Usability Tidbits for Wednesday 31-May-2006
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 environment in which accessibility and usability issues can be resolved quickly and easily.”
Responsible Asynchronous Scripting — “This lower barrier to entry also makes it easier to make poor decisions and inappropriate use of a powerful technology.”
What I learned from eye tracking (Seth Godin) — “You can see that some of the participants are slower, more linear readers, while others are jumping like mad, taking it all in.”
On Eye Tracking - an overvalued technique — “There is big money in eye tracking, and the heat maps are great for senior management presentations. I think that’s the biggest reason eye tracking is the latest hype in the usability field.”
B2B Usability (useit.com) — “User testing shows that business-to-business websites have substantially lower usability than mainstream consumer sites.”
Some Cell Phone Owners Spurn Gadgetry — “But the wireless industry needs him to be comfortable with advanced features and actively use them. As the universe of people who want a cell phone and don’t already have one gets smaller, wireless carriers are counting on advanced services to generate the bulk of new revenue in coming years.”
Got Surveys? Recommendations from the Trenches — “…but surveys, done right, can be a powerful method of gleaning key learnings and a great complement to other traditional Usability methodologies.”
The evolution of the NetFlix envelope (CNN) — “The key to Netflix’s lean operations is its lightweight, versatile mailer. Here’s how 7 years of tweaking paid off.”
Expert Voices: Peter Morville on why information architecture matters (CIO Magazine) — “There are a lot of things beyond usability that we’re striving for in designing the user experience.”