(Comments added for week ending Sun 08 Dec 2002) | View Other Weeks
| last updated:09 Dec 2002 13: 24 Webword time, or 09 Dec 2002 18:24 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 08 Dec 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| Mapping the Userati | Mon 02 Dec |
| (by Mac) Userati - A group of people concerned with issues relating to software and users, who are known to their peers. |
| Mon 02 Dec 15:21 | Mac | I have only spent about ten hours (so far) on this project, and would like to get some feedback from my fellow webworders. I have started with a cross-section of a few people, but will be adding more (suggestions welcome). You could say that it's a kind of 'People who linked to XXX also linked to YYY.', but I am hoping to take this a bit further. I plan to map other groups of people (suggestions welcome) and then see how the different groups overlap. I am trying to identify 'islands' of people, and hope that by showing the links between the groups, maybe I can promote a bit of cross-fertilisation. Do you know of everyone on the list? There are a few webworders in there. |
| Mon 02 Dec 20:23 | Martin Sutherland | How are you calculating the values for the 'Connections' column? |
| Mon 02 Dec 20:57 | Lydia | Where is MadMan in the list? Do you really consider Christina a Userati, or is she more of an IArati? I recognize most of the people on that list. Do you think you could expand it to show their websites? If so, that would be a killer links list to have bookmarked. Is the Connections column just based on their Google linkage? If you include Christina, you really should include Jesse James Garrett. His Elements of User Experience model has been a blueprint for a lot of us. Overall, it's cool! I especially enjoy seeing the people who relate strongly to each other. |
| Tue 03 Dec 00:02 | MadMan | Just for that, I'm not talking to Mac for 3 days. Hmph! |
| Tue 03 Dec 04:19 | Mac | Martin: Connections Column On the individual pages you can click on the connections score to see where I get the numbers from. For example John Rhodes has 46 connections to Scott Berkun. Lydia: I am defining Userati as being anyone interested in software and users. This includes Usability, IA, HCI, Ergrnomics etc. I chose the term 'Userati' because no-one is going so start arguing about what it means as I can't find anyone who defines themselves as a 'userati'. Remember you heard the term used here first. Let's see if it spreads. I shall include Jesse (I will update the site in about 10 hours). The connections are 'just based on their Google linkage', but it seems to work quite well. Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfield are tightly connected as you would expect. As are Lucy Lockwood and Larry Constantine. Everyone is connected to Jakob, and only the old-time HCI folk are connected to Dan Diaper (and no, he is not a serial killer). If you click on the big picture at the top of each individuals page, you will be taken to their website. As this is obviously not very clear, I think I shall make the little pictures clickable as well, so that you can get to their pages without having to navigate between individuals. MadMan: I will add you tonight (I am an awful tease). In the meantime your top connections are Jakob Nielsen (784), Christina Wodtke (698), John Rhodes (373), and Ron Zeno (125). MadMan loves Jakob, MadMan loves Jakob. I have included your 'MadMan' moniker in the search and while it does throw up a few spurious connections it doesn't do too much harm. I have also filtered out all of the links between you and animal welfare organisations. All: Is there anyone else who wants to be added to the list? I am going to build a list of 'computer pioneers' Babbage, Boole, Turing etc. etc. and see how the two groups overlap. I was glad I could track down a picture of Adam Greenfield, but I haven't got Pics of Lyle or Ron. I have just read the About Adam Greenfield page and realise that his comments about connections describe exactly what I am trying to do! |
| Tue 03 Dec 05:22 | Adam Greenfield | Heh heh. I'm super-tickled, and honored to make the list. BTW, that particular picture actually is me teaching an IA seminar to the Digital Eve Japan group - it's my nightmare image of puffed-up, purselipsquarejaw Adam-sensei. Victor Lombardi is a name that comes to mind immediately. As well, my 'social network' would have to include Matt Jones, Timo Arnall, Matt Webb, Anne Galloway, Fabio Sergio, and Peter Merholz... |
| Tue 03 Dec 06:20 | Mac | Adam, I will add those names tonight (8 hours time). I'm a bit worried that people like to be called 'Userati'. I was hoping that someone would protest! |
| Tue 03 Dec 07:18 | daniel szuc | What about 'Jack'? :) *naughty boy ... slaps wrist* |
| Tue 03 Dec 07:26 | Anonymous | Daniel, I don't know Jacks real name ! |
| Tue 03 Dec 08:56 | Joshua Kaufman | More people that should be added: Thomas Vanderwal Peter Van Dijck Mark Hurst Chad Thornton Matt Jones Andrew Otwell |
| Tue 03 Dec 10:16 | Adam Greenfield | Thanks, Joshua. Peter Bogaards, too. |
| Tue 03 Dec 11:51 | Cheese Witherspoon | Mark Hurst? Who's he? |
| Tue 03 Dec 14:13 | Mac | Promises delivered with five minutes to spare. I have added all the suggested names. Could people let me know if I have picked the wrong person or picture? Lydia, the main userati page now gives access to all their pages via the images. You can also view the main list by name or connections. |
| Tue 03 Dec 14:58 | Mark | Anyone else noticed that the number of connections obeys a power law? Plot log(connections) against rank and the result is close to linear. |
| Tue 03 Dec 17:11 | Lydia | Zoop - right up there on my links list, Mac! |
| Tue 03 Dec 19:50 | Adam Greenfield | The power law thing doesn't surprise me in the least, nor the fact that Jakob is (appropriately enough) our Google. |
| Wed 04 Dec 04:34 | Mac | 'Userati' has now made it into Google ! |
| Wed 04 Dec 08:17 | glasshaus Bruce | no Jared Spool? |
| Wed 04 Dec 08:48 | Mac | Bruce, I will be doing the next update in a few days, and will add Jared (I thought I already had !). Any more for any more ? |
| Wed 04 Dec 09:44 | Joshua Kaufman | Mac, what about Chris McEvoy?! ;) |
| Wed 04 Dec 10:47 | glasshaus Bruce | Mac - can I link to this from the glasshaus blog? |
| Wed 04 Dec 11:09 | christina | Mark Hurst had a rollicking column on goodexperience.com, then disappeared for awhile after the crash. Tired, I suspect. Now he's back, and producing again. Keith Instone of usableweb.com needs to be there. |
| Wed 04 Dec 16:27 | Mac | Christina, Keith is there already. Bruce, link away. Joshua, I did think about putting McEvoy in there, but it just doesn't feel 'right'. |
| Sun 08 Dec 23:44 | Joshua Kaufman | Chris, if you're using Google to make the connection calculation, the actual list of Userti will inevitably affect the number of connections after Google has spidered the list. Are you going to take this into account when making the calculation or is the difference negligible? |
| Sun 08 Dec 23:48 | Tanya | Kinda reminds me of the Erdos Project. Instead of hoping to have 'low Erdos numbers' though perhaps everyone wants 'high Jakob connections' (or not). |
| Microsoft's secret for staying on top | Sat 07 Dec |
