(Comments added for week ending Sun 16 Jun 2002) | View Other Weeks
| last updated:16 Aug 2002 13: 49 Webword time, or 16 Aug 2002 18:49 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 16 Jun 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| WebWord Comment | Sun 16 Jun |
| Am I the only person tired of seeing the Flash Player 6 download dialog box? I guess Ill just have to give in and install it. |
| Sun 16 Jun 16:29 | Anonymous | Uh, just uninstall Flash entirely. Aside from games, I never encounter a site I need to use that has trapped essential information in Flash. |
| Andreessen Interview: Browser wars aren't coming back | Sat 15 Jun |
| The bad news is the browser is kind of done. Essentially, nothing new has happened since it got adopted in the mainstream over the past four years. Microsoft releases a new version of Internet Explorer, and its like, what exactly are the new features? Theres probably three or four new features in there, but who cares? |
| Sun 16 Jun 06:49 | Vincent Benard | If IE wannabe competitors only try to re-make IE plus one or two new features, there is no hope for them. Perhaps I'm completely wrong, but I believe that the next step forward could be a browser that would be really good in supporting web based 'interaction-rich' applications in a standard configuration. Java promised it but it seems it didn't succeed to do it. Flash MX is an attempt to bring high level interaction capabilities to browser, but it's proprietary and the 'browser + Flash' combination is awfully slow. There is IMHO a need and a market for a 'generic browser' based on open standards that could handle a lot of interaction-rich apps. browsing would be only one of the available applications. A first step could be made by creating best input fields for forms: an interaction-rich textarea with table edition, image inclusion and design capabilities, and so on, with multiple undo handling, full drag and drop capabilities, and pixel-sharp positionning of multiple elements... and all that without non-standards plugins. does someone agree ? Do you think such a thing would be great ? are there already some works around such a concept ? Or has it no interest ? |
| Sun 16 Jun 06:59 | Daniel | A bare bones, minimalist, lite browser that installs and loads quickly may be one way to go. The user can then download modular functionality if required. |
| Sun 16 Jun 12:32 | Morris Cox | Take a look at Java Web Start. Apparently, it came with the latest version of Java and has four applications you can download (within it ) and run. A bit basic, but it shows promise. On a side note, EvoChess2 is a distributing computing project that is downloaded and run within a client named goopy. goopy also has the protential to run other projects within itself. |
| Flash Critiques: 99% Bad | Thu 13 Jun |
| (CHI-WEB) In the end, the marketplace will decide which Flash sites are usable and which are not. |
| Fri 14 Jun 04:24 | Matt Round | Want to know how those bad Flash sites we all see came about? It's simple, really, there are two key reasons: 1. Clients/management/designers regularly make poor, uninformed technology choices based on whatever's currently cool or glitzy ('Wow, have you seen what those guys are doing, we have to have a 3D cube on our site, and why are we using this HTML crap?') 2. All responsibility for the structure, navigation and content of a site is often given to a visual designer ('Hey our designers can use Flash, no need for those techy guys to poke their noses in finding problems and making it look ugly') |
| Fri 14 Jun 06:54 | (the other) JS | 1. Yes. However in other professions, they dissuade you from bad decisions and toward the ones they are reasonably sure you'll be happy with long term. I think there must be some kind of name for this, like 'knowledge work' or sumthin' -- I dunno. 2. You can thread a needle with a hammer. However, do to the design assumptions built into the structure of hammers, the vast majority of users will feel an irresistable urge to smash the needle instead. There is an entire field of study which argues how things are built influences how they are used, actually a couple of them. The name Flash did not just get tacked onto the product because that's what they pulled out of a hat. Although this phenomenon of seeing existence as a series of uncaused events is fascinating. ...Do go on with it. |
| Fri 14 Jun 07:11 | John S. Rhodes | (the other)JS, I have the 'other field of study' on the tip of my tongue. Could you please remind me so that I don't go insane? |
| Fri 14 Jun 08:16 | Matt Round | 1. 'However in other professions, they dissuade you from bad decisions' Really? People seem to encounter ill-informed decision-making and vulnerability to 'glitz' in all professions. 2. 'You can thread a needle with a hammer. However, do to the design assumptions built into the structure of hammers, the vast majority of users will feel an irresistable urge to smash the needle instead.' Er I suppose those kinds of analogy can be made, do go on with them, but I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying you feel all use of Flash is inherently bad? Flash can be used effectively. It's the best format around for online animation and simple games, and occasionally the best choice for interfaces and applications. If you know what you're doing you can integrate it into mainstream sites seamlessly by a. using good JavaScript Flash detection b. avoiding making the plugin auto-install c. where possible ensuring users without the plugin don't realise they're missing anything (e.g. give a static image instead of a non-essential animation) d. avoiding using Flash for navigation e. using the appropriate version (v3 for simple animation, v5 for better sound & scripting, v6 for video and other new features) I've worked on a wide variety of mainstream commercial sites and seen many good and bad uses of Flash. The two points I mentioned are where I felt the bad projects started heading irrevocably in the wrong direction. |
| Fri 14 Jun 09:01 | (the other) JS | John S. Rhodes, Don't go insane, the field(s) are: Captology (micro, you know B.J. Fogg) and System Dynamics (macro, Peter Senge, Meadows etc). Essentially, you get behavior you design for -- excuses included at no extra charge. Trivia time. What experiment in captology (although not known as such at the time) just celebrated a 30 year anniversary? No cheating. |
| Fri 14 Jun 09:35 | John S. Rhodes | Matt, Thanks for the insightful comments about Flash. I particularly enjoyed your tips. If designers took your advice, the usability on many Flash sites would be greatly improved. If you have other related tips, fire away. Actually, I think it would make sense to write a quick little article based on your tips. What do you think? What do other folks think? I'd be happy to throw it on WebWord for the exposure. You could be a guest author. |
| Fri 14 Jun 09:46 | John S. Rhodes | Matt, I think that (the other)JS was trying to make a very simple point. Flash as a tool is fine but it is very easy, perhaps too easy, to create web sites that have poor usability. Here is an anology that might be more appropriate. Give people the BLINK tag and, well, they will use it. It was nearly impossible to use the BLINK tag without creating crap. In some ways, Flash is the same. Give people the ability to easily make flaming logos and pump techno music in the background and, by gosh, they will do it. Many developers simply can't help but abuse these things; it is like crack to them. Flash isn't abusive. Some developers abuse Flash. End of story. |
| Fri 14 Jun 12:10 | John Dowdell | Hi, I'd urge caution on JavaScript detection tests... besides having to test on multiple browsers (including a VBScript test for IE/Win, etc), these just tell you whether a Macromedia Flash Player is present. Very few consumers don't have one. It's more likely that you'd do version-detection, if anything. I've seen a lot of trouble caused making detection routines, and then fixing broken detection routines. I think it's easier to just show the content, with a link to either installation or a lower-grade text representation. That's me, though, your mileage may vary. (Auto-installation of extensions depends on the browser... IE/Win does that, others don't.) I'd also _recommend_ SWF for many navigation tasks. It excels at letting people drill down deeply without confusion. Take a look at the General Motors website for an example... hmm, this site is also a good example of the dangers of detection routines, because it gives my Mozilla browser the non-Flash version. You wouldn't want the *only* navigation path to be through SWF, but it beats HTML or DHTML for many sites. (FoxSports is another example of deep exposure of only relevant navigational choices.) Regards, John Dowdell Macromedia Support |
| Fri 14 Jun 12:34 | John S. Rhodes | Following some links over at John Dowdell's site, I found these two links on the CHI-WEB site: The Flash turn-around (Don Norman) RE: The Flash turn-around (Chris MacGregor) Fun, fun, fun! |
| Fri 14 Jun 14:27 | (the other) JS | Flashback to Tog on the 'evils' of non standard Hypercard controls. Circa 80s. I guess retro really is the new cutting edge. This was fun -- let's do it again in ten years' time. |
| Fri 14 Jun 15:16 | Matt Round | 'these just tell you whether a Macromedia Flash Player is present...It's more likely that you'd do version-detection, if anything.' Well yes, you use a proper Flash detection script that returns the version number, one that works in all major browsers. Obviously any poorly written/implemented script will cause problems for users (and there have been a lot of bad scripts around), but so do sites that force users to make choices or install plugins. For me, GM is a good example of bad Flash. It uses poor detection (redirects to multiple versions; doesn't work in all major browser; users with JS disabled get a blank page), is search engine unfriendly (even if all engines start indexing links in Flash files, they can't even get past the detection's JS redirect, so the site can only get indexed via inbound 'deep' links), doesn't allow experienced users to do things like right-clicking on links, and just doesn't do anything that justifies use of a plugin (DHTML is fine for simple expanding menus). Foxsports is at least trying something more ambitious, but has some of the same problems (and forces users to download the plugin). (I was going to stop rambling on about this, but seeing someone from Macromedia give, in my view as a developer who's used Flash in many sites, bad/misleading advice got me all opinionated again!) |
| Fri 14 Jun 18:04 | MadMan | Yeah, you tell 'em, Matt. Didn't John post a link about the Flash on the GM site? [searches for link] [Round1: The Webword search engine doesn't find squat] [Round2] Uses the handy GoogleBar's 'Search site' feature to find 'GM Flash' Ah... here it is: What value does Flash add to the GM home page?. Several useful comments there from Webword readers, including our own Matt Round. You might want to check out the comments on that page, John. :P |
