(Comments added for week ending Sun 01 Dec 2002) | View Other Weeks
| last updated:02 Dec 2002 13: 17 Webword time, or 02 Dec 2002 18:17 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 01 Dec 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| What's Your Problem? | Sat 30 Nov |
| (Mark Bernstein) Ive been reading a lot of Information Architecture lately, and one idea is weirdly pervasive the notion that most Web sites are bad. Everywhere you look in the literature, you see warnings about unusable sites, idiotic sites, disorganized and chaotic sites. Sites that suck. Is this true? Does anyone really believe this? |
| Sat 30 Nov 15:41 | Joshua Kaufman | I agree that the Web isn't all that bad, but it's important to remember that bad web sites make great examples. That's probably the biggest reason that there's so much about bad web sites in the IA literature. I don't think I've read much literature that says 'most web sites are bad' since 2000 or so. I'd like to know who some of Mark's sources are. |
| Sun 01 Dec 04:26 | Matt Round | I reckon most web sites are bad, as are most movies, TV programmes, CDs, etc.. Think about how much stuff is produced, and how little of it you really like. |
| Sun 01 Dec 11:10 | Joshua Kaufman | Okay, how about a new question: Are most of the popular web sites bad? |
| Sun 01 Dec 12:02 | Eric Scheid | Sturgeons Law: 90% of everything is crap |
| DVD-Bomb | Sat 30 Nov |
| (Adam Kalsey) - Is driving back to Blockbuster after watching the movie really that big of a concern in the consumer’s lives? It seems that this is another case of technology trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. (Comments: One thing really bothers me about this; environmental waste.) |
| Sat 30 Nov 10:41 | Anonymous | I would guess that the waste is not significantly more than the impact on the environment of driving to blockbusters. |
| Sat 30 Nov 11:23 | dix | i suspect the real concern is more about copyright infringement than about driving the video back. there are already rental scenarios that provide mail returns for people who don't want to drive. |
| Sat 30 Nov 11:32 | Adam Kalsey | Self destructing DVDs don't do anything to prevent copyright infringement. Until it stops working altogether, the DVD acts just like a regular DVD. A person can still rip or copy it as long as the DVD is still playable. |
| Sat 30 Nov 12:40 | beanball | Yes, driving back to Blockbuster is a pain. The biggest pain is not driving back to Blockbuster but the late fees when you forget to return videos on time. I read recently that late fees account for about 20% of Blockbuster's revenues. Now you may wonder how someone could be so absent-minded as to routinely get stuck with late fees. I thought the same thing until I had a couple of school age kids. Things get extremely busy (much more hectic than when my life was my own) and returning videos is not high on the list of things you must do - but it truly ticks you off when you find out you owe $15.00 in late fees. I also worked for Divx and it wasn't the consumers who rejected it. We were on track to meet our sales projections (we weren't going gang-busters to be sure but we were doing pretty good). What killed Divx was industry rejection. The other retailers and many of the studios refused to support Divx. Say what you will about the Divx format and the concept, but for someone who gets charged late fees and doesn't want to go back and forth to the video store, the possibility of buying a disc and playing it when you want then never returning it had a lot of appeal. As far as environmental waste, if that bothers you, what about the use of fossil fuels to get to and from the video store? I think the environmental argument is and was a red-herring. |
| Sat 30 Nov 17:58 | Barry Parr | Yeah, that was my first reaction. Blockbuster has zero incentive to use a system that's going to reduce late fees. However, this technology would be a signigicant improvement for the Netflix model, reducing the shipping cost by 50%, or more if you shipped the disk in a cardboard envelope. |
| Sat 30 Nov 20:57 | Kent Sievers | The waste is significantly higher with mail-order vs. drop-off. While you expend resources to drive back & forth to Blockbuster, people often drive with multiple purposes in mind. If I visit the grocery store too, the waste is reduced. If I walk -- nada! People rent from local stores, right? Why drive across town when the store around the corner has the exact same product? The grocery store I visit even rents videos. The fossil fuel argument gets weaker and weaker. Besides, don't fool yourself into thinking the postal service or UPS deliver your DVD back-and-forth on fairy wings. They pollute too. The difference is that the DVDs initially arrive at Blockbuster in a bulk shipment -- less packaging involved. Whereas, with mail-order you are contributing to a HUGE problem -- landfill waste. Most waste in our burdened landfills is packaging. The more we buy mail-order and/or products that have excessive packaging, the more we contribute to the problem. I would not be surprised if mail-order products become subject to a national tax or state tax in the next 5 years to pay for packaging disposal. |
| WebWord Comment | Wed 27 Nov |
| If you have a spare moment, do me a favor. Post a link to a web site that you think deserves to get some traffic. If we all chip in, we should have an interesting list of links. |
| Wed 27 Nov 08:54 | John S. Rhodes | I'm keen on Doc Searles. Boy, that guy writes a lot! He's a sharp cookie too. Fark cracks me up. More later... |
| Wed 27 Nov 11:05 | Kent Sievers | UseIt.com. Everyone has a family to feed, and the holidays are approaching. Have some heart. |
| Wed 27 Nov 11:19 | Anonymous | http://www.cityofsound.com/ http://www3.telus.net/latrippi/netvironments/ |
| Wed 27 Nov 11:20 | Timo | ermm, that was me above, the form doesn't seem to work in Mozilla. |
| Wed 27 Nov 11:29 | Todd Chapin | zefrank.com: totally awesome |
| Wed 27 Nov 11:52 | glasshaus Bruce | superbad. Like Praystation, but all javascript. useless, but groovy. |
| Wed 27 Nov 13:01 | Mac | The Framley Examiner See 'Britains Palest Clowns' and 'Live Bee Swallowers' ! |
| Wed 27 Nov 13:29 | John S. Rhodes | Strongbad! |
| Wed 27 Nov 15:00 | Joshua Kaufman | randomlink |
| Wed 27 Nov 15:51 | Anonymous | Marketingfix |
| Wed 27 Nov 15:52 | Anonymous | Snowdeal |
| Wed 27 Nov 17:43 | Anonymous | a few logs: http://daringfireball.net/ http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/ http://www.ordinary-life.net/ |
| Wed 27 Nov 17:59 | Morris Cox | http://www.betanews.com http://betas.intercom.net/ http://www.intp.org http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/ http://www.dvdeastereggs.com/easter_eggs.php http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.html http://www.conquerfear.com/paweekly.html http://www.auctiontamer.com/ |
