WebWord

Microsoft TV usability director David Sloo – “They’ve also learned that viewers like to stay with their current experience, such as a TV program, while exploring what else is available. This finding led to the development of the “picture-in-picture” application, where the current program remains on screen while viewers surf through other channels in a smaller […]

Security vs. usability: No one’s winning — “They would rather have 100 percent perfect software that’s unusable than 99 percent perfect software that is usable.”

everyone keeps sending you a link to a little cute “You know you are a usability expert when..” list

“This study reviews the usability of 3 leading Chinese Mobility Service Providers’ (MSPs) websites.”
Good report from our friends at Apogee.

Under the search box on pretty much any Wikipedia page you’ll see two buttons: Go and Search.  Huh?

IBM invests in mainframe usability — “IBM will spend $100m over the next five years to make its mainframe line easier to administer and programme, the company said on Wednesday.”
Improvements will include a more modern user interface, easier to use programming tools geared at newbies, better tools to simplify software aquisition, and more automatic preventative […]

Creative Labs ZEN Vision:M (30 GB) Digital Media Player: RANK 100
Apple iPod nano Black (1 GB, MA352LL/A) MP3 Player: RANK 97
Reference: mp3-and-digital-media-players

Social Networks 3.0 — “After a fair bit of excitement and energy around pure play social networks, it became clear that the building and management of a social network was not, in and of itself, a compelling consumer experience. In a nod back to the earliest instantiations of social networking, entrepreneurs have come to realize […]

Who connects the dots?  I connect the dots.  We all connect the dots.  Machines connect the dots too.  That’s how the blogosphere works.
Here’s my dot connecting question of the day…
How long before 37signals mentions Let’s Get Small in relation to Getting Real, being small, building less, or embracing constraints?
I think there is a 68% chance that they’ll […]

Shaq says: Whoever [changed ball] needs to be fired — “I look for shooting percentages to be way down and turnovers to be way up, because when the ball gets wet you can’t really control it. Whoever did that needs to be fired. It was terrible, a terrible decision. Awful. I might get fined for […]

Check out the Objects by Design Forums if you’re interested in Unified Modelling Language (UML).  It isn’t too active but there are some great threads to paw through.

Your chance to improve usability standards — “I’d really like to know how you use it, what you would like to keep, what to ditch and what to add. I am determined that it remains one of the slimmest International Standards so there will be some tough decisions to be made when our working group […]