| (CNET) The essence of our argument is that the key to Microsofts success is the way it manages its intellectual property. By this we dont just mean patents, but the broad base of knowledge that the company has built over time, which is largely embedded in its software code libraries. (Comments: I could not really find any evidence in this article that Microsoft succeeds through usability or understanding customers. Also, I was surprised that virtually no emphasis was placed on the Microsoft marketing machine. Further, I was surprised that Microsofts monopoly position doesnt seem to have an impact on their overall success, at least according to the article.) |
| Sat 07 Dec 22:06 | John S. Rhodes | Like It or Not, Microsoft Has a Vision Here's a quote I liked a lot: 'But even the most minor improvements in Microsoft's software have gigantic implications because of the sheer numbers of users of the company's stuff.' |
| Sun 08 Dec 15:59 | Ron Zeno | Hmmm... Politically correct propaganda timed to coincide with the Microsoft antitrust settlement ruling? Just a hypothesis as to why the article overlooks so many well-established reasons for Microsoft's continued success... |
| Sun 08 Dec 23:13 | MadMan | First, it had an established base of knowledge that could be brought to bear on newly emerging opportunities. Second, it had a well-defined process through which new intellectual property could be codified and integrated into this knowledge base in a way that ensured compatibility with its existing components. And third, it established processes to evolve this knowledge base to ensure it reflected changes in the broader technological context. This was written by professors at Harvards? Reads like it was written by a Microsoft PR person. We found that Microsoft products were consistently rated highly when compared to competitive offerings, a result that held true across different product categories and over time. On average, Microsoft products 'won' more than two-thirds of the competitive reviews we examined. How did they measure this? Who were the people who rated these products? What kind of questions did they ask? Have they been conducting this study for 15 years? We discovered that Microsoft's projects exhibited significantly higher productivity than the sample average. Sure, because Microsoft unleashed an army of programmers to work on Internet Explorer (which initially had technology licensed from Spyglass if I remember correctly.) Furthermore, we found that the resulting products were rated as equal to or higher in quality than competitive offerings. The balance didn't begin to tilt in Microsoft's favour till Internet Explorer version 4.0 in 1997. IE 3.0 was a competent browser, but the ones before that were crap. The reason IE became so widespread was that it was bundled with Windows. There's that 'rating' thing again. From this point on, competitors in the browser space faced a formidable challenge. They were competing not only against the Explorer team, but also against the continual improvements made to Microsoft's underlying platform over its many years of existence. Oh puh-leeze. Are they really saying that Netscape failed because IE was built using the component model? Do most users even know about it or care? Is that why most people use IE now? Because of its 'componentization'? I'm amazed by how this article leads you to think that sound coding practices are the reason for Microsoft's success. They may have good programmers, but good project management certainly isn't why they're so ahead. Marketing and business strategy has played a very important role in it. If you really want to read about Microsoft's strategy, read High Stakes, No Prisoners. |
| How To Silence A Computer | Sat 07 Dec |
| If you are planning on building or buying a new PC, this article intended to help you plan for a better, happier, and more productive future through silence. |
| Sun 08 Dec 16:06 | Martin Sutherland | I bought a new computer case and CPU cooler the other week specifically with the intention of getting the thing to run more quietly. It makes a huge difference. My computer is set up in our living room, and I can now leave it running without it being a constant noisy intrusion in our daily lives. It might not be cheap, but I can recommend it as a worthwhile investment. |
| WebWord Comment | Sat 07 Dec |
| The reviews on Amazon.com of Looking For-Best of David Hasselhoff are very funny. Definitely worth reading if you need a good laugh. |
| Sat 07 Dec 04:17 | Eric Scheid | Thanks, that link is particularly good. |
| Sat 07 Dec 04:54 | Michael | Wow! That's the most orchestrated effort I've seen since the infamous 'Family Circus' incident. P.S. The song 'Hot Shot City' is particularly good. |
| Sat 07 Dec 22:58 | Kent | The Register recently reported on a method to get Amazon to report unlikely combinations in its “customers who shopped for this item also shopped for these items” reports. Richard Smith explains how the method worked in the case of a book by Pat Robertson and a book by Bill Brent who has a somewhat different perspective than Pat Robertson. 'Someone just got friends to visit the Web pages for the two books a bunch of times. Since the Robertson book hasn't sold very well, Amazon relies on page hits for recommendations and not book purchases.' Some older reports on methods to fool Amazon: Family Circus Abuse of the reviwer ranking system |
| NNGroup and Me: A Tale of Two Tickets | Tue 03 Dec |
| (WebWord) On the day itself we were given a presentation of a cut-down version of the NNGroup Intranet Usability Guidelines. There were no exercises and no video highlights from the usability testing sessions. (Comments: Do think this was a bait and switch? Was this false advertising? How many times have you been disappointed by conferences? Written by our very own Chris McEvoy!) |
| Tue 03 Dec 21:33 | Lydia | I would be outraged at the original insult of changing the seminar plan. I would be further disgusted by their flippant response. At the very, very least, your question about why you paid 800 to get the same thing you already paid for (at a smaller price) should have been addressed. Some recompense should have been offered. Absolutely intolerable, and it gives usability a bad name. |
| Wed 04 Dec 03:56 | Anthropocentric | This is totally in line with the air of arrogance that Jakob writes with... They better watch out - they need to realize, by now, that people are getting a bit sick of it... |
| Wed 04 Dec 06:10 | Nathan | Q. How many times have I been disappointed by [ mainstream usability] conferences ? A. Every time – shameless, ill prepared wastes of time and money. Q. What was your best moment at one of these conferences ? A. Principled people walking out during Nielsen's ramblings at the first London NN group conference. (Not me to my everlasting shame ) Q. How many HCI / UI / Usability / IA books published after 1998 do you still refer to? A. Personally - 1 maybe 2, the rest are cup coasters. Q. How much lasting value has the last 4 years of “guru-ing” added to the design of interactive systems? A. Hmmmm |
| Wed 04 Dec 10:15 | bill | I totally feel for you. Several years ago when Builder.com still had their web conferences, I paid close to $500 for a post conference seminar with Jakob. From the conference brochure it sounded like it was a hands on class learning how to test sites from 'the master'. What it turned out being 30 minutes of lecture, and then he had each person critique each others work. I was appauled.. I spoke with the conference chair, and he was unaware of what the session was about. The worst thing was the seminar and the extra night in a hotel was on my tab and not my companies.. Since then I have always taken Jakob with a grain of salt. He has done some good for our community, but he has also lined his pockets with a lot of our hard earned money... Even though I was pissed I do have to say he has done a lot for our industry in regards to getting managenment to feel it is important... |