| Wed 27 Nov 18:00 | Matt Round | A classic from the darkest depths of my Favorites: Robot Frank |
| Wed 27 Nov 20:09 | Nixon | Just for when you're feeling sad! http://b3ta.com/i-love-you/ |
| Wed 27 Nov 23:14 | Anonymous | psychotactics |
| Thu 28 Nov 01:25 | Anonymous | http://www.guuui.com/ |
| Thu 28 Nov 03:23 | Jack | In no particular order.... ScottAndrew.com Poochkiss Netslaves LemurZone News |
| Thu 28 Nov 04:32 | Alan Fisher | Scaryduck recently won the Guardian's Best British Blog competition. Lydia might like it, given her penchant for British humour. |
| Thu 28 Nov 12:53 | MadMan | Our own Mac has good an honourable mention here. How did you do it, Mac? |
| Fri 29 Nov 18:38 | Martin Sutherland | Fametracker is a satirical look at famous people, in particular TV and movie stars. Be sure to visit the 'Hey! It's that guy!' section. Eurogamer.net is an excellent computer/videogames site, with a European slant. Emerald City: Science Fiction/Fantasy book reviews Index DOT HTML and Index DOT CSS: my favourite on-line HTML/CSS references. Making Light: Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog. Fantasically varied, interesting, and erudite. |
| Fri 29 Nov 19:01 | Henrik | Bookchecker.com. A web site that finds the lowest prices for books. Stripped down UI makes this site very easy to use. |
| Sat 30 Nov 01:25 | Kent | When comparison shopping for books, I prefer to use: BestBookBuys (when shipping to US) AllBookstores (when shipping to Canada) AddAll (when shipping anyplace else--The interface is not as stripped down as Bookchecker.com, but AddAll provides more information. I presume bookchecker is better for Sweden, but I cannot read Swedish.) |
| Sat 30 Nov 01:51 | daniel szuc | www.earthxia.com ... Sorry could not resist - Gamellian |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 28 Nov |
| In the United States we are celebrating Thanksgiving. I would like to thank you for stopping by today. Thank you, thank you, thank you. |
| Thu 28 Nov 13:51 | Mac | Well, thank you kindly, Mr Rhodes. |
| Thu 28 Nov 13:54 | Mac | And by the way, can anyone tell me when and what is 'conshucking day'? |
| Thu 28 Nov 23:16 | Kent | I am confident that 'conshucking' is a typographical error and what was intended was corn shucking . I think corn shucking day is whatever day the corn is ready. The photo that I linked to showing corn shucking (or husking) is dated August 15, 1999. My guess is the 1939 event linked to by Mac would have occurred a little later in the year, perhaps the middle of October. |
| Fri 29 Nov 03:02 | Mac | Kent, thank you very much. It's interesting to note that google let me down on this one. It didn't say Did you mean 'cornshucking' when I searched for 'conshucking'. Maybe I am becoming over dependant on Google? It's great to see that the old-fashioned method of asking another human has come up trumps. Coase dey gi'e us big supper when dey hab dem cornshucking day. Oh, dey hab uh frolic den dat las' 'way up to de midnight. Source: Hector Godbold, age 87, ex-slave, Pea Dee, Marion County. (Personal Interview, June 1937) by Annie Ruth Davis |
| Fri 29 Nov 07:10 | MadMan | Thanks. What about all the other days I've stopped by? :) |
| Fri 29 Nov 07:17 | Mac | Are we all going to take a day off for the Queens Birtday as well? |
| Fri 29 Nov 11:52 | JB | Mac Is that the Queens birthday in England or in Australia? Or maybe we can celebrate both? |
| Log Off, You Losers! | Tue 26 Nov |
| (Forbes) Stop using e-mail when theres a damn phone on your desk. E-mail is for confirmation and simple discussion. Phones are for doing business. Heres how it goes: You think about the e-mail you are about to send. You realize that the distribution list is very long. You further see that if you simply talk to one person, you need not send the e-mail nor the 124 subsequent ones that it will generate. You call that one person. End of story. (Comments: Do you agree with this?) |
| Wed 27 Nov 03:49 | Matt Round | He's right about endless circular email discussions being annoying when trying to organise something simple (we get them at my day job when people are trying to decide which pub to go to!), but perhaps they could've used email for the discussion instead of the professionally organised conference call? I find conference calls are often worse than useless, you don't get the eye contact and gestures of face-to-face meetings or the flexibility and clarity of email. Everyone gets frustrated trying to hear and be heard. (I'm currently working on a project where I've never met the client or spoken to them on the phone, it's been conducted entirely via email; that hadn't occurred to me until now, it's worked fine) |
| Wed 27 Nov 08:35 | John S. Rhodes | Matt, my secret project has been done using email (20%) and IM (80%). It has worked very well. I talked with the developer for about 10 minutes but that was about 2 months ago. No phone contact since. The project will be done without any more calls. Do other people have stories about how they never talk to other people (i.e., phone), but use other communication tools instead? |
| Wed 27 Nov 11:19 | MadMan | I'm eager to know when John's new porn 'e-commerce' site is going to be launched. |
| Wed 27 Nov 11:22 | john | I prefer e-mail communications for business (not sales and marketing - that needs a more ...personal touch) because then I automatically have a transcript of what was discussed and what decisions were made. I hate taking minutes at meetings. :) John |
| Wed 27 Nov 12:58 | Ron Zeno | (The article is from Fortune) Email is an asynchronous, written form of communication. Phone discussions are synchronous, voice communication. Email is a poor coordination tool (the author's point). The phone is a poor tool for exchanging detailed or lengthly information. |
| Thu 28 Nov 04:24 | Alan Fisher | I think the author has a very good point. Many people use email all the time simply because they can, without thnking whether it's the most appropriate means of communication. Use email where you need a record of what was said, or where it's easier to explain something by writing it down. Don't use email to replace a normal face-to-face conversation - it's less efficient. |
