Articles

The Workflow Reference Model: 10 Years On

Last year saw the 10th anniversary of the Workflow Reference Model. This short paper reassesses the relevance of the Model in the current context of Business Process Management. It discusses the principles behind the Model, its strengths and weakness and examines how it remains relevant to the industry today. It concludes by introducing a number of considerations required to establish a "BPM Reference Model" and discusses how the various overlapping standards in this space may be categorised.

Gartner's Top Analysts Discuss "Business Process Fusion"

Increasing the responsiveness of IT to business processes has become a hot topic in the corporate world. Most enterprises have already made significant investments in automating key business processes; now they want to move to the next level. That is where business process fusion comes in.

Simple is sexy when it comes to open-source

These days, open-source software is the metrosexual in the IT industry. It's cool and sexy to be open-source. Those of us who've been around open-source for a long time always thought that, but now mainstream businesses and the mainstream press are picking up on that cool factor as well.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

"I anatomize a successful open-source project, fetchmail, that was run as a deliberate test of some surprising theories about software engineering suggested by the history of Linux. I discuss these theories in terms of two fundamentally different development styles, the "cathedral" model of most of the commercial world versus the "bazaar" model of the Linux world. I show that these models derive from opposing assumptions about the nature of the software-debugging task. I then make a sustained argument from the Linux experience for the proposition that 'Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow', suggest productive analogies with other self-correcting systems of selfish agents, and conclude with some exploration of the implications of this insight for the future of software." - Eric S. Raymond, First Monday

The 2004 Top 100

" 'If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.' If this oft-used phrase is true, then this year's Training Top 100 companies have the management of workforce development programs down to a science. While many companies continue to slash training budgets in the naïve hope of improving the bottom line, these 100 companies invested nearly $7 million—on average, 4.1 percent of their payroll—in bettering the professional and personal lives of their employees. By doing so, the 2004 Top 100 have gained a sustainable advantage over their competition by boosting key business metrics—revenue, productivity and quality, to name a few—through highly focused and tightly managed training programs." - Tammy Galvin, Trainingmag.com"

Targeted Email Newsletters Show Continued Strength

E-newsletters that are informative, convenient, and timely are often preferred over other media. However, a new study found that only 11% of newsletters were read thoroughly, so layout and content scannability are paramount.

The Business Needs Drive Training Evaluation At Bank of America

The project described in this article has earned a 2003 ASTD Excellence in Practice Citation in the career development category. Determining when a training solution is the right solution to a performance problem is at the very heart of what we do as learning professionals. Being able to clearly articulate the link between business needs, performance gaps and the impact of the learning solution is where we prove our value as professionals to our business partners. But how do we do that?

New Content Management Systems Lists

Usability News reports six new lists/blogs on the topic of content management systems.

The problem with internet advertising is the ads

Why does the most sophisticated communications technology suffer the most primitive forms of advertising? Except in a few cases internet advertising seems at best desperate and at worst antagonistic, writes Thomas Ordahl of strategic branding and internet consulting firm Siegel & Gale, from the DigitalBulletin.

Hold the Phone

Internet telephony is cheap: "The economics finally make sense." But as more and more companies are discovering, it also can let you do some nifty things. Voice over Internet protocol technology is keeping workers--in hospitals, Wall Street brokerages, law firms, even National Basketball Association franchises--connected as never before. -from Fast Company Editor's Note: I use VOIP to communicate with my software development team in India...for the cost of a local call. Shhh...don't tell the tariff police!

Compliance Regulations: Five New Articles

What's all the fuss about compliance? Big business, and big issues for performance support, that's what! Organizations are faced with a plethora of regulations, from HIPAA (health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996) to Sarbanes-Oxley to the Patriot Act. In the financial sector, for example, detecting patterns of money laundering (e.g., by terrorist organizations and links to them) is hot. System like Mantas deal specifically with Anti-Money Laundering, Broker Surveillance, Fraud Detection, and more. Intranet Journal includes five new articles on this exciting topic - that raise questions and challenges for the performance practitioner.

How Big is the Difference Between Websites?

The average difference in measured usability between competing websites is 68%. This is smaller than expected, but makes sense given the dynamics of design within individual industries.

Graphical View of the User Experience World

Javier Cañada has constructed a map of the user experience world as he sees it: unrepentantly subjective and rather fascinating. As he says' This image is a graphical representation of the user experience field based on my own coordinates, references and perceptions. It is not a precise work, but neither were those first maps made by Mediterranean chartographers.'

A Heuristic Evaluation of the Usability of Infants

Results from a heuristic evaluation of infants and their user interface, based on direct observational evidence and Jakob Nielsen's list of 10 heuristics.

The Big Ten Innovation Killers and How to Keep Your Innovation System Alive and Well

While it's probably impossible to compute the exact percentage of business initiatives that fail, it is widely acknowledged that most do. After years of research and observation, it is clear that the same reasons for any change initiative failure tend to be the same culprits that make innovation initiatives fail. Here are the top ten reasons for innovation failure... - From the Innnovation Network

Surprise Package

Surprise! It's those dudes in brown. UPS's new supply-chain arm lets companies outsource everything from cell-phone repairs to customer call centers. And yes, they do deliver. -from Fast Company

Intranet 2004: A No-Fuss Intranet Framework

Imagine you're looking to quickly create an intranet for your company. There are plenty of instant-intranet options around, but they all seem to duplicate tools you already have. It's nice that they come with group calendaring and forum tools, but you already have those up and running. What you need is a flexible framework that gives you the basics of document sharing and a way to connect your existing apps. If that describes your situation, look into Intranet 2004....

