(Comments added for week ending Sun 21 Jul 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 21 Jul 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| Book Review: Fast Food Nation | Sat 20 Jul |
| (WebWord) There is shit in the meat. (Comment: This is a book review that I recorded yesterday. Surprisingly, although it is only 8:31 in length, it took many hours to put together. I had to do a lot of post-production tweaking, converting, editing, and so forth. It is in MP3 format and is over 3.4 MB. If you want to copy this file to your hard drive and then share it with other people, you have my permission. Here is a link to Fast Food Nation on Amazon.) |
| Sat 20 Jul 23:30 | John S. Rhodes | I did something that I thought I would never do. I recorded something and posted it on WebWord for any person in the world to download and hear. My voice is out there. It is a very strange feeling to know that other people are listening to me. People aren't just reading what I write, they are hearing why I am saying. As I noted in the posting, this took me many hours. Despite the fact that the book review sounds somewhat continuous, it was not. I had to do a lot of work to make this happen and that is why I haven't posted news in a couple of days. However, I think it was worth the experience. I'm not sure if you have really ever listened to yourself speak. Editing your own voice and then playing it back (over and over) is a rather strange experience. You start to really notice how bad you sound. Most people I know don't like the sound of their own voice. They certainly don't recognize their voice because of the way that speech perception works. The bones in your ear, and the fluid, conspire to make hearing your own voice from outside your body an odd experience. One thing that drove me crazy was the fact that I used the same words over and over. I said 'quite' about 50 times. How bothersome! I guess it was a mechanism to deal with the stress. Maybe it helped to prevent me from saying 'umm' or uttering some other useless sound. I can imagine doing this kind of thing a lot more, but I think because of the time and effort required, I would need to generate some revenue. Depending on the feedback, I'll have to start thinking about how to make this work. I look forward to your feedback. Enjoy the report! |
| Sun 21 Jul 02:12 | MadMan | Good going, John. Now, since I'm never going to download 3.4 MB of someone speaking a book review, could you please make the plain text version available as well? :p I'm not sure if you have really ever listened to yourself speak. Actually, I have. I use the technique for presentations and speeches. It's an essential step in preparation. It helps you understand where you lose continuity, where you stumble, where you get boring, etc. I also try and avoid obvious mannerisms in my speech. Don't worry too much about the odd 'uh' and 'um' here and there. We are so used to hearing it in our daily lives that our minds just ignore it anyway. Even some TV news anchors 'um' and 'uh'. To illustrate what I mean, walk into the office of a software company. You'll find several people typing away on their PCs. But have you noticed how your ear seems to tune out the clickety clicks of all the keyboards? Then, stand at one place and try to actively listen to the keyboard noise. It'll suddenly become obvious. How could you not be aware of that earlier? ;) |
| Sun 21 Jul 10:53 | Ron Zeno | Post a (possibly edited) transcription, or at least a summary. I like the irony of you posting something in such an unusable format. Did you consider the qualities of written text vs recorded speech before starting your project? I have absolutely no interest in listening to a spoken review, but I am interested in skimming a written one. |
| Sun 21 Jul 16:41 | Sandra | John, you have a very good voice! My only suggestion is to be aware of how fast you are speaking at certain points, which could make comprehension difficult for listeners if you are trying impart information that they might want to take notes on. Other than that, excellent review. I was looking up information on this book the other day and came across an interview with the author in The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/ba2000-12-14.htm) where he talks about wanting to highlight the problems of migrant workers in the meat packing industry, how the government really doesn't have any control to force companies to recall meat, and so on. Interesting read. I am not bothered that this was a recorded review rather than written, and in fact I kind of liked the personalization that the recording affords, as well as being able to play it and glean the information while I did some organizing at my desk. Obviously, the most usable format (considering slow modems) is the written word, but this was a nice change. |
| Sun 21 Jul 17:59 | MadMan | Ron, may I respectfully point you to http://www.Bagarashi.com? :p John, whatever happened to that? |
| The GUI Gold Standard | Thu 18 Jul |
| The GUI of certain operating systems seems to be determined not so much by general usability standards but by understanding the quirks and desires of its users. |
