May 2002 Archive

About A Girl

I gotta go see about a girl. I’ll see everyone in a few weeks.

Fastap Keypad Introduced

Digit Wireless introduces the Fastap keypad, the first mobile phone keypad that contains separate keys for both numbers and letters in the same space. How is that ergonomically possible? Check out the demo to find out how they did it. Their clever interspersing of the numbers and letter pushes the key density up to 23 keys per square inch. (via brightlycoloredfood)

More on Designing for Emotion

Peter Van Dijck has some great comments about Emotion Generating Technology.

Also, Don Norman talks about the value of beauty, fun and pleasure in design. (via InfoDesign)

More Google News

Peter Merholz finds that Google is supressing Textism’s Verisign Googlebomb. Note Comment #5.

In other Google News (Maybe a Google category is in order?), visit the job search site monstor.com, just for fun. (via xBlog)

Google Labs Opens Its Doors

Google let everyone in on some of its new ideas yesterday by opening up Google Labs, Google’s “technology playground.” I played around with each tool for a while and here are my first thoughts.

Google Glossary: Rather than simply point you to dictionary.com or Merriam-Webster for a formal reference definition, Google Glossary finds definitions from all over the Web, which likely contain a lot more information than a regular dictionary ever could. Very useful.

Google Sets: Enter a few items from a set of things - any set of things! - and Google will try to predict other items in the set. It works like the similar pages feature of Google Search but with words instead of websites. Practical applications? Maybe a recommendation search engine. If you like Radiohead, U2, and The Orb, here are some other bands that might interest you.

Google Voice Search: I didn’t call but I’m sure I wouldn’t ever be able to get through. The idea is that you call and actually say your search keywords and then click a link which opens a new window with your search results. If can’t get through either but you want to know what people are voice searching, check this out. A voice search technology combined with Google features would be extremely useful for situations that require hands free information retrieval, like driving, flying, etc. If the results were read back to the user, even better.

Google Keyboard Shortcuts: Very cool for users who can’t or don’t want to use the mouse. Only problem I spotted: “1-9 visits the corresponding result numbers.” The results aren’t numbered! Doh.

How Noticable Are Your Web Effects?

In an interview with Steven Spielberg, Wired notes that there are some 400 special effects in Minority Report, more than any of his movies since Close Encounters. Spielberg downplays the question by saying that many of these effects were required to manipulate the images that Tom Cruise’s character uses to determine where the murders are going to take place.

Most of the effects have to do with images onscreen that we couldn’t photograph live, so we had to do them in postproduction. When I say we have 445 effects shots in the film, more than I have had in any movie in my career, most of those will go unnoticed by the audience.

This made me think about the use of “effects” in Web design, i.e. Flash, SVG, JavaScript, etc, and whether or not they go unnoticed by the user. If they’re noticeable, are they being using for the right purpose? Just something to think about.

The Coolest Bookmarklet Ever

Hey Internet Explorer 5.5+ users, click here!

Now, draw with your mouse! Mwahahahahahahaaa! I have to agree that Milov Vermeulen’s !lineDraw bookmarklet is in fact the Coolest Bookmarklet Ever. Just think of the uses! (via Scott Andrew)

Microsoft Goes Freestyle

Microsoft introduces Freestyle, a new interface for extended PC media experiences.

You’ll be able to use the “Freestyle” full-screen view to comfortably enjoy video, audio, pictures, and television on your PC monitor or TV display.

My first thought was, “How can I comfortably enjoy my music when I can only see it 9 albums at a time?” Then I realized that this technology was designed for group interaction on a TV display. Hopefully they’ll come up with something a little more information dense and usable. When I’m trying to find music, I could care less what the album cover looks like. Just show me the name of the album! I think something more along the lines of a television program schedule display would be more appropriate, like those used for Dish Network, TiVo, etc. (via nooface)

O’Reilly’s Emerging Tech Conference

There is some badass shit going down at O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference.

Matt Jones has great coverage and points out a few other blogs also covering the event.

Marc Hedlund also has the blog story.

Update (May 20): Aaron Swartz put together an incredible index of weblog coverage of the conference. Check it out!

Creative Commons Is Live

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization founded on the notion that some people would prefer to share their creative works (and the power to copy, modify, and distribute their works) instead of exercising all of the restrictions of copyright law.

Creative Commons is yet another beautiful idea and excellent use of technology. Regards to the everyone who brought the idea to life.

Digital Web is 6

This week marks the independent Digital Web magazine’s sixth year on the Web, which is just completely amazing when you think about it. Congratulations to the staff and contrubuters who have helped make Digital Web what it is today.

Deep Linking is Good Linking

Wired has the story on another deep-linking suit. I mentioned deep-linking a while ago when Wired had an article with a slightly different slant on deep-linking, noting that it can violate U.S. and European copyright and trademark laws. This time around, Wired is reporting it with a distinct pro-deep-linking flavor.

Folks, linking is the nature of Web. If you put stuff out there without any password or login protection, you’re allowing people to link to it. If you don’t want people to link to your pages, don’t make them publically available.

The 5k Is On

Smaller is better baby.

For the third year running, we are having a competition. The deal is, you have 5 kilobytes to make the best web page or site you can. We’ll organize the entries and make them public so people can admire and learn from them.

How exactly small is 5k? Well 1k is 1,024 bytes and a character is 1 byte, so 5k is only 5,120 measly characters. Doubtful that a great webpage can be created in 5k let alone any page? Check out last years winners, be inspired, and think about entering this years 5k.

Joshua Kaufman is Printer Friendly

With tips from the new A List Apart: CSS: Going to Print by CSS God, Eric Meyer, I updated the print style sheet on the site. Print-version improvements include:

I hope you like the changes. If you have any questions or comments, let me know!