IntraNet on Demand: Mindbridge Plays Host for Small Companies

Intranet professionals already know Mindbridge Software because of its popular enterprise-level intranet product, IntraSmart, which debuted in 1999. Designed for companies with more than 75 employees, IntraSmart is an instant intranet that offers a full-service solution with only a little customization. That's fine for larger companies, but what about smaller businesses that don't have the resources but still need a way to share information?

If He's So Smart...Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Limits of Innovation

The battle over digital music is just another verse in Apple's sad song: This astonishingly imaginative company keeps getting muscled out of markets it creates. So what does Apple have to tell us about innovation? Carleen Hawn

Wireless in San Diego

For a view of how wireless telecom will change the way we work and live, head to San Diego--where everyone from pharmacists to real-estate brokers is now coming unplugged. Alison Overholt

Help Wanted: a Chief Knowledge Officer

For your company to be successful, you've got to know when to hold and when to fold--and you need a CKO to deal it to you straight. Lester Thurow

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Ten Steps for Cleaning Up Information Pollution

Better prioritization, fewer interruptions, and concentrated information that's easy to find and manage helps people become more productive and stop wasting their colleagues' time.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003

Sites are getting better at using minimalist design, maintaining archives, and offering comprehensive services. However, these advances entail their own usability problems, as several prominent mistakes from 2003 show.

Choosing the Right CMS: A Few Pointers

Deciding on a content management system (CMS) to help your organization streamline business processes and aid in compliance efforts can be a mind-boggling job. And while looking at CMS vendors would seem the good first step, there's a little more to it than perusing a few brochures and talking to a couple of sales folks. Here are a few tips from the experts that may help.

Features Talk, but Behaviors Close

What’s a feature? Features are often the currency of software development and marketing, yet few people can agree on what exactly defines a feature. The term can be used to describe a particular piece of functionality, an entire set of functionality, a capability, or sometimes even a possibility. The experts are no help. Typical is webopedia.com, which goes out on a limb by stating that a feature is, “a notable property of a device or software application.”

Intranet Design Journal: Collaboration is King with Workshare 3

With Workshare 3, clients who use Microsoft Office products along with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Domino Server gain an easy way to send documents for review, then collect the changes.

Intranet Design Journal: A Stocking Stuffer for Content Creators

Adobe has packaged its indispensable design apps into an suite of tools dubbed Adobe Creative Suite. It's not only a tremendous price bargain, but the tools work together — and work in team environments — in ways that are sure to appeal to intranet pros.

Intranet Design Journal: When is Web Content Management Right

When it comes to software for maintaining your intranet, you can choose between a Web content manager and portal software. The right choice depends on exactly what type of intranet you want to build and what type of information you want available to your users.

EAI Journal: Out With the Old, in With the New

With all that’s at stake in any system implementation, cutover requirements need to be given much thought early on. By Ira Gershkoff

EAI Journal: Mainframe Web Services: Turning Big Iron Into Gold

This article explores how Web services can extend returns from mainframe applications. By Michael Blank & Chris Pottinger

EAI Journal: The Next Wave: SOA Adapters Needed

One of the largest holes in the new world of service-oriented integration is the lack of adapters that support services. By David Linthicum

EAI Journal: Renaissance Man: BAM From Simple to Rocket Science, Part I

This months’ column, the first of a two-part series, reinterprets the five styles of potential BAM deployments. By David McCoy

EAI Journal: Business Activity Monitoring: The End-Game of the Real-Time Enterprise

The promise of the real-time enterprise (RTE) is compelling, but what will it take to operate effectively in real-time? By Mo Klein and Francois Besson

EAI Journal: Beyond EAI: Unifying the Disconnected Enterprise

You need to unify your data and fix your data problems before an EAI, BI, or Web services strategy can be successful. By Tim Stefanini

Love Is the Killer App

If you want to fix your future, start by fixing yourself. In the face of war and recession, what the business world needs is less greed -- and more love. So says Yahoo senior executive Tim Sanders, who argues that now more than ever, the road to prosperity is paved with a commitment to generosity. (2002-03) Interesting... a bit of a weird take on KM" - Gloria Gery

Power to the users

Managing content across multiple Web sites and portals. Vignette has released V6 MultiSite Content Manager (VMCM), an extension to its V6 Content Suite. It claims VMCM is the first application to allow organizations to easily manage content on multiple sites and portals within an organization via a single application. (2002-03-04)

Knowledge Management Vendors Go Vertical

Struggling against a tough economy, some players in the knowledge management industry are trying to increase their business proposition to potential clients by developing offerings aimed at specific vertical industries. This article talks about how these companies are targeting these specific industries and what a variety of business sectors are looking for in a knowledge management solution. (2002-03-12)

Mapping the Information Society Literature: Topics, Perspectives, and Root Metaphors

