last updated:17 Feb 2003 10: 36 Webword time, or 17 Feb 2003 15:36 UK time
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(Comments added for week ending Sun 16 Feb 2003) | View Other Weeks
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| Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time | Sun 16 Feb |
| (Dan Gillmor) Google, which runs the Webs premier search site, has purchased Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the increasingly popular personal and opinion journals. (Comments: Of course everyone is going to talk about this. It is big news, right? Im still waiting for a Google browser.) |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:27 | Anonymous | Not doubt Google blogs will be kick ass, but how does blogging help maintain Google as the world's best search engine?. This news concerns me because if Google will branch out into blogs, where else will it go? How long before it wants to give me my weather forecast and stock prices? In the end, I'm more sad than happy about this news. |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:28 | Anonymous | 'No doubt.' @#$%^&*! |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:31 | John S. Rhodes | How does this play into the idea of Big Brother Google? |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:45 | Dennis G. Jerz | I accidentally posted this in another thread, but here's where I meant to put it:
For all intents and purposes, Google owns the Web, by virtue of its superior and highly popular search engine. It also owns the history of the Internet, thanks to GoogleGroups, which searches over 20 years of Usenet archives. It owns the present, thanks to GoogleNews, which continually scans the front pages of thousands of online newspapers, deduces which stories editors around the world consider to be the most important, and snags the headlines and lead paragraphs from those sentences to assemble a patchwork quilt that exposes news readers to a wide variety of editorial and political opinions. Will GoogleBlogs somehow cross the line? Can Google be fair to blogs hosted by its competitors? Has the Google Galaxy brought an end to the Golden Age of blogging? |
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| WebWord Comment | Sun 16 Feb |
| I am getting the impression that being mentioned on WebWord is a good thing. For the month of February 2003 so far, Im averaging about 6,500 page views per day, and about 2,800 visitors per day. Not too shabby. Furthermore, many folks in the usability community send me news to post. Thats cool. Im glad to help. Maybe I should do more to capitalize on all of this traffic and fame. Ha! Or, perhaps I should write a book. What are your thoughts on WebWord in 2003? What makes sense? Good ideas and random thoughts appreciated. |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:30 | Dennis G. Jerz | For all intents and purposes, Google owns the Web, by virtue of its superior and highly popular search engine. It also owns the history of the Internet, thanks to GoogleGroups, which searches over 20 years of Usenet archives. It owns the present, thanks to GoogleNews, which continually scans the front pages of thousands of online newspapers, deduces which stories editors around the world consider to be the most important, and snags the headlines and lead paragraphs from those sentences to assemble a patchwork quilt that exposes news readers to a wide variety of editorial and political opinions. Will GoogleBlogs somehow cross the line? Can Google be fair to blogs hosted by its competitors? Has the Google Galaxy brought an end to the Golden Age of blogging? |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:32 | Flaming Drag Queen | John, do a fetish site. Some people will pay big money for naked usability gurus. You can rake in big bucks in niche markets. |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:33 | Dennis G. Jerz | For all intents and purposes, Google owns the Web, by virtue of its superior and highly popular search engine. It also owns the history of the Internet, thanks to GoogleGroups, which searches over 20 years of Usenet archives. It owns the present, thanks to GoogleNews, which continually scans the front pages of thousands of online newspapers, deduces which stories editors around the world consider to be the most important, and snags the headlines and lead paragraphs from those sentences to assemble a patchwork quilt that exposes news readers to a wide variety of editorial and political opinions. Will GoogleBlogs somehow cross the line? Can Google be fair to blogs hosted by its competitors? Has the Google Galaxy brought an end to the Golden Age of blogging? |
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| Study: It's Easy to Plant False Memories | Sun 16 Feb |
| While some recovered memories turn out to be true, Loftus says her experiments repeatedly show that memories are fragile possessions that are easily manipulated. (Comments: Trashy Supermarket Tabloid Memories) |
| Sun 16 Feb 23:31 | Anonymous | Yep, this is why I'll never be a teacher or babysit kids. The mind is easily manipulated, tricked and influenced, and with children even more so. Too many innocents have been prosecuted for false memories. |
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| Web Magazine Facing Failure | Sat 15 Feb |
| (New York Times) The Salon Media Group, the online magazine publisher, warned today that it might not survive beyond this month if it cannot raise more money to pay its rent and other bills. (Comments: Im still working on my idea. Thanks Frank.) |
| Sun 16 Feb 22:36 | lazygeek | hey, thats real sad. i had always liked salon for its honesty of contents and for the amazing articles on literature. It's real hard to believe that salon.com will close down. slate then becomes the leader in this area of online publishing. without competition slate will also be a loser.
Come on gates, help salon by buying it!! |
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| WebWord Comment | Thu 13 Feb |
| Fuck Off Customers? |
| Thu 13 Feb 23:30 | Anonymous | To answer your question, 'Yes.' Fuck Off Design is the most prevalent form of design out there today. Plenty of Information Architects practice it. Every time I encounter a site using a locked typeface, indiscriminately launching links into new windows, or using grey text on a white background, I flip the bird and say 'Fuck You Too Buddy!' |
| Thu 13 Feb 23:30 | Anonymous | To answer your question, 'Yes.' Fuck Off Design is the most prevalent form of design out there today. Plenty of Information Architects practice it. Every time I encounter a site using a locked typeface, indiscriminately launching links into new windows, or using grey text on a white background, I flip the bird and say 'Fuck You Too Buddy!' |
| Thu 13 Feb 23:56 | Adam Greenfield | 'indiscriminately launching links into new windows': It does have its place, you know.
You seem pretty reactionary and full of anger. |
| Fri 14 Feb 00:24 | Eric Scheid | 'locked typeface'
Stop using a busted-ass browser. Tell the browser vendor to fuck off. You have only yourself to blame if the tool you use is broken. |
| Fri 14 Feb 00:29 | Anonymous | Eric, yeah, silly me, using a browser that 98% of the rest of the world also uses. No, I don't think so. I blame the designer. The bird stands.
Adam, I've lurked long enough to know you're the King Of Reaction. Everything has its place. No duh. And there are designers who launch every external link into a new window out of arrogance. It happens. |
| Fri 14 Feb 00:33 | Anonymous | Ohhh, wait a minute. I get you Eric. Everyone who uses Internet Explorer and other browsers that can't resize your typeface are using 'busted-ass browsers.' We're the problem, not you. You're saying 'Fuck Off' to your site visitors. OK, nevermind. Resume your activities.
Adam, saying 'Fuck You Buddy' (not in response to anyone else's post, mind you) is not reactionary given the topic of this thread. |
| Fri 14 Feb 01:58 | Adam Greenfield | Do I get a crown with that? |
| Fri 14 Feb 02:02 | Anonymous | Here you go. |
| Fri 14 Feb 04:27 | Adam Greenfield | Hmm. Not quite my style; thanks, anyway.
Weirdly enough for a pinko commie like me, this one's mine.
7th PSYOP, hooAH! |
| Fri 14 Feb 09:50 | anode | Is that Tiny Lister in that picture? I bet he can get away with doing whatever he wants to users :> |
| Fri 14 Feb 11:12 | Ian Lloyd | Is this really 2003?
Do people really have that attitude?
Unfortunately yes.
I guess some of the more fashionable types out there really don't care if they offend people who are not 'up to their standards', whatever those may be.
I thought - foolishly - that companies were beginning to take on a more inclusive approach to web design, by accommodating people who they previously would have shut out through ignorance. Now there's no excuse. |
| Sun 16 Feb 00:11 | Eric Scheid | 'Ohhh, wait a minute. I get you Eric. Everyone who uses Internet Explorer and other browsers that can't resize your typeface are using 'busted-ass browsers.' We're the problem, not you.'
