“Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org ), a community-built multilingual encyclopedia, is announcing that the English edition of the project has reached a milestone of 100,000 articles in development…. Wikipedia is a public WikiWikiWeb, a website where anyone can edit any article at any time. Users build upon each other’s edits, and vandalized articles are quickly repaired by…
“Rightly or wrongly, record companies are detested by politicians (for corrupting youth), by webcasters (for demanding royalties), and by their customers (for inflating prices). Musicians and songwriters are famous for loathing the labels… Radio and MTV aren’t in the industry’s corner… And the electronics industry’s attitude toward the labels is summed up by an Apple…
Minimally Invasive Education: “This is a system of education where you assume that children know how to put two and two together on their own. So you stand aside and intervene only if you see them going in a direction that might lead into a blind alley.” Sugata Mitra put a computer with a high-seed…
“Not so many decades ago, you couldn’t buy or legitimately connect your own phone or other telecom equipment to the public telephone network in the United States…. Virtually everything related to telephone communications had to be leased from the local monopoly phone company, which also performed all installations and maintenance. Remarkably, it was even prohibited…
Women in Bangladesh who fold their saris filter out more of the disease-carrying organisms that cause cholera than the women who filter through unfolded cloths, or who don’t filter at all. While folding saris to make eight layers filters out almost all of the harmful organisms, this method means that women gathering water had to…
“Most writers know the value of an informative title, but many beginning web authors don’t know that each web page needs two kinds of titles. The in-context (IC) title always sits at the top of a page, with the rest of the document immediately beneath it…. The out-of-context (OOC) title is frequently displayed by search…
“An act of reading electronic language involves: Setting up an electronic language environment; Selecting particular input into the electronic text; Receiving the output; Analyzing what the electronic text does.” —Someone Writing about Their Reading of GoogleTechnacy Weblog) I’m reminded of Espen Aarseth’s definition of Cybertext — a system that includes not only the array of…
“The MetroCard Vending Machines in New York’s subways are a classical case of programmer-directed hierarchical menu hell, forcing the user to make choices without knowing the consequences, and throwing the user off altogether at the smallest problem. With a little careful thought, we are able to improve the interaction considerably, while at the same time…
“The look ‘n’ feel of your website is important. However, it is less important than your text-based content. In most commercial websites, the role of the traditional graphic designer is relatively minor. The role of the information architect is central. The role of the editor and author is critical.” Gerry McGovern —How important is the…
I’ve worked hard on this document; can you help me meet my deadline? Please tell me what you like about it — I’ll feel so affirmed and flattered. If you get stuck, or hesitate, I will tell you what to do, so we can get through this testing faster. If you start making any serious…
“As the Web grows, websites continue to come up with ways to annoy users. Following are ten design mistakes that were particularly good at punishing users and costing site owners business in 2002.” Jakob Nielsen —Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2002UseIT) Quibble: Stating that “websites continue to come up with ways to annoy users”…
“In the real world, everything you put into space is going to be visible to visitors by default. The designer of the space has to choose to hide something. With an information space, everything is hidden by default. The only parts of the space visitors can see are those the designer has chosen to reveal.”…
“Internet-based surveys, although still in their infancy, are becoming increasingly popular because they are believed to be faster, better, cheaper, and easier to conduct than surveys using more-traditional telephone or mail methods. Based on evidence in the literature and real-life case studies, this book examines the validity of those claims.” Matthias Schonlau, Ronald D. Fricker,…
You may have heard that an early version of computer translation software took the input “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” and changed it to “The whisky is strong, but the meat is foul.” Or maybe it was “Out of sight, out of mind” translated to “Invisible idiot.” Or maybe the mistranlsated…
A series of pictures describing how usability professionals would handle the “blinking 12:00” VCR problem. Quite amusing. —Usability Review of a VCRUsabilityMustDie.com) Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Things Past #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 8) Odo confronts his reputation as a…Trials and Tribble-ations…
I admit it… once I started stumbling across my own name on the Internet, I began using Google to find out who has linked to me and how my visibility compares to that of other people whose names I come across. Now Userati automates all that pesky ego-surfing, and even quantifies the result. Userati uses…
“I’m not so nerdy as to suggest that you read Harry Potter as an idea manual for next-generation product development. But the books are filled with examples of products that we’ll soon be able to build, and they do provide some idea of what it might mean to embody awareness in the physical world. ”…
Why would anyone want to consult Allied Computing (“Due to our unique location in Kalispell Montana, Allied Computing is able to offer zero sales tax on all purchases. We also consider trade-ins and trade ups on most new and some used computer systems.”) while researching religious aspects of birth control? And if Allied Computing has…
“The link is the basic element of hypertext, and researchers have long recognized that links provide semantic relationships for users. Yet little work has been done to understand the nature of these relationships, particularly in conjunction with the purposes of organizational/informational Web sites. This paper explores the semantic and rhetorical principles underlying link development and…
“Would I open a huge document-say a PDF book chapter from Amazon? I don’t know. What do I want on my computer versus what do I want bookmarked access to? I don’t know. Here’s what I do know: I need help in managing my attachments and getting more value from the megabytes of media material…