last updated:04 Mar 2003 06: 20 Webword time, or 04 Mar 2003 11:20 UK time
|
 |
|
(Comments added for week ending Sun 02 Mar 2003) | View Other Weeks
|
|
| WebWord Comment | Wed 26 Feb |
| The new World Trade Center design has been chosen. I wonder how the final design was picked. What happens behind the scenes exactly? |
| Thu 27 Feb 00:21 | Anonymous | That they would build *anything* more than a memorial on the site where thousands of people died is a tribute to the soullessness of corporate America. I will never visit New York. |
| Thu 27 Feb 07:01 | Adam Greenfield | We are crushed, simply crushed. Whatever shall we do without you?
What happens behind the scenes exactly?
Blowjobs, mostly. Lots and lots of blowjobs... |
| Thu 27 Feb 08:47 | Anonymous | A better pic would have been nice. |
| Thu 27 Feb 11:23 | Anonymous | Adam, could you please explain your commentary? |
| Sat 01 Mar 11:44 | Anonymous | Yeah, Adam, are you cracking jokes about the deaths of several thousand people? You think that's funny? Why has John allowed you crapassholish post to remain? |
| Sat 01 Mar 12:44 | Anonymous | c'mon guys...Adam is responding to Aunt Sarahs comment about never coming to New York (albeit with a poor choice of words considering), then commenting on the initial question posed. |
| Sat 01 Mar 19:31 | Matt | How is 'blowjobs' a response to a serious comment about a memorial to lost loved ones? If you can't be respectful, don't talk. |
| Sat 01 Mar 21:49 | John S. Rhodes | Should I censor what people post on WebWord? |
| Sat 01 Mar 22:39 | Adam Greenfield | Oh, good god.
1. Yes, I snarked at 'Aunt Sarah.' I cringe, now, to see what my hasty choice of past-tense verbs reads like in context, but I stand by the sentiment. Who are you to judge the city's wish to fill that void?
It's not just the misguided developers and city/state/Port Authority folks, you know; I was at the Winter Garden to *listen to actual New Yorkers* passionately, surprisingly knowledgably and above all sincerely discuss their reactions to the site renovation plans.
Isn't this what we're supposed to do as usability porfessionals? Understand an audience's desires and motivations? They live there, you don't. They want something inspiring to fill the GAPING, HORRENDOUS VOID IN THE SKYLINE that affects most of them more than you can ever understand, and you want them to live with a permanent reminder of what they've suffered. (I *do* happen to think whatever is built needs to come to terms with the violence and loss in a way a conventional building generally cannot, but this is a different discussion.)
So, AFAIC, stay the hell out of New York and good riddance to you.
2. How do you ever get the idea that my joke is at the expense of anyone who died on September 11th? Read, you cowardly, anonymous weasels ('Incensed,' 'WTF!'): I am referring to the closed-selection process.
And while, no, I do not literally believe that fellatio has much to do with selecting the final design, you better believe there are analogous financial/political acts of quid pro quo going on. That the popular sentiment was consulted at all in this case is nothing short of a miracle, and is testiment to the fact that the selection authorities wraped their mind around the once-in-a-lifetime gravity of this moment.
Or do you think that even this process was free of the sausage-factory trappings of municipal decision making? I stand by my words. |
| Sat 01 Mar 23:57 | Anonymous | Yes John, I'm all for censoring Adam. He's rude, crude and unhelpful. |
| Sun 02 Mar 02:11 | Howard | At least he has the integrity to sign his own name to his comments. |
| Sun 02 Mar 02:19 | Anonymous | Don't censor comments if they are relevent to your original posting. You set up a website that allows people to comment. Therefore, you should accept the responsibility to allow all voices to be heard, no matter that they sound different than everyone else.
Now, about the WTC: I think that combining a memorial alongside new buildings is the right way to go. In fact, I would've like to see them rebuild the WTC buildings exactly as before only taller. This would show that you can knock us down but we'll get back up everytime. |
| Sun 02 Mar 11:49 | Bob Smith | Well spoken 'Howard.' Which Howard are you? I believe there are several million of you in this world. So it's your position we can be jerks as long as we sign our name. OK. I'll sign my name. |
| Sun 02 Mar 12:39 | Anonymous | The anonymous posters are frequently friendlier, funnier and more affable than the 'real' people on Web-Word.com. |
| Sun 02 Mar 17:42 | Anonymous | John,
I think webword is a great resource, and the professional and consistent way it is managed means I can often refer work colleagues to items on the site. This sort of content reduces the credibility of your site, and makes it unsuitable for professional environments.
If I was in your position I would not hesitate in censoring anything that makes it unsuitable for some audiences. Keep the site accessible to all! |
| Sun 02 Mar 23:55 | Lyle Kantrovich | I think we need a rating system for comments on web sites - you know like the ratings for movies that keep kiddies out of R-rated flicks, and the ones on TV that keep little Jimmy and Jane from watching 'Will and Grace.'
John, I think the answer is based on two things: Brand and Audience. If Webword is a publishing place, then the brand is owned by the publisher. If it's a community, then control of the brand is usually more distributed, but the host/sponsor has a big say in things. It's your house, you make the rules.
My thoughts on Adam's comment? I laughed, I cried, it moved me. |
|
| WebWord Comment | Sat 01 Mar |
| Should I censor what people post on WebWord? |
| Sat 01 Mar 23:56 | Adam Greenfield | It's your site, John. You never make any claim to provide an open forum or platform for expression. If you find something offensive, absolutely, delete it and all the angels of the firmament shall stand by you. |
| Sun 02 Mar 00:01 | John S. Rhodes | I haven't censored it since I like having an extremly open discussion forum. I'm more curious about how WebWord readers feel about censorship on WebWord in general, as a policy. |
| Sun 02 Mar 01:37 | anode | Eh. Posting whatever you want in a comment section on a site is hardly an inalieable right, so I'd say, do whatever you want. The cool thing about teh web is that anyone can write anything they want want whenever they want, just not wherever they want.
With that said, I don't know why Adam's comments sparked this train of thought for you. The others in that thread were definitely overreacting. |
| Sun 02 Mar 02:22 | Anonymous | Don't censor comments if they are relevent to your original posting. You set up a website that allows people to comment. Therefore, you should accept the responsibility to allow all voices to be heard, no matter that they sound different than everyone else. |
| Sun 02 Mar 05:22 | daniel szuc | Perhaps postings could be 'faciliated' as per 'verbal' discussions in a faciliated workshop? If its put out there, the faciliator (John) can comment around this - positive or negative, just as other webworders can. |
| Sun 02 Mar 10:22 | Frank Lynch | I'm not sure but that failure to censor some posts may expose you to legal actions. I think Vincent Flanders contemplated taking down his bulletin board at one point for just that reason. (You might ask him...)
In addition to the legal issues, you probably have some idea of what you want this web site to be. If it strays from your vision, you should rein it in. Or, in which rein you should it (to get that preposition away from the end). |
| Sun 02 Mar 12:44 | Mac | Censor nothing. |
| Sun 02 Mar 14:39 | Gerald | Somewhere I read 'censorship is the act of hiding the truth' - and therefore I am against censorship. |
| Sun 02 Mar 14:44 | Anonymous | I too am against censorship. I think we should be able to say whatever the mother-fucking-cock-poking-ass-sucking-shit-eating-crap we want to say. Yay freedom! |
| Sun 02 Mar 14:50 | Anonymous | Yes, please do not hide the truth from us John. We want to know more about the mother fuckers, cock pokers, ass suckers, and shit eating crappers. It's our God Given Right to such information. If you begin censoring information we might have to, ummm, start visiting porn sites instead. Censorship NO! Porn YES! |
| Sun 02 Mar 15:28 | Che Tamahori | Censor anything you like, John. After all, you are the person the legal attack dogs will go after if they see anything 'defamatory' on your site -- not the poster. I've had 'cease and desist' missives from lawyers in the past, and I've largely found it easier to comply that go through the hassle (and cost) of defending myself.