| Wed 04 Dec 14:22 | Lydia | Bill, that's good of you to see both sides. Jakob gets the word out about usability, but in the worst way! Sort of like Dennis Rodman getting the word out about embracing your feminine side. I'm constantly having to undo skepticism from anyone who has attended one of his seminars or bought one of his books hoping to learn more about usability. 'Well, I don't need a complete overhaul' or 'I know enough now to do it on my own' or 'I can just rely on data other people collect'. It's really frustrating. As for books after 1998, I've only picked up one on designing user interfaces (which is also, on a larger scale, about designing sites), The Design of Sites - it's a very meaty book that is well arranged so it can be used as a reference very efficiently. Nathan, did they really walk out? That's awesome! |
| Wed 04 Dec 15:27 | boysen | I've yet to attend a conference that was truly worthwhile. (I'm attending fewer and fewer conferences over the years.) But that doesn't excuse the NNgroup's behavior. Spread the word about your poor experience, that's the next best thing to not spending the money in the first place. Michael Moore hides behind the title of 'entertainer' while truly being a political activist. Personally, I don't find him funny or amusing but rather annoying. But to each his own. |
| Wed 04 Dec 17:06 | bill | Lydia, Great book - I bought it, but it ends up getting used by the other folks in our product development team. It is the closest thing to Alexander's Pattern Language for architecture currently available to web folks. We love it around here. I have had folks in our design and content department go to a few of the NNGroup conferences, and they really liked them, but at some point you move beyond what they try to swill to the crowd. Flash is bad, wait no its good(as MM writes Jakob a big check).. I choose to spend my money on conferences that are more geared to the usability profession, and not to the design world, such as CHI and UPA, which are more academic in nature, but I have yet to feel negative about either conference. |
| Thu 05 Dec 09:36 | Ryan | Moore is like the Rush of liberals, only more factual and less annoying (i cant help but love it). Too bad work will pay to send me to JK but not to Moore! |
| Thu 05 Dec 09:38 | Ryan | Wait just second here people, I just realized who wrote this article. Talk haveing to take someone's ramblings with a grain of salt! This guy has the exact same writing style as JK, I wouldn't doubt hes the same person playing a joke on us. |
| Thu 05 Dec 12:06 | Cheese Witherspoon | Who on earth is JK, dude? John Kennedy? All I can say about the bait and switch is: they're scum. It IS false advertising. Chris bought a ticket based on certain promises, and they did not provide the services promised in the offer. That's violation of implicit contract. Mac should ask for his money back or sue them for breach of contract. |
| Thu 05 Dec 16:45 | Ryan | Uh, it was quite early here, sorry, that was JN (as in Jakob Nielsen) on both of those posts. I had no idea that mac and usabilitymustdie guy were in fact, the same! Its odd that I can't stand usabilitymustdie guy and I generally like Mac's stuff. Its wierd to hate and like the same person.... |
| Fri 06 Dec 02:28 | Mac | Ryan, I am more than a bit upset that you actually hate me because of what I have written on UMD. I hope that you aren't implying I have made this story up, just because I am critical of NNGroup and Dr Nielsen. I can assure you that I am the same person as Chris McEvoy (see my sig link), and I am not trying to hide my identity in any way. Just to try and show that I am not inventing my complaint, here is another example of the level of customer service that NNGroup provide that you can check out yourself: Usability is about a lot more than having blue-underlined hyperlinks. It is very easy to talk about how to deliver an excellent 'user experience', but it is much more difficult to actually do it in the real world. This is what NNGroup have to say about returns policies: NNGroup E-Commerce User Experience Trust is hard to build - and easy to lose. A single violation of trust can destroy years of slowly accumulated credibility. Our users expect guarantees and policies to be easy to find, easy to understand and reasonable. By placing information about return policies in a prominent place, you can give your customers a pleasant surprise. We believe that placing a link to the return policy right on the home page will generate trust - even from those who do not need to return a product. It is not enough, however to place the return policy prominently. It also has to be a good return policy. NNGroup E-Commerce User Experience (Trust Chapter - Page 97) You will find no references to any return policy for reports at nngroup.com. There was a cancellation policy prominently displayed on the conference material which describes the responsibilites of the customer if they wish to cancel attendance, but it does not say what you should do if you were unhappy with the ecent itself. In contrast uie.com have a clear returns policy on all of their reports: Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Buy your copy of Getting Them to What They Want and you have a full 30 days to look it over. If it's not right for you, send us a mail message for a full money-back refund. User Interface Engineering also give this gaurantee regarding their training courses: We're only happy if you are. If you're not satisfied with UIE Usability Training for any reason, we’ll completely refund your money. |
| Fri 06 Dec 14:27 | Ryan | Mac, Well, the identity gibberish was mostly a joke, to make a statement about the similarities between Jakob Nielson’s writing style, and your own (on U.M.D.). Not noticing Mac, and Chris McEvoy were the same person was my uninformed error. As for the like/hate thing, I apologize for upsetting you. I am surprised however, that you were in the least bit upset. I thought that you would get it all the time for the way UMD is written. (Upset about a backlash against a backlash?) I have gone back and revisited UMD and I must say that it is a lot less disturbing then the first time around. Knowing the criticism was coming from the inside makes a difference. If you have brothers or sisters, you know what I mean. It is not this criticism of JN that upset me so much about UMD, it was they manner in which you criticize. We have all had to at one time, convert an employer, manager or co-worker into being at least user conscious, during our careers. JN’s books have helped us all point and say, “look, if you don’t believe me, read this book,” and hand them designing web usability. Your site seems to do the opposite. That said, Alertbox is useless now, I can’t even remember the last time I learned something useful from reading it, your criticism is warranted. If you couldn’t tell, this is an apology for upsetting you, and I look foreword to reading more of your posts on Webword. Ryan Ray ---24-year old punk who doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about, professional Internet programmer, making web-pages for 9 years--- |
| Sat 07 Dec 05:11 | Mac | Thank you Ryan, I appreciate that a lot. |
| Advent Calendar 2002 | Fri 06 Dec |
| (by Leslie Harpold) Each day contains: a happy Christmas memory, a holiday link and something special. |