This article concerns the Information Society literature and is set in the context of teaching and learning about it, particularly in educational technology settings. In spite of the infancy of the Information Society phenomenon, a large literature has emerged in recent years that discusses its nature. Not surprisingly, the literature does not present a uniform view; rather, there are differences of opinion as to the nature and significance of the Information Society. We argue that the literature constitutes an educational problem for those teaching and learning about this complex territory. The discussion visits the complexity by constructing a comprehensive map that charts 1) topics, 2) perspectives, and 3) root metaphors. Mapping the literature helps both teachers and learners find their way in a potentially confusing field of study. Special emphasis is devoted to root metaphors - philosophical views about the nature of reality that in turn help teachers and learners become more sensitive to critical, underlying features of the Information Society discussion. We argue that some root metaphors are more helpful than others for understanding literature about the Information Society. (2001-12-27)

I don't watch TV to like learn anything":The Leisure Use of TV and the Internet

This paper is an analysis of how Norwegians use television and the Internet in their leisure time. It sets up a taxonomy using the degree of engagement in the mediated information on one axis and the degree of sociability on the other. Within this matrix one can examine the similarities and differences between the two media and also differences between the generations. The analysis is based on 15 in-home interviews with Oslo-based families. (2001-12-27)

Post-Modern Knowledge Management: A One-Question Interview(TM)

Kevin Werbach, the editor of Esther Dyson's Release 1.0 (http://release1.edventure.com), wrote an excellent issue on Knowledge Management that's much in accord with what we've been blathering on about. Further, he says he's writing about "Post Modern KM" and we here at JOHO are such suckers for anything POMO that we once paid a guy at eBay an extra $25 because he offered to say the uninterruptible power supply we'd bought was in fact post-modern. So, we put the question to Kevin:"What is postmodern knowledge management?" (2002-02)

The Day the World Changed: Implications for Archival, Library, and Information Science Education

The terrorist attacks of September 11th on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have had profound implications for many aspects of American and global society. This essay explores the many implications for library and information science schools educating the next generation of information professionals. The essay considers an array of opinions by the faculty located in one such school regarding how to reflect on the aftermath of the attacks for basic aspects of teaching, research, and curriculum design in library and information science schools. Topics examined include disaster preparedness and recovery, knowledge management, workplace design and location, technology and the human dimension, ethics and information policy, information security, information economics, memorializing and documenting the terrorist attacks, the role of the Internet, and preservation. (2001-29-11)

Libraries, the Internet and September 11

As the public clamored for information after September 11, libraries and librarians answered their call. This paper examines the response of libraries and librarians while noting some unexpected impacts on the profession. (2001-03-12)

Portals: The Power and the Peril

The purpose of portals is to leverage existing applications into a better view, one that is familiar to people. Creating portals is a good first step in leveraging unstructured information. The problem is how do you use it, maintain it, keep it current. Creating a business MyYahoo! is a pretty good rough diagram for a business plan, but it’s a long way from there to complete solution. And what we have learned from compiling this White Paper on Enterprise Information Portals is: we ain’t there yet. (2001-08-12)

Extending Document Management Systems with User-Specific Active Properties

Xerox Palo Alto Research: Document properties are a compelling infrastructure on which to develop document management applications. A property-based approach avoids many of the problems of traditional hierarchical storage mechanisms, reflects document organizations meaningful to user tasks, provides a means to integrate the perspectives of multiple individuals and groups, and does this all within a uniform interaction framework. Document properties can reflect not only categorizations of documents and document use, but also expressions of desired system activity, such as sharing criteria, replication management and versioning. (2001-08-12)

How to make knowledge management more rigorous

KM World: "Although the knowledge management field is maturing, a great deal of hand waving and hype surrounds it. False promises and over-expectations are being created; many vendors are calling their products “knowledge management” tools even though they might simply be database, information management or document management tools; a dearth of rigorous methodologies for doing knowledge management exists." The paper presents the outline of a methodology called SMARTVision. (2001-04-22)

Knowledge management with human smarts

InfoWorld.com: "The real payoff in the knowledge management arena is still three to four years away. As neural networking techniques evolve, knowledge management solutions will become not only more adept at distilling and classifying vital information, but will also extract hidden trends and relationships from huge volumes of data, requiring knowledge workers to sift through less information and giving them more relevant information for making decisions." (2001-02-18)

Knowledge Management on the Shop-Floor

This article report that a: "Comparison of the successful and failed implementations of Task Supporter and the prototypes suggest that a successful introduction of a shop-floor information support system requires three things: (1) a clear definition of the objectives of the new system, (2) solid co-operation between the developers and end users of the system and (3) an in-house "agent" driving the project from conception to upkeep of the results." (2001-01-14)

Knowledge Management 101

Intranet Design Magazine: Knowledge Management is the buzzword of the year. As with many new terms, the definition of knowledge management depends on who you're asking. For a small organization, it is difficult to really know what it means. I thought I'd give you some pointers and definitions in this article. (2000-12-10)

Starting small: first steps toward KM orchestration

KM World Online: This article examines the sometimes overlooked and often underused Internet-centric tools applicable to knowledge management. Effective use of these high-performance tools must be orchestrated with a comprehensive strategy to support the organization's goals. (2000-12-10)

