From: Gleanings
To: Ungreeted
Subject: Gleanings: You say goodbye, but i say hello

OPENING THANG

I said goodbye to Egreetings last night. Bought by American Greetings, they shut their doors yesterday. The generous former CFO rented out Cafe Du Nord and provided a spread complete with little wild mushroom appetizers and plenty of free flowing liquor. The founders gave speeches and handed out awards to longtimers.

Some people were angry, blaming this mistake or that for ending what was a truly amazing place to work. But others, including myself, were just happy we could have been part of it in a time when you could do insane things and they would work. It was a company that allowed you to grow as fast as you could-- grow as fast as it was growing.

Egreetings took chances on people. I went from shy temp writing marketing copy for the greetings to Information Architect running around quoting Jakob Neilson in hopes of making a great product. I chatted with a former waiter who ended up heading the production team. It was a little bit company-as-cult, but you know, that can be okay. It's nice to know the product you're making doesn't hurt the environment or cause cancer, and even makes people smile. I remember times when we were up at 2 a.m. screaming about the database or cursing javascript that didn't work, and someone would yell "Hey, it's not brain surgery. We get this wrong, nobody dies."

I also rememer many times, riding on a plane or a taxi or anywhere strangers suddenly start talking to you, I would be asked "Where do you work?" and I'd say "Egreetings.com" and they would reply "Oh, I love those! My sister (brother, wife) sent me one and it made my day."

Kinda cool.

I couldn't help but think as I watched the founders, Tony and Fred, up on the stage: that's Noel and Gabe and me up there. Foolhardy and hopeful and trying to get a product we believe in off the ground.

And tonight Carbon IQ is holding its housewarming. Will we grow big? Will we stay small? Will be get bought, as Egreetings did, but a larger older company? Will we quietly go under with no fanfare? I don't know. We're in a strange business, in strange times. But damn I love an adventure.

Good bye Egreetings. Hello Carbon IQ.
Fasten your seatbelt, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

DESIGN MATTERS

"Color plays a vitally important role in the world in which we live. Color can sway thinking, change actions, and cause reactions. It can irritate or soothe your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite."

IA MATTERS

"This white paper discusses information architecture in terms of retail ecology theory and how it translates to e-commerce. It begins by defining what a retail ecology is, and then discusses how the information architecture of e-commerce sites can change for four different types of retail ecologies"

"Developing Schemas for the Location of Common Web Objects"
By Michael Bernard

Why user experience disasters happen at the start of web projects
Requests for proposals for web projects describe the desired solution but often lack basic information about the problem that will be solved by the application. To design a usable user experience you have to understand the problem first: who are the future users, what are their current practices and what are their needs? The main barrier to this understanding is that some corporate cultures lack the courage to really listen to users.

Dan Bricklin: Metaphors, Not Conversations. (tomalak.org)
A good metaphor aids in developing trust between the program and the user. Its strengths and weaknesses are apparent. It is a tool that the user can work "with". It provides a "space" of some sort that can be explored and manipulated for the user's purpose.

The Psychology of Menu Selection (xblog.com)
"Designing Cognitive Control at the Human/Computer Interface: Menu
selection is emerging as an important mode of human/computer interaction.
This book, the first entirely devoted to this important form of
human/computer interaction, provides detailed theoretical and empirical information of interest to software designers and human/computer interaction specialists and researchers."

USABILITY MATTERS

Developing User-Friendly Flash Content (xblog.com)
"The original intent of this white paper was to provide Macromedia Flash developers with the knowledge necessary to create user-friendly Macromedia Flash experiences on the Web. The need for this paper has never been more crucial, since many of the most vocal Web critics have recently portrayed Macromedia Flash content in a negative light. The claims that Macromedia Flash content is bad for the Web or that Macromedia Flash and usability are polar opposites are both myths."

Paper Prototyping Kit
"Paper prototyping is a technique that enables technical and non-technial personnel to cooperatively design user interfaces for GUI and Web applications."