| Fri 06 Dec 10:48 | Ron Zeno | Hey, I just wanted to post something positive for a change. Positive, or just uncritical? Why is honest critical analysis seen as negative? Politically incorrect is not synonymous with negative, though some want us to feel so to further their agendas. |
| Fri 06 Dec 14:11 | Mac | Ron, it's been a very long week with a few big bust-ups between me and the managers, so I'm afraid my defences are low and I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself. However I will be back to my old self next week. Thanks for the encouragement. |
| Fri 06 Dec 20:01 | Lydia | I hope you feel better, Mac. Thanks for the Advent calendar! |
| Usability Is Next to Profitability | Thu 05 Dec |
| (Business Week) Oracle opened the lab about eight years ago. But its emphasis on usability didnt really gain momentum until 1998, when CEO Larry Ellison began to notice that potential customers frequently cited an inability to figure out how to use Oracles products as a reason for turning away its sales reps. So Ellison poured money into the lab while making sure that Oracles product developers knew that usability was a top priority. (Comments: Im impressed with how well Jane Black covered this story.) |
| Fri 06 Dec 17:57 | Ron Zeno | Yes, good article for what it covers. Jared's quote is tragically ironic, especially coming from him: 'We think we've made great strides, but 20 years from now we'll look back and laugh.' The irony is that the article could have easily been written a decade ago or more. Most of the people quoted were doing the exact same thing, even saying the exact same thing. Of all those quoted, Nielsen's made the biggest changes in his career, and look what he's become... No need to look back, I'm laughing today. |
| Load Time Tip: Measuring Lost Visitors | Thu 05 Dec |
| (NetMechanic) Do you wonder how often visitors abandon your Web page before it has finished loading? A simple JavaScript can tell you. The answer can help you avoid driving visitors away from your site. (Comments: Thanks Greg Benoit.) |
| Fri 06 Dec 17:23 | Matt Round | The article fails to mention that a well-built site will allow people to 'bail out' earlier by displaying content more quickly and making navigation available sooner, so a higher percentage of people leaving prematurely can be a good thing. You need more complex analysis to spot those leaving in disgust at the slow speed of the page (check for no further page views, or another hit for the previous page from them hitting Back). It's very easy to get complacent about download speed, as most developers are on high speed lines, it's vital to keep in touch with what the majority are still experiencing (my answer to excuses like 'we're targetting broadband users' is usually something like 'oh right, so it's a niche site relevant to only a few percent of home users?'). |
| Interview: Ze Frank, zefrank.com | Thu 05 Dec |
| (Good Experience) You should be happy with something that strips away a lot of the crap, says something in half as many words. |
| Fri 06 Dec 04:42 | Mac | My favourite piece so far is 'My Cat Annie', especially the PROPER TRAINING item. |
| [aifia-members] A welcome and an apology | Tue 26 Nov |
| Weve added you to this list without asking you. (Comments: Oh no!) |
| Mon 02 Dec 10:27 | Louis Rosenfeld | Name-calling is not especially constructive. That aside, new members are no longer automatically added to the AIfIA-members list. Instead, they are emailed a welcome message and invited to opt in; most are doing so. And a large majority of the initial group has opted to remain on the list. I'm sure anyone who has ever launched of a new volunteer organization, with a new site and new processes, has also experienced similar start-up problems. We who are volunteering our time to manage and grow the AIfIA have made and will continue to make our share of mistakes, and appreciate the great support and patience we've received from AIfIA members. And we invite constructive critics to volunteer their time to make AIfIA even better. |
| Mon 02 Dec 10:42 | christina | and the archives are now private. It's funny that folks on a usability site are so quick to blame users for error. Have you explored mailman software? done usability tests on it? ;-) Many settings are quite complex and poorly documented. Unless one is very familar with it, it's easy to set up incorrectly. A while back when I was at Carbon IQ managing the progenitor of AIfIA, the cocktail hour, I was looking for a mailinglist managment software and was really impressed with mojo (http://mojo.skazat.com/)-- it seemed very usable, very user-friendly. But for some reason it corrupts on a regular basis, and then I have to go in an manually remove the list names, reinstall mojo and resubscribe the list. I eventually dumpted it-- user friendly should include stable. I'm not running the AIfIA member list, but I am sympathetic to the person who has to wend their way through that set-up nad try to wrok through the program's intricaticies. Anyhow, I think there is an opportunity to write a bit of simple software for running mailing and discussion lists that is stable, user friendly, and perhaps builds in basic list-ettiquette. After all, you are in the land of 'Don't blame the user' you are in the land of 'build for the user' |
| Tue 03 Dec 07:48 | Anonymous | Huh...excuses/reason aside, seems like saying 'We're sorry, we screwed up. We're trying to make up for it' would go a whole lot further. |
| Tue 03 Dec 10:46 | Alastair Campbell | Seems like there is a zero-tolerance policy for some people now, I guess because of the amount of spam they receive? |
| Tue 03 Dec 12:08 | Anonymous | Because they should know better. And set the example. And it's a poor workman that blames his tools. |
| Tue 03 Dec 12:45 | PeterV | Christina, the most usable mailing list software I've seen is the Yahoo groups offering. I believe they have an option to turn of advertising, although I understand wanting to host your own mailing list. |
| Thu 05 Dec 01:52 | christina | We did apologize -- on the list, to the list. If you were one of the offended, you would have received that apology. Otherwise you are just someone who read the note and thought the worst without investigating. It's fun to criticize, it's hard to build. Empathy is our single greatest asset as user-centered designers. If you don't have it, you are in the wrong business. I'm not running the member list, but I have sympathy for how hard it is to get a list right, to build something out of the gate and get it on the mark without tripping up. When you see something wrong, you call it, you help the person build it better, and you move on to the next problem. Otherwise you are just a jaybird. |
| Thu 05 Dec 07:32 | Anonymous | Well, the page has mysteriously disappeared, so investigation is somewhat tough to do now. You speak of empathy, and I agree - it's exactly what this situation seems to have lacked. Empathy would have prevented that send button from being pulled until a better, opt-in approach was found. |
