels of standards support. Techniques like image replacement enable skilled designers and developers to use fonts of their choosing. And technologies like Flash made it possible to add animations, games, and even more interactivity.

    These new methods, standards, and technologies greatly reenergized the sector. Web design flourished as designers and developers explored more diverse styles and layouts. However, we still relied heavily on numerous hacks. Early CSS was a huge improvement over table-based layouts when it came to basic layout and text styling, but its limitations at the time meant that designers and developers still relied heavily on images for complex shapes ( such as rounded or angled corners ) and tiled backgrounds for the appearance of full-length columns (among other hacks ). All kinds of nested floats or absolute positioning ( or both ) were necessary for complicated layouts. Flash and image replacement for custom fonts was a great start toward varying the typefaces from the big five, but both hacks introduced accessibility and performance problems. And JavaScript libraries made it simple for anyone to add a dash of interaction to pages, even at the expense of double, even quadrupling, the download size of basic websites.

    The web as software platform

    The balance between the front end and the back end continued to improve, leading to the development of the current web application era. Between expanded server-side programming languages ( which kept growing to include Ruby, Python, Go, and others ) and newer front-end tools like React, Vue, and Angular, we could build fully capable software on the web. Along with these tools, there were additional options, such as collaborative build automation, collaborative version control, and shared package libraries. What was once primarily an environment for linked documents became a realm of infinite possibilities.

    Mobile devices increased in their capabilities as well, and they gave us access to the internet while we were traveling. Mobile apps and responsive design opened up opportunities for new interactions anywhere and any time.

    This fusion of potent mobile devices and potent development tools contributed to the growth of social media and other centralized tools for user interaction and consumption. As it became easier and more common to connect with others directly on Twitter, Facebook, and even Slack, the desire for hosted personal sites waned. Social media provided connections on a global scale, with both the positive and negative effects.

    Want a much more extensive history of how we got here, with some other takes on ways that we can improve? ” Of Time and the Web” was written by Jeremy Keith. Or check out the” Web Design History Timeline” at the Web Design Museum. A fun tour through” Internet Artifacts” is also provided by Neal Agarwal.

    Where we are now

    It seems like we’ve reached yet another significant turning point in the last couple of years. As social-media platforms fracture and wane, there’s been a growing interest in owning our own content again. There are many different ways to create a website, from the tried-and-true classic of hosting plain HTML files to static site generators to content management systems of all varieties. The fracturing of social media also comes with a cost: we lose crucial infrastructure for discovery and connection. Webmentions, RSS, ActivityPub, and other IndieWeb tools can be useful in this regard, but they’re still largely underdeveloped and difficult to use for the less geeky. We can build amazing personal websites and add to them regularly, but without discovery and connection, it can sometimes feel like we may as well be shouting into the void.

    Browser support for CSS, JavaScript, and other web components has increased, particularly with initiatives like Interop. New technologies gain support across the board in a fraction of the time that they used to. When I first learn about a new feature, I frequently discover that its coverage is already over 80 % when I check the browser support. Nowadays, the barrier to using newer techniques often isn’t browser support but simply the limits of how quickly designers and developers can learn what’s available and how to adopt it.

    With a few commands and a few lines of code, we can currently prototype almost any concept. All the tools that we now have available make it easier than ever to start something new. However, as we upgrade and maintain these frameworks, we eventually pay the upfront costs that these frameworks may initially save in terms of our technical debt.

    If we rely on third-party frameworks, adopting new standards can sometimes take longer since we may have to wait for those frameworks to adopt those standards. These frameworks, which once made it easier to adopt new techniques sooner, have since evolved into obstacles. These same frameworks often come with performance costs too, forcing users to wait for scripts to load before they can read or interact with pages. And when scripts fail ( whether due to poor code, network issues, or other environmental factors ), users frequently have no choice but to use blank or broken pages.

    Where do we go from here?

    Hacks of today help to shape standards for tomorrow. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with embracing hacks —for now—to move the present forward. Problems only arise when we refuse to acknowledge that they are hacks or when we choose not to replace them. So what can we do to create the future we want for the web?

    Build for the long haul. Optimize for performance, for accessibility, and for the user. weigh the costs of those user-friendly tools. They may make your job a little easier today, but how do they affect everything else? What does each user pay? To future developers? To adoption of standards? Sometimes the convenience may be worth it. Sometimes it’s just a hack that you’ve gotten used to. And sometimes it’s holding you back from even better options.

    Start with standards. Standards continue to evolve over time, but browsers have done a remarkably good job of continuing to support older standards. The same holds true for third-party frameworks, though. Sites built with even the hackiest of HTML from the’ 90s still work just fine today. The same can’t be said about websites created with frameworks even after a few years.

    Design with care. Consider the effects of each choice, whether your craft is code, pixels, or processes. The convenience of many a modern tool comes at the cost of not always understanding the underlying decisions that have led to its design and not always considering the impact that those decisions can have. Use the time saved by modern tools to consider more carefully and design with consideration rather than rush to “move fast and break things”

    Always be learning. If you constantly learn, you also develop. Sometimes it may be hard to pinpoint what’s worth learning and what’s just today’s hack. Even if you were to concentrate solely on learning standards, you might end up focusing on something that won’t matter next year. ( Remember XHTML? ) However, ongoing learning opens up new connections in your brain, and the techniques you learn in one day may be used to guide different experiments in the future.

    Play, experiment, and be weird! The ultimate experiment is this web that we’ve created. It’s the single largest human endeavor in history, and yet each of us can create our own pocket within it. Be brave and make new friends. Build a playground for ideas. In your own bizarre science lab, perform bizarre experiments. Start your own small business. There has never been a place where we have more room to be creative, take risks, and discover our potential.

    Share and amplify. Share what you think has worked for you as you go through testing, playing, and learning. Write on your own website, post on whichever social media site you prefer, or shout it from a TikTok. Write something for A List Apart! But take the time to amplify others too: find new voices, learn from them, and share what they’ve taught you.

    Make a move and make it happen.

    As designers and developers for the web ( and beyond ), we’re responsible for building the future every day, whether that may take the shape of personal websites, social media tools used by billions, or anything in between. Let’s incorporate our values into the products we produce, and let’s improve the world for everyone. Create that thing that only you are uniquely qualified to make. Then, share it, improve it, re-create it, or create something new. Learn. Make. Share. grow. Rinse and repeat. Everything will change whenever you believe you have mastered the web.

  • Opportunities for AI in Accessibility

    Opportunities for AI in Accessibility

    I was completely moved by Joe Dolson’s subsequent article on the crossing of AI and availability because I found it to be both skeptical about how widespread use of AI is. In fact, I’m very skeptical of AI myself, despite my role at Microsoft as an accessibility technology strategist who helps manage the AI for Accessibility award program. AI can be used in quite productive, equitable, and accessible ways, as well as in harmful, exclusive, and harmful ways, like with any tool. Additionally, there are a bit of uses in the subpar center as well.

    I’d like you to consider this a “yes … and” piece to complement Joe’s post. I’m just trying to contradict what he’s saying, but I’m just trying to give some context to initiatives and opportunities where AI can make a difference for people with disabilities. I want to take some time to talk about what’s possible in hope that we’ll get there one day. I’m no saying that there aren’t real challenges or pressing problems with AI that need to be addressed; there are.

    Other text

    Joe’s article spends a lot of time addressing computer-vision types ‘ ability to create other words. He raises a number of legitimate points about the state of affairs right now. And while computer-vision concepts continue to improve in the quality and complexity of information in their information, their benefits aren’t wonderful. He argues to be accurate that the state of image research is currently very poor, especially for some image types, in large part due to the absence of contextual contexts in which to look at images ( as a result of having separate “foundation” models for words analysis and image analysis ). Today’s models aren’t trained to distinguish between images that are contextually relevant ( should probably have descriptions ) and those that are purely decorative ( couldn’t possibly need a description ) either. However, I still think there’s possible in this area.

    As Joe points out, alt text publishing via human-in-the-loop should be a given. And if AI can intervene to provide a starting place for alt text, even if the swift may say What is this BS? That’s not correct at all … Let me try to offer a starting point— I think that’s a win.

    If we can specifically teach a design to consider image usage in context, it might be able to help us more swiftly distinguish between images that are likely to be attractive and those that are more descriptive. That will help clarify which situations require image descriptions, and it will increase authors ‘ effectiveness in making their sites more visible.

    While complex images—like graphs and charts—are challenging to describe in any sort of succinct way ( even for humans ), the image example shared in the GPT4 announcement points to an interesting opportunity as well. Let’s say you came across a map that merely stated the chart’s name and the type of representation it was:” Pie chart comparing smartphone use to have phone usage in US households making under$ 30, 000 annually.” ( That would be a pretty bad alt text for a chart because it frequently leaves many unanswered questions about the data, but let’s just assume that was the description in place. ) If your website knew that that picture was a pie graph ( because an ship model concluded this ), imagine a world where people could ask questions like these about the creative:

    • Are there more smartphone users than feature phones?
    • How many more?
    • Is there a group of people that don’t fall into either of these buckets?
    • That number, how many?

    For a moment, the chance to learn more about images and data in this way could be revolutionary for people who are blind and low vision as well as for those with various forms of color blindness, cognitive disabilities, and other issues. Putting aside the realities of large language model ( LLM) hallucinations, where a model just makes up plausible-sounding “facts,” It could also be useful in educational contexts to help people who can see these charts, as is, to understand the data in the charts.

