By the way, this will be my last blogger blog. No fooling. Going grey. Sorry Ev, I love your product and I love what you've done, but I need more power and control... and I'm not afraid to chmod if I have to.
From: Gleanings
To: Trusting Fools
Subject: Gleanings: lies lies lies
OPENING THANG
Got my canon s100 digital elph today. I had originally gone to mysimon.com and researched a ton of the stores. I chose one that had a high service rating and a low price-- xtremeshopper.com. Ten days later, no camera having arrived, I called them up.
They explained that they didn't have it in stock, but if I wanted to upgrade to a combo pack including an ac adapter, they could ship it to me. It would still take about 7-10 days, unless, of course, I wanted to pay for overnight shipping. I went to the website as the sales man made his spiel. The elph was labeled "available" not out of stock, or available in 2-5 days. I told the sales man that. He then explained to me their stocking system involving a serious of primary and secondary warehouse each with their own set of rules about what can be shipped. I said:
"I don't care"
I said
"If your website says you have it, and you don't have it, you are lying to me."
I said
"If I call and you say you don't have what I want, but I can spend more to get something else, I call that bait-and-switch. I call that fraud."
I said
"Cancel my order."
Then I went to outpost.com, and ordered the elph, spending about a hundred bucks more. However there was no cost for overnight shipping and no tax... I ordered at four p.m. and the airexpress guy came at ten a.m. the next morning.
Who do you think I love? Where do you think I'll shop next time?
**How Many Lies Can You Find In One Direct Mail Piece?
http://joel.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$313
DESIGN MATTERS
**Design for Buyers (webword.com)
"In e-commerce, usability is important, but it isn't always enough to convert users to buyers. Why? Because even if a user can easily buy something on your Web site, it doesn't mean that they will buy. Users don't go to your Web site to be sold. They go there to buy. Your site needs to give them guidance and information so that they can be confident enough to buy a product. "
http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-3885-8-5137320-1.html
USABILITY MATTERS
**'Polite, Personable' Error Messages
"In The Media Equation, Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass suggest that even text-only interfaces are experienced by humans as having some "personality". The author reports on how she tried to apply this research in editing error messages for two different software products. Her goal was to tune product personality in ways that helped users and their perception of the software, while reducing possible negative effects. "
http://www.stc.org/pics/usability/newsletter/9801-errormessages.html
MARKETING MATTERS
**Beyond the BANNER
"Web sites to bombard surfers with more sophisticated and intrusive ads"
Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/26/BU108222.DTL
**Slow Adoption of New Ad Sizes
"Web publishers in no hurry to adopt Internet Advertising Bureau standards. "
http://www.business2.com/content/channels/marketing/2001/03/26/29020
NEWS & COMMENTARY
**A New Face (and Heart) for the Mac
"The result is almost everything Mac fans could wish for: a gorgeous, easy-to-navigate and virtually crashproof operating system that makes previous consumer systems, like Mac OS 9 and Windows Me, look like hand-cranked antiques."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/29/technology/29STAT.html
High Court Mulls Copyright Case
"In New York Times Co. vs. Tasini, publishers squared off against writers on the issue of digital rights – and at least 2 justices seemed to side with the writers. "
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,23199,00.html
**Bettors Find Online Gambling Hard to Resist
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/29/technology/29GAMB.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
**Fun! A flowchart showing the history of the Unix flavors.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/unix/history.html
**Media Nugget featured this-- thing. Call it an example of flash in the wrong hands, call it a cure for the worst cute-aholic, call it a sign that we are entering the times at the end of the world. But chose the flash movie, and don't skip the film.
http://www.mrwinkle.com/
**love coffee? contribute. (davezilla.com)
http://www.javalosophy.com/
From: Gleanings
To: Busy Little Typists
Subject: Gleanings: I get mail, lots of mail
OPENING THANG
**Vincent O'Keeffe writes to tell me Nua has gone under.
For years now I have gotten their weekly internet survey newsletters. Though their data I watched France move from Minitel to the web, Britain transformed by freeServe, saw new countries join the web, trends come and go-- they gave me a window into the world beyond the USA's navel-gazing internet culture. I'm saddened. http://www.nua.ie
**Adam wrote up an interesting look at the spread of a meme, and the attempt to co-opt it by advertising. Check it out.
All your meme are belong to us
http://www.v-2.org/ayb.html
DESIGN & IA MATTERS
**Kirk writes: Cool New Digital Color Wheel Software
"ColorTheory enables designers to quickly analyze hundreds of color schemes while working with
existing logos and artwork."
http://www.toolfarm.com/headlines_detail.shtml?template=headlines_detail.html&fkey=id&fval=184
Demo and instructional videos:
http://www.toolfarm.com/headlines_detail.shtml?template=headlines_detail.html&fkey=id&fval=183
Wacky new way to input text on wireless
http://www.nscribe.co.uk/
USABILITY MATTERS
**George points out
"Usability is the next challenge for the net"
The New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=178612&thesection=technology&thesubsection=general
This article made me giggle-- this wacky usability thing is the latest rage!
NEWS & COMMENTARY
**The Sound and Fury Persists
The RIAA accuses Napster of using the most porous filter possible. The song-swap service says record companies are partly to blame. The whole mess goes back to court April 10.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,23166,00.html
**Salon: Who is spying on your downloads?
"The newest tactic is surveillance. Increasingly, the recording industry is watching individual users on any given peer-to-peer network, using programs like Copyright Agent and Media Tracker to discern who is downloading what and when."
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/03/27/media_tracker/index.html
**Mike K. points out: A Bright Future for Displays
"Organic light-emitting diodes are gearing up to challenge LCDs, with supersharp screens that bring video to your cell phone. And that's just the beginning. "
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/apr01/johnstone.asp
**Consumers in U.S. Regain Confidence
"American consumers shook off their winter malaise this month, a private report indicated on Tuesday, lending support to a stock market that had been gripped with fears of an impending recession."
http://www.iht.com/articles/14970.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Tom points at: "This is what happens when Kai power tools falls into the wrong hands. Check out the interfaces collection."
http://www.ozones.com/
Crab Cakes with Avocado Salad, Bon Appetit
http://www.epicurious.com/ego/crab_cakes
wondering where to surf to?
linkedup
From: Gleanings
To: candles on the cake
Subject: Gleanings: You say it's your birthday...
OPENING THANG
I ordered a birthday gift for my husband from amazon.fr the other night, and was amazed at how easy it was. I don't speak much French, and sure didn't need to. The familiar comfortable Amazon interface was identical. Even the confirmation emails are identical. Try it yourself.
Many folks wrote me to point out kottke's permalinks (personal sites are exempt from usability rants, btw). Now it's time to go after peterme. Come on Peter, you know you love it when people link to you...
DESIGN & IA MATTERS
woo hoo! we love myth debunking. (hannahodge.com/blog)
"Many powerful myths exist for software developers on the role of design, specifically the design of user interfaces. Drawing on 13 years of experience in the field of user interface design, Paul Smith describes and debunks these myths."
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/us-myth.html?dwzone=us
Design Is Kinky (littlegreenfootballs.com)
http://www.designiskinky.net/
DIK point to this site, asking "Is green the new black?"
http://www.surfacemedia.com.au/
No, gray is the new black, and green is the new orange.
Evolution of Alphabets (rebeccablood.net)
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~rfradkin/alphapage.html
STATISTICAL MATTERS
new pile of stats from nua.ie
Pew Internet & American Life: Americans clued in on dotcom downturn
"Most Americans blame greedy investors and poor business models for the
dotcom meltdown, according to the latest report from the Pew Internet
& American Life Project."
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356570&rel=true
Gartner Group: B2B will grow despite economic downturn
"Although the economic downturn will negatively affect the growth of
B2B, Gartner predicts that the global B2B market will still be worth
USD8.5 trillion in 2005, up from USD433 billion last year."
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356584&rel=true
Nielsen NetRatings: Travel sites alone in January success
"Almost a third of B2C transactions in the US in January 2001 were
carried out at travel sites."
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356585&rel=true
NEWS & COMMENTARY
A Primer in Diffusion of Innovations Theory
"Some inventions 'take the world by storm' (archetype: the Sony Walkman). Others seem to fail, lie dormant for decades, but when 'their time has come', their use grows quickly, even explosively "
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/SOS/InnDiff.html
Global Stock Markets Rally
"Stock markets rallied around the world Monday as many investors judged that the sharp declines of recent weeks had been overdone."
http://www.iht.com/articles/14801.html
Snooping on the Couch Potatoes
A watchdog group says TiVo isn't forthright about how much data it collects and distributes on subscribers' boob-tube habits.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,23132,00.html
Our Data-Driven Economy
Corporate America's obsession with research and technology is producing reams of data. Making sense of it all isn't easy – but it's key to survival.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22841,00.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Matt writes "Nice Diversions, Number 547. Found via rhizome"
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/apartment/index.html
How to dance (designiskinky.net)
I could watch this for hours
http://home.earthlink.net/~zefrank/invite/swfs/navigation.html
beats hostels (rebeccablood.net)
"It's a familiar enough story: Young university student, bright, adventuresome, desperate to see the world. The only problem of course, was the money worry.
