THE WEB CAN BE A BETTER PLACE TO SURF AND DO BUSINESS !
Last Updated: October 30, 2004
[August 28, 2003]
Robert X. Cringely: Why aren't Apple Macintosh computers more popular in large mainstream organizations? - "I used to think it came down to nerd ego. Macs were easy to use, so they didn't get the respect of nerds who measured their testosterone levels by how fluently they could navigate a command line interface. Now, I think differently. Now, I think Macs threaten the livelihood of IT staffs. If you recommend purchasing a computer that requires only half the support of the machine it is replacing, aren't you putting your job in danger?"
Jakob Nielsen: Usability 101: the What, Why, and How of User-Centered Design - "This is the article to give to your boss or anyone else who doesn't have much time, but needs to know the basic usability facts."
New Scientist: Silent pump for water-cooled PCs developed - "In the near future, the chips in high-speed laptops and desktop PCs will generate so much heat that traditional air cooling systems will struggle to cope. Simply increasing the speed of the fans used will increase the noise they make and the risk of mechanical failure. So a number of companies are now working on systems that use water to draw heat away."
[August 26, 2003]
Chris Forsythe, Cognitive psychologist: The Ghost in Your Machine - "The biggest problem is that if you're the user, for the most part the technology doesn't know anything about you. The onus is on the user to learn and understand how the technology works. What we would like to do is reverse that equation so that it becomes the responsibility of the computer to learn about the user. The computer would have to learn what the user knows, what the user doesn't know, how the user performs everyday, common functions. It would also recognize when the user makes a mistake or doesn't understand something." (BusinessWeek)
[August 09, 2003]
LucDesk is on vacation until at least 27 Aug 2003.
Phil Wainewright (Loosely Coupled weblog): The Babel paradox - "The syndication format RSS provides a microcosm of the problems XML will face in the future, because it's the first truly real-world deployment of XML. I know that's a bold statement to make when there are many serious commercial applications of XML in the e-business world. But all of those deployments follow a model in which you first of all define your vocabulary (your XML schema, your DTD, call it what you will), and only afterwards do you build your infrastructure and start communicating. Real life just doesn't work like that. [...] A predefined vocabulary with definitions that are set in stone becomes a straightjacket that kills agility and responsiveness."
Jonathon Delacour: Weblog Ethics
Mike Kuniavsky (via Amazon.com): Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research
[August 08, 2003]
Jason Cook (Webmonkey): META's not dead - "In the pages that follow, I'll be giving you a bird's eye view of a few independent technologies, each aspiring to get useful metadata back into the Web. Some are homegrown, some corporate, and some academic, but all of them let you enhance your site with useful information and improve the ways your site is associated with other sites."
[August 07, 2003]
BBC News: Computer mice make new moves - "Microsoft is preparing new versions of its mouse that will be fitted with wheels that tilt as well as roll. The innovation means that users will be able to scroll vertically as well as horizontally without using on-screen navigation bars."
Shirley E. Kaiser - "One of the many challenges of designing for the Web is the wide range of variability with browsers, screen resolutions and the actual window sizes people use, how monitors and other displays implement colors, personal preferences, and the ability of the user to change one's own experience by using a customized style sheet and other settings available within browsers and computers, such as that bookmarklet to zap colors."
Wired News: How Robots Will Steal Your Job - "[...] humanoid robots will be widely available by the year 2030, and able to replace jobs currently filled by people in areas such as fast-food service, housecleaning and retail. Unless ways are found to compensate for these lost jobs, Brain estimates that more than half of Americans could be unemployed by 2055."
Mark Pilgrim: How to install Windows XP in 5 hours or less
Sarah Allen - "All user interface design is information visualization."
[August 05, 2003]
Usability News: List provides Way for Developers to Reach Testers with Visual Impairment - "A list now connects users with visual impairments willing to act as testers and website developers concerned with accessibility. The purpose of this mailing list is to facilitate communication between webpage developers and visually impaired users, says its organiser."
Anitra Pavka - "It's vital you keep focused on usability throughout the entire life cycle of what you create for the Web. Usability is a frame of mind."
[August 03, 2003]
Kalsey Consulting Group: Form Errors - "Most forms require validation -- checks to see that required fields have been filled out with the right information. But when a mistake was made, how do you let the user know? The approaches taken by many sites leave much to be desired."
Kevin Kelly - "The input of computation is energy and information; the output is order, structure, extropy."
Donald Johansson: Colours on the web - color theory and color matching
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