Archive: Reviews

Campaign Monitor is an online email marketing application that enables designers to create, send, manage and track branded emails for themselves and their clients with ease. Freshview, the company behind Campaign Monitor recently updated the software, adding additional functionality that enables designers to not just run campaigns but actually re-sell it as if it were their own product. They’ll even let you rebrand the application interface and set your own mark-up on the pricing!

37signals uses Campaign Monitor for their HTML emails

HTML email? No thanks!
Along with every other designer I know I’m not exactly the biggest fan of HTML emails. The sheer number of email clients and their sketchy CSS support dredges up memories of web development in the late 90’s. Tables? Inline styles? …and that’s just to get it displaying correctly across the many (many!) email packages, not to mention managing the recipient email addresses and tracking the campaign results. It all sounds far too complicated, expensive and not at all what I got into this web design malarkey for.

Clients do love those branded emails though, so it looks like they’re here to stay. Let’s be thankful then for Campaign Monitor.

First impressions count
Two things struck me immediately about Campaign Monitor (before I had even signed-up for an account). The first was the pricing and just how much you seem to get for very little cost (you can actually do an awful lot for free). Unlike many other internet applications there’s no sign-up or monthly fee; you simply pay whenever you send emails to more than 5 people, which means you can thoroughly test almost everything about the service before committing. The pricing structure is very straightforward – you pay $US5 plus $0.01 per recipient, so sending an email to 500 people would cost $5 plus (500 x $.01) = $10. You also have the option of invoicing clients a marked up cost.

Get paid when your clients send html emails

The other thing that really stood out was the wealth of resource and support information offered across the CM website. Rather than just promote the product it offers information about best practice for designing and sending HTML emails, a run-down of CSS support offered by various email clients as well as tips on how to pitch and charge-for email marketing campaigns. The content across the site is really well written and leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling that ongoing support from these guys won’t be a problem.

Sounds Great, but What About the App?
Once you have signed up to use Campaign Monitor you are provided with a personalised ‘mycompany.createsend.com’ domain name. This is where you manage your clients, email campaigns, billing for each client and your own account settings which includes the white label customisation settings for the interface. You can choose from nine different colour schemes, add your own logo, add a log in form directly from your own site and even change the createsend url to your own domain if you want.

Just like the CM website, the app itself is beautifully designed with a clear, simple interface, that makes it easy to find your way around (which is no small feat given the amount of functionality it’s packing). It’s testament to this intuitive design and the friendly, succinct copywriting, that I never once felt lost or confused while using the application (there’s a good spattering of in-context advice and help links in case you do need assistance or further information as you go though).

Clients and Billing
The first page you’re greeted with is a simple dashboard which lists your clients and a run-down of latest activity. Adding new clients is very quick and easy with a short one-page form where you can set exactly how much access they can have to the system, what they will be able to see and do, as well as their billing details. You can choose to run things exactly as you please, from allowing no client access and sending your own invoice outside of the application, to allowing your client to do everything themselves and have Campaign Monitor charge them and send you your mark-up profit automatically.

Sub-accounts for each client are automatically generated. This is where you can track each client’s campaign, add email templates, create and send emails, manage their subscriber lists and view related campaign reports. These are also the pages that your client will see if you’ve provided them with access to their account.

Sending and managing campaigns
Sending a new campaign is straightforward, and presented as a four-part linear process that you are guided through step-by-step in a clear and logical manner. Once you’ve set the campaign title, subject line, sender and reply-to addresses you import your email design and content. Depending on how you choose to mark-up the html (don’t worry – it’s easy and explained clearly on the Campaign Monitor website) you can invoke a fancy new WYSIWYG editor that you or your clients can use to add content to the email and see exactly what it will look like in real time as you type.

Let clients add and edit email content in real time using the super-simple WYSIWYG editor.

Next you add your list of recipients and send it off. One of my favourite features was how you can choose to have Campaign Monitor test your email design and content to ensure it renders correctly in most email clients and will pass through spam filters and firewalls. This really stood out for me as an amazingly useful feature. As designers we all know what a nightmare it can be making sure our sites render correctly in all browsers, but all of the email clients; web-based, desktop and mobile too? No chance. The only complaint I have was that I found this to run a little too slowly (about half an hour) and still not all of the results came back. The guys at Freshview ensure me that this is being improved however, and I still think it’s well worth the extra $5 they charge for the hassle it saves regardless!

