I know I gleaned it but this article is so on the money I have to give it an extra call out. Ask Tog: How to Deliver a Report Without Getting Lynched

"The finest set of recommendations will be rejected if the form in which they are received is seen as hostile or belligerent. I recently received a copy of an unsolicited report sent to a firm that seemed unimpressed with the writer's efforts. The reasons why are instructive to us all."

Good morning (or afternoon, or evening) I'm back in America. Not much jetlag, just a tendency to be cranky after 8 p.m. and see more sunrises than usual, including a fairly impressive one right now that is rising out of china basin.

Oh, I just put up all the guest gleans in the archive. May their fabulous work live on for eternity!

Today's "Word of the Day" was Argus, so that may be why this issue of gleanings is so IA heavy-- fate!

argus (AHR-guhs) noun

An alert and observant person; a watchful guardian.

[From Greek mythology. After Argus, a giant with 100 eyes who was sent to

watch over Io. He was later killed by Hermes and after his death his eyes

transformed into spots on the peacock's tail.]

http://wordsmith.org

On the argus site (perhaps you've seen it) an interesting interview with Vivian Bliss

"People: An Interview with Vivian Bliss

A librarian with a JD, Vivian discusses the trials and successes of designing and maintaining an enterprise-wide information architecture within Microsoft's intranet environment. "

http://argus-acia.com/people/bliss_profile.html

~~~

New software designed for IA's to let them design

http://www.silverboots.com/index.html

their white paper is a bit-- well, you read it and let me know what you think.

http://www.silverboots.com/whitepapers.html

~~~

PLAY (Via http://www.giantant.com/antenna/)

"Play is a Swedish HCI research studio which "investigates and invents the future of human-computer interaction." They've published a bunch of interesting papers, on interface topics from Baby Faces to Hierarchical Flip Zooming to Designing Everyday Computational Things to Pirates!. "

http://www.viktoria.informatik.gu.se/groups/play/

~~~

Steven Johnson is always readable. His interview with Cory Doctorow is no exception. Anyone interested in collaborative filtering or new browse methods should check it out.

http://www.feedmag.com/templates/default.php3?a_id=1703

~~~

The Joys of Prototyping (via xblog.com)

"At the heart of any good user-centered design process is the practice of

prototyping. By creating and testing interfaces in rough format, designers

are able to feed through improvements and feedback from users quickly and

easily. This in turn helps to ensure a final product that is an evolved

solution, in the sense that it has been through a number of iterations and

emerged as fit for the job in question."

http://infocentre.frontend.com/servlet/Infocentre?page=article&id=154

How to Deliver a Usability Report

"The finest set of recommendations will be rejected if the form in which

they are received is seen as hostile or belligerent. I recently received a

copy of an unsolicited report sent to a firm that seemed unimpressed with

the writer's efforts. The reasons why are instructive to us all."

http://www.asktog.com/columns/047HowToWriteAReport.html

Internet World: Deconstructing Maytag.com. (via tomalak.org)

"Terry Swack and John Shiple. Few sites have such a strong online brand and

identity. Browsing products is a sweet experience. The well-structured,

cleanly designed site makes finding products very easy, and the tons of

information available is clearly presented, which makes ordering simple."

http://www.internetworld.com/060101/06.01.01decon.jsp

The Four Horsemen of Usability --

"As of June 2001, four web

properties control more than 50% of all the time spent online by U.S.

surfers. This means that you can throw away your usability guidelines and

follow these companies. They spend millions on usability testing and they

are driving standards by sheer market force. You have no choice but to

follow their lead."

http://webword.com/moving/fourhorsemen.html

Hackers: Not Always Bad And Not Just a Man's Club

"There are women who hack, and many learn their skills where they are outnumbered by men: in the rough-and-tumble online enclaves that hackers frequent or at hacker conventions. "

http://www.iht.com/articles/22243.html

MIT Technology Review: The Myth of "Internet Time". (via tomalak.org)

"Andrew Odlyzko. Internet time appeared to give special power to the

first-mover advantage. A company that could quickly establish itself as a pets

portal, for example, might be able to gain a high enough market share to

discourage competition."

http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/apr01/reviews.asp

The Best Designs :: the ultimate DESIGNER'S resource (via xblog.com)

"The Best Designs was created as a resource for designers to view the best

designs on the net, to read articles written by other designers, and to be

guided to the most helpful web design resources on the Internet."

http://www.thebestdesigns.com/

Informal Tools for Designing Anywhere, Anytime, Anydevice User Interfaces

James Landay

230 Bechtel, Sibley Auditorium

University of California, Berkeley

Thursday, June 21st @ 7.00 p.m.

