It has to be fast

Tip: Focus on latency 

 - Mozilla optimized their download ans shaved 2.2 seconds off the avg page-load time. Download conversion improved by 15.4%

Tools:

Example showing load times for Google. Yahoo, and Bing. Bing lost ;)

Speed is the most important feature - http://bit.ly/fred-speed

Tip: Provide shortcuts

- Twitter sign-in example
- Calendar date input
- Big targets to click on 

Be yourself

Examples - Chat list message in gmail, Alerts in Google AdSense, Error message in ubuntu.

Engage in conversations

Tip: Listen to what people are saying.

- Twitter, Technorati, Google

Tip: Respond with honesty and humility

http://bit.ly/costolo-respond

Tip: Surprise your users

Using swag to get your brand out there

Tip: Provide your own support

- Get Satisfaction

Be willing to give up control

- iStockPhoto

Be polite

- Don’t say “You are screwed” in the error message.
- Try to avoid the Ok/Cancel type alert boxes

Tip: Make it easy to get started

- TripIt, just have to email plans@tripit.com. Does not initially require an account to get started

- OpenID

Tip: Offer a way out

Ex: have a cancel and don’t save option next to the save button

Ex: Brizzly - Just have “Delete this account forever” button

Ex: Netflix - Cancel membership and put membership on hold right on the settings page. They also make it easy to come back in the future

Prepare for failure

The user being faster then the code. User typing password before the username focus gets called and the user starts typing password in the username field.

BBC News has a high and low graphics version of their site. Makes sure that in the event of a bandwidth spick while still being able to provide the content

“Fail Whale”

Be reliable

If the service is down, could cause the level of trust from the user to go down

“Fail Whale”