This site is not the New York Times. It is not an essential vehicle for 'the public's right to know'. It is a site about... whatever John wants it to be about.
John understands that his decisions (to censor or not, what postings to make, how to direct discussion) will mould his audience. If he censors, some people might leave in a huff. But it's his party... |
| Sun 02 Mar 17:09 | Anonymous | Unless there's an incredibly overt act, I doubt anyone would sick lawyers on John (or anyone) because, regardless of the outcome, they'd walk away dirty. For example, Jakob is popular today because many web folk looked up to him. Editorial criticism aside, throwing his lawyer on someone would effectively ruin his reputation. Individuals can't use corporate tactics so easily. |
| Sun 02 Mar 17:25 | Che Tamahori | 'Anyone' wouldn't use corporate tactics like that -- but corporates do!
I once had a 'Cease and Desist' from Readers Digest, merely for having a page on my personal site that had a title _similar_ to 'It pays to enrich your wordpower'(TM).
In another case, I flamed a consultant's business practice on my website in a manner that they considered defamatory. They lawyered up. I took it down.
Maybe I'm a wimp, but I've got better things to do that worry about that stuff.
I suspect the problem is due to non-IT corporates, who see anything on a webpage as a generic form of public broadcasting, and hit the site owner with a CaD without thinking twice. |
| Sun 02 Mar 19:35 | Trent | No offense Che, but John carries more weight. All he has to do is to link a transcript of the legal documents to his front page and Mr. Legal looks like an ass for years to come. That would do far more damage than some silly message posted by a user that got him in the hissyfit in the first place. |
| Sun 02 Mar 23:50 | MadMan | Should you censor content? Do you want to?
If I posted a message here saying '[xyz] is a wanker and spends his day jerking off', would you take it down?
I think the test you need to apply is whether in addition to profanity or defamatory remarks, is the comment adding anything useful? If it's just there to abuse someone else, get rid of it. Why pollute the excellent community at Webword?
Proper criticism is fine. In fact, it's welcome. If I say, 'John is wrong about this because...', that shouldn't be censored, even if it could potentially make John look like an idiot. |
|
| Usability Glossary | Sat 01 Mar |
| This page allows you to browse or search the Usability First glossary, which currently has 1050 active terms! (Comments: HCI Bibliography) |
| Sat 01 Mar 22:23 | daniel szuc | What a fantastic resource! Thank you Gary. |
| Sun 02 Mar 22:51 | Brandon | And this is useful for who? This industry needs to speak to clients, not to each other, if it wants to be taken seriously. |
|
| Benefit From It | Fri 28 Feb |
| If a web site or a system isnt usable, no amount of artistry or technical cleverness will entice people to use it. (Comments: What do you think about dashes in URLs?) |
| Fri 28 Feb 07:50 | Anonymous | dashes don't bother me, but having to navigate by clicking tiny little '+' signs in the folder menu does.
And while 'no amount of artistry or technical cleverness will entice people to use it', people use what we would deem 'unusable' software or systems every day. They are 'enticed' by the promise of a paycheck, and the threat of a pink slip. |
| Fri 28 Feb 08:34 | Joshua Kaufman | Dashes don't bother me either, they just look childish. Imagine if webword.com was web-word.com. It's like saying, 'We think you're too stupid to figure out where the first word ends and the second word begins so we're going to help you out a bit.' |
| Fri 28 Feb 09:16 | Frank Lynch | OK, everyone, don't click: look at this URL, decide what you think the site relates to, and then click. OK? (Not quite as effective as I would like because this discussion already has a context...)
www.coned.com |
| Fri 28 Feb 09:54 | Don Hameluck | I debated over using a dash in my own URL, fearing the scenario where I had to state my email address or URL verbally and having to explain the dash ('That's 'DH dash, no, don't spell it out, just use the dash symbol--you know, the hyphen?!'). However, like Frank's observation, my company name just looked and sounded dumb without it: dhusability.com. I felt the dash was the lesser evil. |
| Fri 28 Feb 10:19 | Alan Fisher | Frank, I guessed right - do I get a prize? And I don't even live in the USA!
Although, the fact that you were posing the question made me think that it wasn't something obvious. Like ice-cream cones or something.
On the subject of hyphens in URLs, we've had to resort to this for clients a couple of times because the name they wanted wasn't available, and it was the closest we could get. Doesn't apply in this case though, because www.benefitfromit.com IS available. |
| Fri 28 Feb 11:25 | Anonymous | Joshua, I think dashes are a smashing idea. Until you pointed it out, I always thought 'webword' was Scandinavian for 'we bword,' meaning 'we bored' and that's why we look at John's links every day.
Frank, I thought coned.com stood for CONvict EDucation. You know, a training program for wannabe criminals. |
| Fri 28 Feb 11:25 | Anonymous | Simple test: Cure-For-Cancer.com. It isn't a usable URL form, but has that certain something usability fold dance around. No amount of usability will save a site bogged down in me-too, unimaginative, mass produced sameness. Which forces the 5,862nd Usability Site on the web, hyphenation not withstanding, to be rather boring. |
| Fri 28 Feb 14:55 | Frank Lynch | This is offtrack, but IIRC the really doofusy thing about coned.com is this... 'Con Ed' is the colloquial name for 'Con Edison,' which is short for 'Consolidated Edison.' So a user trying to get to the site either has to experiment with url's or do a web search... I experimented with url's and found that coned.com was a subsite within conedison.com. Consumers were 'meant' to use coned.com, and corporations were meant to use conedison.com. But how was a user to know? (This situation may no longer hold true.) |
| Fri 28 Feb 14:59 | Lydia | Frank, I thought it had something to do with a Dan Akroyd skit. :)
I run into URLs like that all the time, and it always makes me wonder what the person who set it up was thinking. It just doesn't sound right, and it isn't very evocative. conedison.com would have been better (if it were available) or something along those lines.
Then there are companies who turn their internally used short names for themselves into a URL, when the more recognizable (but longer) name was available. Shorter isn't always better, especially when your customers don't relate to the name. |
| Fri 28 Feb 16:06 | John S. Rhodes | 'Frank, I thought it had something to do with a Dan Akroyd skit. :)'
I thought the same thing Lydia. Say 'co ned' with your nose plugged and you have Cone Head. Ha! |
| Fri 28 Feb 17:01 | suchmaschinen optimierung | I wonder why most americans have such problems with dashes, here in germany they are quite common. But the most important aspect - they are sometimes very usable as a search engine optimization technique. Guess why my domain uses two of them.
Often the URLs with dashes are more readable, solve ambiguities etc - so I really like them ;-) |
| Fri 28 Feb 18:05 | Lydia | Ooh, Frank, I must have been writing my entry at the same time as you, so thanks for the conedison/coned explanation.
Heh heh.. good one, John. I think I was doing that, too! |
| Fri 28 Feb 21:37 | Lyle Kantrovich | Dashes were in fashion before the dot com boom. You don't see too many new domains using them though. It was one of those things that almost took off as commonplace, but clearly, without dashes has become the norm.
