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 | United Stop The War |
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| United Stop The War |
| last updated:14 Apr 2003 11: 44 Webword time, or 14 Apr 2003 16:44 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 13 Apr 2003) | View Other Weeks |
| A day in the life of BBCi search | Fri 11 Apr |
| The majority of users on BBCi put something unique into search the search box, and 80% of the users of the service put in search terms that never appear on any of the statistical reports, because they only happen once or twice during the course of a day. (MadMan comments: Heres a thought - by making commonly searched information more easily accessible, are we making the other information more difficult to find? Thanks IASlash) |
| Sat 12 Apr 23:31 | Derek R | >| MadMan comments: Here's a thought - by making >| commonly searched information more easily accessible, >| are we making the other information more difficult to find? that's original |
| Sun 13 Apr 22:49 | Steve Hunt | Oh no, run Webworders! The scourge of Derek Rogerson has reached Webword too. Derek, isn't it enough that you terrorised sigia-l? Leave us alone. |
| WebWord Comment | Fri 11 Apr |
| Do you have tales of situations where you did proper user testing but later found that users behaved in ways that you didnt expect, or in ways not revealed in the usability tests? Post them in the comments section. |
| Fri 11 Apr 16:14 | Lydia | This seems to happen for me when I am working with something that relies on instructions for operation. During testing, people will slow down to read instructions and usually do the operation correctly; in reality no one reads the stuff, and the same error comes up time after time. Case in point: on-screen notification for one program said they could not ship to addresses outside the United States, but the person could complete registration to be put on a mailing list for when this feature would be available. During testing, users saw this, but in reality we got several angry emails asking why they couldn't order anything. |
| Sat 12 Apr 01:40 | Ron Zeno | How do you know if you're doing proper user testing? Most of the 'gurus' offering testing courses and materials don't know themselves. |
| Sat 12 Apr 16:42 | Anita Rowland | lydia, you could add a feature to your testing that would really bug the subjects: count-down clock with only thirty seconds to scan the instructions. a nice loud buzzer (like my dryer) at the end of the time, please. electric shock is optional. |
| Sun 13 Apr 20:09 | Anonymous | One thing I find time and time again is that users request interactive features such as discussion forums, blogs, bulletin boards, chat rooms. Usability tests show that people wanted to be able to move from information to ineraction. But these features never seem to get used, and post implementation testing always shows a lot of reluctance. I think this is because: a) people request them because they are a 'nice idea', without really thinking about a practical application b) because people will not automatically use features - they need to be compelled to use them, and an online community needs to develop for repeat usage |
| Design Research: Why you need it | Sun 13 Apr |
| (Cooper) Marketers need solid market research to guide their decisions about product positioning, revenue potential, and target markets. Likewise, designers need solid design research to guide their decisions about the products interaction framework, feature set, and overall appropriateness for its users. (MadMan comments: Stating the obvious? Besides, doesnt poor markteting strategy sink more products than poor usability?) |
| Sun 13 Apr 19:39 | Ron Zeno | Just stating the obvious for the purpose of self-promotion. Typical Cooper. |
| Google News: press releases are OK | Sun 13 Apr |
| (The Register) ...you may not think of Coca Cola, the Microsoft Corporation or the RIAA as legitimate news organizations, but Google News thinks so. Its redefined the term news so that press releases from corporate sites or lobby groups are acceptable content for the automated news harvester, Google confirmed to The Register today. (MadMan comments: Andrew Orlowski the paranoid android really has it in for Google these days. Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C. Oh, do you trust Google less because of this policy? And why cant the Register change the TITLE tags on its stories to say something other than The Register?) |
| Sun 13 Apr 08:52 | Anonymous | Pity there can not be some parsable distinction between news and press releases. Even a corporate site can have news, and even a normally self-serving and self interested release can relate to something a user can find interesting. Most don't. |
| Sun 13 Apr 13:01 | Anonymous | Why, when people state simple facts, are they deemed to 'have it in' for Google? |
| Sun 13 Apr 19:02 | Dennis G. Jerz | Last week, Elwyn Jenkins provided a good rebuttal to Orloswki's 'second superpower' complaint. When I recently noticed that that the good microdoc resorted to an ^ad hominem^ argument against Orloswki, I was a bit put off. Can't we all get along without name-calling? But then I read Orlowski's rant against the PageRank of his 'googlewashing' article. As Elwyn and Madman have pointed out, and as any of my undergraduate students who read my handout on out-of-context page titles might notice, the TITLE tags of all articles on The Register's site simply read 'The Register,' which might skew the PageRank of the whole site. I wonder whether Orlowsky Googled for as 'googlewashing' or 'googlewash' instead of just 'googlewashed'. In all fairness, Orlowsky probably doesn't have any control over the way his articles appear on The Register's website. The many bloggers whose shorter, more recent blurbs ranked above Orlowsky's original article probably do have that control. Orlowsky's article will probably float to the top as the blog postings age. All this adds up to another lesson for the increasing number of people whose professional reputation depends upon their Google ranking. I think the world needs its critics of Google, but making shrill accusations is not the way to earn the respect of your readers. |
