(Comments added for week ending Sun 13 Oct 2002) | View Other Weeks
(Part 1 of 2) | Thu 10 Oct
| last updated:14 Oct 2002 12: 29 Webword time, or 14 Oct 2002 17:29 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 13 Oct 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| WebWord Comment | Sat 12 Oct |
| /A> Why use an image for all that text? Makes me think very bad thoughts about the conference they are promoting! |
| Sat 12 Oct 22:09 | daniel szuc | Have they applied a UCD or subset of this methodology on their web site. Put it to the vote, how many usability folks apply *some* usability activities to their own web site? |
| Sun 13 Oct 04:16 | Anonymous | Why? The physical form of letters influences the experience, and since this is a conference for designing user *experience* there is an argument for doing so. Not all experiences have the rush of *efficiency* as their objective. Tenuous, but possible. |
| Sun 13 Oct 08:36 | Mac | Never mind the fact it is an image, have you actually read the words ! Maybe it's better being an image as the search engines won't pick up the actual words. daniel, I 'do' usability on my own sites all the time. In fact I do it much more on my own sites that I do in my 'paid' work mainly because I am 'Designing for an Audience of One'. |
| Sun 13 Oct 23:43 | daniel szuc | Thanks Mac. What activities do you find works best? We are currently developing software and included a *walkthrough* of a prototype and *usability testing* as part of improvements to the spec and final product. Very useful and powerful findings that have assisted greatly. Admittedly, it still will not be perfect, but its never will be ;) |
| NetTrends: Fighting Spam Becomes Top Priority | Sat 12 Oct |
| Naked women performing oral sex with guns pressed to their heads, naked women with large dogs clutching their backs, naked women in pigtails pretending to be daughters having sex with their fathers. (Comments: Yes, of course I pulled this quote out of context. However, I probably have your attention now. Thanks for the tip Daniel Szuc.) |
| Sat 12 Oct 22:31 | Contrarian | You grabbed out attention, but failed to convey the meaning of the link. You blog spammed us. |
| Sat 12 Oct 22:55 | Annoying Puff Cat | Duh, isn't the link self-explanatory? |
| Sat 12 Oct 23:48 | Contrarian | 'NetTrends' is a nebulous term. I thought it referred to a specific spam fighting software product or was the similarly named popular software product called WebTrends. There's even a NetTrends web design company. I also vaguely associated 'NetTrends' with the name of a specific e-mail newsletter that reports Internet statistics (I don't recall if the newsletter actually has that name). 'NetTrends' is written as if it's a company or product name (note the two words bunched together, no apostrophe on 'Net, and the capital 'T'). However, the article merely is referring to trends in the Internet industry. So no, the link name was not self-explanatory. It can easily be confused. If you want to make it self-explanatory, spell out the words instead of being crafty. Say 'Internet trend: fighting spam is becoming a top priority.' The fact that Reuters wrote a poor headline and WebWord repeated it is not an excuse. Blogs (usually) weed through the crap to tell us what's important -- what to read -- even if the nugget of truth is located in the last paragraph of a linked article. Revise link names to make them more usable. Hopefully the revised names are similar to the linked page titles, but that may not always be possible. In this particular case, it was possible. |
| Sun 13 Oct 01:31 | MadMan | Is Jack back as the Contrarian? |
| Sun 13 Oct 09:02 | Mac | Free X Ray Specs Now that the US wants to make it legal for music companies to hack into peer to peer music neworks, why not make it legal to hack into junk mailers systems to disrupt their activities. If they abide by a strict code of conduct we leave them alone. If not then its open season. |
| Sun 13 Oct 11:23 | Annoying Puff Cat | 'So no, the link name was not self-explanatory. It can easily be confused.' Ya, I agree that the name was not self-explanatory. I was just trying to be annoying. Oh, and I wanted you to say more groovy stuff. And say things contrary to what I said. Slip slidin' away. Oh, slip slidin' away... - Puff Out |
| Sun 13 Oct 12:57 | daniel szuc | I agreed MadMan, Jack is back ... Jack ... is that you? *waves hand in front of face* |
| Sun 13 Oct 13:03 | Matt Round | Maybe the spirit of Jack drifts from person to person, possessing them for a while before moving on... |
| Sun 13 Oct 22:38 | Contrarian | Am I someone else because I can write more than two reasoned sentences on a subject? If so, I'll be anyone you want me to be, honey. |
| Sun 13 Oct 23:09 | daniel szuc | *Removes sheet* and says 'Jack lives! He is alive!!' *evil laugh* - Young Frankenstein. |
| Google Needs People | Sat 12 Oct |
| Like the fabled creatures of mud and sticks, Google is a golem, an inanimate jumble of algorithms and interfaces, held together by the connective tissue of links. No people. No links. No Google. Similarly, the potential of Google News lies in its ability to leverage the distributed intelligence of thousands of editors and reporters. No editors. No reporters. No Google News. (Comments: Written by Peter Morville, author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition.) |
| Sat 12 Oct 18:09 | Contrarian | I use Google because there's no better alternative, so far. I do not use Google News because there are many better alternatives. My favorite news sites dish up better news than Google's choices. That's why they're my favorites. I pity the fool who enjoys using Google News for anything other than search. |
| Sun 13 Oct 10:37 | Mac | I don't think of Google as a search engine. I think that it is a relationship viewer. |
| Sun 13 Oct 23:07 | daniel szuc | A 'relationship viewer' - tell me more Mac. Interesting. |
| Wired News: A Site for Your Eyes | Sat 12 Oct |
| But what isnt readily noticeable is the backbone of this new design, a landmark undertaking for a heavily trafficked, content-heavy website like Wired News. With this edition, we have rebuilt the site to comply with Web standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium. (Comments: Why dont more large web sites use XSS and XHTML? Here are some thoughts on that topic.) |
| Sun 13 Oct 07:51 | Matt Round | Large sites use poor markup for a whole load of reasons - 1. Lack of awareness of the issue amongst management. They don't know they could have a faster, more accessible, easier to maintain site. 2. Lack of developer skills. Too many developers have stuck with what they know and made little effort to try anything new. 3. Lack of time/money. I'm sure some firms would love to improve their sites but currently are struggling to survive. 4. Poor output from CMS packages, having to integrate with old systems etc.. Many server side & desktop programmers seem to have little or no respect for client side code and produce systems that churn out any old rubbish. When you've got people like the shy and retiring Dave Winer making feeble excuses for poor markup instead of acknowledging the problems and trying to help fix them via his products I don't know whether to be amused or dismayed (blockquote really is for quotes, Dave, even if many incorrectly use it for indenting; don't worry, I'm sure you'll get the hang of this tricky HTML stuff eventually). |