| Thu 05 Dec 13:51 | christina | 1. The page was not pulled, it was made members only. If you are a member, you can investigate. This is another mistake that was made and corrected. Members can now freely communicate without fear of spam. Now speaking not as AIfIA, but as christina.... 2. Who are you, anonymous one, that you know all and never make mistakes? I'd like to learn from you by looking over your work. Then I can take that wisdom back to my novice team and help them become better. I think it is not only useful but necessary to criticize what you see are mistakes. Throwing rocks is just nasty. Stockman's mail was insulting and non-helpful, Martin's and Peter V's were helpful and solution-oriented. Let's compare two potential styles for criticism: a. 'You clueless assh*le, you don't know what you are doing loser hah hah' b. 'Hmm, this is wrong because of x and y. How about trying q and z? or perhaps looking into m?' What do you think will make the given product more usable? Time for a revisit to tog. http://www.asktog.com/columns/047HowToWriteAReport.html Many folks seem to be able to complain about Jakob's authoritarian tactics while emulating them. I find this very interesting. |
| these | Mon 02 Dec |
| guys the ones that allowed things to get bad in the first place? Now they stand up and beat their chests and make it sound like they really care about usability and customers. I wish I had more time to write something up about this. Damn. |
| Tue 03 Dec 11:26 | JB | I think what he is really saying is buy Oracle and dump the rest. I think what he is also saying, and not succeeding, is that Oracle doesn't make complex, incompatible systems or solutions..... and he he is right if you see my first comment above. Now this wouldn't be a circular argument would it?....from Larry nonetheless? |
| Thu 05 Dec 09:22 | Ryan | I agree with you guys about Oracle, but what about sun and IMB? Sun had JK for a while. They allowed him to flourish into the guru he has become today. I don't know much about why IBM would be included in this either. I hope you have time to write a little more about this. 'And competitors are closing in on his computing markets.' And who starts sentences off with an And? |
| 'Click here': Needless words | Sun 01 Dec |
| Perhaps when the Web was just catching on — in 1995, say — writing “click here” within links made some sense, to teach new surfers the Web’s fundamental interface element. But those words are meaningless, especially today when people have already learned that clicking links takes you to a page described within the link. (Comments: Via MediaSavvy.) |
| Mon 02 Dec 08:26 | Brian | This is snobbery, pure and simple. 'Everybody' does not, in fact, already know how links work. 'Everybody' is not an experienced surfer with thousands of web-clicks under their belts. Where exactly is the harm in telling people just SLIGHTLY more than they might need to know if it ensures that nobody gets left behind? Did you notice that all the examples cited are of NEWS sites? Now, stop and think for a minute: who goes online to look at news? Sure, a lot of hardcore and experienced online travelers--but also a heckuva lot of first-timers! 'Click here' is a welcome tip for someone trying to navigate an unfamiliar environment for the first time, and news sites--particularly online versions of hardcopy papers--are making a very smart choice by assuming zero web experience for their reader base. The arrogance really comes through with Kuhlman's specious analogies: No, you don't need to explain how to take a newspaper out of its plastic sleeve, or how to work a TV remote. But you'll notice each remote does come with its own instruction guide (because every one works differently), and that most front pages tell you where to find related and continuing articles. So much for that brilliant insight. The 'wasted words' comment is a dodge--this blogger simply doesn't want novices and their 'first-timer features' tracking mud all over his nice clean Web. Experienced users won't be thrown by seeing a 'click here,' and only the most finicky purist--Kuhlman, for example--would be outraged that such a tacky, outmoded navigation aid is still to be found on some sites offending his cocksure 'expert' sensibilities. 'Designing for your grandmother' is still not a bad rule for developing sites, and news sites need to follow that policy in spades. Kuhlman has either forgotten or never heard the primary reassurance for coders worried about 'talking down to users' whenever usability and UI design are discussed: 'Nobody is offended by a clear and straightforward interface.' |
| Mon 02 Dec 08:57 | Mac | people have already learned that clicking links takes you to a page described within the link Repeat after me - 'I am not other people, I am not other people' I use 'click here', or 'here' sometimes, when it 'feels' more effective than using another word or phrase. As is always the case with these type of guidelines, it may be 'correct' in the general sense, but there will always be times when you can break or bend the guideline to great effect. |
| Mon 02 Dec 09:15 | Alan Fisher | My father-in-law (a very smart man) has been on-line for several years now, and still gets confused by hyperlinks (especially in emails). The reason is twofold. First, he's not immersed in the net, he has other things to do (playing golf, mainly). He can go for days without using his computer, and doesn't surf for fun. He uses it for specific purposes and for keeping in touch with his family and friends. The problem with many people in our industry is that we forget people like this exist. Second, like many people, he sometimes can't recognise links because they vary in appearance from site to site. It does absolutely no harm to help people like this by including the words 'click here'. Of course, you could always resort to the 'it's the stupid users fault' excuse, as someone does in the comments below the article. Does that reflect on you well as a professional? |
| Mon 02 Dec 10:15 | Adam Greenfield | I said it in the comments there, and I'll say it here for good measure: 'click here' is a crystal-clear call to action that demonstrably improves clickthrough rates dramatically in certain instances. One instance where I think we can afford to let brevity (and style) take a backseat to performance. |
| Mon 02 Dec 12:31 | JB | Adam is 100% correct.... there is no redundancy in using click here if you want users to do something. We did it on our site and the changes were immediate and measurable. It may be seen as passé for those that have been on the net from day one, but we need to remember that every day there are new users coming online for the first time. |
| Mon 02 Dec 14:44 | boysen | It's not the difference between right and wrong, but rather between good and better; or better and best. Using words (as the link text) that describe the feature or function of the targeted page shows a relationship between that text and its linked page. 'Click here' doesn't share anything other than it's an actionable element. Despite what some of the posters have written, links (in the generic sense) are accepted by nearly all of the Web population. Plus there's the issue of having more than one (if not a whole page full) of 'click here's competing for the user's attention. Ugh. 'Here's the result' 'Look here' 'Click on this' All equally poor. They merely denote a button... but of what kind? Describe the destination. That should be the mantra for link writers. |
| Mon 02 Dec 15:03 | Joshua Kaufman | It's also important to remember that for those who use screen readers and depend on Web authors to use meaningful link text, 'click here' is meaningless. Imagine using TAB to navigate from link to link in a document and only hearing 'link - click here... link - click here... link - click here.' |
