THE WEB CAN BE A BETTER PLACE TO SURF AND DO BUSINESS !
Last Updated: October 30, 2004
LucDesk wishes you, your family, and associates a very happy holiday season and prosperous 2003 !
[December 31, 2002]
"Henrik Gemal's BrowserSpy is a comprehensive web-browser-analysis tool aimed at showing you what information your browser is passing to sites visited." Free online tool to use. Try spying on yourself ... (via Andrew Clover)
Users Do More Than Surf - Top 10 Internet Applications, U.S. Combined Home & Work
[December 29, 2002]
Apple - "More people are interested in switching from PCs to Macs than ever before. See why they made the change and how easy it was."
Tech Central Station: Year of the Blog - "What's next? I think that falling prices for storage, bandwidth, and digital cameras will result in weblogs going multimedia over the next year."
[December 26, 2002]
D. Keith Robinson: Gorilla Usability - Do You Know Your Users?
Anders Jacobsen: Website strategies when changing company name
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) - "Men have become the tools of their tools."
[December 24, 2002]
David Green: When the web starts thinking for itself - "The semantic web is intended to complement humans in areas in which they do not perform well, such as processing large volumes of information quickly or analysing large texts for certain pieces of information."
[December 22, 2002]
Sebastien Paquet: Personal knowledge publishing and its uses in research - "In the first part, I describe what weblogs are, and explain how they are altering communication patterns on the Web. The second part focuses on personal knowledge publishing and similarly describes the new patterns of communication that this practice is giving birth to."
Simon Willison's Weblog - "The thing that baffles me most is that the Flash used on the site is completely reproducable in standard HTML."
Business Anagram of the Day
[December 21, 2002]
Dan Gillmor: End user licenses keep getting more intrusive - "One of the big problems with EULAs is their density. They are clearly designed not to be read carefully -- to be dismissed as inconveniences on the way to installing something."
[December 20, 2002]
Velda Bartek and Deane Cheatham: Experiences in remote usability testing, Part 1 - "One of the greatest advantages to conducting usability tests remotely is the larger and more diverse pool of participants it makes accessible. Rather than depending on local product users, a worldwide audience can be reached. Specialists who may otherwise be hard to locate or who cannot be away from the job can also be accessed, because tasks can be performed remotely without having to travel or spend extended time away from work for a two or three hour test. [...] As with any testing method, remote testing also has disadvantages. One of the most obvious, as noted previously, is the loss of control of the participant's environment."
The Sinclair Computers (1978 - 1988)
Ken Polsson (via Joshua Schachter): Chronology of Handheld Computers - "This document is an attempt to bring various published sources together to present a timeline about Handheld Computers."
The Aging Net - "Each year more and more seniors are using the Internet. Web designers should take notice." (via StephenDownes)
Lilac Echo (Quotes and Sayings) - "Those who can't write, write help files."
[December 19, 2002]
Gerhard Fischer: Beyond "Couch Potatoes": From Consumers to Designers and Active Contributors - "The socio-technical design of computational environments requires the social inclusion and active participation of the users as active contributors, rather than the more typical situation in which the designers are far removed from the daily tasks and activities of the people who use the environments."
Wired News: Web Searches Take Cultural Pulse
Bertrand Russell - "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
[December 18, 2002]
Jesse James Garrett: The Psychology of Navigation - "A rich understanding of the process of mental extrapolation users go through every time they decide to click a link is critical. In a very real sense, information architects have to try to get inside users' heads to predict what they'll be thinking. Maybe I'll adopt that as my new job description: mind reader."
Jeff Lash: Persuasive navigation vs. calls to action
Kalsey Consulting Group: Where's the link? - "Leaving external links out of magazine articles may keep the reader at your site, but who wants a frustrated reader?"
Speech Technology (via Nooface): Multimodality: The Next Wave of Mobile Interaction - "Multimodality combines voice and touch (via a keypad or stylus) with relevant onscreen displays to enhance the mobile user experience and expand network operator service offerings. Blending multiple access channels provides new avenues of interaction to users."
Marc Gugliuzza: Debate - Hand Coding: the Ultimate Freedom
[December 17, 2002]
Peter Merholz: Is There A UI Generation Gap? - "I would argue that, primarily, its simply one of desire. Kids are better than adults with these tools because it satisfies a need that is greater in kids than adults -- connecting with peers."