No, I am saying your anger is misdirected. Blame MS for promulgating a busted browser, get on their back, they are the problem, not you, not the site designers.
Realistically, which would be easier: getting MS to change their browser, or getting umpteen millions of designers to change their sites?
Cynically, even easier would be to sit on the sidelines and be a drama queen, more interested in making a noise and gaining attention than actually making the world a better place.
/plonk |
| Sun 16 Feb 00:48 | Jim | Eric, I have to disagree. You said, 'You have only yourself to blame...' It sounds like you are blaming the user for existing in this universe. Why not design for real users instead of ignoring reality, that they use Internet Explorer and cannot resize your typeface? |
| Sun 16 Feb 16:17 | Matt Round | 'Blame MS for promulgating a busted browser'
Microsoft is actually in the right for once - if a site specifies type size in pixels, it displays it in pixels, as it should. The fault lies with designers using inappropriate units.
Now, you can argue that MS should respond to this by overriding pixel values, as they've done with Mac IE5, but in my view it's important to retain absolute control over text size for certain circumstances. As long as images are sized in pixels it's important to be able to do the same with text, if the browser can override then it becomes impossible to match text to images without resorting to JavaScript bodges.
As for the original quote, well I think Alex Michael was probably trying to be a little provocative and play to a particular segment of the design community, that sort of thing can be found in pretty much every issue of Cre@te Online. Such sentiments have some truth at their core, sites need to focus on their target users (that sometimes won't even be the majority of visitors), but in my view it's most often used as a smokescreen for problems with the site.
Other excuses to look out for:
'We wanted to offer a richer browsing experience'
= 'Launch it in a full-screen popup window so it looks more like the client presentation, and get rid of the browser controls so noone notices the Back button doesn't work'
'It's important to bring skills from other media to the web'
= 'A couple of people here used to work in TV, and none of us really like the web very much, so we bought a video camera'
'It's a playful interface, with a site structure designed to be explored'
= 'No, we can't find anything either, but look at how the logo morphs into a dropdown menu!'
and the no.1 excuse I hear all the time:
'It's targetted at broadband users'
= 'That Flash movie's ****ing enormous, but it's too late to change anything now, the client's seen it' |
| Sun 16 Feb 20:58 | Che Tamahori | Damn Matt -- you're obviously an old hand at this interwebby design thing. I have personally heard every one of your 'Other excuses to look out for' used by designers. Each one is a 'Fuck the Client' classic...
And don't forget:
'After careful audience analysis, we've focussed our effort on the primary audience group'
= 'We couldn't be bothered testing it on Mozilla, but we can absolutely guarantee it looks HOT on Mac IE5, coz that's what we use.'
'We've taken a pragmatic approach to standards compliant markup'
= 'We marked everthing up in TABLE and FONT tags, but used CSS to hide the underlines on all the links.' |
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| WebWord Comment | Sat 15 Feb |
| Watch this video (.wmv file) of a Segway HT running over a foot and over a hand. |
| Sun 16 Feb 16:36 | rudy | maybe it's me, but i don't get it
what does that video have to do with the web? with words? with web words? |
| Sun 16 Feb 19:51 | Anonymous | segway does not make you fat, and not FLAT. that's it. |
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| Alp Uçkans Website | Wed 12 Feb |
| Texte und News über Website-Usability |
| Thu 13 Feb 23:37 | Anonymous | Der friggenfliegen dumbkopf schmucks das maken alder rulens und regulations der flingen wingen maschinen mit der floppen bladens dot ist fliegen by der dumbkopfs vas iss too stupiden for knowen dees maschinens ees not safen ver fliegen!!! |
| Fri 14 Feb 07:44 | Mac | Extract from latest alertbox article translated from English -> German -> English
Betriebshomepages is the most valuable actual possession in the world. Place on the homepage of a large firm is appreciated around 1,300 times therewith much as a country into the business districts of Tokyo.
How will this make valuable actual possession of trains part? Very ineffective. Points go the most picture to waste.
A homepage has really two heads goals: consumer information to give, and if its heads navigation to serve for information, is that within the place. These two goals only 39% of the screen place however over a sample of 50 homepages explained.
Consumer should a third important homepage goal the purpose of the place and where they are relative to the tissue if an entire tells.
Motto: Don't trust translators (or gurus). |
| Sun 16 Feb 19:32 | Gerald | Nette Seite, aber doch ein wenig knapp diese Vorstellung via Webword. Was soll uns das jetzt sagen? Und dann noch eine deutsche Seite, wo man gleich wieder den Übersetzer bemühen muss. Und ich bin dann noch so frech und schreibe in der gleichen Sprache meinen Kommentar. Ist das Usability - oder was? |
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| WebWord Comment | Sat 15 Feb |
| Big Brother Google? |
| Sun 16 Feb 15:30 | Philip Chalmers | I don't like idea of the permanent cookie or the idea that the Google toolbar reports everything. So, if what google-watch says is true, I would be quite happy to see these features banned, or a court order requiring Google to stop using the permanent cookie and to produce a new version of the toolbar which doesn't snoop and which automatically loads itself in place of the earlier, snooping versions.
The big question is whether to believe google-watch. I did some research on google-watch (using Google!). You may find my findings rather long, so I'll sum up now:
* google-watch is politically motivated by a 1960s-style ideology - see http://www.counterpunch.org/hand01032003.html
* but it may be a useful source of alerts PROVIDED you check them out for yourself first and don't just take google-watch's word for it.
My research was as follows:
I searched Google for 'google watch' and got plenty of results - censorship does not appear to be one of Google's sins. There was a lot of publicity for google-watch but very little analysis of google-watch's claims. What little analysis I found was rather sceptical.
While following up my search results I visited http://www.pressaction.com/pablog/archives/000920.html, which says that google-watch is funded by Public Information Research, Inc., a nonprofit public charity, which also funds http://www.namebase.org
and http://www.cia-on-campus.org - try visiting these sites, I'm sure you'll find them interesting (and very 1960s).
google-watch's page about Page Rank (http://www.google-watch.org/pagerank.html) actually says 'Google is so important to the web these days, that it probably ought to be a public utility' - ignoring the fact that control of public utilities in the USA is a politicised mess (look at California's electricity problems) while in Britain (where I live) privatisation of the utilities has led to better service at lower prices.
Then I searched Google for 'google cookie' and almost all the material in English appeared to originate from google-watch. It worries me that none of the big e-zines has commented on the issue - they're not afraid to criticise much bigger companies than Google, e.g. Microsoft.
I was surprised that nothing I found pointed out the big limitation of any persistent cookie - it's likely to vanish if you re-install Windows and will mislead Google if you get a new PC and sell / give te old one to someone else. So persistent cookies are just not in Big Brother's league.
Then I searched for 'google toolbar'. One of the early hits was http://www.httprevealer.com/usage_google.htm, a piece of technical analysis which says that the 'Advanced Features' option does report to Google all pages you visit (that's how you can get Page Rank fomr the toolbar) but you can turn off the 'Advanced Features' option at any time and the toolbar's installer warns you about possible privacy issues. A more balanced account than google-watch gives!
Thne I searched for 'Public Information Research' and the only hits I got were from sites funded by Public Information Research, Inc.
Then I got bored. |
| Sun 16 Feb 16:06 | jonathan |
I believe that ALL companies have the capability to take advantage of privacy issues and use their data irresponsibly.