| Thu 28 Nov 11:27 | Boyink | Hmm...for me there's short term efficiency and long term efficiency. The minute I have to call someone to ask about a conversation we had a couple months ago email becomes more efficient. He also doesn't touch on the voice-mail issue. Phones are great if someone is there, but I if I miss someone I try to never leave voice messages but instead go back to email - then I have record of leaving a message, I avoid having to learn idiosyncracies of voice mail systems, and I can match up the question and answer. I can also read quicker than people talk so in that sense email is faster. I find that my inbox becomes a rolling to-do list - messages get left there until they are are dealt with, then moved off to archival folders. I've even resorted to sending myself email just to get on the list..;) I'd be curious to fill in the context around this author - his age, typing speed, reading speed, company culture, type of work he does etc. Probably more issues involved than just preference. |
| Thu 28 Nov 12:53 | Chad Lundgren | I thought I was the only one that used my Inbox for a To Do list. Sigh, another illusion of my uniqueness shattered. (But I'm definitely the only one that regularly gets no results found and often googlewhacks without even trying. :-P ) The no more than 10 emails on one subject rule is interesting, if a trifle hidebound. I know on web logs whenever I see a big jump in the number of comments I wonder. |
| Why do people stick to your site? | Tue 26 Nov |
| This is not just a question of usability, design and interactive features - there is much more to it than that. Stick2it.net, gathers resources and debates on how to get users to stick to your site. |
| Wed 27 Nov 03:00 | Adam Greenfield | How 1999. I have always felt (and continue to opine, in seminars, etc.) that if a user can get what they need on your site in 30 seconds, in a way that channels them towards some favorable business or branding outcome, then that is surely preferable to someone who spents 45 minutes on the site without so doing. Stickiness strikes me as a terribly simpleminded metric. |
| Wed 27 Nov 07:57 | Carsten Holst | In reply to Adam: When seen as you describe it, stickiness is very 1999 and extremely simpleminded as a metric! :-) My personal point of view is much like yours, that it is not preferrable to create 'walled gardens' from which your users can't escape. Instead you should focus on creating a pleasent and valuable experience for your users, however this does not exclude the use of sticky features. Think of Amazon's 1-click ordering, which is very much a sticky feature, but also lets you buy what you want in less than 30 seconds. Furthermore it also creates an relation which is hard (or expensive in terms of switching costs) to break for the user. If you use the number of return-visits which results in an transaction, stickiness is a very valuable metric. |
| Wed 27 Nov 08:39 | Soren Sorensen | Fast in - fast out might lead towards favourable business outcome for the user - short-termed. The point of stickiness is not to make people linger pointlessly on portals or e-commerce sites but to make them stay just that little longer so they might purchase more. One can compare it with the way a supermarket is build. The aisles are placed in such a way that the customers have to walk through most of the shop to get to the register. Another aspect on the stickiness is to get the user return for further shopping. The stickiness on the site must assist and guide the user when s/he returns to the site. Look at Amazon; they understand what stickiness is all about. If you search for a book they tell you what kind of books other customers with the same interest have bought. Furthermore they give you an offer on the searched book plus another with complementary content. A more straightforward example is on this page; just below this box I'm writing in is a field you can tick off if you want the site to remember your personal information next time. This alone does not make the site sticky, but along with other sticky features: usable features, usable design, and a content of your interest this takes part in making it a sticky community. Of course there will always be users - like you it seems - that do not want any help or assistance and do their e-shopping from scratch every time. The more normal user behaviour is to accept the help and guidance that (the best) portals and e-commerce sites provide. |
| Wed 27 Nov 10:05 | Adam Greenfield | The more normal user behaviour is to accept the help and guidance that (the best) portals and e-commerce sites provide Care to show me some numbers on this? I find that very, very hard to accept without some kind of substantiating evidence. |
| Wed 27 Nov 10:06 | Adam Greenfield | The more normal user behaviour is to accept the help and guidance that (the best) portals and e-commerce sites provide Care to show me some numbers on this? I find that very, very hard to accept without some kind of substantiating evidence. |
| Thu 28 Nov 04:29 | Alan Fisher | I tend to agree with Adam here - 'stickiness' can't simply be measured by the length of time spent on a site. It has to be measured not just by how long you stay, but also by how often you return and how often you do business there (however you define business). The Amazon features which Soren discusses don't just make me stay longer on the site when I visit, they also make me come back and spend money with them. Too much money, as it happens... |
| Lock-In as Sticky Features I | Tue 26 Nov |
| Publishing a new website, you have to attract users, this can be done by designing an interface and functionality similar to what the users know. By doing this you will decrease their switching costs from other sites to yours and you have take away some of the barrier. |
| Tue 26 Nov 23:48 | John S. Rhodes | Meant to say...thanks Carsten Holst! |
| Wed 27 Nov 14:50 | anthropocentric | This is exactly the strategy of MyWay.com - totally mimicking Yahoo's interface, but COMPLETELY removing all adds and pop ups. (Their webmail functionality is piss-poor, though) |
| Optimal Line Length | Tue 26 Nov |
| What can we conclude when users are reading prose text from monitors? Users tend to read faster if the line lengths are longer (up to 10 inches). If the line lengths are too short (2.5 inches or less) it may impede rapid reading. Finally, users tend to prefer lines that are moderately long (4 to 5 inches). |
| Wed 27 Nov 03:01 | Adam Greenfield | Or you could let users resize to whatever length they happen to be most comfortable with. [shrug] |