Testing Paper Mock-Up of Homepage

BLOG OF THE DAY

"I've broken two yo-yos in two days. I'm running out of them. I can never tie the strings right so they work as well afterwards. I wish I was better at yo-yoing."

APROPOS OF NOTHING

need a domain name but run out of imagination? there's always snotpocket.com or docomofo.com...

matt writes:
"perfect for a friday"

posted by Christina Wodtke 4/6/2001 08:51:04 AM

From: Gleanings
To: Famous People
Subject: Gleanings: Sippy is everywhere

OPENING THANG

I wrote Sippy asking him why he was posting useless messages to my blog, such as "i am everywhere" and "all your blog are belong to me".

He replied with this:
http://www.sippey.com/archives/00000046.html

Those who incite revolution are often the first against the wall...

~~~

great article by Steve Champeon on the state of the web.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2001/03/30/sxsw.html

BLOG OF THE DAY

Noise Between Stations
User-centered design thoughts mixed with personal tales make satisfying and edifying reading.
http://www.noisebetweenstations.com/personal/weblogs/

BRAND MATTERS

I'm a huge fan of Aaker's no-nonsense sensible writing.
"The Brand Leadership Spectrum: The Key to the Brand Architecture Challenge (By David Aaker and Erich A. Joachimsthaler, from the Summer 2000 issue of the California Management Review, Vol. 42, No. 4.)"
http://www.dmi.org/dmi/html/conference/digital01/sp_aaker_s.htm

IA MATTERS

New interview up at ACIA
"People: Interview with Karen Parolek, Envision Design
As a "real live architect" whose expertise spans the design of physical and digital spaces, Karen is uniquely qualified to tackle the "architecture" metaphor that we love to use and abuse. "
http://argus-acia.com/people/current_profile.html

~~~

In the "if you haven't read it, now is the time" category:
martha sent this classic link...
Best Practices for Designing Shopping Cart and Checkout Interfaces
http://www.dack.com/web/shopping_cart.html
to which I must add this
Information Architecture of the Shopping Cart by Sarah Bidigare
http://argus-acia.com/white_papers/shopping_cart_ia.html