| Sat 15 Jun 11:48 | John Dowdell | '...seeing someone from Macromedia give... bad/misleading advice....' Me? Bad? Sheesh, there goes my self-esteem for the weekend.... ;-) Seriously, browsers won't uniformly tell you what they can do, particularly if you want to go beyond plugin-detection to version-discrimination. Macromedia offers the Flash Deployment Kit for download, which handles cases for various browsers, but it's a big thing to add in. I've been working plugin detection since Netscape 2.0, but these days I really believe it may be more trouble than it's worth, at least with something as widespread as Flash. I agree with you that I like to see the address when hovering over a link... some browsers will let plugins talk to the Status Bar, but a tooltip or similar feedback may be more practical. If you'll check filesizes, you'll see that a drill-down navigation is far more svelte and speedy in SWF than in DHTML. (I don't know whether GM's site has added eyecandy recently (its JavaScript detection doesn't seem to recognize Mozilla), but its menuing system shows a few choices at first, and many choices on demand, all without a page refresh.) jd/mm |
| Sat 15 Jun 13:58 | Matt Round | I use a fairly short (30-odd lines) JavaScript function that gives the Flash version no. in IE5+ Win/Mac, NS4, NS6 and Opera 5+. That's easily good enough to automatically handle non-essential Flash content, and allows the majority of users straight into Flash-dependent sites without them having to manually confirm they've got Flash or worry about what a plugin is. If John gives the go-ahead for an article I'll possibly include it. Macromedia might want developers to assume everyone's got Flash (or should have it), but trying to make detection sound dodgy doesn't do it any favours, it makes using Flash seem like an all-or-nothing choice. In reality you can integrate Flash content effectively into many sites without impairing usability by forcing users to make technical decisions or install software. |
| JSnav | Sun 09 Jun |
| JSnav can be used to display consistent navigation throughout your site. It is very configurable, all colors, fonts, etc. can be easily changed. Set up your site hierarchy by specifying the URL, page name, and parent of every page. Once the hierarchy is set up, making changes of any size becomes easy. |
| Sat 15 Jun 05:47 | Matt Round | Don't touch this with a barge pole if you want your site to be accessible for search engines and other non-JavaScript users. |
| First International Conference on Usage-Centered Design | Thu 13 Jun |
| A Conference on Usage-Centered, Performance-Centered, and Task-Oriented Design for Software and Web Applications |
| Fri 14 Jun 12:04 | John S. Rhodes | This is probably going to be a very useful conference. Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood are sharp people with excellent skills. In fact, one of my favorite usability books is Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design, which they wrote about 3 years ago. |
| Fri 14 Jun 12:23 | John S. Rhodes | A few more comments. Larry sent me a note explaining their design decisions. He made some good points that I would like to share: 1. The format of the page works very well for people. While you do have to scroll, all the information is on one page. That is valuable. The at-a-glance format is only possible by breaking some design conventions (e.g., Never Make Users Horizontally Scroll!). 2. They did review and consider several different prototypes. However, nothing provided a one-stop-viewing experience except for this. This was not a random or hasty decision. 3. There are other ways to reach the same information. This is not the only place that people can see the material, so this is actually a bonus page. It is another way to help people find what they need. If you don't like the font and you don't like the scrolling, use a different avenue. 4. They recognize that most of their audience for the site is going to be running at XGA or higher. So, the threat of scrolling is lowers. Their users were considered! I think that these are all excellent points to think about. My comment was more of a reflection of a question I had: Is it my system configuration or is it the web site design that is causing what I see? In this case, it was the design. However, while the design isn't perfect, it does what it should do. It helps the users that need help in the way they need help. Larry's email, like others in the past, shows me that he is one smart cookie. Perhaps I should go to the conference...! |
| Fri 14 Jun 14:11 | Jack Schonchin | What I dislike about the schedule page is that each event link begins with the names of the speakers. This is a big drawback for me because my primary interest is in the topics being covered, not whose mouths the words come out of. Yes, the speakers are important, but not on the schedule page. This is the page I use to plan my day. Monday at 4 p.m. I'm Designing Information Portals. I am not Holtzblatt. Sorry. |
| Sat 15 Jun 03:21 | Eric Scheid | What I don't get is that since they were committed to scrolling horizontally, why did they then compromise that decision by compressing the text with letter-spacing:-1pt. Made it much harder to read, and I still have to scroll horizontally. Would have been better to scroll horiz. just a little further. After all, I don't need to compare similar times for different days, so Monday doesn't have to be within visual distance of Friday. Other gripe: they explicitly turn on underlining of links. I hate that. I've set my preference to turn that off and am only occasionally bewildered as to where the links are. Instead, I'm confronted with a mess of tightly kerned text interleaved with horizontal lines. |
| Most People Lie In Everyday Conversation | Thu 13 Jun |
| The study, published in the journals June issue, found that 60 percent of people lied at least once during a 10-minute conversation and told an average of two to three lies. |
| Fri 14 Jun 20:05 | Chad Lundgren | To me, the only question worth asking about people's lying behaviors is, how they doing it? If they're only doing it to be polite or to make themselves look better, and they're not going against any of their firmly held beliefs, it's harmless. But if they make a habit of not standing up for their beliefs, and always saying what they think people want to hear, then it can become destructive. For an excellent book showing why a simplistic view of lying as always bad is itself a bad thing, check out James Morrow's City of Truth. (No, I'm not an affiliate, I'm not getting anything. Read the URL if you don't trust me. :-) ) |
| PwC Consulting changes its name to simply Monday | Thu 13 Jun |
| Many may find the name change to Monday odd, but the move is no laughing matter for PwC Consulting. The firm is striking out from under the shadow of accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers after years of toiling within a company more synonymous with ledgers and gray suits than catchy slogans. |
| Fri 14 Jun 00:22 | Jack Schonchin | Well, I'll just rename my consultancy to 'Friday.' Everybody loves Friday. TGIF! |
| Fri 14 Jun 06:43 | Mac | They could have saved a lot of money, kept PwC and just changed the expanded version: Pie with Chips (i saw this used in PwC) People with Constipation Purple waged Consultants Projects with Cachet |
| Fri 14 Jun 10:42 | Berna | I wonder if they'll go to court about 'owning' the word Monday? I can hear it on CNN: 'Due to a suit by the Monday Corporation, the day will now be referred to as PwC' I wonder if they'll have to reschedule any meetings from any other day of the week to mondays. Or if they plan on announcing Monday as part of the weekend from now on to avoid the confusion? We should ask Seinfeld what he thinks. My friend commented that it sounded like a Seinfeld episode. True. It's funny. And when they say that it's advantageous for advertising purposes do they think that every Monday everybody will be thinking of the company? hmm. That would be interesting to follow up on. But how many people think of the company Xerox, when they hear 'Will you xerox this for me?' Even when they hear 'where's the xerox machine?' I think it's more likely to backfire. |
| Fri 14 Jun 11:43 | JB | This is very serious....I have been told by an internal source that the second choice was....wait for it......wait...... Kayak. I dead set kid you not! |
| Fri 14 Jun 12:05 | Berna | Kayak?... I wonder what made them pass on that option? heheh. |
| Fri 14 Jun 12:56 | Darin | I think The Bangles and The Mamas and the Papas will being getting some royalty money very soon... |
| Fri 14 Jun 19:23 | JB | I think Kayak was there fall back if things were not going right - up a creek without a paddle :) |
| Steve Krug sets the Record Straight | Thu 13 Jun |
| Krug quoted Jakob Nielsen several times to endorse points he made, while others reflected the increasingly common view that the authority of Nielsens opinions is potentially cramping appropriate situation-specific responses. |
| Fri 14 Jun 09:51 | Darin | I got the feeling that Perks was trying to equate innovation with complexity. In fact, the most innovative processes or products are in fact, simple. Look at the ATM. It was pretty innovative. You mean I can do cash withdrawals, check balances and deposit checks after the bank closes? Wow! That was about 30 years ago, and the same basic design is still being used because its so simple to use. |
| Joint Venture | Thu 13 Jun |
| (New Architect) The physical world is full of successfully cobranded products and services. However, our virtual world lacks the assumed experience that physical spaces afford users. Online cobrands can, of course, learn from their offline counterparts, but they must ensure that the end result embodies the guidelines of consistency, complimentary services and user-centered motivation. |
| Fri 14 Jun 06:40 | (the other) JS | ...User centered. What a concept. ...Let me just jot that one down. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 13 Jun |
| I wrote a book review of Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery at the end of March. From 1-April-2002 through 9-June-2002, 22 people bought that book through Amazon. For those people that read the review and then bought the book, thank you. By the way, for those folks that think I am always motivated by sales, you are quite wrong. I didnt like Designing from Both Sides of the Screen, and yet I still wrote a book review of it. |
| Thu 13 Jun 21:32 | John S. Rhodes | I looked at some other data at Amazon. It turns out that there were 173 click throughs from WebWord to Amazon (1-April-2002 through 9-June-2002) for Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery. I already stated that 22 books were sold. So, the conversion rate is 12.72% over the 74 day time period. Not too shabby. Now, let's take a look at how well Designing from Both Sides of the Screen did at Amazon. From 5-Jan-2002 through 20-March-2002 (74 days) there were 28 click throughs and 1 book was sold. The conversion rate is 3.57%, which isn't too bad considering that I didn't give the book a very good review. I didn't slam it, but I certainly didn't give it a ton of praise. Yes, I know that this comparison is not perfect and I am sure that my method wasn't quite right, but I thought you would be interested in some of this quick and dirty information. If nothing else, it makes me realize how easy it would be to fall into the trap of being a slave to advertisers. Certain web sites simply can't afford to bash Microsoft, for example, because Microsoft buys so much advertising. I'm not 100% sure about this, but I've heard from some sources that it is true. It isn't too hard to find articles about this topic, this one: The Online Threat to Independent Journalism. This is one of the main reasons why I am interested in how usability and marketing, and therefore advertising, interact. I want to know the boundaries. In any event, it is obvious that good reviews generate sales and bad reviews do not. It must be very hard for some people and organziations to ignore this and just say what they want to say. Very tough indeed. |
