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ISSUE #22
14-June-99
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WebWord.com Newsletter
"Usability & the Internet"
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List Owner
John S. Rhodes
John@WebWord.com
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June 14, 1999 Newsletter #22
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Table of Contents
1. When to Link Out of Your Site
2. Book Review: The Victorian Internet
3. Web Development and Usability Tidbits
4. Web Site Submission
5. Future of Portals
6. Business Listing: Gomoll Research & Design, Inc.
7. Site Checking Through "Virtual Users"
8. Font Management Advice, by Dr. Katz
9. What Can You Find at WebWord.com?
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ITEM #1
A New Moving WebWord Article is now online:
<http://webword.com/moving/linkout.html>
There are certainly times when you should link out of
your site. You might not like to send visitors away
from your site, but if you want to keep the usability
of your web site high, then it is necessary. In this
article I provide you with several "rules of thumb"
to consider.
Read the article for the details:
<http://webword.com/moving/linkout.html>
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ITEM #2
Book Review: The Victorian Internet
http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802713424/wedwordcom
Tom Standage tells the interesting story of the first
real internet -- the telegraph. We've all heard about
Morse Code and the elimination of the Pony Express. But,
very few people know more about the telegraph. The story
behind this technology is very interesting.
The parallels between the telegraph and the web are very
interesting. Global communication, instant information,
changes in business practices, and so on, occurred in
similar ways with both technologies. But, the telegraph
was first.
We think that the web is revolutionary and we feel that
nothing can compare. That is wrong. Before the telegraph,
it took days, weeks, or even *months* to transfer
messages. The web is old news compared to the telegraph.
The problems, social, cultural, and economic, were new
and difficult. More, I think, than with the web.
And, there were usability problems too. Semantics were
difficult, training was problematic, and more. Problems
of infrastructure were horrible too. Getting the money
and manpower then, compared to now, was more difficult.
Convincing the right people that the technology was viable
was much more difficult during that time period.
Here are some interesting quotes:
"In the nineteenth century there were no televisions,
airplanes, computers, or spacecraft; nor were there
antibiotics, credit cards, microwave ovens, compact
discs, or mobile phones" (Do you see why the telegraph
was such a *shock* to these folks?)
"Cooke and Morse had done the impossible and constructed
working electric telegraphs. Surely the world would fall
to their feet. Building prototypes, however, proved to
be the easy part. Convincing people of their significance
was far more of a challenge."
"Unfortunately, the social impact of the global telegraph
did not turn out to be so straightforward. Better
communication does not necessarily lead to a wider
understanding of other points of view; the potential of
new technologies to change things for the better is
invariably overstated, while the ways in which they will
make things worse are usually unforeseen."
I highly recommend The Victorian Internet by Tom
Standage. It is an easy to read, and easy to digest book.
It is fun too.
Read more about the Victorian Internet at Amazon.com:
http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802713424/wedwordcom
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ITEM #3
Web Development and Usability Tidbits
You can find a few good usability articles here
<http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1999/jan/toc.html>
Here is a long but good list of development resources
<http://www.xist.com/training/e_webdev.html>
Check out these "Cool Home Pages". They are heavy on
technology (e.g., Flash), but they will help you see
where things might go in the next couple of years
<http://www.coolhomepages.com>
"Disabled Accessibility: The Pragmatic Approach",
a recent usability column by Jakob Nielsen
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990613.html>
Webtools is a set of standard internet utilities
including finger, whois, and ping among others.
<http://www.plebius.org/scripts/perl/webtools/>
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ITEM #4
Web Site Submission
Submitting your site using an automated service is
generally a waste of time and money. First, these tools
tend not to work as well as submissions by hand. Second,
some search engines don't accept automated submissions.
Third, you don't have a guarantee that the submission
was successful. It can be a relief to see the "thank you"
page after submitting.
If you use a "free" service you are in jeopardy of
getting a ton of spam. Many so-called search engines
merely collect your email address and send you junk.
And, some search engines use autoresponders to pound
you with replies when you submit your site.