| Mon 02 Dec 16:29 | Nathan Ashby-Kuhlman | Brian (and others), Of course my blog entry is snobbery. My blog is about news sites, not Web design in general, so that's why all the examples are from news sites. After your damning critique, I realize I should have made this point: If sites are 'designing for your grandmother,' I think it's interesting that the news sites I looked at do not use 'click here' to drive readers into news stories. Almost all the 'click here''s are for advertising, self-promotion, etc. There's a difference between the use of 'click here' mentioned by Adam and JB, to reduce confusion (on what to experienced users may be a simpler process) and sprinkling 'click here' around like animated GIFs to compete for people's attention in a very complex page design. I believe the former is visitor-friendly, the latter is not. I'm now realizing that my main problem -- which I should have expressed in the blog entry itself -- is the different treatment for advertising/marketing versus news itself. As you point out, TV remotes come with the instruction manuals. Television PROGRAMS do not. Granted, my analogy is pointless, but your counterexample doesn't make it specious. For the record: It's Ashby-Kuhlman, not Kuhlman. |
| Mon 02 Dec 17:05 | Matt Round | I'd much rather use a specific call to action rather than the bland, repetitive and annoying 'Click here', e.g. 'Buy this product', 'Download SuperDuperSoftware Now'. I don't try to get 'click here' taken out of sites out of snobbery, I do it because there are more interesting, helpful, imaginative and effective ways to use hypertext throughout a site. And any increased clickthrough will often be at the expense of the impression the site makes in terms of consistency, tone of copy, etc. (I'm sure if I wanted to increase traffic to a particular page in my site I could do so by using popups and animated ads, but it would undoubtedly be a bad move for the site as a whole). |
| Mon 02 Dec 20:09 | Zelig (Silverio Petruzzellis) | I think it's important to distinguish the purpose of a 'Click here' kind of link. If it is a pleonasm or if it is instead simply a way of grabbing user attention. By the way, to read my comments on the subject, click here. ;-) |
| Mon 02 Dec 21:14 | Lydia | My take on 'Click here' is to ALWAYS use these words in conjunction with something else, e.g. 'Click here to order' or 'Click here to register'. I see too many people who make the mistake of only linking those words. I use 'Click Here' only if I am designing a website that is meant to appeal to a broad audience that probably includes newbies or infrequent visitors to the 'Net. A banking site, for example. Further, I try not to clutter the page with too many 'Click Here''s. I will choose the most important links that a larger portion of the audience is likely to want to click (or is in the best interest of the client for them to click), and I'll use it there. 'Click Here for Online Banking' is one example, but I probably wouldn't do that for links to a mission statement, monthly newsletter, etc. In conjunction with this approach, I will try to design other elements so that links are more obvious - a square picture of people laughing will not be a link to the newsletter portion of the site, for example. Instead, there will be a clearly denoted navigation area that gets the visitor to that part. When I am designing a site where I expect the audience to be more experienced, or if it is a personal site, these rules don't apply as much (or at all). |
| Wed 04 Dec 21:14 | Anonymous | I work on a web content team that publishes content for a corporate extranet site. When I first got this job, the words 'click here' were probably the most dominant words on this web site. When you scanned down a page, I swear that the most significant things that caught my eye were those two damn words! I started a mini-campaign to convince the marketing department to eliminate those words from the links on the site. I will risk sounding like a snob here. I don't think the words 'click here' should be used when writing links. The point of writing links is to tell users exactly what they will get when they click on them. If all they see is 'click here', they won't know what they are going to get unless they read the rest of the sentence. Using the words 'click here' added on to the rest of the words in a link is unnecessary, and, sorry, just sounds outdated. Ok, so I am a snob about it. But I will tell you this - I successfully eliminated the 'click here' scourge from the extranet site on which I work, and this resulted in pages that are much more scannable. The copy on the site also looks much more professional. |
| Public-sector intranets: a small sampling | Mon 02 Dec |
| This article presents some results from our inaugural Intranet Peers in Government forum, held in Sydney on 14 November 2002. In all, there were 27 participants drawn from 20 different government organisations. This was a diverse group, both in the nature of their organisations and intranets, and the skills and experience they brought to the day. (Comments: There has really been a lot of talk about intranets recently. I wonder why?) |
| Mon 02 Dec 23:53 | James Robertson | My take is that everything did the 'website thing' during the dotcom era, for better or worse, and feel they can move on. With many intranets getting old and very ugly, they are becoming a real imperative for organisations... |
| Tue 03 Dec 04:23 | Mac | A lot of people poured a lot of money into Intranets over the past five years. Now they are are falling apart, and companies are desperately trying to re-envision, renew, rebuild, regenerate them. May companies are also looking to cut costs at the moment, and they see intranet usage as one of the main ways to cut internal costs. (Cost-Reduction Centered Design). |
| Tue 03 Dec 09:47 | James | I think for a relativally low investment intranets can provide a pretty decent RIO. They often start as small static pages and grow organically over years until they become a bit messy. Then phase 2 happens and things get modernized. |
| Tue 03 Dec 17:20 | Lydia | I think Intranets are becoming more 'legitimate'. I remember when I tried to propose one at my company five years ago and was told 'We don't need a website just for us.' Companies are realizing that they can do a lot more with Intranets than connect people inside their own company. They can link with smaller companies that are related to them (one example is a Credit Union linking up with their major sponsor group), deploy sophisticated applications, have a secure internal environment for beta testing new software that will be rolled out to customers, and so on. I think the IA community deserves a pat on the back for this one - by showing how vast amounts of information could be organized, displayed, and updated, it really removed the 'ouch' factor from starting an Intranet - once managers saw the potential for time and resource savings, it became a no-brainer. I'm sure others contribute, too, but it was in the IA community that I first saw the Intranet idea seriously pushed. |
| Return on Investment for Usable User-Interface Design: Examples and Statistics | Mon 02 Dec |
| (Aaron Marcus) Making computer-based products (and services)more usable is smart business. Usability increases customer satisfaction and productivity, leads to customer trust and loyalty, and inevitably results in tangible cost savings and profitability. Because user-interface (UI) development is part of a products development cost anyway, it pays to do it right. (Comments: PDF format! Thanks Gabriel White.) |
| Tue 03 Dec 13:28 | JB | We use this company for our testing and HE and I can say is one of the few that I have found that initiates the whole ROI aspect of usability.... and seriously tires to help the client achieve the goals. |
