(Comments added for week ending Sun 09 Jun 2002) | View Other Weeks
| last updated:16 Aug 2002 13: 31 Webword time, or 16 Aug 2002 18:31 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 09 Jun 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| WebWord Comment | Sun 09 Jun |
| Im listing another auction for advertising space in the WebWord Addiction. Check it out! I tried to increase the usability of the advertisement. I added demographic information, example advertisements, and a date when the ad would start running. Hopefully these things reduce ambiguity and increase comfort. For what it is worth, WebWord Addiction readers dont mind the ads at all. In fact, a couple of readers told me that they liked the advertisements since it helped them find new companies and services. |
| Sun 09 Jun 21:26 | Matt Rhodes | John, if you're going to use paypal you might want to put a paypal logo on the auction...many people don't read the auctions close enough and think you're insane when you tell them you're only accepting paypal. Either that, or you should change the HTML so the 'Paypal only' part stands out. Just a suggestion. :) |
| Sun 09 Jun 23:41 | MadMan | Is Matt Rhodes related to John Rhodes? |
| Sun 09 Jun 23:55 | John S. Rhodes | Matt Rhodes is related to John Rhodes. He's my (significantly) younger brother. I guess he finally started reading WebWord. Took him long enough, don't you think? I've been doing this for nearly 4 years now... |
| SIRC Guide to Flirting | Mon 03 Jun |
| Psychologists and social scientists have spent many years studying every detail of social intercourse between men and women. Until now, their fascinating findings have been buried in obscure academic journals and heavy tomes full of jargon and footnotes. This Guide is the first to reveal this important information to a popular audience, providing expert advice on where to flirt, who to flirt with and how to do it. |
| Sun 09 Jun 23:43 | Morris Cox | Can't believe no one has commented yet. It's a good article and oddly enough, it has helped me a bit with just plain talking (I have bad lungs). I wish it had even more information and links to related sources. |
| Sun 09 Jun 23:52 | John S. Rhodes | (1) Bad lungs? I have not heard that one before. (2) I also would have liked more references. Still, it was useful and interesting material. I'll just assume that it is mostly true. |
| absurd.org | Sun 09 Jun |
| Avoid absurd.org if you want to avoid a core meltdown. Youve been warned!! |
| Sun 09 Jun 22:43 | Anonymous | Not funny at all. |
| Think Harvard's Elite? Try Southwest | Sun 09 Jun |
| Company spokesman Ed Stewart said the company operates with the idea that employees are No. 1, customers No. 2 and shareholders No. 3. |
| Sun 09 Jun 21:34 | Matt Rhodes | Seems like a lot of companies could use this idea... |
| Sun 09 Jun 22:09 | John S. Rhodes | Matt, When you post news on WebWord you should not use your actual email address. Instead use something like 'mattrhodescomNOSPAM@yahoo.com' so that the spambots won't pick it up. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 06 Jun |
| An idea. Imagine that I post a link to a web page for a company and then the WebWord community would review that web page or web site. The company would pay to have the link posted. In return, they would get traffic from WebWord and all the reviews. The WebWord community would be able to see all the comments so wed all benefit from that. Also imagine that the owner of the web site would choose the top 2 or 3 comments and I would pay those people for those comments. I would retain the remaining money to cover my expenses and time, and to generate a profit. How about some numbers, just for fun. What if the link for the company cost $200. The top reader comments would earn $25, $15, and $10, respectively. Good idea? Bad idea? Too capitalistic? Too stupid? |
| Thu 06 Jun 23:39 | Frank Lynch | How much do you charge for a heuristic evaluation? $200 sounds really bargain basement. And why would the owner choose the most valuable comments? And how could reviewers ensure they're not wasting their time, since the client wouldn't exactly be giving briefings on user profiles etc? |
| Thu 06 Jun 23:51 | scott | interesting idea...but why would I pay for this link? are you offering some level of traffic that the site wouldn't get otherwise? I guess you'd have to check the click thru and conversion rate on the links and provide back some reporting as well to the company paying for the link |
| Fri 07 Jun 02:07 | David | I love this idea. The key success factor is whether the incentive to view and comment on a site is high enough. There is a value in the subscribers you have, and it seems a reasonable way of accessing them. Maybe a better approach would be to invite participants to be on a panel. Nothing fancy, just a simple registration with, for example, sex, geographic location and age. Webword could sell a service to companies where they would have access to the panel. They could set the questions or use a standard questionnaire. Maybe a $10 per participant fee would be reasonable if, say, five took part? Keep the questions they are asked down to a miniumum. Could be a nice extra stream of income after a while if marketed well. It would be great to target web and system design companies - I'm sure I be delighted to offer this service as an 'extra' to my clients. (Independent review of your site by 5 individuals for just $200...!) Hey, I'll be writing a business plan next... Now... where's the reseller programme :-) I'd be interested in doing something like this in the UK. Regards, David. |
| Fri 07 Jun 03:58 | James Tuddenham | I think it's a good idea and would participate in review. |
| Fri 07 Jun 04:37 | MadMan | What's the point of reviews if you know practically nothing about a site's mission, its target users, profiles, etc.? I'm short on time, so I'll write in more detail later tonight. |
| Fri 07 Jun 04:42 | Freies Usability-Wissen | FYI 'Open Usability-Test Forum' does this in a non-commercial way in german. have a look at http://open.usability-test.net I like the idea (as well as john's webword). |
| Fri 07 Jun 06:24 | mark | Test it and let us know what happens. In a way, you are setting yourself up as a conduit for people who otherwise would not get together. I'm guessing you do best if you did some matchmaking research ahead of time and gave specific interest groups of people links that they might like/want/need. If that is not done, I believe most people will not open the link. I wouldn't normally take the time unless I thought you were giving me something you felt was worth my time personally. |
| Fri 07 Jun 09:39 | hopbot | i really like this idea john, go for it!!! |