| Sun 13 Oct 08:28 | Mac | I am absolutely underwhelmed by the wired update. It may very well make things easier to maintain 'under the hood', but it does absolutely nothing for me. Why? Because I am a PDA wired news reader, and this change has made absolutely no difference to what I see. These changes are designed to enhance our content and make Wired News a better experience for every one of our users, as well as to add new features. Enhance content? - Not for me. Better experience? - Not for me. New Features? - Not for me. I would rather that wired changed their ridiculous categorisation whereby I see the same news stories under different categories and have to play 'hunt the new story'. But that wouldn't excite the techies as it would only enhace my 'user experience'. I have looked at the new site, and the only thing I thought looked useful was the text resizing buttons, would this save me having to access the Text Size menu item? No of course it doesn't, as it appears only to work for the page currently being viewed. Although I am getting some funny page flashes that seems to imply that either they are trying to carry the option across pages and it isn't quite working, or they haven't allowed for the 'Flash of Unstyled Content' feature. Updating the wired site in this half-assed manner won't do the standards movement any good and may well do it some harm. |
| Sun 13 Oct 10:59 | Matt Round | From a design and usability point of view it may be a let down, but technically it's pretty good (only spotted a few dodgy areas), and that does (indirectly) make a difference for users. It might seem strange that it's gained so much attention, but people like me who've been using XHTML/CSS for years now and know it works really well have waited and wondered why we've not seen large sites do the same (despite being aware of the reasons I listed). Finally, a fairly large site has taken the plunge, and it might influence others just a little. So yeah, it's techies getting excited about stuff that's under the hood, but the web'll be a slightly better place (for users and developers) if more sites follow their lead. |
| Sun 13 Oct 22:00 | Joshua Kaufman | Mac: Do you think that Wired's moved to standards may improve your experience over time. For example, because they're using standards it will reduce their maintenance costs and over time improve the quality of their news stories? Also, their move to standards will do the standards movement good - a lot of good. As Matt said, the web will be a better place if more site follow their lead. That's how change happens: the progressive sites make the leap and set the standards, and other sites slowly follow the trend. |
| WebWord Comment | Sat 12 Oct |
| A little over a year ago I predicted that we would start seeing spam with Flash. However, I dont think I have seen a single email using Flash. Have you seen any spam with Flash? |
| Sat 12 Oct 22:43 | Keith Henning | Sure I have seen some spam with Flash. Here is a company that allows you to make it, send it, and then track it. http://www.impactbuilderpro.com They say web sites, but really it is a self contained splash page that is sent via email. |
| Sun 13 Oct 13:02 | Matt Round | I've got Outlook Express set to the Restricted security zone, and have that zone set to disable pretty much everything (Active Scripting, ActiveX, Java), to avoid embedded Flash/video and annoying/malicious scripting in emails. I've had a few blank spam emails recently, they probably contained Flash. |
| Sun 13 Oct 16:23 | Steve Davis | To accompany Matt's point above. Major web-based email client-types (hotmail, yahoo, etc.) block out code that would embed Flash content. I worked at a company that was considering putting Flash in emails, but it was due to the fact that this content couldn't get through to such users that we didn't use Flash. It is really rather difficult and costly (relative to static email) to reliably send multimedia emails to web-based email clients, and these users make up a considerable number of email adresses. |
| Sun 13 Oct 17:42 | Manuel | Well, companies like http://www.sciemarketing.com/ do send flash based email marketing, indeed if you google on this topic you'll find there are yearly conferences and lots of business selling and buying this. The difference is that flash based emails are usually (not always) sent to opt-in emails, not spam... |
| Movable Type 2.5 | Sat 12 Oct |
| Of course, thanks to all of our users. From day one, weve been overwhelmed by the interest in Movable Type; because of this demand, we are determined to release the best possible software we can offer. (Comments: I started using Movable Type on April 14th. I think that Im running version 2.0 or maybe 2.1. Should I upgrade to 2.5? Probably. However, I fear change. I dont like touching systems when they are working. I want the new features, but I dont need them. When it comes to technology, Im usually driven by needs, not wants. What about you? What makes you embrace new technology?) |
| Sat 12 Oct 18:02 | Contrarian | I need a better, comprehensive search for WebWord. Google is not providing that. MT 2.5 would. Better features and fewer bugs are why I upgrade. That's probably why I still run Windows 98. |
| Sun 13 Oct 05:36 | Vincent Benard | I upgrade : 1- If current situation is unsatisficing, or new features promise so much than upgrading seems worthy. (Utility of upgrade, added value) 2- If the upgrade is old enough to generate a wide rumor from other users : 'you can do it, it's safe, stable,...' (trust) 3- If the explanations on the upgrade process make me feel I will be able to perform the upgrade , because I'm not a geek. (usability of upgrade process) 4- If I've upgraded the same product once in the past, and everything ran smoothly, it will help me to take the upgrade decision. Otherwise, I will try to change the product for a competitor... (previous experience with the same product has been fulfilled successfully) Utility, trust, usability, fulfillment : the 4 legs of a good user's experience. |
| Sun 13 Oct 11:51 | John S. Rhodes | Vincent wrote: 'Utility, trust, usability, fulfillment : the 4 legs of a good user's experience.' What do other folks think about this definition of user experience? (I like it very much.) |
| Net marketing | Wed 09 Oct |
| Internet marketing website covering marketing strategy, news and research. For the latest news and developments in online marketing, search engine strategy, PPC internet marketing, viral marketing, email marketing, online branding, in fact any internet marketing... (MadMan comments: Useful, informative blog thats constantly updated, run by Robert Loch. If only he used a bigger font size...) |
| Thu 10 Oct 14:19 | Frank Lynch | Font? He should also see how it looks in Opera. I have to scroll down for his text (above the fold I only get the nav and a black field.) I won't be opening another browser to read his blog. |
| Sat 12 Oct 09:47 | pez | what about those subhead links? the parts of the page that should pop out at you actually recede into the page because they're lighter than the body text. it's a damn shame. another good blog goes in the crapper for the sake of art. |
| Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf (Part 1 of 2) | Thu 10 Oct |
| Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether to go to war in the gulf was a panorama of metaphor. Secretary of State Baker saw Saddam Hussein as sitting on our economic lifeline. President Bush portrayed him as having a stranglehold on our economy. General Schwarzkopf characterized the occupation of Kuwait as a rape that was ongoing. The President said that the US was in the gulf to protect freedom, protect our future, and protect the innocent, and that we had to push Saddam Hussein back. Saddam Hussein was painted as a Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to understand just what role metaphorical thought played in bringing us in this war. (Comments: Via Doc.) |
| Fri 11 Oct 19:30 | Kiss My War | 100% Moron: 'Remember to use the word 'terror'. Use it about Saddam Hussein, use it about Osama Bin Laden, use it about Yasser Arafat, use it about anyone who opposes Israel or America. Bush used it in his speech yesterday, 30 times in half an hour — that’s one 'terrorism' a minute. But now let’s list exactly what we really must forget if we are to support this madness. |
| Re: Searching and browsing preferencies | Thu 10 Oct |
| (CHI-WEB) From this, we believe that it isnt the user that decides whether they use Search or not its the design. |
| Fri 11 Oct 12:38 | JB | I have found on our site that approximately 105 of the visits to our site initiate a search as their primary vehicle for navigating around the site. I guess that does not meet Filberts data, but I also believe that a users behavior is dictated by multiple circumstances. - when they are searching - the depth and complexity of the site - their association with the site, is it first time or 20th time - their understanding of the topic in questions - the design of the site. Is the IA and nav similar to other popular site, or totally alien to the user. - their previous experiences with search in general - their web experience, I think experienced users convince themselves they can find anything without assistance. - the urgency of finding information. so when you take all these into account it kind of falls out that you simply need search, because you have no idea of the sate of mind the user is in when they get to your site and you really can't predict %ages of total traffic that will use search and that wont. |
| Fri 11 Oct 13:19 | JB | 105=10% |
| Fri 11 Oct 13:23 | Mac | Search Considered Harmful ? When I bought the UIE Report last year, I was a bit miffed, as I had just spent three years building and maintaining a search and navigation system for our intranet (10,000+ users). The system gives me real time stats and reporting, so I know that 68% of accessed links through the search, whilst the rest used the navigation categories. Last year I wrote to Jared to tell him that he was being harsh on search and we had a short discussion about it. I then sulked for a while and decided to spend some time examining my data to see if it would help. I tried a few experiments, by making small changes to the system and watching the results. I did not talk to users or get them to fill in any questionnaires, so these observations are only drawn from by hours of writing analysis programs and poring over a database that contained information about millions of searches and navigations. I observed that: Individuals used a mixture of search and navigation and there was only one group that seemed to rely on one more than another. These were new starters who spent a lot of time using the navigation. It seemed that they were browsing the navigation structure to get a feel for the organisation and the products it sold (financial products, mortgages etc). After a period of a few weeks they would then move onto the normal pattern of mostly searching with a bit of navigation. Most of the searches (about 70%) were for items that the user have previously accessed through the search, and therfore knew that they existed. People would often use the same search dozens of times a day and always access the same result from the list. By looking at the searches performed it seemed that the users were lokking for the shortest word they could find to access their required result. Because the system has a real time usability feedback loop, it 'learns' from the users failed searches and updates its dictionary accordingly. This means that 'advanced' users learnt that the system seemed to 'know' their peculiar abbreviations and slang terms and would get them the correct result on demand. The search and nav tool is implemented using the search pane of IE, so the users can performs searches without replacing the content in the browser window. This means that people could perform searches and look at the results before commiting to a navigation. The most popular items in the system were the Daily News page and the Top Searches and Views page, which showed people what the most popular searches and navigation items were. I think that people use the search most of the time, not because it is a traditional search, but because of the extra value they get from the 'slang' and 'abbreviation' short cuts, the ability to have a direct route into the 'improvement feedback loop' and just because it gives them the chance to be a voyeur. I have spent the last six months trying to create navigation systems that don't rely on search but do their best to represent something about the strucuture of the domain that people wouldn't normally see. Hence webword stats and usabilityviews. I am really starting to believe that 'plain search' is not a good thing, and misses out on an enormous amount of information. Anyway, I could say more, but I had better leave it there for now. PS. I really could do with some help on the graphic design for usabilityviews as my insane colour sense is beginning to take over, and I'm finding it hard to stop myself. |
| WebWord Comment | Wed 09 Oct |
| Chris McEvoy built (1) WebWord A to Z - By Date, (2) WebWord A to Z - Backlinks and (3) WebWord A to Z - By Title. |
| Fri 11 Oct 12:40 | Mac | cannot help myself.... must stop using colours..... looking like kindergarden painting...... need help now, please..... |
| Britannica Online Store Ineptness | Thu 10 Oct |
| Britannica makes a great encyclopedia. It runs a very inept online store. (Comments: Via Holovaty.) |
| Fri 11 Oct 04:12 | Alan Fisher | I had exactly the same experience last week with Debenhams online store (Debenhams are THE major department store in the UK). We were trying to buy a wedding gift from their on-line wedding list service, went through the whole process and clicked on the 'check out' button, only to get a 'page not available'. This happened 4 times over a 3-day period. What this told me was - either they didn't know the check-out feature wasn't working OR they did and didn't think it was worth telling their customers. Either way, it's incompetence. |
| Fri 11 Oct 12:30 | JB | I had a similar experience with Wells Fargo when applying for a credit card online. After spending ten or so minutes entering all the information hey wanted, the submit button took me to a service down page and told me to contact the 800 number to apply for a card. You would think there would be a way to insert the error page at the start of the process not at the end…. It may require some system checking and a manual observation, but gee…your doing business on the net. Guess who is not getting my business. |
| SUMMARY: Add to Cart Behavior | Thu 10 Oct |
| (CHI-WEB) Can anyone point to usability research or even anecdotal evidence that suggests which of the following two approaches is better. When a user clicks Add to My Cart while shopping an e-commerce site... |
