(Comments added for week ending Sun 27 Oct 2002) | View Other Weeks
| last updated:28 Oct 2002 13: 10 Webword time, or 28 Oct 2002 18:10 UK time |
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| Webword Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 27 Oct 2002) | View Other Weeks |
| Black People Love Us! | Sun 27 Oct |
| We are well-liked by Black people so were psyched (since lots of Black people dont like lots of White people)!! We thought itd be cool to honor our exceptional status with a ROCKIN domain name and a killer website!! (Comments: The web is a great place to attack social issues. This web site does it with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Although some people will find the site distasteful, others will think it is very funny. What do you think? Are there other sites that tackle issues in a similar fashion? Thanks Brendan!) |
| Sun 27 Oct 20:18 | Pam O'Connell | This reminds me somewhat of Alllooksame.com, a site created by an Asian-American Web designer that asks visitors to look at photos of different Asian nationals (Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, etc.) to see if they can tell them apart. Obviously, Asian stereotypes are being explored on the site, but with some humor (as many of the visitors, including those of Asian background, seem to do quite poorly on the test). |
| Bayden PopupPopper | Sun 27 Oct |
| Take command of your browser... Blast unwanted popups while still allowing them from sites you trust. Banish unwanted popups forever! Unlike many other popup-removal programs, PopupPopper contains no spyware and allows you to control what gets popped and what does not. Try it and youll never go back to an unprotected browser. (Comments: Ive seen this mentioned in a couple of places. Those that use it, rate it highly.) |
| Sun 27 Oct 16:53 | Matt Round | Realistic Internet Simulator |
| Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions on Websites | Sun 27 Oct |
| (useit.com) There are two main reasons for websites to recognize holidays and special events, and both reasons fall under the same general category: To respect users as human beings, rather than simply as eyeballs or a source of e-commerce transactions. Commemorating special events is a way for websites to connect to users and be seen as welcoming environments, rather than places focused solely on money grubbing. |
| Sun 27 Oct 15:27 | Anonymous | What % of the cut does WebWord get from these referrals? If nothing, why does it persist with linking to a sales message? Discuss WebWord's credibility in promoting Useit.com. |
| Sun 27 Oct 16:06 | John S. Rhodes | [BEGIN SARCASM] WebWord gets a huge cut, something like 95%! That is why we all drive BMW's and live on the West Side. Oh, we are ridin' high on NN/Group money. Oh yes, we are livin' large, my friend. [END SARCASM] Whatever. I think it would be better if you brought up how poorly I dealt with Jack's identity theft! If you're going to attack WebWord, shouldn't you attack me on that issue? Isn't that what you are really upset about? I mean, hey, oh boy, didn't I really drop the ball on that? Um, maybe. Then again, maybe not. Soon after Jack made his request, I brought up Jack's posting on WebWord. I listened to the community and I made some decisions. I left 'Jack's' posting but since it was probably not the 'real' Jack, I removed the identify of the poster, but kept the posting. Seems like a reasonable compromise. What next? Well, we can certainly listen to the (anonymous!) poster above and discuss WebWord's credibility in 'promoting' Useit.com. (Uh, since when is a link automatically a promotion?) Go ahead, attack me, that's a fine idea. Or, we can talk about my credibility in general. I have no problem with that. Bring it on. I'll do my best to answer your questions and address the issues. The choice is yours... |
| WebWord Comment | Sun 27 Oct |
| If you want to increase purchases, is it better to give people a choice of 5 items or 30 items? Vote now! |
| Sun 27 Oct 15:34 | John S. Rhodes | Food for thought... In a World Full of Choice: Simplify 'In the Columbia University study, people took significantly more time (a scarce commodity) to make decisions when presented with 30 chocolates. They felt they had 'too many' choices. Subjects reported finding the decision-making process enjoyable, although they also thought it was difficult and frustrating. When participants were given the choice of receiving a box of chocolates or $5 as compensation for their participation, only 12 percent of those faced with 30 choices 'bought' the chocolates. Of those given only six options, 48 percent chose the chocolates.' 401(k) Choices: Too Often, More Is Less 'In fact, a clever experiment by economists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper demonstrated that customers sometimes prefer less to more. The economists set up sampling booths with either 6 or 24 flavors of jam. Substantially more customers were drawn to the vivid 24-flavor display. But a mere 3% ended up buying jam there, vs. 30% of those who stopped by the stand with only 6 flavors.' |
| IAnything Goes | Thu 24 Oct |
| (Digital Web Magazine) What is good for the user, however, is not always good for the business. Users were happy, but businesses failed. (Comments: Examples of users being happy but businesses failing?) |
| Thu 24 Oct 08:20 | fallguy | Examples: Napster, many e-commerce dotcoms who sold at massive discounts, several small Linux distributions, Betamax. |