There’s a lot of little extra features associated with sending out a campaign such as automatic archiving of campaigns within each clients’ sub-domain but two nice little touches that really caught my attention were the ability to automatically convert your email’s css from an external sheet to inline styling at import, and automatically generating an online version for those recipients to whom the email doesn’t look right. I had assumed these were both things I’d have to take the time to implement as the designer, so was pleasantly surprised to find them built-in. In fact, I was hard pressed to find anything missing at all, and instead was frequently surprised by handy, unexpected little features like these.

And the Rest
When I first looked at Campaign Monitor I assumed sending branded html email was pretty much it, but that’s just the start! Once your campaign gets sent you can track all manner of information about who opened it, what they clicked, who marked it as spam and who unsubscribed, all presented in a nice Google-Analytics style interactive report. In fact, there’s integration with Google Analytics too, so you can track where on your site recipients go after reading your campaign!

Real time, interactive campaign information presented in a clear, familiar ‘Google Analytics’ style report.

There are a number of other notable features, and improvements over the previous version worth mentioning that I came across while trying out the system but didn’t get to explore fully, particularly around targeting subscribers, generating sign-up forms, subscriber management and the Campaign Monitor API. You can find the full list of features and find out more about them over at the Campaign Monitor site.

Is it Any Good?
You can probably tell by now that I have become a fan of Campaign Monitor. In the course of a week I’ve gone from dreading a client asking for a HTML email to being a lot more interested in the potential that branded email marketing has to offer both my business and my clients’. Campaign Monitor removes so much of what was a hassle before that I’m even starting to think I might start promoting it as service to my clients. I could even make some cash out of it too!

Software name: Campaign Monitor (White Label version)
Developer: Freshview
Price: $US5 plus $0.01 per recipient (but you can set your own mark-up)
Rating (out of 5): 5

A New Type of Gorilla is Born

Clearleft is comprised of skilled professionals who have a passion for the processes used to create usable websites. It was that passion that led to the birth of Silverback, a usability testing application for the Mac. Usability testing is something that is often overlooked for an array of different reasons:

• The cost and time is perceived as too high, and therefore left out of the scope of projects.
• Not enough staff to administer and process the tests.
• Lack of the proper equipment or tools.

So, assuming you don’t have thousands of dollars, usability experts, and testing labs at your disposal, what are you to do? Enter Silverback.

What is Silverback?

Simply put, Silverback is beautifully simple usability testing software that utilizes your Mac’s built-in iSight webcam and microphone. With its simplicity and its affordable price point ($49.95), Silverback allows anyone to perform usability testing with little or no budget. The best part about Silverback is that it comes ready-to-use right out of the box. There are no large configuration files or settings, it just works. Jonathan Christopher of Monday by Noon says it best when he states:

My favorite applications do one thing and do it well. Silverback will be one of those applications.

Clearleft are known for their elegant interfaces, and it is immediately apparent that they paid close attention to the interface of the application itself. The interface eliminates the cruft and gets out of the way, allowing you to run the tests and parse the results without sifting through an intense interface. It is this attention to the little details that allow you to keep your usability tests simple and focus on the user interaction, versus setting up the application and learning the interface.

How Does it Work?

Setting up projects is a quick and painless process, and setting up the profiles is just as easy. Silverback utilizes the iSight camera of your Mac, which can turn your laptop into a portable usability lab. Once you create a project and a profile, you can start recording the session. While the test is in progress, Silverback is completely transparent to the user. It records the video and audio of the user, as well as highlighting the clicks of the user. You can control the recording process via the Apple remote, setting chapter markers while the test is in progress. The participants of the test only see what they need to see, and nothing more.

Once the session is completed, you can make notes on the session and then export the test. Once you are ready to export the test, there are options that allow you to place the video in any corner of the screen. Along with the placement of the video you can change its transparency. I see this as one of the greatest features, as you can see the video and watch the user interacting with the interface or website, and make it semi-transparent so that you can still easily see all possible clickable areas. Depending on the time of the session and your exporting options, you may want to go make yourself a cup of coffee while you wait for the test to finish exporting as it can take some time. The final exported video can then be stored for later review, and you can use the interface to make notes about the test.

Is it For Me?