Finding the Lasting Value of Knowledge Management

CIO Magazine, Tom Davenport: "IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT still a big deal?" I'm often asked this question by conference attendees, consulting clients and concerned friends. The inference is that the movement is getting a bit long in the tooth. Those who observe such things might notice that the number of knowledge management conferences is down, and People magazine stubbornly refuses to name any KM expert as one of its 25 Most Intriguing People in the past few years." (2000-11-05)

Managing institutional knowledge

In this TechRepublic article, Ken Hardin reports that: "While next-generation businesses are on top of data that can be reduced to 1s and 0s, they are stumbling over the challenge of "institutional knowledge," the intuitive and undocumented whys and hows that determine an enterprise's ultimate success." (2000-08-27)

Organizational learning and communities-of-practice

This paper by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid concludes that "By reassessing work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three." (2000-08-13)

Developing a Knowledge Strategy

This article by that Michael H. Zack that appeared in the Spring, 1999 edition of California Management Review. "...most knowledge management initiatives are viewed primarily as information systems projects. While many managers intuitively believe that strategic advantage can come from knowing more than competitors, they are unable to explicitly articulate the link between knowledge and strategy" (2000-08-13)

Harnessing Corporate Knowledge

According to this Information Week product comparison article "Microsoft is gunning for the knowledge-management market with the upcoming Exchange 2000, sporting tighter application integration and a Web repository, but Lotus has a big head start and ambitious plans to link collaboration and transaction systems." (2000-08-13)

Knowledge Management Mistakes

In this Computer World article, Johanna Ambrpsio reports that according to some experts the failure rate of knowledge management projects is as high as 70%. One expert attributes this phenomena to "...initiatives that rely too heavily on technology." The article presents five KM mistakes and how to avoid them. (2000-07-09)

100 companies who matter in DM, WM, CM, KM and BI

KMWorld Magazine assembled a list of the 100 "...developers, vendors and service providers who are positioned to influence markets in the way rudders, flaps or trim tabs on boats or planes influence the direction of the entire craft." The ".. may not be the best marketer or innovator, but may, because of sheer mass, have inordinate influence over technology adoption and market penetration." (2000-05-29)

Why Can't We Get Anything Done?

In this Fast Company article, Jeffery Pfeffer offers 16 rules that explain why, despite so much knowing, there's so little doing -- and what you can do to get something done in your company. (2000-05-15)

A Model for Knowledge Worker Information Support

This study examines how knowledge workers use information during decision making processes. A model of information support for knowledge workers was developed and validated, and a computer software strategy is proposed for coupling knowledge worker processes with the information they need. (2000-03-26)

What is knowledge management?

"In practice, knowledge management often encompasses identifying and mapping intellectual assets within the organization, generating new knowledge for competitive advantage within the organization, making vast amounts of corporate information accessible, sharing of best practices, and technology that enables all of the above — including groupware and intranets." (2000-01-22)

Mining in Textual Mountains

According to this Mappa Mundi article "In text data mining the researcher seeks relationships between the content of multiple texts and then sets about linking this information together to form a testable hypothesis about new information. The literature of medical research is a promising target for text data mining: a large and growing database of medical journal articles exists in digital format, and the formalized and detailed content delivery style of medical journal articles makes them a good subject for computerized TDM analysis. Because of the large number of journal articles published, it's unlikely that any one researcher could read (and remember) the contents of all of them. In theory, at least, TDM ought to be able to help researchers find possible linkages in published research findings, even across disciplines. (1999-12-05)

Myths and Realities of Knowledge Management

According to this TechWeb article "Tapping the knowledge and experience of individuals within an organization, and sharing that expertise across a company, has long been one of the most strategic goals of IT and business managers. But knowledge management is a moving target, surrounded by misconceptions. To really understand it, those myths must be dissected. Here are 10 of the biggest." (1999-11-28)

The Knowledge Fuss

According to Paul Strassman "...what passes for knowledge management applications invariably calls for overlaying short-lived technologies on top of the existing software junkyard. That is unlikely to produce lasting value. Before you are swayed by the vendors and the hawkers, keep your sense of balance about such investments; don't be easily swayed. Insist that any "knowledge management" system produce verifiable gains in your company's earning capacity. That's the only way to distinguish between a passing utopia and the capacity to deliver increased economic value." (1999-11-01)

The Knowledge Conversation

In this article, David Weinberger, argues that "The promise of KM is that it'll make your organization smarter. That's not an asset. It's not a thing of any sort. Suppose for the moment that knowledge is a conversation. Suppose making your organization smarter means raising the level of conversation. After all, the aim of KM was never to take knowledge from the brain of a smart person and bury it inside some other container like a document or a database. The aim was to share it, and that means getting it talked about." (1999-10-10)

The Knowledge Warehouse: Reusing Knowledge Components

This article, by Michael Yacci, Associate Professor, Information Technology Rochester Institute of Technology appeared in Performance Improvement Quarterly, Vol. 12, Number 3 (1999). The article describes a conceptual model for enabling the reuse of knowledge. It also "..takes the first steps towards defining a standardized classification scheme for storing knowledge components." (1999-11-07)

Behind The Numbers: Sharing Knowledge Isn't Easy Yet

According to the Information Week research report "Knowledge management is as much, if not more, an organizational and cultural challenge as a technology issue. Most IT managers say the impetus to improve knowledge management has to come from the business side--and based on the results of a recent InformationWeek Research survey, that's quite a challenge." (1999-08-22)

