Usability Tidbits for Friday 19-May-2006
STOP! The 7 Steps That Guarantee Victory on Large Projects
Gadget firms tackled on usability (BBC) — “This is about making the experience better for every single one of your customers”
Variability in User Performance (useit.com) — “When doing website tasks, the slowest 25% of users take 2.4 times as long as the fastest 25% of users.”
Salary Trends for Usability Professionals (useit.com) — “Experience also dramatically increases a person’s ability to infer underlying design flaws from observing user behavior.”
Blog Usability Interview with Kim Krause Berg — “The number one usability error bloggers make is not explaining to the reader who you are and why you have a blog.” (I’m John S. Rhodes and I like usability.)
Communicating design concepts without getting skewered (Cooper) — “Have a good story to tell”
Rentacoder.com Usability Analysis — “PROBLEM : Speed!”
Lou Rosenfeld’s Bad Experience — “I am really, really unhappy with my experience reading the New York Times right now”
KDE developers, usability experts complement each other — “Developers’ discussions about usability are often marked by shrill accusations and defensive responses.”
Google Trends — Usablity more powerful than User Experience?
Calling All Designers: Learn to Write! (A List Apart) — “I hate email.”
In the email signature of Steve Ruschill, a quote from Kent Beck (Planning Extreme Programming) — “Long range planning can be fun, but its regular little deliveries that keep the money coming in” (Amen)
Jared Spool — “Google displays a Long Tail distribution” (Related: Google 2.0)
Speech Privacy Articles — What are the usability implications?
Interview with Liisa Puolakka, Head of Brand Visual and Sensorial Experiences for Nokia — “The main thing is to start with an understanding of the user, the consumer, and the life they are living.”
Don’t miss: The 7 Steps That Guarantee Victory on Large Projects
May 19th, 2006 at 1:01 am
I like the Google Trends chart for “usability”. Did you notice that it searches dipped down rather drastically in both December 2004 and December 2005?
I’m sure it’s not related, but this reminds me of the tendency of projects which are rushing to be finished by the new year to temporarily disregard usability in favor of “getting it done”.