(Comments added for week ending Sun 24 Nov 2002) | View Other Weeks
| last updated:25 Nov 2002 12: 33 Webword time, or 25 Nov 2002 17:33 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 24 Nov 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| Going Global Gracefully: Strategies for Building the Global Gateway | Sun 24 Nov |
| (WebWord) This article presents strategies for building a global gateway. A global gateway is much more than a select country pull-down menu on the home page. Its an all-encompassing term for the devices you use to direct users to their locale- and language-specific sites. And, as youll soon see, there are many ways to build a gateway. (Comments: Guest article written by John Yunker of Byte Level Research. Heres a link to his blog.) |
| Sun 24 Nov 14:59 | Matt Round | Good article covering something a lot of companies still do badly, seems to be a pic missing though ('As shown here with Symantec: (SCREEN: Symantec)'). |
| Sun 24 Nov 19:21 | John S. Rhodes | Thanks for catching that Matt. It has been fixed! |
| Crisis in the Profession | Sun 24 Nov |
| (stcsig.org) At the core of the problem, I believe, is a truth we must face: we have failed to establish our value to the business community. And if we want to survive and prosper, we must correct that. |
| Sun 24 Nov 14:52 | Ron Zeno | Nice to see Charlie facing up to some of the problems... A couple he didn't mention: Charlie's 'LUCID Movement' appeared to be nothing more than a way for him to promote himself and his consultancy. It's difficult to get people to volunteer to help someone else's self-promotion... Charlie still assumes that 'usability' works. It doesn't. The best practices are unreliable and often of questionable validity. The worst practices are thinly veiled cons. Charlie's been making the same arguments for over four years now. They failed during the economic glut of the Internet boom. Why should anyone expect that they will work now? Mac - The STC Usability SIG has been around for a long time now. I don't recall when they started, but I'm guessing at least a decade. |
| Sun 24 Nov 19:21 | John S. Rhodes | 'Charlie still assumes that 'usability' works. It doesn't.' Ron, could you elaborate? While usability certainly has problems I would argue that it is significantly better than doing nothing. At a minimum, even if we decided to throw out 'usability' don't you think that we'd at least want designers and developers to use some of the most basic usability methods? At a high level, doesn't it make sense to gather some data about how users interact with a product, and then use that data to improve upon the design? |
| 'Intelligent' design personalization at bbc.co.uk | Sat 23 Nov |
| (Holvaty) Matt Jones points out an innovative feature of the new bbc.co.uk home page: The background colors of the various sections change based on your browsing habits. |
| Sun 24 Nov 09:45 | Matt Round | I've experimented with this sort of thing (changing colours, adjusting relative sizes of page areas), but not had the opportunity to apply it to the right project. One snag is that designers and clients often seem to be against this sort of thing, they don't like the loss of control over the appearance of the page (it's similar to how many don't even like having a different colour for visited links). |
| Information Architecture is not Usability | Fri 22 Nov |
| (Jeff Lash) A usability-only approach to IA is only one piece of the puzzle. Information architecture problems often account for a large percentage of usability problems, but there are many other things unrelated to IA that have an impact on usability. |
| Fri 22 Nov 16:32 | Frank Lynch | Do people who would read this article really say IA = usability, or is this one of those straw man starting points some people use in writing a column? When I was in a corp a year ago, I was lucky if someone knew the word usability... its various components were not in their vernacular. |
| Sun 24 Nov 04:09 | daniel szuc | Daniel here writing from the buzzing metropolis - Shanghai, taking pics of interesting UIs along the way. I think any *entry point* for usability and enhancing the user experience is useful rather than get too picky about differences. |
| Order a Segway at Amazon.com | Tue 19 Nov |
| - Exclusively at Amazon.com! You wont find Segway anywhere else. Be the first on your block! Available now for delivery starting March 2003. (MadMan comments: Hey brother, can you spare $4,950? OK, would you buy the Segway at this price? At a lower price? At any price? Or is this yet another hyped invention?) |