Dashes are evil. |
| Sat 01 Mar 08:38 | MadMan | OK, here's a riddle: which site has a dash in its domain name but doesn't? ;)
(oh c'mon, think a few seconds more)
Why, this one of course. :) |
| Sat 01 Mar 16:49 | Frank Lynch | Here's another ink blot test for you (USA! USA! USA!):
www.usavegelt.com |
| Sun 02 Mar 13:06 | Gerald | The link-anchor text 'Benefit from it' at the top of this site doesn'r really match - 'Benefit from IT' would have been more accurate. Sometimes small differences in letter size or usage of dashes make some greater difference in the meaning of web-words ;-) |
|
| Iris recognition helps to prevent ID fraud | Sat 01 Mar |
| While not perfect, it is the safest, cheapest, most user-friendly and accurate form of identification available in the world today, a Sydney conference on identity fraud was told. |
| Sun 02 Mar 11:56 | Anonymous | Iris recognition makes sense if you're guilelessly utopian, but it fails to contemplate how this technology will manifest itself in the core framework. Namely, victims of ID fraud will be walking around with no depth perception. |
|
| Why the Apple Newton Failed | Sat 01 Mar |
| Unfortunately, Apple failed to implement key customer requirements uncovered during market research for the design phase of the product. Because Apple ignored its customers demands, the Newton was a failure from the start. (Comments: Five Years Later, Newton Still Going Strong. Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Sat 01 Mar 22:48 | daniel szuc | Its interesting to watch some of current mobile/PDA companies heading in the same direction - with a strong marketing and features, features, features approach and faster release of models; but perhaps losing sight of customer needs and use. Thoughts? |
| Sun 02 Mar 10:03 | Anonymous | There is a classic disconnect between engineering and marketing, it seems from this article. How you choose to correct that, if it exits in another project and company, is an issue. The product is, at best, a symptom of what is going on within the company culture. This idea of speed to release the wrong product as being competitive is the business cotribution to failure.
I would say, from this article, both marketing, engineering and business cultures contributed equally to the failure. |
|
| The minimal compact: An open-source constitution for post-national states | Fri 28 Feb |
| (V-2) Im gonna get my deep geek on here, and go public with something Ive been putting a great deal of thought and effort into lately: apropos of many recent discussions of emergent democracy, heres a proposal - a minifesto, if you will - for the constitution of virtual, post-national states. (Comments: Thanks Alexander Delarge.) |
| Sat 01 Mar 11:13 | Adam Greenfield | John, 'Alex deLarge' was the name of Malcolm McDowell's character in *A Clockwork Orange*, right? I smell...well, not a rat, a link is a link and every link counts, but I very deliberately didn't send this your way because it has precious little to do with usability. What gives? |
| Sat 01 Mar 11:51 | Anonymous | I thought it was a wonderful exercise in writing 4,096 words without saying much of substance, except perhaps to demonstrate a semi-exotic vocabulary under inapropriate circumstances. |
| Sat 01 Mar 12:45 | Cecil |
'registry for prospective enactment by other signatory communities, or potentially adoption into the core framework.'
'Provided thusly, could manifest in and adapt to widely separated locations and contexts'
'it is already easy to caricature this project as guilelessly utopian.'
'it reads like an overly ambitious first-year law student's essay.'
I wonder if John read this document before linking to it. I wonder if the author sat with a thesaurus on his lap so he could use interesting words to seemingly elevate the importance of his speech. |
| Sat 01 Mar 22:47 | Adam Greenfield | - Nope, Cecil, sorry, it was almost completely stream of consciousness. I grew up the son of a lawyer and I can write like that at the drop of a hat. (I can also do pretty good pastiches of academic theorist, military, retromarxist, and so on. It's like ventriloquism.)
- 'Know your audience.' The people who need most to integrate such ideas into the corpus of their thought write, read, and maybe even think in this kind of language.
- You may think it's silly, I don't. Talk to me in a hundred years and we'll see who's right. In the meantime, I doubt you can think of any critique that I haven't already anticipated. I know the thing is full of holes, but I also thought the idea was valid enough that simply getting it out there and letting other, better minds work it was worthwhile.
Judging from my inbox, the supposition was correct. Sorry if it didn't work for you; I hope you at least got a chuckle out of it or otherwise found your time not completely wasted in reading it. |
|
| Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer | Sat 01 Mar |
| Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured. (Comments: Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health) |
| Sat 01 Mar 16:46 | John S. Rhodes | U.S. Eugenics Like Nazi Policy (ABC News, 2000) -- “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind,” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in the majority opinion of a landmark eugenics case in 1926. |
| Sat 01 Mar 22:34 | daniel szuc | Perhaps we are all stupid as we are all continuing to learn :) |
|
| Are guidelines useless? | Wed 26 Feb |
| (Elegant Hack) You know what? I think beginner designers are the ones who should be kept away from guidelines, as far as possible. Instead, they should work on looking at usable designs, and designing, and seeing their designs tested and retested (in the words of the great homer simpson, lather rinse repeat. always repeat.). (Comments: Christina, it is Dr. Nielsen; never forget! Wink wink, nudge nudge.) |
| Thu 27 Feb 10:05 | Philip Chalmers | 'Are guidelines useless' does a very efficient job of burning straw men.
In large organisations beginner designers do not operate alone, they have mentors - and probably lots of guidelines as well, so that their designs fit into a small range of familiar patterns and the users don't have to spent time solving puzzles.
The majority of sites designed by individuals and small companies would better if they observed some sensible guidelines.
The point of guidelines is mainly to help people up the learning curve - eventually they'll learn how / when to bend the rules, but until then guidelines can save them from a lot of mistakes. |
| Thu 27 Feb 15:38 | Jason Fried | There's nothing wrong with a guideline here and there. It's a great place to start the conversation about a particular feature, addition, usage, element, etc. There's also no reason to reinvent the wheel each time. As long as you realize that there are exceptions to every rule then you should be fine. |
| Sat 01 Mar 13:50 | MadMan | You gotta know the rules before you can break 'em. ;) |
|
| Is Microsoft deliberately sabotaging their user experience? | Fri 28 Feb |
| (Croc o Lyle) I believe Capitalism works, I dont think Microsoft is evil, and I dont use Opera, but after reading Opera borks MSN in standards spat I cant say Im impressed with the folks at Microsoft and MSN. |
| Fri 28 Feb 07:42 | MadMan | I think some fool at MSN is under the delusion that they have a monopoly on Internet Web pages too. :p |
| Fri 28 Feb 10:29 | Anonymous | 'I believe Capitalism works'
'I don't think Microsoft is evil'
Based on these two statements, why would I even want to consider reading what else this author is trying to say? There is a concept called common-sense, which results from an informed comprehension of things as they truly are, combined with critical thinking and deductive reasoning, which undeniably renders both of these statements demonstrably false. Despite a lack of context for the authors definitions of 'works' and 'evil', adhering to commonly accepted standards of meaning assigned to the terms makes their use in the above sentiments uninformed at best, illogical at worst. Why promote the opinions of one who dispenses an uninformed opinion? Better yet, why continue such illogic? Unless, of course, the aim is entertainment and not insight... |
| Fri 28 Feb 11:28 | Anonymous | Now say that again, this time in English. |
| Fri 28 Feb 11:41 | Anonymous | 'I believe Capitalism works'
This works from the confusion we live under free markets -- we don't.
'I don't think Microsoft is evil'
Never attribute evil intent with myopia and/or general grade stupidity. Microsoft simply does not care about other people's standards for the same reason the American Congress exempts itself from many of the laws it passes -- they're too inconvenient. |
| Fri 28 Feb 12:36 | Anonymous | Myopia and 'too inconvenient' are very different causes.
If by 'general grade stupidity' you're arguing Microsoft acts out of dumbness, you have quite a case yet to make, my man. Everything Microsoft does is according to a plan.
If by myopia you mean Microsoft acts out of ignorance, that is perhaps the worst sort of danger... a giant troll walking through a china (ceramic dishware) store knocking over cases left and right, and trampling the patrons, unaware of the damage being caused -- and -- not caring even if it was aware. |
| Fri 28 Feb 13:47 | Anonymous | Let me guess, Mr. Anonymous. You should wandered over here from SlashCrap, er, Slashdot, didn't you? Sorry, this is the wrong place for your 'Microsoft is evil and Bill is Satan' campaign. Sure, they do lots of stupid things, but dismissing a person just because he doesn't share your hatred of Microsoft is well, very Slashdot-like.
What you're doing is the logical fallacy of personal attack.