| Fri 11 Oct 12:23 | JB | I don't know of any empirical studies undertaken in this area, but I believe stores like bn.com are moving in the right direction where they provide a summary of what was just entered into your cart at the top of each page. this way you know you have stuff in your cart and its current value. This is much closer to the actual cart metaphor, where you select thing you want and toss them in the cart. If asked at a random time what you had thrown into your cart, you could probably not list everything, but you could stop and check what is in there. The bn.com example is very close to this, but actually lets you know how much you have racked up in $, thus making the process a little more user friendly. So this a long winded way of saying hybrid of 1 and 2. |
| KPMG Consulting changes name to BearingPoint | Thu 03 Oct |
| The company evaluated the names (approx. 550) for usability and meaning within the 134 countries in which its clients operate. |
| Fri 11 Oct 07:57 | CB | A sack of weasels by any other name is still a sack of weasels |
| Wind-Tunnel Economics | Wed 09 Oct |
| There has been an explosion of interest in the last few years in the economics of human beings as they really are; not the lightning calculator of pleasures and pains characterized by Thorstein Veblen a century ago, but the habit-ridden, time-bound, emotionally-driven creatures that we know ourselves to be. (Comments: When are we going to have Wind-Tunnel Usability?) |
| Thu 10 Oct 18:41 | Bernard | Isn't usability wind-tunnel development? We take something that may or may not have been designed well and run it through the gale force of pseudo-real-life. All the bits that come flying off are reported as errors. The alternative is to take the product out onto the real raceway of a production system and let those pieces fly off without any protection to the end users. |
| Definitions Of Usability | Tue 08 Oct |
| Ron Zeno said: Maybe point to a commonly accepted definition of usability as a reference. |
| Tue 08 Oct 03:18 | Mac | 'Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.' William Morris (1834-1896) |
| Tue 08 Oct 11:17 | daniel szuc | 'user friendly' |
| Tue 08 Oct 14:02 | Joshua Kaufman | usable: reduced, transparent and easy to use. |
| Tue 08 Oct 14:30 | JB | Users have had a positive experience.... or User can accomplish what they set out to do without frustration. these definitions allows for technically poor usability, but if users are happy who cares what the experts say... |
| Tue 08 Oct 15:01 | Joel Spolsky | My definition is simply: 'something that behaves as users expect it to'. Everything else is a corrolary. |
| Tue 08 Oct 17:09 | Ron Zeno | I don't think it is useful for people to come up with their own definitions, unless you want to demonstrate the immaturity of the usability field and how meaningless usability currently is. Instead, we need accepted definitions that everyone can refer to. For example, an old definition popularized by Nielsen is fairly hard to find online and is quite narrow: http://www.zdnet.com/filters/printerfriendly/0,6061,2137671-84,00.html ISO 9241 includes a better (broader) definition that is somewhat easier to find and reference: http://www.tau-web.de/hci/space/i7.html |
| Tue 08 Oct 19:49 | Anonymous | if the user can achieve his or her purpose without being hindered or bothered by the interface, it is a usable interface. i summarize that as 'not annoying or obtrusive.' i like joel's definition, except that there are situations where users have little or no expectations. how did people expect the first telephone, television, VCR or personal computer to function? a truly new 'thing' may model itself after other familiar paradigms, but that's not the same as meeting a person's expectations. |
| Wed 09 Oct 10:52 | Charles Mauro | I have a formal definition of 'User-Centered Design' which has been found useful to students and clients. My experience, based on 25 years in professional usability engineering and testing is that a formal definition only goes so far. If clients are receptive to UCD or usability they will immediately understand the discipline and the ROI. If they are not open you are completely wasting your time: http://www.taskz.com/definitions.php |
| Wed 09 Oct 16:28 | Lydia | I really like Joel's take on usability for software design: 'A user interface is well designed when the program behaves exactly the way the user thought it would.' (Joel Spolsky, http://www.joelonsoftware.com) |
| Wed 09 Oct 16:35 | Anonymous | Aw, shrimp. I somehow missed the post from Joel himself. (I wasn't trying to suck up, I swear!) I do find it useful to have a personal definition of usability that you can communicate to the people you do it for (the theory being that you believe in the product you sell). But, a common definition that can be used as a touchstone is also an advantage, since it tends to break down barriers when people can point to a common source of knowledge, even if that common source is not immediately known to the viewer. Flexibility is key. |
| Thu 10 Oct 17:11 | Lydia | Ooh, hey, that last apparently anonymous post was from me. I just noticed that if you post twice in a row, the name/email/url saved area disappears. |
| Suit Over Airlines' Web Sites Tests Bounds of ADA | Mon 07 Oct |
| When Robert Gumson logs on to the Internet, he uses a software program that converts Web site content into speech. But when he logged on to Southwest Airlines Web site to make a reservation, Gumson, who is blind, found that the site was incompatible with his screen-reader program. (Comments: Do you think filing a lawsuit is the best way to get a company to change its web site?) |
| Mon 07 Oct 22:41 | Anonymous | It's the only way. That's been proven with other ADA lawsuits. Companies do not act without fear of litigation. Right to sue is as important a 'balance of power' as the USA's three branches of government and news media. |
| Tue 08 Oct 04:33 | Alastair Campbell | What's the difference between Section 508 and the ADA? Or is Section 508 part of ADA? I agree with the post above, it's the only way large companies will take notice. There are many examples of companies in the UK that that try to be socially conscious and have perfectly good disabled access at their physical facilities. Yet they don't realize that blind/visually impaired people use the internet at all, let alone can be blocked by certain technical aspects. Perhaps after a couple more cases, accessible design will be made a necessity and become the norm. |
| Tue 08 Oct 05:01 | glasshaus Bruce | I really hope that this case goes through without settling so that the judge will rule that the web is 'goods or services'. We have the same problem here in the UK; the Disability Discrimination Act here doesn't explicitly include web sites as goods or services (although they're obviously within the spirit of the law) so it's a grey area. If the judge in the US (or some future judge in the UK) finds that these airlines are in contravention of the ADA (regardless of 508 which only applies to sites doing business with the government) the case for accessibility on the web gets a great fillip. If corporations won't do the right thing (and stay within the spirit of the law) then litigation by an individual or lobby group is the only way. |