| Tue 19 Nov 12:52 | Cheese Witherspoon | The overwhelming majority opinion over at Fark.com's forums is that if you see someone riding a Segway, you should beat him up and take it away from him. Some people prefer buying a car with $5000. |
| Tue 19 Nov 14:17 | JB | Considering I can buy a scooter with either an electric or fuel driven motor for US$300 or less...why would I buy one of these? |
| Tue 19 Nov 14:32 | Vincent Benard | 5000$, too high, or correct price? Everyone places the correct priceline where he wants and does what he wants with his money, and this is not the problem. Segway concept is interesting. The price seems too high to many people, as it often seems for many new concepts when they come to the market. But it might decrease in the next years, if the company sells enough to survive. The segway technology will be improved, and it will perhaps be more accessible, or perhaps not. Today it's too expensive for many people. Will it be interesting for enough early adopters, ready to pay a fairly high price, to allow segway to continue its operations ? Is there a future for these kind of 'individual mobility devices' ? these questions sound more interesting to me. I've no answer. |
| Tue 19 Nov 14:40 | boysen | As with any new product, it begins at the beginning of the product life cycle. At this stage is cost is prohibitive to all but the early adopters. I don't see this item becoming mainstream (I think that might be stage 3) until the price point is closer to what someone could spend on a very nice motor scooter. The environmental and 'cool' factors don't amount to much, I wouldn't say. How many totally battery-powered cars have been sold? |
| Tue 19 Nov 15:46 | Lydia | I don't think it was intended for the average buyer at this stage - I'm surprised Amazon has them for sale. I can see corporations buying them for large campuses where they would be useful to move people around, especially visitors who might have special needs, or for property management companies that have large complexes, etc. |
| Tue 19 Nov 16:20 | Matt | Is it just me or does the description sound like the start of Jurrasic Park when they're talking about the equipment used in the park (... no expense was spared)? Even given it's newness, it still seems outragously expensive and I had to chuckle when I saw they put a limit of two on them. |
| Wed 20 Nov 13:15 | James Tuddenham | Looks like an expensive and ridiculous alternative to walking. British readers will remember Clive Sinclair's C5 that was also intended to revolutionise the way we think about transport, but instead became an object of derision and eventually destroyed Sinclair's company. But who can honestly put their hand on their heart and say that they would not like to have a go - just for a laugh? |
| Thu 21 Nov 11:48 | Alan Fisher | We're always being told that modern Americans and Europeans have lifestyles which are too sedentary. So, somebody comes up with a gadget which removes the need to walk. And how long before the first court case involving a drunken Segway driver? |
| Sat 23 Nov 21:23 | Matt Rhodes | They were actually hyping these down in Walt Disney World in July 2001. Kind of interesting to see them starting to sell. |
| Sat 23 Nov 21:27 | julie burbary | I think that segways should cost$2000 dollars to the people, because obviously we are dealing with new technology, but if kids want to save up to actually buy this some day then you would want it to be a reasonable price I mean my friend greg bought a used car for $500 dollars. Hey for all you know this price could be too high, but if I were you I would take a survey on the price like would you rather have the price be around 2000 or 3000.I may only be 11 but I know if something is on the pricey side. |
| Ants! | Sat 23 Nov |
| The next morning we noticed a large number of ants milling around it. Upon inspection we discovered ants crawling in and out of every hole in the computer. I grabbed my can of compressed air and started blowing! To my horror hundreds of ants started pouring out carrying eggs! I knew this was bad. I took the computer out to the garage and completely disassembled the thing layer by layer. (Comments: Thanks MadMan.) |
| Sat 23 Nov 15:14 | Matt Round | Several years ago a load of tiny spiders hatched inside my PC, they were crawling all over it, in and out of drives and ports. It wasn't particularly pleasant. When I took the case off to clear them out I found a web on the modem with a larger dead spider in it, so perhaps they'd all been orphaned by a power surge on the line... |
| Sat 23 Nov 20:17 | Zelda | Ants do swarm occasionally. There's no need to panic over a few little creatures from the insect world. |