| Digital radio 'shuns' the blind | Sat 12 Apr |
| (bbc.co.uk) They have come very close to designing something which is unusable, or at least very difficult for us, perhaps the most avid, hungry and, lets face it, needy group of radio listeners. |
| Sat 12 Apr 18:54 | Philip Chalmers | So there's one law for the old media and another for the new. I'll include a reference to this in my rant about the unreasonableness of web accessibility legislation. |
| Sun 13 Apr 04:19 | Matt Round | I think your rant is somewhat misguided. The reason so much is said about web accessibility is that the web, by default, is the most widely accessible medium there is, it usually only becomes completely inaccessible when developers go out of their way to make life difficult. A reasonably competent web developer will be producing reasonably accessible sites anyway, it needn't cost anything, and an accessible site will usually work best for search engines, work well on things like mobile phones, etc. One area in which I do agree with the article to some extent is screen readers. I've used a couple recently and they're absolutely hopeless, I'm shocked that people have to put up with such rubbish. JAWS, apparently the leading product, hasn't got a clue about how to handle web pages, it seems to try to make intelligent judgements about how to present the page and fails miserably, coping worst with pages which are built to be most accessible, instead of sensibly just following the markup. For the web to be truly accessible we're going to need screen readers to make progress as well as developers. |
| Sun 13 Apr 13:02 | Anonymous | Ya, that rant will come back to haunt him. The virtual future is accessible. Deal with it. |
| Hold the Phone, It's a Sex Toy | Sun 13 Apr |
| Giving new meaning to the term phone sex, a British company is selling software that transforms a cell phone into a sex toy. Vibelet.coms Purring Kitty software, launched last week, turns certain Nokia cell phones with vibrating ring capabilities into a discrete, vibrating massager. (MadMan comments: Is that a cellphone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?) |
| Sun 13 Apr 12:40 | Mac | I am getting very annoyed at sitting in a meeting, when someone will leap out of their chair, yelping like a neutered cat because their phone is vibrating in their pocket. I would rather the damn phone rang or bleeped as I would know that wasn't a mouse loose in the office. |
| Forward compatibility and web standards | Sun 13 Apr |
| (evolt.org) Thus web standards are by no means required. Its perfectly possible to code a forward compatible site with the techniques of a few years ago. Although Im not saying this would be good practice, it does prove that forward compatibility and web standards are not the same. |
| Sun 13 Apr 12:25 | MadMan | Mac, this was posted 3-4 days back. http://webword.com/weblog/001718.html |
| Sun 13 Apr 12:32 | Mac | Arrrse... I thought it looked familiar. I'll leave it up and hope no-one notices... Or reads these comments.... |
| Sun 13 Apr 12:36 | Mac | and it's got two three comments this time around. |
| WebWord Comment | Sun 13 Apr |
| The first article title, Flash 99% Good: Macromedia Flash Usability, may initially appear to be Uncle Jakobs doing, but it isnt. Phew! Thanks Daniel Szuc) |
| Sun 13 Apr 09:38 | Anonymous | There is no such thing as Flash usability. When you feel compelled to use the word Flash, you concede it needs a special category, and lose the argument 'Flashers' are trying to make. Strip out the word Flash, and compare sites. All sites. Compare on visitor to customer conversion, or anything which puts Flash on a footing to compete. Flash needs to stop walling itself off and start developing its own strengths against some drawbacks, much as any tool does. If you are forced to mention Flash, you automatically undermine any argument which may follow. |
| Sun 13 Apr 11:25 | Anonymous | Oh good grief, that made almost no sense. We call it Flash Usability because it's simply more specific. Stop trying to make a political statement out of it. |
| Sun 13 Apr 12:11 | MadMan | Flash can be usable. An all-HTML site isn't automatically more usable. An example: Imagine a travel site that gives you guides to cities in Europe. Using Flash, you could select the country you wanted, and then it could automatically zoom in on that country and show you cities. Once you select a city, it could show you different options, all without another trip to the server. (Could you folks please leave your names too.) |
| Sun 13 Apr 12:36 | Anonymous | 'We call it Flash Usability because it's simply more specific.' I am willing to accept this -- When Flash Sites Are Compared To HTML Sites. It's not more specific, it is a separate category in which Flash is compared to Flash. It isn't even much about usability, where you can often see 'look at this cool Flash site,' postings. The usage often suggests nothing about the site, or subject matter. 'Flash can be usable. An all-HTML site isn't automatically more usable.' Fine. Compare HTML against Flash then. I will even accept the hypothetical example you suggest. Put the Flash site up. Put the HTML site up. Test Them Against Each Other. ...then I dunno ....put it up on the Macromedia Usability Topic Centre because, hey, Flash Usability is just more specific. |
| Wristomo | Fri 11 Apr |
| NTT DoCoMo announced that it will soon begin marketing the WRISTOMO, the worlds first commercial wristwatch-style Personal Handyphone System (PHS) mobile phone. |
| Fri 11 Apr 20:35 | Lydia | I've often wondered if technology sometimes evolves to be like sci-fi and comic books because that is where the idea came from, or because of parallel development. Does anyone else think that if you aren't lantern-jawed and wearing a trenchcoat and hat that you will most likely look really dumb operating this device? |
| Sat 12 Apr 08:19 | Boyink | Maybe I misunderstood it, but it looked like you had to remove it from your wrist and unfold it before using it as a phone. |