| Domain Names: Memorable, Global, Non-political? | Thu 13 Jun |
| (Clay Shirky) We make sense of the world by naming things. Faced with any sort of numerical complexity, humans require tools for oversimplifying, and names are one of the best oversimplifications we have. We have only recently created systems that require global namespaces (ship registries, telephone numbers) so were not very good at it yet. |
| Thu 13 Jun 20:29 | John S. Rhodes | Shirky also recently wrote Communities, Audiences, and Scale. |
| Experts Offer Tips On Usability | Thu 13 Jun |
| (Steve Outing) Heres one last (interesting) bit of advice for improving your Web site from John Rhodes, a Web usability consultant and proprietor of WebWord.com. He says examine your pages for any one thing that is too loud or grabs too much attention, and thus is harmful to the user experience. He suggests getting some people to look over various pages of your site and report to you on anything that they find to be annoying. They can do this by first reporting the name of the one thing that grabs their attention the most, and second by rating the level of annoyance of that thing. |
| Thu 13 Jun 07:09 | John S. Rhodes | The core idea here is to tap into user emotions that are tied to elements on a web page. I'm not talking about opinions, I'm talking about the emotional connection that people have to things on a page. I'll explain more about this later. Right now, I'm curious about what you think. Do you think it is it possible to test user emotions? Do you think it is useful data? How would you use this data if you had it? |
| Thu 13 Jun 09:19 | mcw | User emotions: Potential for lots of variation, both between people and for the same person at different points in time. Variation between people - different people see the same page, and react differently. Variation for the same person - reactions can vary according to time of day, venue (home vs. work), and what other tasks are being performed. That said, it's possible to define a desired emotional response and include design elements that support the target response. Print ads, TV, and movies do this all the time. The same cues should have applicability to the web. Movies are reportedly shown to test audiences, and then the audience is surveyed, to determine if the movie produced the desired reaction. |
| Thu 13 Jun 11:57 | JB | I always thought it was good to use users as an indication of what might be wrong, but never what IS wrong. Having users design for you is not a good thing......they, a lot of the time do not know what they want. I would think defining emotional state is even harder as external factors play a significant role in determining an emotional state - independent of what you are trying to gauge...BUT if you could do it scientifically....that would be extremely useful. |
| Thu 13 Jun 14:33 | Darin | I think a lot of it has to do with the early publicity that the Web was going to be this grand entertainment experience, which it can be in some circumstances. But for the most part it is a giant library of information. When I sit down in front of the TV in the fall to watch a good college football game, I'm looking to be entertained by the action and suspense of the game, not the statistics. If I am in front of a browser, I seek information about the game (score, stats, injuries, etc.) It's the same event, but the emotion is different. I'm redesigning an intranet home page and when I sent it to testers, I received different feedback on the same thing. A guy in a power plant was so thankful that the navigation was clearly defined and easy to use and clean. A person in marketing liked the ease of use, but critiqued the 'blandness and straightforwardness' of the same page. The home page is a tool, not an advertisement (though it does have branding), so the emotional experience can vary widely. |
| Thu 13 Jun 15:16 | Matt Rhodes | John, just wondering, did you see the looks on people's faces when they were surfing through a website you were consulting for? Could this provide some evidence to test user emotions? Unless I have completely the wrong idea... |
| Thu 13 Jun 16:06 | RUFUS | Your research sucks. |
| Thu 13 Jun 16:59 | JB | And there goes the neighborhood :( |
| Thu 13 Jun 17:05 | John S. Rhodes | RUFUS, you have not seen our research therefore your comments about it 'sucking' don't really apply. You might say that the methodology described in the article 'sucks' but I would argue that you would need to understand the entire research process to make a judgment about its quality. By the way, I do appreciate the posting. I followed the link to bumfights.com and found it somewhat humorous. |
| Thu 13 Jun 20:09 | Matt Rhodes | Rufus, your site sucks. If it's yours. |
| WebWord Comment | Wed 12 Jun |
| Im at it again. Another experiment. Here is an earlier experiment still in progress. Your opinions matter to me. Fire away! |
| Wed 12 Jun 00:46 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan thinks I should ask this question: 'Did you spot the ad?' It is a good question. My guess is that you did not see the advertisement. It is tough. I want to balance usability, of course, with these kinds of opportunities. I'm trying to learn about what I can and cannot do. As MadMan privately told me, I should move the advertisement to the top of the page and change it slightly, perhaps by adding a a background color. For a day or two I'll leave the ad where it is. Let me know what you think. So, did you see the advertisement? |
| Wed 12 Jun 00:47 | Anonymous | why do you call these expiraments? why dont you just own up to the fact you need cash to pay for your efforts? its not a sin. i'd rather you be honest. |
| Wed 12 Jun 00:56 | John S. Rhodes | Because, quite honestly, these really are experiments. I'm looking at things like... 1. Reader impressions of advertisements. Do they suck? Do they hate them? What makes ads good and bad? How are usability and advertising tied together? 2. New ways to obtain and pay for advertising. For example, has any other site tried using eBay to determine the right price for email advertising? From what I know, I'm the first to try this. (It would be cool if this was picked up as a story. Hint, hint.) 3. How can a usability web site, dedicated to simplicity, generate revenue from content and page views? What are the ways to make money yet still keep a web site usable? What are the things to understand? 4. I'm not curious about making a little bit of money. A couple hundred dollars is a lot, yes, but it won't feed me or pay the bills. The model has to really work. I make a lot more money via consulting than advertising. However, what if I could get away from consulting and turn WebWord into the site on usability and related topics? What if I could help all the usability consultants? What if I could turn WebWord into a publication of some sort? I really am curious. I am experimenting. |
| Wed 12 Jun 07:43 | Steve | 'There are currently over 2,200 subscribers. Therefore, if you win this auction, you will reach over 11,000 WebWord Addiction readers.' Can you explain this math? Do you really think that every one of your subscribers passes every one of your newsletters on to 5 other people? I don't...perhaps 1 in 20 newsletters (at most) contains something that I personally forward to someone else. |
| Wed 12 Jun 08:17 | Anonymous | I think the second post was from Jakob... heheheh. so he does read your site John! |
| Wed 12 Jun 08:20 | John S. Rhodes | Steve, Sorry for the confusion. The auction states that the advertisement will run in five (5) editions of the WebWord Addiction. Since there are over 2,200 subscribers and since I will list the ad (at least) five times, it will indeed be displayed in over 11,000 email messages. I should not say that it will reach over 11,000 people. Instead, I should say that you will get over 11,000 impressions (5 newsletters x 2,200+ people = over 11,000 impressions). I think there is an interesting debate about showing the same advertisment 5 times to fewer people is better than showing the advertisement once to more people. I'd be very interested to learn more about this. In any event, thanks for asking your question. |
| Wed 12 Jun 08:30 | Berna | John, I do believe that sending the same ad 5 times to the same people is better than sending it to 5 different groups of people. Especially if the group is the target audience of the products being advertised. It's the basic principle of repetition. The reason you see the same billboard on the highway for miles. Notice it the second time, read it the third and remember it the fourth... I'll have to go back and check my research on advertising effects and get back to you on it. |
| Wed 12 Jun 08:38 | Berna | BTW, I hadn't noticed the ad on your site upon arrival. I had to go back after reading the comments and then I saw it. I agree with MadMan's comments. But I also believe that it might not be necessary to move the ad to the top. Just changing the background color, or the font color, size or type might suffice. But the way that it stands now, it looks alot like the other links. For users who visit your site everyday, like me [:o)], this doesnt attract our attention. We don't notice that something has changed. That's my two cents on the topic. |
| Wed 12 Jun 09:25 | MH | Why don't you just set up a way to get donations through PayPal or something. This way, you can get donations from people who do not want to win your auction. 'Help support this site and donate etc.' I think the ads and advertisements lower the quality of the newsletter. And, what's the point anyway, Web designers/usability experts advertising to Web designers/usability experts? Will you let anyone advertise? I'm sure they are a talented company but take a look at Red Horizon's own Web site. 'We proudly employ structured usability engineering guidelines' is what it says in the ad but if you look at their page, it doesn't render properly in Opera, you can't read the black menu text on the red background side bar. One look at their clients page and all those logos look like ads. (Yes I've read Jacob's books...at least parts anyway) Is this site and ad a joke or something? I'm am by no means an expert and maybe I'm just ignorant because I didn't read Jacob's book entirely but this site is like the poster site for what NOT to do. I take one look at that and totally dismiss them as knowing anything about practicing usability guidelines and then I start to wonder about the credibility of your own newsletter because of this this ad for this company. Will you just whore out ad space in your newsletter to anyone? Anyway, just my 2 cents. I need to go and violate some usability guideline somewhere. Regards. |
| Wed 12 Jun 13:12 | Anonymous | let go of the anger, buddy |
| Wed 12 Jun 13:24 | Anonymous | Now that we're talking about Red Horizon, I had to go take a look. I'm not impressed by the graphics. They look like stock clip-art. Tell me that the guy in the suit running with the briefcase on the track, breaking through the finishing line tape, is the company's president, and then I will be impressed. |
| Wed 12 Jun 14:02 | John S. Rhodes | I'll have to make sure that Red Horizon finds out that we've been talking about them. Publicity is publicity, right? And, even if some of the comments are negative, Red Horizon can make changes to improve their site. I guess that is a good reason to advertise on a site about usability. It is something I didn't think much about, until now. |