| New technology could reduce traffic fatalities | Mon 02 Dec |
| Robert Herta, a spokesman for Troy, Michigan-based OnStar Corp., which makes the systems, said that using a combination of satellite and cellular technology, the current crash-notification systems pinpoint the location of a crash and alert an OnStar call center, which then alerts 911 emergency call centers when the air bags are deployed. The system is currently available on tens of thousands of General Motors, Acura, Audi, Lexus, Mercedes, Subaru and Volvo vehicles, he said. (Comments: Does anyone know if this technology works as described?) |
| Tue 03 Dec 09:21 | jonathan | There was just a good article on this topic in today's Wall Street Journal. The focus of the piece was the reliability of OnStar (and similar products). Although cars equipped with this technology receive better coverage then cell phones, there are still plenty of rural areas in the country where there simply is no signal. OnStar is useless in those areas. Further, in the event of a serious crash, there have been a number of instances where the cell feature was absolutely destroyed and, thus, couldn't work. The promise of this technology notwithstanding, I believe that the real value of OnStar are the concierge services offered as well as its ability to unlock doors by satellite when people lock their keys in a car (although in my 18 years of driving it's never happened to me). Lastly, I think it's interesting how the technology is being advertised on television. They are using real recorded phone calls from people involved in accidents where airbags were deployed and OnStar was telephoned automatically. They're scary commercials and you can really sense the fear of the recorded voices in the spots. It immediately communicates how this technology is something that you can rely on in an emergency. Perhaps a bit misleading given some of the current flaws but the concept is solid and it does seem to work most of the time. jonathan |
| Digital Domesday book unlocked | Mon 02 Dec |
| (BBC) But the snapshot of in the UK in the mid-1980s was stored on two virtually indestructible interactive video discs which could not be read by todays computers. (Comments: Thanks Brett.) |
| Tue 03 Dec 05:34 | James Tuddenham | Our school bought a Doomsday computer/project (very Dr. Strangelove) when they came out in 1986. I remember a teacher saying 'It's kind of like a big book'. Yes indeed. I also remember it being a bit rubbish - most of the stuff on it was the result of primary school projects done in conjunction with the BBC educational department. |
| Apple's cure for the mobile warrior's blues | Mon 02 Dec |
| (ZDNet) While any kind of common denominator approach will almost certainly leave some device-specific data unsupported, the ability to migrate critical information from one device to the next means more to me than gee-whizzy custom features. If I switch devices for any reason, why should I have to reenter everything? (Comments: I wonder how much time I spend each year re-keying information. There is so much redundancy, with so little benefit.) |
| Tue 03 Dec 01:59 | daniel szuc | I still think there is some hope for an all in one mobile device if the analysis and customer scenarios are mapped out correctly. The company that takes longer to research the user behaviour rather than rushing a product to market may sell more through a superior use experience. |
| WebWord Comment | Tue 26 Nov |
| What do you think of Juice? (Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Mon 02 Dec 22:17 | Lydia | Juice looks cool! PDA watch is also cool, but like Mac says, it would look kind of silly. Even if you have a large wrist like mine, bulky things just make it look larger. I also don't think women wearing bulky watches looks very nice - women typically look better with more spare watches that accentuate their (generally) smaller wrists. |
| 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?) |
| Mon 02 Dec 22:09 | Lydia | I like e-mail, but I'm an introvert. It is fast, I can do it at 2am (as opposed to talking with someone from work at that time), and I can collect my thoughts and provide a succinct response. I use it for everything, if I can. Off-site people almost always are easier to communicate with via e-mail (though I have yet to live the beautiful dream of a contract that will communicate only by e-mail). Sure, I can talk face-to-face, but I find that people ramble on when, if they were writing an e-mail, they would just get to the point and give me the info I want. There's a time for chit-chat, and there's a time for not making me pretend I am interested in the extra words coming out of their mouth. E-mail isn't appropriate for arranging meetings that happen the same day, though. I'd much rather talk to people face-to-face on that. I also consider talking to someone directly if I deliberately want to be chatty, say if I need extensive feedback on a new feature or something like that. |
| 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. |
| Mon 02 Dec 07:11 | Henrik | Kent: Yes, the 'Swedish version' (Bokpris.com) of Bookchecker.com is at the moment better than the English one. But I assume that they're working on getting the quality up to the same level as the Swedish one. Bokpris.com is really good, better than the English price comparision sites I've used. Among other things it includes 'shopping basket' funcionality, so I can compare the prices of several books at once to find the lowest total price incl shipping charges. That's a function I haven't seen on any English/US site (but I confess that my knowledge of such sites are limited). |
| Mon 02 Dec 21:58 | Lydia | MadMan - next time, consider a 'not appropriate for work' warning! A couple favorites: Pucca Funny Love (Korean flash cartoons) The Onion - I still have a collection of their newspapers before they went online. The sad thing is that some of my other faves (at least, the ones not already mentioned above) have shut down since I visited last. |
| 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. |
| Mon 02 Dec 21:34 | Lydia | It sounds like 'conshucking' was an attempt to duplicate an accent / manner of speech, but yeah - corn shucking. Not a national holiday for the U.S. |
| 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? |
| Mon 02 Dec 08:33 | Inge | I think it's mainly Jakob Nielsen that claims that most websites are bad or designed incorrectly. These conclusions are build upon observations of usability tests. I'm sure you can find more about this on his site useit.com ...One thing you should be aware of is that the sites investigated often are Ecommerce sites. And they claim that a site is bad when a customer can't do the purchase. The design of a website is highly dependent on the target group, so just because granny can't navigate your site, it doesn't mean that your site is badly designed...In my opinion!! |
| Mon 02 Dec 09:10 | Mac | I think the web is brilliant! Time and time again I watch people use sites that would be described as unusable by the professionals. The users do not realise all of the capabilities of the site, and often perform their tasks in a very inefficent manner or maybe not at all. But time and time again, these people get something useful out of the experience. However their attitude changes when they have to pay for access to a site. Here is a predictor of usability results (based on users perceptions) for any given site: If you have to pay, it's got bad usability. If its free, then it's good. |