| Fri 07 Jun 10:34 | Todd | The review service you're proposing is a great idea, and it is worth much more than $200. The creative solutions that will come from the reviews of this group will easily save thousands of dollars for the target sites. I would start the service at around $400-500 to get it off the ground, then increase it to $1000-2000. The quality of the reviews would naturally need to be higher than if the service were $200, but the reviewers would be duly compensated from the increase in revenue. These reviews should not only note general problems and vague solutions, but should include a specific suggestions. Alternatively, you could offer a range of services that cost from $200-2000. Quick, general reviews from 2-3 webheads for $200, and deliberated, in-depth reviews from 5 or more webheads for $2000+. |
| Fri 07 Jun 11:03 | Deirdre | I wonder about how this will really work for the company paying for the ad. In cases where a non-web knowledgeable worker pays for the ad, how will they know what 2 or 3 comments are most valuable out of all of them? They may choose the 3 most useless comments because it is what they want to hear or it is what they understand, but doesn't provide much actual value as to the usability of their site or what the main issues they should focus on. Do you have concerns about situations like this and how it would reflect on yor company? |
| Fri 07 Jun 13:06 | Ron Zeno | 'Good idea? Bad idea? Too capitalistic? Too stupid?' I'm leaning toward the last three... Consider your assumptions: That the reviews would be done and be valueable to the website owner. Other people would benefit from the reviews. The website owners' choice would encourage valueable reviews. You deserve to generate a profit from such a venture. Sounds like something taken directly from a .con business plan. |
| Fri 07 Jun 15:07 | Joshua Kaufman | The idea is good. But it would be a great idea if you had a dedicated backend system to support everything, which is where the real cost would be involved. Kind of like a heuristic evaluation version of Google Answers? Instead of charging a flat rate, the websites who want the review could determine how much it's worth to them based on the size/complexity of the site. I think the traffic generated from the link would be a small portion of the companies return on investment. |
| Fri 07 Jun 15:48 | Anonymous | How many web site owners would want their reviews posted and available to the public? And if you kept them private, how would the community of web developers benefit? |
| Fri 07 Jun 20:02 | A. Rhodes | I heard something about this recently and it was explained to me in such a way so that I totally see the gain here... a gain for everyone involved; the average viewer, the owner of the website that is being linked to and you, the owner of webword. Great idea! |
| Sat 08 Jun 03:23 | Jerry Evas | I can personally tell you that although this is a great idea, it has many, many pitfalls. Talking from experience, my website spidermetrix.com has been providing exactly that service for the last two years. It has taken us this long to establish the business, get a reasonably sized (and diverse) panel, and most importantly prove to the clients that what we offer is a truly great service (and not yet another pay-for-clicks rip-off). Please, before you jump into it, talk to me, I am always on the look out for business partners and affiliates throughout the world. We have the infrastructure in place, and the membership to support Web Site Reviews. |
| Sun 09 Jun 21:49 | Ryan Walker | Charge $1000 not $200 - pay 5 participants $100 not $10. Then I may be interested in participating. The product quality would be much higher. Don't ask the client to 'vote' - though you can pay-for-performance.. give the top 1 or 2 participants a bonus or withhold some payment if the partipicant's review was lacking, etc, etc. But don't do this thing as a 'bargain basement' service - it'll attract the wrong type of client. I think a good idea if you can get it in front of decision makers and get them to buy it (now that's the tricky part of all this, as always.. ;) -Ryan |
| Collapse | Sun 09 Jun |
| This game is sure to break down any misgivings you have about playing puzzle games! In this highly challenging puzzle game, you try to score as many points as you can, as fast as you can, by clicking and detonating like-colored blocks. The catch? They have to be together in groupings of three or more! How much damage can you do before time runs out? |
| Sun 09 Jun 15:06 | Anonymous | I was introduced to this game when I purchased Kyodai Mah Jongg. In addition to the solitaire version of Mah Jongg, there are 5 more games, including 'Clicks' - the game John knows as 'Collapse.' |
| Sun 09 Jun 15:09 | Anonymous | My bad. Collapse is not Clicks. Collapse has a Tetris-like element by adding new rows every few seconds that move the board upward. Collapse is a speed game where you cannot finish the board and can only try for points. Clicks is all about trying to finish the board with as few tiles remaining as possible. |
| Sun 09 Jun 16:41 | Anonymous | 'my bad' is not grammatically correct... you dont own 'bad' do you? |
| Sun 09 Jun 19:09 | Anonymous | I do own bad. Don't talk about that which you know nothing about. I am the King of Bad. Unless you challenge my throne, please leave the room before I remove your head. |
| Heal Your Church Web Site | Sun 09 Jun |
| Teaching, rebuking, correcting & training in righteous web design. |
| Sun 09 Jun 18:11 | Dean Peters | Thanks for the listing ! I've reciprocated! |
| Without a Car in the World | Sun 09 Jun |
| They had seen the devastation from our architecture defined by the exit ramp. They knew intuitively, if not literally, the design formulas that I recited from the podium: that every motor vehicle required an ancillary seven spaces to hold it at rest (parking) or in motion (driving). They realized that big chunks, in fact some 30 percent of our cities, were hardtopped in service to the cars voracious appetite. |
| Sun 09 Jun 16:48 | (the other) JS | Dating rituals to fast food, and the rise of suburbia and Jack Lessinger's penturbia and the 'life style' that goes with it. Internet as highway. And let us not forget the American time style of 'McTime', five minutes for most anything, but less than completely satisfying. |
| Text Sizing | Sun 09 Jun |
| Being unhappy with the current wisdom and distrustful of our browsers, I wanted to have the font sizing options laid out so i could see where they did and didnt work. So I made 264 screenshots. |
| Sun 09 Jun 15:17 | Anonymous | Commercial designers may have a choice, but there's little doubt that 'em' is appropriate for accessibility. Work for a government agency? It's em for you. |
| WebWord Comment | Sat 08 Jun |
| I have three questions for you. (1) Do you read spam? (2) Have you ever considered responding to spam? For example, have you considered buying a product mentioned in a spam message? (3) Have you ever bought something because of a spam message? If you have, please admit it. Open the kimono! What motivated you? What did you purchase? |