Talk Abstract

We are now entering the era of pervasive computing, an era where people

will access information and services anywhere, anytime, and from a wide

variety of devices. The challenge for researchers and practitioners is how

to support the design of user interfaces that will empower people to

engage in these interactions easily and efficiently. Our work has been in

creating design tool that support the best practices of user-centered

design. Such practices include the informal techniques used during the

early stages of design, such as sketching and "faking" interactions using

Wizard of Oz techniques to test early designs.

http://www.baychi.org/bof/east/

I returned from France to hear about the (excuse me) ridiculous tale of Kaycee. The real victim though is Henry, whose existence was apparently thrown into doubt!

http://www.biggerhand.com/

Believe me, I've had my eardrums shattered by an excited caterwaul, and I've heard him list off 50 pokeman while eating an equal number of tortilla chips... he's real. Daddy Mike was driven to put up references for Henry which are also utterly true.

http://biggerhand.com/abouthenry.shtml

Henry's always entertaining and 100% real diary

http://www.biggerhand.com/henry/2001/henry052801.html

~~~

While cleaning out old memos from my palm, I found this lovely and useless Belgium "bande desinee" site.

http://www.urbicande.be/home/

~~~

Despite the lack of site, the FC newsletter suggests that this is a fine multi-city party announcement list.

www.bernardoslist.com No personal recommendation one way or the other.

~~~

game whose name says it all

http://www.deathbyjargon.com

~~~

my sister sends me the sequel to the bigcat story

"Fat Cat

You probably have received a picture of a man in a den or living room holding what appears to be the largest house cat ever known to exist on the planet. The picture is very impressive, and the man holding the cat looks very proud. The man, according to the email, is Roger Degagne who lives on the shores of the Ottawa River. According to the story, the cat is the product of two cats named Lost and Found who was discovered near an "abandoned" power plant called AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) 15 years prior to the photograph. The cat pictured in the photograph is supposedly 89 pounds and 69 inches long.

According to AECL (they are still in business, by the way) they have no record of a Roger Degagne ever working for them at any time, nor do they remember ever having two cats at the property. As far as the picture, it seems odd that such a heavy cat can be so easily lifted by a man who obviously is somewhat out of shape. According to the Guinness records (www.guinnessworldrecords.com), the largest cat is Snobie and weighs a whopping 98 pounds, but is just over 40 inches long.

The picture is probably some kind of farce (fake cat, overlaid images, etc.) and has actually been circulating on the Internet since about 2000 and it has only been recently that a story has accompanied the big kitty.

- Michael Vincent "

From Emazing.com

http://my.emazing.com/stupidtrawl.jsp

OPENING THANG

Hey kiddos-- Still in France, and will be until June 6th, after which expect the usual 4 a.m. postings to EH and Gleanings, as jetlag sets in. I'm ensconced deep in French farmcountry, as Noel said earlier, and don't have much connectivity to speak of, which is pleasent and weird both. I simply hike up to the main house to download my mail. It's proving to be a productive time, and though I miss my meanders online I've replaced them with meanders into the local village.

http://www.nothing-new.com/travel/France/may01/chaumejean

I just wanted to send a petite bonjour to the readers, and thank the guest gleaners-- they've done a terific job! I really enjoy the world through other's eyes and voices. Speaking of voices, Noel's writing up a storm on the Carbon Log; be sure to swing by. http://www.carboniq.com/log

and gleanings is completely built from email, so no guarentees on the

quality of my linkage...

IA MATTERS

Peter Metholtz has written a long "thoughtwander" on the futility of new

interfaces and the map as interface. It's chock full of tasty links that I only wish I could follow...

http://www.peterme.com

Which reminds me to say again if you are an IA, you need to get "Mapping

Websites: Digital Media Design" by Paul Kahn and Krzysztof Lenk. It offers many ways to create "website planning documents" as they call them, and well as some interesting insights

intot he relationship of realworld maps to web maps. I don't have the link available (working offline), but I've got it on my blog

http://www.eleganthack.com/blog

which inspired Paul to post this yummy link to a course on maps!

http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com/seminars/mapping/maptoc.htm

>From the SIGIA list

Navigation resources

http://www.sitenavigation.net/snguide.html

http://usableweb.com/topics/000689-0-0.html

USABILITY MATTERS

Talking to Computers (Scientific America) -- "Any notion that we can

replace keyboards with pen-based computing is wildly misguided. The

fastest you can go with a pen is about a third the speed that you can

type. It's a single channel output compared to multiple channel outputs

when you type, and that's the same limitation you have with voice as well.

Those technologies just have a basic fundamental human limitation that

usually gets overlooked." via webword.com

>> http://sciam.com/explorations/2001/052101compu/

NEWS & COMENTARY

As a travel junkie and a web junkie, I can't help but be intrigued by

orbitz...

Groups Seek To Block Orbitz Launch

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010525S0004

Analysts: Orbitz (Kind of) Rocks

http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article/0,,4_772531,00.html

NUA's take on the recent hoaxes

"In the past two weeks, two deaths have shocked parts of the Internet

community. The deaths, both of young women who had a host of online

friends, became all the more shocking when it was discovered in both

cases that neither of the women had ever actually existed in the

'real' world.

http://www.nua.ie/surveys/analysis/weekly_editorial.html "

Cahners In-Stat Group: Web appliances to be hugely popular (via nua.ie)

"Consumer demand for Internet-enabled appliances is set to grow by a

compound rate of 101 percent annually until 2005, according to Cahners

In-Stat."

http://www.nua.ie/surveys/?f=VS&art_id=905356799&rel=true

The Industry Standard: European firms remain optimistic (via nua.ie)

"A new survey of senior company executives in Europe has found that

93 percent of large European companies intend to maintain or

increase their IT spending in the next year. Sixty percent of those

polled said they were confident about the medium term future of the

European economy."

http://www.nua.ie/surveys/?f=VS&art_id=905356796&rel=true

How Amazon Is Beating the Costs of Shipping

"The e-retailing giant has quietly established its Worldwide Digital

Group, which offers music, e-book and software downloads."

http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,26715,00.html?nl=dnt

APROPOS OF NOTHING

>From creativegood.com,

"Interior Desecrators shows the horrors of 1970s interior decorating. One of

the more entertaining sites I've seen recently. "

http://www.lileks.com/institute/interiors/bhg/index.html

Who's got real problems, and who's just pissing and moaning?