| Tue 08 Oct 05:11 | Mac | I strongly disagree with taking legal action to resolve the issue. Large companies can respond by making their sites compatible with screen reader technology which will probably not result in a usable solution. Site publishers with less resources may just go out of business when faced with a law-suit. Why not buy a 'southwestsucks.com' domain and start an online campaign to improve the situation. Tie it in with demands for better access at airports and maybe it could really make some difference to peoples lives. Over reliance on litigation will only come back and bite us all on the ass. |
| Tue 08 Oct 08:40 | Joe Clark | Overreliance? We're talking about one lawsuit. |
| Tue 08 Oct 11:38 | JB | Section 508 only applies to Govt agencies and their presentation of web sites. This will be an interesting test. But what surprises me the most is that someone in the US is suing over this ;)... it must be cheaper than picking up the phone and making a complaint. |
| Tue 08 Oct 12:24 | glasshaus Bruce | it would be easier to make a complaint on the phone, but in the case of the ADA/ UK DDA where the laws were drafted pre-web, sometimes it's necessary to force a judgement to set a precedent, just to clarify the law and let us all know where we stand - like Maguire vs. SOCOG in australia. It's by no means obvious that it's the one guy trying his luck to make a buck, just like Maguire was trying to set precedent rather than trying to enrich himself. |
| Tue 08 Oct 14:16 | Anonymous | More than ten years after the ADA was passed, we still see widespread non-compliance in everything from store entrances to store isles to bathrooms. Lawsuits are the only way. |
| Tue 08 Oct 15:26 | boysen | Lawsuits generally end up benefiting the individual to the detriment of the people at large. Costs will always be passed on to all of us. There is a reason why Shakespeare wrote, 'The first thing we do, let's kill the lawyers.' |
| Tue 08 Oct 16:29 | Anonymous | so, businesses ignore the law for 10+ years, then get sued because their businesses are not accessible, and you blame the lawyers? interesting. i wonder if you would take the same stance toward a business that refused to serve a person of a particular ethnicity. it's the same issue. accessibility is a civil rights issue. american courts see it that way. people who face discrimination have no other alternative. the law is enforced in the courts. |
| Wed 09 Oct 05:54 | glasshaus Bruce | .. doing a little more research on bipc.com this morning, it appears that Mr Gumson, the litigant in the web accessibility case, is not after personal enrichment at all (as I speculated last night). He's a member of a Miami Beach-based disability rights group called 'Access Now'. More power to his elbow. I think anyone offering 'net only' offers/ discounts should be *obliged* to make their sites accessible. |
| Wed 09 Oct 11:28 | jan | I would like to see full accessibility to all public websites, but I detest lawsuits. Whether they're to make a fast buck or not, lawsuits are a poor way to accomplish change. They create an adversarial relationship that often precludes reason. We tend to dig in our heels when we think we're being forced to do something. You'll get the minimum the law requires, but the companies are not going to go the extra mile. Did this guy ask the airline whether he could suggest some ways or some people to talk to for the airline to make the site accessible, or was his first reaction to jump to a lawsuit? Are disabled people expecting instant results, or are they willing to give a company some time to accommodate them? It would be next to impossible to make any but smaller sites completely accessible overnight. A reasonable approach would be to provide an attainable deadline for a conversion. Do we want justice? An example: Mom and Pop decide they have some items that might sell well online, so they put their little store on the Internet, not realizing there are accessibility guidelines and not knowing anything about how they can make their site more accessible. Mom and Pop get slapped with a lawsuit they can't afford. They shut down their website. Not only can the disabled person not get the products online, no one else can either. I guess that's equal access. No, wait, not quite. The non-disabled person who has no trouble getting around can get to the store to buy a product. The disabled person who can't get around sues the store because he/she can't get there to buy the product. Maybe ignorance is no excuse, but if the people who are concerned about accessibility issues publicized the ADA and approached companies in a reasonable manner with suggestions on how they can make sites accessible, more companies might become educated and convert their web pages. But this, like most things, takes time and effort. The question then becomes, are the disabled and advocates for the disabled willing to commit the time and effort to this educational process and give it a chance to succeed? Let's face it: The primary reason the advocacy group wants to bring a lawsuit is that it wants the publicity a suit would generate. Think how much easier it will be for them to publicize their issue if they punished some big company and grabbed a lot of headlines. They don't want to take the time and expend the effort. Maybe some companies won't do anything to provide website accessibility unless someone forces them to. But a lawsuit should be a last resort. |
| Wed 09 Oct 13:40 | Joe Clark | Let's face it: The primary reason the advocacy group wants to bring a lawsuit is that it wants the publicity a suit would generate. Can you point us to any statements of claim to back up that assertion? Or could it be that the plaintiff was actually subject to the discriminatory treatment he claimed? Or perhaps the plaintiff and Access Now are also advancing this as a test case to put to rest any speculation about whether the ADA does or does not apply to the Web? |
| Wed 09 Oct 19:27 | Lydia | There should be a way organizations or individuals can pressure a company into compliance with accessibility. However, it should not be through a lawsuit claiming discrimination. He could have picked up a phone and completed his reservation, so he was not barred from obtaining goods or services. The Internet is not a physical place - it should be treated like a phone service and they should go about it the same way deaf organizations pressure companies into accepting teletype calls. Accessibility is mandatory for federal websites, but individual site owners and companies shouldn't be forced into making their websites accessible. If they want to deal with the lost revenue, that's their problem. That is why (IMO) lawsuits aren't the answer. Grassroots campaigns are. Get them to change their ways by not challenging them. Slap a lawsuit and they will do the bare minimum. Get them to realize how you are affecting their bottom line and accessibility will become more of a standard practice for good business. |
