with xmas coming, who do you know who needs a Jakob mousepad?
Tess Lispi's portfolio is more than that: it is a guide to a methodology for a project done right.
from the latest issue of Digital Web Magazine Tutorial: What's happening? A new look at Web pages
"Those new to the Web and to computers are scared: Scared of viruses. Scared of pressing the wrong thing. Scared that pornography will "happen" on their machine. Scared that their credit card will suddenly show charges because they've accidentally bought something.
When people are new to something common sense often flies out the window -- the brain is fully occupied processing the new information. And when they are new to these magical and powerful devices called computers they will happily suspend all disbelief. Of course charges can appear by magic on your credit card just because you looked at a Web page, just because you viewed an item at a shopping site."
It's a nice way to remember how it was when you first started using computers (can you remember that far back?)
So let's play a game. Your name is Sam. You are a 52 year old typesetter. You smart, college educated, and a bit artsy-- after all, you are keeping this great old art of hand made books alive! And your daughter just bought you a computer. Sarah got it for Christmas. She set it up, ran the wires, and even ordered an earthlink account. She then showed you how to dial up, and made yahoo your start page. And she told you there are great pages showing old books online.
So here you are, you've been looking at it all week, and it's been looking at you. You fire it up. You try to dial up, it doesn't work, it wants a password. You put in your pin number instead of a password. You realize that can't be right. You call up Sarah to ask what the password is again, you try to dial up, and it fails again. You call Sarah, she asks if you typed it in exactly as she said, capital letter, small letter, number and so on. You say no, you hang up, you put in the password they way she said exactly... you've learned you have to be careful if you want to go online!
So you click on the explorer icon.
Um, that's not quite useful.... you scroll down.
you decide to try arts, since that is more or less what you do, you try book sellers, and suddenly there are a lot of hopeful looking links-- people who sell antiquarian books, art book, etc.
Now you visit these three. When you arrive, can you tell what each site does? Did you arrive there by mistake? What would you click to look at rare, old and hand made books? Which might charge your credit card?
Now be Sam and visit your website.
Hey folks-- I'm seeking examples of two things:
One: good info-diagrams that explain how a service or site works. pay my bills used to have one, but they've gone text.
Two: good examples of category managers. I'd love to see good web-based GUI's that allow users to put things in multiple categories, add categories, manage taxonomies, etc. any hints?
thanks!
The newly redesigned Snapfish gives us another best practice: a sensible rotate tool.
Rather than ask you to try to remember which way is clockwise, or decode some arrows, it simply asks you to chose which side is up.
One you've clicked that, you can ask yourself, "is that right" before applying it.
Once it's been done, you are taken to a page where you can make your next move...
Clear, simple, friendly. (and yes, that's the Carbon IQ dog, Beau, posing ... he's hardly a puppy anymore!)
Homeboy Noel Franus makes usability relevent to marketing in Fulfilling the Promise: Borrowing from "Usability" for Better Customer Relationships
"Usability" is a concept that's caught fire in many professional circles lately. Unfortunately, there's little consensus on what it actually means: maybe you think of "usability" as that last-minute QA test done just before launch, or perhaps you picked up a book on usability, and feel inspired to redesign your home page.