The Stress Test

http://www.thespark.com/stresstest/

cool FAQ's

http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KmFaq

via stylewithsubstance.com

"funny new use for the palm"

http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,40964,.html

"A Date Which Will Live in Falsity"

How on earth will Disney market "Pearl Harbor" to Japan's moviegoers?

With a poster like this one:

http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0105/pearl/

this type of humor is always much funnier when I'm abroad...

"The Foreigner's Guide to America: Chapter Two"

http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0105/guide02/

and if you missed the first...

http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0105/guide/

Finally thanks Lane, for making me a trusted friend!

Has anyone writen up ettiquette to deal with Amazon's friends and family

circles yet? Do I write a thank you note, or simply send flowers?

originally sent 6/4/01

Is one Gleanings ever enough? Live from the Days Inn in Rochester, New York (home of the white hot dog) it's the fifth installment of the guest-culled Gleanings. Today's a double-dose; we hear from Paul Natress and Chad Thorton. Enjoy their work. Enjoy your weekend. -- Noel

+ + + + PAUL'S GLEAN

OPENING THANG

I was just thinking about what makes the Web so great. I thought long and hard about it and was going to say that the free (and freely available) information on the Web is what makes it great. While this is true to a certain extent, this information is useless if nobody reads it. To find good information about your particular topic of interest is hard - I know, I've tried to find good solid information about creative writing, web design, IA, usability etc. The best source for this information is from the communities which have built up on the Web - groups of professionals and amateurs alike, each with their own web sites linking to each other, commenting on each

others articles, thoughts and opinions.

This is what makes the Web great.

Gleanings is a part of our global IA community. Christina - thanks for making our Web great.

GETTING TESTY

<http://www.aptest.com/resources.html>

While nothing beats a good, live testing team it's useful to have some testing software around, especially for the more mundane tasks such as checking for alt tags.

Why does "access all areas" usually apply to an elite minority?

Macromedia offers an accessibility starter pack which includes some testing tools -

The check page for accessibility extension is very useful for finding images with no alt tags. British IAs - take note of the US accessibility legislation - who knows when we will adopt it.

Create Online accessibility debate -

<http://www.createonline.co.uk/magazine/bigissue.asp>

Listen to Julie - she's from the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) and they do their homework - <http://www.rnib.org.uk/digital/hints.htm>

Writing for the Web (or should we call this screenwriting?)

Peter links to a good site with info about style guides -

<http://www.edit-work.com/index.html>

WEBBY NEWS

Earlier in May Oxford University announced they were opening a new Institute to study the effects of the Internet on society -

<http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/010504.htm>

and the BBC story at -

<http://news.bbc.co.uk>

Oh, what we could learn...)

Sun Microsystems staff are banned from the Internet in the run up to their annual reports...

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/19277.html>

A worrying sign - how many of us Glean whilst at work?

APROPOS OF SOMETHING

About 99% of Flash on the Web is bad (or so it seems) so it's very rare to find someone like Andy Foulds who uses it to create the most elegant and

wonderful interfaces I've seen. This is the 1% which we should be taking notice of.

<http://www.foulds2000.freeserve.co.uk/port_index.htm>

Finally - take a look at Vincent's "interface for a news publishing application" and give him some feedback. Gonna have a play myself in the next few days... <http://www.mersault.com/thinking/interface/newsintro.htm>

Did I say finally? Sorry, forgot the gratuitous plug -

<http://www.ia-uk.co.uk>. My pointless ramblings...

+ + + + CHAD'S GLEAN

OPENING THANG

Greetings from San Francisco. I was fully prepared to say that it's always 60 and foggy here, but we've hit a heat wave and it's 95 and I'm in shorts. I'm Chad, proprietor of Brightly Colored Food. Please, stop by, check it out, make yourself at home, drop me a line, we,ll have drinks, it'll be great..

DESIGN MATTERS

GUI and Web Standards and Guidelines

It's mostly UI standards, but it's a nice list for a quick little refresher. Quick -- when is it appropriate to use radio buttons? How about check boxes? What about drop-down combo list boxes?

<http://www.weinschenk.com/guidelinesdemo/default.html>

IA/UX MATTERS

Patterns of Hypertext

While we worry about wayfinding and orientation, others make an art of it. I dig Mark Bernstein of Eastgate Systems, and I'd go to eNarrative 3 (http://www.enarrative.org/) in a second if only the boss-man would foot the bill. For those of us who can't go, we'll just have to read this.

