Web User Experience Blog

We have been looking into getting a digital asset management system to house, manage, and retrieve our graphical, marketing, and other files. In researching this online, we found that there wasn't a lot helpful information out there. So, to save you some time, here are some things to look for when picking an asset management system:

• Hosted (SaaS) or in-house client-side application
• Ease of use and user-friendly interface - This one was key for us as we found many solutions with complex, multi-stepped, and poor UIs.
• Disk space - default capacity and scaling up options
• Subscription and setup fees
• Number of users and admins supported and upgrading options
• Ability to brand interface
• File upload & download options - single file, batch uploads, ftp
• Basic and advanced search capabilities
• Supported file formats
• Preview mode of static versus multimedia files - being able to view a streaming file snippet within the tool is a great feature
• Ability add metadata, keywords, captioning, etc.
• Auto-rendering multiple file sizes of a single file
• Report generation and alerts
• Localization support
• Lightbox/favorites
• Third-party access - e.g. for agencies you work with, you can send them a pick-up link for a file without the need to login to access the file.
• Access rights - security and password protection capabilities.
• Customer references

Posted by Reshma Kumar at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have rolled out our new homepage redesign today! Select users will see the new page initially; some may see different versions of the new homepage as we are conducting tests. The final redesign will be switched over in the coming month when it will be available to everyone.

The goals of the redesign include improving the usability and usefulness of the homepage. Our hope is that it helps you to be more successful and productive as a gateway to accomplishing your tasks.

What hasn't changed on our homepage:

• Positioning of the contact us and worldwide sites links, and search utility.


• Top level navigation menu functions in the same way with dropdown menus.


• We didn't really remove anything although we improved the content.

Here are the main changes you can expect to find:

• Interactive banner: An informational section to learn more about Internet-related issues which affect you and your business and how VeriSign can help.


• SSL Certificates box: Quick and easier access to select and manage certificates.


• Featured items: Carousel slide show highlighting products, events, and more.


• Quick navigation: Accordion panels allowing you to self-select based on your role (Information for), task (I need to), or simply jump links into popular/key sections (Quick links).


• News bar: News ticker to get the latest VeriSign news.

Test drive it for yourself and let us know what you think: www.verisign.com.

Stay tuned for future posts on the new homepage!

REDESIGNED HOMEPAGE:

CURRENT HOMEPAGE:

Posted by Reshma Kumar at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Phishing. Online Fraud. Identity Theft. Online Safety & Security. Personally Identifiable Information. Virus Protection.

These are all the realities of navigating the Web today. For information on how to stay safe on the Web and ultimately, enjoy a good user experience in the online world, check out this latest VeriSign resource: Trust the Check.

Posted by Reshma Kumar at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As part of our effort to provide rich and varied content, we've been incorporating more video on our site. The goal is to ensure you are able to view video without having to leave the Web page you are on - whether it is launching a new browser window or launching an external media player. But the positioning/placement of the video directly impacts the scale of the video. For example, if we are placing a video in the main content well of a page, embedding the video achieves our end goal; but if we need to place a video in less forgiving real estate like the right channel of a page, it renders the video unviewable and utlimately, ineffective as the video interface becomes much too small deeming the picture undecipherable and textual content unreadable.

So, our solution around such spatially challenging cases has been to provide a graphical promotion of the video which onclick launches an overlay on the page with a larger version of the video embedded in the overlay so users can clearly view the video. This way, users are not taken away from the originating Web page. And, once they are done watching the video, they can close the overlay and return to their regular browsing.

Posted by Reshma Kumar at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)