At some point, I simply need to put my trust in certain companies until I learn otherwise. Pointing out that google can do all these things isn't notable until they break that trust. Up to this point, my use of the tool as well as following their overall ethics from the founders/company allow me to continue to trust them.
As Scott McNealy is so fond of saying 'You have no privacy, get over it.'
Just like sharing your email address, any information about yourself that you give away has the potential to be taken advantage of.
We'll go nowhere if trust isn't in here somewhere.
These words could come back to bite me...that's another risk I take.
jonathan |
| Sun 16 Feb 19:20 | Gerald | > So persistent cookies are just not in Big Brother's league.
In germany we seem to be more sceptical - we discuss cookies - and privacy and security are written in big letters. Following the link to geobytes and seeing the possibilities was fascinating. In germany we have a term named 'raster fahndung', this should translate to something like 'grid tracing', which means that every information you get will make the grid more finely woven. Such a cookie is one piece of the puzzle, the geolized IP another, and so on. And if you consider that sometimes the IP-Pool from where your dial-in IP is assigned from is very small you perhaps may realize how near they could come - if they want it! Even if you buy a new computer, your location is the first approximation, your language and your search phrases perhaps the next, and the referrers of the pages you typically surf and perhaps the start-page of your browser may be another one. I believe that it's possible to come very close to you if you leave (a bigger amount of) your marks in their logs. And if not Google itself, perhaps other (higher) institutions may be interested in your data. Perhaps Big Brother is nearer than you expected him, and he lives in the internet ;-) |
| Sun 16 Feb 19:27 | JEH | in Britain (where I live) privatisation of the utilities has led to better service at lower prices.
I am not sure everybody would agree. At least not train passengers.
it's likely to vanish if you re-install Windows and will mislead Google if you get a new PC and sell / give te old one to someone else. So persistent cookies are just not in Big Brother's league.
That point doesn't make persistent cookies less of a problem, it actually makes it worse. If I sell my computer to a criminal, or bought it from a criminal, I may end up in a world of trouble because the authorities may make erroneous assumptions.
Ever since the war on terror started, the benefit of the doubt doesn't seem to be long to you anymore.
As Scott McNealy is so fond of saying 'You have no privacy, get over it.'
Americans may not have privacy, but some countries have. It really is a gigantic problem that since I am using an American search engine, I (we?) too have to suffer the consequences of the crappy American privacy laws.
Google should err on the safe side when it comes to privacy. |
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| Intuitive visualizations of presence and recency information for ambient displays | Fri 14 Feb |
| (gatech.edu) As a members idle time increases, the members image becomes more desaturated. |
| Sun 16 Feb 18:48 | Anthropocentric | Check out Cooperating Systems (CoSI) for an interesting application ('HelloWorld') using Ambient displays. Brought to us by a team of former MetaCreations developers, who worked on Bryce, Kai's Power Tools, Kai's Photo Soap, etc. |
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| WebWord Comment | Sat 15 Feb |
| Webmasters who disable the backbutton are butt holes. |
| Sat 15 Feb 16:51 | Frank Lynch | Sometimes it happens out of ignorance, too: a 'simple' url which is advertised (at the level of com-slash-one-word) will involve a redirect, which will break the back-button. It's not a conscious effort, and it can be fixed. But it takes awareness to overcome it. Be nice about it: take 'em to Flaming Red Dining Room, and talk about it over the haggis and neeps. |
| Sun 16 Feb 13:31 | Anonymous | |
| Sun 16 Feb 16:53 | Philip Chalmers | I agree that sites which disable the Back button are buttholes.
There are some common situations where a lot of sites break the Back button, but as far as I can see there are better solutions.
Some e-commerce applications disable BACK to prevent confusion / duplicate transactions. There is no need for this if the server-side programming is properly designed. I wrote an article for ColdFusion Developer's Journal which describes a solution which does not kill BACK - and I tested the solution thoroughly before I dared to submit the article!
Redirects (e.g. because a site has moved) often break the Back button, but that's either fear or sloppy coding. You can avoid breaking the Back button if you just display a 'please click' message and a link to the new URL. Some sites don't do this because they are afraid that users won't be sufficiently interested. If Javascript is enabled in the user's browser, you can redirect without breaking the Back button by location.replace(newURL) in version 3 or later browsers. If Javascript is not enabled, display NOSCRIPT block containing the message and link. DON'T use anything like META HTTP-EQUIV=Refresh CONTENT='10; URL=newURL - that's guaranteed to break the BACK button. |
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| Why Playing Music on your Web Site is a Bad Idea | Thu 13 Feb |
| With the proliferation of Flash, an increasing number of web sites have started to play music in the background, or more appropriately a few second long sound loops. Here are four reasons as to why playing music on your web site is a bad idea. (Comments: Boom Chugga Lugga, Boom Chugga Lugga, Boom Boom Booooom! Hows that for music on WebWord?) |
| Fri 14 Feb 03:26 | Mac | No, no , no ,no , no....
If you have a good reason for using music on your site then do it. I am getting tired of these silly 'rules' that are just based on uninformed prejudice.
A final example of a brilliant use of sound—and for me a classic—is the underlying thump, thump, thump of the original Space Invaders game. Can you imagine this game without the Jaws-like creeping sound, constantly getting faster as you destroy more enemies? That insistent sound increases the tension and gets the heart pumping faster, adding to satisfactory game play.
No More Silent Surfing
by Brendan Dawes |
| Fri 14 Feb 04:26 | Alan Fisher | But Mac, you said it yourself - 'if you have a good reason for using music'. Surely the article linked to here is aimed at those sites which DON'T have a good reason for using music, and therefore shouldn't be using music?
And 'because it's cool' or 'because I like it' don't count as good reasons. Establishing an appropriate mood could count, as long as it doesn't interfere with other site aims. Personally speaking, I've never visited a site where background music enhanced the experience (apart from band sites where I know I'm going to like the music). The reason for this is that the music selected is almost always awful. Or am I just getting old? |
| Fri 14 Feb 10:31 | Boyink | Mac -
What's a good reason?
I don't work much outside of B2B, and can't think of a single good reason to use sound on such a site. |
| Fri 14 Feb 11:03 | Mac | Alan, I don't see any references in the article stating that it can *ever* be a good idea.
I would like to propose that it is *never* a good idea to use Spiral Type
What is a good reason?
I built an application for a public touch-screen kiosk that used music as well as other sounds in 'idle' mode. It used different sounds at different times of the year as well as different times of the day. At night you might hear the sound of faint footsteps in the distance, or an owl hooting. Yes it was a bit cheesy, but it didn't get in the way of the 'experience' and actually attracted people to the kiosk. |
| Fri 14 Feb 11:34 | Thad | My only comment there is that kiosks are not web sites, but I do agree with your basic point that there might be a good reason to have music on a website...I can't think of one though. As a side note, when I surf the web, I often listen to my own music. There is nothing more annoying than coming across a site trying to play music, that I didn't ask for, over my music. Usually I leave right away, but that's just me. |
| Fri 14 Feb 11:45 | Anonymous | I give the article a Thumbs Down because it failed to cite the most obvious reason not to use sound on web pages:
Sound is unexpected.
Use sound when the user has a reasonable expectation for it, or it is an opt-in situation (the user must activate the sound).
Until I obtained a proxy to filter out web sounds, I kept my PC speakers turned off and I never played audio CDs because I never knew when a stupid web sound would pop up at maximum decibels and draw the undesired attention of my coworkers. |
| Fri 14 Feb 13:04 | JB | Just give your users what they want.
I think the article is coming from the angle of 'you should not assume they want sound'.
Basic article, but good common sense stuff for web design. |
| Fri 14 Feb 13:57 | Anonymous | Mac - was the kiosk a web site, under the covers?
