powered by greymatter

Wednesday, November 7, 2001

OPENING THANG

Well, my timing is amazing. I came down with the flu on Saturday morning, and was recovered by Monday night, which meant I did not get to take advantage of the fact that my husband has Columbus day off. A perfectly good three-day weekend spend blowing my nose! However, in between naps I had a good time beta-testing the new blog management system, Moveable Type.

with which I built a Ahttp://www.nothing-new.com/food/

more comments on the new toy on metafilter.

I'm going to be doing usability testing on it next week; please let me know if you are interested in participating. You must live in SF or be willing to come up, and already be blogging or actively planning to start a blog in the near future.

Noel's gotten sick too, which means the carbon log is hopping

IA MATTERS

You've probably seen this: I saw it earlier, forgot about it, and have returned to print it out finally
Welcome to the Introductory Tutorial on Thesaurus Construction

The Effects of September 11 on the Leading Search Engine

Changes in Metatag Descriptions Over Time

Information Architecture and the Support of Brand Promise (pdf)
"Some believe information architects should only concerned with the structure of hard information. I disagree." Note: his graphics are misbehaving, but the ideas are all there
http://timsalam.com/articles/

USABILITY MATTERS

Web Sites That Work
Considering interface standards on the web

Tools for Usability

Making the World a Happier Place, One Web Site at a Time
An interview of Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir concerning their new title, "Homepage Usability."

RESEARCH MATTERS

The Intel Lookout
Rethinking Corporate Research: Why does the world's biggest chip maker outsource so much research?

Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks
Rethinking Corporate Research: Why and how IBM restored its world-class labs to business relevance.

MARKETING MATTERS

Buying Your Way to the Top
Is buying search terms deceptive advertising?

PROJECT MANAGEMENT MATTERS

Ten Mistakes in Site Planning

APROPOS OF NOTHING

the Charms of le charm

and many other fine food articles...

Tuesday, October 2, 2001

OPENING THANG

Good morning boys and girls! As you all know, I love a good fight-- er-- debate. I'm lucky to see a lively one at ye old website over that classic topic, do designers know how to design?

BTW, to my mind Don Norman's "APPLYING THE BEHAVIORAL, COGNITIVE, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES TO PRODUCTS" is the single most important article I've seen this year if you are an IA or usability wonk. It's actually easier to read than it appears at first blush. I'm still processing and will blog, but why make you wait?

IA MATTERS

Goal-Oriented Navigation Design
"The role of an information architect often isn't fully understood, even within software and web development organizations. At one company I was sometimes introduced to teams as "our navigation guy." I'm actually okay with "navigation guy" as an informal working title, provided it comes with the understanding that navigation isn't something that can just be slapped onto a system, but rather one aspect of a broader user-centered design approach."

Welcome to the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. In our lab we research and design interactive technologies that motivate and influence users.

Influence at work
Influence is a rapidly expanding field of psychological inquiry devoted to discovering the principles that determine beliefs, create attitudes, and move people to action. In other words, influence examines the process that causes humans to change.

want to know how to design information architecture for search?
(via louisrosenfeld.com)

Is that a category I see before me?
"Your brain recognizes broad categories of objects - such as faces, houses, shoes and chairs - with a unique pattern of brain activity for each category, according to recent research by US scientists"

USABILITY MATTERS

Three Questions For Your Web Agency
"Everyone's a usability expert nowadays. But does your potential web agency really take usability seriously? Three simple questions can help anyone choosing an agency find out before it's too late..."

Automatic for the user
Mary Deaton looks at automating usability

The Airport Experience
Tog looks at the way airports have changed post sept. 11th, and how they should change.

MARKETING MATTERS

What Marketers Need to Know About Women

TECH MATTERS

Trouble on the horizon
"The Siren Song of Patenting the Web's Infrastructure"

and
Paying Royalties To Use CSS or XML? What?!

APROPOS OF NOTHING

I continue to be amused by Amazon's announcing my new friends to me. Hi Thomas and Brad. I love you too.

Lou needs a new ISP. tell him what is right or wrong about yours.

I also recommend if you are looking for a new ISP to check out this comparison site

Wednesday, September 26, 2001

OPENING THANG

Many of us are still struggling to shake off the malaise induced by the WTC attack... many of us haven't been as productive as we've been in the past. Talking with friends this week, I've found many are apologetic and guilty: they haven't been able to get much done and since they didn't lose anyone they knew personally, they feel that their grief is somehow out of place, out of measure.

Our president told us to go back to work. He promised to get those guys (who ever "those guys" are). But he didn't tell us how to deal with our loss-- and we all had a loss. The loss of our precious ordinariness. A plane flying over head that was invisible to me last month fills me with sorrow for lost dreams. A large truck makes me nervous about chemical warfare. A young male friend suddenly seems vulnerable to draft and death. Our assumptions have been shaken, and an unfocused fear has taken its place.