| Sat 12 Apr 10:19 | Anonymous | People are afraid of cancer sticks, yet they'll wear phones next to their skin for long periods of time every day? Uh huh. |
| Sat 12 Apr 21:49 | daniel szuc | My tip is good for basic receiving and making calls. Bad for other functions! Would like to give one of these a test run. Be nice if webword could sign up for some of these product trials and we have a different group of people test drive it and report results. Like a usability version of a 'car show' where they test the latest and greatest cars :) |
| Users still find 56K's fast enough for them | Thu 10 Apr |
| Zippy, broadband connections may be styled for this millennium, but simple and more affordable 56K links are tailored to this current era. Confusion about installation, service and security with faster technologies - plus a recession - give the elder science a peculiar edge. |
| Thu 10 Apr 10:47 | Francis Wu | 56K users don't know what they're missing in terms of media, ie., trailers, indie movies, and of course, pornography :). There's a reason why when people make the swich to high speed, they seldom go back. |
| Thu 10 Apr 11:09 | Anonymous | It is probably a combination, including a 'resetting of one's internal clock' which gives faster anything an appeal. This would be an interesting topic I've only seen covered once, as everything from telephones (can you imagine waiting for the old rotary dial rotation between dialing numbers?) to orange juice packaging. Speed offers competitive product advantage, but is hard to articulate correctly before you've experienced it. |
| Thu 10 Apr 11:09 | daniel szuc | Helped a customer configure Outlook Express to download email from their provider. They use 'Netvigator Broadband' (a broadband service provided by PCCW - HK Telecom) and we could not work out why the service kept on disconnecting after downloading the email in Outlook Express. It turns out there is a setting in Outlook Express forcing a disconnect (which I guess is a hangover from the dial up days when you were charged by the hour). Wonder how many other software features will change as people move towards broadband and 'always on' scenarios. |
| Thu 10 Apr 11:12 | daniel szuc | Although sometimes a gap in timing is required as part of the user experience. Cannot think of any examples at the moment ... webworders? |
| Thu 10 Apr 17:30 | S. Gonzalez | > 56K users don't know what they're missing in terms of media, ie., trailers, indie movies, Bulky downloads are a compelling reason for a very small percentage of the population. I'm the only one I personally know who views trailers, video clips and plays Flash games. Everyone else is happy trading goofy 9k GIFs via e-mail. Broadband is still too expensive for the payoff realized by most people. The only reason I have broadband is because I'm involved with web development. I have a career/business reason for fast loading pages. If I changed careers I very likely would go back to 56k and save $30 a month. I imagine my shopping habits would change too - abandoning the slow-loading e-commerce sites. |
| Fri 11 Apr 03:45 | Matt Round | I'm on a 2meg line at work, 56k modem at home. I could possibly get broadband but it'd be a hassle for my particular circumstances so I've not bothered so far, and I suppose it does help stop me becoming complacent about download time when developing sites. |
| Fri 11 Apr 20:32 | Lydia | If I could get broadband, I probably would, even at the high rates, but I cannot get it through my line at home, and can't mount a satellite because I'm at an apartment. However, I know a lot of people who have 56k because they don't really need more, at least not anything worth $40-$50 more per month. They need that money for lattes! |
| Sat 12 Apr 08:26 | Anonymous | 56K users don't know what they're missing in terms of media, ie., trailers, indie movies, Are you a broadband salesperson? ;) I have a cable modem, and let's be blunt - online media still sucks. Yeah, I can listen to radio online while I work (really throws off the telemarketers who call and want to know which 'local' radio station I listen to..) but c'mon. All told - between finding, downloading and watching video online I'd still rather go rent a VHS movie and watch it on my 10' screen down in the corner of the unfinished basement. |
| Sat 12 Apr 10:21 | Timmy | And besides, broadband has a habit of being narrowband at those crucial moments when you need the speed. |
| Cookie monsters a myth | Tue 08 Apr |
| But intCookie monsters a mythernet security scares have caused many people to turn off cookies in their browsers. As a result, hungry web applications, starved of vital clues about their users, are starting to demand people turn their cookie support back on. (Comments: Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Wed 09 Apr 04:18 | Philip Chalmers | It's a real problem. The server could also pass the session / user identifier via the URLs in links and forms, but this is a well-known security hazard. So a good web app designer should: * Check whether the minimum cooike ability is enabled (in IE 5 per-session cookies, in NS cookies which are for the same site only). * If not, ask the user to enable them, explain why and link to an independent source of info about cookies. Requiring anything beyond the minimum cookie ability (requirung persistent or third-party cookies) is either bad design or unscrupulous marketing, and users should not engage in e-commerce with such sites. |
| Wed 09 Apr 10:08 | Nathan Consistency | Yes Philip, but light weight fraud detection and determinng payment for delayed 'conversion' require cookies with degree of persistence, these uses are arguably in people's best interest. On the other hand, personally speaking, I toss my cookies religiously once a week. |
| Sat 12 Apr 10:09 | Lach | I'd regard requiring cookies as a mark of incompitence. Any site that refuses to serve me because I didn't allow it to set a cookie, AS SOON AS I VISITED IT will never be visited again. There's smarter sites around. |
| Flashes of Brilliance and Use-Centered Design | Fri 11 Apr |