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Want to know what turns on interface gurus?
http://www.beoplayer.com/

~~~

and WOO f*ckin' HOO!!
Broke 500 subscribers today.
Which brings up the question "Who are you people and why do you care what I have to say everyday?"
Ah, I'm just happy you came...

posted by Christina Wodtke 4/4/2001 09:07:52 AM

From: Gleanings
To: mark-ups
Subject: Gleanings: angle brackes and all

OPENING THANG

Working on a lot of small projects as well as my day job at CIQ. Excuse the lack of pontification (or is that, enjoy the lack of pontification...)

IA & DESIGN MATTERS

Mike (biggerhand.com) send me this
http://www.customatix.com/
and is always raving on about this
http://www.mycereal.com/store/
both interesting for their customization interfaces (if not for their wacky biznez models)

Cool site collects websites and their evil twins: theft may be bad but it makes fun surfing.
http://www.pirated-sites.com/

Elwell's Glossary of Sociology
http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/frank.elwell/prob3/glossary/socgloss.htm

Wandering navigation (and I hear this is a beautiful magazine. what's the deal with their website?)
http://www.nestmagazine.com/

Dries writes:
"Drop.org has a book module. The book module is a collaborative writing tool whose goal is to write structured and more permanent documents. Each document is a collection of nodes, in this context called "pages", assembled in a tree with chapters, sections and so on."
http://drop.org/node.php?id=203

USABILITY MATTERS

AskTog: Replay TV.
"I expect there is some lawyer out there that would love to make a few million dollars in a slam-dunk class action lawsuit. If you know of one, have him give me a call."
http://www.asktog.com/columns/045ReplayTV.html

NEWS & COMMENTARY

News.Com: Will the "refresh" button become obsolete? (tomalak.org)
A surfer on Excite, for example, would load a full page from the original
source, but then the site would establish a direct connection between Bang's
network and her browser. This would remain open as long as she is on the site,
updating changes in the page as they're made.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5405498.html

Nua.ie: In this age of unprecedented access to information, however, fewer and
fewer people choose to make the trek to the polls on election day.
Even in countries where the citizens have had the right to vote freely
for a relatively short period of time, the percentage of people voting
in elections is dropping.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/analysis/weekly_editorial.html

Interactive Week Online: Webmasters are a happy bunch (nua.ie)
Despite the downturn in the technology sector, a new survey of US
webmasters by Interactive Week shows that website operational budgets
are expected to increase this year.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/?f=VS&art_id=905356610&rel=true

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Alyssa sent me:
"Whopper of the Week" the lie that the internet is eating all our electricity.
http://slate.msn.com/code/chatterbox/chatterbox.asp?Show=3/30/2001&idMessage=7393

David send me this:
"For the perfect party, invite a mathematician",
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000166941319210&rtmo=LxdNyhLd&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/01/1/4/ecfmath04.html
"the Quadratic Law of Resentment, to wit: if you combine N people, there are N(N-1)/2 possible ways in which arguments can break out."

andi writes:
"thought you might like some of this site.
http://www.bornmag.com/mother.html
I liked the bit called
"a student asks the poet basho: what is victoria's secret?"

NEW ON THE BLOG

Since so many survey respondents told me they use gleanings to track what I'm writing in the weblog, I'm adding this section:

"do u have any thoughts or resources regarding the application of IA to game design? thanx petros"
I don't, but maybe you do....
http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/archives/00000004.html

"My favorite responses to "How can I improve Eleganthack?"
"better looking"
"naked photos of friends"
"Smell-o-vision."...
http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/archives/00000003.html

EVENTS

Anti-Internet Party
Tuesday, April 10th
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (employed) or 12:00 AM (unemployed)
Paragon Restaurant
2nd & Townsend (next to PacBell Park)
San Francisco, CA
RSVP requested (to help Paragon estimate attendance), but is not required:
http://www.evite.com/jad@greenhouseforstartups.com/tokyojad
posted by Christina Wodtke 4/3/2001 08:21:37 AM

From: Gleanings:
To: peeps
Subject: Gleanings: Nothing more than Gleanings

OPENING THANG

I've really been enjoying the results of the survey.
http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey-intro.zgi?ID=5XSNRNLRYKR4&PIN=CXEV
5AJRV28G
At the bottom of this gleanings, I'm going to try to respond to some of the
gleanings-related suggestions.

Today's big news is xplane launched their redesign today:
http://www.xplane.com/