| Wed 27 Nov 07:54 | Soren Sorensen | Fast in - fast out might lead towards favourable business outcome for the user - short-termed. The point of stickiness is not to make people linger pointlessly on portals or e-commerce sites but to make them stay just that little longer so they might purchase more. One can compare it with the way a supermarket is build. The aisles are placed in such a way that the customers have to walk through most of the shop to get to the register. Another aspect on the stickiness is to get the user return for further shopping. The stickiness on the site must assist and guide the user when s/he returns to the site. Look at Amazon; they understand what stickiness is all about. If you search for a book they tell you what kind of books other customers with the same interest have bought. Furthermore they give you an offer on the searched book plus another with complementary content. A more straightforward example is on this page; just below this box I'm writing in is a field you can tick off if you want the site to remember your personal information next time. This alone does not make the site sticky, but along with other sticky features: usable features, usable design, and a content of your interest this takes part in making it a sticky community. Of course there will always be users - like you it seems - that do not want any help or assistance and do their e-shopping from scratch every time. The more normal user behaviour is to accept the help and guidance that (the best) portals and e-commerce sites provide. |
| Wed 27 Nov 07:56 | Sunshine | Fast in - fast out....Hmm good point. Adam, have you asked your wife if thats what makes a long lasting relationship?? |
| Wed 27 Nov 08:39 | John S. Rhodes | 'Fast in - fast out....Hmm good point. Adam, have you asked your wife if thats what makes a long lasting relationship??' Sunshine, this is out of line. Yes, some people might think it is funny, but please try not to get personal like this. Thanks. |
| [aifia-members] A welcome and an apology | Tue 26 Nov |
| Weve added you to this list without asking you. (Comments: Oh no!) |
| Wed 27 Nov 05:00 | John Stockman | More proof of the incompetence and cluelessness of the people involved. Can they spell S-P-A-M? How about O-P-T I-N? Don't launch a website till everything works. |
| Wed 27 Nov 08:27 | Martin Sutherland | The thing is, the AIFIA folks are *not* clueless. It's reasonable to assume that the people who have signed up for membership are presumably interested in joining in with the discussions and activities, because they have paid a membership fee to do so. But the option to sign up for the mailing list is still not there on the signup form (as they say in the email), and so some people might be unaware of the list's existence, or they may just not have got round to signing up for it yet. So they could have sent out a one-off email inviting people to join the list. If they reckon that a majority of recipients (note: 115 people who have *paid for* membership of the organisation) would want to be on the list, then those recipients would have to explicitly take action to get on the list. By automatically signing them up for the list, they're removing that step, and thus providing a time-saving benefit for them. On the other hand, you have the (presumed) minority of recipients who don't want to be on the list, and who now have to take explicit action to get off it. And there will also be a subset of the people who *do* want to be signed up who will not like the fact that they've been automatically subscribed. It's poor email etiquette, but not 100% clueless. It's the sort of thing you can get away with when you've got 115 members, but not when you've got thousands. |
| Users Begin to Demand Software Usability Tests | Wed 27 Nov |
| (ComputerWorld) Boeing requiring vendors to follow new usability standard for products (Comments: Thanks MCW.) |
| Wed 27 Nov 01:32 | Ron Zeno | Called the Common Industry Format for Usability Test Reports, the standard outlines a format for reporting test conditions and results and gives user companies enough information about a test to replicate it. It's a means for objectively evaluating software, say its backers. Objectively? No. Replicate? No. It's a report format, not a methodology! I hope this is a result of poor reporting, rather than misleading information. Still, CIF is very useful. Everyone should be using it, or something very close. |
| Wed 27 Nov 03:53 | Mac | It would be very interesting to ask half a dozen usability firms to evaluate a system using the CIF reoport format and then compare the results. Maybe the UPA would like to do it? |
| WebWord Comment | Tue 26 Nov |
| What do you think of Juice? (Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Tue 26 Nov 23:57 | John S. Rhodes | Daniel also sent me a link to this: Fossil Wrist PDA -- useful, stupid, cool, fun, silly? |
| Wed 27 Nov 02:39 | Mac | It took me 30 seconds to work out what it was. Another 30 seconds to guess that it doesn't work in the UK. And I then spent a minute trying to work out how many extra cables I would have to buy for my gadgets. Suffice to say, I don't want one in my christmas stocking. As for the PDA Watch.... To navigate a screen of this size, you'll need a bit more concentration than when using the average Palm device I have very thin wrists and this would look like I had a brick on my wrist. My inner geek salivates over the idea of using one, but I would ridicule anyone I saw pounding their wrist in an attempt to find a phone number. How about a 'wrist holster' for my PDA that would allow me to tap at my PDA while on the move? I'm thinking of a design a bit like the Wonder Woman Power ArmBands, although the ability to deflect bullets isn't a must have feature. |
| Wed 27 Nov 03:51 | Matt Round | Things like Juice show how much we need low voltage supplies in homes and offices, and standard connectors. Any gadget fanatic currently has countless miniature electric heaters for charging all their devices, and the portability of laptops is always significantly diminished by having to also carry a PSU. Mobile phone manufacturers could make a start by standardising connectors and voltages, if they can agree on various other technical standards it surely shouldn't be too difficult. Or perhaps someone like Intel could try pushing the desktop PC as a charging hub, starting with PC-related devices (laptops, MP3 players, digital cameras, PDAs) and working outwards to phones, toys etc.. |
| Interview: Maryam Mohit, Amazon.com | Sat 23 Nov |
| (Good Experience) Usability doesnt have to be expensive. You dont need a 50-person usability team. Just a small good team, and people throughout the company who get it. Having a CEO who gets it is also really important. You dont need a huge team for usability if people are making the right decisions along the way. |
| Tue 26 Nov 23:08 | daniel szuc | Agree that the *customer centered* thinking must be an integral part of how other people outside of the 'usability team' work. But how? I have seen a number of approaches from pushing it strategically to working directly in project teams. Are there specific *attributes* or *characteristics* of people that lend themselves to being more 'customer focused' people? |
| Confessions of a Designer | Mon 25 Nov |
| I was hooked on a drug from Redmond. |