| (Digital Web) John Flach and Cynthia Dominguez coined the term “use-centered design” (yes, “use” not “user”) to describe a construct wherein the focus is on the interactions and relationships among the user, the goals of the user, and the technology. |
| Sat 12 Apr 07:46 | Ralph | Interesting article. I'll go out on a limb and comment with my first impressions, which may be reversed later as I check out more of the Flash demo sites. I expected a lot from the demos of purported good Flash usage. However, the ground zero one was a little disappointing. It is disorienting to me when a detail covers up and replaces the main layout. I've always thought such maps would be best done with mouseovers that would pop up a small image next to the mouse cursor and therefore leave the overview intact. The detail pictures were also too close - long shots would help me get the overall picture much better. Wouldn't javascript suffice? I am not a web developer at all, but I am interested in which technologies are best at specific things. |
| Sat 12 Apr 08:09 | Ralph | OK, the Glen College map was a little better, but the rollovers were not very informative. It would have been a home run in my book if a small thumbnail picture like the one on the detail you get when you click popped up instead. |
| WebWord Comment | Wed 09 Apr |
| Im going to Italy for about a week, so updates will be sporadic or nonexistent. |
| Wed 09 Apr 14:41 | MadMan | In his absence, I shall handle all submitted URLs, so updates need not be non-existent. :) |
| Wed 09 Apr 16:04 | Blogmin | Where in Italy? Were going this Fall, and my wife spent a quarter there, she loves it. If its as nice to herbivores as Madrid, I think I will love it. Is this a vacation? |
| Thu 10 Apr 01:22 | daniel szuc | Have a relaxing trip John and all the best. Thanks MadMan. |
| Thu 10 Apr 03:58 | Alan Fisher | If you're going to Italy, you have to go to Florence, Rome and Pompeii. Unfortunately, that means travelling the whole length of the country. |
| Thu 10 Apr 09:24 | Anonymous | Dammit, wrong thread. Pleeeeeeease delete. |
| Thu 10 Apr 09:24 | Anonymous | A while back, my old version of Internet Explorer suddenly began defaulting to an MSN search page when I mistyped a URL in the address bar. Previous to that, it had given me a local error message. It was like M$ flipped a switch to turn on its secret weapon. On my new computer, Internet Explorer defaults to a Yahoo search page (a whole bunch of other Yahoo crap was on my desktop, too.). How do you customize the destination for error responses? I'd like to just see a local error message, instead of giving data about my mistakes to a corporation. |
| Thu 10 Apr 11:26 | daniel szuc | usabITALY ... sorry could not resist! |
| Fri 11 Apr 15:13 | MadMan | As you can see, Mac and I are holding the fort well so far... Webword doesn't die because John is away for a bit. ;) |
| Sat 12 Apr 00:22 | Anonymous | You could at least put out some chips and dip. |
| Military rivalry 'causes friendly fire deaths' | Thu 10 Apr |
| (New Scientist) At first sight these look like inevitable accidents, triggered by technological failures of 21st-century military technology. But the truth may lie deeper. |
| Thu 10 Apr 11:16 | Anonymous | Everyone talks about systems, but there is little actual system thinking going on. Few know what system dynamics are. |
| Thu 10 Apr 23:34 | MICK | at the top of the page it says 'WebWord Usability Weblog' not warblog |
| Fri 11 Apr 10:15 | Anonymous | when the pentagon claims 'accident' or 'unintentional' you should reach for your mouse... |
| Fri 11 Apr 16:08 | Anonymous | My mouse doesn't know anything about the pentagon. He likes to run in his wheel though. |
| why scrollbars are on the right | Thu 10 Apr |
| (Alan Dix) The There are good reasons to think that the left-hand side may be the better choice, but in virtually every interface since the Xerox Star the scrollbar has appeared on the right-hand side. |
| Thu 10 Apr 11:14 | Anonymous | Why put a relatively hard to target arrow on each end of the bar? Luckily the center bar works in either direction and is larger. |
| Fri 11 Apr 14:28 | Anonymous | An interesting article - but many people now use a mouse with a scrollwheel (at least on Windows), which would seem to mitigate some of the problems mentioned in the article. |
| Fri 11 Apr 15:28 | Alex Barnett | Interesting article. I'd like to see a similar article on why some os/app interfaces have gravitated down to the bottom of the page as default, and what the impact of the browser has had in 'offline' apps. |
| The Google-killer? | Tue 08 Apr |
| Yahoos new search engine is training its guns on Google. (MadMan comments: I wont switch. Will you?) |
| Tue 08 Apr 03:51 | MadMan | Try searching for something common as web hosting. The blast of 'targetted' ads is so very refreshing. Not quite like that other stupid search engine that actually shows me my results prominently. |
| Tue 08 Apr 04:10 | Alan Fisher | Strange how, once you get past the paid-for adverts, the results are exactly the same as Google's (or perhaps it's not so strange). What incentive is there in this for anyone to switch? Surely Yahoo ought to be providing a service that's better, not exactly the same. And it could provide improvements. For example, Madman's search for web hosting returns a link to Microsoft Front Page as the first result. Completely irrelevant to most people, I'd have thought. |
| Tue 08 Apr 04:17 | MadMan | Apparently, they are using Google's search for that. Oh Alan, don't try searching for information architecture. (I think I heard this on 37 Signals site.) |
| Tue 08 Apr 04:51 | daniel szuc | I am staying put. |
| Tue 08 Apr 05:33 | MadMan | Damn, I could've sworn there was a whole page full of 'premium' articles when you searched for information architecture. Should've taken a screenshot. :( |