Now, if you want to say something about the article itself, say it. |
| Fri 28 Feb 13:48 | Anonymous | It could also be categorised as Poisoning the well |
| Fri 28 Feb 15:39 | Anonymous | Microsoft, any company really, has only so many things it can focus on. Standards ain't it. Bill can do only so much micro management. At this point he isn't the driving force on more than a small handful of very narrow issues -- corporate cultural momentum is.
Slapping a 'Microsoft is evil and Bill is Satan' sticker on the post when it isn't applicable (and specifically suggests neither good nor evil apply) is, uh, interesting. Bill can't be anything, given the assumption of cultural momentum. That outside standards are not within Microsoft's sphere of interest is not too incendiary a charge. And it would seem to work either way, depending on whether you think Microsoft smart or not. Or whether you can apply an attribute 'smartness' to any large collection of individuals.
Evil suggests a guiding intelligence, which is more comfortable but doesn't seem to explain very much -- especially not this article. An article where the author seems genuinely puzzled because the term evil (even evil self-interest) doesn't seem to apply.
I once read, somewhere, Mitnick (evil super hacker) described as not especially bright, which surprised me. Instead the observer noted something else -- persistence. An attribute, when fueled with enough of either spare time or cash, or both, might have a striking resemblance to intelligence.
BTW, myopia and inconvenience many times go hand in hand. |
| Fri 28 Feb 16:21 | Anonymous | Evil depends on concessionists. Without them it would be recognized and die.
By the way, which post is being referred to as being from Mr. Anonymous? Please post the message number (counted from the top). |
| Fri 28 Feb 17:14 | Anonymous | I am referring to comment #2, where the poster dismissed Lyle's argument simply because he says 'I don't think Microsoft is evil'
See 'Poisoning the well' link mentioned earlier |
| Sat 01 Mar 00:12 | Mark | Now that everyone's gone off half-cocked, it might interest those who remained cool-headed to know that this may be an honest mistake intended to fix an Opera 6.0 bug: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=53008&cid=5243652
Note that this evidence is anecdotal; a cursory search didn't turn up any corroboration. |
|
| WebWord Comment | Wed 26 Feb |
| Before you send me another freakin chain letter, go to Snopes. While you are there, check out the navigation and the icons. Do you like it, or not? |
| Thu 27 Feb 02:28 | Michael Hanscom | I've gotten in the habit of passing out this address - http://www.djwudi.com/longletter/archives/2002/08/30/things_to_remember_while_emailing.php - to people who send me this stuff. It seems to cut down on some of the crap I'm sent. |
| Thu 27 Feb 09:20 | Joshua Kaufman | Better advice is to never send chain letters. I don't care who they're from, I treat chain letters the same way I treat spam. Except when I receive a chain letter, I sometimes reply to the person who sent it to me telling them that if I wanted to read what they sent, I would have found it myself. Then I point them to Anil's classic article, Pardon Me For Being Forward. |
| Thu 27 Feb 10:43 | Matt Round | Glurge |
| Thu 27 Feb 11:41 | Anonymous | OK, I'll be the first to respond to the actual question.
The icons are ridiculous. They slow my skimming of the link names, increase the download time and do nothing for me in terms of my experience or feelings about the site. No wait, they do affect me -- they annoy me. I would not trust SNOPES as an authoritative source when it looks so childish.
Also, the black nav bar needs hover effects. Whooo, hover. |
| Thu 27 Feb 17:53 | Lydia | My favorite part of 'Pardon me for being forward' is this line:
My answer to your questionnaire is: No. My favorite color is: No. My favorite song is: No. |
| Thu 27 Feb 18:05 | Lydia | Oh, and regarding Snopes: I have always hated their navigation. Most people who swear by the site (as I do) have chuckled over their poor design for years. That doesn't change the fact that it is an excellent collection of information.
I trust Snopes because they established their online reputation when their site design was still considered fairly modern, or at least not as jarring as it is today, and because I appreciate the content even if the delivery is a little off. I'm not about to complain about a free reference site, especially when it is put together by only a few people (or maybe just the site owner).
I wonder if there is any way to prove that the same people who forward things by e-mail are also the same people who just don't get that the best way to prevent viruses is not to open attachments? (They must be the ones constantly forwarding virus alerts!) |
| Thu 27 Feb 21:21 | Adam Greenfield | Actually, Snopes is rather authoritative, cheesy look aside. |
| Thu 27 Feb 21:50 | Anonymous | I did not say SNOPES is unauthoritative. I said, 'I would not trust SNOPES as an authoritative source when it looks so childish.' In simple English that means, 'To be taken seriously, it's important to look serious.'
When people send me SNOPES-worthy spam, I tell them to first verify the claim via an authoritative web site (and then simply send people the link). I'm afraid average people would look at SNOPES and wonder what floofy soccer mom had created it. |
| Thu 27 Feb 23:46 | Frank Lynch | What I hate about Snopes is the frames. The information is valuable, but it takes extra work to get the link to the target frame info so you can send it to anyone. |
| Fri 28 Feb 14:50 | Lydia | That's a good point, Frank. It's particularly bothersome because the frame really isn't necessary, at least from the user standpoint. It reminds me of situations where something is done because it was too hard to do the better, more usable, alternative. |
|
| WebWord Comment | Mon 24 Feb |
| Chapter 2: Flow in Web Design |
| Fri 28 Feb 13:04 | Ralph | That guy with the crazy name who wrote Flow is one of my heros. I loved that book, because Flow is a beautiful thing. |
|
| What Your Customers Hate About Your Web Site | Thu 27 Feb |
| The problem often is that management and tech support are so familiar with the site that they think it is easy to use. Then there are, of course, those companies that simply do not want to invest time or financial resources into their Web sites or online customer relationship technologies an entirely different breed of company altogether. |
| Fri 28 Feb 01:45 | Anonymous | Costco and Compaq are good examples.
I read news articles hyping new Compaq laptops with good pricing and feature sets being sold through Costco. I visit Costco, but the only details about the laptops are tidbits printed on a price card meant for display.
I have two choices:
a) Route around in the Control Panel of the display laptop and examine every exterior port to figure out the specs. No thanks, I'm not that patient or savvy.
b) Look for specs on Compaq and Costco web sites. Costco.com doesn't have information about its in-store products. It's pretty much a standalone sales site with a different product set than the physical stores. I e-mail Compaq.com asking for specs on the models sold at Costco. I receive an e-mail telling me to call a represenative. What, so I can get a sales pitch on some other model Compaq will sell me directly? I told the company what I wanted and they chose not to give it to me. I eventually found at Compaq.com (I think) the model sold at Costco stores (the pricing information directs me to a page to locate a local retail outlet). So why didn't Compaq's customer rep refer me to the product I wanted to buy?
In the end, I'm not buying any computer equipment from Costco. Compaq's customer service and lack of clear labeling on its web site and Costco's clueless disconnected-from-brick'n'mortar-operations web site annoy the heck out of me. |
| Fri 28 Feb 04:46 | Philip Chalmers | A couple of years ago The Economist's survey of e-commerce said the main cause of failure was channel conflicts and internal turf wars. Companies are inhibited by the fear of competition between their established outlets and the new ones (and of conflicts between the sales / marketing managers responsible for different channels) so they avoid the problem by offering different products in different channels.
That may explain Sally's problems with Costco & Compaq. |
| Fri 28 Feb 10:28 | Alan Fisher | The article holds Amazon up as a paragon of usability. Whilst I'd agree they're one of the best sites which I use regularly, I find it surprising that their usability 'score' has increased recently, as there are two recent developments on the site which I think have made things worse.
First, the drop-down graphics which appear whenever I visit the home page, sliding out from under the main menu bar. They're an unwanted distraction, often concealing something I DO want to look at. And PopUpCop doesn't stop them.
