Marcus Österberg > Marcus's Quotes

“Web analytics is like teenage sex:
- Everyone talks about it.
- Nobody really knows how to do it.
- Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.”
― Marcus Österberg

“When speaking of disabilities, the blind and their needs are most often used as an example. It is deceivingly simplistic since accessibility is something most of the population can benefit from.”
― Marcus Österberg, Web Strategy for Everyone

“Idag räcker det inte med att hävda ett allmänintresse eller behandla webbplatsen som ens egen informationssoptipp bara för att man gillar att producera innehåll. Innehållet måste bära frukt!”
― Marcus Österberg, Webbanalys - förstå och förbättra användarnas upplevelse

“Om man varken följer designkonventioner användarna lärt sig eller ens själv är konsekvent i sin egen design gör man inte mesta möjliga av användarupplevelsen. Det blir också svårt att följa upp hur webbplatsen presterar.”
― Marcus Österberg, Webbanalys - förstå och förbättra användarnas upplevelse

“Triple bottom line är ett sätt att inte bli fartblind kring det ekonomiska, utan snarare att inse att man har intressenter som inte är bland aktieägarna. Något jag hoppas allt fler företag börjar med som en del av sitt arbete med hållbarhet. Kanske kan vi webbanalytiker hjälpa denna utveckling lite på traven genom att välja mätbara mål på lite okonventionella sätt.”
― Marcus Österberg, Webbanalys - förstå och förbättra användarnas upplevelse

“Content precedes design. Design in advance of content is not design, it’s decoration.”
― Jeffrey Zeldman

“Real web designers write code. Always have, always will.”
― Jeffrey Zeldman

“I believe that most websites suck because HiPPOs create them. HiPPO is an acronym for the “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.”
― Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity

“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business