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last updated:24 Feb 2003 10: 30 Webword time, or 24 Feb 2003 15:30 UK time
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(Comments added for week ending Sun 23 Feb 2003) | View Other Weeks
Jupiter Report Says Companies Ignore Customer Queries | Sat 22 Feb
Fifty-eight percent of high income customers turn to the phone when their e-mail goes unanswered, creating a snowball effect. Companies often end up answering that one inquiry twice. (Comments: Thanks Daniel Szuc.)
Sat 22 Feb 11:54 | daniel szuc | My question is, why do companies publish an email contact address if they choose not to respond to customer queries? Perhaps it comes down to user needs analysis ... is there a need to have the web channel in the first place?
Sat 22 Feb 19:57 | Gerald | Emails are like telephone answering machines, it's not necessary to respond immediately as in case of a direct phone call. And people are comfortable and forgetful. The chance of an email reply is non-linear reciprocal to the time elapsed.
Sun 23 Feb 08:20 | Philip Chalmers | It won't change except temporarily when companies find their markets gobbled up by competitors who (for a while) offer better service. Customer service will never be the glamour end of a business.
Sun 23 Feb 17:23 | Anonymous | Gerald, remind me never to e-mail you. The only time I do not expect a reply to an e-mail is when I mark the message 'no need to reply.' I stop talking to people who don't reply to e-mails. Ignoring someone is an extreme show of disrespect. If you don't like to, or can't find the time, or forget to reply to people, maybe you shouldn't give people your address in the first place.
Sun 23 Feb 23:38 | daniel szuc | Have to agree with 'Pampers McGee' - We aim to be as prompt as possible with email enquires, not always easy, but thats the aim.
home page | Sun 23 Feb
and CV. He has published a ton of excellent articles including a recent article on usability and open source software (PDF). Hes a smart cookie, and he is interested in many things we care about. Michael is waiting for our interview questions so fire away! For every good interview question you ask (Im the judge), I will give you one chance to win a book of my choice. (If your name is pulled, Ill ship it to you for free!) Ill send the best questions to Dr. Twidale to answer. Im going to send him our questions and pull the winner of the free book on Wednesday.
Sun 23 Feb 22:01 | Rotwang | 1) From your bookstore photo, if I don't turn left for metaphysical books and don't turn right for computer books, what books will I find on the other side of the bookshelf on which the sign is hung? 2) What are your feelings about the ~ tilde in your URL?
WebWord Comment | Wed 19 Feb
Does CNN blow chunks?
Thu 20 Feb 00:17 | Anonymous | Why yes, CNN does blow chunks, but no more than MSNBC and FoxNews. I went crazy on Feb. 15 knowing there were massive global demonstrations and not being able to get (via cable TV) live coverage. They'll give a plane crash 8 hours, but an anti-establishment uprising only merits a 30 second snippet between other news stories, and then totally misrepresenting the scope of the matter. I am sooooooooo tired of our corporate media.
Thu 20 Feb 10:20 | Just say No -- to War | Anybody who denies that CNN and/or any other medium blows chunks should be banned from reading any piece of material! What is media but propaganda on the behalf of their funder? What better time for propaganda than to prepare the population for war?
Thu 20 Feb 12:36 | Frank Lynch | Time for us all to spend a fireside evening with Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media?
Sun 23 Feb 17:29 | Anonymous | The closest I can come to watching logs burn in a fireplace is to chuck CDs into the microwave.
WebWord Comment | Wed 19 Feb
This was written in response to this.
Wed 19 Feb 22:41 | Frank Lynch | John, you left the sender's name at the bottom of the email.
Wed 19 Feb 22:42 | John S. Rhodes | Thanks Frank. Fixed.
Thu 20 Feb 03:53 | Adam Greenfield | Now wait for the Cluetrain moment.
Sun 23 Feb 17:27 | Anonymous | I'm still waiting.
Call me a Luddite, but I say Palm Pilots must die | Sun 23 Feb
You have to have a Palm Pilot to place an order. (Comments: Via LucDesk.)
Sun 23 Feb 17:19 | Anonymous | OK, you are a luddite.
Unhappy Meals | Sun 23 Feb
(Mother Jones) At a time when weight-related illnesses in children are escalating, schools are serving kids the very foods that lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Sun 23 Feb 17:18 | Anonymous | I decry the shoddy construction of today's Happy Meal boxes. There was a time when they could double as portable vomitoriums (you know, for those long car trips).