| Tue 08 Apr 08:17 | Anonymous | You have to be several times better than the competition to 'train guns' and get a substantial change in behavior. To extend this metaphor we have to aim where the competition will be, then fire first Yahoo is setting itself up as a Google wannabe, not a Google competitor. All this can do is -- as is clear in this thread -- get people draw comparisons to the leader. Yahoo can not out-Google Google. It might succeed evolving Yahoo into a better Yahoo. |
| Tue 08 Apr 11:52 | Joshua Kaufman | I put some of my thoughts about the new Yahoo! search on my site for those interested. |
| Tue 08 Apr 12:40 | Morris Cox | And here I was hoping that a search for web hosting would show my website creation and hosting website, so that I could actually make some money. :> I read on http://www.selfpromotion.com/ and http://www.selfpromotion.com/yahootips.t that it's important to be listed on Yahoo: ---------- Yahoo is the most important place to have your site listed on the Internet, yet most Yahoo listings are awful. Once you understand how to craft a proper submission to Yahoo, you'll not only greatly increase your chances of getting in, but you'll get many more hits than you would otherwise. If you are already in Yahoo, don't despair; my initial listing in Yahoo was awful, but I managed to double the number of clickthroughs I get from them by successfully requesting a change to my listing. ---------- Yahoo is without a doubt the single most important index on the Internet (though Open Directory is rapidly gaining on them!), and it is an absolute must that you get listed here. ---------- That said, I can't afford to pay $299 a year to be listed there. I much rather stay with Google, whom hasn't tried in-page video ads and whom hasn't shafted users as badly (I was one of the first Geocities users) and I remember all the violations of its own privacy policy Yahoo has done. They got caught selling the personal information of children. They reset everyone's preferences to receive 'special offers' and 'phone solicitations' and the like. Yahoo Mail isn't much better. I still get over 50 spam a day. |
| Tue 08 Apr 16:04 | Anonymous | > I won't switch. Will you? No way! I'm staying put. AllTheWeb.com is a million times better than Yahoo. |
| Tue 08 Apr 16:41 | Lydia | No, I won't switch, especially if all I am going to get is an imperfect clone of Google with an eye-wateringly crammed interface and annoying ads at the top of my search results. |
| Wed 09 Apr 03:32 | Anonymous | Perhaps the idea was to generate publicity to get people to take a second look at Yahoo. Drawing comparisons to Google was a big mistake because, __clearly__, Google fans will simply laugh at Yahoo's implementation. |
| Wed 09 Apr 13:03 | Lyle Kantrovich | Geesh, this is a tough crowd. A company makes a number of UI improvements, and all we can talk about is that they haven't raised the bar above the market leader's head. I wonder how many of you other usability practitioners work for market leaders? How many have the absolute best products in their industry? How many of your UIs are the absolute image of state-of-the-art usability and functionality? I say 'Good job' to the folks at Yahoo! We can all learn from the progress you've made. Keep it coming. I hope there's a day soon when Google can learn a lot from you or other competitors. While I'm not likely to switch from Google, I do recognize a few new twists you've added, and appreciate those attempts at innovation. Time, traffic logs, ad revenue, and hopefully a lot of usability tests will tell if you've succeeded. Seems that right now everyone's a critic, or so 'googley-eyed(tm)' that they can't give you proper credit. |
| Wed 09 Apr 15:08 | Joshua Kaufman | I'll second Lyle's comment. Well spoken like a 'Usability Guru' should be. ;) |
| Wed 09 Apr 15:52 | Lydia | I'm not sure anyone here is looking at it merely from a UI perspective, Lyle. The question was 'would you switch' from Google, not 'what do you think of the Yahoo! search improvements.' The answer involves brand loyalty, preference for simplicity over quick access to several information sources, and so on. |
| The process of redesigning a | Sat 05 Apr |
| Since Digital Web Magazine had no idea what their new logo should actually look like, they gave me carte blanche for the initial concepts. Not an easy assignment—many questions started popping into my head. Who do I actually design the logo for? Who is their audience? What does that audience feel comfortable with? And so on... The answers to such questions are fundamental in order to create a decent and representative logotype. (MadMan comments: Am I the only one who thinks their logo looks like a motorbike helmet?) |
| Mon 07 Apr 02:35 | Morris Cox | Yeah, I could see the helmet and the meat hook. I think that they should have tilted the 'W' so that it looked more like a W and less like a meat hook. And D-W makes me think of DW, Darkwing Duck. |
| Mon 07 Apr 10:23 | Boyink | I hate logo re-designs. I'm in the middle of it with a client and can honestly say it's hands down the most frustrating work I'm doing. My gut tells me that, in this day and age, logos for most companies (or in this case, a non-profit) just don't matter. How many do you see on a given day - and of those, how many do you remember? Of the ones you remember, what impact did they have? So many logos just seem to obscure the organization name. Helmet, meathook, sickle, whatever - in most cases I'll only see it for a fraction of a second (if at all) before I'm scanning the content to see if it's of interest. I'm lobbying my client to try something radical - no graphical element to the logo. Just an agreed-upon typeface and format for the organization name. They probably won't go for it...but I sure like the idea of not trying to communicate great meaning and brand attributes in some little 50-pixel square space. |
| Mon 07 Apr 23:14 | Anonymous | How many do you see on a given day - and of those, how many do you remember? I see an average 185 logos per day. At any given time I can recall 17 and draw them perfectly as vector graphics in Adobe Illustrator. |
| Tue 08 Apr 09:54 | boysen | There are so many problems with that logo. But the primary point I wanted to make was; attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, but there needs to be some kind of consensus as to the message the logo represents. |