Not seeing how that example relates. Totally different context of use than the mainstream web. |
| Sat 15 Feb 02:38 | Mac | We did build a version of the kiosk that used http to deliver content into a customised browser. We used a touch-screen for user inout, which created some 'challenges' as the few touch-screen browsers that were around at that time were awful.
So was it a mainstream 'web site'?
What exactly are we talking about when we say 'web site'?
Is it anthing delivered over http? Or is it what we see through IE, Netscape etc? |
| Sat 15 Feb 08:12 | daniel szuc | Music might be useful on a web site that is an online game. OR if there is a 'theme song' that is closely tied to brand recognition. |
| Sat 15 Feb 11:20 | Anonymous | Mainstream web site = pretty much *not* what you did. Not a customized browser, not a walled garden situation, not intended to be used in a public manner in a public context, available openly on the internet. |
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| Homepage Real Estate Allocation | Tue 11 Feb |
| (useit.com) On average, sample sites evenly distributed valuable screen space between content, navigation, fluff, blank areas, and system overhead. Areas of user interest should occupy more than the current 39%. (Comments: I wonder how much the traffic from WebWord to useit.com is worth to Jakob. When I think about the reports and consulting he sells, Ill be my link to his site is probably worth a couple of bucks. What do you think?) |
| Tue 11 Feb 23:22 | Adam Greenfield | Here's a question.
You see that big picture of an ocean that occupies a big chunk of the above-the-fold real estate at v-2?
Hard to tell what it is, right? Doesn't do much for you, maybe. Certainly doesn't contribute to the user's understanding of the content. Must be that dreaded 'fluff.'
Nonsense. NONSENSE! It establishes a mood; it, llike every other image I've ever placed in that slot, colors perception of the site's other 'content' - which Jakob would presumably reduce to 'words' - however subtly.
RSS aggregators have their place. Some people, it's true, just want the facts. For everyone who likes the feeling that they are in some wise visiting a place, and for whom this feeling contributes markedly to a site's utility, the design *is* (part of) the content.
Poor Jakob. What a cold universe he must occupy. |
| Tue 11 Feb 23:58 | Anonymous | I've gotten used to feeling like Jakob's articles are tied to sales pitches. I don't see anything groundbreaking from him anymore. I've read a couple not-so-enthuastic reviews of NNG events. Why bother? It's been at least two years since I used a Jakob article to support a design viewpoint within my organization. I think perhaps you're living in the past. He isn't the center of the usability world anymore and we should stop treating him like he is. |
| Wed 12 Feb 05:10 | Mac | I am currently reading a book which talks about a man who spent most of his life trying to measure happiness.
If you look at the popularity (measured via google backlinks) you can see that the only popular alertbox article from recent times is 'Top Ten Web-Design mistakes of 2002' at number 3. The next entry for 2002 is for 'Harry Potter' at number 18.
Here is some data regarding the 'salesiness' of Alertbox Articles.
Links to NNGroup from Alertbox Articles:
2000 08%
2001 34%
2002 36%
2003 50%
Links to 'outside sites' from Alertbox Articles:
2000 32%
2001 25%
2002 27%
2003 10%
(these figures come from Usability Must Die)
And here is a compilation of some more inappropriate homepage metrics to abuse and amuse you.
Here are the 'Text Content' scores for some homepages using using the 'GetContentSize' tool built by Adrian Holovaty
52.93% ronz.blogspot.com
50.35% glasshaus.com
47.15% holovaty.com
43.42% webword.com
43.04% v-2.org
41.80% crocolyle.blogspot.com
36.10% usabilitymustdie.com
34.34% useit.com
33.92% samueljohnson.com
31.93% nngroup.com
21.14% madman.weblogs.com
10.44% dashes.com |
| Wed 12 Feb 12:43 | Anonymous | Let's vote to see who will be America's next Usability Idol.
J. Ryan Baker
Gina M. Copas
Both are responsible for sharing great usability research devoid of sales pitches. |
| Wed 12 Feb 13:17 | JB | His recent book?!?!?!?!
It is over 12 months old! |
| Wed 12 Feb 17:17 | Ron Zeno | Areas of user interest should occupy more than the current 39%.
Utter and complete *&%#$, and Nielsen backs this statement with... NOTHING AT ALL! Not only that, but he doesn't share how he came up with this 39% figure, so we can't check to see if it is total @(*&^ as well.
Help us when Nielsen learns to write more sophisticated propaganda. What he's attempting to do so poorly is a basic propaganda tactic that he is far from mastering:
+ Identify a problem (or make one up if your audience is gullible enough)
+ Discuss the impact of the problem in terms that will provoke people's emotions (He misses on this, offering little more than some hand-waving.)
+ Offer a simple solution (Oops! Nielsen doesn't have a solution, simple or otherwise. But he wants you to purchase his report where he talks more about the problem.)
How many dupes will add entries to their weblogs on this Nielsen article without giving it the tiniest bit of thought that it's empty of information other than letting people know that Nielsen has another report for sale? |
| Wed 12 Feb 18:36 | Lydia | I like sites that try to create a mood for me, and I appreciate good graphic design. I dislike using sites that don't look good to me. However, I get annoyed when I look at an article and spend a minute or more downloading a picture that tells me nothing about the content. (Note: this is not so frustrating on the Safari browser, which loads text first.)
Although I know better, if I were to give Jakob the benefit of doubt, I would say that perhaps what he is referring to when he talks about fluff is poor design like that, rather than images and design that try to create a mood.
His articles are designed to appeal to the people with money, not the people in the trenches doing actual work. People with money don't care about solutions, they just like to get riled up about things. Then they yell at the people in the trenches, and 'back it up' with 'hard evidence' from a 'usability expert.' Sigh. |
| Wed 12 Feb 19:26 | Frank Lynch | Ah, but my blog scores a whopping 72% on the text content measure!
You're right, Mac, it is an odd measure -- droning text (like on my blog) increases scores, while links which are short and to the point decrease scores (that is, the ratio of text within the href tag to the href tag itself... hmmm, use short url's!!)
OK, but the intent of this measure is good — it's kind of a value to page weight ratio that is being sought. (But we all know what Samuel Johnson didn't say about intentions.) |
| Thu 13 Feb 03:43 | Mac | 'No vanity can more justly incur contempt and indignation than that which boasts of negligence and hurry.' - Samuel Johnson
As the 'Magic Guidelines' 'un-design' movement gains followers it sows the seeds of its own destruction. I am already hearing people talk about the banality and sameness of sites on our intranet. Lowest Common Denominator does not rule. |
| Thu 13 Feb 03:45 | Mac | Adam, I see your 'top space' as a chance to draw a breath. For me, it acts as a moat between your views and the rest of the world, not acting as a barrier but more as a .............. pause. |
| Thu 13 Feb 07:57 | Adam Greenfield | Why, thank you, sir; then you receive it in precisely the intent & desire with which it is offered. &c. |
| Thu 13 Feb 11:18 | Anonymous | I don't mind the top blank space, but the ocean pic is rather distressing. It conveys a range of ideas:
Awash lost on the ocean
A drowning death
Cold
Just before the storm breaks
Isolation
I then wonder what 'V-2' stands for and wonder if it's a reference to Hitler's V-2 rockets. Oy! |
| Thu 13 Feb 18:54 | Adam Greenfield | Not sure John would be delighted by this thread's gradual evolution into Let's Critique My Site - and yes, I know it's my fault for having seemingly kicked it off - but http://www.v-2.org/about.php#name |
| Fri 14 Feb 09:31 | Anonymous | Tasteless. |
| Fri 14 Feb 10:33 | Brillat-Savarin | what is? |
| Fri 14 Feb 11:54 | Anonymous | In my opinion it is tasteless to name a web site after a weapon Hitler used to murder people. V-2 rockets are real weapons of destruction and death.