ESPN redesigns with standards | Sat 22 Feb
(Zeldman) ESPN.com has redesigned using CSS layout. For now, the retooling is limited to the front page. Once it’s been fine-tuned, the approach will work its way into the rest of the vast site.
Sat 22 Feb 16:14 | Anonymous | If I was redirected to their upgrade page I'd be rather put off. There are better ways to pursuade people to upgrade than to call them 'non compliant' and shut them out. It's the You're A Fucking Idiot' approach. I'd much rather they display the page normally, while inserting a clear disclaimer at the top that links to a page with more information. e.g., let me see for myself that the site doesn't display properly. Explain that my browser is five years old and tell me how I'll benefit from a newer browser. Extend a helping hand instead of a slap in the face. Why is code compliance so often mingled with arrogance? It's funny that people who choose not to upgrade are offered a lite version. I like the tabled-riddled lit version a *lot* more than the CSS site. It's far less cluttered and looks fine.
Sun 23 Feb 07:58 | Philip Chalmers | It's quite reasonable to tell users they're using an obsolete / deficient browser, and quite reasonable not to spend time pandering to those who won't upgrade. Betamax users had to spend considerable time and money switching to VHS if they wanted to see the latest movies on videotape. Upgrading to a decent browser takes a lot less time and costs virtually nothing. The Web has changed. In the mid-90s a lot of browsers were slugging it out for market share and all had bugs / deficiencies. If you wanted to be seen you had to cater for these. Now one pretty good browser dominates and there are plenty of other good browsers. Is it fair to users of good browsers (the majority) to bloat your pages with work-rounds?
Sun 23 Feb 10:39 | Chris | While the ESPN site may technically follow standards, I would hardly say their markup is in the spirit of the standards... Why should a site dealing mainly in stats and articles (I don't frequent the site so correct me if I'm wrong) set Javascript as a prerequisite? It seems the web team were approaching the site as a programming exercise as opposed to a vehicle for information delivery. Same old. The site also looks terrible in Opera 6 to the point of obscuring and covering content, so standards or not, users of that browser already have a barrier to entry.
Sun 23 Feb 11:49 | Anonymous | Philip, I catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Sun 23 Feb 16:26 | Matt Round | The redesign goes halfway towards doing the right thing - fewer tables in favour of more CSS, but the mark-up isn't very well structured, with spacers galore, lists not marked up as lists, and a messy collection of inline style/script. As for upgrade messages, well if your (X)HTML is bodge-free you can simply let older browsers show an unstyled version, as also displayed by text-only browsers & mobile devices' simple web browsers. That's how mark-up was intended to work, and it works really well if you start with getting the basics right. Nowadays I reckon most Netscape 4 users have it inflicted upon them by their misguided/lazy/sadistic IT department and would've loved to have upgraded years ago, so upgrade messages must seem like cruel taunts.
Sun 23 Feb 17:08 | Anonymous | > Netscape 4 users have it inflicted upon them by their misguided/lazy/sadistic IT department I know several people who choose to use Netscape 4. They upgraded to Netscape 6, hated it (because of the different look & tons of AOL plugs), and went back to 4. They don't use IE because they hate Microsoft. When they encounter a must-use site that doesn't work, they will load Internet Explorer to use that one site. Personally, I hate Wired's 'compliant' redesign. IE6 for XP (from home and office), doesn't display the middle white column correctly (where article summaries are displayed). There is no white left margin. The first letter of each line bleeds into the adjoining left black column. Resizing the text doesn't help. I know how the layout is supposed to look, but it doesn't look that way for me.
NewsMonster | Sat 22 Feb
NewsMonster offers a superior web experience and outstanding integration with existing websites and weblogs that support RSS. Even sites that dont support RSS can work with NewsMonster. Thats not all! NewsMonster incorporates an advanced reputation system to prevent spam and discover and inform you of important news. (Comments: AmphetaDesk and the Adventures of Morbus Iff)
Sun 23 Feb 15:03 | Peter J. | NM is a little on the controversial side... see http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/02/20/robotstxt_support_for_uberaggregators.html and followup at http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/02/21/newsmonster_day_2.html 'NewsMonster doesn’t care if you don’t provide full content in your feed. In fact, it doesn’t care if you do; it will still download the original HTML pages and images anyway. And, more disturbingly, it doesn’t respect robots.txt like other well-behaved bulk-downloaders.'
Google Hacks | Sat 22 Feb
!
Sat 22 Feb 10:01 | John S. Rhodes | 4 sample hacks.