So give yourself permission to mourn your everyday life, interrupted so brutally. Don't feel guilty for the past malaise. Then take stock in your pleasures: your favorite album, your favorite movie, your favorite book. Open the nice bottle of wine you've been saving, buy the hardback version of the novel from your favorite author, the rare import CD from your favorite band. Stop staring listlessly at the monitor and steal away from work to catch some sunshine. Admit we all lost something Tuesday-- not metaphorically, but truly. Only then we can do what we each need to return to our lives. Each in our own way, at our own pace.

IA MATTERS

Noel, Gabe and Me: Digital-Web interviews Carbon IQ

As the New Yorker would say, Our correspondent in Japan writes:
"My job is predicated on the implicit assumption that information is stable, knowable, and not least, deployed in the service of a user. In Japan, as we shall see, this isn't always the case. I think the results are instructive, not only for IA's, but for anyone who moves information across cultural boundaries."

Metadata Harvesting and the Open Archives Initiative
'The Metadata Harvesting Protocol—a mechanism that enables data providers to expose their metadata—is seeing very rapid deployment, and enables a fascinating array of new services and system architectures for a diverse set of communities. "

Terrific post by Peter on faceted classification. It's something we all do and take for granted, and peter has managed to write it up in an intelligent and accessible manner. go birthday boy!

if you like infographics, this is a nice simple one used to make a point about the futile nature of revenge.

Sometimes it's good to remember ordinary user questions. Nice and funny column.

USERS MATTER

One of my favorite sites, flazoom has a great new article
"I am convinced that Flash designers have vision that is far superior to ordinary people. Vision so powerful that 8 pixel tall bitmap typefaces on a low contrast background do not present a problem for reading. "

It's the people, stupid
"Too many products, and many start-ups, fail because they don't focus on a simple reality: Humans will need to use and like the product or service. Too often, technologies and products are created because they can be, not because they should be."

Measuring User Experience and What happens when the people come?
Teach the fine art of log watching and analysis, often overlooked in our user-centered discussions.

How video games influenced the attack on America
is an interesting article on how video games shape certain thought patterns.

APROPOS OF NOTHING

I still can't help anyone hack. Yet I still get requests. the latest:

"see i think my gfs cheating on me.
pls i need her password desperately.
this is a matter of life and death.
pls i really need ur help.
pls.....i will be grateful if u help me.
pls."

and

"hi dude... i got some Ver of Spooky i dunno what exactly it is but i wanna have the Final version and stuff..if ya please mail me about this message ... tnx "

I need a new domain name.....

Monday, September 17, 2001

USABILITY MATTERS

"Just two years ago, the definition of a well-designed, complete Web site was one that offered deep discounts on merchandise, shipped items for free, and threw in some animation just for kicks. A quaint notion called usability, which software designers and consumer electronics engineers had been struggling with for a long time, was not even a blip on the radar screen for most of the Web. Unless you were working at Staples.com"

Interface Usability in Flash
"Usability may sound mystifying to some people, and some best-selling books may champion the obscurity of this subject, but there’s really nothing too complex about it. Usability is the extent to which a system supports its users in completing their tasks efficiently, effectively, and satisfactorily - which may also include the experience of aesthetic pleasure."

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for September 16
"New mobile devices and services are more realistic and useful than last year's models, and will likely expand mobile device adoption. Design usability and simplicity are key, particularly for the automotive market where complexity can be dangerous."

DESIGN MATTERS

How should design be effected by recent events? (yes THOSE events)
via giantant.com

If you haven't seen the Adobe.com piece on Jimmy Chen, don't you want to?? Follow up with the Digital Web interview...

Everybody loves free fonts. Except foundries, I suppose.
http://www.fontpool.com
http://www.freewarefonts.com/index.html
http://www.51fonts.com/index1.htm
http://www.geocities.com/fishdicks_2000/index.html
http://www.freepcfonts.com/index.html
http://www.free-graphics.com/

MARKETING MATTERS

Christopher Locke seems to be using writing as therapy these days-- I've been getting a lot of newsletters form him. And, while often loopy, they are interesting, enlightening and strangely comforting reads.

Anyhow, he's got the first two chapters of his book up here
Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices
Also check out his site and his blog (though I prefer the newsletter. warmer and less promotional voice)

NUMBER MATTERS

Gomez Advisors: Online banking increasingly popular in US
"There are 13.6 million US Internet users that actively use online
banking services, according to Gomez."

APROPOS OF NOTHING

These days we could all use a laugh. "how to watch TV" provided it for me.

Two things are making me feel well these days. Poetry and art-- especially photographs.

The poem of the day on the infamamous day is "Two Variations on a Theme" by Stevens, which opens with

"First there is the thing and then there is
the account of the thing, bent into new
alphabets."

worth remembering as teevee and politicians rewrite the inexplicable into the understandable.