| Mon 02 Dec 14:29 | boysen | I think Mac has a very valid point. People's expectations have a lot to do with their experience which then colors their perception of the site. And expectations affect some people more than others. (Personally, I'm affected greatly by expectations, especially when it comes to movies. Not watching trailers generally has a positive return on investment.) |
| Mon 02 Dec 17:30 | Anonymous | I don't know about 'most', but I'm amazed that -- ten years after the Web was invented -- many web designers are *still* making very elementary design mistakes. Case in point. In my hometown, one of the local television stations just 'improved' their website. In actual fact, they loaded up the site with huge, slow-loading graphics. Yeah, it looks slick, but at about 200 K per page, you'd have to possess the patience of a saint to view more than a couple of articles (especially if you have a telephone modem). It's ridiculous. They advertise their new website like 20 times per hour. The thing if unusable, for all practical purposes. |
| Mon 02 Dec 21:30 | Lydia | I agree with Mac - when I have to pay, I expect a quick download, fast access to the information I want, and no obstacles. When it is free, I'll try harder to get what I want. The operative phrase in both of these statements is 'what I want' - the user must be incentivized to use the website if he/she is going to use something that is poorly designed. I want to buy their product, I want to read their info, I want to sign up for something. Now, there are degrees of poor design. I think (remember, this is just my opinion) that the majority of websites, maybe 60%, are OK: I might stumble over weird navigation or a clunky checkout process, but I do find what I need and nothing breaks down in the process. There are about 15% that are really well designed and a pleasure to go to. The rest suck: if I have to use them, I'm tired at the end of each visit, I vow not to come back unless I absolutely must, and I try to find alternatives to it. My bank is a good example: their (free) online banking program is terrible. It's buggy, hard to use, and a nighmarish color scheme that makes my eyes water the instant I login. But I HAVE to use it. So, I'm actually looking for a new bank. I'm not kidding. I like to check my account a few times a month or more, and this thing not only bothers me, it erodes my trust in the company - how can they protect my money if their product is so awful?! So, you can't ignore the impact of good usability on your site, but to say a site is 'unusable' because it doesn't conform to good usability guidelines is not only inaccurate, it's unfair. |
| 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.) |
| Mon 02 Dec 12:36 | Anonymous | I dont understand this. How can ruining the environment be a solution to anything? And how can you rather face environmental problems than to pay late fees which is something you can control? My sister has 3 kids all under the age of 10 and all watch lots and lots of movies, but they very rarely pay late fees. Because as it was brought up earlier, the store is on their way home. Put the movies in the car once you're done watching and then drop them off when you're passing by Blockbuster. Get the Blockbuster DVD Pass, and you'll have no due dates! No possible way something that is environmentally disastrous is going to be a solution to our irresponsibility. I will find it plausible when we are able to create a DVD that can transport itself to the store it belongs to after being watched. Oh and don't get me started on cars and fuels, I'm all against SUVs and see no point in them, neither in owning two cars per person in a household. The environment is too important, and mother nature is already trying to show us how we've succeeded as a species, in royally screwing it up. The oil spills, global warming, ever increasing natural disasters, untimely high winds, tornadoes, hurricanes... I don't know what else we need to see that MONEY IS NOT GOING TO MAKE US HAPPY IF WE DONT HAVE THE WORLD TO LIVE IN. |
| Mon 02 Dec 15:33 | Thad | Is the Netflix packaging really that wasteful, it's just paper which is recycled, no? Anyway, I'll never rent another movie from Blockbuster given how well Netflix has worked for me. |
| Mon 02 Dec 17:02 | Lydia | I liked the idea of DivX for rental, but not for purchased DVDs - that is where it went wrong. Walt Disney was talking about doing that to their movies, and people (rightly) freaked out. It was just a matter of time before retailers and industry people got wind of the backlash. The whole idea put a freeze on DVD player buying during a Christmas season when they were expecting units to fly off the shelf. They had inventory that was already turning obsolete as new players improved on old design. Only when there was some assurance that DivX was not going to be used did people start buying again. No wonder they refused to support it. This was once instance where consumers really did make their voice heard. It's kind of a shame, because I and most of my friends were initially excited by the technology, thinking that it would make sampling DVDs a more attractive option, seeing the applications for rental, etc. |
| The e-waste land | Mon 02 Dec |
| (guardian.co.uk) Around 100,000 men, women and children in Guiyu make $1.50 (94p) a day, breaking discarded computers and other electronic goods - mainly American, but also from the UK - into component materials of steel, aluminium, copper, plastic and gold. This is the gloomy underside of our glorious technology and the voracious rate at which we consume it. |
| Mon 02 Dec 10:52 | Frank Lynch | Makes me feel better about squeezing every last drip out of this 1997 Pentium II! In the Jan-Feb '97 HBR there was an article which compared the environmental footprint of an American, Dutch, and Indian. The order of magnitude was 64 : 8: 1, if I recall correctly. |
| THE DEMO | Sat 30 Nov |
| This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. |
| Mon 02 Dec 09:41 | Mac | Doug Engelbart is a real antidote to the dot.com madness that made computer people seem like greedy, egotistical, money-grabbing, anti-social idiots. I like the way he helps his wife get to sleep by giving her scientific lectures. |
| 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. |
| Mon 02 Dec 09:06 | Inge | Hi I would just like to emphasize that sticky features is all about making your users return! Research has shown that habitual users are much more likely to spend money on a site than first-time users. When using sticky features on websites you try to make loyal users in order to make a economical profit. money on the site than first-time users. |
| Why Computer Books Suck | Sun 01 Dec |
| Ever notice that most computer books fail to provide the information you need? Most simply rearrange, reformat, and regurgitate the same information included in the manufacturers documentation. What good is that? The whole point of buying an additional book is to benefit from the insights of an independent, unbiased expert. |
| Mon 02 Dec 09:03 | Mac | I buy 'technical computer books' when I need a manual for some software I have purchased. I tend to buy the thinner ones as they are usually better than re-formatted manuals. I have not seen a good manual since the Mac manual. For the past five years no software publishers (in my experience) have produced any halfway decent manuals and always point people to their 'online' equivalent. |