But here comes the twist. Ramon Stoppelenburg, a journalism student at the Windesheim University in Zwolle, Netherlands, decided to finance his trip by setting up a Web site asking people around the globe to put him up for a day."
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/netherlands010323_web.html
from epicurious
http://www.epicurious.com
RECIPE: PAN BAGNAT
Been thinking a lot about rules put forth by gurus. A woman recently put forth a post on the SIGIA list about how some higher-ups came back from a conference with a bag full of rules she was now expected to live by. They included:
1. "3 goals of a site have to be identified to determine the direction and voice for the site"
2. "There should only be a maximum of seven links on each page, more than that and we lose the user. It's just too many choices."
3. "Users won't click on items they believe are advertisements. Banner ads only work if they appear on the right side of the page."
4. "Users are trained to respond to "blue" or underlined items on a site to get somewhere else.
5. "There is no need for a button and a text click through (to the same page) on the same page."
Each of these "rules" is derived from a larger, smarter principal that someone has apparently determined is too complex for the idiots building websites.
Let's take a look:
1. "3 goals of a site have to be identified to determine the direction and voice for the site"
Let's translate this one: determine the goals of the site before you start building it. Goals need to come form multiple sources:
What are the business goals? (customer loyalty? investor excitement?)
What are the engineering goals? (easy to maintain? extensible?)
What are the sales goals? (more banner space? Customized pages for cobranding opportunities?)
What are the marketing goals? (reinforced branding?)
What are the user's goals?(I want to learn? find? buy? I need it to load fast? Work on my 3.0 browser?)
It's called requirements gathering, and no site should be built without it.
New rule: Do requirements gathering before you start designing a site
2. "There should only be a maximum of seven links on each page, more than that and we lose the user. It's just too many choices."
A better way to look at this would be "not everything can be the most important thing on a page" A page has to have a visual hierarchy and organization to make sense. Which means somebody gets to have their stuff in the top left corner of the homepage, and someone gets be below the fold. It is important to understand user tolerance of information but people can take a lot more than one might suppose if it is designed well. And sites with only seven links often look empty (I've seen this in user testing) belying the wealth of content that lies below.
New rule: Prioritize your page elements. Design a clear page hiearchy.
3. "Users won't click on items they believe are advertisements. Banner ads only work if they appear on the right side of the page."
It doesn't matter where you put the ads, if people think they are worthless they won't click it. I found the eyetracking study very interesting-- it showed people's eyes were looking at banners. yet Neilsen's banner blindness study showed people have no memory of seeing ads. To me that suggests that some lovely tiny bit of people's brains is quickly taking everything in, deciding what is valuable and trashing what isn't.
What is quite more valuable is designing ads that show the value of whatever is being offered and place them where they have meaning. So ads for a credit card don't make much sense on a greeting card site, but ads for flowers, chocolate, etc do. especially when placed at that important "susceptible moment"-- you've just sent a card.. don't you want to send a present too?
People don't want to be offered stuff they don't want. it's as simple as that.
New rule: Make ads contextual and meaningful whenever possible
4. "Users are trained to respond to "blue" or underlined items on a site to get somewhere else."
They were. and then every site on the web changed the rules (except maybe Jakob).
They key principal here is "make a link look clickable" make it a different color, make it a button, underline it-- do something to say "click me."
I've been in a lot of tests recently where people used "Braille" to find links-- they ran their mouse across the page and watched for the hand to show up. Kinda of a cruel thing to force users to do, no?
see earlier post on links
New rule: make links look clickable. Don't make non-links look like links
5. "There is no need for a button and a text click through (to the same page) on the same page."
I'm going with a flat "no" on this one: I think the real issue is "Should you have multiple ways to get to the same page on the same page." In a recent usability test of a large entertainment site, you could get to each piece of content by clicking on the thumbnail, the headline or the "click here" link that appeared after a short description. Some users used the image, some the title and some the "click here" link. None of them hesitated or were confused as to where to link-- I believe because each found a link they recognized would work for them.
I recently was shopping for a cd, and couldn't figure out how to purchase it. There was no "buy now" button. However the price was linked to the shopping cart. I didn't know that, and I started clicking randomly on things until I managed to hit the price link. Bah.
Why did I put up with this frustration? Honestly, it was the cheapest price on this particular cd. If it wasn't, I would have just bought it from Amazon.
New rule: support different people's ways of doing things (support different mental models)
Got an expert's pronouncement you need debunked or re-interpreted? write me
Hungry for more? IBM has a terrific article that goes after "the rules" of software design: Debunking the myths of UI design.
From: Gleanings
To: Clickers
Subject: Gleanings: fair to partly bloggy.
OPENING THANG
A quiet weekend, and the few things I had to do got cancelled. What a pleasure. As well as long walks, a movie and a trip to the flea market, I wrote like crazy in the blog.
http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/index.html
As an experiment, this Gleanings is made up 97% of blogs. (it would have 100%, but I get interesting mail...)
DESIGN & IA MATTERS
Funny and engaging article on using flash well (xblog.com)
"My name is Squid Vicious and I'm a Flash-aholic."
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2665825,00.html
A step-by-step guide to making icons (giantant.com/antenna/)
http://www.iconfactory.com/howto_home.aspfrom http://www.iconfactory.com/
Mini interview is with Bryan Boyer
http://www.kottke.org/
Usability rant on Jabber, from Matt Haughey (theobvious.com)
http://a.wholelottanothing.org/archived.blah/3/01/2001/#494
Some Thoughts on Design for Mobile/Wireless Devices (peterme.com)
http://www.peterme.com/
A List Apart (zeldman.com)
"Three web designers discuss trendiness and innovation in design, and list 15 sites that made a difference in the year 2000."
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/declination/
TECH MATTERS
Building the (New) Webmonkey Toolbar (captaincursor.com)
"So after years of procrastinating I finally wrote the documentation to the dropdown Webmonkey toolbar. Enjoy."
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/12/index1a.html
EMS (zeldman.com)
"A discussion at Little Green Footballs explains again why stylesheets that use ems, with the best intentions in the world, often produce web pages that are illegible for many readers."
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php?y=1&x=archives/00000214.htm
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Mike, apparently living off a diet of cotton candy, has been in a happy place all week. Start on Monday the 16th, stop when you hit the naked lady.
http://www.biggerhand.com/
of maybe he just read this (camworld.com)
http://members.aol.com/maxxdaddy/mw3/weird.txt
this is where I leave blogs for my mail...
From the fucked company newsletter:
"I'll now be donating a large percentage of Fuckedcompany's unsold
inventory to non-profit organizations. That's non-profit BY CHOICE -- the
organization must have only charitable intentions."
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/
From George:
1040 for dot-com employees:
http://www.thoughtpolice.com/bayboyz/1040DotCom.gif
And thinking of the darkside of online dating... Be afraid, be very afraid.
http://www.psychoexgirlfriend.com/voicemails.html
I know there is a metaphor here, but why would I do that to a bunch of perfectly good lemons?
The experts state links should be blue and underlined. However, they don't realize they are too late to try to enforce this: more websites have flaunted the convention of blue underlines than have respected it, and now users basically are in a constant state of not knowing what is a link and what is not. The situationis not hopeless, though.
Because almost all major commercial sites flaunt the blue underlined rule, anything underlined or in a different color in a body of black text will be suspected to be a link. There are other conventions that have slowly arisen, mostly due to website designers tendency to copy anything successful (before you write me to tell me I'm a jerk for saying this: a. yes, I know it's your boss who makes you do it and b. good artists borrow, great artists steal.)
Some of these successful new conventions include:
(based on observations made during usability testing of a number of different sites)
Links Want To Be Links is an article that is both insightful and bizarre. It pushes the idea that links should be typically blue and always underlined, and image borders must be left on
(I've never seen anyone who used the web post-lynx who cared if images had borders or not. In fact, a typical surfer clicks all images, so you might as well link them all).
The article gets truely weird when the author suggests that different kinds of links should be in different typefaces. I started to consider buying the The Non-Designer's Design Book for the author of the article, Jukka Korpela. He uses so many colors, font sizes and font faces throughout the article, I found it extremely difficult to read, and even though I knew his philosophy was underlines=links, I couldn't help but run my mouse over the green and blue words he colored for emphasis. (Is the bold tag broken? or if he's that old school, how about the em tag...)
I felt like I was reading a 5th grade girl's letter, full of i's topped with hearts, items underlined three times and six exclaimation points at the end of each sentence. Really!!!!!
Hey Otwell responds to the Learning From The Sims article that opens with a slam at IA.
We were discussing this at the IA Cocktail hour. Turns out an IA had written to her and discovered the author had had a bad experience with a certain "east coast firm" that left her with a bad taste of IA in her mouth. I've heard other stories about these people who have terrorized clients and designers with their auteur behavior. They are giving IA's a bad name as bullies who push others around with their jargon and attitude. I'm sorry to say we occasionally see this in certain west coast firms also...
