WebWord

What are people saying about The 7 Steps That Guarantee Victory on Large Projects?
“Top read!”
~ Daniel Szuc
“…its great and very informative!”
~ Ilene Rosen
“I found your report to be excellent.”
~ Damien Nichols
“…it is very good advice.”
~ Thomas Baekdal
“…an excellent job of providing insight and guidelines for project success.”
~ Paul D. Hibbitts
“Your report is simply […]

Back in 1999 I wrote Are You Creating a Path of Resistance?
Here’s a snippet worth reviewing: “The problem is rather straightforward. Often, when I type a URL into the address bar on my web browser, I leave off the “www”. For example, if I wanted to reach my own web site I might type in […]

“Frequently, ads are made to resemble content, and vice-versa. The rules of engagement, so to speak, vary from site to site. So users must constantly reframe their reference points.”
I’ve seen links to this interview posted on several usability and UX blogs. A couple of WebWord readers even passed along the link. I’m not really sure […]

I gave up an IBM ThinkPad T23 for a Dell Latitude D610.
The IBM was getting old and slow, but it was a rock solid machine. Very sturdy. On the other hand, the Dell is sleek and new. It looks sexy but it feels weak and flimsy. I swear it is going to break […]

“Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said it can take two to four button clicks to get to a feature on the current version of Microsoft’s mobile operating system, but only one or two clicks to reach the same function on the Palm operating system.” (Source: MIT Technology Review, Props: Dano)
Windows has stiff competition […]

I really like to read about investing. For an amateur, I have a fair amount of knowledge and I tend to at least match the market. I know all about diversification, portfolio rebalancing, 401(k)’s, index funds, P/E ratios, and so forth. Some friends ask for advice, although not as much as they should. Wink, […]

“But the focus on the collaborative nature of these sites has been nagging at me. Sites like Friendster and Blogger that promote sharing and friend-making have been around for years with nowhere near the mainstream success. I’ve got a different theory. YouTube and MySpace are runaway hits because they combine two attributes rarely found together […]

Seen on an Amazon product page:
“What do customers ultimately buy after viewing items like this?”
This is a lift onto the consumer bandwagon which is really just a shortcut for those folks who don’t have time to dig deeper on their own. The question and the answers provide lazy people with quick answers. […]

“The second lesson is how very powerfully users can adapt – they can read the jumbled words, and they can use the jumbled interface – BUT AT A COST.” (Source: Human Factors International)
AMEN!
Related: Cognitive load theory and user interface design

“Which is why some industry observers insist that the place to start in making mobile services easy to use is to focus not on technology or even user surveys, but on user behavior. In other words, it pays to understand what people do with their phones, whether the phones were intended for that use or […]

“Today’s enterprise applications were developed by experts who in turn designed user interfaces for experts, and the upgrade path has been a continual process of adding more commands, making enterprise apps more complex, Girouard said. That stands in stark contrast to far more appealing consumer interfaces, such as those on an Apple iPod or the […]

“I have witnessed fedex renting private planed just to get peoples packages out. My advice this is common dont use ups. Use fedex or the post office. I plead with everyone who ships anything to me to not send it to me ups!” (Source: WebWord, Author: Jimmy G White Jr)
I had heard through the grapevine […]