| Thu 24 Oct 09:54 | Adam Greenfield | ...and those examples support the notion that overly close attention to user needs squeezed out business prerogatives how, precisely? Jeff's out on a limb here, logically, and to be honest I'm out there sawing away at it. As I've pointed out at iaslash and elsewhere, I can't think of a single instance in which a company allocated resources to usability or sound user-centric information architecture, the use of which resources fatally undermined that venture. Meanwhile, of course, we can each count dozens of clients who have chosen to prioritize their (perceived!)needs over that of the user. Sorry, Jeff, but I simply cannot agree, and in fact I think the piece has dangerous potential for misuse. |
| Thu 24 Oct 13:27 | Shane | I tend to agree that Jeff's article sends shudders down my spine from a purist IA/user experience perspective, but I do think there is a validity to what he's written if you look at it from a client perspective. I've been on client calls and sales presentations related to UE opportunities in which the client 'gets' the importance for ease of use, seamlessness, intuitive organization, etc. That doesn't change the fact that the reason they're even considering the project in this day and age is, nine times out of ten, based upon business drivers that relate to an increase in revenue. What I gleaned from Jeff's article was that we can't come at this type of situation from the left (strictly based upon usability/IA factors) or the right (strictly based upon business drivers). Instead, taking a centrist approach will most likely result in a solution in which both sides, user and business, are satisfied. |
| Thu 24 Oct 14:51 | George Olsen | While I agree it's hard to find examples of where taking a user-centered design strategy caused a venture to fail, I think he's right tackling a rather dangerous blindspot in our communities of practice -- the it's _all_ about the user. It's an easy to trap to fall into, because as Adam points out, we're usually trying to counteract customer/user experience strategies based on business and/or technological forces with nary a customer or user in sight. But there's a big different between being an advocate and being a zealot. Too often, I've seen people become the latter, as they tune out the other needs that have to be balanced. It's reflected in the unfortunate choice of 'user _centered_ design' as a name for what we do. I much prefer 'user-focused design,' a subtle -- potentially too subtle -- but important difference. It's the figuring out the relative focus that's inevitably the most difficult dealing with the big picture and those who do it well are more likely to be valued by business decision makers than people who just focus on the tactical issues. |
| Thu 24 Oct 20:33 | Lydia | I dunno, George. I would hate to see the term 'user centered design' get demonized. It is a good description because it doesn't mean that you put all your eggs in the user's basket, it just means that they are at the center of design considerations. Instead of thinking 'How will the CEO like this drop-down' you think 'How will User X like this drop-down?' and things like that. It helps keep the compass pointed in the right direction. 'User Focused Design', on the other hand, connotes more of an all-eggs-in-one-basket feel to me. I'm not focused only on the user. I have to take into account the needs and goals of the business, the long-term strategy, a pleasing design that helps to brand the company or product, and things like cost, availability, etc. The big difference is that I am thinking of these things along with how they can include the user. Or am I misunderstanding what you meant by User Focused? |
| Thu 24 Oct 20:42 | Ron Zeno | But there's a big different between being an advocate and being a zealot (George Olsen quoted from above) Unfortunaltely, it's hard to distinguish the advocates from the zealots. |
| Thu 24 Oct 20:46 | Frank Lynch | OK, I won't reveal any corporate secrets from where I used to work (and the contents of this post are drawn both on real-life experience as well as a lot of business reading -- no, I don't just run the World's Best Samuel Johnson Web Site, but the fact is that some websites need ad exposures and conversions from those exposures in order to make the web show some revenue. I doubt very much that any company is blind to the opportunities of cost reductions which the web represents, but when a corporation is looking to make more money, some times there is an additional burden put on the web site to create revenue. Creating revenue on the web site makes the effort look even more attractive. Now, more ad exposures usually means making people see more pages. And the most straightforward navigation and architecture inhibits that. That's a matter of fact. One could argue that repeat visits due to higher satisfaction compensates for that, but I've never seen figures either way. |
| Thu 24 Oct 21:06 | Adam Greenfield | Frank, that's exactly the instantiation I pointed out when discussing this over at Semantic - 'is that New York Times article *really* eight HTML pages long, or did they push me through that many clicks 'cause each time I do it counts as an ad impression?' I think we all know the answer, and as anyone who's actually worked in the field knows, there are *always* tradeoffs like this. The quality of my experience is marginally- to significantly decremented because there are business-model prerogratives that come first. In this case, I can live with it: it's the New York Times, after all. And quality/desirability of content is definitely a factor in making the call - as Lydia points out, a circumstance where the user is properly central to such decisions, but not to the exclusion of other valid viewpoints and prerogatives. |
