“Astute readers of my previous work will know that I place a lot of importance in simplicity. This is part of the reason I have made certain technical decisions in my work, and this is the reason why I have written quite a lot about the importance of simplicity and usability. With these beliefs in mind, I see no reason
why simplicity and usability cannot extend to the programmer. Although programmers provide a translation layer to convert between the technicality of code and the importance of functionality and usability, this translation can be made easier if simplicity is engineered in the programming side of the wall.”
Read the article…
Related: How to Bake Usability Into Your Company
Dan Bricklin — “Instead of making you feel bad for “only” doing 99%, a well designed system makes you feel good for doing 1%.”
Read Dan’s posting… (It is about tagging, if you care.)
Fury.com — “I’ve noticed when watching people (as it is often my wont to do) that lots of people I know have default faces, the faces they show when they stand in the elevator going to lunch while trying to remember what they ate for lunch the day before, or reading a book, or stopped at a stoplight.”
Interesting insight and useful for usability.
Read the posting…
Digital web Magazine — “There are lots of reasons to use accessible design practices in every project. One is that it’s simply good design. Sites with consistent design and code and that adhere to Web standards are not only easier to maintain, they’re easier to use. Adherence to Web standards is not that hard, and comes with a number of ancillary benefits to authors, like search engine optimization and easy transformation.”
Read the article…
A List Apart — “Use cases provide a simple, fast means to decide and describe the purpose of a project. They’re successfully employed by many software engineers as a way to capture the high-level objectives of an application during the initial phase of development. There’s no reason that web site developers shouldn’t also benefit from a use-case driven approach.”
Read the article…
“Usability practitioners are called on, not only to conduct many research studies during their careers, but also to read, review, and advise on usability studies that have been conducted and reported by others. The ability to critically review the research of others, and to help stakeholders weigh up the merits or shortcomings of research data and conclusions, is an extremely valuable skill. These checkpoints will help you ensure your review covers the key issues.”
Not bad but very focused on empirical results and reseach produced in a laboratory.
Read the checkpoints list…
John Dvorak is writing about the Google Browser. Yawn. I wrote about a Google Browser back in 2001. (Kottke gave me credit. Thanks Jason!) In fact, in my Google 2.0 article I wrote about a Google client. In 2001 I was talking about Google searching for ways to create a new platform.
I think Google is going to render operating systems irrelvant. Consider the Google Browser as a first step in the direction of the Google Client, where the client does much more than allow for web activity. Once the Google Client takes over, you’ll see the Google Platform, where Google actually becomes a platform for development and activity. You can already see a lot of this in Google Labs. Look at their APIs. Look at what content they are going after.
Google isn’t about search. Google is about getting between you and all information in the world, including your own information such as medical information, cell phone conversations, geographic location, food consumption history, and much more. Google will build the Ghost. Trust me. It is coming. Secretly, silently. And yes, also in plain sight. You have to love it.
(Who wants me write more about the Ghost? It is an extremely powerful idea. It is about the future of computing and usability.)
Powazek — “But other people have already talked about all that, but what I find truly exciting about tags is that they’re all about browsing. And not the directory/library/annoyingly hidden kind of browsing that led to the death of the Yahoo Directory and the emergence of the single Google box – the fun kind of browsing, like shoe shopping on Haight Street.”
If you don’t “get” tags, Derek offers an outstanding introduction. Tags look like this and this when you add them all together (i.e., socially available bookmarks, tags, or labels). To really understand tags, you’re going to have to give Technorati, Flickr, or Del.icio.us a try. You can also get a taste of tags with gmail, but the flavor is different because the tags aren’t socially available to others.
By the way, here is a really, really quick introduction to tags: Tags are a bottoms up way of adding information to other information. Tags are metadata.
In any event, read Powazek’s excellent posting on tags…
Boxes and Arrows — “Assume that you are in charge of a development project and you have about $10,000 to spend on usability. What would you do? What is the best way to use the money? What will make the project a success? What is the right thing to do for the organization? What will be best for customers?”
This is an article I wrote in light of my personal experience and some discussions with usability specialists, developers, and project managers. I cover a lot of ground and I strongly encourage you to read the article if you are thinking about how to allocate your usability budget. The bottom line is that usability training can be a much better investment than usability testing. I even provide you with specific advice on how to choose between testing and training. Enjoy!
Read the article…
Hold Times from Hell (Monday)
The Case of the Techie Who Spoke No English (Tuesday)
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are coming soon.
MSNBC — “Only 1 in 6 users of Internet search engines can tell the difference between unbiased search results and paid advertisements, a new survey finds.”
Are you surprised by this?
Read the article…
(Thanks for the submission Daniel Szuc).