Second, I can't seem to move on the site now without Amazon pushing clothing in my face. This ranges from the constant glossy pictures in the sidebars to the ridiculous 'customers who wear clothes also like...' prompts. If anyone from Amazon is reading - I will NEVER buy clothes from you or any other online source. Books, CDs, DVDs are fine, because it's 'one size fits all'. Clothes are different - I'll stick to real shops, thanks. Personally, I view this as the first indication that Amazon might be taking their eye off the ball. |
| Fri 28 Feb 11:31 | Anonymous | Try Proxomitron. I don't see any moving menus. But then again, numerous page elements have been tagged as advertising, so there's a lot at Amazon I'm not seeing. Strangely enough, none of what I'm missing appears to be important. |
|
| Unhappy Meals | Sun 23 Feb |
| (Mother Jones) At a time when weight-related illnesses in children are escalating, schools are serving kids the very foods that lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. |
| Mon 24 Feb 12:10 | Francis Wu | Kids need excercise, period. Put'em on the treadmill, aka 'conveyor belt of health'. 'nuff said. |
| Tue 25 Feb 03:07 | Mac | Free* school meals for all kids, that are balanced, healthy and nutritious.
* When I say free, I of course mean paid for out of general taxation. Or perhaps we could introduce a fast-food tax to pay for it? |
| Tue 25 Feb 15:42 | Lydia | I think if parents could allocate funds directly to cafeteria refurbishment, they probably would do more about the deplorable situation in most schools today. However, unless something has changed since my school days, they can't, and they are smart enough to realize that if you give schools more money they will spend it on badly needed supplies rather than upping the cafeteria budget.
Hopefully kids are getting better nutrition at home, or brown-bagging it with something more healthy than what they can get in school. |
| Wed 26 Feb 13:45 | JB | It is to blame everyone else except ourselves.
All parents have a responsibility to bring their children up correctly and this includes general health and nutrition - don't hand this responsibility off to the school system and expect them to do it for you!
If the food is of low quality at school make lunch for them |
| Wed 26 Feb 14:36 | Anonymous | Got kids, JB? |
| Wed 26 Feb 19:26 | Anonymous | All parents have a responsibility to educate their children correctly - don't hand this responsibility off to the school system and expect them to do it for you!
If the teaching is of low quality at school stay home and teach them yourself.
Neat logic, huh JB? |
| Thu 27 Feb 09:06 | Boyink | Speaking as a parent (not sure how many others here are) it would be nice, at some level, to think that a school would have both your kids physical and intellectual needs covered in at least a minimally-acceptable way.
I've 2 kids, and while it's easy to just say 'make them lunch yourself' it would sure be frustating to think that after paying the taxes, and worrying about the curriculum, the teacher, the number of kids in the classroom, the possibility of classroom/playground violence that the durn school could at least put together a basic nutritional meal.
I say 'would be frustrating' because we have, in fact, choosen to stay at home and teach (and feed) them ourselves. |
| Thu 27 Feb 21:39 | Lydia | I see school lunch programs as a support to parental efforts for good nutrition. If were as easy as 'pack a bag lunch' and the problem is solved, everyone would be happy, but kids are human beings with wants and desires of their own, and the bottom line is that they can outright refuse to eat what you give them if they don't like it. Most kids want variety.
Giving them a cold bag lunch every day (since most schools don't have a facility for a child to warm something up) isn't going to work - there is only so much tuna, lunchmeat, or PB&J a kid will take before they trade it or buy something else. And what kid can resist the lure a hot meal that is at least fresly prepared when he has a tuna sandwich in his bag that has been at room temperature for most of the day?
(I know I'm not the person on the planet who was a picky eater as a kid and continues to be as an adult!)
The reality is that kids are required by law to attend school, so unless you can jump through the hoops required to educate your children at home, you should be able to expect that the school will provide a reasonable meal for your child, since you give them the taxes to do so and trust them with the care of your child for the day.
I don't expect schools to discipline errant behavior or be responsible if my kid saw an Internet site he shouldn't have, but I would expect reasonable precautions in place to minimize problems, and I see school lunches as being a similar situation - I don't expect to see a certified nutritionist observing daily meal preparation, but I at least don't want lard mixed into the meatloaf. |
| Fri 28 Feb 07:56 | Anonymous | 'The reality is that kids are required by law to attend school, so unless you can jump through the hoops required to educate your children at home'
Just to be exact, the 'hoops' required to homeschool differ by state. Here in Michigan there are as of yet, no hoops. And we're fighting to keep it that way..;) |
|
| The "Proof" for Usability's ROI: Statistics and Examples | Sat 22 Feb |
| Because there have been many well-documented examples of cost savings with usability engineering, sound statistics can be applied generally to UI development. These statistics serve as benchmarks. |
| Mon 24 Feb 23:07 | daniel szuc | Mac, like the zoom into where you live. Into the 'Mac World' so to speak ... |
| Fri 28 Feb 03:05 | Mac | Daniel, its there to 'prove' I am a real person who lives in a real place and not just a web construct. |
|
| Fake Police Cars | Wed 26 Feb |
| Ukranian traffic police have decided to use imitation as a method of preventing speeding and hope to reduce the number of car accidents. |
| Thu 27 Feb 10:38 | shinya | This is an old idea.
One can find them all over Japan. They've had them for decades. Most of them buried in creeping roadside weeds...
Problem with this idea is that the imitations are a high maintenance, to be effective to far sighted driver like myself, they would have to change the imitations frequently, at least every few years or so, to keep up with the police car model changes... |
| Thu 27 Feb 14:36 | Richard Lehoux | In Canada, we have fake policeman in real car. I mean, that's what I think of the last one who gave me a ticket... :) |
|
| WebWord Comment | Wed 26 Feb |
| I bought a new wringle-free shirt today. I opened it up. It was wrinkled. |
| Thu 27 Feb 07:26 | Mac | You should have bought a wrinkle free shirt instead. |
| Thu 27 Feb 08:38 | John S. Rhodes | Wringle = Pargh! |
| Thu 27 Feb 14:24 | Anonymous | John, 'wrinkle-free' means the store is not charging extra for the wrinkles.
Fashion timeline:
1) Ripped-knee jeans.
2) Oversized jeans that sag at the waist and envelope the shoes.
3) Artificial dirt-stained jeans. Mmm, look at her butt.
4) Pre-wrinkled shirts.
Fashion had to come to shirts some day, John. Embrace it. |
|
| Getting Creative With Specs: Usable Software Specifications | Tue 25 Feb |
| (B & A) An effective, usable spec therefore serves two main purposes: First, it elicits feedback early, which helps to avoid problems and misunderstandings later on. Its especially important that clients are able to identify any missing functionality in the design, for example. Second, an effective spec ensures the software stays in line with the designers intentions as it?s built—in other words, the spec is precise enough that a competent engineer will build the interface as it was designed. |
| Thu 27 Feb 10:30 | Philip Chalmers | At first I thought 'Get real!'. Then towards the end I realised that 'usable specs' are pretty much what I use when I'm developing something for my own use, and I bet most others do the same. But in a large corporate environment - unlikely. And for out-sourced development - no chance, I think.
Let's consider out-sourced development first. In this situation a spec is part of a contract, and may become the basis of a lawsuit. A loose spec is an invitation to a developer to play the extremely profitable change control game - interpret the spec in a way which is of little use to the client then charge the earth for the changes. And the legal world likes single large documents because once they're printed (preferably multiple copies) it's easy to track them and hard to tamper with them, so they're far better evidence than anything electronic.
Unfortunately the same sort of adversarial situation seems to crop up in aspects of all projects in large organisations - some people want to hold the project to ransom (as US Senate comittee chairmen do with legislation), some don't want to commit themselves until they're sure it's going to succeed but then come along with a ton of new requirements, some just don't have a clear idea what they need, etc.