| Mon 25 Nov 00:04 | John S. Rhodes | 'As I acknowledge the problem with one drug, I'm only attempting to replace it with another. I'm learning how Apple can help temper my dependency on Windows. But I won't ever be able to escape Windows entirely. It's ubiquitous. No matter when, or how much I turn back to Mac, I'll always be a recovering Windows user.' |
| Mon 25 Nov 00:16 | John S. Rhodes | Forgot to mention in my posting above that Stop Design is pretty cool. Visit the site! |
| Mon 25 Nov 04:35 | sherlock_yoda | I only skimmed the article, but it is interesting to see an article where someone admits to swapping technologies for reasons of stability/functionality. It is worth remembering that excellent design and usability cannot compensate for poor stability or functionality or a product that doesn't fulfill a real need. Sherlock |
| Mon 25 Nov 09:21 | Joshua Kaufman | I found this interesting: 'Put XP beside OS X, and purely based on the visuals, I'd pick the former any day, especially considering smaller screens.' As someone who's seen the default visuals of both, I'd pick the latter any day. When XP was first installed on my work PC, I thought the default theme was very overbearing. I very much prefer the cool and subtle feel of OSX over XP. |
| Mon 25 Nov 09:36 | mcw | This guy will be attacked and villified by Mac fanatics. |
| Mon 25 Nov 09:45 | Matt Round | Windows 2000 has a simple, reserved look that doesn't get in the way; OS X is glossy and slick; XP has the worst of both worlds. In places it's a tacky imitation of OS X ('Fisher Price' is the term I hear used most), but then there's a load of Windows 2000 mixed in. It's a mess. |
| Mon 25 Nov 15:36 | Lydia | I like OSX for the most part. I have spent a lot of time getting used to the dock. It's a freakish copy of the Windows taskbar, which I hate. I still keep going up to the place where the program menu used to be. I dislike that I can't windowshade anything. I refused to even switch until they brought back the apple menu. But, the stability convinced me to go OSX native. That, and the small harddrive on my computer. I miss the days when my Mac truly was cute and the OS was much better than anything around. But, I still prefer color handling on the Mac over the PC any day of the week, and the ways that a careful consideration of HCI makes the Mac an overall better experience. As Windows comes closer and closer to the Mac OS, most of the major differences start to disappear, and it is with these 'behind the scenes' attributes that we have to identify. |
| Mon 25 Nov 21:24 | Francis Bouchard | I don't wanna go too off topic, but you could use windowShadeX (you will have full windowshade) and look for ASM (for the application switcher-like menu) Francis |
| Tue 26 Nov 13:17 | Lydia | Oo, thanks Francis! I'll check that out. |
| Tue 26 Nov 19:26 | Joshua Kaufman | the ways that a careful consideration of HCI makes the Mac an overall better experience I agree that the Mac is an overall better experience, but I'm wondering about the careful consideration of HCI part. I had heard that Apple abandoned most of their HCI research in the 90's. Does anyone have any current info on this? |
| Crisis in the Profession | Sun 24 Nov |
| (stcsig.org) At the core of the problem, I believe, is a truth we must face: we have failed to establish our value to the business community. And if we want to survive and prosper, we must correct that. |
| Mon 25 Nov 00:54 | MadMan | Is Ron actually saying 'Usability testing doesn't produce consistent results and is hence not reliable'? Is there an alternative? How should we change the way we work to make products more usable? Is usability itself a worthless goal? I don't think it is. I agree that the danger is in accepting 'best practices' without applying thought, but if we assess each situation separately, surely we can do better than no usability at all? |
| Mon 25 Nov 05:17 | Mac | In 'theory' usability is great and should be adopted by everyone. In practise, usability does not work in the sense that it has not delivered, and some people class it as a fad. An attempt to set up a PR firm for usability is misguided and would just make the situation worse. Hoe can we improve the perception of usability without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. |
| Mon 25 Nov 10:26 | Ron Zeno | In addition to what MadMan and Mac said... 'Usability' in the abstract CAN work, but it's the concrete practice of usability that matters. Before usability can be successfully promoted (without being a fraud) it has to have a common meaning to a majority of its practitioners and that meaning must be something specific, repeatable, and effective. Today, there is no common meaning. Everyone is doing there own thing and they create professional organizations that support such chaos. |
| Mon 25 Nov 15:59 | Lydia | Ron said: 'Charlie still assumes that 'usability' works. It doesn't. The best practices are unreliable and often of questionable validity. The worst practices are thinly veiled cons.' When considering Usability as a whole, including the Jakob Neilsen's and fly-by-night organizations of the world, this is a valid statement. Too many people made a bad name for usability by branding themselves as 'experts' who wandered in, made a bunch of pronouncements, and left a bill in their wake. However, when you consider the dedicated individuals who practice and promote good usability, this statement doesn't hold as much water. I don't think of it when I think of John or MadMan, for instance, or when I think of someone like Bruce Tognazzini. The trick is not to think of Usability as a business, but as a practice. This is more true to the roots of usability. You have a specialist who is working with a team on a product or application. You can make a clock radio with a phone that has all the right buttons to make it work as promised, but that is virtually impossible for someone just waking up from a terrific dream about Scott Bakula to operate while half-fogged and determined to go back to sleep for a few more minutes. Click the 'off' button by mistake, and the phone call from work will be all that wakes them up. On the other hand, you could design it to have a large snooze button, to locate the 'shut alarm off' button in a more inaccessible area so you won't accidentally shut it off, to have a pre-set for favorite times to wake up, and so on. Usability often goes unnoticed, as it should. This makes it difficult for people who do it to promote, it, though. How do you tell someone that you'll give them great ROI when you can't show that their customers will even notice what you've done? (The answer is to sell the client on the idea of Usability, and that's all the ROI they need. Use the special effects analogy, they love that one.) |