Mark Bernstein - "It's easy to convince yourself (or some managers) that designers are clowns. The real work, though, is to understand what the design is trying to do, to analyze it with sympathy and clarity, and then (perhaps) to show how it could have been better."
Abraham Maslow - "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
Acronym Finder - Technical Terms Dictionary
Wiley InterScience - Acronym Finder
Update - How HTML acronyms and abbreviations can help online journalism
[December 16, 2002]
An Intermediate Guide to Formal Visual Design - "The course a viewer's eye will take through a composition is shaped by actual or implied lines, and actual or implied geometric shapes. Manipulating this course well is the mark of a master designer. The viewer's eye should be considered to be like water. Once it has entered the picture plane it will seek the course of least resistance, left to its own devices content to slosh around randomly and be tugged upon by imaginary gravity and the conventional reading direction of the viewer's society."
Jorn Barger: Linux desktops (GUIs, widgets, window managers, etc) - "I'm trying to understand Linux desktops in terms of the big picture of networked graphics, including Apple's Mac Toolbox, PostScript, OpenGL, etc."
Christine Perfetti: iHotelier: Demonstrating the Potential of Flash for Web App Design
[December 15, 2002]
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson: Words and Phrases that Trigger Some Spam Filters - "I built this list of some 250 words and phrases from two spam filter lists."
Roy Johnson: It's packed with first-hand experience, well illustrated with real-life examples, and the advice offered is based on rigorous testing. - Review: "E-Commerce User Experience" by Nielsen Norman Group
Want to sound cool at the next type conference?
[December 13, 2002]
Christina Wodtke: Eat Me, Drink Me, Push Me: In which the subtle arts of the interface are examined. - "This chapter is an examination of the area co-owned by information architects and graphic designers." (An excerpt from Information architecture: blueprints for the web.)
Steven Johnson: Is the Computer Desktop an Antique? - "The desktop metaphor has served us well, particularly during a period of mass adoption when consolidating around one overarching visual metaphor helped new computer users adapt to life in front of the screen. But that unified approach is starting to fragment."
Steven Johnson: Apple makes a more complicated interface. On purpose.
"The usability of open source software is often regarded as one reason for this limited distribution."
Harley Hahn - "Computers are people, too."
[December 11, 2002]
Simon Willison: What's wrong with MSN Messenger 5.0 - "From my (admitedly limited) knowledge of user interface design, two of the most important considerations are to keep things consistent and to observe the principle of least surprise (don't so anything unexpected). How the biggest sofware company in the world gets away with fragrantly ignoring these principles at every turn is beyond me."
[December 10, 2002]
Douglas Bowman: Representational Language - "Design is not standardized like Braille or Sign Language, and is much more open in its construction and interpretation. But the parallels in communication with symbols, code, and patterns are highly intriguing."
Poochkiss: Jakob, Jakob, Jakob.... - "The problem is that the e-mail addresses are not linked. They're typed out in HTML but not anchored. Which is very strange."
Eliel Saarinen, Time, July 2, 1956 - "Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -- a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan." (via quoteland.com)
[December 9, 2002]
David Gauntlett: Feng Shui for web designers (1999) - "Feng shui (pronounced fung shway) is the ancient Chinese system of arranging environments to maximize their internal harmony, and the happiness of the people who use them. [...] I thought I'd see what feng shui could tell us about creating appealing and harmonious websites. If the Chinese have found these to be decent design principles for the last 5,000 years, we should at least give them a go. [...] Feng shui in web design terms involves aligning web pages, and the user's experience of navigating the whole website, in ways which will maximise the flow of positive ch'i."
System Concepts: Should you invest in an accessibility audit or a usability audit? - "In this article, David Travis argues that there is little point having an accessible website if it is unusable by both disabled and non-disabled people. By following a customer-centred approach, a usability audit can achieve both goals."
Louise Ferguson: A Quantum Leap in Explaining User Experience - Review: "The Elements of User Experience: User-Centred Design for the Web" by Jesse James Garrett
[December 8, 2002]
infoSync: View: What I don't like about Pocket PCs - "While handhelds are continously improving in all sorts of ways too numerous mention, I still have gripes with most of them. Of course, no product can be perfect, and there's always the matter of taste and preference - but some issues should be disposed of sooner rather than later in my opinion, and today I'll focus on the Pocket PC platform."