<http://www.eastgate.com/patterns/Print.html>

CHI2001 Notes

For those of us who couldn't go to this, either.

<http://joel.westside.com/wsContentPublisher/story.view?RowId=11>

The Hypermedia Design Patterns Repository

"HPR is an initiative of ACM-SIGWEB in collaboration with the University of Italian Switzerland.

Its goal is to allow a larger community to reuse design experience gathered by other designers of hypermedia and Web applications and systems, by providing useful Design Patterns.?

Victor linked to information on Christopher Alexander's new opus, so I had to follow up with this.

<http://www.designpattern.lu.unisi.ch/index.htm>

USABILITY MATTERS

User experience types need to see themselves more as craftspeople. A craftsperson is someone who actively develops new tools and refines existing ones. Yeah, we're not at Xerox PARC and we're all overworked anyway, but it would be great to see more efforts at developing practical tools/processes for development and analysis.

The IBM EZ Sort Card Sorting and Cluster Analysis program is a great example of such a tool.

<http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publish/1876>

I'm working on a flash-based frontend for the cluster analysis part of EZ Sort, with the goal of running card sorts remotely (the current setup doesn't allow this). I'd love a hand, especially if you're good with ActionScripting. The hope is to extend the existing tool and release the flash code to the ux community-at-large. Drop me a line~chad_thornton@intuit.com/soapbox

Speaking of tools, usability testing tools will become increasingly important as user experience folk figure out which data is really worth analyzing. Here are some relevant links:

Mining Web Logs to Improve Website Organization

Given that links are so opaque, I continually test link names, location, and grouping. This tool supposedly aids in identifying which pages are visited but aren't useful ("not useful? is inferred by browsing behavior: use of the back button ^ a decent metric, though definitely not infallible).

<http://www10.org/cdrom/papers/345/index.html>

WebQuilt: A Framework for Capturing and Visualizing the Web Experience

<http://www10.org/cdrom/papers/602/index.html>

Information Scent as a Driver of Web Behavior Graphs: Results of a Protocol Analysis Method for Web Usability [.pdf file]

Tape Measures For Site Usability

We can't be everywhere all the time. Hearing about automated and/or remote approaches to usability both fills my heart with dread and gives me a bit of hope. This article is an overview of a couple of tools for usability analysis.

<http://www.PlanetIT.com/docs/PIT20010222S0006>

WRITING MATTERS

Blogging as a Form of Journalism

Unlike the spate of generic "what is weblogging?? articles, this one does a good job of covering how some professionals actually make use of blogging as part of their work.

<http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=585>

A nice companion article to the one above:

"A knowledge worker is someone whose job entails having really interesting conversations at work?

<http://www.contenu.nu/article.htm?id=1152>

COMMUNITY MATTERS

Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Support Social Processes

"We are interested in designing systems that support communication and collaboration among large groups of people over computer networks. We begin by asking what properties of the physical world support graceful human-human communication in face to face situations, and argue that it is possible to design digital systems that support coherent behavior by making participants and their activities visible to one another. We call such systems "socially translucent systems" and suggest that they have three characteristics -- visibility, awareness, and accountability -- which enable people to draw upon their social experience and expertise to structure their interactions with one another.?

<http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/st_TOCHI.html>

ART MATTERS

MONO*crafts 3.0. Yugo Nakamura rocks the snow-filled glass globe of my existence.

<http://www.yugop.com/>

NEWS & COMMENTARY

What If Napster Were Based in China?

Might this be the end of proprietary intellectual property as we know it?

If you're a fan of cyberpunk, you already know that Bruce Sterling covered this beat years ago (well, 1998) in his novel Distraction. It,s worth a read for those who get sick of the usual P2P pundits carrying on about the same old stuff..

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Are we Artist or not?

I was trying to make some misguided point about artists and craftsman and thankfully it totally fell apart, but I did find this page. It's nice to see a community other than our own struggling with its identity.

Thanks for listening, hope to see you soon.

So Chrisina splits the country...could her sister be the next best thing? You make the call. Alyssa sits in the Gleanings Chair for this episode, which I'm again serving up from vacation in Rochester, New York (where the most notable user experience is a trip to Wegmans, the Bellagio Las Vegas of grocery stores). Email her at alyssa@stylewithsubstance.com with your fan mail. -- Noel

INTRO

I'm Alyssa, Christina's sister and one of the people she asked to do a gleanings while she's gone. Christina and I share an apartment, at least until her hubby makes it through the INS process. It's kind of nice to rattle around here alone, though it gets a little creepy sometimes. I try not to hear footsteps in the attic or imagine noises at the back door. Mostly I sit at C's computer for hours at a time, mentally blocking out the dishes and laundry that need to be done.

Since she left I've spent much of my free time dismantling the smoke alarms. One of them started beeping and there are so many damned smoke alarms in this long apartment and the sound is so weird in here, I haven't been able to figure out which one is beeping. Admittedly, it took me about 4 or 5 days to bother to drag the ladder out to deal with the problem. Every time I think I've gotten the right smoke detector, I hear another beep. I've dismantled every smoke detector in the house and still I hear beeping. I'm beginning to wonder if it's some strange form of tinnitus.