| Sat 08 Jun 16:23 | MadMan | My answer to all three questions: 1) Yes. I often find it humorous and that takes off some of the tension in my life. 2) Yes, I do that often. When people go out of their way to keep me informed about new products and services, the least I can do it is thank them via email. 3) Yes. I recently got a penis enlargement done through a revolutionary new product I heard about on e-mail. I have gone from 6' to 14'. I also used another product to find out all the information about a competitor. If it had not been for spam, I wouldn't have entered into a business partnership with a Nigerian prince and neither would I have made a million dollars by lending them my bank account. Oh, and did I mention that I got a great rate on financing my new house? God, how I love spam. No, I'm not ! Seriously, are you kiddin' me? |
| Sat 08 Jun 16:27 | MadMan | That should've read: 'No, I'm not Barry Dennis!' |
| Sat 08 Jun 16:42 | Anonymous | Before I do business with any web site, I Google it with keywords such as 'spam,' 'sucks,' 'complaints,' and 'gripes.' When I discover a company spams, I e-mail them from a junk account to let them know they lost a potential customer. The companies I've most often almost did business with were web hosts and registrars. |
| Sat 08 Jun 16:47 | Mr. Mysterioso | I'm a sucker for unsolicited commercial e-mail. I've been on the Internet 6 months and already I've subscribed to 2 college girl web cam sites, bought 4 inkjet cartridges, had 6 penis enlargements and any day now I expect to be making lots of money from home. |
| Sat 08 Jun 17:49 | Anonymous | There there's the class of really, really stupid spammers who search for web comment forms, then submit their spam there. Not automated. You can tell they actually typed data into each form field by hand. |
| Sat 08 Jun 23:16 | figment88 | wow, wish my horse was so high. Reminds me of all the people who claim they never click on a banner and have banner blindness. |
| Sun 09 Jun 06:18 | Matt Round | Yup, that's me. I've probably clicked on a banner at some point in the past 7 years, but I can't recall when it was, probably years ago and by accident, and I rarely pay much/any attention to garish animated boxes that resemble banner ads. More subtle methods of promotion work far better on me, but then I suppose I'm hardly a typical consumer. I think ISPs need to include in their welcome emails to new users some basic information about things like spam. Novice users often don't realise how spam works or how they need to be careful with their email address until it's too late. |
| WebWord Comment | Fri 07 Jun |
| Steve Outing doesnt want to give us a link until the end of the paragraph in this article. Does it work? Does it make sense? Is it friendly? Is it too linear? Why doesnt he trust us not to click on the link? Im confused, yet at the same time it was different and caught my attention. |
| Sat 08 Jun 03:03 | kathy henning | I'd say Steve was justified in not providing the link until he'd said what he wanted to say about it. But he didn't need to *tell* us he was doing that, especially in a sentence beginning 'please allow me'--I found that annoying. Any reader who wants the link right away and doesn't see it in the first sentence will look for it at the end of the description. The problem, of course, is that those who would click the link if it were at the beginning would not likely return, because by the time they'd finish playing the immersive game they'd be stressed about how much time had passed. It's a very different situation from linking to a nonimmersive site. Also, the description is well worth reading, so he needs to do whatever he can do to get the reader to read it. He could have put the link between the two paragraphs, but then he would have risked losing the reader after the first paragraph. (He overuses parentheses.) |
| Sat 08 Jun 03:40 | LKM | In cases like this, I'd just put the link into a footnote. |
| Sat 08 Jun 05:33 | Matt Round | It looks daft, he's got an inline link just before that so I don't see any reason to hold the reader back that way, it's vaguely patronising. It looks particularly daft in an article about poor presentation & lack of interactivity in Web news. BBC News never uses inline links, it lists them down the right of the article. It works reasonably well, and is at least consistent, but often shows itself to be Web-unfriendly when several sites are mentioned within an article. I suppose they're afraid of confusing novice users, perhaps think inline links are ugly/distracting, and aren't keen to risk losing readers mid-article. And their twitchy, paranoid lawyers probably insist on that little disclaimer alongside all external links (does that kind of clutter serve any real purpose? I doubt it either avoids confusion amongst users or offers meaningful legal protection against silly linking lawsuits). |
| Sat 08 Jun 08:28 | MadMan | IMHO, it shows a certain lack of confidence in his own writing skills. It's as if he's afraid that his article is so uninteresting that people will stop reading what he's got to say, and immediately click away to the linked article. It's like a stage actor telling the audience, 'No, please don't leave now. The best part is just coming.' I agree with Kathy. If he wanted to put the link at the end, there was no need to draw attention to it. I've never understood the importance or need for those stupid disclaimers. I don't actually think that BBC is responsible for content on, say, www.f---edcompany.com |
| Sun 09 Jun 06:12 | Matt Round | Believe it or not, there are clients (can't name names) who insist upon showing a full page disclaimer every time an external link is clicked on. If lawyers had their way most of the 'net wouldn't exist. So many people fail to realise lawyers have their own priorities which should be weighed against the (often significant) benefits of disregarding their advice. |
| Mitosis: The Separation of Content from Style | Sat 08 Jun |
| (Nick Finck) The separation of style from content has been the cornerstone for cost-saving web measures. Those who didnt learn that the content needed to be separated are finding themselves going back and rebuilding a lot of what was already created in order to develop sites that are, in my words, forward-thinking, meaning that the site isnt just built for what kinds of technologies we have today, its built for what is to come tomorrow. |
| Sat 08 Jun 14:49 | Anonymous | I can't take a hyphenized site seriously. Sorry. |
| Sat 08 Jun 15:40 | John S. Rhodes | I'm guessing that digitalweb.com was taken. By the way, digitalweb.com (no hyphen) hit me with two pop up advertisements. I guess that one was not enough. Anonymous, why can't you take hyphenized site seriously? |
