last updated:16 Aug 2002 13: 33 Webword time, or 16 Aug 2002 18:33 UK time

Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 21 Oct 2001) | View Other Weeks

Turn Signals | Thu 18 Oct

Checking your blindspot is actually dangerous, since youre looking over your shoulder and really taking your eyes off the road. Making the rear view mirror a little wider and a little more convex can help. Im not sure why car manufacturers are so skimpy on this feature. (Comments: This is reader feedback on the Driving, Death and Usability article that I posted yesterday. The reader had more to say. Check it out.)

Sun 21 Oct 17:11 | Hanan Cohen | For a long time I saw a usablity problem with the hazard lights. Here is the situation: A driver pulls to the side of the road and turns on the hazard lights. When she finishes her business there, she wants to go back to the road. She uses the turn signals. She hears the audio feedback of the turn signals so she assumes everything is OK. The problem is that she forgot to turn off the hazard lights. If it's night, the drivers behind her does not know what are the intentions of the driver becuase they see a moving car with hazard lights blinking. I have never driven a car that warns the driver when both the hazard lights and the turn signal are turned on in the same time. I wonder if there is a car produced with this feature.

WebWord Comment | Sun 21 Oct

Several people have asked me why the weblog links on the left hand side of the WebWord home page were removed. The most simple is that I did not removed the links, I just moved them. I plan on making substantial changes to WebWords Hot Web Sites page. Ive moved the links to the other weblogs to that page. Im going to add more resources that page, and I am going to make it more of a usability portal. I dont have room make these changes and additions on the Webword home page.

Sun 21 Oct 13:35 | Peter | Not having them on the homepage still makes webword less valuable for me to visit daily.

Dream of Clean Desktop Gets Messy | Sun 21 Oct

(Wired) And thats really too bad, because the clean desktop and other usability improvements in XP are among the new OSs best features. Though XPs interface, with its bright green-and-blue color scheme, appears kid-like, the uncluttered desktop seemed to deliver on one of Grafs main goals for XP: making the system easy for novices. (Comments: Here is a question for all of you whiz-bang usability people. As a product matures in the marketplace, and as more and more people buy and use the product, is there really a need to make it more simple? Dont we want to evolve our product as people learn how to use it? For example, the market penetration of Windows is something like 90% and most people using a computer have used the operating system. So, why should Microsoft concentrate on novices versus people with intermediate skill levels and familiarity with Windows? Regarding the idea of a clean interface, my cynical comment is that Microsoft wanted to clean it because it would harm their current and future competition. Such folks as AOL really benefit from getting their icons on the Windows desktop. In other words, it is about money not usability.)

Sun 21 Oct 11:04 | Jack Schonchin | I totally disagree that users want a clean desktop. Almost every user in my workplace (novice to pro) launches programs from icons on the desktop. They DO NOT customize their 'Start' menu, resulting in their Start menu being a bloated mess that cannot be navigated because it lists every program ever installed under labels the software manufacturers chose. In fact, when new software is installed, they request that an icon be placed on their desktop. When they don't need an icon, they drag it to the trash, cleaning up their desktop by themselves. Myself, I launch from the Start menu, but store all of my work files on the desktop. So as cluttered desktops go, I probably have everyone beat. I wouldn't have it any other way. My next PC will be Linux, or dual-boot. I'm discovering Linux has alternatives to every piece of software I rely on.

Sun 21 Oct 11:09 | Jack Schonchin | In other words, a clean desktop would be a major paradigm shift for the computer users I know.

Sun 21 Oct 13:32 | MikeC | Microsoft is still trying to attract the millions of people who have yet to use a computer. I'm betting that number is still higher than the number who do have Windows experience. If not in the USA, surely in the rest of the world. And I agree with JS on his point that users love desktop icons. It's just easier for them. I see happen like that all the time.

Re-Defining the Human-Computer Relationship from the Perspective to Two-Way Interaction | Sun 21 Oct

Somewhere in a darkened fire-lit cave, roughly 25,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic Period (Cattoi, 2001), a human being first decided that it would be a good idea to try and express some aspect of his or her world in the form of a symbol. Pigments and/or charcoal were applied to a contrasting rock background and the user interface was born.