| Mon 25 Nov 23:55 | daniel szuc | Some of it is education or running seminars to explain the benefits. Most people think usability is common sense. Selling a *usability service* that can show instant results and helping your team implement the results can also make a big difference. Empathy is key -with an appreciation of the frustrations and hurdles the other disciplines are facing within the same project - design, engineering, marketing etc. I think Mac used the term 'profit centered design' some time back ... I quite liked it. |
| Tue 26 Nov 07:03 | glasshaus Bruce | I was immediately put off by the fact that the title of the article in the start bar/ favourites comes out as 'Add Title Here' cos the site's been made in FrontPage and no-ones' replaced the title value in the HTML. |
| Tue 26 Nov 07:03 | glasshaus Bruce | I was immediately put off by the fact that the title of the article in the start bar/ favourites comes out as 'Add Title Here' cos the site's been made in FrontPage and no-ones' replaced the title value in the HTML. |
| Tue 26 Nov 13:13 | Ron Zeno | In response to Lydia's excellent comments: For a specific individual, using specific methods, and producing specific results (should have added 'results' to my previous comments) usability MAY work. Again, it may not. (Whose responsibility is it to determine this?) Just because some people are effective in producing usable products is no argument that all, or even most, people can or do. Because of the chaos in usability practice, ROI arguments only work for specific people, not for usability practice or practitioners in general. Usablity doesn't work as long as people avoid defining the specifics of what they do and what results they produce. Usability doesn't work as long as there are no standards to what usability is and is not. |
| Tue 26 Nov 13:37 | Lydia | 'Usablity doesn't work as long as people avoid defining the specifics of what they do and what results they produce.' I think this is a very good point. I see a lot of people who go in and basically say 'trust me' and 'just read these statistics.' I think it is important to work for your supper and sell the client on the benefits. From time to time, I'll be asked to act as an unofficial consultant on how to integrate usability. I can't actually work on the project, but I'll help a friend hire a consultant by telling them what questions to ask, what to expect/get out of it, etc. I am amazed at what people try to sell them on. I've actually said to people 'No, you don't have to let these people dictacte your site design. They are working for you, remember that. You may accept or reject whatever they say, but make sure to ask for...' It shouldn't have to be that way. It would be nice to have an organization that could help to define some guidelines. I elect Ron and Mac to the Board of Directors. |
| Tue 26 Nov 14:45 | MadMan | Hey, can we pick a cool name like Asilomar for our new organisation? (not!) I suggest we all meet in LA for brainstorming this. We shall then call our organisation the El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula Insitute for Usability Promotion or EPNSRLARPIUP for short. (Quick, someone register that domain name.) Lydia, if I can't make it to the Board of Directos, can I at least make it to the Leadership Council? Can we call Uncle Jakob too? Tell you what - let's form the organisation first and then decide later what we want to do. And please keep your member donations of $1000 ready. Even pizza in LA is more expensive. :p |
| Tue 26 Nov 16:44 | Lydia | Tsk, tsk MadMan. No need to make fun. A name.... ? Usability Specialists Association, or USE. Alternately: Professional Association of Yuppies for Usability Promotion, or PAYUP. Suggestions welcome, as are donations, but no Jakobs allowed. In all seriousness, I think it's a good idea to have good reality checkers on any board (oh, what an awful pun), and all to often most orgs don't have enough of them. I'd nominate you, too, MadMan, but then I might be accused of being too cliquey. Can't have that. |
| Huh? Corp | Sat 23 Nov |
| We have really smart people who are always thinking up totally cool shit. We have a meeting room with a big, round, expensive table. When you hire us to do something, we spend lots of time sitting around the table having meetings. (MadMan comments: Funny and yet disturbing because it sounds so true. As an aside, does anyone else think those stock photos of happy people on so many corporate sites are just annoying?) |
| Mon 25 Nov 14:41 | boysen | Sad, but true. A site like this is meant for us who 'suffer through' to enjoy a little laugh at our clueless compadres' expense. I, for one, enjoyed it! |
| Tue 26 Nov 13:49 | Lydia | Stock photography is an interesting problem. I like it, but it looks very... well, stock. The barometer is always the marketing guy: have him choose which picture he likes best, then throw that one out. The rest might be OK. (evil grin) |
| Mobile keypad gets real | Mon 25 Nov |
| (bbc.co.uk) If widely adopted, the keypad could end the need for predictive text systems in phones and mean you no longer have to tap several times to write letters in text messages. |
| Mon 25 Nov 09:25 | Joshua Kaufman | This is one of the most useful product innovations in a long time. I want it now! |
| Mon 25 Nov 09:50 | Matt Round | It does take up a bit more room than a modern mobile phone number pad, and looks cluttered & ugly, but it's an interesting idea. Hopefully picking out the tiny buttons and pressing more than one at once for numbers won't prove as frustrating as multiple presses & spelling out the words predictive text systems can't get right. I find predictive text works pretty well and has improved over the past couple of years though, I've posted to WebWord from my phone without too much effort. |
| Mon 25 Nov 10:20 | Mac | That new keypad is an excellent piece of human engineering - a simple solution to a simple problem. For the next development I'd like the ability to jam every other mobile phone within a 100m radius. Failing that I'd like a mobile phone that comes complete with a free 16lb sledge hammer - that would put paid to everyone else's mobiles. Dougie Lawson, Basingstoke, UK Via the BBC Talking Point I do like the built-in phone jammer. Can I have one without the mobile phone. |
| Mon 25 Nov 11:43 | Martin Sutherland | Fortunately, with Nokia introducing more phone models with QWERTY keyboards (the 5520, 6800, N-Gage), this abomination should die a swift, quiet death. |
| Mon 25 Nov 11:44 | Martin Sutherland | (I meant 5510 rather than 5520, of course...) |
| Mon 25 Nov 13:23 | Matt Round | Wow, I'd not seen the Nokia 6800 before, very clever design... |