Sat 22 Feb 13:24 | Frank Lynch | This could be interesting. I hope it will help me do something I've always been able to do at alltheweb.com: search for pages that link to my site that are not part of my site. Putting a minus sign in fornt of the term 'site:www.samueljohnson.com' ain't it, although leaving the minus sign off does limit pages to those that come from my site.
Sat 22 Feb 19:35 | Gerald | And if you are not successful with excluding your internal links, as I expect, you could have a look at tools like the link analysis tool Optilink. With it you would be able to get all your referrers (from several engines) and have the option to include or exclude all your internal or external links as you like. The only downside - it costs a lot more then the book ;-) On the other side, using the GoogleAPI should give you the ability to do the referrer-job by yourself, first requesting the backlinks via link:www.yourdoman.com and subsequently removing your urls from the result list. Happy programming! But perhaps the solution is in the book, and if not it should be in there with the second edition ;-)
Sun 23 Feb 11:13 | Mac | I have been 'hacking' google for a while now and am interested in reading this book. But.... John, you need an associates account with amazon.co.uk (and .ca, .de etc.) so that I can use your link. Can I actually buy this book yet? The amazon.com page states 'This item will be released on February 1, 2003' whilst the amazon.co.uk site states 'usually dispatched within 3 to 5 weeks' Can I buy this book now or not? This is why Amazon can only ever score 6/10 for me.
The "Proof" for Usability's ROI: Statistics and Examples | Sat 22 Feb
Because there have been many well-documented examples of cost savings with usability engineering, sound statistics can be applied generally to UI development. These statistics serve as benchmarks.
Sat 22 Feb 10:17 | Frank Lynch | Beyond the ROI aspect of usability, an example came up this past week where an emergency response was slowed due to poor usability. (This is one of those areas that are difficult to assess an ROI.) The 911 software for NYC has apparently been designed such that, if the accident happens in a body of water, the operator is supposed to input the police force with jurisdiction for that body of water rather than the body of water itself. In a recent nighttime boating accident, the operator didn't know this, and her input was rejected by the system; her supervisor fared no better, because he did the same and had forgotten the contents of a September memo on the matter. (The supervisor is being reprimanded over this, and I've seen no discussion of whether or not anyone is re-thinking the usability issues involved.) Mayor Bloomberg knows the value of usabilty from his private sector experiences, but that word hasn't filetered through all of city government yet, apparently.
Sat 22 Feb 16:07 | Ron Zeno | sound statistics can be applied generally to UI development Not generally, that would entail some sort of standards of skills and knowledge proven necessary to accomplish the results reported. Since the skills, knowledge, responsibilities, roles, etc. are all completely up in the air (usually completely undefined) there is no generalizeable roi. Perhaps individuals using techniques and knowledge that they cannot express or teach may have actually accomplished the returns that these statistics are based upon (or maybe they've just deceived themselves into thinking so). The facts are that they do not know what is required for anyone else to accomplish similar results. The UPA (and Aaron Marcus) would like you to be deceived into thinking different so they can gain monetarily.
Sun 23 Feb 08:27 | Philip Chalmers | This article harms the cause of usability. For example the implied claim that unmet / unforeseen user requirements are a usability matter kills its credibility.
Sun 23 Feb 10:53 | Mac | The 'Proof' for a flat Earth.
WebWord Comment | Wed 19 Feb
I wrote an article about ProWebSite back in November 1999. Here is something a reader sent to me today about ProWebSite. Should I be amazed that old content is still valuable to people?
Fri 21 Feb 06:35 | Anonymous | No, you shouldn't be amazed that old content is still valuable. It can help validate or invalidate current assumptions. It can provide a map of 'how on earth did we get ourselves into this position?' Or, better yet, 'why do we do it this way?' It can document how something - an idea, an opinion, a product, a service - changed over time as more was discovered or learned. Granted, capital-H History is written by the victors, but the history of everyday people and things provide context to current actions.
Sun 23 Feb 08:35 | Philip Chalmers | I searched Google for 'ProWebSite' and your article 'How ProWebSite stuck it to me' was 4th on the list - congratulations! Keep the article online until ProWebSite makes a public apology and pays compensation with interest.
What is Open Source Software and is it usable? | Sat 22 Feb
Usability specialists are not generally part of the development process.
Sat 22 Feb 10:30 | John S. Rhodes | Usability and Open Source Software -- David M. Nichols and Michael B. Twidale
Sun 23 Feb 08:23 | Philip Chalmers | It's a simple matter of economics. Usability, like QA, requires a formalised development process and management control - and these things cost money (management's ultimate control tool is money).