| Fri 19 Jul 03:54 | Mac | 'System and software engineers seem now to be moving toward increased customization.' - from the atricle Giving users the ability to 'skin' their interface is not improving usability. Whenever I see someone use a mouse and GUI OS for the first time, I am ashamed that the industry has not been able to come up with a better interface. I have seen people push the mouse against the screen and push it around (honest!) Once you have been trained in the GUI conventions you are able to use a computer in a Pavlovian way, but surely we can be more innovative that this? |
| Fri 19 Jul 03:57 | Mac | Oh bugger, was I supposed to add a comment via the InfoDesign link? I have just followed the link but cannot find any way to add comments. Am I just another dumb user ? |
| Fri 19 Jul 11:26 | Kirk | Oh come on...any interface that's geared for the 'push the mouse against the screen' crowd is unlikely to scale up to something that people would want to use on a daily basis, once they've achieved a basic literacy of the interaction model. The whole 'WIMP'/Mouse inteface might not be absolutely ideal, but it has a lot of good principles behind it. (Remember, the only truly intuitive UI is the nipple, everything else has to be learned.) I agree that skins are not usually a usability improvement...most people are pretty unaware of what makes a good UI, even for their own use. And when something like Linux gets the configurability crown, it probably indicates an interface geared towards engineers, with default settings that less experienced users won't like or know how to change or what to change them to. The article makes a great point that getting used to the little quirks of a UI will tend to keep people on that OS. (And my wife and I both drive Honda Civics, and we benefit from having idential interfaces...) |
| Sat 20 Jul 17:35 | Jack Schonchin | Kirk, the nipple is not 'truly intuitive.' Newborn human babies have to be pointed in the right direction (positioned) and stroked with their mother's nipple to learn to nurse. It also helps if they are wide awake and naked (no artificial sensory barrier between their skin and their mother's). And even then, there's always the issue of biting. |
| The Culture of Usability | Thu 18 Jul |
| (New Architect) If developers are a sites heartbeat (pushing out new code on a regular basis), and designers are the lungs (infusing it with fresh, life-sustaining energy), then usability testing is kind of like the liver. Its a filter that siphons out the toxic sludge from your interfaces. |
| Thu 18 Jul 22:35 | Ron Zeno | Of all the portions to quote, John chooses the heartbeat metaphor... Nice article. Shows great sensitivity to the post-dotbomb, post-911 corporate mindset by focusing on reducing apparent costs and increasing the sense of security and control. (Note the use of 'apparent' and 'sense'). Just avoid any critical analysis of the actual information content... |
| Fri 19 Jul 03:33 | Mac | Agile Usability? After seeing attempts by Management to impose usability from above fail time and time again, this is a timely article. In projects I have been involved in over the last few years we have introduced usability to the team by getting team members involved. We will have a session with a professional and them let them loose. Whilst this can be very inefficient at first, there are always one or two team members who get really involved and evangelical about usability. We also get the team to realise that they will be responsible for the testing, maintenance and support of the system in the future. It really helps to make a developer user-centric when they realise they may have to man the helpline to deal with 'features' that users have problems with. |
| Fri 19 Jul 04:06 | Mac | Just a quick thought. I prefer the print friendly (or should it be called user friendly) version of this article for reading. I find that I always hunt for a printer friendly version of articles, especially when I see the dreaded page x of y. And I hate A List Apart and their damned CSS Miracle Print trickery. |
| Fri 19 Jul 07:51 | Jack Schonchin | I used to prefer print versions until I learned to override typeface preferences (e.g., override accessibility-unfriendly Zeldman-like pixel-forced font sizes). In IE, Tools > Internet Options > Accessibility > Ignore Font Sizes Specified on Web Pages. It gives you a new measure for checking good design. Crappy designs fall apart with flexible typeface. |
| Fri 19 Jul 10:29 | Mac | Jack, in this example I also prefer the print version because its less cluttered, easier to read and brings the article from 2 screens to 1, thereby reducing my cognitive overload (have I used that phrase properly, or am I showing my barely concealed ignorance of big words !) |
| Sat 20 Jul 17:27 | Jack Schonchin | Clutter? Cognitive overload? I wouldn't know. I use a number of devices to assist web browsing, including blinders to keep me focused on a page's body text. |
| Improving Usability with a Website Index | Thu 18 Jul |