| Mon 25 Nov 13:37 | Mac | With the Nokia you have to type with two thumbs at once and therefore use two hands. With fastap you can use two thumbs as people do at present, or you can type with just one hand. With the fastap it would be possible to type text with one hand while the phone was in your pocket. Really handy when you want to hide your activity. I have seen people (I mean teen txters really) sending text messages with one hand while drinking a coffee with the other whilst having a conversation! (I don't know if this is down to skill or youth, as I used to be able to play marbles and conkers at the same time) |
| Mon 25 Nov 19:00 | JB | This is a great step forward. Simple design built into the current phone footprint. Great idea. |
| Mon 25 Nov 21:10 | Martin Sutherland | With current phone keypads, the alphabet is mapped to 10 numeric keys. In the bad old days before predictive text input, two out of three times (or thereabouts) you had to tap a number key more than once to get the correct letter. With predictive text input, you generally only have to tap it once, and the phone will figure out which of the three letters you meant. Result: your brain only has nine hotspots to worry about. If you move away from the standard phone numeric keypad, you lose the mental mapping of letters to keys that you had on your old, familiar number keypad. It's something different you'll have to deal with. Most people are familiar with the QWERTY layout, and so there is hardly any mental effort involved in typing your first message. This ABC-layout keypad thing, though, has a completely new letter/key mapping. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that the letters are grouped around *different* number keys than they are on a standard phone keypad. Yes, it's learnable, but if you take two experienced txters, and give one of them this thing, and the other a QWERTY phone, which one is going to write their first txt faster? Now take two *inexperienced* txters, and do the same thing. I'd guess that the speed difference between QWERTY and ABC would be even greater. How good will that look in a 'first glance' review for the glossy magazines? I'll grant that this is a device you can use one-handed, and that may be a selling point. It might also avoid some patent issues to do with keypads (see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/27205.html). But a step forward? It's a step sideways at best. I'll be surprised if we see even a single production phone model before it gets canned completely. |
| Tue 26 Nov 07:16 | Mac | Mertin, do you think that their QWERTY version has got any legs? |
| Tue 26 Nov 07:18 | Mac | I meant Martin ! I'm interested to know if people think that the overlapping key idea is a goer? I would say it is definitely better than the 3 tap option, and needs less conscious effort than a predicitve system. |
| Tue 26 Nov 09:36 | Martin Sutherland | Cool--I hadn't seen their QWERTY option. It seems to be stuck at the 'artist's impression' stage, though. The overlapping key idea seems to be a genuinely good and innovative way of making usable keypads that would otherwise be too small. It's the alternative keypad layout that looks like a stumbling block to me. I wonder if they're pushing the ABC-layout keypad more aggressively than the QWERTY option because they have the patents (pending) on it, and thus will be able to extract more in the way of licensing fees? The Fastap overlapping key system seems like it would be a great complement to a QWERTY keypad. But if RIM has the patents on mobile QWERTYs all sewn up, then that makes the whole licensing situation more difficult (and expensive, and potentially risky) for everyone involved--especially the phone manufacturers. Patents are a hideous minefield in industries that move as quickly as the mobile phone/PDA arena... |
| Usability of Geography | Thu 21 Nov |
| (bbc.co.uk) Many Americans know all about London and England but think the United Kingdom is in the Middle East. |
| Mon 25 Nov 15:19 | Lydia | MadMan - much US school time is devoted to geography in other parts of the world. Many funny polls are then taken to find out how little people actually know. Can we say 'cram for the test'? In all seriousness, we had approximately 20% of each history/geography class devoted to geography outside the US. History was required up through our sophomore year (up until two years before graduation). We forget things that aren't reinforced by repeated exposure. Also, Americans still think of Native Americans as Indians, so hopes that they will identify with 'Asians' in regards to geography are probably remote. I live in Seattle, Washington, which is a city in a state on the west coast of the United States. Seattle itself is a charming little town, well known for being located near the Microsoft headquarters and for sinking quickly when the bubble burst. Oh, and for that grunge thing and Nirvana. It's a fairly rural town, although natives will tell you it is a huge metropolis (in the same breath that they will tell you that 'outsiders aren't welcome') and... um. Well, that's about it, really, although someone mentioned to me once that 'we have a symphony,' as if that should explain everything. Is it just familiarity that makes us think that our culture isn't that interesting? For example, I am mystified by Alan's statement that some people are fascinated by American culture. I mean, I like this country and I'm a proud American, etc. but I'm trying to think of things that might be interesting enough to get obsessed over. I also dislike blonde hair and wish I could have naturally black hair, but blondes probably all say that. |
| Tue 26 Nov 04:04 | Alan Fisher | Lydia - for 'culture' read Friends, Frasier, Sopranos, ER, Steven Spielberg, Britney, Whitney, Eminem, Stephen King etc. etc. I'm guessing that you'd be surprised how much a part of our everyday lives these things are, probably to a far greater extent than European culture is in the US. The average British person probably feels that they know the USA really well because of their life-long exposure to American culture. I say 'feels', because they're probably wrong. |
| Tue 26 Nov 05:18 | Mac | When we visited the US (Cal. Utah. Nevada.) two years ago it was almost like coming home. We (in the UK) are drip-fed American 'culture' (see above) through our TV's 24 hours a day. When we arrived in SF, it seemed very familiar but much bigger (we only had a little TV). After two weeks I felt like we had lived through a road movie. Very unreal. I think that many non UK people (especially Japanese and American) have a literary (rather than tv/cinema) view of the UK. Think Shakespeare, Chaucer, Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes etc.) and this prejudices their view of the UK in the same way Starsky and Hutch does for the US. |
| WebWord Comment | Sun 24 Nov |
