June 2002 Archive
What Is TrackBack?
The Wikipedia entry on Trackback explains TrackBack succinctly:
TrackBack is a mechanism for the communication between blogs: if a blogger writes a new entry commenting on, or referring to, an entry found at another blog, and both blogging tools support the TrackBack protocol, then the commenting blogger can notify the other blog with a “TrackBack ping”; the receiving blog will typically display summaries of, and links to, all the commenting entries below the original entry. This allows for conversations spanning several blogs that readers can easily follow.
For more information on TrackBack, see the aforelinked article or see what Google has to say about it.
Joshua Kaufman is TrackBack Enabled
Movable Type 2.2 came out last week and with all of its cool new features, of course I had to update.
One of its new features is called Trackback, which Mena Trott describes as “a framework for peer-to-peer communication between weblogs.” What does that mean? Well, I don’t think anyone (including Ben and Mena) has completely realized what this means for weblogs; but from what I gather, it’s the basis for a whole new type of social network architecture - an Emergent Architecture if you will. Rather than get into the details of what this means, I’ll point to Mena’s original post on TrackBack explaining how it works. (Incidentally, this post is also pinging Mena’s TrackBack post so once you’re there, you should see this entry linked from the TrackBack popup.) I’m sure that some very cool uses of TrackBack are just around the corner.
Jakob Compares Users to Rats
In Glamour obscures basics of net use, Jakob Nielsen compares the way people use the Web to conditioning rats:
“We have a concept of conditioning rats by giving them a lever to press for food. The best way to keep the rat pressing the lever is if you randomly reward it.
“The web is exactly like this. Every now and then you come across great stuff, and you think, ‘If I only click once more I might find something.’ So you keep going longer than you should.”
(via Makovision)
Computer Human Values
The latest Boxes and Arrows features an amazing inspring remarkable article, Computer Human Values by Nathan Shedroff. If you read anything about interaction design and usability today, read this. In the article, he explains why computers and related devices need to act more human, and continues to explain why everything - really, everything - is riding on this.
Note to self: why in sam hill isn’t Nathan’s website listed in the Links?
Spazowham, Thank You Ma’am
Adam Greenfield found a web design shop based in Downey, CA that are fully committed to standards, including XHTML and ADA Section 508. They’re called Spazowham and they’re ready to build an standards-based website from the ground up for you.
Take Back Your Domain
Fed up with the way Verisign does business with you and so many others? Take back your name: VerisignOff.
Don’t Forget the Tutorials Jakob
I was playing around with Flash MX today and thought I would check out the tutorials to see if they could show me anything new and exciting. I didn’t find much. However, I did notice that the introduction tutorial featured a particularly unusable flavor of navigation. The link titles didn’t appear until I moused over the buttons. It’s common to see this kind of navigation on the Web, but I thought it was interesting that Macromedia would encourage it in one of their product tutorials. Macromedia, (I know you’re listening), if you’re really serious about usability, you might want to consider the impact that your product tutorials have on future websites.
Everyday Kitchen Facets
A while ago, Christina Wodtke and Karl talked about faceted classification systems in terms of the kitchen, and today Christina shares the conversation. Very interesting and entertaining overview of facets.
Jakob Plays With Numbers
In his latest Alertbox, Improving Usability Guideline Compliance, Jakob Nielsen analyzed 20 sites in 2000, 15 sites this year, says that usability compliance has increased by 4%, thus the Web should be “fixed” by 2017, whatever that means.
Christina Wodtke wonders if he ever took a statistics class and PeterV asks if he’s on drugs.
Designing Usable Web Widgets
IBM developerWorks features a great article on Web widget usability by Jodi Bollaert. Essential reading for all web designers.
This article is the first in a two-part series about Web widgets — controls that can be incorporated in Web forms, dialogs, and wizards to elicit information from users. Here in Part 1, Jodi Bollaert defines several basic HTML Web widgets, shows graphic examples, and discusses common usability problems and solutions. Next month, Jodi will cover more sophisticated Web widgets that can be developed with scripts.