Whipping Users into Shape

We need minimum competency standards for Web use—some sort of butterfly ballot test. Don't be afraid to get tough. "You want to visit my site? You can't handle my site." Screen those eyeballs. I don't want any more visitors with a liberal sense of entitlement to a good user experience. Nobody's entitled to a good user experience. It has to be earned. And you don't necessarily get it even then. Life isn't fair. (2001-08-12)

Usability and online financial services: big losses

TaskZ.com: The Internet killer app that never came to be was online banking and financial services. A study published by CyberDialogue found that 33% of the early adopters of online banking abandoned the online experience after one year. According to Michael Weil of TowerGroup's Primary Market Research, "Irrespective of the fact that the majority of U.S. consumers are now ready for online banking in technological terms, behaviorally they continue to be slow to migrate away from traditional channels like the local bank branch or call centers." Recent numbers suggest that online financial services, when adjusted for market growth, are dead flat. Why haven't online financial services begun to reach the customer penetration levels projected? The primary reason: USABILITY. (2001-07-29)

This Week's Agenda: The Usability Industry

ClickZ: In Web site design, users are the one stakeholder who do not have a voice at the table, so speaking up for their needs is an important job. Simplicity falls by the wayside if it is not explicitly and vigorously defended at all times. It is so tempting to add another feature or to make a fancier Flash animation that design bloat is the natural direction of all projects unless somebody fights against it. (2001-07-29)

Good Grips: Usability before Branding

Ask Tog: Lately, web companies start out with a branding strategy, use up 90% of their resources developing that strategy, then find out they have neither time nor screen real estate left to develop a useful product. The result? A whole bunch of Flash and little substance. (2001-07-08)

Second sight

Guardian Unlimited: Do web designers hate users? Or are most of them simply incompetent? Either way, there is no doubt about the mismatch between what users want and what the vast majority of commercial web sites provide. As a user, I know what users want. They want information and they want it fast, which is why they flock to sites such as Google and Yahoo Web designers, however, seem to be more interested in showing off their "design skills" - or lack of them. The result is gratuitous Flash intros, over-large graphics, pointless "applets", inconsistent menus, and pages that take far too long to download. (2001-07-01)

Keep it simple, stupid!

The Dalai Lama once said that simplicity is the key to happiness in the modern world. This philosophy can be adapted into the realm of web design and digital interface design. The expressions "Keep it simple, stupid", "Kill your darlings" and "Less is more" all pinpoint the fact that simplicity is important. Simplicity lasts. Simplicity is necessary in order to properly convey any idea. (2001-06-24)

Alan Cooper sees planning as key to downstream dividends

InfoWorld: In this interview, Cooper talks about what ails the industry today and what it should do -- including abandoning browser technology -- to reinvigorate itself. According to Cooper:: "The browser is a red herring; it's a dead end. The idea of having batched processing inside a very stupid program that's controlled remotely is a software architecture that was invented about 25 years ago by IBM, and was abandoned about 20 years ago because it's a bad architecture. We've gone tremendously retrograde by bringing in Web browsers." (2001-06-24)

Content Is Not a Technology Issue

ClickZ: The wrong people are in charge of too many content projects. Content is not a technology problem. Content is about people. And people who understand content are enthused by the content itself, not the technology that is used to deliver it. (2001-06-24)

Technology stars decry state of industry innovation

The direction of technological innovation has gone off track by focusing on overly complex systems, losing sight of the goal widespread adoption, a panel of experts said Tuesday evening. Speaking at the InfoWorld CTO Forum here, the group agreed that both enterprises and consumers are turned off by systems that are simply too hard to understand. (2001-06-24)

Please Stand By: We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulty

Context Magazine: Speech recognition; phones with Web browsers based on the Wireless Application Protocol, or WAP; Internet-based telephone calls; interactive television; and online bill payment have been touted for years—some for more than a decade—as having the potential to revolutionize business by giving consumers new ways to purchase goods, gather information, and get service. Yet the combined effect of the technologies has so far been almost imperceptible. Their promoters could be accused of, in effect, hanging out signs promising: "All Your Problems Solved...Tomorrow." It’s not that these technologies don’t hold promise. Most hold enormous promise. It’s just that the predictions about when they will start to fulfill that promise have been wildly optimistic. (2001-06-03)

Complete the Revolution: An Interview with Michael L. Dertouzos

Computerworld: "There is a lot of confusion between pervasive or ubiquitous computing on the one hand and human-centric computing on the other. They are not the same. Pervasive computing implies a lot of equipment, where the focus is on a lot of devices that are themselves computers. Human-centric computing, however, focuses on the human. Today, computers are hard to use. If we make them more pervasive and use more of them, there will be that much more aggravation around us. By focusing on human-centered systems, we declare that our goal is to serve humans. Whether that calls for more or less stuff is secondary." (2001-05-13)