| Tue 08 Apr 11:58 | Adam Greenfield | Boyink: I wish you luck. It's not particularly 'radical' - there's got to be ten thousand companies that use some form of unaccompanied Helvetica as their dominant CI element - but your point is fundamentally sound. |
| Tue 08 Apr 14:02 | Nick Finck | Good points made by all. Adam, you are correct, it's a huge pain to organize a redesign of anything with volunteers... Kristof did a good job in my opinion and he did it for free. Which brings me to my next point, we are not a non-profit company, we are simply an organization of people... everyone on staff has volunteered their spare time to make things happen. So please don't think we spent some huge budget on some logo that doesn't mean much to you. Matt is correct, it doesn't fit well with the 45 degree angles. The point here is that the logo is brand new, the angles and the rest of the design was created in 1998. Yes, 5 years ago. We are working on a redesign and the new look and feel would have been live at the same time the new logo was had everyone on staff been paid for their efforts and working full time on it. But that isn't the case. It's been over a year since the basics of the IA were drafted (see Christina's blueprint book chapter 10)... it's a looong sloooow process. There was nothing I could do to get a full redesign to take place by the March deadline. So you cut your losses and go with what you have; a new logo. As for meat hooks, birds, fishtails, swooshes and pretty much all the other things visualized in these comments, I guess I have only one thing to say. Do you see the words 'FedEx' in the Fedral Express logo or do you see an Arrow. For those who have gone to art school you know that about 25% of the elements of a logo have to do with negative space. Other factors such as color, shape, contrast, etc. play a role in the design as well. Beth Cherry wrote a great article on the subject: http://www.thestudyofdesign.com/articles_logo.php ...and Andrew Mindi also did a great peice on Principles of Graphic Design http://www.mundidesign.com/presentation/index2.html ...after reading those two articles, take a moment to draft up a logo for a fictional company... even if you are not (or claim not to be) artistic. You may just surprise yourself. |
| Tue 08 Apr 15:38 | Amy Smith | At least the final logo is far more successful than some of the previous iterations: http://www.digitalwebmag.com/tutorials/images/tutorial_2003-04_47.gif ummm....maybe it's just me, but can you say, 'phallic'? |
| Tue 08 Apr 16:26 | Kirk Sutter | Do you see the words 'FedEx' in the Fedral Express logo or do you see an Arrow. For those who have gone to art school you know that about 25% of the elements of a logo have to do with negative space. Nick, dude! I see the words 'FedEx'. I wouldn't see the arrow till someone pointed it out to me. If I saw it, I wouldn't get the symbolism till one of you arty types told me. What you art experts have to understand is that the rest of the world didn't go to art school, so all the 'meaning' you try and put into logos is lost on us, the common folk. Did you even need a new logo? What does it say about your site that people didn't know already? I think you have a DAMN good site, but I wouldn't have stopped visiting if you had kept the old logo. Your 'brand' isn't the logo; it's the interesting content and what people think of your site. Without that, you wouldn't have anything. |
| Tue 08 Apr 17:15 | Boyink | It's not particularly 'radical' - there's got to be ten thousand companies that use some form of unaccompanied Helvetica as their dominant CI element - but your point is fundamentally sound Yeah - I should have said quoted radical - I know other companies have done without graphic elements, it would be radical for this client to do so. Fed Ex is an arrow? Never noticed. Too busy trying to figure out why there are different colors. Heck -- I never noticed the string element to the UPS logo that's now being replaced. But I like it better than the new one. Nick - out of curiousity, how long have you been in graphic design? Have the requirements for logos gotten more intense in our digital world? I just think of the last employer I had - an 80 year old company. I'll bet the logo they have now, and are somewhat known for, would never past muster in this day and age. |
| Wed 09 Apr 10:19 | Scott M. | Nick - Cherry misses the point entirely. Here let me help. To quote Paul Rand: 'Here is what a logo is and does: A logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign. A logo does not sell (directly), it IDENTIFIES. A logo is rarely a description of a business. A logo derives its MEANING from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around. A logo is LESS important that the product it signifies; what it represents is more important that what it looks like. The subject matter of a logo can be almost anything.' The emphasis is Mr. Rand's. http://tinyurl.com/953w |
| Wed 09 Apr 12:24 | Nick Finck | Again. All good points. And yes, I agree with the points made. I do agree that only art students would probably see the arrow... I didn't at first, I am not an art student. The problem with the old logo, if you must know, is that it did not have enough unique characteristics to be used as a piece to identify the magazine with. In other words, no one remembered the logo, it did nothing for the site or the product (if you want to call it that). The old logo only tried to make us look like other publications: WebTechniques/New Architect, ComputerWorld, etc. It was an attempt to 'fit' in... which, as we later learned, we really should have just stood out as different. That's what the new logo attempts to do. So, I guess if someone say 'ya, I read it on Digital Web Magazine' and a person responds 'where?' and the responce they get is 'you know, they have that phallic logo' ....'oh, right... ok.' ..well, I guess it served it's purpose. Anyway, there is no need to go on about this, people will walk away thinking what they do of the logo and how funny it looks.. that's fine, at least they will remember it. |