Traditional specs will with us for as long as there's any risk of adversarial elements in projects - for ever, I fear. |
|
| Starting a Career in User Experience | Tue 25 Feb |
| (Adaptive Path) This article is based upon my own experience transitioning from a career in corporate-world project management into the field of user experience design. With dedication, some talent, a few classes, and a healthy dose of self-promotion, the transition was fairly easy, very enjoyable, and took about two years. I have outlined a few key points to consider if you are planning to start a career in user experience design. (Comments: Via iaslash) |
| Wed 26 Feb 19:25 | Anonymous | Of course the first obstacle for having a career in user experience is finding people who actually A) understand what the heck that is and B)are willing to pay for it.
Probably a whole heckuva lot easier in SF than just about anywhere else in the country. |
| Thu 27 Feb 07:39 | Alan Fisher | Of course, it makes it more difficult to explain what it is if you insist on using words like 'transitioning'. What's wrong with 'changing'? |
|
| home page | Sun 23 Feb |
| and CV. He has published a ton of excellent articles including a recent article on usability and open source software (PDF). Hes a smart cookie, and he is interested in many things we care about. Michael is waiting for our interview questions so fire away! For every good interview question you ask (Im the judge), I will give you one chance to win a book of my choice. (If your name is pulled, Ill ship it to you for free!) Ill send the best questions to Dr. Twidale to answer. Im going to send him our questions and pull the winner of the free book on Wednesday. |
| Mon 24 Feb 14:22 | Manu Sharma | Without meaning to sound condescending, may I politely ask how the research you do is utilized and whether any successful commercial products have been developed based on/inspired from this research? |
| Mon 24 Feb 23:46 | allen smith | I'm curious as to whether you've given any thought to the shrinking interface of wireless connected mobile devices: smart phones, wireless PDAs, thin-client devices, etc. Not only is there the obvious scaling down of screen space, but there's also the challenge of how to handle dropped packets, connections, and so forth from a user-interface perspective (e.g., do you make the user reload, suspend the app., end it, etc.). My question is: What do you see as the number one challenge facing the usability of these mobile devices and how do you propose that challenge will be overcome? |
| Tue 25 Feb 08:04 | Tom Altman | It seems like much of the people involved in internet development talk about the design and implementation of usable websites, but seldom practice usability. Do you think usability will become a part of mainstream internet development and not just used as a buzz word? |
| Tue 25 Feb 09:24 | Si Cox | Most usability research concentrates on the initial visit. Have you any advise or research focussed on the user's 50th visit to a site? |
| Tue 25 Feb 13:32 | MadMan | 1) How would you test for situations that were never envisioned at the time of development? People using products in unexpected ways isn't uncommon.
2) What is your opinion on the reliablity of usability tests, given that usability experts can't even seem to agree on what the major usability problems are. |
| Wed 26 Feb 10:23 | Naveen | When's the last date for questions? |
| Wed 26 Feb 11:40 | John S. Rhodes | All questions are due by the end of today (Wednesday 26-Feb-2003). Thanks! |
|
| WebWord Comment | Tue 25 Feb |
| Is KlipFolio a news aggregator? |
| Wed 26 Feb 09:13 | Shane | Looks like it can be used in that way...
From README.TXT...
'RSS & RDF parsers now handle more robust and fault-tolerant.' |
|
| WebWord Comment | Tue 25 Feb |
| Power lines! |
| Tue 25 Feb 22:34 | Anonymous | I dislike the Confuse a Cat navigation. More link descriptions please. |
|
| Talking About the Elements of User Experience | Mon 17 Feb |
| (WebWord) A positive user experience is one in which the goals of both the user and the organization that created the product are met. Usability is one attribute of a successful user experience, but usability alone does not make an experience positive for the user. (Comments: This is an interview with Jesse James Garrett, based on this WebWord posting. Thanks to everyone, especially JJG.) |
| Tue 25 Feb 17:17 | Zef | Thanks for the links folks - got there in the end. |
|
| Key technology predictions | Mon 24 Feb |
| (ZDNet) Advanced interface metaphors will improve the information supply. Improved personalization, search, and browsing capabilities will elevate human-computer interaction to a pull metaphor, rather than the push approach of earlier decades. (Comments: Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Tue 25 Feb 17:15 | Ron Zeno | LOL. Wonder where they found this. Sounds like something written a decade ago, with 'browsing' added.
What does it mean, 'Advanced interface metaphors will improve the information supply'? |
|
| Employee Directory Search: Resolving Conflicting Usability Guidelines | Mon 24 Feb |
| (useit.com) When in doubt, you can always run a user test. |
| Tue 25 Feb 01:22 | Chris Harr | I'm responsible for our company's intranet and still sometimes find value in Jakob's writings (like his latest one), although in general they seem to be on a slow, downhill slide. I wonder what he would say about the three search boxes we have built into our intranet's navigation bar. Originally, it had only one search box that was used to search our entire intranet - htm, pdf, doc, xls, etc. Although our intranet is quite large (over 25,000 documents) and is fairly well utilized (over 240,000 page views per month), it isn't heavily database driven, therefore, our search function doesn't index or catalog them.
However, we created a company phone directory that is database driven and very heavily utilized. Employees' first and last names, among other identifiers, are stored in individual database fields. That way, users can search for a person by their first and/or last name, or just part of either name. Originally, we created a link - Phone Book - on the top navigation bar that took users to a phone book search page which presented the user the ability to search by name, by department, or by physical location (we have factories all over the eastern US). In order to deliver this type of search flexibility, we created a phone book search page with multiple but clearly labeled search fields, including first and last name. By analyzing our log files, we saw that the vast majority of phone book searches were by the first/last name option. The only phone book related complaint we received from our users was that they had to follow an extra link to do a phone book search. Further analysis of our log files showed that a significant number of people were using the phone book search page as their entry point to the intranet thereby missing the daily updated news and information on the intranet homepage. Needless to say, this concerned us.
In order to address both the users concerns and our own concerns, we mocked up a revised homepage that added clearly labeled first and last name search boxes underneath the existing link to the phone book in our top navigation bar. We tested with 10 users and got a unanimous approval. We quickly took the change and put it into production. We have never had a more overwhelmingly positive reaction from so many people regarding an intranet enhancement - and we have three search boxes. Just don't tell Jakob. |
| Tue 25 Feb 02:51 | Mac | Re: 'seem to be on a slow, downhill slide'
So far in 2003 the 6 Alertbox Articles published contain 24 links, 15 of which are sales links to NNGroup, 8 are links to useit.com pages and only 1 link to an external site. (See 'The Day Alertbox Died')
Re : Directories. We have a directory for 12,000 employees that is searched about 50,000 times a week. We use a drop down list that allows the search to be scoped to People, Department, Branch, Area, Intermediary and Agency. The vast majority of searches are for people.
We allow for first/last name searches by parsing the input. If there is only one word in the search terms then we assume a lastname, if there are more than one term then we assusme a firstname lastname, on the rare occasions when someone needs to search for all people called chris then you can search for chris *, you can search on any partial name so a search for c m would find Chris McEvoy (along with another 119 people).
In addition we only return one page of results (one line per person), rather than paged results. We display a maximum of 200 results from any search, so that if someone searches for a (all people with a surname beginning with a) which matches 556 people, we only display the first 200 matches and ask the user to 'try a more specific search'. Because no-one is actually going to look at 500 results to find a person, no-one has ever had a problem with this method of displaying results, because no-one would ever trawl through all of the actual results. Google also rely on this 'behaviour' to get away with only ever giving us 1000 results from any search.
We found that this option was easier for people to understand than having a separate box for firstname, lastname.
We are doing some work on making all of our searches work via one search box. We are trying to identify what type of search they want from analysing that they type into the search box. I think it is possible to do this in an Intranet environment where the scope of searches is much narrower than internet searches.
