Archive for February, 2005

Brilliant Books (Understanding Comics and Rich Dad, Poor Dad)

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is, without any doubt, the best book I’ve ever read on the topic of comic books. It is a masterpiece.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki is also an excellent book. While most people would call it a book on personal finance I would call it a book on […]

Stop the Presses! User Experience Owner Found!

Monday, February 21st, 2005

OK/Cancel — “If our process is too usability heavy, we are not able to explore the space widely enough. The testing prematurely optimizes on a region and we end up doing many design tweaks, but comparatively few significant changes. If our process is too design heavy, we can zip all around the space, but there’s […]

Ajax: a New Approach to Web Applications

Monday, February 21st, 2005

Adaptive Path (Jesse James Garrett) — “An Ajax application eliminates the start-stop-start-stop nature of interaction on the Web by introducing an intermediary — an Ajax engine — between the user and the server.”
I don’t think “Ajax” will gain much traction however I think it might spawn some excellent discussions on the usability of web applications. […]

Understanding Color and Accessibility

Monday, February 21st, 2005

evolt — “We don’t need to use only boring colors or limit our designs to imitations of Jakob Nielsen’s UseIt. Once the problem is better defined, talented designers can come up with their creative solutions. So with that goal in mind, let’s review the research on color and accessibility—from theory and practice to testing and […]

Usability: How to Make a Good Design Brilliant

Monday, February 21st, 2005

Cool Home Pages — “If the site has strong usability, more people will notice how great the design is because they won’t be wasting time trying to figure out how the site works.”
Interesting point of view. This is thinking of usability as a subtractive force. That is, usability removes barriers leaving the important stuff in […]

The secret language of fonts

Thursday, February 17th, 2005

“Ian Peacock explores how the fonts we choose are sending secret subliminal messages about who we are. The fonts we dress our words in are arguably as much of a fashion statement as the clothes we wear.”
Learn more and then listen…

I love competition…

Thursday, February 17th, 2005

Apple vs. Napster

Free Classes at CNET

Thursday, February 17th, 2005

I’m getting a lot of traffic from courses.help.com, which is run by CNET. Unfortunately, I can’t get into the classes to see the class content or the links to WebWord.

Music Band Fonts

Wednesday, February 16th, 2005

Check them out…

Why Search Engine Marketing Has A Passion for Web Site Usability

Wednesday, February 16th, 2005

“Practicing SEM [Search Engine Marketing] without addressing usability issues is like buying ad space during the Super Bowl and then turning the lights off. It’s hard to do business when your customers can’t find what you’re selling”
Read the article…

Howtoons

Wednesday, February 16th, 2005

“Howtoons are one-page cartoons showing 5-to-15 year-old kids “How To” build things. Each illustrated episode is a stand-alone fun adventure accessible to all, including the pre-literate.”
Slick.
Visit the site…

Attentional Spotlighting in User Interfaces

Monday, February 14th, 2005

Business Logs — “Difficulties arise when performing usability tests on subjects who are very familiar with their scenario and can breeze right through it based on learned interaction sequences. When you stop attending to the interface you are using and simply go on subconscious learned activities, the usability testing (and eye-tracking) is now biased and […]