I suppose C asked me to write one of these because I do spend a lot of time surfing, mostly while doing twelve other things at work. Multi-tasking is my middle name. No, really, Alyssa Multi-tasking Wodtke--my parents were ahead of their time. Don't let anyone tell you kids don't live up to their names.

Anyway, here's some cool stuff I've seen lately:

APROPOS OF NOTHING

"New observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal in northern Chile give weight to current computer models of the early universe: it is "spongy", with galaxies forming along filaments, like droplets along the strands of a spider's web." Although I love the thought of the universe as spongy (it reminds me of Pinky from Animaniacs saying he liked the word obsequious because it sounded "squishy"), even better is the fact that astronomers got together and couldn't think of a better name than "Very Large Telescope (VLT)."

<http://europe.cnn.com/TECH/space/specials/scenes/index.html>

I was not really a science fan in school. Now I devour every story I find. I never knew space was so entertaining...

"May 16 - In a feat that has scientists baffled, a hungry young star more than 2,000 light years away, appears to be belching perfectly spherical bubbles of gas and dust."

How cool is this--"May 30 - The recipient of the first successful larynx transplant three years ago now speaks - and sings - with a perfectly normal voice. His surgeon says he is ready to perform the operation again." I learned something new--the larynx affects taste and smell. The body is a weird thing.

<http://www.msnbc.com/news/580348.asp>

I love this site. I'm not sure why. It's not big on design, not high tech, but I think it's creative and fun. It makes me want to draw my food.

<http://www.pocketpig.com/>

DESIGN MATTERS?

I know I shouldn't be plugging a superpower's website, but I visited the Sony Metreon's website for the first time today and thought it was nicely done. But what do I know, I'm just a movie junkie...

<http://www.metreon.com/>

I wouldn't be me if I didn't throw in a shoe site. Anyone who knows me knows my deep affection bordering on dangerous obsession with Kenneth Cole's shoes. And I also think his site is really nice. It uses restrained colors and has a very laid back, respectable look. It's got a lot of movement, there's plenty of visual interest, and it's super easy to navigate. I'm no architect like sis but this site works for me.

<http://www.kennethcole.com/>

And for another shoe site at the opposite end of the spectrum--Bruno Magli's site is an exercise in glorious excess. The rich colors, the disinterested models, and the unusual "curtain" design complement the designer's shoes perfectly. It's not as easy to use as Ken's site, but it's pretty to look at.

SHAMELESS PLUG

If you liked any of this, or if you're curious about me (I'm comfortable being a curiosity), you can check out my site at: <http://www.stylewithsubstance.com> I'm not a professional but I have a lot to say. Thanks.

Welcome George! Today's is the fourth in a series of guest-composed Gleanings. Christina returns in mid-June. -- Noel

OPENING THANG

Dude, welcome from Los Angeles where, yes as a matter of fact, it _is_

always 72 degrees and sunny -- and home to the ultimate designed user

experience: Disneyland. So get in the convertible, put the top down and

we'll cruise down Imperial Highway (big nasty redhead at our side), taking

in a tour of some user experience-related sights. Just remember, the

natives can be playful at the tourists' expense, so if the directions you

just got don't seem to be making sense, just keep heading southwest and

eventually you'll run into the beach -- which is probably more fun than

than where ever you were headed anyway.

And if you're ever actually in town, stop by to the IA/UI cocktail hour

<http://www.interactionbydesign.com/cocktailhour/>

BIG THOUGHTS MATTERS

"Digital Renaissance: Convergence? I Diverge."

<http://www.techreview.com/magazine/jun01/jenkins.asp> Henry Jenkins,

director of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, argues that

the confusion over digitial "convergence" is because there are actually

five trends at work.

Since the issue of certification seems to be raising its ugly head in the

IA field (just as it has in graphic design and software engineering) Tom

DeMarco (of the software-engineering-project-management-gurus Atlantic

Systems Guild) raises an interesting idea: the real issue is about who gets

_de-certified_.

<more>

Art Center over in Pasadena is currently hosting an exhibit exploring

artists' use of the global telecommunications network. An online exhibit is

at <http://telematic.walkerart.org> The physical show will be stopping

elsewhere in the U.S.

UX (user experience) MATTERS

As IAs move more and more into requirements development, wouldn't it be

nice if there was a comprehensive list of issues to make sure are covered?

There is. James and Suzanne Robertson of (more Atlantic Systems Guild-ians)

have come up with a comprehensive list that includes not only the usual

technical stuff but also thinks about things like corporate politics and

legal liabilities -- the Volare Requirements Specification Template The main

weakness is that the Robertsons come from the enterprise software

development world, so they don't deal with content issues. When you first

look at Volare it may be a little overwhelming because the Robertsons have

included lots of commentary about how to use it, but it can be stripped

down into a useful checklist. And definitely check out their "requirements

shell",

which is a nice way of collecting essential requirements info on a 3x5 card.

And while we're thinking about requirements, ran across two useful

resources for a related step: putting together functional specs

<http://joel.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$212> and

<http://www.mojofat.com/tutorial/>.