| Comments by the Chief Marketing Officer for Orbitz | Tue 19 Nov |
| The reality is they work really well. We get one complaint for every 3,500 to 4,000 sales we do. Thats a pretty good ratio. And I ultimately believe that consumers vote with their pocket books. Were getting a lot of sales from these pop-unders and ultimately were being successful, I think. |
| Wed 20 Nov 07:41 | Mac | It's interesting to see that every one of our competitors has now followed us,' said Sands. The author encouraged web surfers to e-mail Sands every time they see a pop-under saying that they're 'not interested, but thanks for asking!' As Orbitz are claiming responsibility for the glut of pop-under ads then maybe we should start e-mailing him every time we see one that annoys us. His address is msands@orbitz.com I know that I am much less likely to distribute or publicise a link to a page that contains ads. Do the ad hosting pages care about this? |
| Wed 20 Nov 12:20 | MadMan | Mac, you should hyperlink properly, like this: His email address is msands@orbitz.com. Oops, does that mean spambots will scrape it? Sorry! |
| Wed 20 Nov 16:52 | JB | Don't they say for every complaint you receive there are another 100 not made. I wonder what the break even analysis says about the number of complaints vs. the sales that are made. Obviously 1 in 4,000 sales is Ok, but what if it was 500 for ever 4,000 sales....it's an interesting brand related question. |
| Wed 20 Nov 17:23 | Lydia | Do people even know HOW to complain about these ads? You could spend an hour or more hunting around for an e-mail address, and who has that kind of time? I'm surprised he gets as many complaints as he says he does with that kind of obstacle. He is either deluded or just plain dumb if he doesn't realize that the majority of people will just prefer to leave the site and not return than hunt around for an hour for a place to complain. |
| Thu 21 Nov 03:31 | Matt Round | 'Don't they say for every complaint you receive there are another 100 not made.' It can be far higher than that. I once worked on a site that developed a fundamental flaw (not my fault, honest guv) which made key features unusable, yet out of thousands of visitors while the site was broken for a couple of days not one sent in a complaint, despite contact details being clearly available. I suppose it largely depends on how involved users feel with the site, for popup ads there's virtually no sense of involvement. |
| Sat 23 Nov 15:02 | Ron Zeno | Hmmm... Is he just saying, 'Advertise through us?' |
| Huh? Corp | Sat 23 Nov |
| We have really smart people who are always thinking up totally cool shit. We have a meeting room with a big, round, expensive table. When you hire us to do something, we spend lots of time sitting around the table having meetings. (MadMan comments: Funny and yet disturbing because it sounds so true. As an aside, does anyone else think those stock photos of happy people on so many corporate sites are just annoying?) |
| Sat 23 Nov 07:39 | Anonymous | no. they wisely chose effective and professional stock photography |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 21 Nov |
| Another great Strong Bad email. This one happens to deal with web site design. Rock on! |
| Fri 22 Nov 14:30 | Matt Round | Homestarrunner.com is definitely one of the best sites on the web. As one of the creators said in a recent interview, they could've opted to do something obvious and easy like yet another Star Wars spoof and got a load of traffic, but instead decided to be more original. If only more sites put as much effort into creativity and attention to detail... |
| Usability of Geography | Thu 21 Nov |
| (bbc.co.uk) Many Americans know all about London and England but think the United Kingdom is in the Middle East. |
| Thu 21 Nov 07:05 | John S. Rhodes | I'll just describe you as Mac. ;-) |
| Thu 21 Nov 08:21 | Richard Lehoux | I'm from Canada. So it must be between Main and California... |
| Thu 21 Nov 08:54 | Anonymous | Stupid Canadians -- They never bother learning anything about their neighbor to the south. It's MainE, not Main. At least we Americans know that everyone in Canada lives in an igloo, keeps a pet moose, and is required by law to become a Mountee for a period of at least two years. Disclaimer: Please note the sarcasm deeply hidden within this post. |
| Thu 21 Nov 09:19 | Morris Cox | Canada? I thought it was Knock an nada. :> That's how La Cananda is pronounced here in Tucson, Arizona. |