    What if you could ask your browser to make a complicated chart simpler? What if you asked it to separate a single line from a line graph? What if you could ask your browser to transpose the colors of the different lines to work better for form of color blindness you have? What if you asked it to switch colors in favor of patterns? That seems like a possibility given the chat-based interfaces and our current ability to manipulate images in today’s AI tools.

    Now imagine a purpose-built model that could extract the information from that chart and convert it to another format. Perhaps it could convert that pie chart (or, better yet, a series of pie charts ) into more usable ( and useful ) formats, like spreadsheets, for instance. That would be incredible!

    Matching algorithms

    When Safiya Umoja Noble chose to call her book Algorithms of Oppression, she hit the nail on the head. Although her book focused on the ways that search engines can foster racism, I believe it to be equally accurate to say that all computer models have the potential to amplify conflict, bias, and intolerance. Whether it’s Twitter always showing you the latest tweet from a bored billionaire, YouTube sending us into a Q-hole, or Instagram warping our ideas of what natural bodies look like, we know that poorly authored and maintained algorithms are incredibly harmful. Many of these are the result of a lack of diversity in the people who create and build them. There is real potential for algorithm development when these platforms are built with inclusive features in, though.

    Take Mentra, for example. They serve as a network of people with disabilities. They employ an algorithm to match job seekers with potential employers based on more than 75 data points. On the job-seeker side of things, it considers each candidate’s strengths, their necessary and preferred workplace accommodations, environmental sensitivities, and so on. On the employer side, it takes into account each work environment, communication issues relating to each job, and other factors. Mentra made the decision to change the script when it came to typical employment websites because it was run by neurodivergent people. They use their algorithm to propose available candidates to companies, who can then connect with job seekers that they are interested in, reducing the emotional and physical labor on the job-seeker side of things.

    When more people with disabilities are involved in the development of algorithms, this can lower the likelihood that these algorithms will harm their communities. Diverse teams are crucial because of this.

    Imagine that a social media company’s recommendation engine was tuned to analyze who you’re following and if it was tuned to prioritize follow recommendations for people who talked about similar things but who were different in some key ways from your existing sphere of influence. For instance, if you were to follow a group of non-disabled white male academics who talk about AI, it might be advisable to follow those who are disabled, aren’t white, or aren’t men who also talk about AI. If you followed its advice, you might be able to understand what is happening in the AI field more fully and nuancedly. These same systems should also use their understanding of biases about particular communities—including, for instance, the disability community—to make sure that they aren’t recommending any of their users follow accounts that perpetuate biases against (or, worse, spewing hate toward ) those groups.

    Other ways that AI can assist people with disabilities

    I’m sure I could go on and on about using AI to assist people with disabilities, but I’m going to make this last section into a bit of a lightning round if I weren’t trying to put this together in between other tasks. In no particular order:

      Voice preservation You might have heard about the voice-preserve offerings from Microsoft, Acapela, or others, or have seen the VALL-E paper or Apple’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day announcement. It’s possible to train an AI model to replicate your voice, which can be a tremendous boon for people who have ALS ( Lou Gehrig’s disease ) or motor-neuron disease or other medical conditions that can lead to an inability to talk. We need to approach this tech responsibly because it has the potential to have a truly transformative impact, which is why it can also be used to create audio deepfakes.
    • Voice recognition. Researchers like those in the Speech Accessibility Project are paying people with disabilities for their help in collecting recordings of people with atypical speech. As I type, they are actively recruiting people with Parkinson’s and related conditions, and they intend to expand this to other conditions as the project develops. More people with disabilities will be able to use voice assistants, dictation software, and voice-response services, as well as to use only their voices to control computers and other devices, according to this research.
    • Text transformation. The most recent generation of LLMs is quite capable of changing existing text without giving off hallucinations. This is incredibly empowering for those who have cognitive disabilities and who may benefit from text summaries or simplified versions, or even text that has been prepared for Bionic Reading.

    The importance of diverse teams and data

    Our differences must be acknowledged as important. The intersections of the identities we live in have an impact on our lived experiences. These lived experiences—with all their complexities ( and joys and pain ) —are valuable inputs to the software, services, and societies that we shape. Our differences must be reflected in the data we use to develop new models, and those who provide it need to be compensated for doing so. Inclusive data sets produce stronger models that promote more justifiable outcomes.

    Want a model that doesn’t demean or patronize or objectify people with disabilities? Make sure that you include information about disabilities that has been written by people with a variety of disabilities in the training data.

    Want a model that doesn’t speak in ableist language? You may be able to use existing data sets to build a filter that can intercept and remediate ableist language before it reaches readers. Despite this, AI models won’t be replacing human copy editors anytime soon when it comes to sensitivity reading.

    Want a copilot for coding that provides recomprehensible recommendations after the jump? Train it on code that you know to be accessible.


    I have no doubt that AI has the potential to harm people today, tomorrow, and long into the future. However, I also think we should acknowledge this and make thoughtful, thoughtful, and intentional changes to our approaches to AI that will reduce harm over time as well. Today, tomorrow, and well into the future.


    Many thanks to Kartik Sawhney for supporting the development of this article, Ashley Bischoff for providing me with invaluable editorial support, and of course, Joe Dolson for the prompt.

  • The Zero-Click Internet: What It Means for Your Marketing Strategy

    The Zero-Click Internet: What It Means for Your Marketing Strategy

    Learn more at Duct Tape Marketing about John Jantsch’s Zero-Click Internet: What It Means for Your Marketing Plan.

    The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Rand Fishkin In this instance of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Rand Fishkin, co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, an audience analysis software business. With deep insights into the changing nature of Google search and [ …], Rand is a well-known expert in search engine optimization ( SEO ) and digital marketing.

    Learn more at Duct Tape Marketing about John Jantsch’s Zero-Click Internet: What It Means for Your Marketing Plan.

    The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Rand Fishkin

    Rand Fishkin, the co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, a technology company that conducts market research, was interviewed in this instance of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Rand is a well-known expert in search engine optimization ( SEO ) and digital marketing, with deep insights into the evolving landscape of Google search and the rise of the zero-click internet.

    Rand explained how zero-click searches, which allow users to access answers immediately on Google without using physical links, are changing SEO strategy, material advertising, and online visibility during our conversation. With 60 % of searches then ending without a visit, businesses must reassess their marketing plan to reach audiences where they now engage—whether on social media, Google’s individual properties, or other digital systems.

    Rand’s perspectives emphasize the need for entrepreneurs to conform to zero-click trends, establish a presence across multiple channels, and reevaluate traditional Search trends to succeed in today’s modern landscape.

    Important Remarks:

      Zero-click requests are growing – 60 % of Google searches today end without a visit, changing how companies gain website visitors.

    • Brands should concentrate on influencing audiences on social systems, communities, and third-party websites rather than chasing organic traffic.
    • Google’s engine emphasizes engagement – Google is keeping more users within its habitat, using included snippets, AI-generated answers, and immediate results.
    • Content marketing needs a shift – Creating content that thrives on Google, social media, and other platforms without requiring clicks is the new game.
    • Online marketing is more than just traffic; success is more about brand awareness, trust, and interaction than just website visits.

    Chapters:

      ]00: 09 ] Introducing Rand Fishkin

    • What is Zero Click, and when?
    • ]02: 11] How Has Zero Click Impacted Search
    • ]06: 33] How Should SEO Professionals Adapt?
    • How Do Content-Reliant Businesses Remain in Business? [08: 34]
    • ]14: 30 ] Is Google Dead?
    • Making the Best of Attribution [16 :50]

    More About Rand Fishkin:

    Check out Rand Fishkin&#8217, s Website
    Connect with Rand Fishkin on Linked In.

    This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by

    Want to elevate your marketing game? AdCritter pairs Connected TV ads with precise digital retargeting to drive real results. Discover how their full-funnel strategy can help your business grow smarter. Let them know Duct Tape Marketing sent you, and you’ll get a dollar-for-dollar match on your first campaign! Learn more at adcritter.com.

    John Jantsch ( 00: 00.972 )

    Hello and welcome to the newest episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. Rand Fishkin is my guest today. He’s a co-founder and CEO of Spark Toro, an audience research software company and indie game developer at Snack Bar Studio. We probably ought to talk about indie games, Passionate about helping marketers, he shares insights through writing speaking and his book Lost and Founder, previously co-founded Moz and inbound. The Art of SEO was co-authored by and authored by .org.

    He’s going to talk about, we are going to talk today about zero click. You may be getting bored of talking about something I said off air, but many people still want to learn more. Welcome to

    Rand Fishkin ( 00: 43.672 )

    John, it’s great to be here. No, I don’t think people are tired of talking about zero click. I believe there are many people who, even if they are not particularly interested in the tactical and strategic world of zero click, still don’t fully understand what it is and are feeling the effects of it.

    John Jantsch ( 00: 54.092 )

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch ( 01: 00.216 )

    Having said that, perhaps we should define that’s what we’re talking about, right? And maybe even talk about, mean, you’ve been following Google for, I don’t know, since Google was born, right? So, you may ask, when did it start to appear?