>From functional specs, we move on to a nice concise overview to the joys of

prototyping

<http://infocentre.frontend.com/servlet/Infocentre?page=article&id=154> Not

a lot of depth, although there are links to related articles, but it's a

nicely done summary that's useful for the inevitable PowerPoint

presentation.

Ever needed a quick translation of IA/UI/UX jargon

<http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/main.cgi?> has got 'em...

Always respected his opinions since the days of NeXTStep, Simson Garfinkel

wonders why humans should conform to the way online shopping carts work rather than vice versa. <http://www.techreview.com/magazine/jun01/garfinkel.asp> While it's

familiar ground, it's nice to hear it from a programmer who gets it.

DESIGN MATTERS

<http://www.coolhomepages.com/> is what it says it is. Interesting place to

hunt for experimental stuff.

<http://www.threeoh.com/> Digital Design Journal -- not much there yet, but

looks promising...

USABILITY MATTERS

OK, I hear you saying not another Jakob article.... Well yes, but I

included it because it's written for the larger business community and it's

useful to see how the user experience = usability argument is being seen

from the outside.

"User Advocate Or Enemy Of Creativity?: Jakob Nielsen defines the

boundaries of art and functionality in designing site"

<here>

BUSINESS MATTERS

The Havard Business Review <http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbr/> used to be dull academic papers. But no more. Apparently they overhauled it a year or

two ago and now it's a valuable collection of thoughtful and well-written

white papers. And interestingly, in the two issues I've seen so far, has

had articles touching on user experience. In the May issues (still may be

on newsstands), one article walks through how "customer scenarios" can

guide web and business strategies (sound familiar?). The April issue had a

fascinating article by a building architect who's been studying how

business can integrate their online and brick-and-mortar efforts. But aside

from user experience specific articles (even if they're not labeled as

such), HBR offers a good way to keep up on current trends in business

thinking (helpful if you've got to sell UX to managers or clients), as well

as a good way to learn more about management skills and general business

skills. No it's not cheap, but it's definitely worthwhile.

Thinking of Tom DeMarco (see above), I'm in the middle of reading his

excellent "Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork and the Myth of Total

Efficiency," The book asks a key question about our time: Why are we all so

damned busy? And it suggests that all this infernal busy-ness is not

entirely healthy, either for the organizations we work for or for their

beleaguered workers. It's especially relevant now that "internet time" has

been proven _not_ to be a good way to develop things. You can download a

preview [pdf file]

<here>

MARKETING MATTERS

Was going to mention Jim Sterne's excellent newsletter

<http://www.targeting.com/fullsterne.html>, but Ralph Brandi beat me to it.

So I'll just say, check it out.

Harry Beckwith's "Selling the Invisible"

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446520942/> is essential reading for anyone who's got to market

_services_ rather than products -- such as IAs, UIs and UXs. While Beckwith

doesn't touch on it himself, reading his book made me realize that

interactive products (web sites, software, whatever) are really more like

services than products. That's to say, when it comes to user satisfaction,

_how_ something gets done is often as important (and sometimes more

important) than what gets done. It's the difference between the DMV and

Nordstroms.

WRITING MATTERS

The ever-snarky The Register holds the first annual Email Disclaimer Awards

2001. Judged in six categories: Longest Disclaimer, Most Incomprehensible

Disclaimer, Most PC Disclaimer, Best Bi-lingual Disclaimer, Best Spoof

Disclaimer, Special Award for Best WWW Disclaimer. I'm just glad they

didn't publish the acceptance speeches.

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/19057.html>

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Own a piece of dot-com history... I wasn't sure if I should laugh when I

looked at this:

<http://www.scripophily.net/dotcoms.html> although they probably should

work out a joint marketing deal with the Museum of E-Failure

<http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/>, who's stated goal "is not to laugh at

the fallen, but to preserve their last image, before all traces of these

sites' existence are deleted from history's view." Yeah right....

You've probably seen "The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation," now hear the

inside story...

<http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/making.html>

"He-Mails, She-Mails: Where Sender Meets Gender"

[registration-required]

Ever wonder what it's really like living in Los Angeles? Steve Martin's

"L.A. Story"

isn't a comedy, it's a training film... at least for some of us...

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMO MATTERS

Finally, just wanted to mention that I'm in the middle launching my own

site devote to thinking about user experience design:

thumbnails, which will feature yet

another UX blog, book reviews, links to resources and the occasional white

paper. I'm currently debugging the blog, which should up within a few days

at most, and the book reviews will follow shortly.

Ciao babe, have your people call my people and we'll do lunch....

Another sunny, warm Monday breaks loose in San Francisco. And is our Glean Queen Christina is around to enjoy it with us? Noo, she's off in France, "ensconced on Philippe's father's farm," and has left today's Gleanings in the capable hands of Victor Lombardi, he of Noise Between Stations. And Victor done good.

Today's is the third in a series of guest-composed Gleanings. Christina returns in Mid-May. -- Noel

+ + + +

Sing

Breaking the Sound Barrier: Designing Auditory Displays for Global Usability

Beatnik - Principles of Sonification Design. Some very rational and complete guidelines for using audio in the user interface

Reassure

'Trust and security in interactive spaces do not depend on technical security measures alone. Our limited research suggests that the feeling of security experienced by a user of an interactive system is determined by the user's feeling of control of the interactive system.'