| Thu 24 Oct 21:09 | Eric Scheid | Read Paco Underhill's book on shopping, and you'll realise that there are many anti-user practices which are employed to ensure business success. Remove those practices, (ie. be pro-user) and you therefore lower the viability of the business, and given an environment of very tight margins and fierce competition and this pro-user business will go bust. Could it be that we've not seen many outright examples is because most businesses are smart enough to fix their 'error' before it's too late? |
| Fri 25 Oct 06:18 | Mac | Warning: Cynicism Kicking In How about 'Profit Centered Design', or 'Cost Reduction Design' ? At least it would be more honest in many instances (at least it would in the places I work). A system is proposed that would save the company some money. But they want to dress it up, so that it doesn't sound like they're just money grubbing. They've probably got a mission statement that talks about their 'commitment to employees quality of life, customers never ending happiness... blah blah blah'. So to make it more palatable, they employ some Usability, UCD, Fun Engineer, IA, HCI person to contribute to the effort. However, the last thing they want is for the 'user advocate' to actually question the basis of any fundamental design decisions, so they make sure that they come in too late to change that situation. The professional does their work, the system gets an 'ethical sheen' and everyone is happy. Aren't they? |
| Fri 25 Oct 10:30 | Ron Zeno | Warning: Cynicism and Sarcasm How about: 'We Can Do No Wrong Design'? 'Zealot-Centered Design?' 'Just Pay Us for Whatever We Do Design'? 'Meaningless-Words-But-They-Sound-Good Centered Design'? 'I Don't Know What I'm Doing, But It Must Be Good Design'? 'I Can't Think For Myself Design'? 'Believe Me, Would I Delude You Design?' 'Deluded and Proud of It Design'? (Apologies for posting before I'm fully awake...) |
| Fri 25 Oct 10:33 | Ryan | How about: 'I Can't Believe It's Not Good Design'? |
| Fri 25 Oct 10:51 | John S. Rhodes | 'Profit Centered Design' I like it. Seriously. I really like it. First, let's assume that we are talking about corporate web sites. Next, let's assume that the corporations have the desire and need to make money. With that as the background, consider the power of using Profit Centered Design. Every company cares about money. Every person in the company, like it or not, should care (must care?) about making money. It is truly a common goal. Common goals are Good Things. Many of us have seen what happens when one group drives the web site. A marketing-driven web site might ignore usability. A usability-driven web site might ignore business issues. A CEO-driven web site might ignore quality. And so on. However, a Profit Centered Design would force all parties to look at what will benefit the company. If usability improves the site and increases profit, rock on. If marketing fluff grabs eyeballs and increases profit, that's great. The trick is to design around profits, not around users. I'm a heretic? Not so fast. I'm not saying that we ignore users. Quite the opposite in fact. If focusing on users improves the bottom line, then it is known to be the right thing. Move forward; employ usability. Everyone wins. The common goal...profit. If users suffer, well, maybe that is fine. No, strike that. It is fine. These corporate web sites aren't there to be nice. They are there to make a profit. If we can be nice to users along the way, that's great. However, if we have to add friction to a web site to increase profits, that's fine. That's appropriate. Mac, I think you made a real discovery. Design for Profit. If what folks do doesn't add to the bottom line, then it is wrong. We should all start thinking about success as profit as it is tied to design. For every change made, we should ask, will this add to the bottom line? If the change doesn't help the company, it is failure. |
| Fri 25 Oct 10:57 | Anonymous | Examples of users being happy but businesses failing Any brothel ever shut down by the pigs. |
| Fri 25 Oct 11:28 | Annoying Puff Cat | ...not so happy if they catch something nasty! |
| Fri 25 Oct 15:16 | Lydia | I like Jeff's point about Goals and ROI. I think people feel they need to prove ROI because usability is perceived as a 'throw-away' layer of site design. If we can remove that pressure and instead focus on meeting business goals with usability, I think the people that fund the paychecks will be happier. As an example: We need to get more people to complete registration, because we run advertising in our newsletter, and more numbers will get more advertisers. Usability says that if we ask for credit card information at the time of purchase rather than during registration, we won't scare as many people away from registering. So, we do that and - bingo! - registrations increase over the previous month's numbers. We met a goal, and 'proved' the ROI. |