| Wed 12 Jun 14:27 | Berna | Ok seriously, I would also rather that nobody posted anonymously on Webword. I second the anonymous post at 1:24pm. I looked at Red Horizon's website. It looks like something that was very quickly put together in Dreamweaver or something. I especially didn't like their products page, with the icons. They look like they dont belong there. |
| Wed 12 Jun 16:08 | PeterV | I like the experiments, and I hope you'll report on the results! |
| Wed 12 Jun 16:18 | Jack Schonchin | Forget about whether I spotted the ad. Spotting is not the problem. You can fill my screen with the advertisement if you're worried I might miss it. Let's talk about whether the click-through page is effective. After reading about WebWord Addiction I still don't know what it is. OK, it is a daily newsletter. So what? Show me a sample copy so I know what I'm subscribing to. I've previously subscribed to the 'low-volume, periodic' newsletter, but found it to be a rehashing of the web site. I read the web site every day, so the newsletter is of no interest. So what will the daily newsletter give me? A daily rehashing, or something new? |
| Wed 12 Jun 16:22 | Jack Schonchin | While I'm thinking about it... Why should regular WebWorders bother with a WebWord newsletter? What would John say in e-mail that he couldn't/shouldn't say on his web site? Yeah, a newsletter benefits infrequent users, but not daily users. And boy, given that WebWord has daily content, infrequent users are getting a very tiny snapshot of the WebWord universe. Too bad for them. |
| Wed 12 Jun 18:15 | MadMan | Good point, Jack. I subscribed to the newsletter a couple of days back because I'm planning an article on improving email newsletter. Straight off, I could spot a major usability boo-boo. The first screen of the email has nothing except sender details. First, there was a big banner ad (a text equivalent anyway) for Webword's consulting services, then the title, author, date, URL, all on separate lines. Then there was a sponsor ad. I had to scroll twice before I saw content. Of course, John's probably experimenting, but a newsletter must respect my time, something that's usually in short supply. You're right about regulars not *needing* the newsletter. You know what's worse? That John will never know how many people visited those sites by clicking links in the newsletter. In fact, there's absolutely no way to measure how many people are actually reading it, or clicking on links. For all you know, the 2000+ readers could be trashing it straight away (a hypothetical situation, of course.) And when John makes guesses about the readership demographics, he's groping in the dark. There's no way to know if the people reading the newsletter are investment bankers, architects, usability specialists, HTML coders, graphic designers, or janitors. Why? Because no such info is collected anywhere. Even if 100% of the readers are usability specialists, why on earth would a usability company sell themselves to *those* people? I'd be far more interested in VPs of marketing, corporate communications, project managers, etc. -people who might *need* my services. Selling advertising is going to be a tough one. |
| Wed 12 Jun 19:18 | MH | John, You said 'I guess that is a good reason to advertise on a site about usability' well to take that thought a bit further, why don't you set up a forum where people can submit sites and have readers constructively criticise them. Get peer reviews or something. And to Mr. Anonymous regarding my 'anger', you are confusing your sensitivity of the topic with anger when it is actually constructive criticism. I'm not criticising Red Horizon for the sake of criticising them. The topic was about the ads in WebWord and their effect. That was the effect I got. It's my opinion and I was asked for it. Regards. |
| Wed 12 Jun 21:27 | Matt Rhodes | About the ad: John, I suggest you switch between different spots on the page and have everyone give their comments about how 'annoying' the ad is when you move it to different spots on the page, while checking how many clickthroughs to link. It might be interesting if you made a tiny graphic button for the newsletter, keeping it small so the page still loads relatively fast -- that is, if you want more clickthroughs. Just experiment. See what everyone thinks. To tell the truth, I didn't even notice that you changed the links on the side because I usually just read the daily information. |
| Thu 13 Jun 06:24 | John S. Rhodes | Jack wrote: 'Let's talk about whether the click-through page is effective. After reading about WebWord Addiction I still don't know what it is. OK, it is a daily newsletter. So what? Show me a sample copy so I know what I'm subscribing to.' I thought about this two days ago. I realized that the page offered very little and certainly did NOT explain the WebWord Addiction. Providing examples is exactly the right thing to do. Wouldn't even be that hard to set up. Thanks. Jack wrote: 'I've previously subscribed to the 'low-volume, periodic' newsletter, but found it to be a rehashing of the web site. I read the web site every day, so the newsletter is of no interest. So what will the daily newsletter give me? A daily rehashing, or something new? What does it offer? Convenience. Saves some people time. Some people like push better than pull. some people like email over visiting web pages. Some people like to save the emails as a record. So, convenience. The low volume newsletter also offers convenience. It is a digest. I filter out the day to day noise so you don't have to. Some people relly only care about the articles, reports, and interviews on WebWord. Also, I do almost always add a short editorial where I cover something new or add a spin to the newsletter. |
| Thu 13 Jun 06:46 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan wrote: I subscribed to the newsletter a couple of days back because I'm planning an article on improving email newsletter. Straight off, I could spot a major usability boo-boo. The first screen of the email has nothing except sender details. First, there was a big banner ad (a text equivalent anyway) for Webword's consulting services, then the title, author, date, URL, all on separate lines. Then there was a sponsor ad. I had to scroll twice before I saw content. Of course, John's probably experimenting, but a newsletter must respect my time, something that's usually in short supply. I've used this newsletter format for quite a long time. No real complaints from people. Of course, that doesn't mean that it is the right way to do it. Not at all. But, at least people aren't flaming mad. I would have changed the format if there were complaints. I'm sure where else to place header information. Yes, I could nuke the ad about WebWord's services. But, I would keep most of the rest of the information. Placing the advertisement near the top of the newsletter is only fair, right? So, perhaps yes, you might have to scroll a little bit. It is tough to balance my needs, advertiser needs, and reader needs. I respect everyone's time. Seriously. Too much email is a bad thing. Email that is too long is a bad thing. MadMan wrote: You're right about regulars not *needing* the newsletter. I agree. People don't *need* the newsletter. However, it is convenient. Perhaps if I added other value to it...? But, getting the time to do that is, well, going to be very, very hard. I'd almost have to charge money to do much more than what I do now. There just isn't enough time. I'd start eating into activities that actually put food on the table. (Still, you make a good point.) You know what's worse? That John will never know how many people visited those sites by clicking links in the newsletter. In fact, there's absolutely no way to measure how many people are actually reading it, or clicking on links. For all you know, the 2000+ readers could be trashing it straight away (a hypothetical situation, of course.) This is something I have been thinking about. I didn't realize how *little* I know about my readers. Funny, right? How do you balance privacy, especially on a usability site, with gathering demographic information. I want to know about you...but I don't. I should probably set up a reader survey. Shouldn't be hard to do. Thoughts? The problem with tracking URLs (with backend CGI program, blah, blah, blah) is that people don't like it. One piece of very interesting feedback is that people look at the URLs to decide if they are going to visit the page that I point to. I've received this feedback several times. It is kind of cool. How do I balance my desire to track clickthrus with reader desire to see URLs? MadMan wrote: And when John makes guesses about the readership demographics, he's groping in the dark. There's no way to know if the people reading the newsletter are investment bankers, architects, usability specialists, HTML coders, graphic designers, or janitors. Why? Because no such info is collected anywhere. True. Mostly. Please remember that I have been doing WebWord as WebWord for almost 4 years now. I have interacted with hundreds of readers during that time. I do have a pretty good feel for who is visiting. No data, of course, but I do see a lot of sig files, for example. Some people tell me who they are. I'm not 100% blind. Despite this, I don't know and I need to run a survey, or start asking for demographic information (yuck). MadMan wrote: Even if 100% of the readers are usability specialists, why on earth would a usability company sell themselves to *those* people? I'd be far more interested in VPs of marketing, corporate communications, project managers, etc. -people who might *need* my services. Many people are not plugged into usability. That is, they are interested in usability, but they don't do it. They want to know more, and they need help. That is how we get clients. Project managers, developers, and so forth, are here. They do need help. However, you are right about higher level executives. They are *not* here from what I can tell. Perhaps this is an area that I need to explore: Usability for Executives. MadMan wrote: Selling advertising is going to be a tough one. Maybe. However, I have generated some revenue. Nothing amazing, but enough to get me interested in running more ads. Here is my thought experiment. How could I make my living only running WebWord with no consulting or any other money coming in? That is, how could I make money from sponsorships, ads, reports, and so forth, full time? It is an interesting set of questions. It is why I am running these experiments. (I feel like I was just interviewed.) |
| Thu 13 Jun 06:49 | John S. Rhodes | MH wrote: You said 'I guess that is a good reason to advertise on a site about usability' well to take that thought a bit further, why don't you set up a forum where people can submit sites and have readers constructively criticise them. Get peer reviews or something. I've thought about forums in the past. I've thought about them just for the sake of having them and I've thought about them for-profit. I'm not quite ready to jump into them yet. I need to think about it more; research it more. Thanks for the reminder. |
| Thu 13 Jun 06:55 | John S. Rhodes | Matt Rhodes wrote: John, I suggest you switch between different spots on the page and have everyone give their comments about how 'annoying' the ad is when you move it to different spots on the page, while checking how many clickthroughs to link. It might be interesting if you made a tiny graphic button for the newsletter, keeping it small so the page still loads relatively fast -- that is, if you want more clickthroughs. Just experiment. See what everyone thinks. To tell the truth, I didn't even notice that you changed the links on the side because I usually just read the daily information. Moving the advertisement on the WebWord home page is a good idea. Right now, it just blends right in. It doesn't take any value away from the main content. That's good. It doesn't offer as much value as it could add for advertisers. That's bad. I need to spice it up, at least a little bit. A small graphic for the newsletter is also a good idea. Maybe I don't need to 'fear' images as much as I once did. WebWord loads quickly. I've never had a complaint about that. |