| (Boxes and Arrows) Although great strides have been made with the technology, automatic classification tools come nowhere near the human brain in terms of accuracy in evaluating text. |
| Fri 19 Jul 03:40 | Mac | Indexing cannot be reduced to a set of steps that can be followed! It is not a mechanical process. Indexing books is a form of writing. Like other types of writing, it is a mixture of art and craft, judgment and selection. With practice and experience, indexers develop their own style as do other writers. The best we can do as teachers of indexing is to present the rules and offer guidance. Nancy C. Mulvany, Indexing Books 'art and craft, judgment and selection' - Some usability practioners can lose track of these aspects of design by attempting to reduce everthing to a simple metric. |
| Fri 19 Jul 08:21 | MadMan | Mac, it amazes me how so many practitioners abandon 'judgement' and 'experience' and instead look at some guru's research to support their position. On many a CHI-related list, I've seen questions like 'I want to convince my boss that [insert evil practice] is bad and reduces usability. Does anyone know of any research proving this?' Don't these people have faith in themselves? |
| Fri 19 Jul 09:27 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan, you make a good point. However, most usability professionals tend to favor empirical evidence. The question of getting good research therefore is not surprising. Since most of us like to see facts and figures, and it convinces us of something being appropriate or not, we think that others are influenced the same way. We think that others reason the way we reason, following logical arguments and heaps of data. Many people ride the left brain train! We should consider that usability professionals tend to do a very bad job at selling their experience, knowledge, and skills. Selling is not a strong point with many people people. Note also that a person might have faith in their skills but that person might also lack the ability to convey that confidence to another person. This is why there is an entire book on the subject: Cost-Justifying Usability. While the book is quite good and useful, it indicates a lack of skill in many usability professionals. I also have to laugh. What other people have to 'justify' their work in this way? If you are curious, I have made similar types of comments before. |
| Fri 19 Jul 10:24 | Mac | I never try to 'sell usability' to my management when developing apps for our intranet. Instead I make sure that we aim to produce a system that make the users 'weep with joy'. Given the very poor standard of our exisitng Intranet apps that isn't too difficult. When managers ask us how we managed to do such a good job (yes it does happen), we say that we took responsibility for all aspects of the job, and never 'threw it over the wall' to another area. We 'do usability' within the team, but it never appears as a task on a project plan, and I wouldn't know a Usability Professional it one bit me, although I do know a lot of people who actually care about doing the best possible job the users. |
| Fri 19 Jul 12:31 | JB | MadMan The problem in many cases is that the boss thinks that he or she is to some degree a web expert. Thus you need some sort of empirical evidence to back up your position. You may know it is right, but it is amazing how outside sources are seen as more credible than internal knowledge and skill. I always have empirical evidence to back me up as it makes my position stronger and the eventual argument much shorter. I guess you could call it contingency planning :) |
| Fri 19 Jul 12:58 | John S. Rhodes | Chris, you make a good point about 'usability professional' and what that means. I use the term because I can't think of a better way of saying 'people that care about usability a lot and do it as a primary part of their jobs'. |
| Fri 19 Jul 13:39 | MadMan | Check the comments on that article John linked to. He got his arse royally flamed. ;) |
| Fri 19 Jul 14:51 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan, thanks for the reminder. Fortunately I had my asbestos suit on so I did not burn to a crisp. This is my favorite quote: 'Rhodes has a few points that are true, but mostly this is the babble of someone who has not learned the how to build strong relationships. By the tone of his diatribe, I can understand why.' Ha! |
| Fri 19 Jul 16:05 | MadMan | MadMan comment: Remember that mail I sent you about building community, John? Unfortunately, it's no longer in my outbox or I would have reproduced it here. Nevertheless, an idea I just had is this: since you actively monitor the comments posted on this site (I know you get an email notification), why not link to comments you find particularly insightful? Joel Spolsky sometimes does this (though not often enough). So if Jack, for example, writes an interesting observation about, say, pop-up ads, link to it with an excerpt. That way, you will further enhance the community interaction from being about just articles to being about reader views as well. Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. ;) |
