From: Gleanings
To: ears, noses and throats
Subject: Gleanings: talk, talk, talkOPENING THANG I joined the ranks of lance arthur, zeldman,glenn davis, kottke and a bunch of people I don't know by begin interviewed by waferbaby.
http://www.waferbaby.com/corner/eleganthack/
all interviews
http://www.waferbaby.com/corner/ I made this last night,
http://www.nothing-new.com/food/scalltom.htm
which was delicious again. it is from here.
http://www.nothing-new.com/food/recframe.htm
This was the second website I ever designed/built, and is essentially unchanged. I use it regularly, and it still works for me. Maybe one of these days I'll write a short blog on naive websites that work. Hobby sites tend to be a category where a naive site is 1000 times more useful than a professional one, even if it is quite uglier or badly organized. Thoughts? as ever, gleanings-comments@eleganthack.com IA MATTERS A report that outlines the key federal policies affecting the development, management, and benchmarking of government Web sites.
http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/libs/measures.htm I wasn't going to include this, but then I realized somebody might not have seen it... amazon's take on the ballot.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/all-stores-ballot.html/106-9723112-1902007 USABILITY MATTERS IBM Developer: Are developers people?
Jakob Nielsen. Luckily, methods exist that allow developers to bypass their own brilliance and experience their product the way normal people do. In a previous article I discussed the usability lifecycle, and the many different phases where it is recommended to take active steps to collect user data.
http://www.developer.ibm.com/library/articles/nielsen4.html NEWS Wired News: RealNames Tries an End-Around.
Privately held RealNames said on Wednesday it plans to open up its proprietary system for marketing common words as a replacement for complex Internet addresses, in a challenge to plans for an incremental expansion of the existing website naming system.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,40207,00.html more news at www.tomalak.org TIS THE SEASON? Like last year, there is a lot riding on online sales
this holiday season. Unlike last year, growth in the early part of the
shopping season is flat. Comparing this year with last, Nielsen
NetRatings found no growth in e-commerce activity the first week of
November. Last year, Jeff Bezos and other faces from the Net Economy
were the icons of the shopping season. But with sales expectations for
this year's holiday set high, we wonder if a lump of coal might be
this year's symbol.
http://yahoo.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-3677887.html?tag=st.ne.ron.lthd.ni more news at www.thestandard.com
posted by Christina Wodtke 11/16/2000 7:56:06 AM
From: Gleanings
To: map fans
Subject: Gleanings: crunching numbers and navigating the netOPENING THANG This article caught my eye
News.Com: XML co-creator maps the Web in 3D.
Rather than using conventional search engine technology to navigate the Web,
Antarcti.ca creates a landscape that spatially represents relationships
between data. The resulting map allows surfers to traverse the network
visually from the point of view of a low-flying airplane...
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3670541.html which led me to this site.
http://maps.map.net/index.html I'm a little disappointed. It's slow of course, but it's just a hierarchy tree done with colored boxes. I'm still waiting for a real innovation. Thinkmap (and its brother, the brain) is a potential innovation
http://www.plumbdesign.com/projects/thinkmap.html
but it's too hard to use to navigate comfortable, though its a fun toy... maybe humans just like navigation trees.
ACCESSIBILITY MATTERS
find out how a website would look to someone who is colorblind
http://www.vischeck.com/vischeckURL.php3 NEWS Forbes: The Bite of the ASP.
John C. Dvorak. Despite the market downturn and the general pullback from
crazy dot-com schemes, people have failed to notice the danger that lurks
beneath the trendy concept of the ASP, or application service provider. By
danger I mean loss of data due to bankruptcy or shutdown.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2000/1127/6614296a.html Boston Globe: Bugged by Wal-Mart's Web site.
The site closed down for most of last month, and has just become active again
for online shopping. Could this be the world's worst Web site? Of course, with
a reported $100 million being poured into the relaunch, this could be the
world's best Web site. Inquiring minds want to know.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/319/living/Bugged_by_Wal_Mart_s_Web_site%2b.shtml Forbes: Control Geeks.