| Thu 13 Jun 08:27 | Berna | John, As there were discussions about adding forums onto Webword, if I remember correctly, there were also discussions of some of your frequent readers helping you. You know if you need research or an article or a survey to be prepared you could use their (I should really say 'our') help. But I dont remember how that discussion had concluded nor if you had made a decision on the topic. And what do you think of this approach? Do you think it might work for you and for Webword? Updates? |
| Thu 13 Jun 09:27 | John S. Rhodes | As expected, the bid is now over $100 with just over a day left for the auction. While some people might have good arguments against the value of the advertisements, I do think the are many reasons why the advertisements are effective. With that said, what do you think are the good things about the advertisements that I have not discussed? If we focus on the positive side of the ads, what do we see? |
| Thu 13 Jun 10:06 | Jack Schonchin | John said: How do I balance my desire to track clickthrus with reader desire to see URLs? #1 You can track clicks via a CGI, while masking the CGI with javascript so that users see the destination URL. Users would have to look at your page source to realize you were tracking clicks. This idea is probably not feasible though. Suggest to the programmer(s) that a click logging mechanism be added to Moveable Type. #2 Run URLs through a CGI. Then, after the link, add in brackets the domain you linked to. Something like this: Slashdot sucks [dhs.org] That way you can link to a CGI and I won't mind as much. |
| Thu 13 Jun 11:54 | Anonymous | Where is the Addiction newsletter? Now all I see is an advertisement for Krug's book. |
| Thu 13 Jun 15:12 | Matt Rhodes | Very interesting. I guess John has made it so the text in the area where the 'Webword Addiction' alternates with Krug's book every other page view. I'm going to have to find out how to do that, could come in handy for me... :) |
| Monkey See Monkey Do | Tue 11 Jun |
| (Design Interact) While I’m not opposed to design trends, learning from others is how designers grow. I am concerned about the stagnation of style that I see on the Web. A large e-commerce portal will launch a stylized navigation system and almost immediately after, many other sites will copy the style exactly. |
| Wed 12 Jun 10:21 | (the other) JS | I think you had it right at 'Monkey See Monkey Do.' The design imperative which equates head-to-head (often mindless) imitation with competition. No guru recommends this. A thousand interesting variations on a theme, okay. Learn from others, yes. To mirror or copy is the first step in that process. It is not supposed to be the only step. |
| Wed 12 Jun 18:01 | Jack Schonchin | When I wanted to buy a new car a couple years ago, I was predisposed to buy Saturn because of their 'no haggle' policy. I hate car salesmen. I hate walking onto a dealer lot. Saturn's TV commercials likened car buying to ordering a pizza for home delivery. That REALLY struck home with me. Then I researched cars online. Big mistake. Saturn had one of those unique Flash interfaces with Mystery Meat navigation (I think Vincent Flanders actually referenced the site once in an article, too). Because Saturn offered a site unlike any other car manufacturer, it was an infuriating process to compare car specs, etc. I did not buy Saturn specifically because of Saturn's crappy web site. I recall Saturn's slogan being 'A different kind of car. A different kind of company.' Their web site sure was different. We need more monkeys in this world. The more similar car sites are, the easier the buying experience is for the consumer. The same goes for most sites. For example, the U.S. Congress. When will the House and Senate web designers start talking to each other? |
| Wed 12 Jun 18:25 | Ron Zeno | 'Ever wonder what happened to the wonderful days when you could find a site that was truly original.' I don't wonder, they weren't wonderful, they weren't original. They were worse that what we have today... If you can't do good design yourself, copy what you think is good from others... Better yet, hire someone who can actually do good design... |
| Thu 13 Jun 02:31 | Matt Round | It's a mistake to do anything too wacky and original on most sites... but it's also a mistake to follow the herd and assume the 'big names' are doing things right. Most major sites are littered with bad design decisions arising from internal politics or complacency. (prime example - Yahoo!'s new home page design, which is really poor) |
| Merchant Info: BroadwayPhoto | Tue 11 Jun |
| These people are criminals. It would seem that the sole qualification for employment at any of these fine establishments is an ethical bypass at birth. I question whether they are even capable of telling a single truth, because as far as I can tell, they dont have a single satisfied customer. They are the predator, we are the sheep. Dont venture outside the fold because they will devour you with a smile. |
| Tue 11 Jun 22:59 | Jack Schonchin | Before buying a digital camera, review all sections of Digital Photography Review. After you've narrowed your selection of potential cameras, read the user forums. Among other things, you'll learn about gray market cameras (e.g., non-U.S. warranty cameras sold in the U.S. and/or without all of the normal accessories). When you find a merchant with an incredibly low price, research the hell out of them to be sure they're not gray market, or won't play games with you after you've given them your credit card number... and ask other users at DPR about the company you've found. In many cases, other satisfied users will point you to the best deal. I'm currently looking at using a low price I found on the web to price-match it with brick 'n' mortar Sears. The trick is that Sears provides has a much better (and easier) return policy than any dot-com. |
| Tue 11 Jun 23:07 | John S. Rhodes | Jack, I also like Digital Photography Review. Two other good sites are photo.net and Steve's Digicams. |
| Wed 12 Jun 00:20 | Jack Schonchin | I've never used photo.net. I have to disagree on Steve's Digicam's. People do seem to rank Steve #3, but IMHO his reviews aren't as comprehensive as #1 DPR and #2 DC Resource. |
| Wed 12 Jun 00:24 | John S. Rhodes | Jack, you are right that Steve's material isn't quite as good as DPR. However, it is still worth looking at when shopping around. It adds another perspective. |
| Wed 12 Jun 09:19 | Francis Wu | Has anybody noticed that the only good reviews for BroadwayPhoto and Amphoto came from people who were buying the same item (a Sony DSC-F707)? |
| Wed 12 Jun 16:48 | Thad Pasquale | I notice some folks were complaining about these companies not having a physical addy: A&M Photo World LLC Greg Sanders 2922 Avenue L Brooklyn, NY 11210 US Phone: 718-338-2950 Fax..: 718-338-0634 Email: info@amphotoworld.com Ahh, the wonderful whois search. I was going to post it to nextag, but their policy prohibits doing that. |
| Wed 12 Jun 22:00 | Matt Rhodes | Just a question, I'm wondering who made the positive comments on both of those dealers? I noticed only a couple. They seem to run the exact same business nearly, with several of the same scams. Interesting. Very. |
| Merchant Info: amphoto | Tue 11 Jun |
| I know you are New Yorkers and have no soul, conscience, or manners but thats no excuse for you to you scam and swindle innocent, hard-working people. I believe that you will get what is coming to you... eventually. The authorities will find your physical location. And you will be held accountable for all of your unlawful and disceptive tactics. Enjoy it while you can. |
| Wed 12 Jun 21:58 | Matt Rhodes | Haha. That's great. It's a shame that some people are scam artists, but it's interesting to see all the nasty comments people make. |
| Mitosis: The Separation of Content from Style | Sat 08 Jun |
| (Nick Finck) The separation of style from content has been the cornerstone for cost-saving web measures. Those who didnt learn that the content needed to be separated are finding themselves going back and rebuilding a lot of what was already created in order to develop sites that are, in my words, forward-thinking, meaning that the site isnt just built for what kinds of technologies we have today, its built for what is to come tomorrow. |
| Wed 12 Jun 18:52 | Jack Schonchin | But, uh, the unhyphenated domain forwards me to the hyphenated domain. So obviously the site owners are hyphen lovers. I really cannot support that kind of depravity by visiting the site. Sorry. |
| Malevole | Sun 09 Jun |
| Interesting interface design. It is made up of small notes that you can move around the page in a drag-n-drop sort of way. |
| Mon 10 Jun 18:03 | Jack Schonchin | I have enough trouble with the stickies littering my desk. Why do I want to look at someone else's virtual clutter? |
| Tue 11 Jun 01:24 | MadMan | Where have you been, fleener? I've had to become the 'uber poster' here. ;) |
| Tue 11 Jun 04:50 | Matt Round | I built malevole mostly as an experiment. The idea was to force myself to use things I'd normally steer clear of (gimmicky interfaces, poor legibility, lots of images, clutter, 'rough' design, pointless content) to see what'd happen. Also, I was tired of seeing so many similar weblogs, the format seemed to be stagnating. It's not a particularly usable interface in many ways, but I've found giving each note a different fixed position, size and style does make content more memorable, rather than having a single content block where each item is part of a continuous flow of text, with the same formatting and varying on-screen position. I've got 2 more experimental DHTML weblog interfaces in the works using different methods of positioning, styling and ageing content, hopefully I'll get to refine them soon and find somewhere to apply them. |
| Tue 11 Jun 09:37 | Eric Grose | I think this interface is very innovative. I can see similar but unrelated uses for it. Thanks. |
| Tue 11 Jun 11:17 | Jack Schonchin | MadMan, I was perturbed by something Johnboy did (or didn't do). So I took a brief respite from posting, at least publicly. Webword is a bit like heroin, so I had to come back to shoot up again. (However, I’m glad to report I have completely extricated myself from /. for various unrelated reasons.) |
| Wed 12 Jun 16:29 | Jack Schonchin | When I move the notes, the paper background disappears, and so I'm seeing dark text being moved on a dark background. It would work better if the page background was white, or if the object I was moving was only a note outline (similar to MS Windows where you can move window outlines). What does it matter? It makes me feel better to see what I'm moving. I'm bothered by losing sight of the object I'm moving. |
| Wed 12 Jun 17:46 | Matt Round | The background keeps disappearing in Win IE6 if you have its cacheing settings on 'Every visit to the page'. For some reason it reloads the note's background image every time you move it, even though the page isn't changing any images or doing anything that should confuse the browser. It's an annoying browser bug, but luckily only affects the minority who've altered their cache settings. |