| Fri 25 Oct 17:35 | George Olsen | Actually, Lydia you understood my sense of having an awareness of the multitude of issues perfectly -- although just to be clear, in the role of a UX person, I'd expect someone to give priority the user needs. (Likewise, I'd expect the business people and the technologist to advocate their positions, but keep in mind the users needs -- but it'll be a while before that happens, since neither group has typically been trained to take user needs seriously.) It's not really about 'will the CEO like this drop-down' but more along the lines of 'will adding this drop-down double the production costs?' or 'by putting items into a drop-down am I burying something that's critical to branding?' This doesn't mean you avoid advocating using the drop-down if that's what makes sense, but it does mean realizing that user needs get balanced against other concerns. I don't consider it 'putting all-eggs-in-one-basket,' I consider it making the shift from thinking tactically to thinking strategically. Just as after a few years in the working world graphic designers come to realize they're doing _commercial art_ (as it was once called), we need to realize that we're in the same situation. If you're doing work on commercial sites, then achieving business goals is part of the reality picture. And just like graphic designers need to balance their need to be expresive with business needs, we need to balance our need to do good for users with business goals. (BTW, I think 'business goals' is a better way to think of things than strictly 'profits,' since there are lots of business goals that aren't immediately linked to profits -- although of course profits are the ultimate aim. For example, for the site I'm working on now, the main aims are improved customer service, which in turn provides a competitive advantage, as well as reduced costs by providing online account statements rather than mailing paper statements. Clearly the latter goal is pretty quantifiable toward the bottom line. But customer service is more subjective and it's only one in a number of factors contibuting to the firm's overall competitive advantage. Yet it's effect on the bottom line is real even if it's intangible.) I'm not sure everything we do need to contribute to the bottom line -- and given the intangibility of a lot of what we do, that leads to difficulty in justifying our value -- but we certainly should avoid doing things that hurt the business goals of the folks signing our paychecks. Still this doesn't mean blinding rolling over and accepting these business goals as given. Lots of company give lip-service to listening to their customers, part of our job is getting them to actually do so -- which needless to say can be an eye-opening experience for most companies and may change their business strategies and goals. |
| Sat 26 Oct 12:34 | Frank Lynch | George: unfortunately, if efforts have intangible benefits and no clear tangible benefits, but compete for funding against efforts with tangible efforts, they don't have much chance of getting funding these days. It may take creativity to uncover the tangible benefits, but the effort will help in obtaining the funding. |
| New Microsoft cell phone: Why I just love it! | Fri 25 Oct |
| (ZDNet) You shouldnt underestimate the importance of ease-of-use in these devices. (Comments: The one thing that bothers me about ZDNet, and CNET in general, is that they spend so much time talking about Microsoft. Too much attention for one company. Bah!) |
| Fri 25 Oct 21:56 | daniel szuc | Agree. |
| Sat 26 Oct 04:23 | MadMan | The folks at the Register have rightfully slammed that blowhard Coursey for his glowing tribute to the phone when old Bill himself says they're way behind. What fun! |
| Sat 26 Oct 05:04 | Matt Round | The Microsoft phones (Microphones?) handed out to journalists are riddled with bugs (apparently one shown on UK breakfast TV crashed within minutes). I think MS will struggle with reliability, people just want their phones to work, and the ones I've seen are ugly bricks. (I've gone with a Nokia 7650 instead, Symbian has been shown to be stable and Nokia are still kings of the mobile phone interface. No built-in Web browser, unfortunately, but I bought one for $10 that's just 47KB in size and have happily browsed WebWord with it. I'm not easily impressed, but I reckon it's lived up to its hype) |
| Sat 26 Oct 05:55 | daniel szuc | Ahhh yes ... sipping his coffee at Pacific Coffee in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong on a lazy Sat afternoon *sorry folks, just a bit of context there* I have been very pleased with the Treo phone/organiser package. Although having some trouble confuring GPRS to work with my provider after the upgrade. |
| Sat 26 Oct 09:41 | John S. Rhodes | 'ZDNet columnist David Coursey, in a piece entitled New Microsoft cell phone: Why I just love it! , doesn't seem to have used it to make a call, or send a message - but he gives it a rave nonetheless.' Ha ha ha... Thanks MadMan. |
| Introducing the Microcontent Client | Fri 25 Oct |
| (Anil Dash) The primary advantage of the microcontent client over existing Internet technologies is that it will enable the sharing of meme-sized chunks of information using a consistent set of navigation, user interface, storage, and networking technologies. In short, a better user interface for task-based activities, and a more powerful system for reading, searching, annotating, reviewing, and other information-based activities on the Internet. |