| Sat 20 Jul 17:22 | Jack Schonchin | Pop-up ads involve the creation of a second browser window, opened on top of your original browser window. |
| Point. Click. Think? | Wed 17 Jul |
| Welcome to the world of Net thinking, a form of reasoning that characterizes many students who are growing up with the Internet as their primary, and in some cases, sole source of research. |
| Thu 18 Jul 13:35 | Jack Schonchin | 'The Internet has fostered a thinner, less substantial thinking.' 'The Internet makes it ungodly easy now for people who wish to be lazy.' Is mom telling me the Internet will rot my brain? A few years ago, during the U.S. media's Internet Porn Infatuation, there was a saying in my house. When you needed a scapegoat, you'd just proclaim, 'The Internet did it!' Who spilled milk on the kitchen floor and didn't clean it up? That damn Internet again. |
| Fri 19 Jul 14:29 | A. Rhodes | Reading through this article reminded me of 'The Computer Delusion' by Todd Oppenheimer. He has some very strong concerns about the use of computers and other advanced technology in public schools. |
| Chewing the Sashimi with Jeff Bezos | Wed 17 Jul |
| (Business Week) There is one substantial change to our model. Up until about nine months ago, all the progress in our business was based on two drivers: selection and convenience. The thing we have layered on is lower prices. So, the big change in the model going forward is having all three of those things: selection, convenience, and lower prices. |
| Thu 18 Jul 04:47 | Alan Fisher | Sorry, I'm stumped. Exactly what does 'the thing we have layered on' mean? More Alexander Haig speak... Anyway, as for the Amazon business model. In the UK, I think they're heading for big trouble. There are competitors out there who consistently under-cut them on price, and some of these are big high-street names such as Tesco or WH Smith. For any UK readers who haven't checked recently, I can guarantee you that one of these two will give you a better price deal on-line than Amazon (and no, I have no conection with either company). Personally, I only seem to use Amazon as a research tool these days. I rarely buy from them. |
| Thu 18 Jul 06:43 | John S. Rhodes | Disclaimer: I own a (very) small amount of Amazon stock. When I buy books online, I still almost always buy them from Amazon. However, like Alan, I treat Amazon as a more of a research resource than a place to buy. I find myself buying more and more used books on eBay, Half.com (owned by eBay), and other such places. I also like to look at the books on Amazon that are used but sold by individuals through the marketplace. That has worked out quite well. The only pain is the shipping. Since each book comes from a different seller there is no grouping of items for shipping which saves money. So the cost of the used book through the Amazon marketplace must be quite low for me to buy it that way. |
| Thu 18 Jul 07:11 | MadMan | Alan didn't leave his email ID so I might as well ask here. Alan, do you know a decent online store in the UK where I might buy Thai, Chinese ingredients? Sauces, herbs and the like. If you know, please mail me at webguru AT vsnl DOT net. Thanks |
| Thu 18 Jul 16:35 | JB | And aiming for profit might be a good business model. |
| Fri 19 Jul 13:52 | MadMan | Amazon's coninuing losses should teach us some valuable lessons about why it's important to focus your business and not try to be everything to everyone. Amazon used to 'Earth's biggest bookstore' and in fact, the book operation was profitable. The reason that they're suffering is that they started selling all kinds of crap and their brand is so diluted that it doesn't stand for anything any more ('Earth's biggest selection'? What?) Ask people what Amazon.com is and 9 out of 10 people will say 'online bookstore'. But hey, who am I to tell Amazon that? I keep screaming this out. Total sales are a relatively meaningless figure. If you're not making a profit, you're not delivering 'shareholder value', no matter how high your stock goes. True shareholder value lies in the continued profitability of a business in the long run. All those rollercoaster movements in the stock prices are short term speculative trades. If you don't make profits, you don't get money to invest further in your business (now that the stupid VCs have stopped handing out millions of dollars to anyone who asks.) And I've said it before on this site: it is better to dominate a smaller market than to be a bit player in a larger one. When times get tough, guess who gets squeezed out of business? Yep, it's the bit players. Lastly, I was very surprised to see yelps of delight in the Internet community when Amazon turned its first profit. I posted to the sigia-l list that I'd take bets on them not repeating that feat. I would've won if someone had taken me up on it. ;) |
| Usability Testing | Wed 17 Jul |
| (Chapter 1) Before I begin, I just want to say that I do not consider myself to be an expert in usability testing, user interface design or just about any other area. I do, however, have some experience with these areas (both positive and negative) and I decided to write this article to share my experience with others. |
