April 2002 Archive
So Much
My apologies for the sporadic updates, I’ve just had so much on my mind lately. I don’t know when things will be back in working order, but don’t hold your breath. I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Market Radar
nooface points us to a great tool created by Smart Money to see market dynamics.
THE MARKET RADAR is a new way to get a broad, historical view of stock prices. Our first radar tool displays nine years of weekly price changes for 500 companies — more than 200,000 data points in all. Presenting such a large database in a single picture makes it possible to see market dynamics that might otherwise be invisible.
Dimensions of the Net and Web
However, the very loosely coordinated growth of net technologies have led to significant human factors problems, and modeling diffuse communities interacting through the net requires new human factors methodologies and theories. This article analyses the human factors of the net and web in terms of the standard dimensions of utility, usability and likeability.
Utility, Usability and Likeability: Dimensions of the Net and Web
Web Simple Accepting Submissions
I’m finally accepting submissions for Web Simple, a gallery dedicated to simplicity in web design, featuring screen shots of specific web pages and an open comment system powered by Movable Type. So I’m looking for any and all web designs that fall into the category of “simple.” You decide what simple means. If you know of any web sites that you think are simple, I’d love to hear about them.
Some links on simplicity:
SXSW Panel: Simplicity in Web Design
What Does “Simple” Mean?
Keep it Simple Stupid!
Update: The Web Simple project is over.
Apple Unveils the iToilet
And with the recent unveiling of the new iMac, Steve Jobs had an idea.
“I have an idea!” he said. “Since most folks seem to think our new iMac is just a really really expensive desk lamp, maybe we should start manufacturing household appliances!”
Steve then danced around a bit, before adding “Hey! Since we’re in the business of making crap, why not start with a toilet?!”
Usability Issues in Product Design
Frontend Usability InfoCentre returns with a great little article about usability issues in product design by Frank Long.
As everyday products have become more intelligent and start to move on-line, the complexity of these interfaces has also increased. Thus the usefulness of products has become more dependent on the usability of the product interface. And as a result the usability of the interface can no longer be isolated from how the product works.
(via ia/)
Double-Check Everything
Joe Clark reminds us to double-check everything on our websites. Then leave it for a while, let the dust settle, and and check it again. You never know when you might accidentally link a film about teen angst, sex, and violence to a Martha Stewart cooking show.
Legalese on the Web
Mark Hochhauser has some interesting thoughts about readability on the Web and specifically how legalese is presented.
These are the exact same forms that you could have gotten 10 years ago in a book. If you look at how visual the Web is, why do we have consent policies that are the equivalent of eight pages of text? It’s no surprise that people ignore them.
I know I do most of the time. For all I know, I’ve already sold my soul many times over. When asked if any company doing a decent job of writing in plain English, Hochhauser points out that Yahoo’s updated Privacy Policy is “not bad.”
(via Tomalak’s Realm)
k10k Relaunch
Yet another beautiful relaunch! Kaliber1000 { The Good Vibe Provider } relaunches with issue 115, which tries to find out if design is a product of environment, or skill.
I’ve always taken the side that a skilled designer could produce a great design, regardless of environment. For many, environment can be a great creative stimulation, but without design skill, can they create an effective design? I’m anxious to hear other’s opinions.
It’s afterDinner Time Again
Congratulations to Alex Massie on the relaunch of afterDinner! What used to be a showcase of the best writing on the Web is back and even better. It’s now comprised of two sites, afterDinner: for readers and afterDinner: for writers. “Together, the sites aspire to encourage and promote creativity in writing without the risks associated with traditional publishing.” Behold! This is the power of the Web.
Shaping Web Usability
Shaping Web Usability looks like one of the few must-read web usability books. Why is it different from many of the other web usability books? Because the author is a leading contributor to the field of HCI, not business or web design. This isn’t too say that other web usability books are poor, but many of them miss the point. That is, usability is about understanding humans before business goals or design concepts. (via InfoDesign)
Deep Linking
Legal experts say that deep linking can violate U.S. and European copyright and trademark laws.
“When someone provides a link without my permission, which grants a user access to a part of my website without going first to my site’s home page, the user may experience something different from what I intended when I established my website,” Bruce Sunstein, an intellectual property law attorney, said.