You know who you are.
Cut it out.
1. The client knows their business. Really. You didn't go to business school. You didn't spend x years studying hardware or book auctions or teen clothes buying habits. You may have spent a week in discovery doing so, but your client probably still knows more. Listen to them closely. Respect their opinions. If you disagree, instead of fighting try listening and asking questions.
2. The designers know their business. They went to design school. They came to the company and have probably lived through a few redesigns. Again, listen to what they are saying. They may know why you "just can't use a dropdown menu there". Collaborate. If designers understand how choices were made in your architecture, they will reflect that in their designs. If they don't, they'll do as they see fit-- as they should.
3. You know your business. You have no need to show off by using a web of complex words. If a client doesn't know what a heuristic is, go ahead and call it an expert review. Don't say, "we're going to do a cognitive walk through" say "we're going to walk through each part of your site and write down any problems we think visitors to your site will have." Same for wireframes, taxonomy, conceptual model...
4. Educate, don't dictate. Never say "that's how it has to be," take the time to explain how you came to your decision. If you dictate, what happens when you leave the project? The client is left with a bunch of mysterious documents they never really understood. I've heard a lot of IA's pondering why client x never used their solution for this or that... there are probably a lot of reasons for that, but I'll bet one is they never really understood why the solution the architect came up was a good one.
From: Gleanings
To: Lazyboys
Subject: Gleanings: It's friday, it's friday
OPENING THANG
It's Friday, which means gleanings is less relevant than ever! Because you would all rather watch quicktime movies and read modern humorist than learn about usability on a Friday, right? Well, I dig you, fellow babies! "Apropos of nothing" is chock full of meaningless goodies. Just scroll past these silly "work links" Oh-- after you watch jath, of course!
Part two of "how I met my husband" (TODAY ONLY!)
How to go from moron to babe: one word. motorcycle.
http://www.jath.com
DESIGN MATTERS
my latest favorite blog
http://www.emdezine.com/designwritings/index.shtml
Machine Beauty : Elegance and the Heart of Technology
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/046504316X/eleganthack
a visual language. sugar coated pictograms
http://www.khm.de/~timot/PageElephant.html
this site is a mess, but a pretty one. it will take over your screen, and launch about 50 windows and you need every plug-in known to man... still game?
http://www.typographic56.co.uk/
USABILITY MATTERS
The Church of Usability
"Who are these special individuals, the prophets of effective Web user-interface design? We sought out and interviewed six of these inspired souls, scribed their words, and made them Web." (Did I link to this already?)
http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-3881-8-5069140-1.html?tag=st.bl.3881-8-5069140-2.txt.3881-8-5069140-1
NEWS AND COMMENTARY
Engines Idling Roughly
"Less than half of all Web pages are indexed by search engines, but 6 out of 10 Web surfers spend one hour or more using them each week. "
http://www.thestandard.com/research/metrics/display/0,2799,22065,00.html
The Ethics of Opt-In
If you're considering an electronic direct-marketing campaign as an effective and inexpensive way to target potential customers, there are a few things you should know.
http://ecommerce.internet.com/solutions/ebusiness/article/0,1467,7651_716141,00.html
The Success of Online Advertising Lies Outside the Box
"The failure of banner ads to attract clicks has turned into an overdeveloped and unreasoned caterwaul against the entire online advertising revenue model. It is important to remember that advertising on the Internet is still a relatively new business model that should -- and will -- evolve. "
http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=2569
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Noel look askance, I laughed till I wept, you be the judge..
just do NOT skip into.
http://www.cadaverinc.com/
cool 404
http://noahgrey.com/404.shtml
for the survivor fans (or nonfans who need a giggle too)
http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0103/reject/
or would you prefer humor about the journalism frenzy over dead dotcoms?
http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0103/cliche/
now this is just cool: be sure to go slowly and start with the single penny. jumping to the end just ruins the effect.
http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/default.asp(thanks matt!)
The Onion's Guide to Human Interaction
http://www.theonion.com/onion3301/cybercorner.html
Apple Employee Fired For Thinking Different
http://www.theonion.com/onion3507/thinking_different.html
A FINAL NOTE
btw, the dreamhost support team was fabulous and took care of all my technical difficulties. I still say dreamhost.com is number one.
From: Gleanings
To: people Watchers
Subject: Gleanings: My sky is falling
OPENING THANG
I'm on jath-- today and part two tomorrow. he doesn't archive, so if you want to see me look silly, go now.
http://www.jath.com
I'm having host problems. Parts of my site are falling off. I'm panicking and trying to torture the dreamhost support team (who are usually angels) by sending them mail every ten minutes. Please don't write me to tell me the sky is falling; believe me I know.
So: less links, but I promise they are all tasty.
BRAND MATTERS
Noel sends this
"With marketing dollars dwindling, who needs branding? 'Who doesn't?' ask the 'Got milk?' guys. And they've got a story to tell. "
which led to
"I'm With the Brand
Hey man, if you wanna succeed in the new economy, follow the Grateful Dead."
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22850,00.html
and
"Marketing Muse: The New Brand You
When it comes to personal branding, Nike is trying to put its best foot forward with its new Nike iD program. But allowing individuals to influence a brand is a slippery proposition. "
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22859,00.html
USABILITY MATTERS
This article is being discussed on the CHI-WEB list
http://clickz.com/article/cz.3589.html
On one hand, he doesn't seem to get that rules for one media do not necessarily apply to the next. on the other hand, are we forgetting the lost art of seduction?
NEWS & COMMENTARY
interesting article on data's odd transitory and permanent nature.
The Net Effect: Remembrance of Things Past
By Simson Garfinkel
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/apr01/garfinkel.asp
News.Com: Audrey's life cut short.
3Com on Wednesday said it will discontinue Audrey, its Web-surfing appliance
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-5207113.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
"Exercises in Style was inspired by a work of the same name by the French writer Raymond Queneau. In that book, Queneau spun as many variations as he could--over 100--out of a mundane, two-part text about two chance encounters with a mildly irritating character during the course of a day. He started by telling it in every conceivable tense, then by doing it in free verse and as a sonnet, as a telegram, in pig Latin, as a series of exclamations, in an indifferent voice... you name it.
The goal of this project is to apply the same principle to comics by creating as many variations as possible on a simple one-page non-story: different points of view, different genres, different formal games, and so on."
I love variations on a theme. On musicmatch I set up 6 covers of the song "there she goes" to play in a row, enjoying the different interpretations The mood of the song was tinted in one cover by reluctance created by the rough grumble in its singer's voice. Then the next cover reverbarated with joyful elation, shaped by its youthful singer's clear tone. Same song, radically different meanings.
So it isn't a surprise I delighted in finding exercises in style
IA can be driven by brand. In early discovery sessions, the IA should be understanding the desired marketing message -- is it simple? sophisticated? easy? classy?-- and then designing systems that reinforce these brand qualities... reveal a million features to reinforce "powerful" or hide them to reinforce "simple" for example. Just as much as any graphic designer, the IA will help or hurt the brand.
This means IA's need to go talk to the VP of marketing (or CEO, or...), and the VP needs to talk to them. In the past the two groups may have eyed each other with suspicion, but it's time to put those differences aside and concentrating on crafting the next Saturn.
From: Gleanings
To: xglean
Subject: Gleanings: ads and brands and this and that
OPENING THANG
Working on this and that, so a light gleanings today. the good news is there is a new xblog, so if this doesn't satisfy, be sure to go here
http://xplane.com/xblog/2001_03.shtml#Wed21
USABILITY MATTERS
Internet World: Use New Banners While You Can. (tomalak.org)
Jakob Nielsen. History will repeat itself: Users will discover that these new
design elements tend to be useless relative to the user's current goals, and
they will develop the ability to ignore them and a bias against clicking on
them.
http://www.internetworld.com/news/archive/03202001c.jsp
BRAND MATTERS
Branding for dummies (webword.com)
"People who champion the importance of branding on the Web usually don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. Managers beware. If you get a lecture on web branding, start getting suspicious."
http://www.nua.ie/nkb/index.cgi?f=VA&art_type=NT&art_id=619
NEWS & COMMENTARY
That naughty Microsoft...
Legal Storm Brewing Over Microsoft's HailStorm.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22965,00.html
Jonathan sends this
"Mom, can I borrow the...mouse?