| Back To Basics Rock | Mon 07 Apr |
| (bbc.co.uk) Toerag is an unusual studio: you wont find a single piece of digital equipment there. No computer of any description. |
| Tue 08 Apr 07:56 | Mac | Eight-track collectors are the archivists of a unique and glorious technology. We embrace a machine that has ceased to exist in the present, one which Madison Avenue has, arbitrarily, made synonymous with 'last year's model,' obsolescence and backwardness (they scream, 'You don't have a cellular phone yet? You probably still listen to 8-tracks...'). We are a group that refuses to believe it when corporate America insists that the new technology sounds better; a group whose members understand implicitly the relevance of looking back in history in order to see forward. From 8trackheaven.com |
| Tue 08 Apr 08:21 | Anonymous | 'Sounds better' Many critics of MP3 format argued it was a step backwards in sound quality, a factor which didn't seem to bother many MP3 users. |
| Tue 08 Apr 17:09 | Lydia | Well, owners of vinyl make the argument that CDs are too perfect, and remove the life from the music being played. I've heard detailed explanations as to why this is true, and I agree, but for the non-audiophile, this is a moot question. They don't like the scratchy bits in the background and during the silent parts, so CD clarity was a boon. I agree with the same arguments about the poor quality of MP3, but again it addresses the need for customization and portability that many consumers have. So, I don't think it is retro posing to have a non-digital studio. The true audiophile will love the idea of no digital equipment and will probably buy as much as possible from a company who can deliver a superior experience. So the trick now becomes how to make money and attract artists who wish to record in that type of environment. As for 8-track, it is hard to be a fan of a format that required a large, cumbersome machine, boxy modules that got dirty easily and seemed to attract dust like a magnet (yet were hard to clean) and offered absolutely no customization. I could record from radio, tape, and vinyl and got similar sound quality; easy choice. |
| Wed 09 Apr 04:23 | Alan Fisher | Unfortunately, if you down this track too far, you end up like The La's. A great band, who produced one superlative album, but became obsessed with getting true 60s ambience in their music. To the point where not only did they want genuine 60s equipment in the studio, they wanted it to have genuine 60s dust inside it! Needless to say, they never produced a second album and the UK music scene lost a great songwriter (Lee Mavers). Bottom line is, use what you're comfortable with, but don't get obsessed. MP3s - I'm not an audiophile, but they generally sound awful to me. Windows Media files seem to give much better clarity for about the same file size. |
| Internet Toilet Roll Browser | Mon 07 Apr |
| (Ideal Home Show) The product allows you to search the Internet whilst sitting on the toilet and print out any pages you are interested in on your toilet roll. |
| Mon 07 Apr 11:58 | Anonymous | ...or is it a failure of the imagination? |
| Mon 07 Apr 12:53 | Blogmin | This almost sounds like Chindogu, the art of creating something that is almost useless. International Chindogu Society http://www.pitt.edu/~ctnst3/chindogu.html |
| Mon 07 Apr 13:46 | JB | This is time maximization.... I love it. Most guys read a magazine in the toilet, so now they can surf, read and turf! |
| Mon 07 Apr 15:55 | Boyink | Printing websites on a toilet paper roll? Ohh...the irony. I think we need a SIGCHI debate on designing for front-hangers or rear-hangers. |
| Mon 07 Apr 18:04 | Anonymous | I just hope the ink is quick-dry. One copy of the funnies (however temporarily) tattooed to a rear and it is over. |
| Tue 08 Apr 03:51 | MadMan | Technology doesn't go mad; people do. :) |
| Tue 08 Apr 04:01 | Mac | MadMan - See updated comment. |
| Tue 08 Apr 06:12 | Philip Chalmers | The page is created by ASP so IE's properties box shows date created as to-day. But I bet it was uploaded on April 1st. In the UK pranks are a tradition on April 1st ('April Fool's Day') - one April 1st about 30 years ago the BBC ran a famous short feature about spaghetti trees. There's a clue in the 'Concept Products' page (the featured article links to this) - 'The prestigious Concept Products Award, sponsored this year by MFI, the UK’s leading furniture retailer, will be showcasing 14 of the best creative designs by some of Britain’s brightest, young design students from around the country'. Creative minds and April Fool's Day - hmmmm! |
| Tue 08 Apr 06:38 | Mac | Philip, I fear it is not an April Fool. The item was reported on the BBC Site on 5th April. There is also a comment from Andrew Cubitt (the 'Creative mind') on halfbakery.com |
| Tue 08 Apr 08:43 | daniel szuc | FTP - File Toilet Protocol. |
| Tue 08 Apr 11:21 | Anonymous | Hmm. That would explain the Microsoft 'net-enabled refridge magnets. |
| Tue 08 Apr 16:34 | Anonymous | FTP - File Toilet Protocol If WBWRD was /. and I had any mod points left i would have modded you +1 Funny (You actually got me to smile at work!) :) |
| Tue 08 Apr 16:56 | Lydia | If this is real*, I'm disturbed on a couple of different levels. Not only is the concept of using your computer while on the toilet gross to start with, but if you are spending enough time in there to make using a computer worthwhile, this should be causing you some gastrointestinal concern. ;) * What is the value of printing on toilet paper? Why would anyone put time, money, or effort into such a useless endeavor? This is one where the boss is not going to be impressed by the time use. |
| IESpell | Tue 08 Apr |
| ieSpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell checks text input boxes on a webpage. It should come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of web-based text entry (e.g. web mails, forums, blogs, diaries). (MadMan comments: Microsoft should embrace and extend this.) |