Think

Overview of Christopher Alexander's new opus, "The Nature of Order" <http://www.patternlanguage.com/natureoforder/overview.htm>

Stretch

Principles of Graphic Design:

<http://www.mundidesign.com/presentation/index2.html>

Lurk

aiga-advance mailing list

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aiga-advance/messages/>

Exercise

<http://www.keepyourbrainalive.com/exercise.html>

Appreciate

<http://www.schmoop.com/>

+ + + +

More of what's going on inside Victor's head: <http://www.noisebetweenstations.com/personal/weblogs/>

Today the Ernie Kovacs-lovin' (God love 'em for it!) Ralph Brandi writes the second in a series of guest-created Gleanings. Happy surfing.

-- Noel

OPENING THANG

>From deep in the heart of Jersey (New Jersey, that is), it's the Gates

Brown memorial edition of Gleanings. In this edition, Gleanings is about the

nature of community on the net, prompted by the recent revelations of a

net.hoax, a marketeer who gets it, then a little levity (not on levity.com,

though), followed by some links about a personal hero of mine, and closing

with the usual unrelated but neat stuff.

Is it still Gleanings if I don't use the same headers as Christina?

COMMUNITY MATTERS

Erin Malone muses about the nature of community on the web and what makes a

site a community. A few of us pile on.

<emdezine>

When I read this, I was reminded of a paper that Teresa Roberts presented

at CHI 98 called "Are Newsgroups Virtual Communities?" She postulated that

communities have six defining characteristics:

* Cohesion

* Effectiveness

* Help

* Relationships

* Language

* Self-regulation

She concluded that newsgroups can indeed be communities.

<read it here> (1.1 MB PDF file)

Julian Dibble has a chapter from his book "My Tiny Life" that explores the consequences of severely anti-social behavior and deception online, specifically about one particular incident that took place in LambdaMOO, a MOO/MUD run by researchers at Xerox:

Katie Hafner's article about The Well from Wired back when it was still

marginally worth reading is an interesting exploration of function and

dysfunction in one of the earliest net.communities:

MARKETING MATTERS

I first saw Jim Sterne speak at Internet World in Boston some years back

(and they haven't held it in Boston in a long time, so it was quite a while

ago, probably around 1995 or 96). He's a marketing guy who really groks the

web. In his talk back then, he earned my everlasting admiration for ripping

apart the web site of my then-employer. I went up afterwards and thanked

him for giving me ammunition for my running battle with the artists I

worked with, who, incidentally, had designed the site he had spent 15

minutes dissecting.

Jim's Full Sterne Ahead newsletter comes out monthly and is filled with stories of marketers who get it and, more amusingly, marketers who don't.

USABILITY MATTERS

Usability!

<http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/ntk/>

(Thanks PeterMe)

ERNIE KOVACS

I've long felt that the web is just waiting for our very own Ernie Kovacs to finally show us how this all should be done. Who's Ernie Kovacs, you ask? Basically, he was the first person to make television as television, rather than as radio with pictures or plays in front of cameras. He was a comic genius, and invented much of the visual vocabulary of television that we take for granted today. His "Eugene", a half-hour completely without dialog, was absolutely amazing, and the sight gags he invented to take advantage of the medium are still being recycled to this day.

The best page I've found about Kovacs' mad inventiveness with the medium is a transcript of an interview he gave the Canadian Broadcasting Company in 1960.

That interview is part of a truly wonderful site, Kovacsville On-Line, about his whole career, from his entry into local Philadelphia television in 1950 until his untimely death in a car accident in 1962.

The Ernie Kovacs Site has a nice bio of Ernie and covers the basics.

The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia have a page devoted to Ernie and particularly his early, Philadelphia-based career, including a picture from a 1952 show, some great stories, and some insight into the tricks he used to get the effects he desired on virtually no budget. There's also a RealMedia clip of some 8 mm film footage from March, 1952, of Ernie and company clowning around in the studio.

The best photos of Kovacs (well, only two of them) are on the still-under-construction Ernie Kovacs - Nothing in Moderation site:

<http://www.erniekovacs.com/>

<http://www.erniekovacs.com/hey.htm>

Ernie also did some movies, but as he says in the CBC interview, his heart was really on the other side of the camera, and TV was his medium.

<http://us.imdb.com/Name?Kovacs,+Ernie>

I think about Ernie every time I'm faced with a problem when putting a web site together and am trying to come up with an innnovative solution. Kovacs was a visionary; I'm still waiting for one to show up on the web and provide the conventions that will seem blatantly obvious in retrospect.

"Television, a medium -- so called because it's neither rare nor well done."

--Ernie Kovacs

APROPOS OF NOTHING

The site for the movie "The Dish" is one of the few sites where I've

enjoyed the use of Flash. I think it's a clever interface, a little artsier

than I usually like, but entirely appropriate given the subject matter:

<http://thedishmovie.warnerbros.com/>

I really want to see this movie; I think anyone who grew up watching the

Apollo space program would want to. I remember going to my grandmother's

house to see the moonwalk because they had a color TV and we didn't. Of

course, the video feed from the moon was in black and white, but no matter.