    Rand Fishkin ( 01: 13.356 )

    Yes. Therefore, I believe the term was first coined by Gabriel Weinberg at DuckDuckGo. That was the first instance I could find of it. Gabriel claimed that Google had these “zero click searches and zero click answers” in 2011. So this is the first sort of appearance of a zero click concept in the marketing world. And a few years later, I did a study, with Jumpshot, which was, which is a now defunct

    provider of clickstream data. And JumpShot worked with me to see what percent of all Google searches ended without a click. In essence, they stayed within Google’s ecosystem by opening up the Google Maps app or placing their question directly at the top of the results using those same-day questions, featured snippets, or now AI overviews.

    John Jantsch ( 02: 04.896 )

    Right, right, right. So I suppose I’m going to assume you’re going to say it. The zero click meaning that somebody goes and they don’t go away. They receive their response, and they continue to use Google, right? Zero.

    Rand Fishkin ( 02: 15.918 )

    So yeah, and that was the idea behind the initial thought that, oh, there are these zero click searches and search marketing may be changing as a result. And maybe we should think about rather than trying to get traffic, simply provide the answer to the searcher, right? To the consumer. In 2019, Google answered just under half of all searches without a click. like 49 % or something. Fast forward to the previous year when I completed this study once more with Datos.

    John Jantsch ( 02: 26.253 )

    Yeah.

    Rand Fishkin ( 02:45.07 )

    And that number is now 60 %. So 60 % of searches are answered without a click, which as a user is super convenient. And it’s terrifying as a publisher.

    John Jantsch ( 02: 57.026 )

    That is a good thing. mean, there are some that are saying this is an evil plot by Google, but really it’s like behavior, right? I mean, it’s like, this is what the user wants. I want to know when the ball game begins as someone who is trying to get a quick. You know, I don’t need to go to ESPN’s website, right? And read the football history before I have the time, right?

    Rand Fishkin ( 03: 17.326 )

    That’s exactly right. You know what if you want to find out how old Paul Rudd is, or if you want to see which channel SNL 50 can be streamed on, or if you need to know what ingredients are in Moroccan spices. Google can just answer those things for you, and it is incredibly convenient. So Google was the first place zero-click searches began, but they did not stop there. Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Reddit.

    YouTube, TikTok, Slack, every single platform realized that they could keep more people on their websites and their platforms if they stopped sending traffic out. Thus, Twitter was one of the early adopters. algorithm, this is probably 2016, 17, their algorithm started biasing against links. Twitter would restrict the scope of a tweet if you included a link in it.

    John Jantsch ( 03: 47.746 )

    Tick tock.

    John Jantsch ( 04: 00. 716 )

    Yeah.

    Rand Fishkin ( 04: 15.542 )

    In stark contrast to a tweet that didn’t include a link, which is true on both Facebook and Linked In. You can see it in subreddits where moderators and reddit themselves started down voting and and stopping the promotion of Reddit submissions that contained a link youtube started Minimizing the description field so that it would hide any url external url link that would take you off of youtube

    John Jantsch ( 04: 40.961 )

    Ehh.

    Rand Fishkin ( 04: 43.31 )

    So every single platform is doing this over and over. And my coworker, Amanda Natividad, when she joined SparkToro, what was that, in 2022, she sort of came up with the idea that zero click is not just about search; it’s about all platforms. The zero click internet is here. And as a result, the only thing to do is to create zero click content and do zero click marketing. Influence people in the areas that they are already focusing on

    John Jantsch ( 05: 11.52 )

    Right. Yes.

    Rand Fishkin ( 05: 12.876 )

    rather than requiring traffic to be your only KPI and demanding that they visit your platform.

    John Jantsch ( 05: 18.806 )

    Yes. And, you know, lot of the people, the sky is falling, you know, looking at the results. was a pretty, sexy headline that HubSpot had lost 72 % of their traffic or something like that. But can we reasonably assume that a small portion of that, or a sizable portion, was just general garbage traffic? I mean, it wasn’t intent traffic. was like when someone went to a list that they had published but didn’t want anything to do with HubSpot.

    Rand Fishkin ( 05: 43.416 )

    Well, John, I don’t know if you did what I did as soon as I saw that headline, but I went and looked up HubSpot stock price and their latest earnings report. And guess what? Record highs, right? I wrote a complete blog post and a video about this on HubSpot and a number of other platforms. They are indicative of a new trend that zero click marketing is.

    John Jantsch ( 05: 47.564 )

    Potter, heheheh.

    Yeah.

    Rand Fishkin ( 06: 11.424 )

    Traffic is almost certainly at the top of the list, with revenue increasing. If your traffic goes down, but your revenue goes up, should you be pissed at your marketing team? Or should you celebrate the fact that they are finding opportunities in a zero click internet world for your message and your influence to reach the right audience and attract the right customers? I believe it to be the latter.

    John Jantsch ( 06: 34.56 )

    Yes, yes, yes. Well, so you started to hint at what to do now. If you’re especially SEO folks, know, or I mean, they, they’d kind of dialed in the game, right? So what’s the new game, then? I mean, for SEO folks, if you were advising a group of SEO folks, you know, talking, doing a keynote, you know, what would you be telling them that they need to be doing how they need to be changing their model?

    Rand Fishkin ( 06: 55. 82 )

    Yeah, I’m actually, I’m giving a at SMX Munich to a couple thousand people next month. And the topic, John, you’ll like this is called, it’s the end of traffic as we know it. And I’m all right. And the basic premise here is that, look, if you’re an SEO, some of you will have no choice. Your boss, your team, and your client.

    John Jantsch ( 07: 00.748 )

    Right. Yes.

    John Jantsch ( 07: 09.474 )

    Yes, that’s great. That’s awesome.

    Rand Fishkin ( 20.30 ) ( 7 )

    They’re going to say, I don’t care what Rand Fishkin says. I don’t care what’s going on in Google. Zero click marketing is not important to me. You get me traffic. Your job is to do that. You know what? Okay. You’ll have to concentrate on the few keywords that generate traffic, as opposed to the 40 % of searchers who click, and, you know, the platforms that still generate some traffic, like that. But for everyone else, I would urge you to break out of this mindset that everything has to be about SEO, right? that you are the only SEO expert you are capable of.

    John Jantsch ( 07: 45.484 )

    Yes. Yes.

    Rand Fishkin ( 07: 49.01 )

    SEOs, at least when I first started out, you know, seven years ago, didn’t focus solely on Google ranking, right? There was lots of things that you’d have to do as part of that. Things around accessibility of your website, sure, but also placement of content on third-party websites and pitching and essentially, yeah, a public relations job, right? It is a PR job. You’re trying to create content and a message that people want to amplify and get that message amplified in the places they pay attention.

    John Jantsch ( 08: 06.68 )

    Authority, yeah, Yep, yep, yep, yep.

    Rand Fishkin ( 08: 19.638 )

    I’m not sure what the industry will eventually call that. Maybe they’ll call it PR. Perhaps they’ll refer to it as the “new era of influence marketing.” Maybe they’ll call it content placement or offsite content marketing. I don’t really care. What that’s called is irrelevant to me. What I do care about is you should do it because it works.

    John Jantsch ( 08: 37. 94)

    Yes, yes, yes. Well, I think, you you made a point about why everybody’s so fixed on SEO. I believe that for many SEO professionals, it was simple, inexpensive traffic. And in some cases, easy, cheap conversions and business. And so, I believe, we became lazy. And I think that to me, that was a big part of it. But what about that business that is all about trust and authority? They were incredibly content to drive people, you know, to their website.

    couldn’t buy ads, ads were useless to them. What kind of business is that, similar to a provider of professional services? How do they survive in this

    Rand Fishkin ( 09: 13.038 )

    I look and I think whenever I realize that my video is getting a little fuzzy and that Riverside is making a funny comment about it, but my internet is fast and my device is fast, so I have no idea. I’m just gonna go and hope that the recording catches it correctly. When your business model is hampered, you either accept the change that is about to occur or choose to ignore it.

    John Jantsch ( 09: 19.426 )

    Yeah.

    Rand Fishkin ( 09: 42.41 )

    Or you are subject to punishment. And I think the consequences are not nothing. It’s not all going to pass away. SEO is going to go away. That’s not what’s happening. As CMOs, CEOs, and board of directors realize that the potential in organic marketing might lie elsewhere, i .e., influencing people in the places where they already work, it will just gradually become a lower growth rate or even a shrinking industry.

    John Jantsch ( 10: 10.998 )

    Yes. The new sexy term is AIO. How much do we need to pay attention to that?

    Rand Fishkin ( 10: 16 878 )

    it, it varies quite a bit. The answer is that you probably need to pay some attention to it if you’re in B2B, especially B2B tech, and you’re selling to other B2B techies. There was a great report from SEM rush, recently where they looked at the clickstream data. like clickstream data a lot. believe it really tells the story with accuracy.

    They looked at 80 million different click streams of people who visited and used ChatGPT, and they analyzed what they did with the platform, the prompts that they put in, all that kind of stuff. There is a 70 % of those prompts at Google that I found to be quite interesting. So you could not perform the task that was asked of ChatGPT in Google’s ecosystem

    John Jantsch ( 11: 05.868 )

    Hmm.

    Rand Fishkin ( 11: 05. 5 )

    outside of Gemini whatsoever, right? This is a task of AI type. It’s like saying how much market share is Microsoft Excel taking from Google search? What? None. Like that’s people are doing different things with that. Chat GPT is essentially removing a search engine, right? Or, or adding it to it, right? Those are, those, those are people who are using it for that replacement thing. However, I believe the solution is to every single business.