Online shopping for teens is a paradox caused when easy internet access
intersects with the lack of teen-friendly payment methods."
www.emarketer.com/analysis/edemographics/20010319_kids_shop.html
Wired News: Salon Sans Ads: It'll Cost You. (slashdot.org)
The company announced Tuesday that their readers will have a choice: Either
they continue to read for free, dodging new, bigger CNET-style ads, or they
pay $30 a year to read Salon's daily news and views, plus bonus content, in a
blissfully ad-free environment.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,42524,00.html
CyberAtlas: Wireless ads must be interactive (nua.ie)
Wireless advertising is more likely to be successful if
advertisements are interactive and targeted, according to a new study
from SkyGo.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356547&rel=true
APROPOS OF NOTHING
yum
http://www.palm.com/products/palmm505/
From: Gleanings
To: drunken fist
Subject: Gleanings: post cocktailhour ponderings
***OPENING THANG
Well, another great UE/IA cocktail hour last night. We toasted Argus and discussed how to sell IA and usability within our organization and too out clients. Got me thinking about the difference between being an IA in a product company and being an IA in an agency. If anyone has any anecdotes/observations, please share them with me! Send to twoias@elegnathack.com , and let me know if I can publish it to the list, or if it's for my eyes only. ;-)
one participant send me this funny story (well, funny to us ex-geeks)
www.mindjack.com/feature/monday/monday1.html
***IA & DESIGN MATTERS
Mr. Me has a great trip report from SXSW on his site right now.
http://peterme.com/
~~~~
did I glean this already? I'm getting old... anyhow, gabe writes
"nice article on usability and design
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/030101/creative_content.html?Page=1
article interviews 5 leading designers and asks them to briefly
describe their relationship between design and usability."
~~~~
On the SIGIA list the question was asked: What are you reading regularly? here is a partial list of the responses
http://www.nathan.com | Nathan Shedroff
http://hannahodge.com | HannaHodge
http://www.kurzweilai.net/ | Ray Kurzweil (ok, not IA :) but futurist tech)
http://www.tamu.edu/anthropology/news.html | Anthropology in the News
http://www.xplane.com/xblog/ | Xplane's blog, much gleanings it's a nice mélange
www.peterme.com/
www.futureofsoftware.com/
http://www.tomalak.org/ tomalak's realm
http://www.webword.com/ webword (usability focused)
http://joel.editthispage.com/ joel sposky (a software engineer, formerly of MS, but with many wonderful essays in his archives and often very insightful)
http://www.camworld.com/ camworld (often more techie, not for everyone)
http://www.useit.com - Jakob Nielsen's semi-regular usability newsletter
http://www.goodexperience.com - Mark Hurst's semi-regular newsletter
http://www.spc.ca/resources/essentials/- spc's project management newsletter
***ADVERTISING MATTERS
Web Site Ads, Holding Sway, Start to Blare
"Companies have been so user- centric that they forgot to be advertiser-
and sponsor-centric," said Bill Daugherty, the co-chief executive of iWon.
"You can build the best user experience in the world, but if it doesn't
work for advertisers that experience is going away."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/technology/17WEB.html?searchpv=site01
(you need an account to view it.)
USABILITY MATTERS
Microsoft: Building the User-centric Experience. (tomalak.org)
By putting the user in control, HailStorm makes it possible for the technology
in your life to work together on your behalf, rather than the current
situation in which you have to adapt to the technology and act as the human
bridge between different technologies in your life.
http://www.microsoft.com/net/hailstorm.asp
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Interactive Week: Robo Cop-Out.(tomalak.org)
Lay the blame for the collapse of the Internet economy on poorly designed
computers and applications that lack a human focus. That's the message put
forth by the handful of big-picture information technology visionaries who
gathered for the ACM's Beyond Cyberspace conference...
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2697695,00.html
Washington Post: Thinking Outside the Box.(tomalak.org)
Now a line has been crossed. With gizmos mutating at wild rates, engineers
love the endless stomach-churning ride of creating the firstest with the
newest. They've dragged us along with them. We're climbing a slope of
interlocking innovations so steep as to seem more like a cliff...
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23937-2001Mar18.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
time to return to the useless pages
http://www.go2net.com/useless/
From: Gleanings
To: Kittens
Subject: Gleanings: Elegies and purrs
***OPENING THANG
Well, this is more-or-less what I did with my weekend, as well as why you didn't get a gleanings on Friday...
http://eleganthack.com/argus_goodbye
***INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE MATTERS
The Vernacular Architecture Forum
"During the past twenty-five years, interest in the ordinary architecture of North America has grown rapidly and in diverse directions. Scholars and field professionals now apply the term "vernacular architecture" to traditional domestic and agricultural buildings, industrial and commercial structures, twentieth-century suburban houses, settlement patterns and cultural landscapes. The Vernacular Architecture Forum was formed in 1980 to encourage the study and preservation of these informative and valuable material resources."
http://www.vernaculararchitecture.org/
~~~
Ergosoft labrotories
I plan to spend some time today frolicing here. How about you?
http://www.ergolabs.com/
***DESIGN MATTERS
Dr Leslie & The Composing Room
"Founded in 1927 by Sol Cantor and Dr. Robert L. Leslie, The Composing Room set out to be the cream of the crop in typesetting firms. Described in a promotional piece as "a shop where type is set intelligently for intelligent clients. Also promptly, reasonably, and with true professional enthusiasm. An outfit which plays up the art in every particular, and doesn't and doesn't miss the fun in fundamentals either." "
http://www.drleslie.com/
~~~
Dennis Interactive
High nifty factor, nice design, annoying navigation.
http://www.dennisinter.com
***USABILITY MATTERS
New alertbox!
Stationary Mobility By Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir
"Mobile Internet access will free us from having to connect appliances to telephone jacks and will make smart devices much easier to install. In fact, they may not need a user interface at all, as exemplified by the Japanese i-pot. "
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010318.html
~~~
Good Experience
Bits as Art
Mark Hurst was almost-- almost-- able to talk about the emerging realm of webart without bringing up usability. But not quite.
http://www.goodexperience.com/columns/01/0315bitart.html
***NEWS
Industry Standard: Microsoft Moves to Turn .Net Into a Reality. (tomalak.org)
"On Monday, Bill Gates will announce a blitzkrieg campaign to transform
Microsoft's much-ballyhooed .Net Web services initiative from an abstract
technical notion into a concrete business idea. According to a source familiar
with the project it is enormously ambitious..."
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22946,00.html
~~~
Lighthouse: What price feedback email? (tomalak.org)
Customers expect more and better service. But now that the easy money of the
dot-com boom has evaporated, many Web site operators want tighter cost
control. And hiring people to write coherent and intelligent answers to
feedback email costs real money.
http://www.shorewalker.com/pages/email_support-1.html
~~~
Jonathan Shein (Usability Enthusiast At Large) sends along a couple of articles:
"Dumb Computers!!!
Bill Buxtion: "The vast majority of computers have few interactive features
and are largely unable to forecase human behavior, rendering them less
advanced than airport toilets that flush automatically when the user departs
the stall. Shouldn't your computer be as smart as your toilet?"
www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2696127,00.html
A List Apart has a couple of good articles, one of them with a dash of
humor.
1) Emerging standards...
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/smil/
2) How to become a superstar...
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/soopa/ "
thanks, Jonathan!
***APROPOS OF NOTHING
I'm shopping for a new digital camera.
http://www.digitalcameras.com/
http://www.digital-camerastore.comdid you know there can be a $300 dollar range in prices on a given digital camera? I've converted to mysimon.com completely.
~~~
my latest favorite blog
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php
and from LGF...
Cats purr to help them recover from illness and injury
Scientists say they've discovered that cats purr to help them get better when they're injured.
http://ananova.com/news/story/sm_246696.html
~~~
my sister sends this highly necessary palm ap.
http://palmcomputing.palmgear.com/palm/product.cfm?prodID=2877
Had a few IA's over for lunch today at Carbon IQ: shown here are Andi of metrius and Eric of musicbank. We talked market health, age verification issues, selling usability, wireframes and collaborative work parctices... oh, the usual.Can you guess what Andi's decribing here?
is this really such an incredibly beautiful design that they couldn't risk ruining it by adding more information so I'd know what was a link and where it might take me?
So where do I click to learn about possible plans? In the big gray box that tells me they provide health insurance?
This is a classic example of a page for investors and the CEO, as opposed to their actual customers. Is that a good idea?
compare that to Pacificare
click to see larger image
You can complain that it's ugly if you want, but I do have a pretty clear idea where to click.
They do have a disturbing propensity toward poetry, not someting I'm looking for in a health care provider. Though this one's entertaining... You have couch potatoes and tri-athletes. One size fits all won't work for you.Your company isn't a bowl of oatmeal,
it's a kettle of mulligan stew.
Night owls and early birds.
Would you like the name of a good tailor?
who's up for a nice steaming bowl of tri-athlete stew?
From: Gleanings
To: Ears
Subject: Gleanings: Let there be music
OPENING THANG
Well, long-time readers know how I feel about the music industry: they don't get it. And musicians; they deserve more than what the labels give them. And napster: peer-to-peer is inevitable.
So when long-time reader Shellyrae wrote in asking for an ad for her band Bassic, I was perplexed. I've never run an ad before (except suggesting someone hire mike over at biggerhand.com, but I don't think that counts)
And then I read this:
"We're trying to support ourselves and our newborn daughter on the money
we're making from our music - instead of having to keep working for (often
failing) dotcom's and various other tech/internet/software companies. We're
also trying to keep from being signed to a label because we think that most
(if not all) music labels have extremely dishonest business practices and
often times the musicians tend to be the big losers in the end, especially
if they don't pump out the typical top-40, music for the masses crap."