WebWord Comment | Sat 22 Feb
Draw your own conclusions. (Warning: 405K)
Sat 22 Feb 10:29 | John S. Rhodes | ...found on Michael Twidale's home page.
Sat 22 Feb 20:09 | Gerald | Be aware of the differentiation between Windows and Operating Systems. This implies that Windows is not an Operating System - a confirmation to my philosophy ;-)
elearnspace Interview | Fri 21 Feb
Unless we start empathizing with the values and meaning our knowledge workers attach to their work, we are going to go around in circles. And weve being doing that for a long time.
Sat 22 Feb 06:59 | Anonymous | A bland review of a meainingless term. Knowledge work. I swear they just make these things up.
Sat 22 Feb 08:46 | Anonymous | 'Chief Editor of elearningpost, 'an intelligent digest of daily links to articles and news stories about Corporate Learning, Community Building, Instructional Design, Knowledge Management, Personalization and more.' Fancypants words for 'he blogs'.
Sat 22 Feb 09:12 | Anonymous | I agree with the posts above (particularly the first). The sad part is this guy may have some useful things to say about learning but having to trudge through the gobbledygook makes it impossible to know. Take for instance the following quote: 'It's interesting to observe that most elearningpost readers share a similar philosophy--learning as emergent--with regards to learning in general and e-learning in specific.' What exactly does it mean to say 'learning is emergent'? As opposed to what? The rest of the sentence 'with regards to...' says nothing either. These are just 'high-falutin' sounding words that are meant to impress while conveying no meaning whatsoever. And what does the following mean? 'Unless we start empathizing with the values and meaning our knowledge workers attach to their work, we are going to go around in circles.' Do all 'knowledge workers' attach the same value and meaning to their work? Does this mean we have to empathize with all of them? What if we disapprove of their values and the meaning they subscribe to their work? What then? Just what is he talking about here?
Sat 22 Feb 19:28 | Anonymous | 'Just what is he talking about here?' If knowledge work actually worked, you wouldn't have to ask these questions. You'd know. That's the test of knowledge work. This fails.
Good Code Cache | Sat 22 Feb
(Veen) - Back in the good old days, I was marking up content and scripting pages with the best of them. But no more. These days, I find my time is better spent on strategy, interaction, and architecture. (Comments: What do you spend your time on?)
Sat 22 Feb 11:50 | daniel szuc | Strategy. Where are we going and how can we do it better :)
Boating Accident Leads to Disciplinary Charges | Sat 22 Feb
The dispatcher tried to enter Long Island Sound into the departments computer system as the location of the boat, but the system rejected it, the police said. The dispatcher then asked a supervisor for help, but ultimately the two of them determined there was too little information to dispatch help. (Comments: Thanks Frank.)
Sat 22 Feb 11:32 | Anonymous | As I mentioned in another thread prior to John posting this, Mayor Bloomberg knows about the value and importance of usabilty from his private sector expereince. Sad that this perspective hasn't filtered through the city yet...
WebWord Comment | Wed 19 Feb
Johnny Cash covers the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. Download the 32MB video from this page. What does this have to do with usability? Emotions man, feelin those emotions.
Thu 20 Feb 17:35 | Morbus Iff | Hey, thanks. After reading my 'daily news', my next task was to 'find hurt video'. Now, I'm ahead of the game. Whoo.
Sat 22 Feb 02:11 | Anonymous | It's at times like these that I stop and say a quiet prayer for all the unfortunate car dealerships who are overstocked and have to sell, sell, sell.
WebWord Comment | Sat 15 Feb
Big Brother Google?
Tue 18 Feb 11:13 | Anonymous | If you don't like Google don't use it. 'Google should do this, Google should do that, someone should make them behave.' What a bunch of whiners. There are alternatives, use them. Invent your own product that's better.
Tue 18 Feb 12:34 | Anonymous | Yeah, if you don't like your privacy being invaded, stop participating in society! Kill yourself! Right-e-o Mother Hen. Good philosophy.
Fri 21 Feb 16:29 | MH | Father Cluck - you miss the point. If you don't use Google they don't pick up any info. You are in control. Don't go to their site. Anyway, you're unimportant, no one wants to know what you are up to.