Last month Lim and wife, Amy, both 32, released Bannerama, free software that
wipes out banner ads on Web sites and replaces them with content of the user's
choosing - tidbits on foreign languages and trivia and, eventually, wine,
cooking and golf.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2000/1127/6614284a.html ***more fine tidbits at www.tomalak.org*** new NUA survey newsletter out. EDITORIAL: 'Jingle Bells: Service sells'
It's still a good six weeks to Christmas but the purveyors of surveys
and studies are feasting already. In the past week, we've seen a
rash of survey reports and analysts' predictions on the online
Christmas shopping season.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/analysis/weekly_editorial/archives/issue1no152.html AdRelevance: Full banner ads losing ground
http://www.adrelevance.com/about/release06nov00.jsp eMarketer: AOL UK puts the heat on Freeserve
AOL announced this week that its UK subscriptions have topped the
one-million mark.
http://www.emarketer.com/enews/reuters/11_08_2000.rwntz-story-bcnetbritaina oldc.html?ref=dn Business 2.0: The Web goes underwater
The US Navy is making waves with its attempts to connect to the Web
from beneath the sea. (this article is cooler than it sounds)
http://www.business20.com/content/magazine/vision/2000/10/16/21268 NetValue: Spanish web users stay online for longer
Spanish Internet users are the most active in Europe, according to
the latest figures from NetValue.
http://www.netvalue.com/corp/presse/index_frame.htm?fichier=cp0016.htm more here http://www.nua.com
posted by Christina Wodtke 11/15/2000 7:55:48 AM
From: Gleanings
To: faithful readers
Subject: Gleanings: dropdowns and recountsGLEANINGS OPENING THANG Useit.Com: Drop-Down Menus: Use Sparingly.
Drop-down menus are often more trouble than they are worth and can be
confusing because Web designers use them for several different purposes. Also, scrolling menus reduce usability when they prevent users from seeing all their options in a single glance.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001112.html HEY
I'm *also* writing an article about dropdowns.. can every/anyone send me any tales of drop-down madness? Usability tests are of particular use. thanks, kids.... gleanings-comments@eleganthack.com MORE ON THE ELECTION NONSENSE Got more than one mail lately asking for me to express my own opinion... well, it's not very gleanings-like, but what the hey. Every ballot in America was probably confusing. And probably has been for a long time, it's just this election was so close it called attention to the situation. Perhaps now they'll pay professional designers to design the dang things. or maybe -- radical thought here-- they could have a check box next to each candidates name, and give up all these cute hole punches, arrow completions etc. And better yet, perhaps they will TEST those ballots wiht a range of typical voters. Well, I can dream, right? Just gotta mention Dynagirl is running a contest to design a better ballot. check it out
http://www.dynagirl.com/contest.html of course, I think the usability party's electronic ballot design should win, both this contest and the election (tongue firmly in cheek for those of you who easily panic)
http://www.ntk.net/nielsen2004/ Here's a couple more article on the election for those of you who are insatiable (thanks Marnie!) Online voting is neat, efficient -- and robs the political process of its human spirit.
http://earthlink.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/11/08/online_voting/index.html Now Republicans have also requested a recount in Palm Beach County. Why? And what if they come up with different results?
http://earthlink.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/11/tallahassee/index2.html
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Pickle knows who will be president
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/11/pickle.pollster.ap/ great, I've been classified
http://earthlink.salon.com/tech/books/2000/11/07/yettie/index.html wondering what to make for thanksgiving?
http://www.epicurious.com/e_eating/e04_thanks/main.html And you thought the ballots were confusing
Take a tour of Palm Beach, the bad design capital of America
http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0011/florida/ Theory! Argh! This sentence is a crime.
http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/panop/home3.htm NEWS All from Tomalak today, cause it's nearly time for me to drag my lazy carcass to work. Lighthouse: From July 17, 2000; A flying menu attack can wound your navigation
http://www.shorewalker.com/design/design116.html Web Informant: Remind Me.
I think my issue is the quantity of reminders that I now get on a daily basis. It used to be intriguing, or at least fun to show family and friends, that my car or whatever was sending me email. But now I want to turn a few of these nags off, or at least fine tune them...
http://strom.com/awards/223.html News.Com: Walmart.com CEO Jeanne Jackson does some remodeling. Jackson asserts that although industry pundits may not find Walmart.com's site particularly fashionable, it is the product of some very conscious choices. "Go look at Target and BlueLight. They have decided to be sexy, we've decided to be fast and reliable.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-3623664.html Publish: Mutants in cyberspace.
As brave new tacticians follow the principles and manipulate the components searching for their holy grail, one factor in the viral equation will stay the same: The customer is always right. In an age of rampant spamming, companies must work to earn back customer trust.
http://www.publish.com/features/0011/feature5.html as ever, the rest of *his* gleans are here http://www.tomalak.org
posted by Christina Wodtke 11/13/2000 7:46:06 AM
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