| Sat 26 Oct 04:38 | Matt Round | It all sounds very interesting and useful, but I do worry about people getting carrying away with the idea that 'content' consists of little chunks of text which can be filtered, categorised and aggregated. It's a very weblog/news-junkie-centric way of thinking which is incredibly powerful when applied to pieces of structured data but can be taken too far. We still need 'megacontent' that can stand on its own two feet and is fully integrated with its visual design, stuff that can't be meaningfully reduced to chunks and neatly categorised. After all, why should even a weblog retain its full value if pulled apart into individual posts? Don't the most interesting sites rely on the context of each part of their content, how each post relates to others, an ongoing 'dialogue' with readers, etc? Sometimes there are advantages to the loosely-structured, page-based approach the Web uses, and if we're not careful we'll end up reducing our idea of what 'content' is to something resembling newspaper clippings. |
| The Dynamic Duo of Information Architecture | Tue 22 Oct |
| (WebWord) Finally, we wanted to give something back to the IA and usability communities, and to the people who have supported our efforts through thick and thin. In this spirit of generosity peppered with a touch of enlightened self-interest, we offer a free online book chapter, available exclusively from WebWord.com. (Comments: For those folks that dont know, Lou and Peter wrote Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition. In this interview they answer about 10 questions. Worth reading, I think.) |
| Thu 24 Oct 04:40 | Mac | Information architects and business strategists can't afford to work in ivory towers or be limited by narrow departmental perspectives. The authors of Strategy Safari proclaim, 'We are the blind people and strategy formation is our elephant. Since no one has had the vision to see the entire beast, everyone has grabbed hold of some part or other and 'railed on in utter ignorance' about the rest.' Swap 'strategy formation' with 'information architecture' and you've just described many of the heated debates at our conferences and on our discussion lists. And I like the 'experiment' to show where people come from to read the interview, it's right up my street. |
| Fri 25 Oct 12:42 | Peter Morville | Confession & Retraction: I asked a friend of mine at HP why they don't map 'Journada' onto 'Jornada.' Her response: 'Because you're the only one who misspells it 'journada'. ;) Really, that's the reason. The frequency of that particular misspelling is very low. We base the correction on actual mistakes made as it takes processing time to check all variations and the speed of search is a key factor in user perception of its usefulness.' Good answer! Sorry HP! I'll pick on Microsoft next time :-) |
| Scottish firm brings fragrant mobile messaging a step closer | Tue 22 Oct |
| A Scottish company is working on technology for delivering perfumes and other smells via mobile phones. (Comments: Thanks Daniel.) |
| Tue 22 Oct 20:05 | Mike Boyink | What, that whole article and no 'smell-o-phone' jokes? I'm disappointed. Honestly, this is one of those products that I fail to see the worth of. Why would I want to be sprayed with scent by my phone? |
| Tue 22 Oct 22:37 | daniel szuc | Looks like a technology for the sakes of technology ... *stand by while I send you the smell of a pizza I am currently eating* ... nup ... its still not a seller. |
| Tue 22 Oct 23:43 | MadMan | How 'bout 'you can kiss my arse, pal, and here's what my fart smells like. Enjoy!' :P |
| Wed 23 Oct 06:15 | daniel szuc | *presses receive smell button on mobile device* *sees message is from Madman* mmmm ... lovely. But usability issue is how can I cancel the *smell receive* function mid stream? |
| Wed 23 Oct 09:25 | Mike Boyink | But wouldn't this be the killer app for dogs? 'Oh yea, another voice mail from Buffy' - she smelled mad'. |
| Wed 23 Oct 14:28 | Mac | I think they're actually onto something here. I guess the idea is that you can assign different smells to different people. The teen and pre-teen market would go for this like a customs dog after some weed. Your boyfriend/girlfriend could be a 'rose', while your dad would be be represented by the 'sweat of a walrus'. Your 'A' list and 'B' list friends could be 'fresh grass' and 'hay'. And if your phone is set to 'vviibbraaaattte' and you lost it, you could phone yourself and then sniff your phone down. In fact, why cant we choose different ring tones for different incoming numbers? This may already exist. I have a mobile phone, but I have had the same one for three years and only use it about once a month, so I would probably would have missed the 'psychic link' option if it hadn't been for WebWord. |
| Wed 23 Oct 15:16 | Lydia | Mac, your relationship with your dad must be very different from mine. My Dad would be represented by Old Spice. And now I'll just sit back and wait for the inevitable 'Only old fogies wear Old Spice' comments. G'head - I've heard 'em all. It's too bad, because it's a good cologne. |
| Thu 24 Oct 00:28 | daniel szuc | Old spice - ah yes. *picture a suave looking guy enjoying the seas and winds as he rides his personal yacht on a clear blue skied day* *spashes on some Old Spice* |
| Thu 24 Oct 03:26 | Mac | Lydia, I thought Old Spice was made from the sweat of a walrus? |
| Thu 24 Oct 14:36 | Lydia | No, Mac! It is a perfectly heavenly fragrance. I don't know why it gets such a bad rap. Personally, I wouldn't mind meeting a nice guy who wears Old Spice. That new crap is too cloying. Polo? Please! |
| Thu 24 Oct 23:42 | daniel szuc | On thing for sure. Smell does give a strong emotional reaction and perhaps it is one part of the UI or UX thats missing. Think the current aftershaves have too much *citrus* and are the samish. I am an 'Aramis' man myself. |