Tasteless. |
| Fri 14 Feb 13:35 | Mac | OMG - I publish a site with 'Must Die' in the title, but my intention isn't to be tasteless or offensive. I would try to look at the content of a site before you decide it is tasteless. |
| Fri 14 Feb 17:08 | Anonymous | Mac, would you say the same thing if my domain was auschwitz-web.org?
It's all a matter of degrees. Your 'must die' is obviously in jest and/or humorous. The intention in the name is clear whether I read your site or not. Whereas, V-2 has a specific historical context.
I could disclaim that my web site isn't about the Auschwitz death camp, and hey, you should lighten up. Read my site before you criticize! Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre.
Regardless of content, naming a site after a Nazi death weapon is tasteless. |
| Fri 14 Feb 19:25 | John S. Rhodes | Useless interjection: Why is a Nazi death weapon any worse than a regular death weapon? A weapon of death is a weapon of death, Nazi or otherwise. |
| Fri 14 Feb 21:33 | Adam Greenfield | The appropriate place for that comment would have been a mail to me. It's not that I mind the challenge - I welcome it, you're the first person in almost three years now who's raised what I thought would have been an obvious point - but I reiterate that this is Webword, and there are other and better things to discuss here.
The site is not named in homage to a 'Nazi death weapon,' for crying out loud. *Gravity's Rainbow* is about nothing if not connectedness, with all things ultimately leading to the mysterious Rocket 00000. A fitting name for a site 'whose purpose is to make connections.'
You may want to see http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/ if you genuinely care. |
| Sat 15 Feb 08:39 | John S. Rhodes | Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a domain name is just a domain name. |
|
| Long or Short Copy? Part 2 | Wed 12 Feb |
| (ClickZ) Nothing brings a creative or company ego down to earth faster than seeing how strangers actually use your site and what they do and dont read. |
| Sat 15 Feb 08:18 | daniel szuc | If its content people need e.g. as part of their job, research etc they will read it irrespective of the length. It comes down to *need*
But I still think its easier to read articles on printed paper and I rarely read longer articles directly off the screen. |
|
| Jesse James Garrett | Mon 10 Feb |
| recently wrote The Elements of User Experience, which is based on his semi-famous diagram. Would you like to win my copy of his book? Would you like to pepper JJG with some tough questions? Fire away! For every good interview question you ask (Im the judge), I will give you one chance to win the book. (If your name is pulled, Ill ship it to you for free!) Ill send the best questions to JJG to answer and when he answers, Ill post the interview. Simple, no? I strongly advise you to ask really hard questions about user experience. You have three days. Im going to send JJG the questions and pull the winner on Thursday. |
| Mon 10 Feb 22:39 | John S. Rhodes | Question: What is user experience and what does it mean exactly? How does it fit into usability, interaction design, user center design, and so forth? |
| Tue 11 Feb 00:06 | daniel szuc | Question: 'user experience' is often only used to describe user interactions with web sites. How can the term 'user experience' be applied to other *business* and *interface* scenarios? What positive future implications does this have on the 'usability' consulting field? |
| Tue 11 Feb 03:55 | Peter Boersma | Question: The footnote on the 'semi-famous diagram' mentions that the model 'does not describe a development process nor does it define roles'. Could you briefly describe your ideal UX development process, and what roles would you consider important? |
| Tue 11 Feb 07:29 | Gustavo Grillo | Question: How do you draw the line between the design of elements that are very obvious and clear to your target user and elements that may confuse him? Of course, provided that you don´t have the money/time to do extensive user testing. |
| Tue 11 Feb 10:34 | Bryan | Question: What efforts do you recommend to enhance the design or organization of actual content, the words or help that appear on screen, in order to enhance overall user experience. In most discussions surrounding user experience, the actual content of a web page itself often takes a back seat to other more popular discussions of IA, process, wireframing, prototyping, etc. I feel that this content step has been the ugly stepchild of user experience in the sense that very few discuss what they do in this 'bottom-up' part of the development process (Adaptive Path a rare exception). It is often the most torturous part of site development, time consuming, fraught with marketing tension and politics, and yet the ultimate thing that users are intended to find/read/use as part of their task completion is a site's on-screen content. |
| Tue 11 Feb 11:48 | Rotwang | Amazon's editorial reviews page for your book includes kind comments from Alan Cooper, Steve Krug, and Louis Rosenfeld. In what capacity do you know these gentlemen?
a) Good friends. Steve hosts a mean BBQ pool party.
b) Virtual friends. We exchange e-mails or talk on a listserv.
c) Work, or used to work with them. Run when Alan pulls out his Nerf crossbow.
c) Occasional professional contact. Their business cards are in my Rolodex.
d) My publisher handled it. The book industry is a soulless marketing machine. |
| Tue 11 Feb 15:45 | Lydia | Imagine a scenario where both schedule and budget is tight, but you can choose one of the following options: user test with a large group on core features, or user test with a small group on everything. Which would you choose and why? |
| Tue 11 Feb 16:03 | Zef | I live in a bi-cultural society (infact most would say 'mutlicultural'). When conducting usability studies I've noticed a number of differences between the various cultural groups.
For example, I've noticed that people of European heritage tend to take a self-centred view ('it's all about me'), whereas Polynesian people tend to see the world from a wider 'human family' context (what Maori call 'iwi' or 'whànau'). A specific example was a link called 'FEEDBACK' - some Polynesian users thought this meant it would contain feedback *from* the website's owners *to* the wider community - but not as a device to send their feedback to the website owners.
Differences such as these can potentially impact on every aspect of a web design from labels to imagery, to physical placement of objects on screen (Arabic websites are a classic example). I would be interested to hear of your experiences in dealing with cross-cultural websites and any solutions you've come up with (keeping in mind that we often don't have the luxury of expensive multi-templated websites catering for every langauge and culture!). |
| Tue 11 Feb 20:20 | Che Tamahori | Comment (not a question):
After recent threads about blog writers getting economic compensation for their work, does anyone find it ironic that John R is compensating us for reading and contributing to his site, via these book give-aways? Backwards, surely! |
| Wed 12 Feb 22:27 | JEH | You keep saying several times in your book that we should not 'leave any aspect of the user experience to chance'. After seeing the response on SIGIA-L, do you wish you had qualified this statement?
From what you say about tabs it seems like you don't like them that much since you mention them under the heading of 'design by mimicry'. Do you find that they are often used where they do not work, or are they just boring because they are overused?
Since the idea for the book started with the diagram, it can be seen as a 'concept book', and those often fail. How do you feel that it worked out? Did it end up like you expected?
Printing in two colors really does wonders for the book. How much more expensive is it than one color? At which point in the writing process was it decided to do the book in two colors?
After reading the book the thought strikes me that this is a book that should be read by the people who are not likely to read it. It is a high level book that should be read by the people who make decisions because it's recommendations concern so many people in an organization, but it is likely to be read by people like me on the bottom of the hierarchy with no power to implement much of the recommendations. Do you agree?