| Thu 18 Jul 09:16 | Ron Zeno | Nice that the author was upfront about his lack of expertise. Given that (and the many mistakes in the article), why did John post it, rather than an article written by someone who knows what they are talking about? |
| Thu 18 Jul 10:14 | John S. Rhodes | Ron, I post many things that I don't like or don't agree with. This might sound strange since most people would not take this approach. However, I sometimes like to let the market decide if the material is good or not. If I feel strongly, I will add a comment to the posting. Note that if the material is just plain wrong, or if it would cause harm, I generally would not post a link to it. In this case, I think there is a lot of value in seeing how a novice approaches usability and usability testing. It opened my eyes to a few things. First, the article has been viewed about 6,800 times. That is significant. What impact has it had on those people? Have they decided to look for more usability information? Second, it is highly rated by readers. On a scale of 1-5, it rates as 4.83. Not too shabby. Obviously the author wrote something the audience wants. |
| Thu 18 Jul 16:32 | JB | I also think such articles give the usability expert an inside view of what middle management or higher up may be thinking or think they know on the subject. After all....they are your clients. |
| Netflix: The Sequel | Wed 17 Jul |
| For consumers, the website is much less overwhelming and much easier to browse than shelf after shelf after shelf of titles in a store. |
| Thu 18 Jul 13:54 | Thad Pasquale | I like netflix but they make it impossible to find new releases or upcoming new releases. Probably to help curb demand. For now I'm sticking with it, but I keep finding myself going to Blockbuster to look up this weeks releases...horrible. |
| Google's integrity | Mon 15 Jul |
| In my opinion theres some evidence that Google has chosen to sacrify PageRank integrity in exchange for free marketing. At the very least, Google has been allowing bloggers to skew PageRank by pushing pages up in the golden top, where theyre extremely more likely to be picked up in search results. |
| Mon 15 Jul 21:41 | TimW | interesting story, and I'm sure google is trying to find a way to keep google on top. The only problem I can find is: >>Why hasn't Google fixed the problem like they did in the past for the 'more evil than satan himself' problem?<< But thats the thing, they didn't fix it, it fixed itself. with all these new pages linking to each other talking about the 'more evil then satan himself' odditiy, the page ranked the original site right out of the top spot. Google did nothing. |
| Tue 16 Jul 12:27 | Jack Schonchin | Is 'sacrify' a real word, or did the author mean scarify or sacrifice? |
| Thu 18 Jul 13:36 | Jack Schonchin | I guess there are no wordsmiths in the house. |
| Why Free Software usability tends to suck | Wed 17 Jul |
| But in practice, the vast majority of open-source projects are also volunteer projects; and it seems that the use of volunteers to drive development inevitably leads the interface design to suck. |
| Wed 17 Jul 23:13 | John S. Rhodes | Why Free Software usability tends to suck even more |
| Thu 18 Jul 02:39 | MadMan | You've linked to this site before, John. About a month back. |
| Thu 18 Jul 06:35 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan, I thought I might have already pointed to it. Sometimes it is hard to remember. Also, my searches on WebWord aren't perfect. Thanks for the reminder! |
| Thu 18 Jul 07:06 | MadMan | I know more about your site than you do yourself. :P Is that weird or what? (You've lost that lovin' feeling, that lovin' feeling, now it's gone, gone, gone...) |
| Thu 18 Jul 11:07 | Mac | MadMan, I have done a search on my database of all the Webword items and comments since Mid-April and cannot find any reference at all to this article. Although I feel sure I have seen it before (must have been another site?) |
| WebWord Comment | Wed 17 Jul |
| As most people probably already know, Amazon is now getting in the web services game. In short, this means that developers can tap into Amazon.com features and content using either SOAP or XML over HTTP. It is a good move; an interesting move. Some folks have already created some cool stuff. See Amazon Light as an example. The influence of Google is obvious. |
| Wed 17 Jul 23:07 | John S. Rhodes | I like Amazon Distant Cousins too. |
| What will people pay for? | Tue 16 Jul |
| (Dan Bricklin) Look at what people do when they go to an Internet cafe when traveling and dont have their own access to the Internet. You dont find them surfing to buy things. They pay money to do email to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. |
| Tue 16 Jul 21:12 | John S. Rhodes | This isn't a new article. Dan wrote it 11-July-2000. Still, I think it is excellent. Bottom line? Go for the pipeline not what the pipe delivers. |