So my guideline would be: Use as few search boxes as you possibly can, with none being the optimum number. |
|
| Call me a Luddite, but I say Palm Pilots must die | Sun 23 Feb |
| You have to have a Palm Pilot to place an order. (Comments: Via LucDesk.) |
| Mon 24 Feb 05:50 | Philip Chalmers | If it's that important I write it in my pocket diary, which never needs re-charging and is more readable (to me anyway!) in poor light. |
| Mon 24 Feb 16:41 | libertarian | A bad customer service experience doesn't equate to all technology that one personally doesn't like should be banned. Maybe I like a filofax, let me use it. Maybe I like something else. Don't dictate my choice to me. |
| Mon 24 Feb 18:16 | Jimmy Twonuggets | 1) The notepad. It cramps my hand during sustained use. I can't share the notepad with anyone else because no one can read my handwriting and it makes me look unprofessional. The information is locked away, requiring rescribbling, or rekeying, to transfer to another medium. Laptops rock.
2) The ice-cube tray. Refilling the tray with water is a chore. Whenever I need ice, the damn tray is near empty. What ice is there is only half there because it's begun to evaporate and take on that nasty 'old ice' taste. Automatic ice makers rock. I control ice output with a switch. The machine does what I want when I want it.
3) Books. I am forced to scribble notes on my notepad regarding key sections so I can easily return to them later. I also permanently deface numerous sections with a yellow highlighter with extra notes. The book is rendered an extreme annoyance for anyone other than me because of my graffiti. Electronic books will rock. Search, index, annotate, manipulate. I gleefully await the day all text is available electronically, and all monitors have better-than-paper resolution so the whiners can't bitch about eyestrain. I never understood that complaint either. Use good area lighting and increase the monitor brightness and you're good to go.
4) The traditional letter. I have to grab my notepad to look up the sender's address. I get papercuts handling the paper and envelope and the horse glue tastes nasty. I never have stamps around, or the postage rate has gone up and I need extra 3 cent stamps. So I'm forced to drive to the post office to buy stamps and mail the envelope which will probably arrive late, or worse, get lost. Postal mail is such a pain in the ass that anything I do send is months late because I keep putting off the chore. E-mail rocks. If you do e-mail, you hear back from me same day.
5) The gas stove. Forget about following recipes. Medium heat for 10 minutes? How high a flame constitutes medium? Should I measure the flame? Stick a thermometer in it? Gas is faster on the stovetop, but electronic is easier to follow recipes.
6) Live pets. Yeah, ok, live pets rock. The day computer pets go mainstream is the day I climb into the attic, dust off my pet brick, and let it rejoin the family unit. Same difference. |
| Mon 24 Feb 18:24 | Jimmy Twonuggets | Oh yeah... the real reason palm computers suck is that 9 out of 10 of the boobs who use them never used 'personal organizers' or 'schedulers' or notepads before buying their pocket PCs. They bought into a marketing image, techno-hype. Such a person can be succinctly described with two words: hipster doofus. |
| Mon 24 Feb 21:00 | Lydia | I like this piece, and understand the title. It seems that if you don't think all technology is better than sliced bread, you might as well be a luddite. There are certain things that we, as humans, will probably always have a sentimental feeling for and be unwilling to give up. Most of the things on the author's list, for example, have big emotional significance for most people.
Compu-pets are not intended to be 'better' than live pets. They are intended as a substitute for people who cannot own live pets for whatever reason... allergic to animals, work long hours, erratic schedule, etc. I would much rather see people owning a mechanical dog than have animals die of lonliness, neglect, or abuse.
My PDA is used approximately once a week, to look up an address or phone number or to jot a note I want to keep for a long time. I haven't used it on a daily basis for about a year, now. Paper is just easier. And books? Oh, please. Reading on a screen is hard enough, but I would miss the tactile feel of a book with pages that turn. |
| Mon 24 Feb 21:13 | MICK | it's hard to play solitaire while sitting on the crapper with a real deck of cards though |
| Mon 24 Feb 21:33 | Franky Labou | Why play solitaire on a PDA when you can reenact the glory days of Sub Scan? Can you say depth-charge? |
|
| Jupiter Report Says Companies Ignore Customer Queries | Sat 22 Feb |
| Fifty-eight percent of high income customers turn to the phone when their e-mail goes unanswered, creating a snowball effect. Companies often end up answering that one inquiry twice. (Comments: Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Mon 24 Feb 09:29 | Boyink | I had to post a gripe this week about WebTrends, who has let 2 emails slip almost a week now with no response. I contacted them on behalf of a Fortune 500 company, who is interested in spending money on more WebTrends products.
If getting sales isn't the point of having a site for WebTrends, I don't know what is. They they claim to help other companies find the business value in their web sites makes their unresponsiveness just plain ludicrious.
My bigger gripe - people who respond to emails with phone calls. There are few things I hate worse than trying to figure out how to now document that conversation and not lose the thread of the email. I've resorted to emailing the summary to myself, which just seems silly. |
| Mon 24 Feb 09:48 | Berna | I agree with Pampers McGee. Not replying to emails is the same thing as giving your phone number to the customer and pulling it off the plug.
Another thing I hate is when you email some company and get an automated reply message including all possible categories that a keyword or keywords in your email might fall under. That's totally ridiculous.
And worth mentioning while on the subhject, Amazon is usually pretty good in replying to their emails, I found.
Here's a thought though, as usability 'promoters' in our companies, should we also question customer service in our projects? Usually, in the different projects, departments and companies I've worked in, we're not even allowed to go there. Any requests or questions are simply dismissed with something along the lines of 'we'll leave that for the CS department to answer or consider...'
Doesnt good usability include good customer service? Usability doesnt end (or even begin) with just an intuitive, simple design right? When we put a 'Contact Us' button, shouldnt we be concerned about what happens when it's clicked?
What are your experiences on the Customer Service Department's territory? |
| Mon 24 Feb 10:26 | Jeff Albro | I've had this happen on several Dell support requests. I can only guess that it is cheaper for them to let me hold on an 1-800 line than to respond to an e-mail.
-Jeff |
| Mon 24 Feb 10:56 | Anonymous | Berna -
I guess I don't pitch myself as strictly a usability person, but I definitely ask, when putting together a site for a client, what the plan is for staffing the site. I am concerned about it! |
| Mon 24 Feb 11:18 | Betty | When my office upgraded to Windows XP I was prepared to make a bulk purchase of Zone Alarm Pro (firewall) because I'd used the free version at home for quite a while. When I installed the free version on XP for a demonstration, it wouldn't load after rebooting. The web site indicates it's compatible with XP, but I'll never know because the company never responded to my e-mails. Black Ice was more than happy to take my money though. Cha-ching! |
| Mon 24 Feb 15:41 | Berna | Thanks for the comment.
I dont think that any of us can be considered to be strictly a usability person. We should all be rightly concerned of how the website is staffed, and how the service is going to be provided etc. But my question is: What are the reactions you get when you ask 'Who's going to reply to the emails from the CONTACT US section?'
Do you usually find that you are 'allowed' (for lack of a better term) to comment on and suggest ways to improve the customer service experience? For instance, how the customer is notified if something in their order cannot be delivered on time. Or what the Customer Service Department is willing to do to meet the delivery date or negotiate with the customer, or providing an 800 number for the customer to be able to call if they want immediate attention... etc. |
| Mon 24 Feb 16:49 | Boyink | Sure I'm 'allowed to', at least as far as it concerns the connection between the web site and customer service. Maybe it's that I work with smaller companies, or that I once served that email meets CS role internally at a large company, but I've had very receptive audiences for that kind of coaching.
Heck, I even did a study and wrote up some guidelines to use as a marketing tool:
http://www.boyink.com/EmailCustomerService.html
Having said that I do work more in the B2B world, so have yet to deal with this area on a B2C level. |
| Mon 24 Feb 21:09 | daniel szuc | Agree Berna.