THEORY: Where hypertext design should go | Wed 19 Feb
(Jorn Barger) A simple alternative with better staying power is the timeline. Almost any informational webpage can be associated with a date on verious topical timelines. Filling out the timeline with related sites in chronological order can often _add value_ by revealing the longterm evolution of the topic. (Comments: Sometimes I understand Jorn and sometimes I dont. Either way, Im always interested in what he is talking about.)
Fri 21 Feb 03:16 | Mac | Some of my attempts at timelines: Usability, HCI etc. Articles WebWord Postings Joel On Software Postings
Vzorce webdesignu | Wed 19 Feb
Vzorce (patterns) jsou velmi silným nástrojem pro objevování i návrh řešení různých typových problémů. Používají se v architektuře, softwarovém inženýrství a také v oblasti interakce uživatelů s počítači (human-computer interaction, HCI), což zahrnuje i webdesign.
Wed 19 Feb 21:20 | sps | Hi, I'm writing to you in an effort to spread the word about two friends who are running across the country starting on Feb 24th. They are going without a support vehicle and without any money for lodging; in other words, pretty challenging. They are running a blog of their journey at http://www.runtheusa.com . No journals are up right now because they haven't started, but the list of towns/states that they are passing through on their journey, along with more information is listed at http://www.runtheusa.com/howToHelp/howToHelp.asp A full explanation can be found in this post on my site http://sps.bigwhoop.org/archives/000438.php If there is anyway you can help, even if it's just by spreading the word to other blogs you read or posting about it, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
Wed 19 Feb 21:34 | Annoying Puff Cat | WTF?
Thu 20 Feb 11:21 | Anonymous | They'll pass near my town. Methinks I should buy some bananas. Or maybe some cans of spam.
WebWord Comment | Wed 19 Feb
Found at the bottom of pornographic spam message: I give you my word.
Thu 20 Feb 10:24 | Anonymous | umm... so John, should be wonder if you did or did not? :oppppp
Designed for life | Wed 19 Feb
(New Scientist) Hes the gurus guru of a world in which people really care whether everyday gadgets work intuitively. (Comments: This is an interview with Don Norman. Found via InfoDesign.)
Thu 20 Feb 00:29 | Ron Zeno | Originally posted on WebWord Oct 7. I made some comments on it in my weblog a few days earlier.
Talking About the Elements of User Experience | Mon 17 Feb
(WebWord) A positive user experience is one in which the goals of both the user and the organization that created the product are met. Usability is one attribute of a successful user experience, but usability alone does not make an experience positive for the user. (Comments: This is an interview with Jesse James Garrett, based on this WebWord posting. Thanks to everyone, especially JJG.)
Mon 17 Feb 23:58 | daniel szuc | Many thanks Jesse. rgds,
Tue 18 Feb 02:30 | Eric Scheid | On the cultural question raised by Zef ... there has been a lot of research on the question of how cultures differ, particularly Hofstede's Dimensions of Culture. As to how it affects website design, I point you to this PDF. More links in context of IA can be found here.
Tue 18 Feb 02:31 | Eric Scheid | bugger, broken link ... try again As to how it affects website design, I point you to this PDF.
Wed 19 Feb 18:25 | Gerald | Perhaps you should better try http://www.amanda.com/resources/hfweb2000/AMA_CultDim.pdf in order to find the PDF. The above link seems to be broken.
Homepage Real Estate Allocation | Tue 11 Feb
(useit.com) On average, sample sites evenly distributed valuable screen space between content, navigation, fluff, blank areas, and system overhead. Areas of user interest should occupy more than the current 39%. (Comments: I wonder how much the traffic from WebWord to useit.com is worth to Jakob. When I think about the reports and consulting he sells, Ill be my link to his site is probably worth a couple of bucks. What do you think?)
Mon 17 Feb 17:29 | Anonymous | 'The site is not named in homage' He wasn't making that claim. I think he thinks that choosing that name is tasteless, irregardless of your intentions. People with a strong knowledge of history are the people most likely to take objection... I doubt many people are informed enough to be offended.