    John Jantsch ( 11: 15.948 )

    Yes.

    John Jantsch ( 11: 35.436 )

    Right, yeah.

    Rand Fishkin ( 11: 43.2 )

    Every industry must determine whether its customers and audience are using large language models and AI tools to perform searches in their specific ecosystem. you know, not to promote spark Toro, but I, I don’t know of another place you can do this, but you can inside spark Toro. What do we do with clickstream data, exactly, right? You can go and you can search for, you know, my audience is science fiction writers or interior designers or.

    you know, painters or landscaping professionals, or I want to find people who search for backyard gardens. Then Spartora will then let you know in the AI and tools section what platforms they’re using and how much more or less than usual. So you could see, for example, I ran a search recently for, people who do custom decking, like for their backyards. They don’t really use AI, are they right? That’s not, that’s not their goal, but.

    John Jantsch ( 12: 34.583 )

    Mm-hmm.

    John Jantsch ( 12: 37.952 )

    Right, right, right.

    Rand Fishkin ( 12: 40. 396 )

    If you look for people who are searching for B2B CRM software, well, yeah, they are using ChakGPT and Gemini and Kaggy and all these different AI tools, much more than average. You probably need to pay attention to large language model optimization.

    John Jantsch ( 12: 58.334 )

    That’s a great, great point. I’ve seen a real disconnect between the notion of local businesses versus national or B2B, as you mentioned, like that Decker, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s I mean, he’s probably got people in his geography or he or she that’s looking for them and you know, Google maps and some of those tools are still their friend, right?

    Rand Fishkin ( 13: 20.414 )

    Yes, absolutely. this, I mean, I don’t know what to tell you, John. Like there are, there are still people who, as they did in 1720 or 1950 or 2001, ask their friends or neighbors for advice on how to build my deck. And that, is a source of influence that is influenceable via different means than, you know,

    John Jantsch ( 13: 41.59 )

    Yep. Yes.

    Rand Fishkin ( 13: 50.072 )

    highway billboard or a Google search or an AI tool or a social media platform. And so your job as a marketer is to figure out the sources of your audience influence and be present in those places, hopefully commensurate with how much they use them.

    John Jantsch ( 14.07.98 )

    Yes. Yes. And dedicated what limited resources you have to the best ones, right? Now, so another sexy headline is Google’s dead. So is their dominance, you know, is their dominance going to fade? mean, obviously, the cash cow depends on people going to their homepage and clicking on ads instead of getting answers.

    Rand Fishkin ( 14: 14. 219 )

    Exactly.

    Rand Fishkin ( 14: 20.325 )

    you

    Rand Fishkin ( 14: 32.512 )

    Yes. So, it’s funny. Some reporters just inquired about this. and I don’t like to give opinion based answers here, right? Google’s getting worse. When I conducted this search, I discovered a lot of junk in my results, which were similar to what I found ten years ago. I don’t like those types of anecdotal, replies and responses. I have no faith in them. The thing I trust is data at scale. So

    What would I look at if I were a reporter trying to answer the query,” Google is dying?” Is Google getting worse? Are there more or fewer people searching simultaneously on Google than there were last year? Are there more or fewer searches per searcher than there were last year at this time? The answer to both of those, according to some research that I hope to publish in the next couple of weeks actually, is no.

    Last year, Google increased by about 10 % in terms of searches per user and by 10 % in terms of total users. You don’t have to believe me, by the way, or Datos ‘ numbers. If you prefer, you can examine Sundar Pichay’s remarks from the Google earnings call two weeks ago. He said the same thing, and our data bears it out. I don’t always trust Google to tell us the truth, but in this case,

    All data sources concur that if Google is getting worse, then the only logical response would be that everything else must be worse because people are using them more and more, so if they’re getting worse, everyone else must agree.

    John Jantsch ( 16: 10.616 )

    Yeah.

    Yes. And I think people under or forget, you know, they’re more than just that search box as well. You know, I pay Google a hundred bucks every month to use Gmail and Sheets and Slides and all those kinds of things too. beyond their ad network, they form an ecosystem.

    Rand Fishkin ( 16: 31.244 )

    Yes, yes, absolutely. But, but I want to be clear, I’m not talking about their earnings report in terms of their dollar, you know, of, of growth. I’m talking about right growth in, in raw searches.

    John Jantsch ( 16: 38. 38. 38.)

    Yes. Simply put, is that right? Yes.

    Yes. Another subject that is just getting harder and harder to attribution is also up your alley, so I’m inviting you to talk about Spark Toro here. And yet, as I listen to your talk, it’s more important maybe than ever. How do you locate your people, for example, who hang out there and actually read books? So how do you advise businesses to really kind of arm themselves with better attribution?

    Rand Fishkin ( 17: 12.578 )

    Gosh.

    John Jantsch ( 17: 14. 168 )

    Oh, I asked a hard question. like that Well, that was my entire intent, so I did well.

    Rand Fishkin ( 17: 16.416 )

    Here’s the issue, John, though. You’ve set me up once again to like tee up my own software and I really, try not to. But you may be aware that I dislike being self-promoted. Okay. First off, there are, there are several ways to do this. Some of them are good, others are bad. One of the ones that a lot of people use that I really don’t like is they do post-consumer surveys.

    John Jantsch ( 30. 874 )

    hahahahah

    Rand Fishkin ( 17: 45.998 )

    So this is, you you just bought this pair of shoes from Nike, Nike sends you an email and they ask you, how did you find us? Or they ask you,” How did you learn about these shoes today,” at the end of the checkout process? What made you buy from us? And people will respond in ways that are incomplete and frequently incorrect. And if you’re a marketer, you’re only ever going to get answers from channels and sources that you already reach. So you will never know.

    about the ones that didn’t drive traffic, aren’t you? This is a huge bias problem. I can’t stress this enough: ask people where they heard about you, and use that information to determine your marketing budget. is just logic. You you have failed logic 101 in college and you’re going to get kicked out of the class.

    John Jantsch ( 18: 20. 973 )

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch ( 18: 28.536 )

    Yeah.

    John Jantsch ( 18: 35. 9 )

    Well, and you’re also going to pay Facebook a lot more money because everybody says they saw your Facebook ad, right?

    Rand Fishkin ( 18: 41.006 )

    It depends on the industry. So we tried this. One of my favorite stories, John, is just beginning the spark after spark Charles launched, so we tried this with one of our customers. We asked them, this is a consumer brand in the food industry. So they like sell a food product. Although I don’t have permission to name them, they sell a food item directly to consumers. And we said, Hey, can you try something for us? Would you put these two in? think it was like Martha Stewart and I wasn’t Guy Fieri, but it was some other like.

    notable food person in the food world. We requested that they include that in their list of places where people had heard about them. Yes. What, John? Those people had never mentioned the brand. They had never talked about them. And 30 % of the customers responded,” Yes, that’s how I heard about you.” So just, you you’re getting terrible data, like absolutely terrible data. the second one, the one I actually do.

    John Jantsch ( 19: 09.986 )

    Food. Foodie. Yes.

    John Jantsch ( 19: 23.01 )

    Yes. Yes. Yeah.

    John Jantsch ( 19: 30.168 )

    Yes, yes, yes.

    Yes. Yes.

    Rand Fishkin ( 19: 38.072 )

    quite like is to look at, broadly speaking, if you use a competitive intelligence platform and you can see where traffic is going to your competitors, that can make reasonable sense, right? Such a useful resource is similar web. Obviously, Spark Toro offers that type of data as well from a competitive perspective. The people I mentioned who conducted the research, allegedly SEM rush.

    John Jantsch ( 19: 51.32 )

    Hmm.

    John Jantsch ( 19: 55.81 )

    Yes.

    Rand Fishkin ( 20: 05. 676 )

    I think they might have some of that in their platform, but it might be search centric. So be cautious. You’re not just getting biased by Google stuff. and then the, you know, the absolute best one, the absolute best way to do this is learn lockpicking, get the home addresses of all your customers break into their houses, steal their own, get the phone unlock code, and then look at everything that they read, browse, watch, subscribe to follow that of course.

    John Jantsch ( 20: 25. 016 )

    Yep.

    Rand Fishkin ( 20: 33.556 )

    Extremely unethical and illegal. have, I, yeah, that’s right. Yes. You have a lot of competition for that. but, but the next closest thing is essentially clickstream data, which is, you know, a panel of users and the providers look at every URL that’s visited. Then you can sort of extrapolate what a large population does from a large group of people.

    John Jantsch ( 20: 36.066 )

    Plus, Alexa’s already doing it anyway, so.

    Rand Fishkin ( 21: 02 / 94 / 10 )

    That’s what we do at Spark Toro. so that you can enter a search term used in Google or a descriptor used in your purchases if you want to see it. And then you can see what websites, what topics, what social media platforms they use more or less than average. and that can, that can be a good way to sort of get a sense of, Hey, you know, lot of our customers are using.

    We’re not there at all, and I don’t read it. A lot of our customers are on TikTok or LinkedIn or Pinterest or they’re using ChatGPT or they’re using Gemini and we’re not in those places. We ought to be investing there, probably.

    John Jantsch ( 21: 35.702 )

    Yes.

    John Jantsch ( 21: 49.876 )

    Yes. Well, Rand, we’re, we’ve run out of time. I appreciate you stopping by. Uh, we’ve mentioned sparktoro.com a couple of times anywhere else that you’d invite people to connect with you and learn more about your work.