If the user experiences something different from what you intended when you established your website, you didn’t think very long about the user, now did you? (via Tomalak’s Realm)
When They Say Ultra, They Mean It
The folks that developed the Apple Titanium powerbook are back as OQO Corporation with an incredible new handheld computer that fits in the palm of your hand and weighs only 9 oz. (250 grams). The OQO ultra-personal computer runs on Windows XP and comes with a 1GHz Crusoe processor, 10GB hard drive, 256 MB memory, four-inch high-resolution color LCD touchscreen, and a battery with an average life of about five and a half hours. Certainly impressive, but but I’ll be very interested to learn what kind of functionality it’s capable of without the a keyboard or other input device.
The OQO computer will be available in 2nd half of 2002.
Adam Greenfield Reviews Panasonic P209iS
Adam Greenfield recently wrote a great review of the Panasonic P209iS i-Mode phone. Apparently, it’s unusable in almost every form. (via Antenna)
Can Experience Be Designed?
Jodi Forlizzi attempts to create A Theory of Experience as it Relates to Interaction Design:
Our goal is to make experience accessible to designers — to make our theory of interaction design live in practice, by allowing designers to conceive of designing experiences rather than designing products. What follows is a brief overview of the descriptive framework of experience and user-product interactions.
(via CMU HCII Projects where you can find an incredible amount of other interesting research. Thanks to Peter Van Dijck for the original pointer.)
Computerizing Common Sense
Austin, Texas based Cycorp Inc. is building the Cyc Knowledge Base which codifies 3 million rules of thumb that the average person knows about the world, plus about 300,000 terms or concepts. For example, “If you are carrying a container that’s open on one side, you should carry it with the open end up.” The only current application is CycSecure, a network security scanning process that uses its planning ability and knowledge of the world to come up with network attack plans. The really cool news is that Cyc is also building an open source version of the Cyc technology called OpenCyc, which will be used for a variety of intelligent applications including speech understanding, database integration and rapid development of an ontology in a vertical area just to name a few.
(via Computerworld)
What Does Simple Mean?
Gerd Waloszek proposes the word “simple” stands for:
- simplified, reduced - the reduction aspect
- transparent, learnable - the understandability aspect
- effective, efficient - the ease of use aspect
Sounds like a very concise description to me.
Behold! Oddpost
Oddpost features a fast, clean user-interface that functions just like a desktop app. Organize your email via drag and drop. Preview messages instantly. Use address auto-completion, shortcut keys and right-click menus. But wait! There’s more!
Lots more. Oddpost is one of the most amazing web based applications I’ve ever seen. Congratulations to the humble builders for all of their work in creating one friggin’ amazing app with a beautifully clean interface. My favorite feature: Subject-O-Matique, which automatically fills the in subject field with a random phrase such as “Dropping science like Galileo dropped the orange.” Now that’s innovation.
Joshua Kaufman Goes Liquid!
In hopes that it would fix the strange behavior in IE5 on the Mac and also to make this site more accessible, I’ve modified the CSS on this site (CSS Viewer by Liorean) to liquify the right column. If all went well, the right content should resize as you resize your browser. My UX colleague, Diego Lafuente, has already informed me that these changes haven’t done squat for IE5 on OSX. (It looks fine in IE5+ and Netscape 6 on PC and Netscape 6 on the Mac.) So if anyone knows what’s up with IE5 on the Mac, I’d love to also know. While we’re talking about buggy browsers, IE6 is doing this strange thing with the bottom scrollbar. Whenever the browser is resized, the bottom scrollbar flashes on and off. Once again, it works perfectly in Netscape 6. I’d never thought I would say this again but… why can’t IE just work like Netscape? Thoughts or comments on the liquid design? Please comment below.
Update Diego Lafuente came to the rescue and fixed my CSS so all should be well for IE Mac folk. Thanks Diego!
Best of chi-web & sigia-l
Scott Berkun compiled a list of the summary postings from useful chi-web & sigia-l threads, along with a few personally selected favorite postings. Mmm mmm good.
The Poetics of Information Architecture
Organically-inspired digital experiences-where content, design and back-end functionality merge into a unified interactive concept-attract intelligent people. The role of information architect is akin to that of a Shaman. IAs translate one tribe’s language and present it to the world in a way that makes immediate sense.
Michael Graber Contemplates The Poetics of Information Architecture.
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