| Thu 10 Oct 06:12 | glasshaus Bruce | Lydia wrote 'he could have picked up a phone and completed his reservation, so he was not barred from obtaining goods or services.' But he could not have got the best rate that way, as many web sites offer special net-only deals. So he was being discriminated against in that he couldn't get the cheapest price, as the web site is inaccessible. Grassroots campaigns have been running for years; Joe Clark, and me at glasshaus have produced books on how to make web sites accessible (it ain't rocket surgery). In the UK, Julie Howell in the Royal National Institute for the Blind has been running a campaign that has successfully persuaded companies to design for access. But, the ADA (US) and DDA (UK) do not explicitly mandate that web sites are required to offer access to goods and services to the disabled/ visually impaired, simply because the legislations were written pre-web. So this is a test-case not so much to force XYZ Widget Company Ltd/ Inc to make their site accessible, nor to enrich Jane-Doe-the-victim at XYZ Widget's expense, but rather to get a judicial ruling that clarifies the law: is denying John Joe/ John Bull the cheapest ticket because he can't use the web discriminatory under the terms of the disability discrimination act? Only a judge can rule on that. |
| Explaining the Science of HCI to the General Public | Wed 09 Oct |
| (UsabilityNews) The HCI Fun project aims to demonstrate to the public how science investigates making information technology more usable. At this stage we invite members of the HCI community to visit the site and give their feedback on the current development and future direction. |
| Wed 09 Oct 15:37 | Lydia | Oh, the irony. I know this is an easy mistake to make, but they have blue links and then they used blue to highlight their (non-linked) list of topics to discuss! I like the idea, though it would have been better to see a more thoughtful name if they intend this for an adult audience. HCI Fun immediately makes me think that it is kid-oriented effort, and I automatically tune out. I think that using tangible objects to talk about usability is an excellent way to discuss the practice. Don Norman's Design of Everyday Things is a good example of that. I constantly refer to it to get common ground when talking to someone about web applications and sites. |
| Thu 10 Oct 05:10 | Mac | Someone knows how to misuse dreamweaver, and as I can't see java applets in my browser I am totally excluded. |
| Information overload: it's time to take your time | Sat 05 Oct |
| (Gerry McGovern) Greed is the first cousin of speed. We have bought into the belief that we can get rich quick without any real effort. We cant. (Comments: Gerry, youre wrong about something. You make it sound like it isnt possible to get rich quickly. It is possible, however, it isnt probable. In other words, of course there are people who get rich fast. However, the percentage of people getting rich fast is extremely low. Yet, many people try, and try, and try because they see that other people have made it.) |
| Mon 07 Oct 14:05 | Lydia | It seems like his point was that people think they can get rich quickly with little effort - I don't think he's disputing that you can get rich quickly, what he is saying is that it doesn't just fall in your lap, especially not these days. The get-rich-quick thing seems to be one of the lingering beliefs from the dot-com boom. Suddenly it became plausible for someone to get rich by working for a company that gave you options, or by starting up and selling off a company that was in the industry. Or they look at Microsoft engineers (forgetting that before they got their big checks they spent four years or more slaving away, missing family and friends they left behind, and spending all their time on campus). I was just talking to someone recently who told me this was his 'plan' and 'that's why I'm working for a start up.' Hello? |
| Wed 09 Oct 21:18 | Manuel Razzari | Gerry's article is available in spanish at http://www.ultimorender.com.ar/funkascript/archivo/varios/000012.htm |
| WebWord Posting 300 | Mon 07 Oct |
| Luvs and Hugs Daycare Center (Comments: Scroll to the bottom of the postings. See the blog spam. Yum!) |
| Tue 08 Oct 08:35 | Martin Sutherland | It's unfortunately really easy to generate BlogSpam for Movable Type blogs. (I don't know what it is like for other engines, like Blogger or Radio.) There's a handy list of Moveable Type blogs < a href='http://www.movabletype.org/donors.shtml'>here. Scrape the HTML, and you get a base list of domains. And because most people install MT in the default location, all you have to do is append '/mt/mt.cgi' to the domain name to get the location of the MT engine. After that, all you have to do is create the appropriate HTTP message to send to the engine, and off you go. You'd have to guess at the blog ID and entry ID, but you can just generate random numbers for that. If you wanted to make sure that you posted your spam to the latest blog entries, you could grab the RSS feed from blogs that have them, and scrape it to get recent entry IDs. It's almost surprising it doesn't happen more often... |
| Tue 08 Oct 10:04 | Mike Boyink | Do-able, but a daycare provider with an AOL email address? Feels like an amateur job...which does happen. Just last week I had a piece of spam come in that just *felt* different - it was related to my hobby and for some reason just seemed like the attempt of an internet newbie to gain business for a new ecommerce site, not knowing anything about spam. A quick email with some pointers to spam definitions and ramifications got an apologetic and grateful response. |
| Wed 09 Oct 17:07 | Lydia | How very odd that anyone would think they could drum up business that way. I would think that common sense would tell them anyone would be too pissed off or just plain baffled by an ad showing up suddenly in a thread that they would not call for service. They might call to complain, though. |
| Interview with Alan Cooper: The Future of Software Development and the .NET Platform | Tue 08 Oct |
| For years I’ve talked about software development, but it’s a confusing label. Software doesn’t get developed. It gets built. It’s a construction project. Calling it development gives the impression that it’s an ongoing thing, and many of the ills we experience come from that. (Comments: Thanks Kung Pao.) |
| Wed 09 Oct 03:19 | Mac | Having spent a long time in every role, I can tell you it’s a craft, as much as a stonemasons building a cathedral. Software programmers have more in common with masons than with engineers. If you want to understand programmers a bit more then read this interview. |
| Wed 09 Oct 09:35 | MadMan | Gee... 'developed', 'built'... what an epiphany! A silly semantic squabble is all that Cooper has to offer? |
| Wed 09 Oct 10:42 | Ron Zeno | It's a promotional piece for Cooper, made to look like an interview, nothing more. Don't waste time looking for meaning where there is little or none. |
| Wed 09 Oct 13:59 | Mac | Link to the dicussion on UCD List |
| Wed 09 Oct 16:42 | Lydia | I used to think along the lines of 'building' a software program - trying to anticipate current needs, future needs, whatever needs there might be, then structuring the whole thing and laying the brick. Trouble is, that makes for a very inflexible program. Since then, I've moved back towards the iterative design side of the scale. In that respect, it is software 'development' because things do change. Often, needs that loomed so large just a few months prior end up being revamped and retooled as other needs are understood more thoroughly. It works better with usability engineering, too. |
| Has online content jumped the shark? | Sun 29 Sep |