| Thu 21 Nov 10:17 | Mac | As with many things, the perceived reality tells us a lot about how people see the world. We get many of our 'views' of other countries from tv, books and magazines. I know that Americans are dreadfully disappointed when they go on their day-trip from London to see Stonehenge, and can't believe that it's just a small pile of old rocks. The 'idea' of Stonehenge is so much better than the reality. I was born in the city of Bath, which many Amercians have heard of because of Jane Austen and the Roman Baths. I live in a city a few miles away called Bristol which played a big role in the slave trade and was the starting point for the John Cabot voyage to Newfoundland. Millions visit Bath, whilst very few visit Bristol, which is a much more interesting place. Oh, and did you know that Archibald Leach (Cary Grant) was born in Bristol ! |
| Thu 21 Nov 11:08 | Alan Fisher | For more on the geographical ignorance of Americans, Canadians, the British, Germans and just about everybody else, have a look at the National Geographic survey. And, before you start feeling smug, you can test yourself as well. National Geographic Survey. I got 19 out of 20 (he says modestly). |
| Thu 21 Nov 11:18 | Mac | I got 2 wrong. I am the weakest link. Goodbye. As a child, I was interviewed on a local radio station because of my role in a play 'The Childrens Crusade'. Part of the plot involves the kiddies crossing the sea to get to the Holy Land. The interviewer asked me which sea it was. I didn't know the answer and was given extra homework by my Geography Teacher the next day. |
| Thu 21 Nov 11:35 | Alan Fisher | I have to admit that 2 or 3 of the ones I got right were (un)educated guesses. But the one I got wrong was the population of the USA, which I overestimated by a factor of 2. What I found interesting was the relative scores it shows for each question by country. This, to me, disproved the 'Americans don't know about anything outside America' line, as they did just as well (or as badly) as most other nationalities. One of my colleagues (who is English) thought that China was Japan, which I found entirely unbelievable. The Swedes seemed to consistently do better than everybody else - why? |
| Thu 21 Nov 12:55 | Chris | Hmm, when I moved to Boston, everyone thought I was Irish. Seems to me that most people in the 'States claim to know about Scotland (usually as some ancestor hails from the old country, are familiar with our drink or have seen Braveheart), but are surprised that we actually still exist as a nation, albeit within a nation (that isn't England). Though that can even be lost on visitors -- 'Gee, Scotland is just the prettiest part of England!'. Fear not, we'll go our own way soon enough and paint ourselves a different colour on the map. Which should help at least 30% of American youths. |
| Thu 21 Nov 12:59 | Lydia | Well, Alan, I hate to say this about America but my experience is that the average American really doesn't know much about what is going on outside our borders. Probably the people going to the National Geographic site have a prediliction for outside interest. Most of what I know about Britain I learned from Douglas Adams books and Monty Python. I'm only slightly kidding. I've never been there or spent any time there, and economics seem to indicate that this status will not change anytime in the near future, much as I would like it to be otherwise. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I'm fascinated by English culture. It sounds almost condescending and not very PC. Is anyone fascinated by Americans? I doubt this, and I never hear anyone say this, at least not in a 'positive' sense. So, if asked I usually don't own up to it. I also must admit I am swayed by the likes of Cary Grant and Alan Rickman. But, I suppose this is a very girl-type thing to say and not relevant to the argument. |
| Thu 21 Nov 14:58 | boysen | Lydia wrote: Most of what I know about Britain I learned from Douglas Adams books and Monty Python. I'm only slightly kidding. That's hilarious! And I'd bet all too true. It's no secret that American schools are found to be lacking. Geography is just one of those facets. Since the early 60s, the emphasis has moved from 'performance' to 'emotions.' What's important today seems to be making sure that everyone 'feels' good about themselves. No one is singled out. No one is held back, regardless of their scores. Everything is accepted, except pointing out that 'it's not working.' I wouldn't be surprised to see scores (scoring, grading, ranking) completely removed from assesments at some point. Political Correctness is now the Golden Rule. If you go back and look at charts that describe things like literacy, violent crime, abortion, divorce, etc. they all trend up (or badly) in the early 60s. As it happens, it was 1962 case of Engel v. Vital that also took God out of schools. To cite a (somewhat) famous English group: '...left to their own devices...' (Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls) |