In fact, the usability/user experience of 'customer service' areas as a wholistic channel (web,phone,shops etc) is very important. I have also experienced not getting access to 'customer support' sections of companies, when these areas are probably a gold mine of obseravation in terms of - what customers are asking for, whether customer support applications actually support the interaction and for 'task scenario' generation. |
|
| ESPN redesigns with standards | Sat 22 Feb |
| (Zeldman) ESPN.com has redesigned using CSS layout. For now, the retooling is limited to the front page. Once it’s been fine-tuned, the approach will work its way into the rest of the vast site. |
| Mon 24 Feb 05:45 | Philip Chalmers | Re 'more flies with honey than vinegar', ESPN's 'upgrade' page is informative and polite, and tells users of deficient browsers that they will get more out of the web if they upgrade.
My only criticisms of it are:
* the text is small and the colour contrast poor.
* it omits K-meleon (a very good NS 6 lite for Win).
I might also be tempted to add 'It would be unfair to users of good browsers (the vast majority) to make our pages slower-loading by bloating them with work-rounds for the deficiencies of obsolete browsers.' |
| Mon 24 Feb 11:11 | Betty | I find the page insulting. YOU ARE NON-COMPLIANT. What kind of greeting is that? Definitely vinegar. |
| Mon 24 Feb 11:38 | Brad Sladebutton | Take the Wired.com approach. Show the user how broken the page looks and stick a disclaimer at the top of the page. Let the user decide if upgrading is worth their time and trouble.
Show me evidence that an bullying upgrade page spurs people to upgrade. It doesn't. It only makes them mad.
'Note: Wired News content is accessible to all versions of every browser. However, this browser may not support basic Web standards, preventing the display of our site's design details. We support the mission of the Web Standards Project in the campaign encouraging users to upgrade their browsers. (Read More)' |
| Mon 24 Feb 15:41 | Joshua Kaufman | There's nothing wrong with telling people they're using a technically obsolete browser. However '97.8% of our visitors are using a standards-compliant browser. It appears you are not.' is NOT the way to do it. The average ESPN user doesn't have a clue what 'standards compliance' means probably doesn't give a flying rat's ass what it means either.
Why not just say 'We noticed that you're using one of the following browsers: [...] While your browser may work with a majority of the sites on the Web, it will not display our redesigned website as intended due to our more advanced technologies. For this reason, we recommend that you upgrade to one of the following newer browsers...'
They couldn't have tested that upgrade page with users or else they would have realized what technoheaded baffons they were. |
| Mon 24 Feb 17:23 | Jason Fried | More discussion at Signal vs. Noise on the language used to tell people their browser is old. |
| Mon 24 Feb 17:57 | John S. Rhodes | Comments from someone at ESPN on the Signal vs. Noise site... |
| Mon 24 Feb 21:08 | Lydia | Matt said: 'Nowadays I reckon most Netscape 4 users have it inflicted upon them by their misguided/lazy/sadistic IT department and would've loved to have upgraded years ago, so upgrade messages must seem like cruel taunts.'
This is so true, unfortunately. I run into this all the time while attempting to support customers. 'I can't upgrade without pissing off the wrong people - is there any way around it?' I even talked to one guy who had to put up with having JavaScript and images turned off 'to reduce bandwidth use' - why bother?
I was just talking with someone the other day about why it is so hard to spread the word about CSS and the good things it can do for design, and cited the arrogance of people like Zeldman and the Web Standards gang as the chief culprits. It's sad. Stop making people feel like morons, it's that simple. |
|
| Good Code Cache | Sat 22 Feb |
| (Veen) - Back in the good old days, I was marking up content and scripting pages with the best of them. But no more. These days, I find my time is better spent on strategy, interaction, and architecture. (Comments: What do you spend your time on?) |
| Mon 24 Feb 15:48 | Joshua Kaufman | What I spend my time on now: Project management, information architecture, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, teaching
What I'd like to be spending my time on two years from now: user (usability) testing (all sorts of interfaces, not just websites), report writing, design strategy |
|
| Going Mobile | Sat 22 Feb |
| (Veen) Each runner wears a tiny chip tied to a lace on their shoe. As they cross the starting line, their bib number is transmitted from the chip through a large sensor under a mat to the official time-keeping computer. That way, when the runners cross the sensor at the finish line, they get their specific time on the course, rather than the generic time since the start. (Comments: When I ran in the the Rock N Roll Half Marathon last September I had a chip. Good use of technology!) |
| Mon 24 Feb 14:22 | Anonymous | The ChampionChip timing system is not really that new, although perhaps the individual discovery is. It's been around since the mid-90's for use in most USTAF certified races. It's definitely fine tuned the scoring process for races. |
|
| Sensotronic Brake Control - the Brakes of the Future | Sun 23 Feb |
| Hence automobile functions which hitherto worked purely mechanically and partly with hydraulic assistance will in future be controlled by high-performance microcomputers and electronically controllable actuators. These either replace the conventional mechanical components or else enhance their function. |
| Mon 24 Feb 05:55 | Philip Chalmers | Fine as long as they stick to doing more efficiently what the driver wants.
I hope they don't start trying to make decisons on behalf of the driver - some Airbus models had a few crashes because their fly-by-wire systems refused to perform some emergency manouevres not thought of by the software developers. |
| Mon 24 Feb 13:41 | Matt Haas | So called 'drive by wire' systems such as the one described in the article are becoming more common. I'm pretty sure that Corvette's have used electronic throttle control since 1997 and I think that BMW has used it for several years as well.
The Corvette team at GM did a lot of research into what is possible with computer controlled braking systems in the late 1980's (about the time electronically controlled ABS started showing up on high-end cars) and most of what is described in this article was mentioned. I'm not sure how much of that has made it into the modern Corvette but I know that a large portion of what the various ESP systems can do are as a result of automatically manipulating the brakes, engine, and transmisssion.
Jeep also pioneered the uses of the same type of controls for it's 4 wheel drive systems when the Grand Cherokee was redesigned several years ago and has gone a step further with the Liberty in being able to re-tune the engine while in 4 wheel low to provide more torque at low speeds.
The Chrysler Crossfire (scheduled for production in the next couple of years -- I think it's going to be a 2005 model) uses a similar system for braking. The review I read of it (it may have been in a recent Autoweek) gave a very negative opinion of these brakes due to the lack of driver feedback (the reviewer said that there was almost no pedal feel).
Two interesting asides on this:
1) One of the guys at work had a late 90's Corvette (this car has a throttle by wire system). He had a sensor go bad getting on the highway and was unable to go faster than 35 mph.
2) GM uses electronic braking on 1999 (maybe 2000) and newer 1/2 ton full size pickups. When they first came out, there were problems with the brake systems failing intermitantly. I know the problems have been resolved but that's just scarey (or maybe just an indication to avoid GM vehicles with 'drive by wire' systems). |
|
| NewsMonster | Sat 22 Feb |
| NewsMonster offers a superior web experience and outstanding integration with existing websites and weblogs that support RSS. Even sites that dont support RSS can work with NewsMonster. Thats not all! NewsMonster incorporates an advanced reputation system to prevent spam and discover and inform you of important news. (Comments: AmphetaDesk and the Adventures of Morbus Iff) |
| Mon 24 Feb 12:24 | Lyle Kantrovich | I've tried NM in both Mozilla and Netscape at home and at work and can't get the thing to run for the life of me - I always get some fatal error. My overall experiences with news readers have been pretty poor. Anyone else had similar experiences? |
|
| Everyday Driving Skills | Sun 23 Feb |
| Theres one fundamental rule about driving in urban areas - assume every other bastard is both dumb and feeling homicidal! |
| Mon 24 Feb 09:36 | Anonymous | Assume? You don't have to assume that around here... it's always the case! |
| Mon 24 Feb 12:06 | John | Reminds me of a saying I found when first considering the purchase of a motorcycle, 'Ride like a fighter pilot - everybody's the enemy.' Alternatively: Motorcycle rider's mantra, 'they're-all-trying-to-kill-me... they're-all-trying-to-kill-me... they're-all-trying-to-kill-me...'
JB |
|
|