Sun 21 Oct 07:30 | Lyle | The author suggests 'both parties compromise equally to meet a common ground', with 'both parties' referring to the computer and the user. But can a computer 'compromise'? Surely one one must have freewill before one can make a concession. Also can forcing humans to compromise really equate with behaving in a more useful manner?

WebWord Comment | Thu 18 Oct

This note from a Senior Information Architect at IBM left me speechless: I want to complement your work with Webword. I have a personal and professional interest in usability and you have put together one of the most comprehensive information resources Ive found. Keep up the good work! Youre making the world a lot smarter.

Fri 19 Oct 12:31 | Shameless Coward | What's with removing the off site links? One look and WebWord was no longer my homepage.

Fri 19 Oct 12:45 | Frank Lynch | I noticed the same thing, but eventually found them. They're a page down, under the link 'Hot Web Sites', in the links at the bottom of the page.

Fri 19 Oct 17:51 | MikeC | I miss the links on the left hand side as well, but I can understand why you moved them.

Sat 20 Oct 10:20 | Toby Thain | The word meant is, I believe, 'compliment'.

Greymatter discussion forum | Wed 17 Oct

. Ive looked at the Greymatter code too, but nothing sticks out as being wrong. Im at a loss. It really makes me sad to face these problems. I just want the process of updating WebWord to be easy. When these failures occur, it really gets me down. By the way, this problem also impacts the people using my RSS feed. That isnt fair and I apologize for the inconvenience it causes. I think that I am going to investigate some other blog tools. Maybe Manilla, or maybe Moveable Type. Ill keep you posted.

Fri 19 Oct 13:36 | Manuel Viloria | Just curious... how many posts did you make using GM? All these 'rebuilds' bother me about the fragility of the files. MT is ok though it does not have a search function yet. Maybe I'll just go back to painful FTP?

Fri 19 Oct 15:17 | John S. Rhodes | I started seeing problems around the post number 400. I'm not well over 500 and the problem has not gone away. The only workaround at this point is to reinstall Greymatter. I would loathe to do that, but I might have to...

Fri 19 Oct 15:37 | Ruzz | Right now, the tool with the most features is called bigblogtool. I have 785 posts with it and its working great :) http://bigblogtool.bigguymedia.com

Investigations in Systems Design: Structure, Context, Failure and Usability | Tue 16 Oct

(WebWord) The purpose of this paper is to briefly review and discuss three books related to systems design. The first book is Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering (Petroski, 1994), the second book is The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition: Essays on Software Engineering (Brooks, 1995), and the third book is Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Alexander, 1964). In this paper, an emphasis is placed on describing the core ideas of the books. Brief discussions of structure, context, failure, and usability engineering are included to highlight several themes found throughout the trio of books. (Comments: I dont do work like this very often. I hope that you enjoy it.)

Wed 17 Oct 21:15 | Charles Mauro | John: A great piece of work. By far the best book you have in your article is the Alexander piece. His work has informed my approach for many years. The only author and book you might want to add is CP Snow's famous text 'The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution C.P. Snow, Cambridge University Press, 1959.' The Snow book is really the start of it all....CM.

Google Toolbar | Wed 10 Oct

. What do you think is good about it and what do you think is bad? What usability enhancements would you like? Would it make sense to build a toolbar that could be used for user testing? What if the toolbar built a sitemap on the fly by quickly spidering the site? What if the toolbar sent data to other people using the same kind of toolbar, in a peer-to-peer fashion? What if the toolbar had an instant update feature built in to it, where I could blast instant messages to all the people using the WebWord toolbar? What if the toolbar detected changes to WebWord, or other web pages, like Mind-It? What if you could hit a button in the WebWord toolbar and it would email the page you were on to someone else? Imagine if the toolbar converted a page into plaintext. Imagine that the toolbar killed popup ads. Imagine that the toolbar monitored your email accounts and notified you when something new arrived. Interesting ideas, dont you think? What would you like? What are your ideas? Spill your guts! Better yet, post this request on your own site and filter the results back to WebWord. Frédéric Roland wants to build the ultimate toolbar. Lets come up with some really excellent and useful features that will put him on the map. He wants a challenge, lets see what we come up with.

Tue 16 Oct 16:30 | John Fairley | Something meshing OnlineOpinion and Backflip.