(via WebReference Update)
Weblog Accessibility? Dive Into Mark
On June 10, Mark Pilgrim started a much needed series of weblog entries on weblog accessibility. He’s included wonderful stories and accessibility tips that can benefit even the simplest weblog. From someone who tries to make his own weblog as accessible as he can, I highly recommend checking out the series and making the accessibility tweaks he suggests. You’ll feel better for doing it.
Flash MX Accessiblitiy Features are Disappointing
The Royal National Institute for the Blind wanted to know just how accessible the Flash MX could be, so they commissioned Bluewave to create an online game that would be accessible to the blind. Only the latest version of Windows-Eyes screen reader was able to benefit from Flash’s accessibility features. Julie Howell, Campaigns Officer for the Institute is disappointed with the results.
“Macromedia needs to recognise its social responsibility - disabled people shouldn’t be locked out of the Web,” she said.
(via CHI-WEB)
NPR Restricts Linking
Probably the least expected news website to be messing with the nature of the Web, NPR was recently noted (via Daypop) to have restrictive linking policy. Apparently since December 2001, their policy has restricted “Linking to or framing of any material on [their] site.” They provide a form for requesting permission to link to npr.org and its related sites.
As I’ve said before, policies that restrict linking to websites go against the very nature of the Web. The Web is linking. If it wasn’t for unrestrictive linking, then everyone would be using AOL (eesh!) because a link restricted Web wouldn’t be much different. And really, what free netizen wants that?
Christina Ponders the Widget
Christina Wodtke writes about tab behavior on the Web. My two cents.
useit.com Has No Budget
Pixelsurgeon interviewed Jakob Nielson:
[Pixelsurgeon] How do you feel about the fact that “…UseIt.com rated only a “C” grade (75%) in an evaluation of 40 usability points identified by Nielsen himself…”? (Source: Anthony T. Dunn)
[Jakob Nielson] Given the budget spent on the project, it’s a pretty good score.
Software for the Users
Jason Kottke wrote a great rant today on creating software for the users instead of the developers.
First Mac Commercial
In 1984, Apple aired the first Mac commercial:
On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984.”
Stand Up For Your Digital Freedoms
This is the beginning of the beta of a new STAND, a site for those who want to play a part defining digital freedoms in the UK and beyond. Our secret plan: to collate in one place all the information you need to understand and fight the groups and laws that - deliberately or not - could foul up what, until now, has been a rather successful Internet.
Ute Better Know Your Handyman Words
Our Kitchen refers to the shopping cart as “my ute.” You’re not sure what a ute is? That’s okay, I don’t have the slightest idea either! (via the Blooper Report)
The Dooce Is Still Kicking
Dooce may be no more, but I’m happy to blog that one of my all time favorite Web writers, Heather Hamilton, is still kicking it. (thanks Heather)
Netscape 4.0 Turns 5
Scott Andrew remembers Netscape 4.0 on the ancient brower’s fifth birthday.
Web Standards Project Relaunches
The Web Standards Project Relaunched today. Congratulations to everyone involved in keeping the Web Standards ball rolling.
Phone Service Usability
I just dropped my lost distance provider. In order to do so I had to:
- Call my long distance provider and talk to a customer service agent
- Be transferred to an automatted cancelation service
- Manually enter my phone number in the cancelation service even though I had already entered it once and told the customer service agent my number
- Notify my local telephone company for the cancelation to take effect
- Explain everything to my local telephone company
- Be transferred a third party to confirm that I wanted to remove my long distance service
Kind of like doing something in Windows. About five more steps than necessary.
A New Yahoo!