| Wed 12 Jun 18:40 | Jack Schonchin | Egads. I bet many designers have 'every visit to the page' checked. I'm in IE6 only because I'm sporting a new computer at work. I'll have to see how things look at home in my '69 VW Beetle. No, that's not really my car. But I did grow up with one. Planted my head in the windshield a couple times, too. Yeah, that explains a lot about me now, doesn't it? |
| Succinctness is Power | Mon 10 Jun |
| Though I cant off the top of my head think of any examples, I am interested in the question of whether a language could be too succinct. Are there languages that force you to write code in a way that is crabbed and incomprehensible? |
| Wed 12 Jun 18:35 | Jack Schonchin | I don't think a 'submission campaign' will better the chances of success. It may guarantee failure if it is discovered. More likely, multiple submissions would better the chances of success merely because multiple editors will see the submissions. What one yahoo considers droll another yahoo may find interesting. |
| Jackie | Mon 10 Jun |
| (Dive Into Mark) Like the majority of blind people, Jackie knows very little Braille. She has a Braille label maker to mark her CDs, but she can not read Braille books, because they are written in grade 2 Braille, which she has never learned. When she shops and plays online, she uses the latest version of JAWS, a screen reader that integrates with Internet Explorer on Windows. JAWS uses an advanced text-to-speech synthesizer to read web sites aloud. |
| Wed 12 Jun 18:21 | Jack Schonchin | Sit a designer down in front of his web site and have him give you a tour. Get him to 'talk it up' about how great the design is. Then take him back to the front page, load JAWS, and put a shopping bag over his head. Have him show you around again. Alternatively, you can disconnect the monitor, but the shopping bag is more amusing. It works for a group presentation too - either turning off the overhead projector, or having a lot of shopping bags on hand. |
| WebWord Comment | Fri 07 Jun |
| Steve Outing doesnt want to give us a link until the end of the paragraph in this article. Does it work? Does it make sense? Is it friendly? Is it too linear? Why doesnt he trust us not to click on the link? Im confused, yet at the same time it was different and caught my attention. |
| Wed 12 Jun 16:40 | Jack Schonchin | The White House uses a disclaimer page when leaving to go to FirstGov.gov. I recall seeing the House or Senate using disclaimer pages for a while too. I couldn't find disclaimer pages today, but did come across an odd choice of graphics on Senator Allard's page. Note the position of the American flag in relation to the animated fire. |
| Definitely a good idea | Mon 10 Jun |
| (Slashdot) You can curse Microsoft all you want, but they did a great thing for the user. They standardized the computer desktop. Thanks to Microsoft it is no longer a long, difficult, and involved process to install your average piece of software or hardware. |
| Tue 11 Jun 00:46 | Jack Schonchin | How many companies and livelihoods were ruined in the process? With the exception of cancer, you can look at anything today and argue it's good because there has been some benefit. I ask, 'but at what cost?' Oh, ok, I suppose cancer helps keep the population down. So if cancer has its good points, I suppose Microsoft does too. Where would we be today if things had gone down differently? I expect software developers would have rallied together to establish open standards and the world would be a better place today. Oh well. |
| Tue 11 Jun 12:21 | JB | Now I am not pro-Microsoft, but you must realize that before them everything to the common users was all DOS to them. MS took the Apple GUI and gave it to the world. Rightly or wrongly they did standardize the way we interact with our POC. Is it the most efficient?, Is it in the total interest of the user? does it matter when the average computer user had nothing to compare it to. It's like being given bred and water and being told it is milk and honey....you don't know the difference because you have never had milk and honey. What MS have done is a great marketing job. |
| Tue 11 Jun 13:00 | Anonymous | You miss the point. A standardized GUI would have evolved without Microsoft. We could possibly have enjoyed open standards, an open OS and free competition today. Oh, what might have been... To say Microsoft succeeded because of marketing indicates complete ignorance of everything uncovered in the antitrust trial. |
| Tue 11 Jun 15:15 | Matt Rhodes | I respect Microsoft for what they created at first. I don't respect Microsoft for what they have to done to everyone, generally 'controling' all aspects of our current day computers, shutting down a lot of small businesses, etc. |
| Tue 11 Jun 18:13 | Will | Microsoft didn't give us a standard. IBM did. Microsoft just gave us lower prices. IBM made PCs instead of Mainframes possible from a business perspective. Without IBM, businesses may have gone down that road eventually, but it sure wouldn't have happened as quickly as it did. Microsoft, because they owned the rights to virtually everything that made a PC a PC, was able to convert PC hardware into a commodity that could be purchased from any number of vendors. This lowered prices, but it also allowed Microsoft to operate in some frighteningly predatory ways. |
| Tue 11 Jun 18:48 | JB | My understanding of the anti-trust trial was that it was focused on the browser issue and the bundling of such in an OS software...not the development and advancement of a GUI that common folks could use as a replacement to DOS commands. |
| Tue 11 Jun 19:41 | Anonymous | The anti-trust trial revealed how a company can push itself up by pushing everyone else down. Its GUI became the standard at the expense of innovation. |
| Wed 12 Jun 00:59 | MadMan | I wish people wouldn't post anonymously, but anyway... The Microsoft trial is about abuse of monopoly power. It's about using their market dominance to dictate terms to vendors, and various other things. But - and this is important - to abuse its dominance, it needed to HAVE dominance first. So the GUI was already well-established before Microsoft did any of the things it's accused of. |
| Wed 12 Jun 09:51 | Anonymous | Lots of things could have changed in the last 10 years with MS out of the picture. |
| Pain at Mozilla.org | Sun 09 Jun |
| (WebWord) While Mozilla.org is a good site for open source advocates, web site developers, and the computer elite, it is not friendly for most other people. Mozilla.org will scare aware average users because of usability problems, mostly because so much technical jargon is used. |
| Mon 10 Jun 00:54 | jon | As it should be. Mozilla is NOT a browser for anyones grandmother, and Mozilla.com reflects that. Netscape.com is a lovely site full of unimportant useless information sure to keep grandmothers attention focused on the meaningless drivel they enjoy. Change Mozilla.com to look like Netscape.com or Microsoft.com or even Opera.com and the lifeblood of Mozilla, all of the independant contributors will run away faster than you can blink. My point is that this is NOT a wasted opputunity as you have observed, but a way to keep the only people that matter to the Mozilla project interested, the coders, and the testers, NOT the end users who should be using a browser based on Mozilla with all of the niceties they are used to if they are interested in Mozilla. |
| Mon 10 Jun 16:01 | BeerzieBoy | As it should be? Only if you want to ensure the primacy of IE. No one is proposing to add links to Entertainment Tonight on the Mozilla web site, only to apply the basic principles of usability to it. Snobbery is the fast track to obscurity, Jon. |
| Tue 11 Jun 12:43 | Joshua Kaufman | Agreed BeerzieBoy. Why shouldn't my grandmother use Mozilla? She uses IE and Mozilla isn't that much different is it? If the Mozilla Organization truly wants use of the browser to become more widespread, basic usability is much needed. I'm a very experienced web user and found the download page one of the most confusing I've ever come across. |
| Wed 12 Jun 05:09 | jon | Mozilla just isn't for the average end users. I could rattle off a list of reasons why, they are pretty much obvious to anyone who has installed it though. Debug Menu anyone? The point is that Netscape, Beonex, Mozilla/Browser, AOL 8, and the umpteen derivatives are much more user friendly than Mozilla itself. Personally I get peeved a bit when people complain about Mozilla being unpolished because finally we have a web browser that isn't dumbed down like IE, and Opera, and I don't want to ruin that. Mozilla is kinda like someone's messy desk. It may not be organized, but it's the sign of a very productive person. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 06 Jun |
| An idea. Imagine that I post a link to a web page for a company and then the WebWord community would review that web page or web site. The company would pay to have the link posted. In return, they would get traffic from WebWord and all the reviews. The WebWord community would be able to see all the comments so wed all benefit from that. Also imagine that the owner of the web site would choose the top 2 or 3 comments and I would pay those people for those comments. I would retain the remaining money to cover my expenses and time, and to generate a profit. How about some numbers, just for fun. What if the link for the company cost $200. The top reader comments would earn $25, $15, and $10, respectively. Good idea? Bad idea? Too capitalistic? Too stupid? |
| Tue 11 Jun 02:43 | Ben Hunt | I echo: great idea, and far too cheap. It doesn't have the ring of a .con concept to me because it is genuinely unleashing one of the net's most powerful forces: the ability to form narrow communities of interest (as opposed to location). I do this service for free via chinwag's usability forum in the UK, as well as for SealedMedia's clients as an additional consulting service (not for free and still very highly valued). I would *love* to have a way to provide such services to several clients which: - centralised admin and marketing effort - allowed me to serve more clients in less time - was low-cost to clients ($1000 for a full eval) |
| Wed 12 Jun 04:27 | Daniel | John, Very good idea. By posting an advertisement via webword we have already received valuable feedback on how to improve our site. Watch for a new site soon ;) Think you would need to provide some 'structure' (for consistency) around the evaluation review and John Rhodes could refine the findings to deliver a more polished report (as you would normally do for your customers) Also suggest defining what part of the site you want people to review and agree with Madman on getting some initial data from the customer (person who wins this) like - 'site's mission, its target users, profiles' etc Would also prefer less on the review committee as per Ryan Walker's suggestion. |
| WebWord Comment | Sun 09 Jun |
| Im listing another auction for advertising space in the WebWord Addiction. Check it out! I tried to increase the usability of the advertisement. I added demographic information, example advertisements, and a date when the ad would start running. Hopefully these things reduce ambiguity and increase comfort. For what it is worth, WebWord Addiction readers dont mind the ads at all. In fact, a couple of readers told me that they liked the advertisements since it helped them find new companies and services. |
| Mon 10 Jun 15:15 | Anonymous | Yes, I'm John's younger brother. John, what are you going to do if someone who has a topic totally off of usability/huamn factors? Some sort of service that few of your readers would be interested in, then the ad would probably become a nuisance... |