Dig that sitemap at the bottom of every page. perhaps the redesigned EH
should sport that?
It was originally done on Peter van Dijck's Move.to/Columbia site, and he
wrote about its successes here:
http://www.poorbuthappy.com/usability/colombianavigation/

Less exciting -- except to me-- is I went to greymatter. yum! greymatter is
a blogger-like tool for maintaining weblogs. For me, it provides a lot of
freedom: it runs on my server, so I don't have to worry about mysterious bug
fixes that happen right when I've got something to say. For you all, it
gives you a chance to comment on my entries, adding your very fine two
cents.
http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/index.html

DESIGN MATTERS

Flash: 99% good
http://www.webmasterbase.com/article.php/374

In that vein, here is a lovely site (though did he *really* have to open all
those windows?)
aaron haley deemer - photography. (via littlegreenfootballs.com)
http://www.aarondeemer.com

evan writes:
"check this for cool navigation (what else is there, really?)
http://members.ams.chello.nl/mulder.g/
and o'course, http://www.potatoland.org - mark napier's site."

USABILITY MATTERS

Heeeeere's Jakob!
"Summary: Corporations spend millions on PR, and yet the press sections of
their websites often fail to meet journalists' most basic information needs.
In our recent usability study, journalists found answers to only 60% of
their questions across a range of corporate sites."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010401.html

MARKETING MATTERS

Brand Aid
Despite an economic slump, experts say corporate philanthropy remains
essential to branding. Companies such as HP make it work through advance
planning.
http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2001/03/30/29215

NEWS & COMMENTARY

Napster for Ideas
"If you'd like to see one of the most amazing, powerful and revolutionary
applications of the Internet yet, run, don't walk, to Groove Networks and
download Groove (www.groove.net). This is the future of the Web."
http://www.iht.com/articles/15441.html

The Benefits of Staying Small
A profitable grocery delivery service? Bollocks, you say. But PDQuick has
found the right mix of products, technology, and size.
http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2001/03/26/28933

Dan Bricklin: The "Computer as Assistant" Fallacy. (via tomalak.org)
"This type of thinking strikes me as strange. We don't ask for our
automobiles
to be more natural and intelligent, nor do we call for the next generation
of
cars to be like chauffeurs. With cars, we talk about responsiveness,
comfort,
power, cargo size, and safety."
http://www.bricklin.com/assistantfallacy.htm

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Mark writes:
"beautiful - 'But if you don't take these chances, you end up a bureaucrat
all your life.'"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1247000/1247163.stm

peeps! (via kottke.org)
http://members.home.net/lamonteyoung/peeps_8bit/peeps_8bit.htm

ENDPIECE

>From the survey
http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey-intro.zgi?ID=5XSNRNLRYKR4&PIN=CXEV
5AJRV28G

Your gleanings-issues and my answers:

"on this page, http://eleganthack.com/gleanings/2001_03_11_oldglean.html
the powered by blogger image is broken " -- I point to the blogger server,
so I'm afraid I don't always know what's working and what's not. I probably
won't redesign the old archives of gleanings, but if I do, I'll replace the
banners with text links. they don't break.

"An improved search engine would help locate items related to a specific
topic or company. Organizing your gleaning archives based on a set list of
topics, in addition to date, would be helpful. " -- I've wanted to go to a
better search engine for some time now. I've gotten about three good
suggestions for one, so I'll be trying them out and picking one. hopefully I
can document that search as well.

" Can you make the archive more consistent with the rest of the site (so you
can go to other parts of the site)? Make the earlier archived pieces links
active (or indicate that they're no longer active, or changed). " 1. done.
2. here's the deal. gleanings is text. writing all those links as links
takes time. sometimes I have that time in the morning, and sometimes I
don't. The formatting of the links in the archive are basically determined
on the basis of "am I running late for work?"

"More Apropos of Nothing, less News. The rest I'm happy with. " I assume
there are a wide variety of folks on this list, some who like meaty news,
some that like fluffy nothing. Eat your veggies, then get dessert. I
recommend those who enjoy the news take the survey and defend their goodies.

"mention me more" Okay, Mike.

"I love it. But maybe more specific info about business cases." I have no
idea what you're are talking about. please write me a long rambling email
explaining it, and I'll do my best to accommodate you.

"Use yir spillchikr more consistuntly." yeah, right. I need an editor.

"Maybe you could do special features on sites similar to Elegant Hack which
are springing up all over the space" there is no one like eleganthack. (who