| Wed 17 Jul 07:08 | (the other) JS | Either that or these companies are really, really bad at observing humans and interpreting what they want -- most especially when it comes to technology. |
| Wed 17 Jul 13:20 | MadMan | Well, you're mostly right, JS. Product development is many a time driven from the top, because VP-something-or-other things ProductX will be the next biggest thing. Sometimes, they are right, but the 'survival of the fittest' principle ensures that many products have to fail for a few to succeed. |
| Wed 17 Jul 13:20 | MadMan | Well, you're mostly right, JS. Product development is many a time driven from the top, because VP-something-or-other things ProductX will be the next biggest thing. Sometimes, they are right, but the 'survival of the fittest' principle ensures that many products have to fail for a few to succeed. |
| After the Dot-Bomb: Getting Web Information Retrieval Right this Time | Tue 16 Jul |
| (First Monday) In the excitement of the dot-com rush of the 1990s, many Web sites were developed that provided information retrieval capabilities poorly or sub-optimally. Suggestions are made for improvements in the design of Web information retrieval in seven areas. Classifications, ontologies, indexing vocabularies, statistical properties of databases (including the Bradford Distribution), and staff indexing support systems are all discussed. |
| Wed 17 Jul 11:15 | (the other) JS | How much of the flop is due to retrieval failure, how much not wanting anything retrieved? It isn't always a navigation/classification problem, but the problem -- once there -- of finding there's no THERE there. |
| 8th best selling car in 2000 | Thu 23 May |
| . So, I should have modifed my initial comment to perhaps say the Focus didnt sell as well as the Ford Explorer, or something else. And, I should have provided a link or two. Doing this sort of quick fact checking is easy and I assume that more people are doing it every day. This is a slow shift in thinking but I think it is a real shift. The core idea is that we can tap into the collective mind of the internet. The collective mind is a very powerful authority and no single person can be smarter than every other person. Furthermore, even if the material available is just data or information, versus real knowledge or wisdom, I think we all expect other people to tap into that stream. This is happening, in part, because we are all starting to realize that the material is available. It is also courteous because we are all pressured for time. Finally, I think regular people are getting more comfortable using hyperlinks in their day to day lives. Just for fun, Ill call this netchecking, unless someone has a better term for it. Next time you write something, would you please netcheck it? |
| Wed 17 Jul 09:55 | Anders | My team members have started checking Google before asking me for programming language reference information, because they know I always direct them there first (alternatively look it up on Google myself :-) For for example Java / JavaScript and probably loads of other programming languages, the web is a treasure trove of API documentation, code snippet libraries etc etc... |
| Project Cryo | Tue 16 Jul |
| No, this is not an article about cooling. This is something little that you can do to make your mouses life a bit better. Everybody wants to look good, your mouse too. |
| Tue 16 Jul 21:18 | Jack Schonchin | Great idea, one problem for me. Can anyone explain how to open a Microsoft mouse? My old mice had visible screws. My newer MS mouse-wheel mice and optical mouse have no visible screws. Do you magically slide the mouse open, or perhaps the screws are underneath the four corner mouse 'pads' on the bottom. ?!? |
| New breed of television ads popping up | Tue 16 Jul |
| And then bam! up pops an advertisement superimposed over part of the TV screen. |
| Tue 16 Jul 21:14 | Jack Schonchin | The Discovery Channel has used pop-up messages during programs to alert me to related content on their web site. I found these 'useful' pop-ups to be extremely annoying. I don't have to guess how I'll react to pop-up advertising. |
| Quality From Design | Fri 12 Jul |
| (New Architect) Simply put, there is no downside to designing before coding. |
| Mon 15 Jul 15:39 | Lydia | JS, you have a good point. I think that at least there are ideas that can be borrowed from the Cooper approach. I guess what bothers me about their methods is that they seem to relegate developers to a 'coder' or 'builder' status - just following orders with no room for creativity. Maybe A.C. is talking more about boxed software rather than web-delivered software. I see a lot of his stuff goes online, though, so I give up on guessing and just stick to what works for me. |
| Tue 16 Jul 15:29 | MadMan | Mr. Cooper seems to be using really old case studies over and over. Hasn't he got any new clients lately? ;) (The cooper.com home page too hasn't changed much) |
| Company builds game plan to help blind | Sun 14 Jul |
| (Boston Globe) Spitzer says their game is the first of its kind: a video game where the blind and fully sighted can compete on a level playing field. |
