Monthly Archives / June 2007

I don’t have a favorite athlete!

My U.S. bank recently made me change my password when I logged in. They even made me use “special characters” in the passwords, like # ” % &, to make sure it was secure. Annoying, but no big deal. I’ll put it with it. I understand why they’re trying to do this.

Next, though, they crossed the line from to annoying to downright hit-the-screen-in-frustration.

Who is your favorite person? Who was your childhood here? Who is your favorite athlete? Continue reading

Dealing with query strings in Google Analytics

Trying to make sense of query strings in your Google analytics installation can be a headache even for the most savvy GA users. Here we explain what you can do in your GA configuration to make life easier.

If you use query strings on your website (be it for passing session ids or controlling content) your GA reports will contain something like this:

Screenshot from GA showing urls with query strings

Not very helpful is it! Unless you know exactly what each parameter corresponds to it it difficult to make sense of your data.

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O2′s latest campaign: Flashy flash and mystery meat return

You gotta hand it to O2 — when they run a big promotional campaign, it’s hard to miss. And with their most recent one, they’ve pressed a sensitive button: the work/life balance. Their TV ads worked — they got me thinking. Apparently the Irish work the longest in Europe, but, the ads ask, do we work the smartest? The sales pitch is surprisingly subtle, you don’t know exactly what they’re selling. But what it comes down to is they say that their mobile office products help restore a healthy work/life balance. And they give a vanity URL to learn more. So how does their web promo match up to their intriguing TV ads?

O2 promo homepage Continue reading

Thoughtless design

Imagine you are designing a new bank. It is being built in a modern dockside development where thousands of people will work, shop and eat every day. You have a blank wall at the side of the building where you could fit three, possibly four, ATMs. The question is: how many ATMs do you install?


AIB ATM in the IFSC

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