The Humane Touch: Bad Design Can Be Costly

Forbes, Jef Raskin: Bad user interfaces may be more expensive than you think, including software your company buys as well as software your company writes. For example, everybody knows that Microsoft Word, Excel, and other popular programs can be maddeningly frustrating, but few take the time to figure out what their shortcomings mean in terms of lost work, lower worker morale, and wasted dollars. Microsoft Word requires at least 30% more keystrokes and 100% more mouse moves to accomplish certain editing tasks than would an optimal word processor. Decreasing physical work not only saves time but also decreases incidents of repetitive stress injury. Good design can eliminate many of the steps that are most damaging to nerves and tendons. (2001-05-13)

Looking Back to Move Forward

Webtechnique: It's our responsibility as innovators and business professionals to ensure that we approach this latest technology trend with professionalism and consideration for the end user. We must develop applications that address the user's specific needs. We can't simply modify existing Web applications by slapping together code and delivering the apps wirelessly. It's time to tap into the amassed knowledge of what makes a quality product that users will integrate into their lives. If we do that, the result will be wireless applications that make sense and that account for the strengths and weaknesses of the technology. (2001-05-13)

Simplicity costs less and works better

It's cheaper to develop a simpler website, or product, or interface. It's also cheaper to avoid building a complex technical support mechanism, writing long manuals, and hiring staff to take phone calls from irate customers because your product is too hard to use. I'll even go one further, and say that simplicity will generate more money, because, even though you may not be offering every service to everyone, you'll be offering something valuable to just the right people. You can spend $10000 on a fancy Flash introduction to your website that offers no value to your users. They don't pay to see the animation (nor would they), and they aren't getting a service from you. In fact, most users will either see it once, and ignore it, or just skip it altogether. Lose that animation, and save $10000. (2001-05-13)

The New, New IT Strategy

CIO Magazine: According to this article by Tom Davenport "...successful companies make their IT investments in the core of the business, consistent with their product and service strategies. In almost every case, there's a link between the technology and something the customer can see and buy. The company that's excellent at IT strategy today must excel at ERP in the back office, CRM and e-commerce in the front office, as well as data warehousing, mining and KM. Virtually every key process—internal and interorganizational—has to be reengineered through IT. (2001-05-06)

The Cosmic Usability Test

Information Week: Usability may sound like yet another techie buzzword, but what it represents philosophically is a willingness to maximize a user's experience, and thus heighten a product's effectiveness. This concept goes well beyond asking users where to place the navigation bar. It's more than a collection of rules that dictate the percentage of visitors you'll lose if your Web pages require excessive scrolling. The quality of the customer interaction is key. And usability is the science behind it. (2001-04-22)

The Butterfly Ballot: Anatomy of a Disaster

Ask Tog: If you haven't had enough of the US election snafu then check out Bruce Tognazzini's post mortem analysis of the usability of the butterfly ballot. Bruce writes: "So here I come doing a little Monday morning quarterbacking. Sure, it's easy enough to see now what a stupid design it was, now that they game is over. That's what user testing is for. So you can play the game before you play the game. A competent designer, in my opinion, would have predicted this outcome just from a glance at the ballot, but even a beginner should have had enough sense to user test the design before release. That rather obviously was not done in this case, and a serious miscarriage of thousands of voter's wishes resulted." (2001-01-08)

Loyalty is Priceless

Grock Dot Com: "To create loyal customers you have to get away from what you want to give them. In the customer-empowered world of e-commerce, your customers aren’t interested in what you want to push. In fact, they’re not interested in being pushed at all. They’re interested in finding what they want to buy, and in finding vendors who will help them. So learn to give them what they want, and you are a heck of a lot more likely to get what you want: more sales, more repeat business, and more referrals!" (2001-01-28)

Yo! It's MRC, Not CRM!

Grock Dot Com: According to this insightful editorial about the hot new trend to use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software: "Building a relationship takes time. Shoving some tech-heavy CRM application at your customer is more likely to push them away than draw them in. If you want to get it right, you need to follow MRC, not CRM: Manage your e-business correctly so you can establish a Relationship from which you can develop a delighted and loyal Customer. Only then can all the other stuff you do have the impact you want." (2001-01-28)

The Iteration Trap

Alan Cooper: "High-tech companies are in a hurry—as well they should be—but many hurt themselves by trying to move products out the door too quickly. I often hear executives repeat homilies like "Ship early, ship often," and "Launch and learn." They assume that there is no penalty for simply slapping something together, shipping it, and then upgrading their product or site in a rapid iteration cycle. Unfortunately, there is a big, hidden cost associated with this tactic." (2001-01-28)

Overwhelmed by Tech

U.S. News: "According to a recent study by the market-research firm Gartner Group, 43 percent of the time Americans spend with electronic appliances when they first get them is devoted to fiddling or figuring out how they work; even then, hardly anyone figures out all the functions. "Most people use about 35 percent of the capacity of any one technology they get their hands on," says Michelle Weil, a psychologist and product-design consultant, "and then they stop." (2001-02-04)

The Interface Revolutionary

Computer World: According to Jeff Rasikin: "Anytime you make a system faster to use, easier to learn and less frustrating, there are psychological benefits to the individual user and bottom-line productivity benefits to the enterprise. There are also physical benefits: an interface that takes fewer keystrokes and less "mousing around" creates less repetitive stress injuries." (2001-02-18)

Are Users Stupid?

Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox: "Opponents of the usability movement claim that it focuses on stupid users and that most users can easily overcome complexity. In reality, even smart users prefer pursuing their own goals to navigating idiosyncratic designs. As Web use grows, the price of ignoring usability will only increase." (2001-02-18)

Debunking the myths of UI design

IBM: In software development, design is widely misunderstood and undervalued. Often no explicit user interface design is done separately from the code. Iterative design then becomes recoding. This is a short-sighted strategy because it results in significantly more code being written in the long run. Because design is unavoidable, the real issue is whether it is left implicit in the software being developed, or made explicit and captured separately. The useful debate is about how to do design work well, and how to capture it in an optimal form for communicating to those who implement it. (2001-03-18)

Thinking Outside the Box

Washington Post: That flashing "12:00" has become a symbol of technology as tyranny, taunt, impotence, ignorance, intimidation, humiliation, stone in the shoe and pain in the butt. It stands for innovation created without humans in mind. Yet humans have grown to live with it. To expect it. To adjust themselves to the selfishness of these machines. Like sheep. (2001-03-25)

Remember The User's Point Of View

Information Week: Compressed software-development cycles make early feedback from users more important but less likely to happen. The Web's sprawling nature means IT shops often lack an accurate picture of their apps' eventual users--who may be customers, employees, partners, or the simply curious. Just as important, integration between an application's user interface and its back-end data-processing portions has moved to the fore of usability concerns. One example: A user error on a simple name-and-address form often returns another blank form--a big turnoff to Web patrons. (2001-04-08)

High tech's missionaries of sloppiness

Salon Magazine: According to this article: "In analysing repair histories of 13 kinds of products gathered by Consumer Reports, PC World found that roughly 22 percent of computers break down every year -- compared to 9 percent of VCRs, 7 percent of big-screen TVs, 7 percent of clothes dryers and 8 percent of refrigerators." The article also reports that "...the Gartner Group discovered that there was a failure rate of 25 percent for notebook computers used in large American corporations. " The author concludes that "A culture of carelessness seems to have taken over in high-tech America. The personal computer is a shining model of unreliability because the high-tech industry today actually exalts sloppiness as a modus operandi." (2000-12-17)

Butterfly Ballot Causes Performance Problems

Audrey Choden, Suite 101: Consider the ballot as a performance support tool designed to aid voters in an election. The performance support tools you design may not be used to elect the president of the United States, but they are used to guide on-the-job performance. If not designed properly, these tools can cause employees to make mistakes affecting customer service, production, and safety. (2000-12-03)

Jef Raskin on Cooper

UIDesign.net, This is a letter from Jef Raskin about Alan Cooper's philosophy of software design. According to Raskin, Cooper "...leaves out that what we are limited by is the fundamental characteristics of humans, what we learn when we study ergonomics and cognetics. It is human capabilities that must be understood deeply, and these are as controlling in interface design as physics is in mechanical and electronic design." (2000-11-19)

Second sight

The Guardian: "The people who succeed in the device-driven networking economy of the future will be those who create applications, interfaces, and designs that conform to human need and expectation. The businesses that continue to work on strategies for "getting people to do this", or "figuring out how to make people do that" will fail as surely as WebTV." (2000-11-12)

Flash: 99% Bad

Jakob Nielsen: "Although multimedia has its role on the Web, current Flash technology tends to discourage usability for three reasons: it makes bad design more likely, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction style, and it consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core value." (2000-11-05)

Five Uneasy Pieces

CIO Magazine: "...technology doesn't always work as advertised. To help quiet the hype, CIO has put together its latest round of Five Uneasy Pieces. These takes offer a more skeptical perspective on a quintet of the hottest tech trends: e-marketplaces, speech recognition, wireless technology, CRM software and even the Web itself. (2000-11-05)

Application Service Providers: Condemned to Repeat History

In this CIO editorial about the latest information technology trend; Application Service Providers (ASP's), the anonymous author observes that "Among the more interesting claims being made about the virtues of ASPs is that instead of paying a lot of money up front for software that will soon be obsolete, companies may opt instead to pay a monthly fee to rent applications and have them run from a central location. To begin with, when was renting anything ever cheaper in the medium term or long term than buying? The fact is, what is being characterized as an ASP offering by companies such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel is nothing more than the same old software licensing deal, except that the license price (plus interest) is divided by the number of months the customer wants to use the software. (2000-10-29)

Trouble in Paradise: Problems Facing the Usability Community

According to John Rhodes of webword.com "There are problems with usability and the usability community. This article is my attempt to raise some of the most important and interesting issues. In my opinion, usability as we know it is dying. It is outdated, misunderstood, and it faces very serious challenges in web and software development circles." (2000-10-22)

Artificial stupidity

In this Salon.com interview, Jason Lanier contents that" "[Programmers] are sacrificing the user in order to have this fantasy that the computers are turning into creatures," he says. "These features found their way in not because developers think people want them, but because this idea of making autonomous computers has gotten into their heads." (2000-10-15)

Why Great Technologies Don't Make Great Products

According to Scott Berkun of Microsoft Corporation "We all love technology. That's why we're in this industry. We have an unspoken belief that technology will save the world from all of its problems. We excel at creating technologies and packaging them into boxes or Web sites, but we often fail to put them together in ways that our customers can easily use and appreciate. Sometimes we respond with awe at things we know were hard to implement or difficult to build, without regard for the purpose they might serve. Over the years I've noticed that our love for technology doesn't always lead us in the right direction. In this column I'll try to describe the kind of thinking that's missing." (2000-10-08)

The Ideology of Ease

Journal of Electronic Publishing: "I don't think we should abandon the movement toward making computers easier to use and therefore more accessible, enjoyable, and powerful for as many people as possible. However, I do think that as ease becomes the end, rather than the means to the end, many things are set aside." (2000-09-17)

The Desktop is Dead. Deal with it...

