“Although it does make a reasonable anecdotal case for investing in usability, the report methodology is so fundamentally flawed that any financial analyst worth her salt would immediately question its findings. Very simply, the authors do not make a strong business case for usability?a requirement for passing the muster with the accountants and senior managers…
“Most of the Web’s content today is designed for humans to read, not for computer programs to manipulate meaningfully. Computers can adeptly parse Web pages for layout and routine processing?here a header, there a link to another page?but in general, computers have no reliable way to process the semantics: this is the home page of…
“The Complaint states that through use of such Fake User Interface (“FUI”) dialogs that gave the false appearance of being computer error messages, DoubleClick tricked millions of Internet users into interrupting the work they were performing to respond to the fraudulent error message, only to unexpectedly find both computer and computer user thus hijacked to…
“Yahoo! are integrating their services much more than Google — not only can you move from one service to the next withough inputting the search term again, but also the new dictionary service. In the query box type define egregious and you obtain a result from the American Heritage Dictionary a definition, plus you also…
“Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that’s it. Don’t use it for online presentation.” Jakob Nielsen —PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption (UseIT) I’m so conditioned to dislike PDF documents that I…
I just got this in my in box, with instructions from my division chair that all faculty members are henceforth to paste the following block of legalese into their e-mail signatures: This document may contain confidential information and is intended solely for the use of the addressee. If you received it in error, please contact…
“The European Commission report on ambient intelligence describes a fanciful scenario in which Maria, a businesswoman, arrives at a foreign airport and walks through immigration unchecked, thanks to a wristwatch computer that presents her ID and visa for validation. At the kerbside, a rental car unlocks itself as she approaches and then guides her to…
—Ahoy Desklubbers! [Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates] (Defective Yeti) An R be there on the scurvy dog of a keyboard, but where be the A? And where be the X that marks me buried treasure? Arrrr! Similar:My crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule NPCs at 130fps. I’m really pushing my coding skil…More than a million people die on…
“The 5k recognizes the roles that constraints play in creativity and discipline in craftsmanship. Please make beautiful things!” —The 5k Awards (the5k.org) 5k websites, sorted according to rating. Plenty of minimalist games. Thanks, Rosemary. Similar:This morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a mosque in Mecca. For m…My crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule…
“Speech integration technology is nothing new, as any telephone caller who has ever barked back responses to a seemingly endless series of voice prompts can testify. But an improved generation of speech integration software, based on more powerful processors and emerging Internet-focused standards, promises to make the technology more useful and cost-effective.” John Edwards —Smooth…
Steven Johnson describes the emotional interface over There. The software translates common emoticons and other abbreviations (such as LOL for “laughing out loud”) into gestures and expressions. It also automatically parses a small subset of words: If you type yes, your avatar will nod its head. Most of the time users convey emotion by typing…
“The easier it is to find places with good information, the less time users will spend visiting any individual website. This is one of many conclusions that follow from analyzing how people optimize their behavior in online information systems.” Jakob Nielsen —Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster (Alertbox) I’m guessing Nielsen has…
“But although multidisciplinary study of the media is now commonplace, it is striking how little effort has gone into examining the role the media play in the public understanding of science, which is itself, by definition, a multidisciplinary activity, though one very much still dominated by natural scientists themselves. All of this tends to reinforce…
“In the light of Microsoft rumblings about creating its own search services, we need to ask just where Google is going with a toolbar built only for a Microsoft product. Microsoft are shaping up to take Google out!” —Microsoft and the New Google Toolbar (Microdoc News) Elwyn offers his usual thoughtful critique of all things Google.…
“People often throw around the terms “objective” and “subjective” when talking about the results of a usability test. These terms are frequently equated with the statistical terms “quantitative” and “qualitative”. The analogy is false, and this misunderstanding can have consequences for the interpretations and conclusions of usability tests.” Philip Hodgson —Usability Test Data (User Focus) Similar:My…
WebWasher Jumped the Shark?Literacy Weblog) For about five years, I’ve used WebWasher — a free program that blocks ads from web pages. Since then, it’s probably saved me several days of time that I would have spent waiting for ads to download or trying to figure out how to close an annoying pop-up without accidentally…
Is this an ugly page, or what? The grey shading makes the text all but unreadable, on both my laptop’s LCD and my desktop’s CRT. (Not that I would actually register for Salon… just wanted to clear that up.) —Salon Registration: Ugly Text Similar:My crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule NPCs at 130fps. I’m really pushing…
“Can no clock chip designer figure out that no one needs to get up at exactly 6:03? If they just allowed the alarm sequence to go forward in five minute increments, instead of one minute increments, they would improve our lives immeasurably….The complexity of other people’s screens, particularly that of new users, who leave everything…
“Writing for the Web requires careful planning. Your content needs to fit well within the context of your website. When a reader finds your content, they need to be able to scan it quickly. That’s what metadata is about. In order for your website to be found, you need to write for how people search.”…
“If you know where each truck and driver is, you can use your assets more efficiently–not just the trucks, but the warehouses that are waiting for them to pick up or the recipients that are waiting for them to deliver. In retail, if you can track products more carefully you can dramatically reduce shrinkage, or…