Mp3.com is doing something very interesting: allowing the artists to avoid the whole label nightmare that Ms. Love rails against in her salon article.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/
So visit www.mp3.com/bassic and check out their music. If you dig it, buy it! Subvert. subvert. subvert.
DESIGN MATTERS
Worship at the church of Kalman?
http://www.undesign.org
Tokyo design firm with great splash page
http://www.furifuri.com/
Powazek reinvents himself again. God, I'd like to find time to do a redesign of EH just once.... and all this while he writes a book. Okay, I'll just crawl in a corner now.
http://www.powazek.com/
Visual Design for Instructional Content (Part I) (xblog.com)
"In an earlier article 'Monkey Instruction', we addressed the issue of effective writing for online instruction. We asked why some online courses are boring and analyzed a Webmonkey course to understand its writing style that makes it such a popular course."
http://www.elearningpost.com/elthemes/visual1.asp
IA MATTERS
Carbon IQ is keeping some good company these days. I was pleasantly surprised to see us on this list.
http://www.christung.com/design.htm
Peterme weighs in on the Argus closure
http://www.peterme.com
USABILITY MATTERS
Web-Based User Interface Evaluation with Questionnaires
Gary Perlman
http://www.acm.org/~perlman/question.html
IBM developerWorks: Debunking the myths of UI design. (tomalak.org)
"Software development would benefit greatly from extensive study by
sociologists, anthropologists, and clinical psychologists. As we await such
analyses, let's document some beliefs embedded in the culture of software
development, specifically about user interface design."
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/us-myth.html
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Know your gurus
http://www2.darwinmag.com/learn/guru/category.cfm?ID=all
Inside: Cash Begins Trickling in at Web Sites, as Amazon Honor System Slowly Takes Hold. (tomalak.org)
"Touted as the first fast, easy and elegant way for Web sites to receive
much-appreciated financial support from readers, the Amazon Honor System has so far shaped up to be a boon for one already established name but a bust for many other media-world participants."
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=25782&pod_id=7
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Scott McCloud's "choose your own carl" project has finally been completed.
http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/carl/3b/cyoc.html
Summer rerun-- but I still love this site! best use of stock photos *ever*
http://www.it3c.co.uk
If you love music (esp jazz)
http://www.beatthief.com/
From: Gleanings
To: Argonauts everywhere
Subject: Gleanings: the end of an era
OPENING THANG
My feelings on Argus's closing
http://eleganthack.com/blog/2001_03_01_pastblog.shtml#2768333
Erin's
http://www.emdezine.com/designwritings/
DESIGN MATTERS
The Brutal, Blood-Red Remains (http://www.subtraction.com/)
"The Dow Jones fell a dizzy 436 points, while the NASDAQ fell below the
psychologically frightening 2000 mark. A friend of mine, using MapStation
from SmartMoney, sent me this visualization of what happened today with the
NASDAQ. Red indicates equities that lost ground today. The one green bar is
Compuware (CPWR), who must have cut a deal with the devil or something."
http://www.subtraction.com/log/images/010312_nasdaq_view.html
also good
http://www.subtraction.com/log/images/010228/index.html
Infographic high! good site, too.check out "cats"
TECH MATTERS
CodeHound - The Software Developer's Search Engine
no chat rooms · no polls · no news · no virtual tradeshows
no discussion groups · no mailing lists · no registration
no career centers · no editor's picks · no online events · no forums
http://www.codehound.com/
Internet World: Dumb Pipes Are Golden.
Jakob Nielsen. Most Internet analyses view data transport as the worst
possible business. After all, moving bits around is the blandest of
commodities and is often referred to dismissively as being a "dumb pipe." In
real life, good connectivity is far from being a commodity.
http://www.internetworld.com/news/archive/03132001d.jsp
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Industry Standard: The Advertising Slump. (tomalak.org)
"Now I have never, ever been accused of being a Pollyanna, and Yahoo's
announcement is certainly not very comforting for companies that are building
businesses on the Net. But I have to say that the Merc's apocalyptic
characterization of the situation is more than a little hysterical."
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22732,00.html
Business Week: Google's Larry Page: Good Ideas Still Get Funded. (tomalak.org)
"But you don't need a huge company, just a computer and a part-time person. So
you don't need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea. You can do
it in your spare time, you can really work on ideas and see if they take
off..."
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2001/nf20010313_831.htm
APROPOS OF NOTHING
i said, go look at "cats"
http://www.subtraction.com/cats/index.html
It's just in Italian now -- says they're working on the English version -- but what great graphics!
http://www.eateathurrah.com/
Preparing for st. paddy's:
puzzle
http://www-physics.mps.ohio-state.edu/~trey/lep/main.html
and a menu from epicurious
Grainy-Mustard Mashed Potatoes with Sausage, Bon Appetit
http://www.epicurious.com/ego/sausagepotatoes
Irish Beef Stew, Bon Appetit
http://www.epicurious.com/ego/beefstew
Chocolate Bread Pudding, Bon Appetit
http://www.epicurious.com/ego/chocolatepudding
Today Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville sent out a message stating that Argus is closing their doors.
I'm not even sure if I can write about this.
When I was a html hack in the old egreetings days, I came across their Web Review articles. I remember being delighted by the information within, and printing them all out and putting them in a blue binder (I can see it from here, sticking out of my bookshelf.) I have referred to that binder again and again throughout my career.
When I found the O'Reilly book on IA, I felt my chosen career was validated. Here was a whole book on what I did everyday! And it included a lot of what I did (and a whole lot of what I didn't). This is at a time when I had to do a lot of fighting every day to defend the value of good IA. I sat the book on a prominent place on my desk, as if to warn people: I do something real. Something important. Pay attention, there's an O'Reilly book on it!
Argus was IA to me. I remember being crushed when I heard that they only hired folks with a masters degree or higher, thinking that ended my chance of working for them.
When Egreetings needed a company to help rearchitect their catalog, I fought long and hard to bring them on. They hired them, but I had just quit, ready for a change. I nearly changed my mind in hopes of working with them. I didn't realize that chance wouldn't come again. I did have the pleasure of meeting Chris Farnum, a brilliant IA who was coming onto the project as I faded into the sunset.
But I was again elated when Lou Rosenfeld invited me to join a group of IA's for dinner in Boston at the first ASIS summit. I was so nervous, so sure I would say something foolish.... But somehow everything went smoothly, and I was so pleased that Lou was friendly and down-to-earth as well as smart and funny.
At the ACIA convention in La Jolla, I met Samantha Bailey-- another witty insightful nice argonaut. I also got to meet Keith Instone, whom I'd admired for his work on usableweb.com forever. I was nerveous and I thought he was teasing me a little, until he gave me a goofy grin that put me at ease. I was beginning to wonder what was in the Ann Arbor water-- not a mean Argonaut in the crowd. When I finally met Peter Morville at this year's ASIS summit in San Francisco, I knew someone was doing genetic experiments in Michigan.... too much goodness for one small town in the midwest.
When Lou asked to interview me for ACIA, it was the biggest thrill of my career. I knew I was doing something right-- Argus noticed me.
So yes, I'm very sad. Still, it's important to keep perspective. It's not the end of the world. No one died. We still have Peter and Lou and Sam and Keith and Chris and the rest of the argonauts. The quest for the golden fleece is ended, but the heros are still around. So while I am sad, I still have hope of working with these fine folks. I still look forward to the next book, the next Strange Connection, the next conference where Peter reminds us to slow down, Lou suggests we keep innovating...
Argus is still IA to me. But now I look forward to the next quest!
addendum: Peter Morville writes...we found the golden fleece in the wonderful staff and clients and colleagues we've worked with over the years...and after a brief rest, I too am looking forward to the next quest.
From: Gleanings
To: IAs
Subject: Gleanings: the end of the world as we know it
Sorry for the two-glean-a-day, but since this list is primarily made up of Information Architects, I felt it was worth interrupting your regularly schedualed broadcast to announce this extremely sad news.
a letter from Lou
"Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We are deeply sorry to announce that Argus Associates is ceasing operations
this month. We remain absolutely convinced that the need for high-quality
information architecture consulting and design will continue to expand, and
that by year-end market demand will have rebounded as well. However, Argus
doesn't have the financial resources to weather this storm.
We are proud of Argus' accomplishments, particularly:
* Writing a best-selling O'Reilly book that expanded awareness of the
practice and value of information architecture.
* Growing a consistently profitable (10 years in a row) consulting practice
that designed IA solutions for more than 100 clients, including some of the
world's largest corporations.
* Participating in the creation of a new community of information architects
through ACIA and ASIS&T publications and events.
* Building the strongest co-located team of information architects in the
world.
If you're in a position to make new hires, we highly encourage you to
consider some of the wonderful staff (including project managers,
information architects, and specialists) we've been forced to let go.
Contact information, bios, and resumes will soon be available online
http://argus-inc.com/contact/argus_alumni.shtml ).
Peter Morville and I will continue participating in the development of the
IA Community and hope to maintain the Argus Center for Information
Architecture ( http://argus-acia.com/ ) as a focal point for these efforts.