Why trust your site submission when only about 15 engines
(or directories) matter? Here is my quick list of the
important ones:
AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, AOL NetFind, Excite, Go, Google,
HotBot, Looksmart, Lycos, Netscape NetCenter, Snap,
PlanetSearch, Webcrawler, Goto, and Yahoo.
Am I totally wrong about this? Probably not. If you'd
like to find out more, you should visit the authority:
<http://www.searchenginewatch.com>.
And, as always, feel
free to send me your feedback <mailto:john@webword.com>.
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ITEM #5
The Future of Portals
Will the portals survive? Which ones? Why?
Tell me about it <mailto:john@webword.com>.
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ITEM #6
Business Listing: Gomoll Research & Design, Inc.
Gomoll Research & Design, Inc. is a consulting firm
specializing in human interface design and usability for
software, hardware, packaging, and instruction. We have
designed and/or managed the development of superior
product interfaces and standards, such as Macintosh
System Software, AppleGuide Help, the Macintosh Human
Interface Guidelines, and WebTV.
We excel in designing elegant product experiences. We're
experts in user-centered design. We can help you conduct
field research, understand workflow, develop user models,
build prototypes, conduct usability tests, and design
humanistic and usable products. Our most recent projects
have been research and design for E-commerce and Web
browsers, interactive television, medical imaging,
customer service, and financial products. We provide a
variety of design and usability services including:
consulting, mentoring, training, and long-term project
work.
Please visit <http://www.gomolldesign.com>
* This listing was provided free by WebWord.com to give
you exposure to consultants and businesses doing HCI,
usability, and human factors work. If you would like
to be listed, contact me <mailto:john@webword.com>.
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ITEM #7
Site Checking Using Virtual Users
Elizabeth Baron of @watch recently sent me an
interesting note about their service:
"@watch is a service for web sites that simulates a
'user' experience to a site. Our server checks
performance, up/down, links, graphics, and content --
and if a problem is detected the site contact is
notified immediately via email, pager, voice, or fax.
@watch can "watch" sites as often as every five minutes.
As company web sites increasingly become critical to
sell, promote, or inform customers it is important that
these sites function consistently and smoothly. @watch
helps companies achieve this. The result of using
@watch is that problems are fixed quickly before
customers are affected, business is lost, and/or the
company image is tarnished."
This seems very interesting. If you need an automated,
third party solution, this looks like a winner. You
could write a simple script to do the same work, but
there are times that a network cannot monitor itself.
The basic service is free, so it might be worth a try.
If you do go for it, let me know how well it works for
you.
For more information, visit the @watch site:
<http://www.atwatch.com>
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ITEM #8
Font Management Advice, by Dr. Katz
I recently asked for help with management of system
fonts. Here is some excellent advice from Martin Katz:
1) If you have Microsoft Word (or office), there is a
macro available (it should be on the CD-ROM) that prints
out a list of fonts, using the font. There is also a
macro that prints out all of the characters in the
font.
2) In MS Windows 95/98/NT, you can get a list of font
files (not just typefaces) by using Explorer on the
Windows/Fonts (or WinNT/Fonts) directory. Then, select
View | Details. Finally, make sure that View | Hide
Variations is not selected. Double clicking on a font
should display a window with a sample of that font.
There are also many third party and shareware products
for this purpose. Try searching for the word font on
Hotfiles (http://hotfiles.zdnet.com).
(Thanks for the great advice Martin!)
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ITEM #9
What Can You Find at WebWord.com?
Articles (Moving WebWord)
<http://webword.com/moving/>
Expert Interviews
<http://webword.com/interviews/>
Recommended Books
<http://webword.com/books/booksindex.html>
Newsletter Archive
<http://webword.com/archive>
Usability Reports
<http://webword.com/reports>
Recommended Web Sites
<http://webword.com/hotsites.html>
Free Stuff
<http://webword.com/freestuff.html>
Friends
<http://webword.com/friends.html>
---- End of WebWord.com Usability Newsletter #22 ------
(c)1998-99 by John S. Rhodes. All rights reserved.
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