HTTP Status Messages - "HTTP Status Messages are errors that web servers and web browsers generate. There are several types ..." (via Anders Jacobsen)
[December 7, 2002]
Evaluation of information sources - "It is intended to be particularly useful to librarians and others who are selecting sites to include in an information resource guide, or informing users as to the qualities they should use in evaluating Internet information."
Mark Pilgrim: This is XFML
Phil Wainewright (via Simon Willison): How to remember all your passwords - "The only realistic solution is to have a system that reduces the number of passwords you have to remember to a manageable level. For most people, six to eight passwords should be sufficient, provided they're carefully chosen and sensibly maintained. Here are some tips designed to make this as painless as possible, based on my own experience."
Zen Haiku: Password Usability & Typability - "There is a tension between usability and security. Nowhere is that more obvious than with passwords."
Zen Haiku: Acronyms are NOT good usability
Webmonkey: Contribute: Web Development for Everyone - "Contribute is a desktop application that allows anyone with the proper permissions to check out an HTML file, edit pieces of it in a WYSIWYG environment, then save and publish the changes. The user interface has been designed to act like popular programs within the Windows environment, so the learning curve is almost nil for folks familiar with Microsoft Office and the like."
Deja Vu - the web as we remember it
[December 5, 2002]
jarmin.com: Guide to Accessible Web Design - "A collation of tips, guidelines and resources for web designers, who wish to make their websites accessible to visitors with disabilities and older or assistive technology."
CBC News: The Science of Shopping - "A company in Atlanta is scanning people's brains with MRIs, in an effort to record our subconscious thoughts about products and ads. The process has been dubbed neuromarketing. It's being hailed as a giant leap in the science of selling."
Linux Gazette: Handicapped People of the World, Unite! - "This article explores Linux's potential role in assistive technology (AT). AT allows those living with multiple schlerosis, other handicaps or the affects of aging to take greater control in maintaining their health and living independently."
[December 4, 2002]
Nick Wilson: What is Liquid Design? - "The term 'liquid' implies that a Website should flow smoothly into whatever space it is given. [...] If you do Liquid Design right, you should be able to make your pages display on almost anything and still make sense to the user. But it's not just about making a page 'flow' with the browser window. The principle of Liquid Design goes hand in hand with the principles of accessibility."
Bill Gates: The Disappearing Computer - "But today we are in the early years of a truly digital decade, in which the intelligence of the PC is finding its way into all kinds of devices, transforming them from passive appliances into far more significant and indispensable tools for everyday life."
InfoSatellite.com: Windows 1.0 to XP: Screenshots
Which technical skills are in demmand?
LouisRosenfeld.com: Information Needs Analysis - "Each user has a different type of information need depending on what he's trying to find and why he's trying to find it."
[December 3, 2002]
Fabio Sergio: connectedland - "From a world where people's main issue has been managing information we might be thus evolving to a connected world where problems will also come from managing interaction. With content. With other people. With the devices that allow us to interact with content and people. A world where fluidity of interaction with information will be at least as important as information itself. A world where we'll fear being cut off from The Network, with the resulting inability to access our sources of knowledge. A world of interaction anxiety."
Jared M. Spool: 5 Things To Know About Users - "The user's intentions, context, knowledge, skills, and experience are the essential things that every designer needs to know. Without this, the team is going to design something that seems useful, but they'll never know if it actually helps the user."
Peter-Paul Koch: Keep It Simple: Simplicity vs. Innovation - "Use only one new idea in any web site. The users can concentrate on understanding this single new idea, while the rest of the site is comfortably familiar."
David F. Gallagher: Picture Pages: Web sites for people who hate to read - "Unlike Weblogs, photologs leap over language barriers, which is a helpful thing when global log-hopping."
Diego Golberg (via John Hilowitz): The march of time - An extended time-frame family portrait
[December 2, 2002]
James Robertson: Public-sector intranets: a small sampling - "The survey captured a snapshot of the various intranets, allowing the participants to do simple benchmarking. The questions focused on a range of areas, such as:
- age, size and usage of the intranet
- tools used to maintain the intranet
- strengths, weaknesses & future directions"
Intranet Focus - "[...] The third trend is that organisations are now much more aware of the benefits of providing integrated access to both internal and external information, and this is also highlighting the need to address issues of information architecture, taxonomies and usability. The Intranet Focus blog provides commentary and analysis on these and other trends and developments in intranet deployment."
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