| Another advertisement has been produced by Jakob Nielsen. At least three things really bother me about his latest advertorial. First, he placed a link to the full (paid) report near the top of the article. Normally he places these advertising links near the bottom of the articles. These links are hard to ignore. Oh well, that kind of marketing is his choice. The second thing that bothers me is that he says that web-based applications are ephemeral. While this sounds really jazzy and new, it is boring and tired. Almost all web pages are ephemeral to users. In fact, in the End of Web Design Jakob wrote about Jakobs Law of the Internet User Experience: Users spend most of their time on other sites. So, it is not news at all that Flash-based web sites are ephemeral because almost all web pages are ephemeral! Nothing new here folks, just move along. The third thing that bothers me is that Jakob makes a big point out of the fact that users had to be directed into the Flash area 36% of the time. Uh, Jakob, what does this have to do with Flash? I could say the same think about DHTML applications. Telling me that users could not find what they were looking for 36% of time is a waste of my time and tells me nothing about the usability of Flash applications. It is a navigation issue that is outside the issue of Flash application usability. I have more to say, but Im tired of writing about Jakob Nielsen today. The last time I was upset, I wrote an article. Do I need to write another one? |
| Mon 25 Nov 00:55 | Vincent Benard | Ok, Jakob sometimes seems to recycle 'old concepts'. But isn't it because they NEED to be recycled ? He has been speaking of usability for 6 years or more, It took 4 years to most so called 'web agencies' to discover the buzzword 'usability', and my daily practice of relationship with 'designers' shows that if they know the buzzword, they don't always understand what it means. Nielsen writes the same things than 4 years ago because web designers repeat consistently the same mistakes. So the same recommandations and guidelines need to be repeated 'ad nauseam'. '36% of people nned to be directed to flash apps - what does this have to do with flash '? This is obvious by reading Nielsen article: designers believe that they're cute if they design 'navigation to flash app' differently than navigation to a normal page. Ok it's stupid, but it's a mistake they actually do. So explain me why JN shouldn't have told it in his column. The same mistakes just produce the same answers. Don't forget that Nielsen doesn't speak only to web usability specialists who read him (and you too, John ;-) for years. He has to communicate to newcommers to web design, or web project management, and so on, who may be the actual buyers of his reports... He assumes that many of his today's readers didn't read all the 'alertboxes' he wrote before. So it may generate 'boring' repetitions. |
| Mon 25 Nov 04:49 | Mac | Web users have developed a strong tendency to ignore anything that looks like an ad. Good advice, but it it difficult to ignore these infomercials as I seem to be spending more and more time trying to explain to people that taking a few items from some guidelines and sticking them in a specification is no subtitute for design. |
| Mon 25 Nov 05:10 | Mac | Web users have developed a strong tendency to ignore anything that looks like an ad. Good advice, but it it difficult to ignore these infomercials as I seem to be spending more and more time trying to explain to people that taking a few items from some guidelines and sticking them in a specification is no subtitute for design. |
| Mon 25 Nov 11:23 | Kent Sievers | 'the Net's new status as nexus of the user experience.' If the Internet is the new nexus of the user experience, what was the old nexus? Is he saying people spend most of their time in Internet-based applications, as opposed to intranet and solo applications? Where's his data for that claim? |
| Mon 25 Nov 13:17 | Mac | It’s hard to say if Jakob’s provoctive approach will have long-term value for the community. If he continues to alienate pockets, then they’ll stop pointing to him as a resource. It’s hard to be an evangalist when the core believers are being turned away. So, I see some real challenges for Jakob in the future. He’s a very talented man and has been really good at getting attention. He’s built a top-notch organization, but it’s hard to see under his ‘Guru’ status. Hopefully he won’t have trouble keeping his people while he takes all the credit for their work. And if he shares the credit, he loses his Guru-ness. It’s a Catch-22 situation. by Jared Spool from Jakob’s Ladder in New Media Creative, March 2001 This is an extract from a longer article that I came across. |
| Mon 25 Nov 18:04 | Rikard Linde | Which is better, a banner ad leading to a commercial offer or a text link that looks like it takes you to more info on a topic but actually takes you to a commercial offer (like Jakobs)? But hey, no one is perfect and when you don't know anything about usability I'd say useit is a goldmine of facts and inspiration. For pros there are better places. Like this one:-) |
| Mon 25 Nov 19:29 | JB | I think most of the consternation here is that we have all seen the useit.com site move from a true platform for sharing ideas about usability to something more akin to an eCommerce site. I don't know if people are envious or feeing like they are being betrayed, but I guess at the end of the day JN like everyone else has to run his business and if his reports are high level flights of fancy everyone can either join the band wagon or chose to ignore what he has to say. |
| Information Architecture is not Usability | Fri 22 Nov |
| (Jeff Lash) A usability-only approach to IA is only one piece of the puzzle. Information architecture problems often account for a large percentage of usability problems, but there are many other things unrelated to IA that have an impact on usability. |
| Mon 25 Nov 15:28 | Lydia | Frank, I think a lot of people do confuse IA with usability, since many of the same concepts overlap. I don't think it does justice for either discipline to bleed to heavily into the other. In a perfect world, all IAs will employ concepts of usability, but that is not a pre-requisite for the job - you could just as easily arrange the site based on what the Marketing VP thinks is best. You'd still be doing your best and doing a good job, but it would probably be a nightmare for users. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 21 Nov |
| Another great Strong Bad email. This one happens to deal with web site design. Rock on! |
| Mon 25 Nov 14:56 | Lydia | Yeah, that was a good one in the style of 'Web Sites that Suck' - I also enjoyed linking to his website and reliving flashbacks circa 1992. |