| Sat 08 Jun 17:59 | Nick Finck | Maybe you should check out this great site at http://www.digitalwebmag.com then? ;) |
| Cascading Style Sheets, Promise vs. Reality, and a Look to the Future | Fri 07 Jun |
| (Digital Web) Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a technology with a lot of promise, but their often-hyped potential leaves some designers feeling blindsided by the 2x4 known as reality. This article sorts out the differences, and makes a case for educating yourself now in preparation for the future. |
| Sat 08 Jun 05:39 | Matt Round | Hmm an OK article, but it's a shame it bothers to mention that dodgy box model hack - I know it's used/recommended by many 'big names', but it's nasty, and I've certainly never had to use it. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 06 Jun |
| Over 90% of my email is spam. Over 90%!! What bothers me is that spam would go away if no person responded to it. Think about it. The incentive for spammers to spam is that some people will respond and the spammers will make money. If no person ever responded to spam, spammers would realize that they would be wasting their time with spam. However, as we all realize, some people will always end up responding. Spammers will make money from spam and so well continue to get hit with it. Shrug. |
| Thu 06 Jun 22:38 | Anonymous | My ISP's spam filter catches 200 spams a week. An additional 50 get through to my e-mail program - where 25 get deleted by my own spam filters. I'm ready to change my address. I'm most worried about the legitimate e-mails that get snagged. I don't have the time to weed through the mess, and so the legit e-mails just never get seen. |
| Fri 07 Jun 01:45 | Adam Kalsey | I've had the same email address for about 5 years, so I'm on quite a few spam lists. Add to that the spam I get to the accounts I use on eBay and other places, and I've got quite a truckload. I got so tired of spam that I set up a mail server and filter all the mail at the server with SpamAssassin. Think about that. Spam was a significant enough problem in my life that I spent money on hardware, took time to configure the software, and continue to spend the time required to maintain a mail server, just to reduce the influx of junk. |
| Fri 07 Jun 04:56 | MadMan | John, oh John... Haven't you learnt yet? Why on earth do you hyperlink your main email address john@webword.com so liberally all over the site? Don't you know it will be picked up by spambots? Try putting something like comments@webword.com instead. Or set up a feedback form on the site using a CGI script that doesn't reveal your email address. (BTW, this has a usability bonus too. People who check webword from other PCs, cybercafes, etc. and don't have an email client configured can still send you email.) Sign up at www.sneakemail.com and create as many random addresses as you want. Use those to sign up for dodgy sites, newsletters, etc. If they start spamming you, can just kill the address. Want to weed out your 90% spam more effectively? Create a filter in Outlook Express for messages that have the word 'John' in them and highlight them in red. These are more likely to be legitimate email. Also use a program like Mailwasher that downloads just the headers and lets you delete spam direct from the server. Save heaps of time and bandwidth. Hope this helps. MadMan (managing email since 1994) |
| Fri 07 Jun 07:29 | John S. Rhodes | Adam, that is a real shame. Not only are the spammers making money, you are losing money. That's just not cool. MadMan, thanks for the advice. I love the Mailwasher link by the way; nice tag at the end. |
| Fri 07 Jun 10:03 | Ron Zeno | I have multiple email addresses, one of which is at least 8 years old... There are plenty of good guides online on how to prevent spam. Ignore them at your peril. Email software that can filter based upon message contents is essential. I filter out most spam by searching for words such as 'spam'... When using an email client (non web-based of course) I close my internet connection before reading anything that may have nasty html code in it (easy to do with a good personal firewall)... I have not found a web-based email program that has good anti-spam capabilities (filtering based upon message contents and the ability to read an html message without triggering anything nasty). Anyone? |
| Fri 07 Jun 10:18 | Bob Robertson-Boyd | I question whether spammers would give up if everyone or nearly everyone stopped clicking on the ads. E-mail spam is an imitation of broadcast marketing. There is evidence that TV advertising is not effective--or only moderately so--in product promotion. Yet TV is still the holy grail of advertising. Short of another option, I think spamming would continue despite poor click-through rates. p.s. Making my e-mail address a simple 'mailto' on this posting would only invite more spam to my box. |
| Fri 07 Jun 11:50 | MadMan | Hey John, can I charge you $10 for the advice I gave? Unlike a certain other 35-page report on email, mine is short, sweet, and solves some of your problems. :P |
| Fri 07 Jun 14:07 | (the other) JS | The mail link encryptor at www.hivelogic.com ...good, bad? |
| Fri 07 Jun 15:17 | MadMan | (the other) JS, Good idea. Practically spambot-proof, but not such a good implementation. Because it uses JS (pardon the pun), people who have Javascript turned off can't use it. The solution is simple. Just include the HTML entities in the code directly. Putting 'hivelogic.com' in your HTML will give you 'hivelogic.com' (without quotes, of course.) A little more effort will yeild the HTML for a mailto link, but spambots won't be able to process it. |
| Fri 07 Jun 15:20 | MadMan | Ah, I'm a moron. I won't bother explaining, but let me rephrase: Putting hivelogic.com in your HTML will give you 'hivelogic.com' (without quotes, of course.) |
| Fri 07 Jun 18:10 | Adam Kalsey | This discussion got me to thinking about some of the spam-filtering services and products out there and why I don't like them. That in turn prompted me to describe what I find to be the ideal spam filtering service. You can find my ideas at http://kalsey.com/rant/archives/i/000435.stm I'm curious to know what others think of this concept. Maybe something like this already exists that I'm not aware of. |
| Fri 07 Jun 18:11 | Adam Kalsey | Apparently John doesn't have Movable Type configured to convert URLs to links. Here it is as a link: http://kalsey.com/rant/archives/i/000435.stm |
| Sat 08 Jun 00:32 | Matt Rhodes | Personally, I don't think anyone responds to spammers...There are just stupid 'companies' out there that are selling software that picks up e-mail addresses, and sad to say I wouldn't be surprised if they made a fortune. I'm fairly sure that the spammers would have a pretty bad response rate and the cost of the software far exceeds the 'profits' they will make from whatever junk items they're selling. There's just more and more 'companies' telling more and more people how great and easy and profitable spamming is, and when they finally learn, there's a whole nother generation who haven't been warned about this software..(I'm still convinced that buying 'opt-in' e-mail addresses is spam).. |