| (NUblog) Independent Web sites (which seem to take only one form, Weblogs) have proliferated beyond any credible expectation and have now become what so many costly commercial sites never managed – a component of the mainstream reader’s daily diet. (You didn’t really visit Pets.com every day, did you? But now don’t all of your friends have daily blog-trolling lists?) |
| Wed 09 Oct 15:58 | Chr1sBr0wn | Alan, RE: 'The comments about Jack's point on the Americans with Disabilities Act in particular are verging on wilful misunderstanding of the point he's trying to make.' 'Jack' (sorry to be presumptious in using his first name as I don't know his last) was commenting on a personal site. This is what scares me. That people will attempt to legislate visual design without thoroughly understanding the medium and it's limitations. To expect a single visual medium to meet the requirements of 100% of possible readers is extreme and is a dereliction of logic. Will every site have an opening screen with a visual acuity test at which point it redirects to an opthalmologist approved design. At some point people need to accept the limitations they have and realize that not every site can and should be bullied into compliance. |
| Joshua Davis Interview | Fri 04 Oct |
| (studiowhiz.com) Anti-usability ? no. Im anti-this site is for all Idiots... Sooner or later everybody will have a boring usable website and theyll get to a point where they need to execute something to set them apart from all the other sites within their genre. |
| Mon 07 Oct 05:30 | Matt Round | Barneys is horrible, all that hassle and then you find there aren't even any product details or online purchasing, just lists of brand names. |
| Mon 07 Oct 15:26 | Mac | Can someone in the UPA say Thank You to Lydia? (I knew that A to Z would come in handy). |
| Wed 09 Oct 15:27 | Lydia | Mike, I do think it is easier not to say 'Usability' straight away when doing a full site design, just because it tends to put people on guard or something. But, sometimes you get people who hire you specifically for your focus on usability, and the subject cannot be avoided. That's when the evangelizing comes into play. Sometimes, people hire usability consultants because they think they have to, and they are (perhaps without knowing it) slightly hostile from the get-go. It's our job to put their mind at ease, get them comfortable, and get them on our side. From there, everything else is like rollerskating downhill. Major red flags for potential push-back and hostility include 'our advisord/investors said we had to get this reviewed for usability.' Oboy. Even worse: 'Well, I picked up one of those books by Jakob Neilsen, but our CEO said we should get this checked out anyhow.' Ack! Mac, getting to talk to a group of people with such diverse opinions and ideas about usability is the best reward I could get! (Well, aside from fruit-shaped marzipan.) |
| Wed 09 Oct 15:42 | Mac | |
| The 1 Percent Solution? | Tue 08 Oct |
| (ClickZ) Four major online publishers: a renowned pure-play content site, two major newspapers with very successful free sites, and one of the worlds major financial dailies. Each has great marketing and promotional power. Each spent 4 to 18 months trying to convert users into paying subscribers for traditional content. Each converted no more than 1 percent. (Comments: Data! I love it. Thanks Frank.) |
| Wed 09 Oct 03:42 | Eric Scheid | Wow, that's a 99% reduction in their hosting costs! Nothing to be sneezed at. Better to make a small profit than a large loss, I say. |
| Wed 09 Oct 06:01 | Alan Fisher | I think one of the problems here is that the sites which introduce charging lose sight of the fact that their visitors could quite easily go elsewhere, and that elsewhere might be free. You really have to have very strong brand loyalty to induce visitors to subscribe when there are other sources of the same information, and it doesn't surprise me that only 1% of their regular users are that loyal. Off hand, I can only think of one site I'd be prepared to subscribe to, and that's the Guardian website. Even then, I'd want access to all their subsidiary sites and I'd want advertising removed. Having said that, it surprises me that only 1% of FT.com's users have subscribed. This is the bible of the upper reaches of British industry, and the site provides access to all sorts of business intelligence which many of the FT's readers would presumably find essential to their day-to-day existence. It's specialised enough that I would expect a much higher conversion rate. |
| Wed 09 Oct 10:12 | boysen | Great article. I think 'loyalty' is one of the ingredients. I also think the material needs to be something that's either very hard to find or, in fact, unique. Another ingredient would be the usability of the site, but that probably factors a bit lower in the mix. I haven't seen anything regarding long-term renewal rates, have any of you? Unlike print, someone (somewhere) should be able to track site usage and compare *that* to renewal patterns. That would be most interesting. |
| Wed 09 Oct 11:03 | Frank Lynch | I, too, was surprised to see the conversion rate was so low, and yes, it does stand to reason that attrition is high because there is free competition out there. Unfortunately, one can't even compare it to consumerreports.org, which has unique content, because it started out as a subscription model in the firstplace. The loyalty question is a good one... The denominator is simply monthly unique visitors, but how many of the monthly visitors were repeat visitors anyway? As of a year ago, Nielsen NetRatings wasn't offering that metric without asking for a custom analyis, so I don't know if anyone really had a good grasp of that. We could be faced with a lot of butterfly traffic on our sites, and if true we should lower our expectations of what we might be able to convert. But all that being said, yes, even if it's only 1%, it's better to have the money than not. And I also think it's better to have your efforts seen and read by those who really care about it. As Samuel Johnson observed, 'what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression.' |
| Wed 09 Oct 15:22 | Jim Mammy | I didn't quite understand why this author was so down on subscriptions. Why is 1% a 'woeful' rate? Compared to what, the past 100 years of web publishing? Maybe 1% is, and will always be, the average conversion rate in this industry. For me as a Salon subscriber, subscribing was a choice. I could either 'pay' by viewing annoying popup ads, or I could pay with cash and avoid ads (and get access to the extra articles and MP3's, etc). Sure, the other 99% of people would rather view the ads and not pay cash, but Salon gets revenue either way. What's the problem with that system, and why is it somehow Salon's fault? |
| Separation Anxiety | Tue 08 Oct |
| Bob Stein blasts the myth of the separation of style from content in this three-part series. Originally published in A List Apart and reprinted with permission from the author 4/9/01. |
| Wed 09 Oct 03:14 | Mac | Only people immersed in a business have a clue to its natural structure. Down with the 'experts'. Great article. That's another one to add to my 'heresy' list. |
| NoIraqAttack.org | Tue 01 Oct |
| AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY OPPOSING A U.S. INVASION OF IRAQ (Comments: Catchy URL.) |
| Mon 07 Oct 06:16 | daniel szuc | 'Oh we are sailing ... just give Peace a chance' - John Lennon |
| Mon 07 Oct 14:10 | Lydia | Daniel, I don't get the play on words there. |