| Fri 25 Oct 09:10 | Mike Boyink | Of course, right along with current concerns about people with epilepsy, color blindess, etc, adding scent to a UI would add a whole layer of concern over allergies and outright averse reactions to different scents and chemicals. My son came home from his first drum lesson with a phamplet about MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) - evidently the instructor suffers from this. The material claims that 15-33% of the general population suffers MCS to some degree. So thanks, but no thanks, design and QA is hard enough without yet another layer of complexity - not to mention risk of lawsuit. |
| Macromedia's Struggle | Tue 22 Oct |
| (evolt) The Flash communitydominated by designersis having a tough time adapting to the object-oriented approach of developing with Flash MX components. This leads to a realization that while the new capabilities of Flash are quite exciting, you have to be an engineer to make use of them. |
| Tue 22 Oct 11:09 | pez | I don't know whether to laugh, or to laugh. |
| Tue 22 Oct 17:55 | John Dowdell | Hi John, for what it's worth, the author has a bit of history on other issues, which I'm not at liberty to discuss. It's interesting that you picked out a quote about non-coders being unable to use the code-free Flash components (suspect in itself)... I think within that text he may have had a different message in mind. Be sure to read the comments in that evolt submission. You can tap into more of the surrounding thread in the high-volume CF-Talk list at http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=threads&forumid=4 Regards, John Dowdell Macromedia Support |
| Wed 23 Oct 13:52 | George Olsen | Aside from any personal issues the Evolt author may have, the issue highlighted in excerpt here is hardly surprising. Flash started life as an animation tool and has now grown into an interactive multimedia tool -- much as Director did before it. As you add the interactive aspects, you not only need to be a designer/animator, you also have to become a developer/programmer. (This is true even if the product tries to provide a UI-based 'programming' interface -- like some of the would-be Director-killers of yore.) The problem is most people are good at one side or the other, they're not good at both -- so it's not surprising people are bumping their heads on Flash's new programming-focused capabilities. Which is why in the bad old days of Director, you commonly had people work in pairs: someone who was design/animation-focused and someone who could do the programming. Of course there were some of us who by circumstances or by stubbornness ended up doing both, but it required an oftentimes painful learning curve to acquire skills that weren't 'natural' to you. |
| Wed 23 Oct 17:38 | Matt Round | Yeah, it's not the fault of the product, but some designers now feel a little pressured into producing applications. Ready-made components don't get you very far on their own; programming is programming, whatever the interface. |
| Wed 23 Oct 23:48 | John Dowdell | Yes, people who see themselves only as visual designers will likely have more of a task when designing programming solutions. Those who generalize their design skills beyond just visual design can usually handle both aspects more quickly. Components actually help visual designers here, because they encapsulate the coding. It's easier when you can specify what you'd like to have happen, rather than how it should occur. But let's get back to the main point: do you think 'components are hard' was the main point Matt was trying to get across? I'm still not sure myself... my best guess of his main idea is the line in his summary 'The question is whether Macromedia has climbed to the top only to fall because they are forgetting the very people who got them there,' which I think may be unanswerable without qualification of some type. Text design is another one of those big design skills too... what do *you* think his main point was...? jd/mm |
| Judge Rules That Inaccessible Website Violates ADA | Tue 22 Oct |
| A federal judge ruled that the Atlanta mass transit agency violated the ADA by constructing a website that was inaccessible for people with visual disabilities. This is one of the first cases to decide that the ADA requires online access for people with disabilities. (MadMan comments: Im not an expert on American law, but does this mean that private corporations are also bound by this ruling?) |
| Tue 22 Oct 03:18 | Kent | A different ruling seems to indicate that ADA does not apply to commercial Web sites. In this case, U.S. district Judge Seitz dismissed an ADA lawsuit against Southwest Airlines. The Judge said that the ADA applied only to physical spaces and could not be extended to apply to virtual spaces. In a 12-page opinion, the Judge indicates that there is no evidence to indicate that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are “a generally accepted authority.” The Judge further criticizes the guidelines for being more than three years old. The WCAG guidelines are issued by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which I thought was about as authorative as one could get on the Web. |
| Tue 22 Oct 04:06 | Matt Round | The WCAG could do with an update to clarify and improve certain areas, but they're generally pretty sound. HTML hasn't changed in the last 3 years, but some recommended workarounds may no longer be required I suppose. |