I hope the movie eventually opens in a theater closer than an hour and a

half from my house....

And for good measure, here's the site with the original Australian trailer:

<http://www.workingdog.com/wdog.html>

(Ralph Brandi is a webmaster and user advocate for a really cool research

lab trapped in the body of a large telecommunications firm. He has been on

the net since 1987 and building web sites since 1993. He will rant about

the importance of the user for hours to anyone who provokes him. Gates

Brown was the best pinch hitter in the history of the American League, and

played for the Detroit Tigers for 13 years in the 1960s and 1970s. More

info on Gates at <http://www.nadiacomaneci.com/library/article135.htm>.

Really.)

--

Ralph Brandi write: gleanings at brandi.org visit: <http://www.brandi.org/>

G'morning. Christina's off in France for a few weeks, so we're taking over the Gleanings airwaves. Today's ditty, compiled by Matt Jones, is the first in a series of guest-edited Gleanings. Enjoy. And happy Monday to you.

-- Noel Franus (mail noel at carboniq.com)

OPENING THANG

Hi it's me ... hey ... over here ... past the wet thing ... yeah ... that's

right ... NO ... too far ... that's denmark ... back you come ... right ... HI!

welcome to London. I'm Matt, and i'm your host for this hideously UK-centric

edition of gleanings. Lots of good folk and good work over here which I

thought you might be interested in, and if you haven't got summer vacation

plans, or fancy a change of scenery; then some of this might inspire you to

come over to Blighty (it really ISN'T full of disease ridden animals,

honest...)

Go to shynola for objects of mirth, beauty and pathos...

<http://www.shynola.co.uk/>

(click the heart... these guys aren't regular useit.com readers...)

these guys work in a wired-up suburban house in norf lahndahn as a

cooperative/collective and produce some of the most breathtaking videos,

imagery and worlds currently out there... including the lastest radioheadvideo

(beware... spawns realplayer stream...)

A meta-gleaning... Hugh Pearman is a pretty respected design critic here in

the UK, who writes for The Sunday Times of London, Design Week etc. He

'gets' the web more than most 'mainstream' design media types (and some

net-media types...) and so most of his writing is posted on his site, which

is fully-searchable...

<http://www.hughpearman.com>

great new xplanation

In the UK, the government's going to switch off analogue TV sometime between

2006 and 2010 which has created a bit of a dash to digital interactive services through these

new generation TVs... designing for a platform constrained in terms of its display, performance, modes of interaction and mainstream, non-tech savvy users with no attention span??? FUN!!!!

'going interactive on television isn't always a good thing, says Mr

Daly-Jones. Serco's research has shown, for instance, that interactive TV

viewers aren't necessarily interested in having control of camera angles.

"There's a reason why professional camera editors exist," he says. "Watching

TV is supposed to be a social activity, so in some instances with

interactive TV one person controlling the remote can lead to all sorts of

trouble." '

serco's research on interactive TV usability (also wap/smartphones and PDAs)

http://www.usability.serco.com/research/research.htm#research

and an E-group^H^H^H^H^H^H^H sorry yahoogroup...

<http://www.usableitv.com/>

If you know me then you'll know I tend to drop the I off of IA quite a

lot... so INDULGE ME...

BUY THIS BOOK....!!!

"Beginning with the root definition of architecture as its "conceptual

organization, its intellectual structures"., the author makes clear its

function as "identification of place", goes on to identify the basic

elements and concepts, examines the use of natural features of the

landscape, analyzes primitive place types, geometry in architecture, space

and structure, and other key concepts.

>From the campsites of primitive man to the sophisticated structures of the

late twentieth century, architecture as an essential function of human

activity is explained clearly, and illustrated with the author's own

excellent drawings. Highly recommended as a well-organized and readable

introduction."

(it's by my old design theory tutor from architecture college...)

Stuart Nolan of Oyster don't... don't....don't... don't believe the hype:

"It seems that as a culture we are not very good at managing our own

expectations. We get over excited and run around until we get overtired and

fractious. It's fun to think we are part of a technological revolution but

maybe a social evolution is much closer to the truth."

more

bugger... i'm on holiday... guess it's up to someone else THIS TIME...!!!

"You have one day to save humanity..."

Sun... sea... Spain... Superb music... what ELSE do you need?

8th Barcelona International Festival of

Advanced Music and Multimedia Art

14th. 15th. 16th. June.

Three days and three nights in touch with the most up-to-date developments

and featuring the most relevant national and international artists. Sonar

presents more than 250 activities: 50 concerts, more than 70 DJs, 90 titles

projected at the SonarCinema and 60 works in every multimedia format:

interacative capsules, installations, CD-Roms, Net art.

Sonar is the essential meeting point for an alert public, cutting-edge

artists and the most influential professionals from the sectors of music and

modern arts.

<http://www.sonar.es> (check out the flash navigation tutorial.... hoho!)

peer-2-peer evolutionary beasties

(disclaimer: not sure how stable/sucky-of-resources this is... careful...)

the wedding channel!

Peter Saville, Nick Knight... oozing quality

(but lacking usability... beware it spawns full screen windows, needs every

plug-in etc., y'know... web art...)

just enjoy it.

Bye!!