Thursday, September 13, 2001

OPENING THANG

Good morning all of you dear readers. This has been a horrific few days. Yesterday I tried to go to work yesterday and realized I couldn't be that far from my husband. I ended up going home so that I could get up from the computer every hour and hug him. I feel deeply for those who have been stranded far from their loved ones, the source of comfort. Lane is one such individual. If anyone can offer Lane a ride back to Austin from San Francisco to be reunited with his love Courtney, let me know and I'll pass on that info to them.

Philippe and I turned off all the media for a couple of hours yesterday at midday to cook and consume a big lunch. I think a lesson for me is that we must take the time to value our ordinary life activities. The TV only circles around, rarely offering new news and mostly offering scenes to terrible for us to comprehend, repeated endlessly. I was treated to watching the plane slice through the WTC tower like a knife through butter forwards, backwards and in slow-mo as Peter Jennings tried to think of something to say "The same technology that allows us to watch sports plays in a multiple ways allows us to... see...this..."

When the media went off, and the only sounds in the house was the wind at the windows and the frying pan sizzling, I felt a bit more human, a bit more able to process this impossible event. Take a walk, cook an egg, ride a bike, see a movie-- give yourself permission to rest.

Please consider giving blood, but wait a couple more days. The blood banks are flooded with people caught up in emotion and willing to give. But I fear in a few days we'll be back to our shortages. Write yourself a note on your calendar, or put it in your pilot-- unless you have O-, wait a bit, but do give.

Amazon is showing real class but setting up a place to donate money to the Red Cross. One click makes it very easy to help out.

A surprise class-act comes from X10, the inventers/utilizers of the pop-under, who have replaced those with direction on how to help in this time of disaster

All the newsletters I receive, and all the mailing lists have changed in the last few days. I'm on lists for writers, usability specialists, web developers, IA's and suddenly they all look the same. Stories form New Yorkers expressing relief for their lives and anguish for those who weren't lucky. Prayers and love sent to all. Whispers of fear for the future.
Robert Scoble said it best, I think "Today, we're human again."

Anyhow, I wanted to reach out to you all. I've written a ton on the blog, and there are even links to ordinary web stuff there.

and if anyone has heard from Andi Lewis, please tell me. I'm sure she's fine, but I'd like to know for certain.

Monday, September 10, 2001

OPENING THANG

I had fun at Web '01 last week, and I promise insights or at least photos this week. But for now-- one of the discussions that sprang up several times was generalists vs. specialists. There is a great article on the benefits of geeneralists in WebTchniques. Check it out.

Heather's photos from the show are here
Vanderwal is running a travel blog on his observations

I'm extremely bummed I missed Stewart Brand, but you can check out a highlight of his thoughts here.

2

USABILITY MATTERS

Evaluation Methods in Usability Testing
Or, how to tell that you have a usability problem before it gets to the field.

IA MATTERS

Interesting article on user experience from Vertebrae, who has quite a few interesting articles

APROPOS OF NOTHING

A gay character in the comic "For Better and Worse" caused some hubbub, so the creator has been providing alternative text for those of delicate sensibilities (nobody say Iowa!)
examp 1
examp 2

Tuesday, September 4, 2001

IA MATTERS

I always thougth Route by George Oppen was the ultimate IA poem, but Edward Houseman's writte a little gem.
The Nature of Information

Can Navigational Assistance Improve Search Experience?
"From the September issue of First Monday. Compares the search experience of three different interfaces, including one they've designed that looks fairly similar to the one at MSDN. They found out (big suprise) that theirs works best. Might be an example of where using frames is actually a good idea."
via brightly colored chad

don't forget-- tonight!

the jeff and drue show

MARKETING MATTERS

Why Technology Companies Need Branding

"Slow to catch on to the benefits of branding have been those companies that are steeped in technology. Even if they have been producing goods for public as opposed to business consumption, they have showed some reticence in embarking on brand investment. Where it is commonplace to spend large amounts of money on plant and capital equipment in technology-based industries, investing in brands has been relatively ignored. As a result, there are few powerful technology brands, and yet they would seem to be in desperate need of branding as a major tool in order to differentiate themselves from all their competitors."

USABILITY MATTERS

webword points me at another useful tool for our toolbox, the Fly on the Wall observation method.

Ben Henick, driven into a frenzy by the shoddy whitehouse.gov, catalogs its failings with virulent accurancy.

NUMBERS MATTER

Websense: Personal Web use costing businesses
"Personal use of the Internet by workers in the office is costing UK businesses billions of pounds every year, according to Websense.

Reuters:Consumers not paying for online music
"A new report from GartnerG2 says that most consumers are not yet ready to purchase and download music from the Internet."

WRITING MATTERS

Another fine source for gleaning: write the web
some of their headlines:
A new direction for weblogs: pornography
Watch those radical librarians
Making micropayments micro enough

APROPOS OF NOTHING

we are robots

(via littlegreenfootballs.com)