| Tue 16 Jul 12:29 | Jack Schonchin | I wonder if it's worth $8/month to a visually impaired person to play poker online. Seems like it would get boring really quick. ZForm needs to release a bevy of games to make the expense worthwhile. |
| WebWord Comment | Fri 12 Jul |
| Jack Schonchin thinks that the navigation on the Round Table Pizza web site is annoying and looks like the bumper stickers from the Unamerican Activities web site. What do you think? |
| Mon 15 Jul 14:54 | Lydia | I agree with Jack. My own pet peeve is going to a site about food and seeing a design that overwhelms what should be the centerpiece: delicious edibles. There is nothing about the Round Table Pizza site that makes me want to eat their pizza. Instead, I am nauseated by their color choice, inept and annoying navigation, forced Flash, and frames. Compare this to a site like http://www.todai.com/ (an Asian food buffet). Their site is fairly low-key but still colorful and features their somewhat scary but popular mascot, which is evocative of their restaurant design (I'm already hungry). Their site is by no means complete and I'm not saying it's the height of design, but I do like the fact that the menu is easy to use and I get all the information I came there to find - namely, location and what kind of food I can expect. You would think a national chain like Round Table could at least manage to put a big, glossy picture of their pizza on the front page, rather than making you focus on the clumsy navigation. |
| WebWord Comment | Fri 12 Jul |
| I have decided to create a book club for WebWord. The idea is quite simple. I will pick a book to read and we will all discusss it together on WebWord. I set up a notification list for the Book Club on the WebWord Subsciptions page. To get the ball rolling I have decided that our first book will be Constructing Accessible Web Sites published by glasshaus (ISBN: 1904151000). We will begin our discussion of the book on, or about, July 1st. That gives you a little over two weeks to read the book. (Erratum: Well start the discussion on August 1st.) |
| Mon 15 Jul 02:43 | Franck | Interresting idea and subject, maybe I will receive the book from Amazon... in 15 days. I'm not staying in the same part of the earth than you do, so please consider as you can that it takes a longer time, and also an higher price, for us to participate. Franck |
| Mon 15 Jul 07:02 | John S. Rhodes | Frank and others, please note that I am NOT asking for people to order through Amazon. Instead, I am ONLY asking that IF you order through Amazon, please use the link that I have provided to the book. If you can find the book cheaper or through a local source -- that's great! You can still participate. ANYONE can participate. |
| Mon 15 Jul 12:20 | MadMan | Experimentation is good. Why won't I participate? Because: 1) I live in India. So... many of the books you'll recommend will probably not have Indian reprints. Hence it will take a long time to arrive from a foreign supplier, cost me a hell of a lot of money (we don't earn as much as you Americans), and the shipping will be bloody expensive as well. 2) It's possible I already have the book you recommend and have already read it. I don't want to go back and read it chapter by chapter again. 3) I may already have two books on CSS (for example) when you recommend another one. I probably don't want yet another one on my bookshelf. 4) I may be busy with work when you're free and free when you're busy. I may not have the time to read a book when you want me to. 5) I already review books. Now see reason 4. Those are my reasons. Number 1 is probably the most important. |
| Mon 15 Jul 13:21 | John S. Rhodes | Thanks for the feedback MadMan. Your first reason is a very good reason! If you have written a review of a book that we read, please let me know so that I can point to it. Thanks. |
| Half the World | Thu 11 Jul |
| (Clay Shirky) The phrase Half the world has never made a phone call or some variation thereof has become an urban legend, a widely believed but unsubstantiated story about the nature of the world. It has appeared countless times over the last decade, in essentially the same form and always without attribution. Where did that phrase come from? How did it take on such a life of its own? And, most importantly, why has it gotten so much airtime in the debate over the digital divide when it is so obviously wrong? |
| Mon 15 Jul 04:34 | Alan Fisher | A newspaper article I was reading recently complained that half of the UK's workforce earn less than the national AVERAGE wage. Total nonsense but, like this article, people will form opinions based on it. |
| BlogAmp | Sun 14 Jul |
| BlogAmp is a free Winamp plugin that allows the user to keep in his personal web page a list with the last songs played in his Winamp. This list is update by FTP in real time. |
| Mon 15 Jul 00:06 | Jack Schonchin | Absolutely. The idea breeds. If you accept that BlogAmp is a voyeur tool, then it is merely another child of its parent. Who is the parent? Anyone care to guess? Perhaps the CMU Coke Machine. |