    Rand Fishkin ( 22: 00.504 )

    You know, at the start of our conversation today, you mentioned Snapbar Studio. So folks are interested in an indie video game where you get to play an Italian chef in the 1960s. You can find out more at snapbarstudio.com. And who isn’t? It’s not live yet, but give us about 18 months, and there’ll be an early access version on Steam.

    John Jantsch ( 22: 14.2 )

    And who isn’t?

    John Jantsch ( 22: 24. 408 )

    Awesome, awesome. Again, I appreciate you taking a few moments and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.

    Rand Fishkin ( 22: 29.838 )

    Yeah, I look forward to it, John. Take good care of yourself. Thanks for having me.

    John Jantsch ( 22: 32.098 )

    Bye, now, bye.

    powered by

     

  • User Research Is Storytelling

    User Research Is Storytelling

    I’ve been fascinated by movies since I was a child. I loved the heroes and the excitement—but most of all the reports. I aspired to be an artist. And I believed that I’d get to do the things that Indiana Jones did and go on fascinating experiences. I also came up with concept films that my friends and I could create and sun in. But they never went any farther. However, I did end up working in user experience ( UI). Today, I realize that there’s an element of drama to UX— I hadn’t actually considered it before, but consumer analysis is story. And to get the most out of customer studies, you must tell a compelling story that involves stakeholders, including the product team and decision-makers, and piques their interest in learning more.

    Think of your favourite film. It more than likely follows a three-act narrative construction: the layout, the turmoil, and the resolution. The second act shows what exists now, and it helps you get to know the characters and the challenges and problems that they face. Act two sets the scene for the fight and introduces the activity. Here, issues grow or get worse. The decision is the third and final action. This is where the issues are resolved and the figures learn and change. This construction, in my opinion, is also a fantastic way to think about consumer research, and it might be particularly useful for introducing user research to others.

    Use story as a framework when conducting study.

    It’s sad to say, but many have come to view studies as being inconsequential. Research is typically one of the first things to go when finances or deadlines are tight. Instead of investing in study, some goods professionals rely on manufacturers or—worse—their personal judgment to make the “right” options for users based on their experience or accepted best practices. That might lead to some clubs getting in the way, but it’s too easy to overlook the real issues facing users. To be user-centered, this is something we really avoid. User study improves pattern. It keeps it on record, pointing to problems and opportunities. Being aware of the problems with your goods and taking action can help you be ahead of your competition.

    In the three-act structure, each action corresponds to a part of the process, and each part is important to telling the whole story. Let’s take a look at the various functions and how they relate to customer research.

    Act one: installation

    The rig consists entirely in comprehending the history, and that’s where basic research comes in. Basic research ( also called relational, discovery, or preliminary research ) helps you understand people and identify their problems. Just like in the movies, you’re learning about the difficulties customers face, what options are available, and how those challenges impact them. To do basic research, you may conduct situational inquiries or journal studies ( or both! ), which may assist you in identifying both prospects and problems. It doesn’t need to get a great investment in time or money.

    What is the least feasible ethnography that Erika Hall can do is spend fifteen minutes with a consumer and say,” Walk me through your day yesterday. That’s it. Current that one ask. Opened up and listen to them for 15 days. Do everything in your power to keep yourself and your pursuits out of it. Bam, you’re doing ethnography”. According to Hall, “[This ] will likely prove quite fascinating. In the very unlikely event that you didn’t learn anything new or helpful, carry on with increased confidence in your way”.

    I think this makes sense. And I love that this makes consumer studies so visible. You can only attract participants and do it! You don’t need to create a lot of documentation. This can offer a wealth of knowledge about your customers, and it’ll help you better understand them and what’s going on in their life. That’s exactly what work one is all about: understanding where people are coming from.

    Maybe Spool talks about the importance of basic research and how it may type the bulk of your research. If you can supplement what you’ve heard in the fundamental studies by using any more user data that you can obtain, such as surveys or analytics, to make recommendations that may need to be investigated further, you might as well use those that can be drawn from those that you can obtain. Together, all this information creates a clearer picture of the state of things and all its inadequacies. And that’s the start of a gripping tale. It’s the place in the story where you realize that the principal characters—or the people in this case—are facing issues that they need to conquer. This is where you begin to develop compassion for the characters and support their success, much like in films. And maybe partners are now doing the same. Their concern may be with their company, which could be losing money because people are unable to complete specific tasks. Or probably they do connect with people ‘ problems. In either case, work one serves as your main strategy to pique the interest and interest of the participants.

    When partners begin to understand the value of basic research, that is open doors to more opportunities that involve users in the decision-making approach. And that can help item team become more user-centric. This gains everyone—users, the goods, and partners. It’s similar to winning an Oscar for a film because it frequently results in a favorable and productive outcome for your item. And this can be an opportunity for participants to repeat this process with different items. The secret to this method is storytelling, and knowing how to tell a compelling story is the only way to entice partners to do more research.

    This brings us to work two, where you incrementally review a design or idea to see whether it addresses the problems.

    Act two: issue

    Act two is all about digging deeper into the problems that you identified in operate one. This typically involves conducting lateral study, such as accessibility tests, where you evaluate a potential solution ( such as a design ) to see if it addresses the problems you identified. The issues may include unfulfilled needs or problems with a circulation or procedure that’s tripping users off. More issues may come up in the process, much like in act two of a movie. It’s here that you learn more about the figures as they grow and develop through this action.

    According to Jakob Nielsen, five users should be normally in usability tests, which means that this number of users can generally identify the majority of the issues:” As you add more and more users, you learn less and less because you will keep seeing the same things again and again… After the fifth user, you are wasting your time by observing the same findings consistently but not learning much new.”

    There are parallels with storytelling here too, if you try to tell a story with too many characters, the plot may get lost. With fewer participants, each user’s struggles will be more easily recalled and shared with other parties when discussing the research. This can help convey the issues that need to be addressed while also highlighting the value of doing the research in the first place.

    Usability tests have been conducted in person for decades, but you can also do them remotely using software like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or other teleconferencing software. This approach has become increasingly popular since the beginning of the pandemic, and it works well. You might consider in-person usability tests like watching a movie as opposed to remote testing like attending a play. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Usability research in person is a much more valuable learning experience. Stakeholders can experience the sessions with other stakeholders. You also get real-time feedback on what they’re seeing, including surprises, disagreements, and discussions about them. Much like going to a play, where audiences get to take in the stage, the costumes, the lighting, and the actors ‘ interactions, in-person research lets you see users up close, including their body language, how they interact with the moderator, and how the scene is set up.

    If conducting usability testing in the field is like watching a play that is staged and controlled, where any two sessions may be very different from one another. You can take usability testing into the field by creating a replica of the space where users interact with the product and then conduct your research there. Or you can meet users at their location to conduct your research. With either option, you get to see how things work in context, things come up that wouldn’t have in a lab environment—and conversion can shift in entirely different directions. You have less control over how these sessions end as researchers, but this can occasionally help you understand users even better. Meeting users where they are can provide clues to the external forces that could be affecting how they use your product. In-person usability tests add a level of detail that remote usability tests frequently lack.

    That’s not to say that the “movies” —remote sessions—aren’t a good option. Remote training sessions can reach a wider audience. They allow a lot more stakeholders to be involved in the research and to see what’s going on. And they make access to a much wider range of users in their own country. But with any remote session there is the potential of time wasted if participants can’t log in or get their microphone working.

    You can ask real users questions to understand their thoughts and understanding of the solution as a result of usability testing, whether it is conducted remotely or in person. This can help you not only identify problems but also glean why they’re problems in the first place. You can also test your own ideas and determine whether they are true. By the end of the sessions, you’ll have a much clearer picture of how usable the designs are and whether they work for their intended purposes. Act two is where the excitement is at the heart of the narrative, but there are also potential surprises. This is equally true of usability tests. Sometimes, participants will say unexpected things that alter the way you look at them, which can lead to unexpected turns in the story.

    Unfortunately, user research is sometimes seen as expendable. Usability testing is often the only method of research that some stakeholders believe they ever need, especially in this regard. In fact, if the designs that you’re evaluating in the usability test aren’t grounded in a solid understanding of your users ( foundational research ), there’s not much to be gained by doing usability testing in the first place. Because you narrow down the subject matter of your feedback without understanding the needs of the users. As a result, there’s no way of knowing whether the designs might solve a problem that users have. In the context of a usability test, it’s only feedback on a particular design.

    On the other hand, if you only do foundational research, while you might have set out to solve the right problem, you won’t know whether the thing that you’re building will actually solve that. This demonstrates the value of conducting both directional and foundational research.

    In act two, stakeholders will—hopefully—get to watch the story unfold in the user sessions, which creates the conflict and tension in the current design by surfacing their highs and lows. And in turn, this can encourage stakeholders to take action on the issues raised.

    Act three: resolution

    The third act is about resolving the issues from the first two acts, whereas the first two acts are about understanding the context and the tensions that can compel stakeholders to act. While it’s important to have an audience for the first two acts, it’s crucial that they stick around for the final act. That includes all members of the product team, including developers, UX experts, business analysts, delivery managers, product managers, and any other parties who have a say in the coming development. It allows the whole team to hear users ‘ feedback together, ask questions, and discuss what’s possible within the project’s constraints. Additionally, it enables the UX design and research teams to clarify, suggest alternatives, or provide more context for their choices. So you can get everyone on the same page and get agreement on the way forward.