Wed 19 Feb 01:37 | Lyle Kantrovich | On V-2 as a name... I've been reading Adam's blog for quite some time, and considered whether v-2 was a reference to the rocket, and didn't think so. I figured it was more likely a reference to 'version 2' -- call me a techie. It doesn't matter a whit to me to find out that it is a reference to a rocket. Then again I wouldn't care if it was called poisongas.com or nuke.org either. Some names are meant to be intruiging and a departure from a literal interpretation. E.g. Amazon.com, Monster.com, Yahoo!, Excite Adam's clearly built his own personal brand into and around v-2.org -- a name is a name, but a brand goes deeper than that. I worked on a dot com site called Rooster.com once...it wasn't about poultry. Research after 6 months showed it was a very strong new brand in the agriculture industry and it still has very strong name recognition - of course the Rooster's dead now, but that's another story. Did I say a good name doesn't guarantee success? Worth mentioning that too I guess. :) Topic: Poor usability as a 'real weapon of destruction and death.' Bad HCI-Sci-fi flick: The Flash Monster versus the v-2 rockets of Kajagoogoo Feel free to discuss either one amongst yourselves...
WebWord Comment | Sun 16 Feb
I am getting the impression that being mentioned on WebWord is a good thing. For the month of February 2003 so far, Im averaging about 6,500 page views per day, and about 2,800 visitors per day. Not too shabby. Furthermore, many folks in the usability community send me news to post. Thats cool. Im glad to help. Maybe I should do more to capitalize on all of this traffic and fame. Ha! Or, perhaps I should write a book. What are your thoughts on WebWord in 2003? What makes sense? Good ideas and random thoughts appreciated.
Mon 17 Feb 00:41 | Frank Lynch | IMO, what you should do with it depends on your goals (duh, but always worth reminding). [Uh oh, here comes the gratuitous Samuel Johnson quotation: 'Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.' (Rambler #2)] Seriously, if you don't plan on making any money on this, do with it what you will. One thing you might consider, though, is trying to get a better sense of what links your visitors click on, as a way of getting a sense of their interests. I don't know exactly how this is done, and I don't know if your server logs will report what happens even if you do spec it correctly. But I have seen some blogs where the url on the link passes the visitor first through an internal link with a redirect, and I've always presumed that that was so the blogger could have some statistic on what's being clicked. I could be wrong, but I am not making this up, and I'm not Dave Barry. If you want to talk more about this, let's have some haggis at the Flaming Red Dining Room. (I think our table is actually in the picture.) Good atmosphere for this kind of bull session.
Mon 17 Feb 05:31 | James Tuddenham | As a 'lurker', I'd like to voice my appreciation for your editorial nouse in the mixture of links you post, and all the great feedback from the worder community. As for feedback, I note that the way I use the site is to look for the entries that have the most comments first, then tend to read those articles. Could an unobtrusive manner be hit upon for further highlighting active discussions (also, would that be desirable)?
Mon 17 Feb 05:35 | Yarone Goren | BTW: Thanks to whomever linked to my article! (Comp Sci vs. Psych) Just FYI, I didn't understand why this site was called 'WebWord' until I read THIS SENTANCE on the 'About John...' page: 'John is the primary author and editor of Moving WebWord...' So, I see that 'Moving WebWord' is a play on words -> 'moving forward' -> alas, we get to the name WebWord. Just a short comment, from one reader's perspective. Best of luck, Yarone
Mon 17 Feb 07:24 | Mac | James, my webword monthly stats might help a bit. They are updated 2 or 3 times a week (next update in about 7 hours). I would like to see a book. Ihave never understood what 'Moving Webword' is about!
Mon 17 Feb 07:39 | daniel szuc | I really enjoy the conversation and the articles posted. There must be a great deal of effort put into this site by John - following and moderating the discussions, the interviews, the article searches and postings etc I would be open to the idea of a yearly subscription. Be interesting to run a survey on how much (if at all) people would be willing to pay to subscribe to webword. Admittedly, there would probably be a drop off rate as well. How many other webworders would be willing to pay? *ducks behind wall*
Mon 17 Feb 08:36 | John S. Rhodes | Here's some food for thought. If I could make a living doing nothing but WebWord (the web site), I would do it. I would significantly increase the number of postings, articles, interviews, and more. I would do everything possible to be the source of usability and related information. I would also work to make the site more useful, with more features. So, what would it take for me to get in that position? Is this just wishful thinking?
Mon 17 Feb 08:54 | Frank Lynch | Yes, it's wishful thinking. First, very few people make enough solely on web commentary and links. Andrew Sullivan is reputed to have raised about $80,000 in a recent pledge week, and that's a hefty sum, but people like him are an exception, and his target market is larger than the usability community. Second, even if the market were there, you couldn't get enough money unless you were viewed as an authority. And if you weren't doing off-the-web usability work, you'd lose your glow.