| Tue 08 Oct 14:51 | boysen | It's not that people don't want peace, Daniel. Does anyone else see the lack of value in a recommendation against war from people outside the US, when those citing that opinion aren't the ones who've been attacked or put at risk? No that you are not entitled to your opinion, but in reality, your opinion isn't worth very much in this debate. |
| Wed 09 Oct 02:57 | Mac | boysen, I'm afraid that your comment is the kind of thing that encourages the rest of the world to belive that americans are arrogant sods who don't care about anyone except themselves. This was will affect everyone, especially the people in Iraq who will be added to the 'price worth paying' pile. 'When asked on US television if she [Madeline Albright, US Secretary of State] thought that the death of half a million Iraqi children [from sanctions in Iraq] was a price worth paying, Albright replied: 'This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.'' -- John Pilger, 'Squeezed to Death', Guardian, March 4, 2000 I guess that you didn't talk to any of these people at the weekend. They are American and therefore are 'allowed' a voice, or maybe there's some other reason why they should be ignored? |
| When good things happen to bad ideas | Tue 08 Oct |
| Knowledge management is a solid concept that fell in with the wrong company. Software companies, to be precise. (MadMan comments: Tell us about the failed knowledge management initiatives youve witnessed. Speak freely. We want to know.) |
| Tue 08 Oct 10:06 | Mike Boyink | Two words: Lotus Notes |
| Tue 08 Oct 14:25 | JB | I know MadMan wants personal experiences, but I need to state that knowledge sharing in companies is more than the archiving and distribution of documents that have been generated. Knowledge sharing in a company actually occurs through such activities as gossip, and rumor spreading - strange but true. Much research has been done that notes that much about how to operate in an organization and its overall dynamics are learnt through the 'grape vine' - the informal process of discussing and gossiping about the work environment. So, how do you automate this process? I would not be volunteering to add such comments to a global distribution and storage process. Knowledge management is no different to CRM - both solutions searching for a problem. Another thing I have noticed is that with John’s redesign of the entry fields, I actually enter more copy now than in the past. |
| Tue 08 Oct 16:46 | (the other) JS | Some questions based on JB's insight: Do companies have breakthroughs due to their systems? Or do the breakthroughs happen by accident, the companies rewriting history to make it look otherwise? ...How exactly do you get the core knowledge many people would consider economic suicide to divuldge? ...Perhaps more importantly, how does any system capture the ineffable qualities even the average person thinks of when considering the concept of knowledge. Most companies aren't aware that the way things get done is different from what the documentation says. Others would be shocked to find the people employed to hand-type the output from one system into another, incompatible system. Knowledge is about the stuff 'that isn't happening here'. The unspoken. The stuff that has become so ingrained the people who 'know' it don't even know they know it. Filbert is down on self-reported data. Can you even imagine the trouble with getting first hand accounts about knowledge? |
| NOTHING - Free Shipping! | Sat 05 Oct |
| (eBay) You are bidding on nothing. The winner will gain the privelage of sending me money and helping me pay for food, which im sorely lacking at the moment. bid for the stars people! UNLIMITED QUANTITY OF NOTHING! CONTACT ME FOR BULK ORDERS! |
| Mon 07 Oct 12:56 | JB | You would think that eBay would do something to stop this....and I wonder how pervasive it is and if they did stop it what their numbers would then look like? |
| Mon 07 Oct 13:52 | Lydia | I heard a story about a girl who has a website on the Internet where she just asks for money. She gives this entire sob story about how she is broke and has debts, etc. In return, she asks for money - she's raised almost $8000 or something like that. Ridiculous. |
| Mon 07 Oct 14:26 | Ryan | The website Lydia refers to is SaveKaryn.com. I believe the story is that she's incurred about $20,000 in credit card debt. Say what you will, her methods do seem to be working, for whatever reason. Now why hadn't I gone into tremendous thought of that? |
| Mon 07 Oct 15:22 | Mac | Is this unusual in the US? We get these all the time in the UK in Private Eye. Examples: CAT LOVER. Large debt. Please help. LIFE SAVINGS STOLEN EN-ROUTE TO HAVANA; Courtesy of the bloody USA PAGAN CIRCLE seeks moderate expansion funds. Beneficial spells cast for all contributors From Eye Need You'll have to scroll down (about 70% down). |
| Mon 07 Oct 16:39 | JB | This Karyn woman saves about $5 to $10 per day after reading her online diary. At this rate she will have paid off her credit cards in 10.7 years And who said there was no payoff on the Internet ;) |
| Tue 08 Oct 00:06 | MadMan | How about www.dontsavekaryn.com? ;) What bugs me is not that Karyn put up a begging site. It's that there are enough idiots to help her pay half the $20000 off. |
| Tue 08 Oct 15:19 | boysen | Absolutely nothing? What's wrong with selling that? Signed, Aquafina http://www.bottledwaterweb.com/news/nw_080801.html |
| The Transhumanists | Sat 05 Oct |
| (National Review) Most importantly, by prohibiting researchers from manipulating nascent human life, we would send a clarion message that we are not just another animal in the forest. We cannot be manipulated like so many transgenic sheep. Human life has ultimate value simply and merely because it is human. |
| Mon 07 Oct 13:54 | Lydia | Boy, this guy really likes big words, doesn't he? |
| Tue 08 Oct 15:13 | boysen | This stuff scares me far more than Hussein. Most people can 'see' his dangers, this stuff is disguised in 'health.' |
| An End to Metatags (Enough Already, Part 1) | Sat 05 Oct |
| Google, for one, has decided emphatically that metatags are too easily manipulated to be of any value in determining a pages importance or relevance. Google is the #1 search engine property in the world, and trails only AOL, MSN, and Yahoo in unique visitors per month in the US. Maybe someones trying to tell you something. (Comments: Thanks Frank.) |
| Mon 07 Oct 13:11 | Mac | If I want to know how a program works then I will look at the code and not the documentation. Google has realised that they can no longer trust the 'documentation' for a page, and are trying to rebalance their index. It may be easier to see what the effect of this change is in a few weeks, but Google is beginning to lose credibility and could end up looking a lot like Microsoft (now there's a buying opportunity for billg) Perhaps it's time to keep our eyes peeled for the 'better than google' search index? |
| Reality Check for Web Design | Sat 05 Oct |
| (Wired) The LIFT NN/g software works like Microsoft Words grammar check, allowing designers to check fundamentals that are sometimes missed due to busy schedules and tight deadlines. But like grammar, usability doesnt always follow strict conventions. (Comments: A somewhat promotional article, yet the LIFT tool does catch my interest.) |
| Mon 07 Oct 09:57 | Anonymous | And this software is extremely expensive for what looks to be simply a plug-in. |