| Thu 21 Nov 15:05 | Mac | Lydia, wait until you get to see 'The League Of Gentlemen'. Then you'll learn a bit more about England. When I was a youngster (here he goes again) I though that Americans were very stupid. Why? Becuase I had seen the film Grease and couldn't understand whay all the school kids seemed to be about 20 years old. I deduced that they must all have been kept back for 5 years because of their ignorance. |
| Thu 21 Nov 15:55 | Lydia | Oh, Mac, I can't wait! I love Alan Moore and was completely psyched when I heard it was being made into a movie. I've always loved the premise. I've heard that one of my favorite books, the Pratchett/Gaiman 'Good Omens', is going to made into a film, too - I'm so glad someone has hit on the fact that these types of movies make money! RE: Grease. That's a funny one - I can usually suspend my disbelief and get into a movie, but that was stretching it a bit too far. (ha ha) |
| Thu 21 Nov 16:02 | Mac | Sorry Lydia, I'm talking about a different League Of Gentlemen. We'll have no trouble here. This is a local shop for local people. |
| Thu 21 Nov 16:27 | John S. Rhodes | 'Well, Alan, I hate to say this about America but my experience is that the average American really doesn't know much about what is going on outside our borders.' ...most Americans don't know what is going on inside their own borders! |
| Thu 21 Nov 18:05 | Lydia | Ah, yes. Well, then. I had hoped you merely forgot the 'Extraordinary' part, as some do. I should have known better! I've tried the TV show, actually, and it is very intense. I want to laugh, but I'm too busy cringing. I much prefer the build-up intensity of something like Fawlty Towers, where I can kind of ramp up to the bits where I'm cringing and moaning with empathic pain. Hee hee. John, too funny! |
| Thu 21 Nov 23:05 | MadMan | Am I fascinated by Americans? Oh yeah, I'm fascinated by the litigious nature of its society. People will sue at the drop of a hat. :) I am also amused that when Americans use the term 'Asians', they don't include us Indians in it. I'm quite familiar with British culture because my father deals with a British company and I've grown up having British guests at home every other day. BTW, we had an entire year of school geography devoted to North America (Grade 8). How much of US geography lessons are devoted to other continents/countries? (I really want to know, not being rhetorical.) |
| Fri 22 Nov 03:55 | Alan Fisher | Lydia - the National Geographic survey wasn't self-selecting. The organisation who carried it out went out and polled a 'representative sample of young adults', so there shouldn't be any bias towards people who would be interested in the subject anyway. In the UK, we often hear stories of American's ignorance about the world outside their borders, and some of the results showed this to be true. But then, for the same questions, the results from European countries were often no better (or even worse). I'd still like to know why the best results seemed to come consistently from Sweden. As for your interest in British culture and whether it's reciprocated - well, if you ever came to the UK you'd realise that a large part of our population are obsessed with American culture, whether high or low-brow. So what has all this got to do with usability? I'd suggest that it's important that web designers and owners are aware of these kinds of differences, so that they can make sure their sites are truly usable internationally. As an example - if the web master of the AimeeMann.com site is reading this, can you put the European tour dates in European date formats please? |
| Fri 22 Nov 05:08 | James Tuddenham | On a totally trivial point, it rankles having to use the American spelling of colour in html. For dates, and our company being fairly evenly split between Europe and North America, I use largest unit of time descending to smallest unit, depicted numerically (eg 2002-11-22), that seems to be universally (un)acceptable (whenever I've used month names in place of numbers, there has been a complaint along the lines of 'This isn't how we're used to seing dates'). On the british comedy front, Steve Coogan's groteque 'I'm Alan Partridge' is a still a giant among pygmies. As Alan himself would say, 'Jurassic Park!'. |