The one thing that the diagram did for me was to help define the words Information architect, information design, interaction design, and so on. It was a really wonderful in the that cleared up confusion without being too specific like you would have had to be if you had written it down and not made the drawing. But people don't seem to remember your definition. Right now information architecture seems to include everything and the kitchen sink. * holding up 'blueprints' and 'practical information architecture' as examples * It at least reaches far into the strategy plane and the scope plane. Instead of 'the user experience' people seem to be talking about 'information architecture' all the way because 'user experience' is not as good a buzzword probably. Is this an example of worse is better, or will your terminology prevail in a the end? |
| Wed 12 Feb 22:34 | JEH | Sorry, the link to worse is better didn't work. This one should. |
| Thu 13 Feb 12:14 | Jen | I've always been a big believer in defining business problems before building a website. The reason I love Garrett's model is because it minimizes the 'surface' plane -- it's one step in a long process, and not the focus of the entire site development. Many people start at surface and find themselves backpedaling to strategy later. It's the classic cart-before-the-horse phenomenon.
Unfortunately, I find that some clients don't believe me, or want to rush through the other 4 planes before arriving at surface.
What is your advice for selling the process to clients? Do you have an effective way to convince clients that the 5 planes are a successful model for site development?
I typically use money as a convincing factor: it's expensive to make changes once the code is being written. However, some clients swear that they 'know it when they see it', my site maps and wireframes mean nothing to them (even though I explain them), and only when they see sketches do they start providing meaningful feedback. |
| Thu 13 Feb 13:08 | matthew wickline | Many sites have a wide variety of audiences they want to reach, and each audience has different needs when accessing the site and the site publisher has different communicative goals with respect to each audience. A single site cannot be optimal for each audience simultaneously. One popular fix is impose a multi-audience starting point which is suboptimal for each audience but allows for optimized interactions beyond that point. An example might be three columns of links on the front page, with the audience labeled at the top of each column, so each group can get right to their appropriate links.
However, this approach assumes that either there will be little to no overlap in terms of the content for these groups, or that the site publisher has resources to re-purpose the content for each specific audience and maintain multiple versions of similar content. For many site publishers, this is not the case.
What approaches have you taken when addressing the issue of multiple audiences needing similar content which would ideally be presented slightly differently to each audience? What factors influenced your desicions when making compromises?
-matt |
| Fri 14 Feb 09:26 | Anonymous | Are we getting answers soon? |
| Fri 14 Feb 11:53 | John S. Rhodes | I'll be announcing the book winner today or tomorrow. I'll send the best questions to JJG today. We'll see how fast he can answer!
Thanks to all for the excellent, high-quality questions. |
| Fri 14 Feb 13:14 | Anonymous | Why can't Jesse read this web page and respond? Why not have Jesse choose the 'best questions?' |
| Fri 14 Feb 19:27 | John S. Rhodes | Gunslinger, that is a good question. I'll submit it to JJG. ;-) |
| Fri 14 Feb 20:18 | JEH | The good questions may not be the ones JJG wants to answer. :) or the ones John chooses.
Hmm. Any way is probably OK. |
| Sat 15 Feb 02:53 | jjg | Because John's raffling off his own copy of a book he paid for, it seems rude to dictate how he should go about giving away his own property, wouldn't you agree?
Answers to the remaining questions are forthcoming. |
|
| Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization | Wed 05 Feb |
| (visit the companion web site). For reasons not worth explaining, I have exactly two (2) copies of the book. Rather than keeping two books, or selling one on eBay, or trading one one on Trodo, I decided to set up a lottery. Entering is simple. For every good interview question you ask, I will give you one chance to win the book. (If your name is pulled, Ill ship it to you for free!) Why am I doing this? Im going to take the best questions and send them to Andy. I strongly advise you to ask really hard questions about web site optimization. Andys a smart cookie and Id like to challenge him. Thats it. Post your questions! (You have two days. Im going to pull the winner on Saturday.) |
| Mon 10 Feb 00:11 | John S. Rhodes | Mike C won the book!
Thanks to everyone for participating. More to follow... |
| Mon 10 Feb 06:34 | Gerald | Oh, that's hard. I just saw your book lottery invitation and now I have to realize that it's to late :-( What's about a renewal :) |
| Tue 11 Feb 12:08 | george girton | Say, you've got two copies of the book. Why not give away the other one, too?
To me, it's pretty much a given that a sub-single-second load time is very important (even though at the moment my own site takes longer to load).
Here's my question.
How can I convince other people (quickly, and without boring them to sleep) just how important it is for a web page to load quickly? |
| Fri 14 Feb 20:51 | Raymond | I must admit this is a good discussion. I tend to code for speed myself; I've noticed many of my pages bloating up significantly lately, as I edit using 'pretty-print'ed page source (indentation that makes it clear what went where and why) but removing most of that would indeed speed the pages up considerably. Another concern I have is not related directly to WSO...but to website security. I need a way (that works in not only 4.x-5.x browsers, but works in the ultramodern 6.x and higher browsers) that prevents page-source viewing. I have yet to find anything that actually still works, at least with Mozilla-based browsers (or even MSIE 5.5!) Can anyone help me on this? |
|
| Guiding Users with Persuasive Design: An Interview with Andrew Chak | Thu 13 Feb |
| (User Interface Engineering) Persuasive Design is not about manipulating users into doing something they dont want to do. Instead, the goal of Persuasive Design is to get users to make the right decision. Designers can accomplish this by doing their best to ensure that users get all of their questions answered about the content. (Comments: Persuasive Architecture: How to Get Your Visitors to Take Action) |
| Fri 14 Feb 00:04 | Ron Zeno | To be successful, sites must go beyond Usability by focusing on Persuasive Design.
Nonsense. Not that designs need to be persuasive, but that persuasiveness is somehow 'beyond usability'. Do the people at UIE know what usability is, or are they just betting that their readers don't? |
| Fri 14 Feb 02:43 | Anonymous | It wouldn't be the first time that UIE has betrayed their total incompetence and lack of knowledge regarding usability. |
| Fri 14 Feb 11:10 | Ron Zeno | My mistake. Andrew Chak is not an employee of UIE, so the issue is does Andrew Chak know what usability is, or is he just creating a strawman argument to promote his book and his speaking engagement at UIE's 'conference'? |
|
| I don't hate Flash; I just hate what it does to designers | Wed 12 Feb |
| But Im tired of dealing with the effect it has on those designers. Too easily, it becomes their first line of defense to save Web projects that appear to be going astray. It absorbs all their design energies and entices them to disregard the basics and simple beauty of well-planned hypertext interfaces. |
| Thu 13 Feb 02:59 | daniel szuc | Widget choice was also an issue for GUI systems. Perhaps some character based systems were more simple and easier to use when there was less choice? |
| Thu 13 Feb 04:52 | Anonymous | Have to agree with Daniel on this one.....
http://www.1heluva.com/cgi-bin/join.cgi?refer=1035 |
| Thu 13 Feb 11:12 | Anonymous | I disagree with the author. I hate Flash.
The only time I selectively enable Flash in my browser is to play a game someone wants me to see. The fortunate side effect of my behavior is that I am never bothered by Flashvertisements or crappy site designs. I've never encountered a Flash-driven site that contained information I must have. If I'm casually browsing and hit Flash, I just walk around it and keep going. |
| Thu 13 Feb 12:58 | John S. Rhodes | Strongbad justifies Flash. |
| Thu 13 Feb 13:08 | Anonymous | OK, I'll broaden my definition of 'games' to mean 'entertainment.' Flash is good for a few cheap laughs. When I want serious animated fun, I watch The Simpsons and Adult Swim. |
| Thu 13 Feb 15:28 | Jay Small | Adult Swim? I definitely agree on that one. |
| Fri 14 Feb 00:38 | daniel szuc | If Flash or Macromedia development tools can provide richer applications/interfaces that can remove the restrictions of the browser, HTML's widget set and can download the web based applications fast enough to the users door - there may be some nice opportunities here. Guess thats what Java has also been trying to achieve, but the interface refresh rate and download time has always been an issue. |
| Fri 14 Feb 04:33 | Alan Fisher | I installed PopUpCop on my PC a few months ago, and one of the things I disabled was autoplay of Flash. Instead of the Flash movie, you get a blank yellow area. You can choose to play the Flash movie by clicking in the yellow area. Two things have hit me since I started this.