Mon 17 Feb 15:21 | Mac | My Homepage has been set to webword.com for about six months. I would like to see a tax paid by all advertisiers that went into a pot that could be used to pay for full time content providers. Salon could be saved and be idenpendent. People like John and Jack could be paid to spend more time flowering. I do agree with Frank that you do need to keep one foot in the 'real' world to keep up your credits.
Mon 17 Feb 15:26 | Dennis G. Jerz | You could do what a lot of writers do... get a day job teaching.
Mon 17 Feb 16:55 | Anonymous | A) Love what you do and make sacrifices for your craft. B) Want money in return for what you love and be disappointed that you're not loved in return. Be careful about looking at the Lucky Ones and thinking 'me too.' If you walk down Road B, and fail, you may not want to return. Blogs as we known them today will be a flash in the pan. One day self publishing will be so pervasive that the term 'blog' will be lost in the mix. So many voices will be talking for free that sage words will find little recompense.
Mon 17 Feb 16:58 | Anonymous | I curse the Lord for allowing me so many spelling transgressions.
Tue 18 Feb 11:07 | mcw | How to make money: provide a product or service that people want and are willing to pay for, and do so at a cost low enough to to create an acceptable surplus to make it a good business for you. How to make money on the web: 1) get people to pay for subscription to your site. 2) use the site as a lead in for products/services, in your case usability consulting might be the angle. 3) sell ads. Web site subscriptions have not been very successful, only a few sites (other than porn) have been successful with paid subscriptions. More organizations have been successful in using their sites as marketing tools, in that their web presence is a channel to the core products/services that they offer. Regarding selling ads, I don't know that your volume and user demographic is going to yield lots of revenue, and that having a higher ad volume wouldn't change the nature of the site. On the other hand, companies may be willing to pay for targeted, personalized usability advice - - consulting, in other words. The rates that companies are willing to pay are based on their experience with other consultants and service firms, and should be sufficient to sustain a reasonable life style if you can drum up enough business.
Tue 18 Feb 13:28 | PeterV | Can you afford to take a year of? If so, spend a year doing exactly that: more content, more useful features, and try to figure out what people will pay for. Experiment full on with different ways of collecting revenue and building traffic and usefulness. If not, you will never know if it could have worked. It's certainly not a certainty, but you might make it. You might get away with combining it with usability work - but only take the good jobs. How much would it cost you to try this out? You really want to do it -it's been an ongoing theme on here for years. Do the math: what if you live low budget for a year?
Conflict in HCI Field: Computer Science vs. Psychology | Sun 16 Feb
(Yarone Goren) SO, exactly here is where I see the conflict between Computer Science and Psychology in the field of HCI. Computer Science focuses way, way, way too much on the implementation! (Comments: Thanks Jack. For one reason or another, this reminds me of Trouble in Paradise: Problems Facing the Usability Community.)
Tue 18 Feb 09:37 | Philip Chalmers | Yarone Goren over-states the case a bit - which is fairly natural in a critique of an existing situation. The Don Norman article he links to (http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/BCCSandProducts.html) is more balanced - it's all very well for psychologists to criticise, but they lack the design and production engineering skills to make a positive contribution or to judge what it's realistic to aim for with the avialble technology and cost parameters. If Yarone Goren really wants to improve the current situation, he has to acquire some design and production engineering skills so he can then convince a big corporation that he can make significant improvements at reasonable cost. Then he might be able to start a band-wagon.
Why I'm flying JetBlue tomorrow (and not American) | Mon 17 Feb
I checked the AA website the day before leaving and saw that I had no assigned seat, I called the airline, spoke with two representatives, and they basically said I couldnt have the seat I reserved. They did not listen to my point of view and insisted that I accept theirs. (Comments: What is American Airlines? Their web site. Their representatives. Not a big company, but a web site and couple of people. When a person says They this is what that person means.)
Tue 18 Feb 02:25 | Adam Greenfield | As I wrote Dave: 'I've been a devotee of jetBlue since their very first midnight departure from OAK. I've never had anything less than an enjoyable experience - I mean, they're not Virgin's Upper Class or anything, but they know it. The seats are comfortable, the check-in and boarding are reasonably humane, and the staff appears to have none of the outright rudeness that afflicts the major carriers. If I could, I'd never fly anything but, domestic.' Which I now reiterate to you, here. My verdict? CE-wise, they get it.
Tue 18 Feb 07:49 | Anonymous | And they have a really ripping website too!