In the beginning we looked at some of the different reasons that developers overlook usability testing. Silverback addresses those barriers with:

• Cost. The cost of the application is $49.95, with 10% of the profits made on the software going to save the gorillas. This makes the application affordable no matter what the size of your organization.
• Staff. The simplicity of the application makes it easy for anyone to use. While it may take a more skilled individual to process the results, it is very simple for anyone to setup and administer.
• Equipment. The only hardware you need is an Apple computer equipped with an internal or external iSight camera and a microphone (if you choose to record the audio and video).

Many developers are familiar with the different analytics tools available to them. Analytics are a vital part to understanding a website. They allow you to see the quantitative data associated with your website. However, analytics fail to show you some of the qualitative data associated with your website. Performing usability tests give you a glimpse of that qualitative aspect, as you can setup and execute tests and see how a user responds. You are seeing first-hand how a user navigates and performs different tasks on your website.

It is important to note that, just as with anything else, it takes professionals to analyze the results and then plan for a proper course of action. This does not replace usability experts. Silverback is just another tool in a web developer’s toolbox. When used properly, it is a very powerful and lightweight application. Silverback comes with a free 30 day trial, but I will admit that it only took minutes for me to realize that this is a must-have tool. If you are looking for a tool to help you perform usability tests on a smaller budget and minimal staff, then look no further than Silverback.

Software Name: Silverback

Maker: Clearleft

URL: http://silverbackapp.com/

Price: $49.95

Rating out of 5: 4

Ajax has been a hot topic for quite a while now, and there seems to be a new book with the eponymous Greek warrior in its title pretty much every week. Coming in at just 207 pages, Jeremy Keith’s new book, Bulletproof Ajax, is the latest to join the fray. With only 200 odd pages how does he plan to cover such a complex subject you may be asking? Well, here’s the secret – Ajax is really quite simple when you get down to it.

Jeremy’s previous book, DOM Scripting, stands as a fantastic introduction to JavaScript in general and DOM Scripting in particular and Bulletproof Ajax follows on from that title to some degree. Although you get a short introduction to the JavaScript language it’s just enough to understand the examples (I’d recommend you have at least a passing knowledge of JavaScript before reading this book). Also if you are coming to Ajax as a server side programmer then this book is probably not what you’re looking for, but worth reading at a later date. Given the client-server nature of Ajax there are server-side code examples (in PHP) but these are generally brief and serve only to support the examples rather than look at real world usage. Again, it would be useful to have at least a passing familiarity with a server side language and to be able to know if you already have a web server handy to experiment with.

The book features plenty of sample projects – for instance a simple address book is built up, showing off how to use XML, JSON and HTML as data sources and introducing the central XMLHTTPRequest object. There’s lots of focus, as you would expect, on making these examples bulletproof, in this case making sure they work even if JavaScript is unavailable using a method called Hijax.

To go from simple inline event handlers through to completely unobtrusive, object-based code and discussions of closures in JavaScript would be pretty good going for a book twice the size. It’s testament to the clear, no-nonsense and eminently readable writing style that this never bogs down the examples. Some people are bound to complain about the use of the proprietary innerHTML property and the minimal coverage of XML and JSON in the larger examples. This seems to be a facet of the scope of the book and a pragmatic approach to the problem rather than an unintentional oversight. If you’re looking for an A-Z of building an enterprise Ajax application then you’re probably looking for another book (but you should read this one first anyway!).

An entire chapter is dedicated to Accessibility and Ajax, a hugely important subject and one I’ve not seen mentioned anywhere else to date. Although the chapter lacks equivocal conclusions (mainly because no one seems to have formed any yet) it raises all the important issues for discussion and debate and provides a solid set of references for further reading. Throughout the book everything is anchored on the importance of user experience, rather than simply using technology for technology’s sake; this makes Bulletproof Ajax stand out from the crowd of more technology-focused tomes on the subject.

As a standards savvy developer if you want to get up to speed quickly with the hows and whys of modern Ajax but don’t have the time to wade through an awful lot of blog posts then Bulletproof Ajax is worthwhile reading. If you already know what you’re up to then it’s a perfect book to recommend to your unenlightened colleagues. A perfectly digestible read for one of those long train journeys!

Book Name: Bulletproof Ajax
Publisher: New Riders
Author: Jeremy Keith
URL: http://bulletproofajax.com
Price: $34.99 USD Buy Bulletproof Ajax at Amazon and save 34% off the cover price!
Rating out of 5: 3.5