| typographica | Thu 06 Jun |
| Clever URL: typographi.ca |
| Fri 07 Jun 15:58 | jlt | best blog of all time :) |
| Fri 07 Jun 16:32 | John S. Rhodes | Reminds me of antarti.ca |
| Fear of Design | Thu 06 Jun |
| (Boxes and Arrows) Usability is criticism. It looks at the designers creations and says “I have evaluated on X, Y and Z and found it wanting in A, B and C” Then usability specialists are free to leave the room. They’ve done their piece; they can now sit back and wait for the next creation. It’s valuable, it informs and improves our work, and it’s safe – emotionally—for the practitioner. |
| Thu 06 Jun 20:33 | Bill | You consider the views expressed on a site with such atrocious text contract? Their design tells me they're a joke. Any self-respecting designer wouldn't want their words seen on such a design. |
| Fri 07 Jun 10:27 | Eric Grose | I THINK Bill was criticizing the text CONTRAST, and that was the reason for my posting as well. What is it with this 'washed out' look on the Boxes and Arrows site? It's the same feeling I get when I see Diane Sawyer or Barbara WaWa on TV. There are so many filters the whole scene looks blurry! |
| Fri 07 Jun 12:14 | MadMan | If only John's site search were working properly (hint, hint), I'd point you to the weblog entry where he announced the launch of the site, and I commented that the contrast sucked. The sky blue used for headline text is a receding colour, and they couldn't have made a poorer choice. Combined with the grey, it looks positively anaemic. Anyway, it's their site... Of course, saying that the articles on a poorly designed site don't have any merit is not logical. What is it with these IA sites and lists? Over on sigia-l, 90% of the supposedly 'with it' members don't know the first thing about mailing list etiquette. They don't trim posts (finding several quoted threads with a one-line reply is not uncommon), use HTML mail (which really screws the digest), and no, constantly saying 'please excuse the cross-posting' doesn't make it OK to cross-post, you hear? Take the extra 5 seconds to send separate emails. I'm still a member, but rarely read the list. Pity really. Did that sound like a troll? It wasn't intended to be, but I'm in a lousy mood. IAs are *supposed* to know better. |
| Fri 07 Jun 12:29 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan, regarding the searching, I just did about 10 searches on WebWord using Google and could not find your posting. So, even if I install Google as my search engine, we still wouldn't be able to find the mystery posting. I wonder what I can do to fix this? By the way, I know that I still need to fix the archive links. If only I had more time...! |
| Fri 07 Jun 13:41 | MadMan | John, just try and find YOUR post about the launch of B&A. (Sounds too much like T&A ;) That post has associated comments from JS, myself, and others. There, you've got your URL. And I tried Google too before I gave up. I'll add your site to Google again (www.google.com/addurl.html) and see if it indexes it properly. Isn't it strange that most of us don't even think of using anything other than Google these days? What happened to Lycos, Excite, Altavista, FastWeb, HotBot, etc.? Does *anyone* still use 'em? |
| Fri 07 Jun 15:16 | John S. Rhodes | For some fun I wrote a terrible and stupid Friday story: For some Excite, Lycos decided to get into a HotBot for a FastWeb drive but it was too Altavista so they gave up. Can anyone else write a terrible story using names of useless search engines? I've thrown down the gauntlet! |
| Flash critic to coach Macromedia | Mon 03 Jun |
| (CNET) Macromedia plans to announce a partnership Monday with Jakob Nielsen, a leading Web design guru and one of the most prominent critics of the companys Flash software for Web animation. |
| Mon 03 Jun 12:11 | MadMan | Ooooh... I wonder if we're going to see any more 'Flash: 99% bad' articles, now that Macromedia is handing out the greenbacks. Will Neilsen disclose his interest in future related articles? We'll see... |
| Mon 03 Jun 21:17 | Frank Lynch | 'Will Neilsen...' Isn't he the guy who sang, 'Ain't it funny how the time slips away?' |
| Tue 04 Jun 10:21 | Anonymous | I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe Macromedia will fall victim to the Jakob-effect and DHTML will gain new followers. |
| Tue 04 Jun 12:45 | JB | I can see the cross sell in useit.com already. Not being part of the industry, but a humble web site manager, why do so many people in the industry dislike JN? For me he fell out of favor when he started using useit.com as a eCommerce vehicle - nothing wrong with it, but it was not what it used to be...the advice always had an angle after that...seemed less sincere. |
| Tue 04 Jun 12:59 | Matt Round | 'Flash: $99k good' |
| Tue 04 Jun 13:04 | Manuel Razzari | >>>Maybe Macromedia will fall victim to the Jakob-effect and DHTML will gain new followers.<<< Hehehe, this was a funny one... Seriously, however, I think 'the Jakob effect' is a powerful one. The community might not like him, but he took usability to the masses. He made a lot of people be willing to build a better Web. I'd also appreciate more insight on why people dislikes him. |
| Tue 04 Jun 13:41 | John S. Rhodes | 'Flash: $99k good' = Very funny. |
| Tue 04 Jun 13:58 | Anonymous | I dislike Jakob because, IMHO, his informative, sincere Alertbox columns are now shallow vehicles for selling NNGroup products. There are other pundits more worth my time now who seem to still care about building a better web. |
| Tue 04 Jun 17:38 | Lydia | Why Jakob Nielsen is disliked? He positions himself as this altruistic guru that 'gets the word to the masses' about Usability, all the while he's going for the money grab. What rubs people the wrong way is the 'open sneakiness' about working in plugs for his group, his expensive reports, his books, his guest speaker skills, his whatever. And don't forget that smug little smile. I want to know what I'm dealing with. I much prefer someone who is up front about the fact that he's in it for the money (aren't we all when it comes down to it?) and by the way here is some stuff he is willing to share with you for free. |
| Thu 06 Jun 02:42 | Biff Cantrell | Yawn. Hack Flack goes to MACR. Hope we still see those stupid Flash animations of Jakob dancing naked. Macromedia completely neglects and has practically killed the product that made it (Director) for eye candy generating crap. |
| Thu 06 Jun 09:53 | Anonymous | You have naked Jakob photos and haven't been sharing? Damn you. |
| Fri 07 Jun 08:18 | Mac | Maybe Jakob will be able to pay for a designer to bring his web presence out of 1995. |