is this person talking about, I wonder? I'm curious...)

"do you occasionally add new sources? I've only subscribed about a week or
so, so I haven't noticed yet." I do. I often do blog-wanders, which lead me
to new places. If I dig them, I add them to my list of places to visit. But
yes, I have favorites which I visit again and again.

"do some QA on using <> on links - does it help more than it hurts? I get
404ed all the time because of a trailing ">" at the end of the url. " Okay
folks.. please tell me, do the angel brackets help keep the long links from
breaking, or do they break the links themselves. on my mail program they
work like a charm (when I remember to include them)

I didn't include all the wonderful kudos I got, but that doesn't mean you
shouldn't still keep sending them. Make my morning that much sunnier.

that's all, kids!

It's not paper.

http://www.eleganthack.com
posted by Christina Wodtke 4/3/2001 08:20:45 AM

From: Gleanings
To: Unsatisfied
Subject: Gleanings: Giggles, Art and Surveys

OPENING THANG

First:

I want to redesign Eleganthack. That starts with you all, and your opinions:
I built this survey. Please take it...
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?5XSNRNLRYKR4CXEV5AJRV28G
Sorry about the spelling errors. I have no doubt the number one request will
be for an editor.

And Second:

It's Friday! Art and funnies! Less news! More ways to waste time!

DESIGN MATTERS

Typeface hell
"Your typography is #@$! boring. Did you pay any attention to typeface
choice when you made your stylesheet? Chances are, you did up the keen-o
title and nav button text in Photoshop, then picked a body typeface that
comes with Windows or Mac OS by default, and then threw in a few back-up
fonts "just in case," right? Just like all the other little two-bit hacks
out there, churning out slop."
http://rudeparrot.com/typefacehell.html

When did blogs get so beautiful?
http://www.alttext.com/
http://www.bluishorange.com/
http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com/
http://homepage.mac.com/iblog/
I need to redesign my site. Can I trade everything I know about IA for one
day for everything someone else knows about design? Sigh.

He's baaack (kirkaracha.com)
http://wackyadvice.com/bud/home.html

Interview: Jeffrey Zeldman
Jeffrey Zeldman is an outspoken web designer, author, and speaker.
http://www.ibizinterviews.com/jeffreyz1.htm

holy cow
http://nif.www.media.mit.edu/ecat/

MARKETING MATTERS

Can Apple Move Beyond the Mix Tape?
Steven Johnson on iMac's "Rip.Mix.Burn." campaign
http://www.feedmag.com/templates/default.php3?a_id=1668

TECH MATTERS

Sick of tables? Need some css layouts, but can't bear to code your own?
http://www.bluerobot.com/web/layouts/
more on the hottest thing to hit client-side code since the rollover
http://rudeparrot.com/csscolumndemo.html
more
http://members.home.net/bigstripes/tutorial/box_lesson/

NEWS & COMMENTARY

SF to lose 80 percent of dot-coms
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2702185,00.html

David writes: "There's this slashdot article talking about a new book,
"republic.com", by Cass Sunstein. The book makes the claim that we are
creating little communities of people on the Internet who all have the same
thoughts, ideas and opinions. The very thing that is supposed to encourage
sharing information, free speech and new ideas is being used to eliminate
those very things. The author makes some very valid points, but at the same
time, I think he fails to see forest for the trees. Yes, there are sites
that have filtered opinions and biased information, but those sources have
always existed, even before the Internet. Anyone in this day and age who
still believes that they get their news free from bias or spin is sadly
deluded. To use the popular line, "the Truth is out there." Seek, and ye
shall find. Of course, I haven't read the book, and am basing these comments
on the slashdot article."

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Is it Sunday already? (kirkaracha.com)
http://www.angelfire.com/wi2/bork/blueman_2.html

Kirk says(kirkaracha.com)
"All Nude Teen Stick Figures is one of the weirder sites I've seen lately.
And it's AOL-friendly."
http://www.nudestickfigures.com/

I'm going shopping
http://www.shirtsignals.com/main.php3

dithered.com says:
"The best part about yourgoingtohell.com isn't the absolute intolerance of
absolutely everyone. It isn't the animated gif of the devil's head on fire.
It isn't the rotting carcass at the bottom of the page. It isn't the scanned
image of God from a Jack Chick tract wearing a shirt with "I NEED JESUS" on
it. It's the background music - it's random midi files. I got Rage Against
the Machine's Killing In The Name Of. Now, how dope is that?"
http://yourgoingtohell.com/

morbid? goth? deep?
http://www.thedeadletter.com/

Today's Cruel Site of the Day: (thanks david)
The Inscrutable 8-Ball Revealed

and just when you have something to say...
http://sorry.blogger.com/
what does he put in that tea of his?

posted by Christina Wodtke 4/3/2001 08:20:37 AM

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