THE WEB CAN BE A BETTER PLACE TO SURF AND DO BUSINESS !
Last Updated: October 30, 2004
[December 28, 2000]
Nua Knowledge Base: User-hostile web design - "Web surfers aren't responding to normal advertising, so web page designers are doing anything they can to fool you into clicking on their ads."
[December 27, 2000]
E-Commerce Guide: I Have a Dream: Money Management on the Web - "Banking online is not about banking. It's about what banking facilitates: buying and investing. (...) I'm sure the designers of the site asked themselves: 'How can we automate what bank customers do when they come to a branch?' They did a bang up job of letting me check balances, recent transactions, and statements, and transfer money between accounts with only one click! But when they stopped there, it was because they assumed that online banking was about the same things as offline banking. They were wrong!"
Information Design bibliography
[December 25, 2000]
Jakob Nielsen: The Web in 2001: Paying Customers - "Now that the Web is so big, I've given up hoping for rapid infrastructure improvements. Thus, I don't expect 2001 to be the year in which most Internet services turn users into customers. I do, however, see the coming year as the departure point. Many sites will make the change, and many more will contemplate it."
WebWord: Usability Can Save Your Company - "Unlike investments in technology, usability is based on human psychology and user research. If you understand humans via research, then building the right product, service, or web site, is basically guaranteed."
[December 24, 2000]
pantos.org (via Tremendo): When Kids Use the Web - "Both inside and outside the classroom, children are already being called upon to navigate unfamiliar Web sites, and to locate information contained therein. And yet, to date, general research on Web usability has focused primarily on adults, with little extant Web usability research focusing on the potentially unique needs of children. The present study, an exploratory investigation of children's navigation behavior and self-reported preferences on the WWW, attempts to fill that gap."
[December 23, 2000]
WebTechniques: Powers of Observation - "Peruse the business requirements and other documentation to gather as much information as possible. With practice, we can capture a lot of important information about our client that we can use to his or her advantage. By going through this process, we can create original, eye-catching, inviting designs that reflect the client and the client's business. (...) In addition, my knowledge of Web site usability let me create an effective site design that addressed many common usability issues without sacrificing the visual appeal of the site."
A methodology for the design of innovative user oriented systems (1998)
[December 22, 2000]
Monster.com: Becoming an Information Architect - "Information architecture, as the name implies, is basically about taking content and creating a structure to present that content to an audience. Whether the content is intended for a private audience on an intranet or for the public, it is the information architect's job to ensure that information is well-organized and presented in an easily accessible interface."
IBM/Ease of Use: Ease of Use Mission - "Industry data show that each dollar spent on user studies during product design saves $10 on problem fixes during product development, or $100 or more in rework after product release."
International Centre for Disability Resources on the Internet
[December 21, 2000]
Good Experience: It's Time to Simplify the PC - "The path toward simple PCs must be walked by users, not technologists. This is an essential point."
Albert Mehrabian, Ph.D., research psychologist: Evaluation and Improvement of User-Friendliness of Software
[December 19, 2000]
Gerry McGovern: Back to basics - "Today, I look at the Yahoo homepage, and except for the fact that there are more links on it, it doesn't seem to have changed a lot from the way it looked five years ago. Minimal graphics, lots of hyperlinks on a white background, standard HTML, all add up to a page that downloads quickly and offers lots of ways to access quality content. It's simple, even basic-it does the job."
[December 18, 2000]
Michel Fortin: Design Your Online Success
Wired News: Health Sites Seek Approval Seal - "Under terms of the program, online health companies that want to participate will have to comply with a set of 14 guidelines approved by coalition members. Those who follow the guidelines -- which include privacy policies, standards for content and rules governing advertising and commercial practices -- will earn the privilege of posting an E-Health Seal on their site."
[December 12, 2000]
Gerry McGovern: In praise of simplicity - "Complexity is not a sign of intelligence, but rather a sign of a hyperactive mind gouging on more. True genius and great design is about turning something complex into a product that is simple to use and delivers a real benefit to the consumer."
NY Times (free registration required): In Search for Online Success, 'Easy Does It' Is Good Theme - "In test after test, Yahoo executives find, for example, that users are much more likely to click on underlined text links than on graphically more attractive buttons. Indeed, the brief history of the Web is filled with complex solutions to simple problems that attracted more publicity than users."
Jakob Nielsen: WAP Field Study Findings - "Following a UK field study, 70% of users decided not to continue using WAP. Currently, its services are poorly designed, have insufficient task analysis, and abuse existing non-mobile design guidelines."
Create your own 3D model: My Virtual Model
System Concepts: Usability Health Check - "Improving the usability of your site is a guaranteed way to improve your conversion rate. This is the number of people that visit your site and then do what you want: such as buy a product, subscribe to your mailing list or ask for a quotation. Usability testing provides the highest return on investment of all Web design activities: the biggest benefit for the lowest expenditure."
[December 9, 2000]
Guardian: Increased efficiency is a click away - "These days if a potential customer anywhere in the world wants to know more about your company, its first port of call is your website. If it is a good one (which doesn't mean an expensive or elaborate one) then it will not only get a good initial image of the company but might be led on to buy other things."
WebReference.com: Minimizing 404 Not Found Errors
[December 8, 2000]
Macworld: Flash 5 - "Even with this revision, Flash 5 lacks features that would enable blind and other disabled users to navigate Flash interfaces. Macromedia says it's working to address accessibility issues. Until it does, designers who want to build Flash-based sites must decide whether it's worth leaving out a small but growing population of Web users. This doesn't diminish Flash 5's many enhancements. But now that Flash has matured into a platform for site development, the time to become inclusive has arrived."
Macromedia - Flash Usability
A List Apart: Flash Access: Unclear on the Concept
ASTD's Online Magazine About E-Learning
[December 5, 2000]
Gerry McGovern: The new economy grows old - "Internet time--the idea that three months represented one year in the Internet economy--by now must be seriously discredited. The intense rush it created resulted in a lot of bad decisions, shaky projects, and shaky companies. The speed of technology will always be limited by the more careful workings of the human brain. There's only so fast we can go without losing control. It's no harm to slow down a little."
About: Daily Web Design Tip Archive
[December 3, 2000]
The Register: WAP is CWAP - Jakob Nielsen - "Companies shouldn't waste money fielding WAP services that nobody will use while WAP usability remains so poor. Instead, they should sit out the current generation of WAP while planning their mobile Internet strategy."
[December 2, 2000]
Compuware (via WebWord): Usability Is Good Business - "Usability techniques can reduce software and e-commerce costs (including development, support, training, documentation and maintenance costs), shorten development time and improve marketability."
Argus Center for Information Architecture
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