| Tue 11 Jun 23:10 | Greg | John - you can setup Paypal to automatically update all your auctions with their logo and signup link. Count how many clicks it takes you to activate that service (just curious...) - Greg |
| Tue 11 Jun 23:17 | John S. Rhodes | Greg, I'm not totally sure what you mean. Could you please clarify? I'll go to PayPal and investigate, but a better description of what you are talking about would be great. Thanks! |
| Reduce Redundancy: Decrease Duplicated Design Decisions | Mon 10 Jun |
| (useit.com) User interface complexity increases when a single feature or hypertext link is presented in multiple ways. Users rarely understand duplicates as such, and often waste time repeating efforts or visiting the same page twice by mistake. |
| Mon 10 Jun 20:10 | John S. Rhodes | Question: When is the last time Jakob Nielsen posted something outside the normal media channels or his own web site. For example, when is the last time he posted something on CHI-WEB, or some other usability type of list? I'm just curious. |
| Mon 10 Jun 20:14 | John S. Rhodes | By the way, I know that I send quite a bit of traffic to useit.com for Jakob. For the last several years his statistics page included traffic from 'vortals', blogs, and other sites like WebWord (e.g., Tomalak's Realm). Not any more. That is sad because it showed that WebWord had some influence. ...maybe Jakob fears WebWord? (That's a joke.) |
| Mon 10 Jun 20:52 | Matt Rhodes | Everyone fears WebWord. You know it. |
| Mon 10 Jun 21:56 | Jack Schonchin | Why does John still link to this guy? Jakob's useful days are behind him. |
| Mon 10 Jun 22:26 | Anonymous | Wow! A useit.com article that is not a promotion for a NNG research report. 'Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.' - A. Einstein |
| Tue 11 Jun 01:30 | Jakob Nielsen | You run a useful site, but it is nothing compared to my own. Do you know how many visitors I get in a month? Yes, I get a few hundred referrals from you, but it's a very small percentage of my total page views. You may be good, Rhodes, but you're not me. And to all the other posters, what's wrong if I sell a few reports and make some money? Is there something wrong with earning a living? Don't you find my articles useful? I don't charge for them, you know. |
| Tue 11 Jun 01:49 | Anonymous | If only he had really said that. |
| Tue 11 Jun 05:00 | Mac | Alertbox: 32.7% Good Most Recent Readers Comments in Alertbox: Oct 2000 Backlinks to 1999 Alertbox Articles: 4538 Backlinks to 2000 Alertbox Articles: 3140 Backlinks to 2001 Alertbox Articles: 2030 Backlinks to 2002 Alertbox Articles: 1012 (5 months) Flash before Jakob: 99% Bad Flash after Jakob: 2% Good (assuming 100% increase in usability) |
| Tue 11 Jun 15:19 | Matt Rhodes | Haha. If only Nielson had really said that. I wonder... |
| Tue 11 Jun 17:09 | John S. Rhodes | Amazing. Even here on WebWord Jakob Nielsen generates all the buzz. Take a look at all the postings today. This one has the most comments, by far. WHY? |
| Collapse | Sun 09 Jun |
| This game is sure to break down any misgivings you have about playing puzzle games! In this highly challenging puzzle game, you try to score as many points as you can, as fast as you can, by clicking and detonating like-colored blocks. The catch? They have to be together in groupings of three or more! How much damage can you do before time runs out? |
| Mon 10 Jun 10:28 | Kelly | I love when people use all lower case and separate complete sentences with punctuation like '...' bag on grammar. Irony. Gotta love it. Oh, was I being bitchy? My bad. ;P |
| Mon 10 Jun 11:20 | Anonymous | He used ... to add dramatic pause... and to flair his crest to impress the ladies. It is mating season after all. |
| Mon 10 Jun 11:51 | Anonymous | For those of you who insist to use 'my bad' and a valid argument about how and why you cant... |
| Mon 10 Jun 12:00 | JB | Are you for real... I can't read this no matter how I change the lighting in the room. I still have a headache just thinking about that site. |
| Mon 10 Jun 12:13 | John S. Rhodes | Am I going to have to write a 'The Usability of My Bad' article? ;-) For those who want bad, check out Strong Bad. It is an excellent use of Flash, IMHO. |
| Mon 10 Jun 14:07 | Anonymous | So this woman is waging a literary war against society. How noble. She hasn't learned that the people who speak a language change that language. It is not written in stone. If she is not saying 'my bad' in this day and age, we will do just fine by leaving her behind. Goodbye. See ya. Your bad. |
| Mon 10 Jun 15:43 | MadMan | And I thought I was the only language nazi in these parts. ;) 'My bad' is a very American expression, I guess. People like us who speak British English don't use it at all. |
| Mon 10 Jun 15:45 | MadMan | Gosh, since we've turned this into a thread on language, let me point you to a useful resources: The Economist Style Guide. |
| Mon 10 Jun 15:46 | MadMan | Forgot to draw your attention to the Americanisms section. |
| Mon 10 Jun 19:37 | Anonymous | 'My bad' is a very American expression Oh, I see, Americans are bad and the rest of the world is good. |
| Tue 11 Jun 10:27 | Berna | Why did you leave yourself anonymous? hmmm... 'my bad' IS a very American expression, because it's not even known in British parts... I mentioned this discussion to an Irish friend yesterday and I got the response 'My bad? What's that supposed to mean?' Oh, I forgot though, it appears we're always right and they're always wrong, in language issues at least... |
| Tue 11 Jun 10:30 | John S. Rhodes | ...no really, Collapse is a pretty good game. I'm glad we've spent so much time talking about it. Ha! |
| Tue 11 Jun 10:55 | Berna | Collapse actually IS a very good game John. I've played it a few times, and wished it had a top scores list! heh. And, we used this space to point out how english usage can be used to play 'collapse' too. Some people add the jargon, some people remove it. lame.. oops. my bad! :op |
| Tue 11 Jun 11:11 | Anonymous | 'my bad' IS a very American expression, because it's not even known in British parts... Berna, that says more about Brits than Americans. |
| Tue 11 Jun 16:07 | Lydia | The slang expression 'my bad' has only become popular in the last 3-5 years. From an informal poll I've done among friends, I've found that rather than being obviously 'ghetto speak,' it gives the impression that the speaker just misunderstands the use of the word 'bad,' and I suspect that is why its popularity has not caught on overseas. As with most slang, though, I don't think it should really be put up to scrutiny as to whether it is gramatically correct or not. It's not - who cares? Slang is a matter of personal choice, and someone who thinks 'my bad' is appropriate is going to use it no matter what. They aren't hurting anyone, and they alone have to deal with the reaction of people hearing it, good or bad. In other words, if someone thinks that anyone who says 'my bad' is a retard and refuses to take them seriously after hearing them say it once, that affects no one except for the speaker. And, John - Strong Bad is hilarious. I have been pouring through their site ever since I saw the link to it here a month or so ago. |
| Flash Flood Rising | Mon 10 Jun |
| (ClickZ) Today were very HTML-centric about how the Web works. Even nontechnical people are affected by the limitations of HTML they just dont realize it. Lets look at some of these limitations and the changes that Flash makes to alleviate each problem. |
| Tue 11 Jun 11:45 | (the other) JS | Again and again, just about every single point of strategic thinking gets lost. What is in it for users. What to shut Jakob up, good and proper? Blow him out of the water with a Flash site that wipes out the competition with benefits users actually experience. Stuff they just can't do any other way, with any other alternative, and realize as a primary user goal. For an stock trading site, visualization of information. 'I identified three times the opportunities, made twice the money, and spent half the time.' That would be 'cool' too. Start from the assumption there is no Flash, no DHTML, just a overhyped underwhelmed user. |
| The Jakob Nielsen of Sink Design | Thu 06 Jun |
| All too often, public restroom countertops become lakes and rivers. Wet hands need to adjust or, at least, turn off running faucets. The water drips from the hand whilst over the sink, and continues to drip whilst over the knobs. Messy. |
| Mon 10 Jun 13:43 | Paul | Thanks for the link to the article. The site uses a 12px high font by default, but there are alternate style sheets available via the customize section of my site. A few of these use 14px black text on a white background. Other sheets are higher contrast, so you do have those options available via the site. As an aside, IE5 is broken in many places - this is one of them. |
| Tue 11 Jun 11:36 | Jack Schonchin | That's beside the point. Sites should be designed with 'em' so they are resizeable to begin with. If everyone adopted your philosophy, users would have to visit a 'preferences' page on every site they visit so that the page text is readable for them. Why not leave the text in its native state (resizeable)? When I visit a site with fixed type, I leave. The designer obviously doesn't care whether I can read what he has to say. It's anti-user. |
| WebWord Comment | Sat 08 Jun |
| I have three questions for you. (1) Do you read spam? (2) Have you ever considered responding to spam? For example, have you considered buying a product mentioned in a spam message? (3) Have you ever bought something because of a spam message? If you have, please admit it. Open the kimono! What motivated you? What did you purchase? |
| Mon 10 Jun 02:13 | LKM | Since I usually don't load pictures at all, I can't see most banners and don't click on them. I've got nothing about banners though, it's totally not connected to spam. Some of my own sites have banners, and I buy adspace, too. Spam is entirely different. I will never buy anything from any entitiy that has every spammed me, end of story. |
| Mon 10 Jun 10:34 | Kelly | Hell, no. In fact, I'd rather EAT spam - the gellatinous, yicky processed meat version - than open or read spam. |
| Mon 10 Jun 16:03 | BeerzieBoy | No way. I delete it immediately. It's crap. |
| Tue 11 Jun 11:32 | Jack Schonchin | 1) I do read spam. Each time I receive a new load of spam I anxiously wait to see how many will be snagged by my spam filter. I then dissect the successful spams and add more rules to the filter. I receive 300+ spams a week, but only about 3 get through each day. It has become a hobby. 2) I never respond to spam, even when it's on a topic that has relevance to my life at that moment. Is this person sending me e-mail in response to an inquiry I made with them? If not, goodbye. |
| Tue 11 Jun 11:34 | Alan Fisher | Here at my office, we're currently being plagued by spam from a web usability consultancy. How's that for irony? |
| w.bloggar | Mon 10 Jun |
| Post and Publish on Blogger, b2, MovableType, Nucleus, BigBlogTool, BlogWorks XML, and Blogalia blogs. |
| Tue 11 Jun 08:56 | Berna | Im taking it out for a test drive. So far, it seems to be better than using Blogger itself to post. Easier. |
| The I Can Eat Glass Project | Mon 10 Jun |
| The Project is based on the idea that people in a foreign country have an irresistable urge to try to say something in the indigenous tongue. In most cases, however, the best a person can do is Where is the bathroom? a phrase that marks them as a tourist. But, if one says I can eat glass, it doesnt hurt me, you will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect. |