We will also be available as individuals for limited consulting engagements.
We believe that the information architecture community has already made a
positive impact, and we look forward to the continued growth of the practice
of information architecture over the coming years.
We greatly appreciate your support and wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Louis Rosenfeld Peter Morville
lou@argus-inc.com morville@argus-inc.com"
From: Gleanings
To: Mikes and Not-mikes
Subject: Gleanings: Mike Tuesday
OPENING THANG
I mentioned Mike Kuniavsky yesterday, and got a few inquiries as to who he is. I imagine that question won't be asked once he finally finishes his book on user research for O'Reilly, but for now I'll say he's one of those thugs over at adaptivepath.com (hi guys!) and the man I'm having breakfast with in an hour.
Need more?
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/14/index3a.html?tw=design
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/radio/mikek.html
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/34/index1a_page13.html?tw=design
and
http://www.stockpuppets.com/ (check out "who built them")
USABILITY MATTERS
Scenarios were the hot topic on chi-web, and I got some great links from it...
Scenario building is another relatively inexpensive and quick method for collecting requirements and task information. The primary advantage of scenario building versus exploratory surveys is that it allows users to create a context for their requirements and tasks.
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/moderator-guide/requirements.html
narrative scenarios as a design tool
http://www.davidbliss.com/index.asp?unique_id=232
(btw, davidbliss.com has a lot of great info. be sure to explore...)
It's the User, Stupid
How do Open Source app designers figure out what users want? Most don't bother, says UI researcher Mike Kuniavsky - and software and user both suffer.
http://sendmail.net/interviews/interviewkuniavsky.shtml
IBM Ease of Use: Putting it to the test. (tomalak.org)
At the Fidelity laboratory, there have been over 120 usability tests of web
sites or applications in the past three years. The new state-of-the-art lab
doubles the testing capacity of the original one, which Tullis helped
establish, and employs a wide range of new evaluation techniques.
http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/1564
MARKETING MATTERS
Clueless Is as Clueless Does
"I'm constantly entertained by the Internet strategies of Big Media companies. They're always good for a laugh. "
http://clickz.com/article/cz.3518.html
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Salon: Do you kick Yahoo? (tomalak.org)
Scott Rosenberg. All of which raises the obvious question: Plainly, the
market's pundits were way off a year ago, at the pinnacle of Net stock mania;
so why should we put any more stock in them now? Their downside is looking
just as insane as their upside.
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2001/03/10/yahoo_down/index.html
Inside: Copy This! Can 'Military' Technology Beat Digital Piracy? (tomalak.org)
A small Austin start-up run by intelligence community alums is parachuting
into the burgeoning, post-Napster, copy-protection market with a remarkably
thin, invisible software product that claims to offer nearly invincible armor
for music, video, film and e-books alike.
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=25476&pod_id=13&user_type=2
"In the beginning was the Command Line" on the history of the GUIs, Operating Systems, and the future of Linux. by Neal Stevenson (alpern.org/prof)
http://discuss.userland.com/msgReader$7161#7162
IFCC: Auction sites generate most complaints (nua.com)
Most consumer complaints with regard to the Internet relate to fraud
at auction sites such as Ebay.
Embassy of Belarus (US): Internet economy healthy in Belarus (nua.com)
Note: I'd never heard of Belarus. Reading the article, turns out it's mostly men in Minsk looking for a date. Now that's a killer-ap.
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Mike of biggerhand.com writes
"go here: http://www.10socks.com
it might be the only case i can think of where a slow modem
connection actually ENHANCED the experience. I was anticipating each
and every sock!"
Is it possible someone hasn't heard of the clock of the long now?
http://www.longnow.org/
FEEDBACK
Kylie Baxter writes:
"I use Powermarks to manage my bookmarks and think it's fab. It works by
keyword so bookmarks are stored in a flat file format. I have over 2000
bookmarks now and it's so easy to find stuff now!
Not free, but worth every penny/cent."
http://www.kaylon.com/power.html
From: Gleanings
To: To Name
Subject: Gleanings: Order and Disorder
OPENING THANG
Monday, monday... drinking coffee out of my art director mug
http://biggerhand.com/sketchbook/artdirection.html
watching the fog burn off the San Francisco downtown
http://nothing-new.com/blog/2001_02_11_nothingnew#2332631
and making favicons.
http://www.favicon.com/
If you use IE and you add eleganthack.com to your favorites, you'll see it.
(it's pretty ugly, but what do you want at 16x16.)
Interesting chat starting on the CHI list pondering if these oddities make the Favorites list more usable.
http://www.acm.org/archives/wa.cgi?A1=ind0103b&L=chi-web#22
Favorites/bookmarks have always been an interesting quandary to me. When you fist get online, you use search engines to find stuff. later, you bookmark websites to find them again. Eventually your list gets so long you organize your list into folders. Then your list of folders gets so long, that's useless too, and you return to search engines. It seems to me the bookmark quandary applies to any website where people are asked to store large amounts of items, from photo sites such as snapfish.com and ofoto.com to the online storage services. How do you give people meaningful tools to organize their stuff? Not that offline offers any good solutions
(despite the sexiness of this. http://www.ikea-usa.com/product_presentation/category.asp?id=8f2a0ab2d9ded31182b600508ba25e47200003221649067302000121316584851020010206143415323)
You should see my sock drawer. if I can't wrangle 10 pair of socks, how am I expected to manage 500 bookmarks?
USABILITY MATTERS
Mike Kuniavsky has sending URL's out left and right these days. good stuff, that.
Mocking Jakob
http://www.allyourbrand.org/contribs/useit.gif
Understanding Jakob
http://www.dplanet.org/articles/?c=015
The infamous eye-tracking study
http://poynter.org/pub/eyenews.htm
DESIGN MATTERS
A piece on the journalistic aspects of using photography versus drawing in
illustrating some tragic information for a newspaper: (mike k)
http://www.poynter.org/centerpiece/030701.htm
NEW & COMMENTARY
NY Times: The Dreams of Webzines Fizzle Out. (tomalak.org)
Five years ago, Slate and Salon arrived amid proclamations that "Webzines"
would become a multibillion-dollar business and displace print publications by
stealing their readers and sucking their advertising dry. Many people,
including not a few print publishers, believed it. But none of it
happened.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/09/technology/09ZINE.html?pagewanted=all
USA Today: Europe's music-piracy solution: taxes.(tomalak.org)
The legislation, which takes effect in each of the 15 EU nations after being
ratified by the national parliaments, allows countries to add fees for each
blank CD or CD burner sold -- mirroring existing laws in Italy and Germany,
where additional charges of between 5% and 10% are already being
assessed.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/2001-03-09-europe.htm
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Found Neil Gaiman's online journal for American Gods
http://www.americangods.com/journal.html
It's definitely a fanboy spot, and uninteresting to those who don't know who Gaimen is, BUT the entry on copyediting is pretty cool, so scroll down to where it says "One longish, quite funny, entry on the mechanics of copy editing was eaten by Blogger a couple of days ago..."
Don't kill them, f*ck them
http://europe.cnn.com/2001/LAW/03/09/internet.abortion.threat.ap/index.html
From: Gleanings
To: Faces
Subject: Gleanings: I got the whole world in my hands
OPENING THANG
Feed mag is starting a multi-part story on globalization. I'm very excited.
http://www.feedmag.com/templates/default.php3?a_id=1644
Oh, and I curse reel player on the blog
http://eleganthack.com/blog/2001_03_01_pastblog.shtml#2704024
USABILITY MATTERS
Interview with Jef Raskin-- my latest hero!
http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO57255,00.html
NIST WebMetrics tools
http://zing.ncsl.nist.gov/webmet/
Jakob says "Traditional phones must die."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010107.html
and points to the
review of the new VisorPhone
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/garf/2001/03/07/visorphone/
(yeah, but he thought micropayments would be here by now, didn't he?)
DESIGN MATTERS
here's one for all you tiny font folks
http://www.futabita.com/
( *very* in "under construction" but still kinda fun)
NEWS
when will people realize we live in an era where nothing is protectable?
Interactive Week: DeCSS 2? DVD code broken again. (tomalak.org)
Last week, a Web site published the pair's seven-line program, which
unscrambles the protection around a DVD so quickly that a movie can play at
the same time, although the film appears choppy. It's the shortest program to
break DVD defenses to date.
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2693768,00.html
ZDNN: From November 16, 1999; DVD encryption break is a good thing. Bruce
Schneier.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2395497,00.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
I just thought this was cool
http://www.uk.research.att.com/facesataglance.html
but I also love this
http://www.k10k.net/imageUpLoaded/jonathan_keller_lrg.jpg
from the K10K desktop project.
http://www.k10k.net/
5 star hotel on the net
http://www.habbohotel.com/
I can't believe no one calls RealPlayer on what has got to be the worst user experience in registration ever. Do you want mail? do you? are you sure? you must want some mail. are you sure?
Of course their lowest trick is this one:
looking at this, you'd hit next, wouldn't you? Better scroll first...