| Fri 22 Nov 08:08 | Alan Fisher | But none of these can hold a candle to Peter Kay's 'Phoenix Nights'. However, I can't imagine any Americans even understanding it, never mind finding it funny. Think - what would Thora Hird do? |
| Fri 22 Nov 08:43 | Mac | I suggest that the best way us to reduce bad design and misunderstandings brought about by cultural and geographic differences is to make sure we talk to as many people from as many places as possible. That's why 'I Lurve WebWord !' |
| Fri 22 Nov 13:49 | Mac | Would we think of other WebWorders differently if we knew where they lived? I have uploaded a series of images showing where I live in the world. Some of these photos were only taken ten minutes ago! Now that's what I call fresh content. (There should be enough contextual information for anyone to understand where it is.) |
| Web metrics that matter | Thu 21 Nov |
| (computerworld.com) Metrics will be different from company to company. Where a retail site might be focused on conversion rate (the number of online shoppers who actually buy something), a business-to-business site might value site reliability and speed above all. |
| Thu 21 Nov 17:45 | Ron Zeno | In case you couldn't use the link to the article: QuickLink# 34499 http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/data/story/0,10801,76002,00.html |
| Fri 22 Nov 08:59 | Mac | Sorry if the link I provided didn't work. I was trying to link to the printable version so you wouldn't have those billboards spoiling your experience. Interestingly when I use the computerworld site (about once a month) I always type my search string in the damned quicklink box and then wonder why I get no results. I always see the left hand text box as the search input and the right hand text box as the advanced search input. I have never used a QuickLink, which is like referring to a person by their National Insurance/Social Security Number. I guess it was supposed to be something like CueCat. |
| Tablet PC: First Impressions | Fri 15 Nov |
| Whats exciting to me, though, is that the way Microsoft is doing this will hopefully encourage tablet-centric innovation to start again throughout the hardware and software industry, so well continue these advances, and the rate of improvement will return to what it was in the early 1990s. (Comments: Why didnt the open source community come up with a simple tablet-based operating system to beat Microsoft to the punch?) |
| Fri 22 Nov 06:52 | mcw | Open source programmers do what they like, to solve their problems. Paid programmers do what someone else likes, to solve other people's problems. |
| Fewer Employees + Same Work = Higher Productivity | Sat 16 Nov |
| (time.com) Not surprisingly, any increased productivity gleaned from the sweat of a layoff-decimated work force results in plenty of grousing. Manufacturing workers call ghost work speed-up (because the remaining employees have to hustle harder) or stretch-out (because of the longer hours). They call it productivity, says Lane Windham, an AFL-CIO spokesman, referring to management. |
| Fri 22 Nov 06:45 | mcw | Re: 'They call it productivity.' It is productivity. Productivity is a measurement, a ratio of output to input. In nearly all cases when productivity is mentioned in the press, it refers to labor productivity, e.g. how much output per unit of labor input. The emotional side of the discussion has to do with job gains and losses. Increased output per unit of labor, coupled with flat or declining demand, means lower total employment. |
| What lies beneath | Wed 20 Nov |
| (V-2) Lately, though, Im reconsidering this position; having seen a few discussions around Jeff Lashs recent article on Digital Web, I think it might be worth unpacking a few basic terms from the business domain that directly impact our work as IAs and designers. |
| Thu 21 Nov 04:42 | Mac | The components of a business plan differ from firm to firm, but the general thrust is always the same: what business are we in? The best people I come across always make a concious effort to understand the specifics needs and peculiarities of the business they are looking at rather than using jargon ridden generalities. |
| Thu 21 Nov 14:31 | boysen | Understanding the inner-workings of business -- their goals and priorites -- will always help the service bureau to service their clients. Important notion to retain. Good job Adam. |
| WebWord Comment | Wed 13 Nov |
| - Resist or love the AIfIA? The Menace? Seems like the information architecture community is on fire about the AIfIA. Im puzzled. On the one hand, what do they really want to accomplish? (Im not implying anything. Im just not clear.) On the other hand, it seems like the AIfIA is a bunch of smart folks and they just want to share the love, and move IA forward. |