    Voiceover narration of this act is typically used with audience input. The researcher is the narrator, who paints a picture of the issues and what the future of the product could look like given the things that the team has learned. They provide the stakeholders with their suggestions and suggestions for how to create this vision.

    Nancy Duarte in the Harvard Business Review offers an approach to structuring presentations that follow a persuasive story. The most effective presenters” set up a conflict that needs to be resolved” using the same methods as great storytellers, Duarte writes. ” That tension helps them persuade the audience to adopt a new mindset or behave differently”.

    This type of structure aligns well with research results, and particularly results from usability tests. It provides proof for “what is “—the issues you’ve identified. And “what could be “—your recommendations on how to address them. And so forth and forth.

    You can reinforce your recommendations with examples of things that competitors are doing that could address these issues or with examples where competitors are gaining an edge. Or they can be visual, like quick sketches of how a new design could function to solve a problem. These can help generate conversation and momentum. And this continues until the session is over when you’ve concluded everything by summarizing the key points and offering suggestions for a solution. This is the part where you reiterate the main themes or problems and what they mean for the product—the denouement of the story. This stage provides stakeholders with the next steps, and hopefully, the motivation to take those steps as well!

    While we are nearly at the end of this story, let’s reflect on the idea that user research is storytelling. The three-act structure of user research contains all the components of a good story:

      Act one: You meet the protagonists ( the users ) and the antagonists ( the problems affecting users ). The plot begins here. In act one, researchers might use methods including contextual inquiry, ethnography, diary studies, surveys, and analytics. These techniques can produce personas, empathy maps, user journeys, and analytics dashboards as output.
      Act two: Next, there’s character development. The protagonists face problems and difficulties, which they must overcome, and there is conflict and tension. In act two, researchers might use methods including usability testing, competitive benchmarking, and heuristics evaluation. Usability findings reports, UX strategy documents, usability guidelines, and best practices can be included in the output of these.
      Act three: The protagonists triumph and you see what a better future looks like. Researchers may use techniques like presentation decks, storytelling, and digital media in act three. The output of these can be: presentation decks, video clips, audio clips, and pictures.

    The researcher performs a number of tasks: they are the producer, the director, and the storyteller. The participants have a small role, but they are significant characters ( in the research ). And the audience is the audience, as well. But the most important thing is to get the story right and to use storytelling to tell users ‘ stories through research. By the end, the parties should have a goal and a desire to solve the product’s flaws.

    So the next time that you’re planning research with clients or you’re speaking to stakeholders about research that you’ve done, think about how you can weave in some storytelling. User research is ultimately a win-win situation for everyone, and all you need to do is pique stakeholders ‘ interest in how the story ends.

  • To Ignite a Personalization Practice, Run this Prepersonalization Workshop

    To Ignite a Personalization Practice, Run this Prepersonalization Workshop

    This is in the photo. You’ve joined a club at your business that’s designing innovative product features with an focus on technology or AI. Or perhaps your business only started using a personalization website. Either way, you’re designing with statistics. What then? When it comes to designing for personalization, there are many warning stories, no immediately achievement, and some guidelines for the baffled.

    The personalization space is real, between the dream of getting it right and the worry of it going wrong ( like when we encounter “persofails” similar to a company’s repeated pleas for more toilet seats from regular people ). It’s an particularly confusing place to be a modern professional without a map, a map, or a strategy.

    There are no Lonely Planet and some tour guides for those of you who want to personalize because powerful personalization depends so much on each group’s talent, technology, and market position.

    But you can ensure that your group has packed its carriers rationally.

    There’s a DIY method to increase your chances for achievement. You’ll at least at least disarm your boss ‘ irrational exuberance. Before the group you’ll need to properly plan.

    We refer to it as prepersonalization.

    Behind the song

    Take into account the DJ have on Spotify, which was introduced last year.

    We’re used to seeing the polished final outcome of a personalization function. A personal have had to be developed, budgeted, and given priority before the year-end prize, the making-of-backstory, or the behind-the-scenes success chest. Before any customisation have goes live in your product or service, it lives amid a delay of valuable ideas for expressing consumer experiences more automatically.

    How do you decide where to position personalization wagers? How do you design regular interactions that didn’t journey up users or—worse—breed mistrust? We’ve discovered that several budgeted programs second required one or more workshops to join key stakeholders and domestic customers of the technology in order to justify their continuing investments. Make it count.

    We’ve witnessed the same evolution up near with our clients, from big tech to budding companies. In our experience with working on small and large personalization work, a program’s best monitor record—and its capacity to weather tough questions, work steadily toward shared answers, and manage its design and engineering efforts—turns on how successfully these prepersonalization activities play out.

    Effective seminars consistently separate successful future endeavors from ineffective ones, saving many hours of time, resources, and overall well-being.

    A personalization training involves a protracted work of testing and function development. Your software load is not experiencing a switch-flip. It’s ideal managed as a delay that usually evolves through three actions:

    1. customer experience optimization ( CXO, also known as A/B testing or experimentation )
    2. always-on automations ( whether rules-based or machine-generated )
    3. mature features or standalone product development ( such as Spotify’s DJ experience )?

    This is why we created our democratic personalization platform and why we’re field-testing an following deck of cards: we believe that there’s a foundation grammar, a set of “nouns and verbs” that your organization can use to style experiences that are customized, personalized, or automated. You won’t require these cards. But we strongly recommend that you create something similar, whether that might be digital or physical.

    Set the timer for your kitchen.

    How long does it take to cook up a prepersonalization workshop? The activities we suggest including during the assessment can ( and frequently do ) last for weeks. For the core workshop, we recommend aiming for two to three days. Here’s a summary of our more general approach as well as information on the crucial first-day activities.

    The full arc of the wider workshop is threefold:

      Kickstart: This specifies the terms of engagement as you concentrate on both the potential and the team’s and leadership’s readiness and drive.
    1. Plan your work: This is the heart of the card-based workshop activities where you specify a plan of attack and the scope of work.
    2. Work your plan: This stage consists of making it possible for team members to individually pitch their own pilots that each include a proof-of-concept project, business case, and operating model.

    Give yourself at least a day, split into two large time blocks, to power through a concentrated version of those first two phases.

    Kickstart: Apt your appetite

    We call the first lesson the “landscape of connected experience“. It looks at the possibilities for personalization in your company. A connected experience, in our parlance, is any UX requiring the orchestration of multiple systems of record on the backend. A marketing-automation platform and a content-management system could be used together. It could be a digital-asset manager combined with a customer-data platform.

    Create a conversation by mentioning consumer and business-to-business examples of connected experience interactions that you admire, find familiar, or even dislike. This should cover a representative range of personalization patterns, including automated app-based interactions ( such as onboarding sequences or wizards ), notifications, and recommenders. These cards contain a catalog, which we have. Here’s a list of 142 different interactions to jog your thinking.

    The table must be set up for this. What are the possible paths for the practice in your organization? Here’s a long-form primer and a strategic framework for a broader perspective.

    Assess each example that you discuss for its complexity and the level of effort that you estimate that it would take for your team to deliver that feature ( or something similar ). In our cards, we break down connected experiences into five categories: functions, features, experiences, complete products, and portfolios. Size your own build here. This will help to draw attention to the benefits of ongoing investment as well as the difference between what you currently offer and what you intend to offer in the future.

    Next, have your team plot each idea on the following 2×2 grid, which lays out the four enduring arguments for a personalized experience. This is crucial because it emphasizes how personalization can affect your own ways of working as well as your external customers. It’s also a reminder ( which is why we used the word argument earlier ) of the broader effort beyond these tactical interventions.

    Each team member should decide where they would like to place your company’s emphasis on your product or service. Naturally, you can’t prioritize all of them. Here, the goal is to show how various departments may view their own benefits from the effort, which can vary from one department to the next. Documenting your desired outcomes lets you know how the team internally aligns across representatives from different departments or functional areas.

    The third and final KickStart activity is about filling in the personalization gap. Is your customer journey well documented? Will compliance with data and privacy be a significant challenge? Do you have content metadata needs that you have to address? ( We’re pretty sure you do; it’s just a matter of acknowledging the magnitude of that need and finding a solution. ) In our cards, we’ve noted a number of program risks, including common team dispositions. For instance, our Detractor card lists six protracted behavior that is harmful to the development of our country.

    Effectively collaborating and managing expectations is critical to your success. Consider the potential obstacles to your progress in the future. Press the participants to name specific steps to overcome or mitigate those barriers in your organization. According to research, personalization initiatives face a number of common obstacles.

    At this point, you’ve hopefully discussed sample interactions, emphasized a key area of benefit, and flagged key gaps? Good, you’re ready to go on.

    Hit that test kitchen

    Next, let’s take a look at what you’ll need to create personalization recipes. Personalization engines, which are robust software suites for automating and expressing dynamic content, can intimidate new customers. Their capabilities are broad and potent, and they give you a variety of ways to organize your company. This presents the question: Where do you begin when you’re configuring a connected experience?

    The key here is to avoid treating the installed software like some imagined kitchen from a fantasy remodeling project ( as one of our client executives humorously put it ). These software engines are more like test kitchens where your team can begin devising, tasting, and refining the snacks and meals that will become a part of your personalization program’s regularly evolving menu.