Jesse and I have chattted about immoral IA before and couldn't come up with an obvious example-- until now.
it ain't right.
addendum: Marc writes Living in Seattle, I had a brief vision of printing out your 'blog and physically standing in front of their headquarters downtown, shoving copies of your example in front of their employees as they walked into the building.
"Are you SURE you don't want this informative flyer? Are you SURE? Well, too bad, you have to take it, because I didn't GIVE YOU THE OPTION not to!"
Consider it a guerrilla strike for good IA. :)
From: Gleanings
To: traveling man
Subject: Gleanings: woog-free
OPENING THANG
FIrst of all, I'd like to thank everyone who suggested water as a way to get rid of my wooginess. All this time I thought water was nothing more than a threat to good scotch! and it turns out to be good for you. Who knew?
Secondly, a few Morocco pictures, with very light commentary.
http://nothing-new.com/blog/2001_03_04_nothingnew#2689919
IA MATTERS
Documentation sighting:
http://www.thegrid.net/thorumdesign/portfolio/art/Driven_arch_large.jpg
part of Stacy Thornum's portfolio
http://www.thegrid.net/thorumdesign/
NEWS & COMENTARY
Industry Standard Europe: The English empire.(tomalak.org)
Hastened by the Internet, the language has achieved a dominance that the empire-builders of yesteryear would have recognised with awe.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,15355,00.html
FEED Magazine: From July 7, 1999; How 19th-Century Politics Determined The
21st-Century. (tomalak.org)
http://www.feedmag.com/daily/dy070799_master.html
Gartner Says Ruling is "Death" For Napster
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article/0,2198,3531_706861,00.html
Medium Risk on NAKEDWIFE Virus
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article/0,2198,3531_706551,00.html
ADVETISING MATTERS
US News: Ads that just don't click-no, literally.
They include longer, thinner ads called "skyscrapers" and larger pop-up boxes.
Giving advertisers a bit more creative leeway, they hope, will drive up
spending. Nice try. The new ads may look funky, but new shapes alone are
unlikely to turn things around.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010312/ads.htm
What of the New Ad Sizes?
They're designed to boost the sagging online advertising industry, and
revive marketers' interests in Web media. But what do Internet architects
really think of the new ad-size guidelines?
http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=2536
How to Hire an Interactive Agency
The seminal "Ogilvy on Advertising" suggested some simple steps for the
best way to hire an advertising agency. But decades have passed since
then. Choosing an interactive agency can now be a harrowing -- and
complicated -- decision
http://clickz.com/article/cz.3517.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/
Media Nugget
Jack Kirby is to comic books what Picasso is to fine arts: an insanely prolific visionary who, in the view of many, embodies his medium in the 20th century. He helped to create a number of American comic book genres, including romance, but ultimately found his niche in cosmic power-fables such as The Fantastic Four and The New Gods. The Kirby Collector has grown from a fanzine into the premiere source for all things Kirby.
http://www.twomorrows.com/kirby/index.html
Buttoncreation software doesn't kill people, people kill people
http://www.mlanier.f2s.com/apple_request.php
mike at biggerhand.com point to this interesting new take on file swapping
http://filepile.org/
FEEDBACK
Adam of v-2.org writes regarding this article
"W/R/T the larger issue, Dr. Nielsen may or may not know what he's talking
about. (I for one believe the era in which one can make cultural
generalizations and derive meaningful principles from them is over.) But to
assert that an iterative approach to design is foreign to the Japanese
mentality, and especially the Japanese corporate mentality, is prima facie
absurd.
There are examples beyond counting in the history of Japanese commerce of
the use of tightly-coupled iterative loops in the design process, two of the
best-known being Toyota and Sony.
There is even a word in Japanese that means "constant incremental
improvement," which epitomizes the Japanese automobile industry's approach
to design, very much as opposed to Detroit's habit of introducing radically
new metal on a three- or four-year interval.
Every Walkman and fuzzy-logic rice cooker in Akihabara has been through a
process of iterative selection - models with features that were popular last
year will be replaced with a spectrum of models that incorporate those
features, and others. The models among that spectrum that shift units will
become the seed for the next generation, and so on.
True, this is not usability testing except in the grossest and most
scattershot way. But it is certainly iterative; in fact, it bears a strong
resemblance to the way nature does things. I am constantly coming up against
this kind of sloppiness in Nielsen's thinking and pronunciamenti, and I
think it's about time his words are taken less seriously."
EVENTS
***Garage.com's Bootcamp for Startups
March 27-28, 2001
Navy Pier
Chicago, IL
May 7-8, 2001
Chelsea Piers
New York, NY
Do you have what it takes to build a successful company in today's environment?
If you are building a high technology or life sciences business, be sure to attend Garage.com's Bootcamp for Startups conference. In two days of intensive, high-energy sessions, you'll get expert advice from major players on everything from fundraising and business development to recruiting and marketing. Find out how to refine your business model. Discover how to position--and pitch--your startup to investors. Network with peers and potential mentors.
REGISTER TODAY: http://www.garage.com/bootcamp
***M&A's with IP Strategies
Mar 15, 2001
Hyatt Palo Alto 4 - 9 pm.
VC's, Angels, Investment banks, Directors.
Event Details:
+ Panel I
4:00 - 6:00 pm
"IP Strategies" Mel Swan, Sand Hill Angels; others TBA
Panel II,
7:45 - 9:00 pm
"M&A's"
Fred Hoar, Band of Angels; others TBA
Prices:
Both panels and dinner with wine: $68 members; non-members $88
Join and become a member ($48)
http://www.AngelInvestors.org
From: Gleanings
To: time zoned out
Subject: Gleanings: wired and tired
OPENING THANG
I tired to kill jetlag by forcing myself to keep sleeping when I woke up wide awake at 3 a.m. Now I feel all woogy. Anyone have a cure for wooginess? I'm trying lots and lots of coffee...
IA MATTERS
Building a Web Vocabulary
There's no point in accumulating data if you don't know how to organize it. A Web vocabulary can help you put it all together.
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/750/iq/gen/new/new/gen_new_new_0005/gen_new_new_0005_1.shtml
DESIGN MATTERS
Creative Tension
Some Web designers push the medium. Others scorn the flashy stuff. We asked five leading designers where they stand in this budding religious war.
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/030101/creative_content.html?printer=no
It's time to visit typospace again. go on you, git.
http://www.typospace.com/
USABILITY MATTERS
Internet World: Testing Goes Against Japanese Culture. (tomalak.org)
Jakob Nielsen. The designers told us that Japanese clients don't want to hear
what's not working well with their designs, especially in front of all of
their colleagues. Problems in designs are dismissed as failures, and the way
to regain face is to invent an entirely new direction.
http://www.internetworld.com/news/archive/03062001d.jsp
APROPOS OF NOTHING
philippe sends this start-up from a 16 yr old who's been coding since he was 10
http://emroth.home.mindspring.com/ribbitfrog/
in these times of trouble, jjg provided a little humor..
http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/guests/jjg/tired_wired.html
earth and moon viewer
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/
High court allows KKK to adopt a highway
http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/03/05/scotus.kkk.02/index.html
From: Gleanings
To: cheerleaders everywhere
Subject: Gleanings: I'm Baaaack
OPENING THANG
I'm baaack! Big kudos to Noel for his excellent stand-in job. His piece on automated testing I found particularly interesting. Then I came across this link
Useit.Com: Retaining Key Staff: What High-Tech Employees Say versus What They Do.
The most important finding in the study was that what employees say will keep
them in the company is quite different from those factors that actually
determine whether they quit. We have seen similar findings in many other
studies of very different issues...
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010304.html
Self-reporting is a key problem, and I suspect one that automated testing with its reliance on surveys will never be able to overcome.
anyhow, I'll put a little something up on Morocco on one of the sites later in the week. it was one hella big adventure...
IA MATTERS
Cooper occasionally designs a concept piece to show the benefits of good
interaction design: The Wayfinder is a PDA application that helps people
find services in airports.
http://www.cooper.com/concept_projects.htm
Shoot . I wanted to do this!
http://www.infotect.com/index.html
NEWS & COMMENTARY
CNET: Media feasted on dead dotcoms in 2000
Dotcoms that failed in 2000 were more likely to receive media coverage
when they closed than while they were still in business.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356511&rel=true
Darwin: Get Over It!
David Weinberger. Now, of course, it's all different. You get your information
electronically, not on glossy paper. You hunt it down yourself, rather than
waiting for it to be delivered to you. But the biggest change is deeper than
that: The Web has broken the corporate monopoly on information.
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/030101/contact.html
Dylan Tweney: The real Slim Shady.
The fact is, Napster's just a symptom of a larger issue: online copying.