1. How many page components there are on a wide range of sites which are built in Flash. They stand out as yellow blocks, and some sites are absolutely splattered with them. I'm sure I didn't notice as many Flash components when I was just letting them play.
2. How rarely I actually click on the yellow areas to start the autoplay. Are the site designers wasting their time? And are they wasting their client's money? |
|
| Creating a Culture of Ideas | Wed 12 Feb |
| (technologyreview.com) In short, being innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass. |
| Wed 12 Feb 09:05 | Anonymous | 1 percent of innovators are geniuses. The other 99% are fools and they annoy the hell out of us. When an innovator joins one of my project teams, you can bet I'll conspire with my other teammates to get maliciously compliant on his ass. |
| Wed 12 Feb 11:31 | Ron Zeno | Problem is, creativity is overrated as well, and overpromoted by those without expertise.
You need both. Creativity without expertise means you just reinvent the wheel and don't know it. Not always a bad thing, but not much value to it unless you use it to delude others into thinking you've actually created something new.
Expertise without creativity means more of the same, which is definitely a good thing once you are accomplishing what you want - just watch out for creative people changing the world on you. And if you're not accomplishing what you want, then you are doomed... |
| Fri 14 Feb 00:48 | daniel szuc | Creative and innovative thinking should always be welcomed. But much depends on the *environment* or *context* we are trying to be innovative in. The challenge is finding a balance of creativity, innovation, business requirements and project timings.
If you can train people to get faster and more focused at innovating within smaller chunks of time, this might be very powerful. |
|
| WebWord Comment | Sun 09 Feb |
| Congratulations to Mike C for being the winner of the Book Lottery! Ill be sending Mike a copy of Andy Kings Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization. |
| Mon 10 Feb 06:56 | Gerald | You should make a new lottery, or even better, why not asking for tips and hints instead of (or additional to) questions. Or what's about an award for the three best tips - donated by three books ;-) |
| Mon 10 Feb 12:10 | Anonymous | Did Mike C's name go into the virtual hat three times for the three questions he posted in three separate messages, or did every person who asked a question have an equal chance? Or was Mike C selected because you liked one of his questions? Was it quantity, quality, or equal chance? |
| Tue 11 Feb 12:30 | Anonymous | Silence speaks louder than words. |
| Thu 13 Feb 20:20 | John S. Rhodes | 'Silence speaks louder than words.'
Huh?
See the details of my posting:
'Entering is simple. For every good interview question you ask, I will give you one chance to win the book.' |
|
| Technology can make you fat | Tue 11 Feb |
| Its unlikely youll catch me on a Segway, though. Am I missing something, or is the very idea of a motorized walking machine not a laughable, almost obscene idea? In the very societies where obesity is a growing problem, the technologists are busy building tools to make us fatter. |
| Wed 12 Feb 10:51 | Francis Wu | Correction: Irresponsible use of technology makes you fat. Also, irresponsible advertising also makes you fat. For instance, the people in TV dinner commercials seem to only have TV dinners in their freezers. Also, stressful working conditions makes you fat. For instance, long working hours, no vacations, low wages all serve to crush any motivation to do anything other than having dinner in front of the TV and staring at the idiot box for the rest of the evening.
Next up, technology gives you cancer... |
| Wed 12 Feb 11:50 | Anonymous | You people are crazy. Segways are great. I'm buying one as soon as they begin shipping with a built-in microwave and mini-fridge. |
| Wed 12 Feb 13:36 | Lydia | I take offense at the phrase 'building tools to make us fatter' - it seems to imply that personal choice is not involved. So far, no one has made a machine to lock us down in the chair and shove food into our mouth. When that happens, I will accept the phrase 'building tools to make us fatter.' Until then, it is a personal choice to ride a segway when you are capable of walking.
Personally, I know my grandma would LOVE a Segway. She lives very close to the store, but because of a circulation problem she sometimes can't manage the walk and is terrified of being stranded halfway there, but she's embarrassed that family members have to pick her up so she can get groceries because she is otherwise quite mobile, alert, and active.
I don't think the Segway was intended for everyday use, or to replace regular walking, but if they are going to make any money they have to target everyone. |
| Wed 12 Feb 15:01 | Amy | If I could carry my three year old home from nursery school on it, it would save a car trip... |
| Wed 12 Feb 15:54 | Anonymous | Ummm, how about trying a piggyback ride? |
| Wed 12 Feb 19:29 | JEH | When operating any sufficiently heavy machinery there is always a danger of ending up flat.
Oh, sorry, you said FAT. Well, never mind then. |
| Thu 13 Feb 11:13 | Wolf | Lydia writes:
'So far, no one has made a machine to lock us down in the chair and shove food into our mouth.'
Off to the library for:
McGarty, Terrance
'Business Plans that Win Venture Capital'
;) |
| Thu 13 Feb 14:18 | Brad Lauster | I don't know much about Gerry McGovern, but based on that article, I have to conclude that he's an idiot.
First he complains about unhealthy, processed food and then proclaims that technology has improved the 'quality and quantity of food.'
Then he says the 'problem [with word processors] is that many can type faster than they can think.' I would have been inclined to agree, had he mentioned this article as an example of that problem.
Last, he makes some ignorant remarks about the Segway with regards to the purpose of the device and its affect on personal health, specifically weight. These sorts of remarks have been discussed elsewhere, but to quickly recap: The Segway is not a walking machine, it's a personal transport. You'd use it to go somewhere that's not far enough away to drive, but at the same time, too far to walk. To me, this seems like a pretty simple concept, which for some reason, is completely lost on McGovern (and others).
...and the weight gain claim is pure specualtion. In fact, Phillip Torrone owns a Segway and has lost at least 10 lbs. riding the thing. |
|
| Bleeding Edge Usability | Fri 07 Feb |
| (v-2.org) Adding to the usability woes afflicting Liquid Bandage, you have to be able to put eyes on the wound to apply it properly, in a way that is not true of traditional bandages. |
| Mon 10 Feb 13:01 | Lydia | I, too, used the band-aid brand. I remember chuckling over the 'also great for' line. I don't have the package any more but I clearly remember reading something about how it is not recommended for use until the wound has stopped bleeding, and it included some minimal instructions for how to stop the bleeding in a cut and how to clean the wound prior to application.
I wonder if they have removed that wording because it was turning people off? I mean, most of us try to stop bleeding with pressure before we put on a regular band-aid, anyway, but if you specifically read that on a first aid product, you might think, 'well, then what is the use of it?!' I have to admit that when I first read it, I was thinking, 'well, maybe this isn't right for me' but decided to try it anyway, since I was in kind of a fix with regular bandages. |
| Mon 10 Feb 13:40 | Anonymous | 'most of us try to stop bleeding with pressure before we put on a regular band-aid'
Really? Unless I have a gushing wound, I compress the cut and scream for a minute or two, then clean the cut, dry it, and put on a bandage. If blood is still coming out, oh well. The bandage has gauze to absorb the excess blood, so no harm, no foul. |
| Tue 11 Feb 13:12 | Lydia | Yeah, but the operative phrase there is that you compress the cut as long as blood oozes out too rapidly (and would therefore soak the tiny piece of gauze within seconds of putting it on). |
| Thu 13 Feb 13:17 | Anonymous | Surgeons do not perform 'operations,' they perform 'procedures.' When you say 'operative phrase' you mean 'procedural phrase.'