    Over the course of the workshop, the final menu of the prioritized backlog will be created. And creating “dishes” is the way that you’ll have individual team stakeholders construct personalized interactions that serve their needs or the needs of others.

    The dishes will be made using recipes that have predetermined ingredients.

    Verify your ingredients

    You’ll ensure that you have everything you need to create your desired interaction ( or that you can determine what needs to be added to your pantry like a good product manager ) and that you have validated with the right stakeholders present. These ingredients include the audience that you’re targeting, content and design elements, the context for the interaction, and your measure for how it’ll come together.

    This doesn’t just involve identifying requirements. Documenting your personalizations as a series of if-then statements lets the team:

    1. compare findings to a common method for developing features, similar to how artists paint with the same color palette,
    2. specify a consistent set of interactions that users find uniform or familiar,
    3. and establish parity among performance indicators and key performance indicators as well.

    This helps you streamline your designs and your technical efforts while you deliver a shared palette of core motifs of your personalized or automated experience.

    Create a recipe.

    What ingredients are important to you? Consider the construct of a who-what-when-why

    • Who are your key audience segments or groups?
    • What content, what design elements, and under what circumstances will you give them?
    • And for which business and user benefits?

    Five years ago, we created these cards and card categories. We regularly play-test their fit with conference audiences and clients. And we still come across fresh possibilities. But they all follow an underlying who-what-when-why logic.

    In the cards in the accompanying photo below, you can typically follow along with right to left in three examples of subscription-based reading apps.

    1. Nurture personalization: When a guest or an unknown visitor interacts with a product title, a banner or alert bar appears that makes it easier for them to encounter a related title they may want to read, saving them time.
    2. Welcome automation: An email is sent when a new user registers to highlight the breadth of the content catalog and convert them to happy subscribers.
    3. Winback automation: Before their subscription lapses or after a recent failed renewal, a user is sent an email that gives them a promotional offer to suggest that they reconsider renewing or to remind them to renew.

    A good preworkshop activity might be to consider a first draft of what these cards might be for your organization, though we’ve also found that cocreating the recipes themselves can sometimes help this process. Start with a set of blank cards, and begin labeling and grouping them through the design process, eventually distilling them to a refined subset of highly useful candidate cards.

    The workshop’s later stages could be characterized as shifting from focusing on a cookbook to a more nuanced customer-journey mapping. Individual” cooks” will pitch their recipes to the team, using a common jobs-to-be-done format so that measurability and results are baked in, and from there, the resulting collection will be prioritized for finished design and delivery to production.

    Better architecture is required for better kitchens.

    Simplifying a customer experience is a complicated effort for those who are inside delivering it. Beware of anyone who contradicts your advice. With that being said,” Complicated problems can be hard to solve, but they are addressable with rules and recipes“.

    When a team is overfitting, it’s because they aren’t designing with their best data, which is why personalization turns into a laugh line. Like a sparse pantry, every organization has metadata debt to go along with its technical debt, and this creates a drag on personalization effectiveness. For instance, your AI’s output quality is in fact impacted by your IA. Spotify’s poster-child prowess today was unfathomable before they acquired a seemingly modest metadata startup that now powers its underlying information architecture.

    You can withstand the heat without a doubt.

    Personalization technology opens a doorway into a confounding ocean of possible designs. Only a disciplined and highly collaborative approach can achieve the necessary concentration and intention. So banish the dream kitchen. Instead, head to the test kitchen to burn off the fantastical ideas that the doers in your organization have in store for time, to preserve job satisfaction and security, and to avoid unnecessary distractions. There are meals to serve and mouths to feed.

    This organizational framework gives you a fighting chance at long-term success as well as solid ground. Wiring up your information layer isn’t an overnight affair. However, you’ll have solid ground for success if you use the same cookbook and the same recipes. We designed these activities to make your organization’s needs concrete and clear, long before the hazards pile up.

    Although there are costs associated with purchasing this type of technology and product design, time well spent on sizing up and confronting your unique situation and digital skills. Don’t squander it. The pudding is the proof, as they say.

  • The Best Family Guy Movie Spoofs, Ranked

    The Best Family Guy Movie Spoofs, Ranked

    Family Guy enjoys making some of the best movies ever made. In particular, many of the movie’s cutaways not punch when they lampoon a traditional film. Yet, the series occasionally goes all out and dedicates an whole event to a cinema parody. Family Guy has used a lot of friggin’ special turns on everything from Hitchcock to Star Wars.

    The best Family Guy film spoilers Ranked arose first on Den of Geek.

    A 1950s-styled market is terrorized by an conventional pug-nosed cartoon character climbing out of a movie screen in the Doctor Who set 15 trailer trailer. Russell T Davies, the producer behind the character, was mocked in Doctor Who Magazine 613 as” an older pal of the show, imagine who”? !

    No thinking is required, as Alan Cumming, an artist, musicals celebrity, and broadcaster of The Traitors US, has been confirmed as the tone. In the historic story account” The Witchfinders” from line 11, Cumming portrayed King James I during the Jodie Whittaker time.

    cnx. command. push ( function ( ) {cnx ( {playerId:” 106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530″, }). render ( “0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796” ), }),

    Cumming voices the character of Mr. Ring-a-Ding in episode two of the new series, which is scheduled to premiere on BBC One and Disney + on April 12 ( with episodes available for streaming on BBC iPlayer from 8am in the UK prior to broadcast that evening ). He is described as a “happy, interesting, singalong film” who lives in Sunny Town with his companion Sunshine Sally. But, in 1952, Mr. Ring-a-Ding suddenly looks beyond the camera and sees the real world outside, which is horrifying after decades of repeats in numerous movie theaters around the country.

    Cumming joins Rose Ayling-Ellis, a former Batman, Ludwig, and a former Strictly Come Dancing champion who was once rumored to be the Doctor’s new partner before Millie Gibson was revealed, as friend series 15 visitor stars. RTD teased her season in DWM 613, stating that Rose “takes it to a whole new level.” In one of the most frightful episodes we’ve ever produced, she screams in with an amazing achievement of despair, anger, and bravery.

    In the new shows of the new shows, American artist Christopher Chung, who is best known over here for playing the genius thief and general pillock Roddy Ho in Apple TV + spy movie Slow Horses, may also play a Trooper character named Cassio Palin. And Millie Gibson may join the collection opening alongside Eric, aka Jonah Hauer-King, as we’ve been anticipating for a while.

    Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, and newcomer Belind Chandra played by Varada Sethu are all returning solid people, of course. Anita Dobson will play the strange Mrs. Flood, Michelle Greenidge will play the mother of Ruby, Ruth Madeley will play the UNIT scientist Shirley Anne Bingham, Jemma Redgrave will play the UNIT boss Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and Susan Twist will play, apparently, tech giant Susan Triad.

    Tell yourself of the following trailer video:

    On Saturday April 12, 2025, Doctor Who season 15/season 2 premieres on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, as well as Disney + around the world.

    Den of Geek‘s first article Doctor Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star.

  • Doctor Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star

    Doctor Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star

    A classic pug-nosed cartoon character is seen in the Doctor Who set 15 trailer truck frightening the 1950s-style viewers by climbing out of a movie screen. Russell T. Davies, the director, made fun of the actor who played the character in Doctor Who Magazine 613 by calling him” an older friend of the show, think who”? As the voice has [ …] no guessing required.

    Den of Geek‘s first article Doc Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star.

    A classic pug-nosed cartoon character is seen in the Doctor Who set 15 trailer truck frightening the 1950s-style viewers by climbing out of a movie screen. In Doctor Who Magazine 613, director Russell T Davies made fun of the actor who played the role as” an older friend of the show, think who”? !

    No thinking is required, as Alan Cumming, an artist, musicals celebrity, and broadcaster of The Traitors US, has been confirmed as the tone. Cumming portrayed King James I in line 11’s historical fiction story” The Witchfinders” during the Jodie Whittaker period for aficionados.

    cnx. command. push ( function ( ) {cnx ( {playerId:” 106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530″, }). render ( “0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796” ), }),

    Cumming voices the character of Mr. Ring-a-Ding in episode two of the new series, which is scheduled to premiere on BBC One and Disney + on April 12 ( with episodes available for streaming on BBC iPlayer from 8am in the UK prior to broadcast that evening ). He is described as a “happy, interesting, singalong film” who lives in Sunny Town with his companion Sunshine Sally. But, in 1952, Mr. Ring-a-Ding suddenly looks beyond the screen and sees the real world inside, and the results are terrifying.

    Cumming joins Rose Ayling-Ellis, a former Batman, Ludwig, and a former Strictly Come Dancing champion who was once rumored to be the Doctor’s new partner before Millie Gibson was revealed, as other series 15 visitor stars. Rose rose rose to a whole new level,” according to RTD in her season in DWM 613. In one of the most frightful shows we’ve ever made, she storms in with an amazing performance of despair, rage, and courage.

    In the new shows of the new incidents, American artist Christopher Chung will play a Trooper personality named Cassio Palin, as confirmed last month. He is best known for playing the role of the genius hacker and general pillock Roddy Ho in the Apple TV + spy thriller Slow Horses. And Millie Gibson may join the sequence opening alongside Eric, aka Jonah Hauer-King, as we’ve been anticipating for a while.