Jesse James Garrett | Mon 10 Feb
recently wrote The Elements of User Experience, which is based on his semi-famous diagram. Would you like to win my copy of his book? Would you like to pepper JJG with some tough questions? Fire away! For every good interview question you ask (Im the judge), I will give you one chance to win the book. (If your name is pulled, Ill ship it to you for free!) Ill send the best questions to JJG to answer and when he answers, Ill post the interview. Simple, no? I strongly advise you to ask really hard questions about user experience. You have three days. Im going to send JJG the questions and pull the winner on Thursday.
Tue 18 Feb 02:21 | Eric Scheid | the interview is up
WebWord Comment | Sat 15 Feb
Watch this video (.wmv file) of a Segway HT running over a foot and over a hand.
Mon 17 Feb 17:58 | Anonymous | Rudy, yep, you don't get it. The guy in the video is a web designer. Web designers are techies. Techies love the Segway. Lots of techies live in San Francisco. San Francisco hates and has banned the Segway. San Franciscans chase Segway users with torches and wooden planks that have a single nail protruding from the edge. Segway users ride at full speed all the time to avoid capture. Techies are fat and slow because of their sedentary lifestyle. Segway users are bitter at being branded outlaws and so they run over people every chance they get. Obese techies are dangerous to run over, and so hands and feet are the most frequent targets. The video John linked to was simply a survival guide for out-of-work techies who live on the streets of San Francisco.
Mon 17 Feb 19:14 | pt | hiya, i'm pt, the fellow who belongs to the hand in the video (and owns a segway ht). the video was created bt request, i was asked 'what would happen if it can over a foot'. since some folks would assume steel toed shoes or whatever, i placed my hand under the ht, it's physics, nothing interesting, with low psi tires (12 psi) my hand was not harmed in any way. here's my segway ht experience so far: i use a segway human transporter (ht) to go over 7+ miles per day, i have given up a car, we're saving over $600 per month (payment, insurance, gas, parking) and i've even lost 10lbs with my extra time that i have each day to do more things like (exercise) as opposed to sitting in traffic. you can read about it here on my personal journal of owning a segway ht: http://www.bookofseg.com recently, i hit 100 miles logged on my gps unit, it took about 14 days of commuting to hit that, i didn't count other trips or previous commute trips so i could keep careful logs. more info can be found here: http://www.bookofseg.com/100miles/ the cargo i carry: http://www.bookofseg.com/weight/ the ht saves me time, i choose what i want to do with that time, like exercise: http://www.bookofseg.com/fat/ with the first month's saving from using the segway ht we gave it to charity, local groups. feel free to email me if ya'll have any questions. cheers, pt
Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time | Sun 16 Feb
(Dan Gillmor) Google, which runs the Webs premier search site, has purchased Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the increasingly popular personal and opinion journals. (Comments: Of course everyone is going to talk about this. It is big news, right? Im still waiting for a Google browser.)
Mon 17 Feb 00:03 | Anonymous | Dennis, correctomundo. Google providing blogs is a clear conflict of interest. As long as they were only about 'search' they could be trusted as being impartial. Then they expanded into newsgroups, and now blogs. What next? Evil isn't something you choose. It sneaks up on you. Feel Google's colorful forehead. Those bumps are horns about to break skin.
Mon 17 Feb 17:32 | Lyle Kantrovich | Someone just showed me the GoogleBrowser the other day. John, you really have to keep up, you know? :)
WebWord Comment | Mon 17 Feb
I like CNETs News.com but they can be so slow. It is now 11:50 AM EST and there is still no mention of the Google Buys Blogger story. If they want to stay near the top of the tech news heap, theyve gotta speed up.
Mon 17 Feb 15:14 | Gerald | Hey, and isn't that a new chance for www.google-watch.org to add a new item to their bigbrother list, and a good chance for google to set a new 35 years lasting cookie on their blogs?
Mon 17 Feb 16:21 | Anonymous | Google buys blog tool developer February 17, 2003, 12:10 PM PT. C|Net ran a Reuters story. The real test in a competitive news market is that, if you're going to be late, are you providing added context beyond what's come before you?
Study: It's Easy to Plant False Memories | Sun 16 Feb
While some recovered memories turn out to be true, Loftus says her experiments repeatedly show that memories are fragile possessions that are easily manipulated. (Comments: Trashy Supermarket Tabloid Memories)
Mon 17 Feb 06:40 | Mac | False Memory Syndrome happens on almost every usability test I have ever been involved in.
Mon 17 Feb 10:42 | MadMan | Also read: Skeptic's dictionary: False memories M (still travelling)