I don't wait until the blood stops oozing too quickly. If the tiny piece of gauze on the bandage would get soaked within seconds, then my cut is far too serious to slap on an itty bitty Band-Aid.
Yes, I am trying to be argumentative. |
|
| WebWord Comment | Tue 11 Feb |
| Does spam give marketing a bad name? What do you think of crap like this? Rather slimy, dont you think? |
| Tue 11 Feb 23:26 | Mark | A Google search for 'acquisition firm that purchases the e-mail subscribers' returns many copies of the letter, some posted to mailing lists(!).
'Exclusive'? Hardly. |
| Wed 12 Feb 09:10 | Joshua Kaufman | Isn't all spam slimy?
I feel so divorced from all these talks about spam now a day. Since I changed my email addresses last summer, I haven't received one piece of spam. I realize chaning email addresses won't work for everyone, but I had very few contacts that might not be able to contact me. Everyone else knows where my website is and I always keep my contact info there. |
| Wed 12 Feb 11:57 | Anonymous | No. Not all spam is slimy. Just yesterday I received a spam that said for every friend I forward the e-mail to, $1 would be donated to a fund for starving children in Africa. |
|
| Atrax Robustus Web Spider | Tue 11 Feb |
| ? |
| Wed 12 Feb 09:17 | Joshua Kaufman | The page provides this vague explanation:
'Atrax Robustus (AKA. the funnel web spider) is a research project wholly funded and operated by Corsaire, an independent security solutions provider. The aim of the research project itself is to provide real world verification to a number of theories that we have in regard to the divination of web server configurations.'
I have no idea, but Atrax Robustus sure does sound cool. |
|
| Web Site Optimization | Mon 10 Feb |
| (WebWord) Speed is a key component of usability. Small improvements in speed can take critical pages below typical attention thresholds, and dramatically lower bail-out rates and abandoned shopping carts. I talk about this in the book, but compression alone can save 30-50% in size and bandwidth costs. Webmasters who have employed compression and optimization typically save 30 to 50% off their bandwidth costs, and retain more customers, and have improved conversion rates. |
| Mon 10 Feb 22:04 | John S. Rhodes | Thanks to everyone for asking such great questions. Getting WebWord readers involved is very exciting because it is so interactive and personal. I hope you like this format since I plan on doing more stuff like this in 2003. |
| Mon 10 Feb 22:33 | Frank Lynch | I hate to say it, but I think there can be an instance when pages load too fast. The phenomenon could occur when a user doesn't realize that the new page has arrived, and doesn't address the new page.
This can occur when there is too much consistency between page 1 and page 2: for example, a closely adhered-to template, graphics that are the same (this can be tempting because the images are already in the cache), and headlines that don't call out clearly enough, to make it clear that a new set of stimuli is there for the user.
Does it happen very often? I doubt it — but you know how Jakob holds software response time up as the standard for web page delivery. And if someone gets their pages (or target frames) light enough, it could happen more often. |
| Tue 11 Feb 10:11 | Tomm | Regarding the last question from Joe Clark:
The people at SURL did a really interesting piece of research about when to break up a page into separate pages:
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/51/paging_scrolling.htm |
| Tue 11 Feb 11:35 | Gerald | IMHO the usability of this comment-pages could be improved if you would add a link to the navigational part. So instead of
<< Previous Posting | Next Posting >> something like
<< Previous Posting | Main | Next Posting >>
would be helpfull.
By the way - what's about using optimization technics like crunching and mod_gzip at this page? |
|
| Tablet PC: A solution searching for a problem | Sun 09 Feb |
| Heres the biggest problem with tablet PCs: People drop things. Everyone has dropped their PDAs or mobile phones at least once, and have survived to tell about it. But current tablet PC design seems to assume that dropping precious things is not a human thing to do. (Comments: Thank you Daniel Szuc.) |
| Mon 10 Feb 08:41 | Eric Vitiello | Check out eBay.
I think you'll find something close to what you want :)
I've been keeping an eye on these things for a long time, and the slightly older models are getting to a very nice price range - granted they're not new (well, some of the are). But beggers can't be choosers, right? |
| Mon 10 Feb 09:07 | Anonymous | I take offense at the idea of being a begger. I don't want a favor or something for nothing. I want the computer industry to begin listening to its customers.
The whole 'internet appliance' idea failed because manufacturers offered expensive high-end and/or needlessly complex products. Overkill. We're talking about a market segment that could be given a 286 to use and wouldn't know or feel that it was a slow computer. So why stick the latest processor in a tablet PC? Obviously it's not targeted to the 40-50% of America that is not yet online. When is someone going to truly design a computer for that market?
Back to the begger thing... These people are still offline because they are choosing... not to buy PCs and not to buy WebTV and not to buy e-mail appliances. I submit to you that these people are simply waiting for a product that actually appeals to them. Crazy idea, huh? |
| Mon 10 Feb 13:18 | jen | It's too bad that the WinCE-powered tablets have all but disappeared into the ether with the advent of the XP-powered tablet PCs.
However, this Linux-powered Sharp Zaurus may be of interest:
http://www.dynamism.com/zaurus/index.shtml |
| Mon 10 Feb 21:21 | Lyle | Simputer is worth a look. It is designed with the 90% of the world not yet online in mind. |
| Tue 11 Feb 10:10 | Thad Pasquale | 'In fact, sometimes it's so detailed it can be difficult to read the text'
LMAO- That's from the sharp website jen posted. I does have a zoom feature though that solves this 'problem'! Yikes |
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| Role-playing fits the bill | Fri 07 Feb |
| (guardian.co.uk) I got into gaming because it was the only way I could get my husband to spend time with me, offers Kim Gonzales, the founder of Asherons Calls all-female guild. Players develop characters, work towards goals, solve puzzles and engage in social fluttery. Theyre the visual marriage of text-based adventures and chat rooms, and women are flocking. |
| Mon 10 Feb 12:10 | Berna | I agree with Lydia too. But staying online for hours at a time, while still attending to your 'offline social events' is not always unhealthy.
Do any of you think that one day we'll actually come to a stage where people will not be looking for off-line social events? where we'll be able to satisfy 'most' of our 'senses' online? Even 'most' of our day to day activities that require us to socialize?
A topic that always captures my attention... if you care to comment I'd really appreciate it... |
| Mon 10 Feb 16:58 | Lydia | Berna, I see your point. I think it's up to everyone how much of their free time they spend online (it's usually friends or family who think it's too much!). For me, the idea of spending an entire day in front of the computer is usually reserved for a newly purchased shoot-em-up game.
As far as people who stay online rather than 'living offline' - no, I don't see that happening to most people, but it does happen to some. I have heard of people who have had entire romantic relationships without ever meeting each other, going so far as to propose marriage or 'break up' without ever locking eyes. Some people who may have ventured out into real relationships now stay tucked away with their digital friendships to sustain them.
In my own experience I see most people pulling away from any serious immersion after a few years. It's what happens to their lives during the immersion that is troublesome. Marriages busted (neglect), money down the tubes, time squandered, and nothing to show for it.
I definitely agree with Daniel about needing sensory input in order to get to really know someone - I sometimes feel frustrated when I meet cool people that I know I have no hope of meeting offline (live in a different country, both of us broke, whatever). Seeing them, taking in their body language, finding out about their quirks, is (for me) really important.
This is not to say that interaction with people in online communities isn't rewarding. I could not give up my WebWord, or the great people who post here. It's just that I don't have much free time, anyway, and I prefer to spend it away from the computer. |
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