Whether it's Napster, Gnutella, or what have you, there will always be some
technology giving copyright lawyers fits, because like it or not, the Internet
is all about copying stuff.
http://www.tweney.com/2001/0303copyright.htm
more at tomalak.org
APROPOS OF NOTHING
i'm late on this, but forgive me, i've been in morocco.
all your base belong to us-- don't try to figure it out, head straight for
video 1.
http://www.planetstarseige.com/allyourbase/index.html
vincent defends the meme
http://www.mersault.com/thinking/allyourbrand/
as kirk so aptly put it,
"the best movie in the history of civilization"
a bunch of us goofy folks who are either in long distance relationships or
are single we watched "Bring It On" on valentine's day. If there are great
date movies, then there are also great group movies where a ton of folks can
watch something together. I place this in that family.
interview with the director
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/peytonreed/peytoninterview.html
404 of the day
http://www.scintilla.utwente.nl/asdfhjkl
from jhp
wait for it!
OPENING THOUGHTS
Automated usability testing has been popping up on the SIGIA list and among some friends of mine, so I'll throw in my two cents while I have the stage: it scares me. You can't measure qualitative data (much less a a customer relationship) through radio buttons or checkboxes. When Joe Blow is faced with an satisfaction survey or browser-add-on question, and he's trying to answer as quickly as possible, he won't give meaningful answers (whether it's online or face to face). He gives fast, easy answers. Just give him his $25 eheimlich.com certificate and send him on his way.
We should all be skilled at anticipating client needs. If a client tells me they want to measure usability, I've got to know how to address that. While they may be expecting a data-laden spreadsheet of some sort, nothing touches on the real issue at hand quite like showing them a testing-session video clip of their customer waving their arms up in the air, saying "I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do now."
Can automated usability gauge passion like that?
Are we trying to build brands that customers are passionate about?
Ok, let's break for some coffee...
USABILITY MATTERS
Latest Industry Standard has a few articles on Customer Experience...
Quick and Easy: Web surfers just want to get the job done - now. So if you're not helping, you're hurting.
Testing 1-2-3: Easy-to-use Web sites aren't just "designed" - they're the result of extensive usability testing. The good news: It's easier than you think.
Think Small: Designing for the wireless Web's tiny screens is a big hassle, but these tips will help.
NY Times: Revving Up the Search Engines to Keep the E-Aisles Clear. (Tomalak's Realm)
More than two-thirds of online retail sites tested last spring by Forrester Research failed to list the most relevant content in the first page of search results. No wonder sites have suffered from an inability to convert browsers into buyers. Customers are literally being driven away by weak search technology.
Merges: Effective use of forms on websites (Usable Web)
People don't like filling out forms in the real world, and especially not while using the web. Forms are complicated, distracting, and take control away from the user. That is, unless they're designed effectively.
Goal-Directed Design/Cooper Interaction Design (Mersault*Thinking)
We chose to create a design for a PDA application to help people find their way around an airport. We call it the Wayfinder.
AskTog: Top 10 Reasons Why the Apple Dock Sucks
APROPOS OF NOTHING
MSNBC: Video gallery shows quake, damage
Shaking, rattling and rolling in the Pacific Northwest
OPENING THANG
One more week 'til Christina, your regular editor, is back with her own flair for picking-and-gleaning in IAland. Until then, everything's my fault: send Gleanings-related insights to noel@carboniq.com.
DESIGN MATTERS
Good stuff over at Noise Between Stations today:
"The wonderful aspect of information architecture for a hopeless generalist like myself is how it ties into so many other facets of product design and business. It's impossible to separate it from strategy, project management, engineering, and the other product design crafts.On the strategy front, Fast Company scores with the article Michael Porter's Big Ideas."
Michael Porter's Big Ideas (Fast Company)
"The world's most famous business-school professor is fed up with CEOs who claim that the world changes too fast for their companies to have a long-term strategy. If you want to make a difference as a leader, you've got to make time for strategy. "
Reinventing an art form online (Apple, from Xblog)
"'All in color for a dime.' That was the phrase used to describe comic books during what is now seen as its Golden Age, the 1930s and 40s. If artist and writer Scott McCloud has his way, that phrase will be true again and comics will enter a new Golden Age, but this time it will happen online, not at a corner newsstand."
Scott McCloud's site:
ADVERTISING MATTERS
Wireless Advertisers Fight For Consumers' Favor (TechWeb)
"While most advertising is centered around finding the "hot button" to motivate a consumer to buy, wireless advertisers must still work to persuade mobile users simply to accept their ads, insiders say."
Advertising Age: Advertorial seeps into search sites. (Tomalak's Realm)
"A few years ago, the idea of tainting search results with paid listings set
off an industry fury. But in today's economic climate, what once was
unthinkable by the most successful search engines is now being accepted as
status quo and a means to eking out desperately needed online ad revenue."
New Alternatives to Banner Ads (NY Times)
"Mr. Boyce said one of his chief concerns was keeping the sites' pages light enough to load quickly. Like many other online publishers, Snowball frequently carries four ads on its pages, and that can clutter the presentation and slow the load times, he said. In March, when Snowball's starts using the redesigned sites with the new ads, the pages will display just one ad and will take less time to load than the current four-ad pages. 'So the user's experience will actually improve in a number of respects,' Mr. Boyce said."
NEWS
Red Hat Dares MS to Debate (Wired News)
"A Microsoft executive's recent quip about the purportedly un-American characteristics of non-proprietary software did more than send open-source fans into a tizzy. It also sent companies supporting the Linux operating system a clear signal: You've become important enough for Microsoft to attack directly. "
High-speed rate hikes may be on the horizon (News.com)
"After rates have remained unchanged at about $40 a month for the past few years, industry analysts and executives say a confluence of several events may mean rate increases are on the way."
Napster Said to Hurt CD Sales (NY Times)
APROPOS OF NOTHING
In the need for some quick publicity? There's no better way than creating a virus.
OPENING THANG
Two websites in a row today gave me the "Rate This Page" DHTML doo-hickey found here:
IA & USABILITY MATTERS
The Role of Flow in Web Design (Noise Between Stations)
"I've always liked the concept of Flow, which is when your skills are balanced with your challenges so that you are neither bored nor stressed. Now Scott Berkun has published The Role of Flow in Web Design"
More on flow.
Book:
Reader notes:
How a blind person will "see" your Web page (WebWord Usability Blog)
"How you construct the pages can mean the difference between a tedious and obscure rendering of the information in the page, and one that gets the message across."
Where'd It Go? It Was Just Here! Managing Assets for the Next Age of Real-Time Strategy Games. (Captain Cursor)
Content management is not just a problem faced by us Web developers."
WIRELESS MATTERS
Could Microsoft be on to something with its Stinger phones? They promise that all-in-one solution we've all been waiting for -- cell phone, PC, GPS, WOPR, etc., and I'm sure they're spending heavily on R&D, but I've little faith that a useful solution will come from a company that, when it comes to handhelds, never met a feature it didn't like.
Microsoft invades the airwaves
"Imagine taking a Pocket PC with all the features crammed inside and shrinking it down to a size slightly smaller than a modern-day cellular phone - and then you can begin to have an idea of what Microsoft is previewing at the 3GSM World Congress wireless show in Cannes, France."
Meantime, HP wants in on the action as they show off their new Journada cell-phone/PDA combo in Cannes.
OmniSky Releases Preliminary Results of Wireless Usability Study (Hanna Hodge UX Blog)
"The results of a the first major usability study conducted by Telephia for OmniSky. The results seem to be that handheld PDAs are superior to handheld phones in terms of time-on-task and click count. Hmmmm, not a big surprise!"
WORK MATTERS
>From the SIGIA list: wanna work in Italy?
APROPOS OF NOTHING
I can't stop listening to Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabate. Neither should you.
Notes (with samples):
Buy (with samples):
Email Taj Mahal: taj@hawaiian.net
................................................................
Sick of me? Go to
Can't get enough of me? Go there and read my 'blog.
Send comments to your temp editor: noel@carboniq.com.
Hire:
OPENING THANG
Christina may be in Morocco for two weeks, but she's never very far away. Lou Rosenfeld's interview of her is up and running at the ACIA site.
BIZ MATTERS
+ + Customer service. Kmart signs a deal with IBM to increase checkout time by "up to 20 percent" in its offline stores. Take heed, they've got a metric that matters to them. But I'm curious about the other massive piece of the checkout equation: the humans who have to work with those machines and the training they'll get.
Meanwhile, back online...
>From Tomalak's Realm: "NY Times: Online Companies' Customer Service Is Hardly a Priority."
"But they are also motivated by the bottom line: providing phone support is expensive, so Internet companies under mounting pressure to achieve profitability are adopting more economical automated systems. Critics say customers may be the losers."
IA MATTERS
+ + Prototyping. An early rule from communications 101: show, don't just tell. People prefer flash before devouring their fishwrap. In other words, we're often drawn to pictures more than we are to words. IBM's developers found that out the hard way during some recent user testing: "Users were so drawn to the visuals that we had difficulty in getting feedback on critical questions about content and navigation," says a white paper at the site. Fortunately they've served up a few suggestions on testing their essential stuff early on.
>From xblog: A divided approach to Web site design: Separating content and visuals for rapid results
"A well-designed Web site fuses great content and effective visuals, among other elements. Ironically, integrating these elements too early in the design process can mask problems that might otherwise be detected early