| Tue 11 Jun 00:36 | Jack Schonchin | The premise is flawed. Eating glass is an old trick of Gali Gali (street magicians / performers). So depending on what part of the world you're in, after you utter those words you might be expected to eat glass. |
| Summary: Edit/Change/Update/Modify | Sun 09 Jun |
| (CHI-WEB) A colleague and I were discussing the use of the word edit on the web. Im partial to edit while she prefers change. We have other colleagues who always use update or modify. Were trying to adopt a common set of terminology/labels to use across the many sites we work on. Is there a standard that we should be following? |
| Mon 10 Jun 17:58 | Jack Schonchin | transmogrify. CHI-WEBbers are obviously not well read. |
| Mon 10 Jun 22:14 | Ron Zeno | LOL - No one even considers testing which works best! |
| Mon 10 Jun 22:18 | John S. Rhodes | Ron, I was thinking the same thing. Summary of opinions versus summary of data. Not bad opinions, but still opinions...not data. |
| USB Drive Keychain Storage | Sat 08 Jun |
| (Computer Gripes) The user guide says the USB drive is compatible with USB 1.1. It says nothing about USB 1.0 or 2.0. How do you know if your USB port is 1.1 or 1.0? Beats me. Can you plug a USB 1.1 device into a USB 2.0 port and have it work? Again, the documentation does not say. |
| Mon 10 Jun 19:58 | Dave Rogers | John, Michael Horowitz should have purchased a 'DiskOn Key' (www.diskonkey.com) instead. Looking for a quick way to backup my project data daily, I bought a 32mb version last year. It came with very clear instructions and the Web site offers nice support--nice because it's minimal, befitting a simple device. Because I run Windows 98, I had to install the driver, but the DiskOnKey worked flawlessly from the get-go. Even better, it was a HUGE hit with my clients. The DiskOnKey worked seamlessly with my graphic designers' Macs as well as the engineers' PCs running Windows 2000. No drivers were needed for either. Other people would come by to see the thing in action! I've never tried running any disk utilities on the DiskOnKey (I have't had any reason to) and it has worked flawlessly. It's one of my favorite purchases! Dave |
| Mon 10 Jun 22:06 | michael horowitz | Dave, Thanks for the feedback. The DiskOnKey is the most expensive USB flash storage device, the JMTek models are significantly cheaper. I realized they probably cut some corners but gambled for $40. Gripes aside, it works. Like you, I think the devices are great. I'm a little worried about security though, should I lose it. As a fast easy backup device for a laptop user, these things cant be beat. If you do run any disk utilities on yours, please post the results here. Michael |
| Think Harvard's Elite? Try Southwest | Sun 09 Jun |
| Company spokesman Ed Stewart said the company operates with the idea that employees are No. 1, customers No. 2 and shareholders No. 3. |
| Mon 10 Jun 10:31 | Anonymous | This structure works for most service companies, it's not too difficult for many of us to come up with potential company names which should adhere to such a structure. Why shouldnt it work for IT companies? The only thing that comes to my mind is when I was reading the lines: 'Some prospective employees are put off by the level of informality at the company' I immediately thought these people probably were in the IT industry before applying to Southwest... heh. Don't you think formalities is what ruins your love of your job the most? Do they not seem to be the biggest roadblock on your way to successfully reach your goal? |
| Mon 10 Jun 12:05 | MadMan | Anything that comes in the way of bi-directional communication between employees, whether it is a formal atmosphere, a discouraging boss, or protocol, can only harm a company. |
| Mon 10 Jun 12:17 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan, I'm curious and confused. Are you saying that talking to employees and having them talk back (i.e., bi-directional communication) is bad? Did you actually mean uni-directional communication? |
| Mon 10 Jun 14:05 | Anonymous | John, I would like to think that what Madman means is to have anything (like a discouraging boss) come between two parties engaged in bi-directional communication... I see how this effects the productivity, enthusiasm and any other motivational factor that comes with the job. Nobody can work effectively nor efficiently when under the microscope of his boss. And formalities... unbelievable formalities, which actually serve no purpose in the corporation, actually help REDUCE productivity. Think about those times that you had to get one MEMO or even an EMAIL in the right formal language by having it revised 450 times by your manager or some other editor... how many projects could you have finished in that time? Unfortunately, it is part of the American corporate life and does not look like it will go away anytime soon.. |
| Mon 10 Jun 15:05 | Matt Rhodes | Doesn't matter if the Spam bots pick me up. Yahoo! has a filter for the incoming spam e-mails. I get a lot of spam anyway. |
| Mon 10 Jun 15:37 | MadMan | John, what I said is (read my comment again) that anything that comes in the way of i.e., IMPEDES bi-directional communication can only harm a company. Mr. (or Ms) 'Must remain anonymous' has understood it perfectly. |
| Mon 10 Jun 15:50 | Anonymous | Glad to be of service MadMan. |
| Mon 10 Jun 16:24 | John S. Rhodes | John s. Rhodes = Jackass (sometimes at least) |
| Mon 10 Jun 21:57 | Jack Schonchin | I've got a screen shot! |
| Mon 10 Jun 22:01 | John S. Rhodes | Thanks Jack. Glad to know that I can count on you to expose me. I suppose that you'll wait until I am rich and famous? Ha! |
| absurd.org | Sun 09 Jun |
| Avoid absurd.org if you want to avoid a core meltdown. Youve been warned!! |
| Mon 10 Jun 16:19 | Matt Rhodes | Interesting. |
| Mon 10 Jun 17:55 | Anonymous | You tit! I soiled my armor I was so scared! |
| Mon 10 Jun 21:33 | Anonymous | *yawn* |
| SIRC Guide to Flirting | Mon 03 Jun |
| Psychologists and social scientists have spent many years studying every detail of social intercourse between men and women. Until now, their fascinating findings have been buried in obscure academic journals and heavy tomes full of jargon and footnotes. This Guide is the first to reveal this important information to a popular audience, providing expert advice on where to flirt, who to flirt with and how to do it. |
| Mon 10 Jun 19:37 | Morris Cox | It's similar to asthma. It's called constricted broncial(sp?) tubes. Makes it a little difficult to talk or breathe and there's quite a bit of coughing. Also makes my voice sound terrible. The flirting helps with the mental part of talking. |
| Without a Car in the World | Sun 09 Jun |
| They had seen the devastation from our architecture defined by the exit ramp. They knew intuitively, if not literally, the design formulas that I recited from the podium: that every motor vehicle required an ancillary seven spaces to hold it at rest (parking) or in motion (driving). They realized that big chunks, in fact some 30 percent of our cities, were hardtopped in service to the cars voracious appetite. |
| Mon 10 Jun 07:30 | Matt Round | 'What is it like to live without a car?' I've never owned a car. I've always lived within walking distance of work, shops, etc.; I dislike the idea of jumping into a car for every little thing, and would never even consider long distance commuting (why would I want to spend hours each day trudging in and out of a large city?). Currently I'm two miles outside town, a fairly pleasant half hour walk mostly past open fields. I can take a taxi/bus/train if the weather's really bad or I want to go further afield. I'd quite like to cycle but most roads don't feel quite safe enough. I do somewhat resent the vast expanding areas devoted to cars. I can fully understand why people want/need their cars, of course, particularly as public transports pretty poor here in the UK. I'm bound to get one eventually, and I'm sure I'll love it and drive it everywhere. And gripe about parking. And the price of petrol. And traffic jams, roadworks, cones, cyclists, pedestrians, buses, and all the other things drivers go on about. And I'll probably stop noticing those ugly expanding areas of tarmac and concrete. |
| Mon 10 Jun 09:53 | mcw | No car and feeling rightous. Okay. No roads, then? Hardly. You may not have to drive to the store, but the goods still need to reach the retail outlets that are close enough reach via walking. That means trucks. Don't own a car, but ride in cabs? Still need streets, then, don't we. The only places mass transit works are dense urban areas, like Manhattan. These places are the exceptions in the US, not the rule. Distance, weather, infirmities ... the car is an answer to these transportation issues. |
| Mon 10 Jun 16:49 | Matt Round | Righteous? Just giving my experience of life without a car, and expressing concern about going too far in catering to drivers' needs at the expense of other things. I'm certainly not anti-car and, like I said, I'll probably get one at some point. |
| Mon 10 Jun 17:36 | Anonymous | I'll never live more than 10 minutes away (by car) from my workplace. If I must make 'the choice,' then where I live is more important than where I work. Right now I drive for 10 minutes along pastures, forested mountains and beaches. When the roadway is congested and the traffic moves slow (you know, making me 30 seconds late), I may accidentally look out my side windows. That's depressing. I know I'm about to spend 8 hours in front of a keyboard when I could be rolling in wild grasslands soaking in the sun. You city-dwellers are soooooo lucky. |
| Mon 10 Jun 17:52 | Anonymous | The problem with paving (3 fact sheets) Carfree.com (site to accompany a book, 'Carfree Cities') |
| BlogComp: Blog Tool Feature Comparison Table | Sun 09 Jun |
| There are so many blogging tools available these days, its difficult to know which one to choose. Hopefully this table will help you choose the tool thats right for you, by listing the features offered by each. |
| Mon 10 Jun 17:38 | Anonymous | It's a nice comparison chart, but it does not allow easy comparison. I want to be able to 'hide' blog tools that do not meet my criteria. As is, I must print out the chart so I can manually cross off inappropriate blog tools. |
| Flash 99% Good | Thu 06 Jun |
| First Aid Manual For Usable Flash Sites |
| Mon 10 Jun 10:47 | Alan Fisher | Once you get past the splash page (or at least, I'll call it a splash page), there's an introduction by the site owner which makes a great statement about how he's enabled the back button (a common problem with Flash sites). Guess what? The back button doesn't work on that very page. Neither do your keyboard's Page Up / Page Down keys, as he's incorporated a Flash scroll bar instead of letting the browser do the job. Usable? Do me a favour. |
| Text Sizing | Sun 09 Jun |
| Being unhappy with the current wisdom and distrustful of our browsers, I wanted to have the font sizing options laid out so i could see where they did and didnt work. So I made 264 screenshots. |
| Mon 10 Jun 06:40 | Matt Round | Yep, we have to use ems for various government-related sites in my day job. They're OK to get working reliably as long as your pages aren't a mess of inconsistently nested tables. If using small em values be careful, as some users have their browser's text size set to Smaller, which can make sites unreadable. There's a link from that article to a script I've devised that sometimes helps avoid text getting too small. |