Yahoo! finally redesigns their homepage. First take: great visual improvements, much nicer to look at, appears less cluttered. Two suggestions: lose the font tags, they’re so 2001; the top Yahoo! services directory looks a littled cluttered, use colons to visually distinguish that each line belongs to a specific category (see below). Maybe I’ll come up with some more later…
apple.com/switch
After lots and lots of reading, late last week I started thinking seriously about moving to Mac.
Today, Apple opened up a new tab on their site, apple.com/switch which provides even more resources for switching. Coincidence? Or does it all have a higher meaning?
Aqua Human Interface Design Guidelines
InfoDesign points us to the Aqua Human Interface Design Guidelines:
Products from Apple Computer are designed using a number of basic principles of human-computer interaction. This chapter presents these principles, and also points out what to consider for worldwide compatibility and universal access. Keep these considerations in mind as you design your product.
Very valuable whether you’re designing applications for Mac OS X or for the Web.
Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
Leslie Harpold challenged. Michael Sippey accepted. The rules have been laid.
Two will enter, two will leave. but oh, while they’re there…
click to add title: the website Lewis and Tyson don’t want you to know about.
Aaron’s Got Mad Skillz
Aaron Shofovaloff invented a better way to display extended entries with Movable Type. The most useful interface widget I’ve seen in a long time. Wonderful idea Aaron!
Joshua Kaufman Goes Back to Pixels
On the advice of the infinitely wise Jeffrey Zeldman, I’m going back to pixels for my fonts. In theory, ems work great, but in practice there’s a pretty good chance that at least a few of my visitors are seeing mousetype. What about you? Did the site work better when I was using ems or do you prefer pixels? What do you use on your website?
Shorten Your URLs
URLs can get really really long. As an example, go to Yahoo! Maps and enter your address. The resulting URL will probably look something like this:
The URL works fine when pasted into a browser, however there are several challenges with long URLs. For one, writing down long URLs can be tedious. If you mistake a plus sign for an ampersand, the entire URL is useless. Two, long URLs frequently break in emails, requiring the recipient to cut and paste the URL back together so it works. Finally, they’re difficult to remember. How many of us can remember a string of 148 characters?
Fortunately, a photographic memory isn’t required for remembering long URLs anymore. Several web services have come about which shorten URLs for you:
TinyURL, where tiny is better, creates tiny URLs for you to post in email messages or use on web pages.
Shorl is another great service that shortens URLs. An additional advantage of use Shorl is that it also keeps statistics on the URLs you “Shorlify.”
New Flash Components Improve Usability
David Doull of Thinking in Flash wrote about Components and Conformity. In the article, he explains how Flash MX’s new components can be very useful for prototyping. Among other advantages, prototyping can help to identify usability issues:
A huge advantage of prototyping is that it lets you identify usability issues very early on the development of a project. You can show potential users a prototype and get their feedback long before the final.
Even if the prototype is nothing more than a collection of non-functional buttons, text boxes and menus you can still gather valuable usability information. By asking potential users, what do they expect each button will do, you will quickly learn if you have labelled your buttons appropriately. Asking users how they would complete a task, ie: what they would click on, you can easily identify if you have designed an interface that facilitates easy completion of the task.
This Is A Magazine
This is a Magazine (requires Flash 5) is an elegantly simple collaborative project that I just love.
Happy Anniversary to Zeldman Presents
This is four days late, but I could never miss wishing Zeldman Presents a happy seventh anniversary. Yes, that means that Zeldman has been on the Web for seven long years. A very sincere congratulations and thanks to Zeldman for inspiring me to always make the most of the medium.
Online Video Captioning is Crap
Joe Clark continues to amaze me with his dedication to accessible content. His most recent NUblog entry discusses the horrible state of online captioning typography:
Every available captioning method is crap. Indeed, every available method fails to be better than reality, if we may quote our favourite usability “super-expert.”
Joshua Kaufman’s Blogger Code
My blogger code is B2 d+ t+ k s u f i- o x- e l c-
Update: Free decoder ring inside! (via Vander Wal)
Testing Blockquote
Albert Einstein once said:
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