| Wed 20 Nov 17:37 | Lydia | I'm ringing in late on this, but to be fair - IA is not usability, so their name choice isn't the ironic let down I first thought it was. They went for style, not necessarily instant recognition. I don't see anything wrong with the organization, and I see many things right with it. First of all, no one person is pretending to speak for the whole community (and, as far as I can tell, even the organization does not pretend to represent the community), and that (to me) is key. It could be worse - the IA community could have a Jakob Neilsen out in front of them and spend all their time trying to decide if he's a blessing or a curse. That said, I think that good (if harshly worded) points were brought up by Derik, and it looks like they are paying attention, so why be so upset? |
| Useless Usability? | Sat 16 Nov |
| Supposedly it makes computers easy to use - no, were not kidding. Chris Long has been finding out how they do apply it at that software behemoth Microsoft. & If youre going to talk usability, theres really only one man to approach - Jakob Nielsen, widely regarded as THE authority in the field. We first caught up with him two years ago but a lot has changed since then - or has it? (Comments: Listen to Brad Weed of Microsoft justify Clippy. Oh boy! Also, listen to Nielsen talk and talk about usability. He loves Google. He states that a large fraction of people cant use Windows at all, or they suffer a lot. He bashes Apple. He bashes Linux.) |
| Wed 20 Nov 17:30 | Lydia | This was actually a fairly interesting interview. I have never seen him speak. He's a forceful speaker and doesn't have any of the annoying pauses that I sort of pictured him inserting into his speech. He's like a bull with his head down - he just isn't seeing anything else except for USABILITY and how it is all-important. I don't think he'd be quite so exasperating if he would allow other points of view to seep in from time to time, taking a cue from his good buddy Don. I found their interview with the Microsoft labs guy interesting, but a little too simplified. It probably worked for their target audience, though. They did include a bit about going in to user environments and seeing what they do, but if they could have explained the significance of why this is done (i.e. seeing post-it notes and calculators next to computers, so building in those utilities to the computer) it would have been a more well-rounded report. Also, I like how the guy seems to take credit for an HCI practice that is as old as the discipline - 'We realized around 1995 that seeing them in the labs alone wasn't good enough.' Er, OK. |
| Design for Chunks | Mon 18 Nov |
| i was intrigued to see how other designers would illustrate the usually plain inflight sickbag |
| Mon 18 Nov 23:08 | Adam Greenfield | Art. |
| Tue 19 Nov 14:58 | Matt Round | There's some great design in there, shame about the poor site interface that makes browsing difficult |
| Tue 19 Nov 15:40 | Lydia | I would love to have seen this done as a serious effort, but this site is a good place for designers to get ideas for their own design. I generally enjoyed looking through them (some were just gratuitously out of place, like the 69 bag, and some were just plain weird). Some, with very little adaptation, could very well work in the industry (see Collection One's effort by Tsuyoshi Nakazako). |
| Bad Spam Filters | Sun 17 Nov |
| (JoelOnSoftWare) Heres what Id like to see: a system that delivers an email for one cent. Nobody has to use it, but if you want to get your messages through, you pay one cent and the system delivers it for you. Every spam filtering system on earth can safely whitelist all email that comes from the one cent server, because no spammer can afford the penny times the 19 million messages they send. |
| Mon 18 Nov 05:59 | Alan Fisher | A very interesting idea. Email is the one form of electronic communication which we tend to think of as free, although of course it isn't really. Changing or imposing a charging structure might be 'sellable' to email users if you could offer the prospect of a spam-free mailbox. But what about all those emails you send from work which are non-work related but your employer turns a blind eye to? Will they the treat them as they treat 'personal' telephone calls? |