    Returning cast people include, of course, Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, and newcomer Belind Chandra played by Varada Sethu as Belinda. Susan Twist will probably play tech giant Susan Triad, along with Anita Dobson as the mysterious Mrs. Flood, Michelle Greenidge as Ruby’s family Carla, Ruth Madeley as UNIT professor Shirley Anne Bingham, Jemma Redgrave as UNIT boss Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and Michelle Greenidge as the strange Mrs.

    Tell yourself of the following trailer video:

    On Saturday, April 12, 2025, Doctor Who season 15/season 2 premieres on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Disney + around the world.

    Den of Geek‘s first article Doc Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star.

  • The Unmissable Debut Novels of 2025

    The Unmissable Debut Novels of 2025

    It’s enjoyable to be first. Being among the first to use a new technologies, the first to enjoy a video game, or members of the audience watching a movie on opening day makes you feel ahead of the curve. That’s true of all new publications, and even more so.

    The Amazing Debut Novels of 2025 second appeared on Den of Geek.

    A 1950s-styled audience is frightened by the Doctor Who collection 15 teaser trailer by an conventional pug-nosed cartoon character scurrying out of a movie screen. In Doctor Who Magazine 613, director Russell T Davies made fun of the actor who played the role as” an older friend of the show, think who”? !

    No thinking is required, as Alan Cumming, the artist, musicals celebrity, and broadcaster of The Traitors US, has been confirmed as the tone. In the historic story account” The Witchfinders” from line 11, Cumming portrayed King James I during the Jodie Whittaker time.

    cnx. powershell. push ( function ( ) {cnx ( {playerId:” 106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530″, }). render ( “0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796” ), }),

    Cumming voices the character of Mr. Ring-a-Ding in episode two of the new series, which is scheduled to premiere on BBC One and Disney + on April 12 ( with episodes available for streaming on BBC iPlayer from 8am in the UK prior to broadcast that evening ). He is described as” a happy, funny, singalong cartoon, who lives in Sunny Town with his friend Sunshine Sally.” But, in 1952, Mr. Ring-a-Ding suddenly looks beyond the screen and sees the real world outside, and the results are terrifying.

    Rose Ayling-Ellis, a former Batman, Ludwig, and a previous Strictly Come Dancing champion who was once rumored to be the Doctor’s new partner before Millie Gibson’s arrival, joins Cumming as friend set 15 host. RTD teased her season in DWM 613, stating that Rose “takes it to a whole new level.” In one of the most frightful shows we’ve ever made, she storms in with an amazing performance of despair, rage, and courage.

    In the new shows of the new incidents, American artist Christopher Chung will play a Trooper personality named Cassio Palin, as confirmed last month. He is best known for playing the role of the genius hacker and general pillock Roddy Ho in the Apple TV + spy thriller Slow Horses. And we’ve been anticipating for a while that Millie Gibson did play the series opener alongside The Little Mermaid‘s Eric, aka Jonah Hauer-King.

    Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, and Varada Sethu as her new love interest Belind Chandra make the returning solid, of course. Anita Dobson will play the strange Mrs. Flood, Michelle Greenidge will play the mother of Ruby, Ruth Madeley will play the UNIT scientist Shirley Anne Bingham, Jemma Redgrave will play the UNIT boss Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and Susan Twist will play, probably, tech giant Susan Triad.

    Tell yourself of the following trailer video:

    On Saturday April 12, 2025, Doctor Who season 15/season 2 premieres on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, as well as Disney + around the world.

    The second post Doc Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • The Star Wars Movie Slate Is in Even More Trouble Now

    The Star Wars Movie Slate Is in Even More Trouble Now

    Kathleen Kennedy is frequently held accountable for the highs and lows of this Star Wars time, whether or not they are healthier. While still bringing a satisfying conclusion to this story, she shepherded a new technology into a cosmos far, far away. And yet in]… ]

    The Star Wars film Slate is in even more problems then, the first article on Den of Geek.

    A classic pug-nosed cartoon character is seen in the Doctor Who set 15 trailer truck frightening the 1950s-style viewers by climbing out of a movie screen. Russell T. Davies, the director, made fun of the actor who played the character in Doctor Who Magazine 613 by calling him” an older friend of the show, think who”? !

    No thinking is required, as Alan Cumming, the actor, musicals celebrity, and broadcaster of The Traitors US, has been confirmed as the tone. Cumming portrayed King James I in line 11’s historical fiction story” The Witchfinders” during the Jodie Whittaker period for aficionados.

    cnx. command. push ( function ( ) {cnx ( {playerId:” 106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530″, }). render ( “0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796” ), }),

    Cumming voices the character of Mr. Ring-a-Ding in episode two of the new series, which is scheduled to premiere on BBC One and Disney + on April 12 ( with episodes available for streaming on BBC iPlayer from 8am in the UK prior to broadcast that evening ). He is described as” a happy, funny, singalong cartoon, who lives in Sunny Town with his friend Sunshine Sally.” But, in 1952, Mr. Ring-a-Ding suddenly looks beyond the screen and sees the real world inside, and the results are terrifying.

    Cumming joins Rose Ayling-Ellis, a former Batman, Ludwig, and a former Strictly Come Dancing champion who was once rumored to be the Doctor’s new partner before Millie Gibson was revealed, as other series 15 visitor stars. Rose rose rose to a whole new level,” according to RTD in her season in DWM 613. In one of the most frightful episodes we’ve ever produced, she screams in with an amazing achievement of despair, anger, and bravery.

    In the new shows of the new incidents, American artist Christopher Chung will play a Trooper personality named Cassio Palin, as confirmed last month. He is best known for playing the role of the genius hacker and general pillock Roddy Ho in the Apple TV + spy thriller Slow Horses. And Millie Gibson may join the collection opening alongside Eric, aka Jonah Hauer-King, as we’ve been anticipating for a while.

    Returning cast people include, of course, Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, and newcomer Belind Chandra played by Varada Sethu as Belinda. Anita Dobson will play the strange Mrs. Flood, Michelle Greenidge will play the mother of Ruby, Ruth Madeley will play the UNIT scientist Shirley Anne Bingham, Jemma Redgrave will play the UNIT boss Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and Susan Twist will play, probably, tech giant Susan Triad.

    Tell yourself of the following trailer video:

    On Saturday April 12, 2025, Doctor Who season 15/season 2 premieres on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Disney + around the world.

    Den of Geek‘s second article Doctor Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star.

  • The Actor Who Should Win the Oscar: An Appreciation of Colman Domingo

    The Actor Who Should Win the Oscar: An Appreciation of Colman Domingo

    Some critics have argued for years that the Oscars prize is for the most acting rather than the best operating. The claim is also demonstrable, as seen by Joaquin Phoenix’s gentle work in The Master or You Were Not Really These and his great showy take on the Joker becoming well-known. Notice Jessica Chastain’s win once more […]…]…

    The first article on Den of Geek was The Actor Who May Win the Oscar: An Appreciation of Colman Domingo.

    A 1950s-styled market is terrorized by an conventional pug-nosed cartoon character climbing out of a movie screen in the Doctor Who set 15 trailer trailer. Russell T Davies, the producer behind the character, was mocked in Doctor Who Magazine 613 as” an older pal of the show, think who”? !

    No thinking is necessary because Alan Cumming, the voice of professional, musicals legend, and presenter of The Traitors US, has been confirmed. In the historic story account” The Witchfinders” from line 11, Cumming portrayed King James I during the Jodie Whittaker time.

    cnx. powershell. push ( function ( ) {cnx ( {playerId:” 106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530″, }). render ( “0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796” ), }),

    Cumming voices the character of Mr. Ring-a-Ding in episode two of the new series, which is scheduled to premiere on BBC One and Disney + on April 12 ( with episodes available for streaming on BBC iPlayer from 8am in the UK prior to broadcast that evening ). He is described as a “happy, interesting, singalong film” who lives in Sunny Town with his companion Sunshine Sally. But, in 1952, Mr. Ring-a-Ding suddenly looks beyond the camera and sees the real world outside, and the results are terrifying.

    Rose Ayling-Ellis, a former Batman, Ludwig, and a previous Strictly Come Dancing champion who was once rumored to be the Doctor’s new partner before Millie Gibson’s arrival, joins Cumming as friend set 15 host. Rose rose rose “takes it to a whole new level,” according to RTD in her episode from DWM 613. In one of the most frightful episodes we’ve ever produced, she screams in with an astonishing performance of terror, anger, and bravery.

    Christopher Chung, who was previously credited with portraying the genius hacker Roddy Ho as the overall pillock in Apple TV +’s spy thriller Slow Horses, will also play Cassio Palin in the new episodes of the series. And we’ve been anticipating for a while that Millie Gibson will join The Little Mermaid‘s Eric, also known as Jonah Hauer-King, in the series opener.

    Returning cast members include, of course, Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, and newcomer Belind Chandra played by Varada Sethu as Belinda. Anita Dobson will play the mysterious Mrs. Flood, Michelle Greenidge will play the mother of Ruby, Ruth Madeley will play the UNIT scientist Shirley Anne Bingham, Jemma Redgrave will play the UNIT boss Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and Susan Twist will play, presumably, tech magnate Susan Triad.

    Remind yourself of the following teaser trailer:

    On Saturday April 12, 2025, Doctor Who season 15/season 2 premieres on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Disney + around the world.

    The first post Doctor Who Series 15 Confirms Release Date and Returning Guest Star appeared first on Den of Geek.