| Fri 07 Jun 11:58 | MadMan | I've found naked pictures of Jakob Nielsen on the Web, and I think the time has come to share it with you Webword patrons. Click here to see the nude pictures. WARNING: These pictures contain full nudity, and nothing is concealed. They may offend you if you're the sensitive type. By clicking on the link above, you agree that you've read and understood this warning. Let me repeat, all pictures have explicit nudity in them. |
| Flash 99% Good | Thu 06 Jun |
| First Aid Manual For Usable Flash Sites |
| Fri 07 Jun 08:27 | (the other) JS | www.flash99good.com is 99 percent something else. Hard to tell from the design (on 1024x768) there is a whole lot more to scroll down. My view cuts off just below the book bit, which seems complete, with little hinting to scroll down. Menu tooltips were annoying. Classic back button problems? I'm willing to go with the oldline Soviets on this one. A perfect system and design. Now if we can only get rid of the humans messing it up... |
| Fri 07 Jun 11:43 | JB | The more I think about it the more Macromedia are pulling off a blinder. they know usability experts rubbish the way their technology is used , but they know it needs to gain credibility in the eyes of the common man by gaining credibility. What do they do...bring in the talking head...the man that everyone knows is THE usability expert. If he says it is good and puts together something that says this is how it should be used to be good, then everyone will start to believe that flash is good. Now I know NN Groups secret in lean times...turn the company into a PR house! I guarantee a year from now everyone will be using flash because it will be seen as 99% good. |
| Turd polishing | Thu 06 Jun |
| So Im frustrated about work lately. I am the recognized usability person, but am not consulted until late in the process. |
| Thu 06 Jun 13:37 | Anonymous | Thanks for finding and linking to these John. It's always GREAT to know that we're not alone in being the only person who's up against the whole organization trying to make our voices heard in the name of the user! |
| Thu 06 Jun 17:02 | JB | If he sells himself better...this may not happen in the future. Just because he know how he can make the web better, does not mean other do. Sell man, sell! |
| Fri 07 Jun 10:19 | Tom Weathington | The frustration is understandable, but the problem lies not with others, but with the 'recognized' usability guru. To succeed in usability (which is unlikely anyway, as it's seen as a luxury, not a necessity), you must speak the language of business: for example, why is it bad business to sport purple buttons or non-standard link colors, etc.? How will deviating from acceptable, research-supported web standards impact the top or bottm line? All usability/user experience issues must be framed and spoken in terms key decisionmakers can understand, that is, dollars and cents (or by appealing to their inflated sense of self-worth, but that's another topic). Harping about being left out of the development process falls on deaf ears--and, if heard at all, leads others to label you a whiner. I've seen this phenomenon countless times. Usability professionals, now dwindling as a race anyway, must learn to couch their arguments in terms businesspeople can understand if they're to survive (notice I didn't say 'prosper'). |
| Business Justification for Flash | Mon 03 Jun |
| (Google Answers) I am trying to get Macromedia FlashMX approved for development on our corporate intranet. Are there any compelling business arguments to be made in favor of using Flash, other than marketing reasons such as it looks good, as opposed to simply using DHTML? |
| Tue 04 Jun 12:44 | Matt Round | It does sound rather like a cart-before-horse situation. It reminds me of times when I've encountered people straight out of Dilbert who've read superficial articles in business magazines about 'hot' 'new' technologies (Flash, XML, .net) and, equipped with their startling new insight, start making ill-informed comments/decisions. ('You should be using SSL and digital certificates for our site'; 'Er.. but it's just a static brochure site'; 'But it won't be secure against hackers!'). |
| Tue 04 Jun 12:58 | JB | Try explaining how to use Flash correctly when the agency is saying...’Oh it enhances the brand’, ‘oh it adds to the creative’, ‘oh it rocks’, ‘Oh it is enhanced usability..’. The best quote I have heard to describe how to use it is 'Flash is a tool, not cool' |
| Tue 04 Jun 19:17 | Anonymous | Flash is a sugared up four-year-old continuously screaming 'look at me!' |
| Tue 04 Jun 22:19 | Anonymous | Flash is a curvacious stripper giving me a lap dance. It feels great, but I won't be able to look my wife in the eyes again. |
| Fri 07 Jun 10:10 | Wally Hartshorn | If his company is anything like the place where I work, by the time you have a need for the product, it's too late to ask them to buy it. If you think you'll need something in the coming year, you have to ask for it during the annual budget process. If you don't, and 3 months into the fiscal year you find a need for Flash, you won't be able to get it until 9 months later. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 06 Jun |
| Ive been playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assult for the last few weeks. It is a 1st person shooting game on the PC that revolves around the activities of World War II. Last night as I was playing I suddenly realized that I was running around killing Germans. Nazis, yes, but still Germans. Yikes! How do the Germans of 2002 feel about this game? A cultural conundrum, to be sure. |
| Thu 06 Jun 22:42 | Anonymous | Play Counter-Strike. Great single-life realism. The only people you'd offend would be terrorists. It's an old game, but it never got old. |
| Fri 07 Jun 02:37 | Anonymous | A little bit stupid your reaction. Do you mind killing people crashing a car in a car race ? Germans have to live with their past, as we all have to do because all countries on the earth got involve in some conflicts or wars. Next question, do you feel terrorist killing people on a machine ? I don't feel pilote playing car racing in a game ! |
| Fri 07 Jun 03:33 | Mac | I spent a couple of weeks playing and completing Medal Of Honour and it affected me in two ways. 1. I am British and I started to believe the Saving Private Ryan view of D-Day onwards, that it was an American only affair. Is this how children will get their history in the future? 2. I don't think I should be allowed out of the house for a few hours after playing these types of games because I might kill myself. I started to cross a busy road and nearly got run over because I had this mad idea that if I didn't make it I could just QuickLoad and try again ! |
| The Jakob Nielsen of Sink Design | Thu 06 Jun |