| Tue 22 Oct 04:57 | Julian | if you read the Cnet article and then the opinion (link in the cnet article)I read the Cnet article… and it was a bit light on the facts. So I dug a bit further and read her opinion (a good read). She points out that the MARTA case is covered under a different section of the ADA act (that covers public services as opposed to private companies). She also points out that the law covers physical public spaces, and that if she sided for the plaintiff it would “create new rights”. Don’t think that you can keep designing sites without thinking about the ADA forever! It is only a matter of time before lawmakers get around to rolling the internet into the ADA. |
| Tue 22 Oct 09:08 | Anonymous | It is only a matter of time before lawmakers get around to rolling the internet into the ADA. That gives me another 50 years of safe harbor. Whew! |
| Tue 22 Oct 10:04 | Frank Lynch | As best I could tell from the CNET areticle, the issue with the South West Airlines site was failure to include alt tags on images? A change like this is something that one can easily do as they revise pages - - and ultimately come into compliance just through attrition of old pages. |
| Tue 22 Oct 17:56 | Lydia | This is funny: http://mail.asis.org/pipermail/sigia-l/2002-October/002848.html |
| Wed 23 Oct 15:11 | Lydia | Whoops, sorry, just noticed I posted that here. I meant this to go on another post! :P |
| Google sued by search optimism company | Tue 22 Oct |
| Google Inc has been sued by a search engine optimization company, which claims Google deliberately altered its ranking when it realized the SEO company was competing with it. Search King Inc, of Oklahoma City, wants an injunction and $75,000 damages for alleged loss of business. (MadMan comments: I have two things to say - a) Doesnt Google have the right to tweak their algorithm to their liking? b) I find it hilarious that The Register used optimism instead of optimisation in their headline.) |
| Wed 23 Oct 00:17 | Wild Bill | These so called 'search optimisation' tricksters are the ones that started meta keyword spamming and are a search engine's worst enemy. It is not the quality of content in what the user sees, but what you can fool the search engine into seeing.. Why should a quality site get a worse ranking compared to an optimised and wholly useless site? |
| Wed 23 Oct 05:10 | Matt Round | They probably got hit particularly hard as the tweaks seem designed to reduce the effectiveness of 'link farms'. Although with all this publicity and linking I'm sure they'll shoot back up again. In my day job we regularly have to try to keep clients away from SEO firms promising guaranteed improved placement, money back guarantees, etc. etc.. We tend to liken them to dodgy diet plans promising miracle weight loss pills and potions. Want to know the 'secrets' of SEO for free? 1. Have well-written, useful content (including effective page titles) 2. Make the site fully accessible to non-visual browsers (use valid structural HTML, links that don't depend on JavaScript/Flash, etc.) 3. Use simple, human-readable URLs 4. Encourage inbound links (but don't compromise site quality by blindly giving reciprocal links, and always promote sites with care, don't become an irritant) And that's about it. What's good for users generally looks good to search engines, and any tricks are just as likely to do harm as good. |
| Wed 23 Oct 12:55 | MadMan | Of course, the Slashcrap, er, Slashdot crowd have jumped all over this. |
| Wed 23 Oct 13:04 | Matt Round | Browsing the (Score:5, Funny) comments on Slashdot is always somewhat amusing (although not in the way the authors intended, of course). |
| Wed 23 Oct 15:10 | Lydia | Freud would have been proud of the headline. |
| WebWord Comment | Thu 17 Oct |
| Im facing a dilemma. Jack Schonchin used to post comments on WebWord all of the time. Then he stopped posting. However, he does spend time here. Unfortunately, it looks like someone is posting comments using the name Jack with Schonchin as part of the (apparently bogus) email address. Someone, presumably the real Jack Schonchin, posted this comment today: John, I still read this site, but I do not post. Please remove the above post that I did not author and any future posts made by a Jack using my yahoo.com address. Thanks. So, here are the problems. First, I can tell from the IP addresses that the two postings are coming from different machines or devices. But, does that really mean that these are two different people? Second, how can I easily set up Movable Type to prevent this issue in the future? Is it even possible? And easy? Third, do you think I should eliminate the posting because someone is (sort of) using Jack Schonchins information? Does he have this right? If yes, how do I really know I am really serving the true Jack Schonchin? Fourth, have you seen identity theft issues before? In blogs? If so, provide references. I need help figuring out this puzzle. All input and feedback is appreciated. One last thing. This might be worth talking to other people about. If you would like to write up an article on identity theft and blogs, let me know. Thanks! |
| Mon 21 Oct 16:09 | Chui Tey | MovableType has a Trackback feature, which allows users who have their MT blogs to comment on another blog and have that comment appear as a link. This would bypass the issue of identity theft, since users who may be concerned about it could post on their own blog and thus protect their own reputation. The other alternative would be to make passwords optional. This is very common in IRC, where identity theft can be an issue. This approach allows a user to optionally associate a password with a username. eg. Post your comment. Name [ ] Password (Optional) [ ] Email Address [ ] URL [ ] |
