“In this article, we’ll review what people are doing with microformats right now, and finish up by looking at a couple of cool projects that might whet your appetite for microformats’ future prospects.” (John Allsopp – Digital Web Magazine)
All posts from
August 2006
User Experience 2.0
“The remixability of content and applications, paired with the rapid speed of development, form the foundation of a collaborative architecture that promises to result in richer user experiences. However, a richer user experience isn’t necessarily a usable experience. In order for Web 2.0 to deliver on its promise, it must provide richer, usable experiences.” (TechSmith)
Refining Data Tables
“Many articles have been written on what is probably the single most ubiquitous interface element within Web applications today: the form. Forms justifiably get a lot of attention because their design is critical to successfully gathering input from users. Registration forms are the gatekeepers to community membership. Checkout forms are how eCommerce vendors close deals. But what goes in must eventually come out, and the information users provide to Web applications often makes its way back to users in the form of tabular data” (Luke Wroblewski – UXmatters)
Double Consciousness: Back to the Future with John Chris Jones
“Looking across the 35+ years in which Design Methods has been in use in multiple languages, what from your perspective is the biggest misconception about Design Methods?” (GK VanPatter – NextD)
Experiencing CHI 2006: From a Practitioner’s Viewpoint: Part IV/V
“This course was packed full of useful content.” (Pabini Gabriel-Petit – UXmatters)
Use Old Words When Writing for Findability
“Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won’t find your site.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)
On Arranging Books by Color
“(…) organizing his books by color allows him to discover new and unexpected relationships between books he knows well already. When two unrelated books are forced to occupy the same shelf simply because of their spine color, the shelver is asked to think about whether they have ideas to share between them. Perhaps, the designers of these chromatically-related books saw something in the books’ content that even their authors did not. Maybe their ideals share a common hue?” (Rob Giampietro – Design Observer)
The end of deference and the rise of customer power
“The Web empowers the customer more than it empowers the organization. This shift in power is only beginning to be felt.” (Gerry McGovern)
Why Doing User Observations First is Wrong
“Usability testing is like Beta testing of software. It should never be used to determine ‘what users need’. It is for catching bugs, and so this kind of usability testing still fits the new, iterative programming models, just as Beta testing for software bugs fits the models. I have long maintained that any company proud of its usability testing is a company in trouble, just as a company proud of its Beta testing is in trouble. UI and Beta testing are meant simply to find bugs, not to redesign.” (Donald Norman – uiGarden.net)
Keynote at Hypertext conference
“Wikis were created in 1994 by Ward Cunningham, so he is considered the pioneer of wikis, and is the author of design patterns. Here are the notes from his talk.” (Notes by Alvin Chin – GadgetMan’s Blog)
Is it broken?
“Good design is possible with PowerPoint, so long as one knows a little something about design and how to best display information appropriate for their own unique situation.” (Garr Reynolds – Presentation Zen)
Scan This Book!
“What will happen to books? Reader, take heart! Publisher, be very, very afraid. Internet search engines will set them free. A manifesto.” (Kevin Kelly)
A Web 2.0 Tour for the Enterprise
“It’s a mistake to think Web 2.0 is all about the technology, but it’s also a mistake to dismiss the technology. The architecture of participation is baked into the architecture of the software.” (Shiv Singh – Boxes and Arrows)
Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis
“The symposium proceedings also include abstracts for the keynote talks, panels, workshops, and demonstrations to provide a record of the whole of the symposium as well as an interview with Angela Beesley, the opening keynoter, on the topic of her talk.” (WikiSym 2006)
Design Futures: Part 1
“In July 2006, a group of designers with nearly 50 cumulative years of experience designing products for companies like Apple, eBay, Macromedia, Nike, Palm, and Yahoo got together to talk about the future of design. We weren’t looking to predict what’s next but instead to discuss the patterns and trends affecting the design industry as we move forward.” (Luke Wroblewski – Functioning Form)
developerWorks Interviews: Tim Berners-Lee
“Originator of the Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium talks about how far we’ve come, and about the challenges and opportunities ahead.” (IBM developerWorks) – courtesy of readwriteweb
Edward Tufte, Offering ‘Beautiful Evidence’
“(…) good design is timeless, while bad design can be a matter of life and death.” (Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr – NPR)
Adding design process attributes to patterns
“The idea of adding design process attributes to patterns expands the focus of patterns to include the context of design.” (Peter Boersma)
The Language of Interaction: Rich Interfaces, Networks and Design Patterns
“Inside any organization, you’ve already evolved your own set of patterns and should have some way of collecting this knowledge. Knowledge management and sharing should focus not only on patterns, but also on methods for knowing when to use a particular pattern and when not to. You don’t have to create a complex Web application. Wikis and blogs are easy to set-up and maintain, and they offer a simple way to manage information about patterns.” (Austin Govella – ASIS&T Bulletin: Special Issue on Information Architecture) – courtesy of petermorville
Data Visualization of Web Stats: Logarithmic Charts and the Drooping Tail
“Using a linear diagram to plot data from website traffic logs can lead you to overlook important conclusions. Sometimes advanced visualizations are worth the effort.” (Jakob Nielsen – Alertbox)
