WebWord

Communicating Complex Ideas (Boxes & Arrows) — “The most successful sites are those that understand the experience range of their users.”
Where should “User Experience” be positioned in your company?
Cultural usability revisited; or Why are Finnish kids not making a scene?
Usability Exchange — “By connecting content providers directly with disabled end users we provide an […]

From a WebWord reader:
“My boss insists that the correct way of typing is to use two (2) spaces after a period or colon. I have read the information on your website, and would like you to confirm that using one space is the correct way to type.”
This really tickles me. The issue won’t die. […]

I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for comic books and I try to stay alert for cool things related to them. A good friend recently passed along a link to a music video that really blew me away. While you might not like the music, the video is presented like a […]

The ultimate cell phone is first a phone.

It is not a game machine.
It is not a web browser.
It is not an MP3 player.
It is not a camera.
It is not an email client.
It is not a calendar.
It is not a clock.
It is not an IM device.
It is not a Global Positioning System.
It is not […]

“Software usability is one of the hardest things to get right. Writing good, usable software is the holy grail of software development, yet few developers give it more than an afterthought. As a professional developer, I delight in writing software for other developers but shy away from writing an interface that the end users will […]

Design Patterns: Part 1 (Author: Luke Wroblewski, Props: Column Two) — “Part one of Design Patterns: a conversation about defining and sharing user interface design languages.”
Architecture and interaction design, via adaptation and hackability — “So what follows directly addresses one of the stated purposes behind this blog: to see what we can draw from the […]

I’ve just started reading The Validity of the Stimulated Retrospective Think-Aloud Method as Measured by Eye Tracking (PDF, 340Kb), which is a pretty good article. By chance, I took a close look at the author information. Here’s a pretty clever way of jamming several email addresses onto one line:
{zguan, sllee, ecuddihy, jramey }@u.washington.edu
I wasn’t […]

Get your copy while you can! (Warning: 12MB PDF)
Here’s what I posted over at Susan Mernit’s blog:
“This is a really nice overview of where Yahoo is right now and where they are going. If you do any work with large portals, this is invaluable material. One of the interesting points is that they claim they […]

“…the first in-depth look at the new yahoo.com”
Tales From Packaging Hell (Wired)
Report on last CM Pros meeting (Sydney, Australia)
Web 2.0 Meets The Enterprise (Blather?)
Ignoring Eager Customers?
Opportunity: Work with Adrian Holovaty — “This project will combine journalism and computer programming, in the vein of chicagocrime.org.”
Creating the market takes time – “Arguing that Google is a […]

Chinese Banks Homepage Usability — “This study assesses the usability of homepages of three leading Chinese retail banks from a user’s perspective.” (Author: Dr. Ming Zhao, Source: Apogee HK)
If you don’t get this report you’ll be missing key intelligence on the usability of chinese bank homepages. There is nothing like this available and it is […]

Glass Ceiling in Usability? (Paul Sherman) “The data suggest that yes, Virginia, there is a gender differential in our field. The silver lining (if it can be called that) is that the disparity seems to be less than the average (as measured in the US by the Census Bureau and the BLS), and less than […]

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 […]