| Wed 23 Oct 06:41 | Adam Greenfield | I'm not sure Jack had a reputation capable of being damaged, in all honesty. Given his curmudgeonly persona (displayed above, or else imitated by a note-perfect mimic), I can only imagine that any words written by an imposter would shed a more attractive light on the name. |
| Usability must die? (SIGIA-L) | Sun 20 Oct |
| I think the fact that s/he cant count not to mention spell or capitalize properly says volumes about the rest of the observations., says Cinnamon. ...ironically, Chris uses Jakobs own dogmatic and extreme titling style, say Jess McMullin. Probably not much argument from our little fenced-in garden here at SIGIA on this point. Too bad usabilitymustdie.com doesnt allow comments., says Andrew Otwell. All these comments were made on the SIGIA-L mailing list about UsabilityMustDie.com, run by Chris McEvoy (Mac to us Webworders). (MadMan comments: Since Macs site doesnt allow comments, Im creating this entry so the SIGIA-l folk can post them here.) |
| Mon 21 Oct 05:11 | Mac | And here are some links to other 'public' comments about UMD: Adam Greenfield - 18 Oct Christina Wodtke - 17 Oct Rob Steiner - 17 Oct Alain Robillard-Bastien - 15 Oct Beth Mazur - 14 Oct Eszter Hargittai - 26 Jul WebWord - 3 Jun Underscore - 16 Nov 2001 |
| Tue 22 Oct 17:38 | Lydia | I'm not saying this just because I like Mac a whole lot, but I like UMD because it is the type of feedback that keeps the rest of us on our toes. He's not the only one who has/had a (legit) negative opinion about Usability. Plenty of bozos took advantage of companies that didn't know any better and were frantic because they thought they were losing potential business with unusable websites. It's just like anything else - if you aren't careful and you don't make up your own mind about something, you can easily get hoodwinked by new technology and by consultants who aren't above board. I like people who have a healthy mistrust of the practice of usability. It just gives me an opportunity to show them what I know, put their mind at ease, and get them feeling good (and in control) about applying usability to their development process. This can only be a good thing. |
| Usability through bio-feedback | Mon 21 Oct |
| Euro RSCG Circle, a London based web marketing agency... is introducing techniques more commonly seen on a cinema screen to measure the effectiveness of sites. Using a technique known as bio-feedback, it has been wiring up willing guinea pigs to sensors measuring their heart rate and skin conductivity (basically, how much they sweat) as well as training a video camera on their face to record their expressions. The technology is roughly the same as that used in lie detector tests. (MadMan comments: How reliable do you think this method will be? Do you think youd get agitated enough on an unusable site for this technology to be effective? I probably would get more annoyed as I got deeper into such a site, but if I left after just seeing the homepage, perhaps not.) |
| Mon 21 Oct 06:53 | Mac | So a set up that looks like a ramshackle set from a 1950s B-movie could actually result in improvements to user satisfaction by a factor of up to 10, according to Coburn. In the example of thetrainline.com mentioned in this article, users stress levels could be reduced mainly by explaining the 'choice' of tickets and prices, as well as employing another 100 people in their call centre. Although in their defence if you visit a train station in the UK and watch people in the queue at the ticket office you will see a lot of stress being exhibited. Most websites obviously don't want to raise users' stress levels to a crescendo What about the ones that do? If my stress levels don't rise when I am visitng WebWord then I think it's a bit of a slow day. I would like to see some usability research based on the Star Sign of the users. Or perhaps do something based on colour theory or phrenology. |
| Mon 21 Oct 07:03 | Anonymous | Look like another way to scam people with pseudo-science. |
| Mon 21 Oct 11:27 | Anonymous | They don't even appear to know what biofeedback is. Given that usability testing is unreliable, and polygraph testing is unreliable as well, what happens when you combine them? Anything more than an impressive-looking test that may fool the credulous? |
| Mon 21 Oct 11:42 | John S. Rhodes | 'Given that usability testing is unreliable, and polygraph testing is unreliable as well, what happens when you combine them?' Example: Usability = .5 reliable Polygraph = .15 reliable Combined = .075 reliable (Sarcasm) Nice! (/Sarcasm) |
| Google Compute | Fri 18 Oct |
| Google would like to request your help on Google Compute, a new feature for the Google Toolbar. By turning on this feature, you can allow your computer to work on complex scientific problems when it would otherwise be idle. The work it does is automatically sent via the Internet to researchers who combine it with information sent by thousands of other users. (Comments: So I started up my browser and look what I saw, a link to Google Compute. Sounds like SETI@home and distributed.net.) |
| Mon 21 Oct 10:32 | Joshua Kaufman | How user focused is Google Compute? What does it do for me? More signs of feature creep? Who's to say what Google can compute on my computer? |