| Mon 18 Nov 07:31 | (the other) JS | This may create a slight spam lag, but the spam will surge as long as it remains cheaper than physical mail. I predict the result will be spam will change to better target and sell the user. (Spam is just plain badly written on top of everything. This will change.) One cent times 19,000,000 means nothing whatsoever to spammers. The spammers look at return on the monies spent. Response rates will determine who drops out -- until they can test out a better piece of spam. There may be a shift from many sources of spam to few, but the overall number of messages sent (what you see in your box) should stay roughly the same. Should this extend to worker-to-worker spam of betting pools, jokes, inspirational quotes, trivia, non-work news events?? |
| Mon 18 Nov 09:48 | boysen | I've been an advocate of this kind of system since I first heard it discussed. I'd gladly pay my cent/per. I disagree that the amount of spam received by a 'regular' person would stay the same. The reason spammers send so many messages is because they can do it for free. These aren't the same people (except possibly the 'Get out of debt' people) send unsolicted mail to your homes. |
| Mon 18 Nov 10:21 | Kent Sievers | The author proposes no incentive for spammers to voluntarily abandon a free system in favor of one that costs them money to send their messages and make their messages more easily blocked by the recipients, nor recourse when that system is not used. Any such system would require government regulation, and therein lies its death. When you give a politician money to manipulate, it's like Frodo slipping on the ring thinking it will allow him to escape from his dilemma. Politicians are like ring wraiths; they will not stop at one cent. They have long lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong. They will tax anything to its death and spammers will seek more exploitable alternatives. That, or spammers will become a lobbying force themselves and drill huge loopholes in any protection system devised. |
| Mon 18 Nov 12:23 | Anonymous | Someone seemed to be anticipating seeing 'The Two Towers'... ;) |
| Mon 18 Nov 17:13 | (the other) JS | What about spoofing the 'good' address, giving the impression one cent was paid? Header forging? |
| Mon 18 Nov 20:50 | Kent Sievers | Actually, just watched the Fellowship DVD extras yesterday. The documentary about Tolkien includes a comparison of the ring wraiths to politicians. (Tolkien explicitly did not write analogies into the stories, but believed in 'applicability' -- finding your own comparisons in real life.) |
| Courtesy Titles - their proper use and website design guidelines | Wed 13 Nov |
| Do you need a courtesy title? Do you want one? If so, do you get the title you want? Do you think they should be confined to the dustbin of history? Did you know you could be breaking the law by making them mandatory on your website? (Comments: I enjoyed this article because it made me think about some design details that I tend to neglect and ignore.) |
| Mon 18 Nov 20:12 | Morris Cox | I prefer to be addressed by my first name. Not only is that what I'm used to being called, take a look at my last name. Some people think it's something it's not. |
| Add-Ons Add Up | Sun 17 Nov |
| (Washington Post) But fees also make it hard for consumers to comparison-shop for the best deal. The cost of the hotel room or the mail-order purchase or the rental car may compare favorably up front. But the best deal can be considerably less than best if that company is more aggressive about tacking on fees and surcharges at the tail end of a transaction or neglects to tell a consumer about them until the bill is presented. (Comments: Im sick of fees. When I see them, I ask for a justification. Im not a jerk about it. I just ask. If it isnt clear why there is a fee, I make a mental note: Do not do business with this company again. If I am forced to do business with the company, I make a different mental note: Continue to ask for a justification during every transaction and look for an alternative the next time around.) |
| Mon 18 Nov 08:36 | James Tuddenham | Too right - and as charged pre-booking is constantly promoted by the cinema chains that use it, it becomes increasingly difficult to go to see a film without incurring this extra cost and also going through the security risk of an unnecessary remote card transaction. There is a good companion article to this here from the Manchester Guardian. |
| Mon 18 Nov 09:31 | Alan Fisher | Ah, but the UK cinema chains do their best to remove this problem by making sure their on-line and telephone booking systems don't work! As I know, having spent part of the weekend trying to book tickets for the latest Harry Potter film. Perhaps they need to charge the extras to pay for the work which needs to be done to get their booking systems working properly? |