| All too often, public restroom countertops become lakes and rivers. Wet hands need to adjust or, at least, turn off running faucets. The water drips from the hand whilst over the sink, and continues to drip whilst over the knobs. Messy. |
| Fri 07 Jun 01:58 | Anonymous | The low-contrast text wouldn't be nearly as bad if the font weren't locked down to microscopic size. I had to break out the old Accessiblity trick so my eyes wouldn't start bleeding. I had the pleasure of telling none other than Jeffrey 'Only px works!' Zeldman about this option at Web Design World 2 years back. (If you're not into CSS, I'm talking about pages where there's text, and you hit larger font size in your browser, and it doesn't change). How to do this in IE5 or higher: Click on Tools, Internet Options, Accessiblity button, and check 'Ignore font sizes specified on pages.' If the lines start running together, check all the checkboxes. Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine. I just went into the stylesheet of the backend of the otherwise excellent Moveable Type and made as many styles as I could not use larger font sizes. |
| Kazaa Usability Study | Thu 06 Jun |
| In a laboratory user study, only 2 out of 12 subjects were able to correctly determine that Kazaa was sharing their entire hard drive. We looked at the current Kazaa network and discovered that many users are sharing personal information such as email and data for financial programs such as Microsoft Money. |
| Thu 06 Jun 16:24 | Morris Cox | Guess it's time to install Kazaa and do some exploring. *grin* Software should come with sensible defaults. Not only usability experts but security experts should be consulted. |
| Usability Must Die | Mon 03 Jun |
| Usability has grown into a monster. |
| Mon 03 Jun 16:40 | Ron Zeno | Of course it is easy to criticize an industry with no qualifying criteria for its so-called professionals, but the website is good for a few laughs. Also, it's nice to see that he doesn't use it for blatant self-promotion so prevalent in such sites. |
| Wed 05 Jun 17:30 | David Wertheimer | This man speaks like the programmer he is. There's no argument here against anything besides his two thin points: 1) that he's tired of being told what to do by design/UI guys, and 2) Jakob Nielsen is running out of steam, which is, as the author admits, irrelevant. I would link to this site on my own blog as a humor piece--I chuckled, for a minute--but I don't want to give it the exposure. |
| Wed 05 Jun 19:06 | figment88 | well to help counter-balance, I just put a link to webword on my site. |
| Web advertising that doesn’t suck | Sun 02 Jun |
| (MSNBC) People are re-loading the Web page because they like the ad so much. |
| Mon 03 Jun 06:10 | Matt Round | The URLs could be shorter still if they omitted the .asp bit. I've no idea why more developers don't use default documents for pretty much everything, they're almost always the most elegant & technically sound option. |
| Mon 03 Jun 12:07 | MadMan | For directories, yes, Matt, I agree with you. www.example.com/products is much better than www.example.com/products/index.html But for individual files, you canna do that, unless you're putting each file in its own folder, of course. Besides, I think MSNBC's pages are dynamically generated based on the URL, so the ASP is probably required. |
| Mon 03 Jun 15:56 | Matt Round | Either the site is small, and so putting each page in its own folder isn't a problem, or it's large, in which case you don't have to worry about the file structure (your CMS will either be creating files or, ideally, pages won't ever exist as individual files). Perhaps it's a requirement that all MS sites have to show the extension to help promote ASP, who knows. I just think it's best to avoid showing the technical innards of your site to the user, for a whole host of reasons (tidiness, security, future-proofing, brevity, etc). |
| Mon 03 Jun 17:09 | TimW | Thats why mod_rewrite is so cool.... (of course its apache not MS) http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/rewriteguide.html http://webword.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=232 could become http://webword.com/mt/232 (or shorter) with 2 lines in the apache config file (or .htaccess) |
| Tue 04 Jun 01:54 | MadMan | You can also do that in IIS using an ISAPI DLL, such as URL Replace. As for Matt's question about why the ASP extension is needed, what's wrong with it? You see .PHP, .pl, .jsp all on the Net, so why not ASP? And it's not exposing anyone to the innards of the site. All it does is tell you that the server is running IIS, which doesn't really interfere in the user's experience. Of course, it's possible to configure IIS so .html files also go through the ASP parser. |
| Tue 04 Jun 19:06 | Frank Lynch | Short URL's also occur at Slate. There, there is no asp extention visible. E.G., http://slate.msn.com/?id=2066488 It doesn't seem to be the case at the web site of their parent company... |
| Wed 05 Jun 12:35 | MadMan | Frank, that's a new feature introduced in IIS 5.0 When you type in http://slate.msn.com/?id=2066488 it's actually getting converted to http://slate.msn.com/default.asp?id=2066488 at the server. Try it out. But yes, it does make for a shorter URL. I used that feature to create a tracking system at CNET India to see which stories from which email newsletters were getting read, and at what time. |
| Wed 05 Jun 15:30 | Matt Round | 'As for Matt's question about why the ASP extension is needed, what's wrong with it? You see .PHP, .pl, .jsp all on the Net, so why not ASP?' .ASP is no different; they're all best omitted. Users get more usable URLs (easier to type/remember, more obviously related to site structure), site owners get URLs they can promote in other media, developers get consistency and abstraction (especially if building a large CMS-driven site using mod_rewrite/ISAPI). It's not usually particularly important, but it's a nice touch. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 30 May |
| It looks like Amazon has found another way to capitalize on knowing my name. |
| Tue 04 Jun 15:52 | Anonymous | My latest Amazon rant... A couple months ago I preordered an item due to be shipped in July. I just noticed the item is on sale, $3 cheaper... however, Amazon still plans to charge me the higher price. So I canceled the order and re-ordered. Sigh. A friend just had the same experience with a digital camera, saved himself $50. |
| Hiding behind the user | Thu 30 May |
| (Spiked) And when the most powerful vision for the web comes from Jakob Nielsen - a man who criticises Microsofts homepage because the Freedom to innovate link is wrongly categorised under Resources - one wonders whether things are moving forwards or backwards. |