| Tue 08 Apr 11:54 | Joshua Kaufman | Note: the 'this website is cool' person seems to be comment spamming. Be on the lookout. I've seen the same comment and website link on another weblog yesterday. |
| Tue 08 Apr 12:15 | MadMan | Joshua, the heavy hand of God has come down on the comment spamming scum. :) |
| Supporting customers' decision-making process | Sat 05 Apr |
| (GUUUI) When people buy things, they engage in a decision-making process. Research shows that one of the major problems with commerce sites is that they fail in supporting the customers in this process. By understanding their needs and concerns as they progress through the decision-making cycle, we can build better and more successful commerce sites. (Comments: Good, but perhaps too much focus on UIE research.) |
| Tue 08 Apr 06:39 | Philip Chalmers | Thanks for publishing this - www.guuui.com looks like a very useful source of ideas! |
| Migrating to Linux not easy for Windows users | Sun 06 Apr |
| I assumed I could boot the well-known Linux distributions from a CD-ROM drive, make some on-screen selections, let the distribution know what hardware to use, twiddle my thumbs for a while as it loaded software and configured itself, and then have a working system. Was I ever wrong. |
| Mon 07 Apr 12:04 | Blogmin | Interesting to read an anti-linux article not directly from the marketing dept. of MS. Although I must wonder about his luck the day of installation. The first time I intalled linux it worked like a dream. Easier then Win95 for sure (which I have only installed once). Win98 might be easier, but not by much. My video card worked fine, as did my sound. The only problem was getting the onboard net card to work. Given that it was onboard, I realized that was a stretch, so I pulled an old one from a junk machine at work. Worked great. Two questions: 1.) Why can a mid-educated (just now getting in my major) lameo like me, have no problems while this tech-writer (they have to take more math then most! at least at UW) have such problems? My first guess is the old hardware, but something doesn't add up. 2.) Why do you think installation has not been looked at more closely by user-interface people? Other then OS X (XP too, I guess), which was easier then sleeping, most operating systems are a little clutzy during install. Why does nobody pay attention to installation usability? Particularly Linux distros, which get such bad press on their installation. I suspect there is a little assuming going on by the OS makers. Not everybody installs their own OS, so why make the proccess easy for everybody to use? |
| Mon 07 Apr 13:43 | John | My first and only install of Redhat (I think it was 6.2, a couple years ago) exploded in my face. I finally had to invite over a Linux-guru-friend and he got it going, but not without some major mojo on his part. I never really ended up using it too much (all my graphics software is in Windows and I'm sorry, but Photoshop still kicks GIMP's ass). But recently I popped a Knoppix CD into the same machine and it booted right up just fine, so maybe things are improving for Linux-newbies. John |
| Tue 08 Apr 01:41 | Lyle Kantrovich | I thought the Linuxworld article was excellent. It was well written (great 'voice'), and showed real-world examples of poor usability. In all fairness, many (not most) commercial products aren't much better. See John's great article on installing Norton AV for an example. The 'suggestions and comments for improving the experience' section (way at the end) is especially good. Linux developers should take heed. Some of my favorite quotes from the article: 'If you are a hairy-chested Linux administrator or programmer, you will undoubtedly find yourself screaming as you read the following. Save your breath.' 'I want an operating system that works like a Honda Accord and not a kit-car project.' 'Removing this pile of penguin poop was not easy. The uninstall didn't work, ... Dragging the dead penguin to the trash in Windows 95 worked' 'Before you say RTFM, make sure there is AFM to R' I've written a bit about Linux usability before. Some excerpts: 'If success for Linux were defined as being a great, cheap, open source *NIX-like OS, then Linux has already succeeded many times over. The problem is that UNIX was never meant to be a broad-base desktop environment -- just like Cray's aren't built for gamers. So if you've defined Linux's success as domination of the desktop computing market, then you've probably started with the wrong product -- Linux was not designed as a desktop computing product for the masses. If Linux ever does become a Windows-killer for average computer users, then it will fail to deliver what most hard-core Linux users want today -- a free and powerful *NIX clone.' from: Linux needs focus not whiners 'Linux on the average consumer's desktop? Not in the foreseeable future - it's built by geeks for geeks. And geeks love it, so it's successful in its own way.' from: Open Letter to a Power User / Developer Related: The Usability of Open Source Software - First Monday |
| Social Mobiles | Thu 03 Apr |
| (ideo.com) The user knocks on this phone to communicate the urgency of their call. The recepient hears this knock through their phone and can be discerning about which calls they answer. |
| Mon 07 Apr 13:20 | Lydia | Sorry, MadMan, no can do. I did send it to you earlier (at the email address you have on your website), but I have since deleted Joel's email. :( Daniel, I like your policy. I'm not sure why the idea of suddenly taking a call in the middle of another conversation wouldn't stand out as being obviously rude, but it seems to be pretty common. Go figure. |
| Sony axes eVilla Web-surfing appliance | Sat 05 Apr |
| Sony executives blamed the demise on stability and usability problems with the $499 desktop Web-browsing appliance, but did not offer specifics. (Comments: Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Mon 07 Apr 00:47 | Jason Fried | You do know this article was from August 30, 2001, right? |
| Mon 07 Apr 00:53 | Anonymous | Ohhhhhhh, those are 2001 dollars. Accounting for inflation, that would make eVilla about $85 in today's dollars. Nevermind. |