Web Simple?

Steve Novick: Complex Times Demand Greater Simplicity.

“Simple” may look easy, but it isn’t easy. Simplicity exposes the quality of an idea. Although we may have become accustomed to over-thinking and over-producing, now is the time to simplify.

(via WebWord)

Repeat After Scott Andrew

javascript: is deprecated. Don’t use it. javascript: is deprecated. Don’t use it. javascript: is deprecated. Don’t use it.

— Scott Andrew

He points out that every single link in the list of this year’s Webby Award nominees uses javascript:, thus making the site completely inaccessible to those who have JavaScript turned off.

Primary Navigation vs. Structured Content

Kristoffer Bohmann said Primary Navigation Must Die:

Primary navigation bars provide shortcuts to main sections on a website and is displayed on most or all pages. I argue that primary navigation bars should be removed completely for three reasons:

  1. Navbar links are rarely needed,
  2. they are often hard to interpret for users, and
  3. they take up valuable space in page top/left side on all pages.

Jakob Nielsen also said this two years ago. So why do so many sites still use them?

Because primary navigation is a web design standard. Five months before Jakob asked if navigation was useful, he stated Jakob’s Law of Web User Experience:

Users spend most of their time on other sites. Thus, anything that is a convention and used on the majority of other sites will be burned into the users’ brains and you can only deviate from it on pain of major usability problems.

Jakob spoketh, and so it was. Primary navigation stayed. But as the web evolves, are sites (especially homepages) depending less on primary navigation and more on structured content? I wanted to find out. I couldn’t imagine getting around on certain sites without the navbar, so I tried a little experiment. I visited three major websites - Amazon.com, Best Buy, and Macromedia - to find products without using search or the primary navbar.

The first item I wanted to find was an OXO chef knife on Amazon. Using their alternate side menu (not the primary tabbed navigation), I arrived in the chef’s knives section of the Kitchen & Housewares store with just three clicks. The OXO Good Grips Paring and Mini Chef Knife Set was the third item listed on the page.

Next, I went to Best Buy to find a Linksys 10/100 PCI network card. The navbar listed Computers & Peripherals as an option, but no navbars allowed! Another path to the same section couldn’t be found. Instead I followed a link for Desktop PCs that I found on the right side of the page as it was the closest match that I could find. At this point, I was stuck. The page was dedicated to PCs and didn’t contain any links to network cards beyond the Modems & Networking link on the main navbar.

Next on the list, Macromedia. I wanted to find out about the new Dreamweaver MX. Ignoring the large Flash navbar at the top of the page, Dreamweaver MX is mentioned in three separate places: online forums, news and learn - none of which look like product specific links. My best bet was the news headline, “Macromedia introduces Dreamweaver MX,” which linked to a press release describing the new product. One of the first links in the press release was “Macromedia Dreamweaver MX,” which linked directly to the main Dreamweaver MX product page. So I found what I wanted pretty easily, still without using the navbar.

This was hardly a scientific experiment, but it’s interesting to see how homepages are relying less on primary navigation and more on structured page content. Will this trend continue? Maybe it will depend on what Jakob Nielson says next.

(Thanks GUUUI for the Bohmann article.)

Get Your Google On

Verisign should start to worry.

Designing for Emotion

Don Norman, Human-Centered Design Guru and writer of the inspirational design book, The Design of Everyday Things, asks CHI-WEB for examples of physical products and websites where the attractiveness and playfulness enhanced the product or site.”

Turns out he’s writing a new book, the Design of Future Things that will explore the role of emotions and aesthetics in information devices. He outlines some of his new thinking in a recent article, Gratuitous Graphics and Human-Centered Website Design.

Usability alone does not suffice; websites and products should also be fun, enjoyable. This means aesthetically pleasing and exciting, depending upon the image one wishes to convey.

There is no such thing as a single rule for all purposes. A product for entertainment should be entertaining. Is the Sony website fun? Why not? Does Disney have animation and graphics? I’d be disappointed if it didn’t. I like funky things, creative design. But only when it doesn’t interfere with getting work done.

This might be a wake-up call for Don Norman die hards, but prominent web design folk have been talking about this for years. At any rate, I’m glad he’s making a point of it and even better, writing a new book about it. Maybe the new book will inspire a new generation of human-centered designers that strive to understand the balance between usability and beauty? I know that’s my goal, every single day.

Autosave In Movable Type?

An autosave feature in Movable Type would be so wonderful. I just spent about 20 minutes writing an entry that is now lost because certain sucky software uses the last open browser windows to launch links within emails rather than always launching a new window. I cannot count how many times this has happened in the past and caused me to lose something I was doing in another window, which this time happened to be a few paragraphs about Don Norman’s new book. I’m not about to try and rewrite everything in the previous entry because I don’t have time (but I do have the time to bitch about stupid software features). So if you’re interested in Don Norman, check out the next post, compressed for your convenience. And if you have a solution to my browser management problem, I’d love to hear about it.

A.Word.A.Day on Kvetch!

kvetch (kvech) verb intr.

To complain habitually, whine; gripe.

noun

1. A chronic complainer.

2. A complaint.

[From Yiddish kvetshn (squeeze, pinch, complain), from Middle High German quetschen (to squeeze).]

(via A.Word.A.Day)

Welcome to the Age of Findablity

I’m supposed to be taking a break from all this, but I can’t resist linking to this wonderful new article at Boxes and Arrows by Peter Morville.

Even inside the small world of user experience design, findability doesn’t get enough attention. Interaction design is sexier. Usability is more obvious. And yet, findability will eventually be recognized as a central and defining challenge in the development of web sites, intranets, knowledge management systems and online communities.

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