| Tue 04 Jun 12:40 | JB | Matt I think it is naive to think that usability is a component that is 'above the law' in terms of determining the effectiveness to a business. It is not hiding behind ROI to ensure that you are getting what you pay for....it is called business. When there is enough evidence in the market today to show that experts cannot agree, contribute to usability issues... I start to ask...where is the value. Not partial value, because I strongly believe in usability, but total value in terms of I give you $30k to analyze and evaluate and the research shows that at least 50% of the issues you show me aren't...BUT you can't tell me which ones aren't right..... I think to myself, the dot-com era is dead and we just don’t fork over money for nothing anymore. And to suggest that this is covering up and hiding behind ROI is correct...it's called making viable and accountable business decisions. I just think that usability needs to move beyond the ethereal and start looking at ways it can justify itself from an ROI perspective – if it wants to survive and flourish. |
| Book Review: On-the-Job Research: How Usable Are Corporate Research Intranets? | Mon 03 Jun |
| (WebWord) I think the authors discovered the key concept: The intranet needs to be organized around the needs of the employees. Give them what they need and they will succeed. Label things using their language and they will succeed. It is their web site. |
| Tue 04 Jun 02:12 | MadMan | The link to 'Improving the Usability of A Corporate Intranet' has two 'http' in it and hence won't work. ;) |
| 2002 Google Programming Contest Winner | Sun 02 Jun |
| Plenty of people have posted a link to Googles programming contest page. I realize that it is old news now. As News.com pointed out, Google is the big winner. My angle on the whole thing is this: male domination. The winner and all of the honorable mentions are men. Im not saying that Google is at fault here, but it is interesting that only men made it to the top of the heap. What do the women think about this? Were there any superior entries by women that didnt get recognized? Should we be surprised? |
| Mon 03 Jun 11:23 | Bill | Are you suggesting that Google is sexist? Or trying to suppress women? You didn't even mention how few of them are minorities. I didn't see a single Hispanic-sounding name. Google must also be trying to keep Latinos out too. I guess the only thing multi-colored at Google is the logo, eh? Please tell me you're just trolling here. Google seems like a merit-based company, as evidenced by their innovative style and some third-party anecdotes I've encountered. Maybe there are only men because only men submitted the best entries. I'm sure there were plenty of women programmers who entered, but maybe their projects didn't cut the mustard. Maybe Google considered their entries solely based on their innovativeness and didn't consider the 'social implications' of their gesture. Do you seriously find fault with this? Do you think they should have used some sort of weighting, whereby a handicapped entrant gets extra points or a black lesbian would get bumped up automatically? If so, that totally flies in the face of any usability theory you espouse--the cream should rise, the best should be implemented. |
| Mon 03 Jun 12:09 | John S. Rhodes | Bill, My point is much more simple than what you have assumed. Simply stated, I think it is interesting that only men were recongized and I wonder why that is the case. I do not suspect that Google is being sexist. I hope that clears up any confusion. |
| Mon 03 Jun 14:46 | Lydia | I almost didn't post but because the question seems so sincere, here is my opinion. I'm sure it will probably just tick people off instead of informing, but the question itself is quite volitile. I doubt there was any exclusion going on. My take on it (my opinion) is that women programmers don't typically enter contests like this. Possible reasons: absence of need to flaunt skill, admission of undesirable geekiness by entering, focus (far too busy having to prove themselves over and over at work already, with extra time being sucked up frantically trying to stay ahead of the game, not just on top of it). I've met a couple of women who really excel at what they do and are not only respected by their peers, but who are aggressive and proud of their ability. Most others fall into the 'us against them' category. The deck is stacked against even entering, in other words, and since you'd be competing against people with a higher committment and dedication to craft than the average crowd (not to mention additional time on their hands), the hurdles start to become more clear. |
| Excuse-ability | Thu 30 May |
| (Spiked) Without innovative solutions that are imaginative and that promote the talents of the producer, the designer is left solving narrow, piecemeal issues that dont add up to much. Which is why Nielsen and Tahir reduce everything to the banal. They accept that the interface is the most critical aspect of the product, losing sight of the possibilities of the product itself. |
| Mon 03 Jun 14:09 | Mac | Homepage Usability is a Ladybird book of design that is useful for novices and people who need to have every decision they make rubber-stamped by an 'authority figure' |
| Huevos 1.0 | Sun 02 Jun |
| Huevos presents a window where you can type in a word or words to search for and choose a search engine. |
| Mon 03 Jun 09:53 | (the other) JS | No, but have tried Search Bar for Win http://members.telocity.com/dealpa/screenshots.html |
| Mon 03 Jun 09:57 | John S. Rhodes | The Other JS, Your comment reminds me of Dave's Quick Search Deskbar. |
| this | Sun 02 Jun |
| because of this. |
| Mon 03 Jun 08:36 | Eric | Glad to see webword is joining in the effort. The more websites support this, the better integrated we all will be. |
| Using Wireframes | Sun 02 Jun |
| (Strange Systems via Elegant Hack) Wireframes serve a central function in communicating the content and layout of each web page for internal discussion and client review as well as a blueprint from which graphic designers and web developers will derive final designs. Its importance, roles and implementations are discussed in this article. |
| Mon 03 Jun 06:35 | Matt Round | I strongly recommend building a wireframe/'skeleton site' for any project with non-trival navigation/IA. I use plain black text on white, with boxes for grouping where appropriate, links to other wireframe pages and underlining for dummy links to pages not included in the wireframe. I'd advocate going further than some articles suggest - don't just mock up the different templates, link together as many wireframed pages as possible, covering the different site features and ways of navigating. Sometimes it's hard to fit this stage in for projects with a tight timescale and designers/programmers raring to go, but if you can it should prove itself worthwhile. It's great to have something non-technical everyone can play around with to understand the site better and check their work against. |