"Listen up all you interface designers, interaction experts, user experience engineers, web graphic artistes and web usability specialists – it’s time to start over. Period. It all goes. I mean all of it. I’m not kidding here, either. We can’t blame those hyper-aggressive marketing types or over-caffeinated engineers for our problems any longer. It’s our turn to take the lead in software design. And it’s our job to keep it." (2000-08-27)

Experience Design

In this "A List Apart" article, by John Locke, reports on a survey of experience designers where he found that: "designers who work in the physical world – designers of themed products and environments – have a vastly more developed theoretical base they can call on than do designers who work in the online world. While the latter have recently gotten most the ink, a lot more money and labor goes into the design of tangible objects and places intended to engender experiences." (2000-08-27)

Aggregating Experience Problems delivering User Centered Design

This UIDesign.net editorial predicts that the "Big end-to-end service providers like AOL Time Warner EMI have the opportunity to use their corporate size to communicate faster and exact better control over their designs, in comparison to competitors forming loose business alliances. Consequently delivering better product with a better user experience leading to higher usage and greater revenues." (2000-08-13)

Time to Bin the Big Iron

According to this UIDesign.net editorial "The user believes that when they do something from their web browser, the server at the other end receives and processes it immediately. That isn't always the case. Sometimes, it doesn't happen until tomorrow." (2000-07-30)

Consumers Pay a Price for Internet Phone Convenience

According to this San Francisco Chronicle article "...many pundits and tech magazines are hyping the wireless Internet as the next big thing. But some industry players are already beginning to sense a backlash, as early users complain that it's not as simple to use a Net phone as it is to flick on their home computers." (2000-07-30)

Wireless Wonders Are Passing Fads

In this E-Commerce Times editorial Tim McDonald exclaims: "Sorry, IBM, I am nowhere near ready to wear my computer. I want my machine on the desk where it belongs, or at the very least, in my briefcase. I will not wear it as a hat. I do not want it dangling from my neck, wrist, finger or front tooth." (2000-07-09)

Skin Cancer: Opinion on Netscape 6

Long relegated to the back seat of the software development process in favor of ever-more useless features, usability has recently been chloroformed, hog-tied and stuffed in the trunk. Exhibit A: the newly prereleased Netscape 6. The tyranny of the skins has begun. (2000-04-16)

The Mud-Throwing Theory of Usability

It has recently become popular to design new websites and innovative Internet services with the idea to throw it at the wall and see if it sticks. The metaphor of treating design like mud supposedly leads to shorter time-to-market and thus faster success in growing the business. The assumption is that speed is everything. If the initial design has weaknesses (i.e., drops off the wall), then they can always be fixed in the redesign. (2000-04-09)

The Seven Stages of Web Grief

In this humorous article David Weinberger compares the five stages of grieving with the stages a company goes through in finally recognizing and accepting the important role the web. (2000-04-09)

The Emperor Has Beautiful Clothes

In the six months that the Online Journalism Review has been publishing, our job has been to assess the quality of content on the Internet. Our conclusion: Much of the Web's content, with notable exceptions, lacks substance -- it does not have a deep impact on one's life. A session on the Web is like eating a meal that still leaves one hungry. (2000-04-09)

Preference Does Not Equal Performance

People have a funny way of deciding when, where and how they will using something. So, a core web site design rule is that just because something looks cool and people tell you that the site is great, it doesn't mean they will spend time there or that they will buy your goods and services. If you want to do it right, you have to test your customers. (2000-04-02)

Latest Isn't Always Greatest

The more time I spend browsing various Web sites, the angrier I get with those developers who take liberty with the amount of software I need to view their pages and navigate their site. I realize that developers want to stay on top of what is cool and unusual and eye-catching and create a site that is visually appealing, engaging and all that. But do they realize that your average member of the browsing public doesn't care at all about these things? (2000-03-19)

Novice vs. Expert Users

According to this Jakbob Nieslen article "Web usability has traditionally been focused on increasing ease of learning for the novice users. This makes great sense and should continue to be the main goal ... but the pendulum will soon start swinging a little bit in the other direction, even if it won't swing all the way back to a single-minded focus on experts." (2000-02-13)

5 Habits of Highly Effective Revolution

"The feeding frenzy surrounding the Internet looks new, and it is, at least in our lifetime. But the same patterns of behavior occurred in the development of earlier technologies, including steam engines, telegraphy, automobiles, airplanes, and radio. Investors who know something of the history of these eras can extract valuable lessons to help them understand how the Internet economy is likely to evolve. (via tomalak.org)" (2000-02-13)

Friends Don't Let Friends Use AOL

"He's competent when it comes to technologies he wants to mess with -- like his digital photos. But, given a choice, he has opted not to mess with setting up an Internet account with an independent ISP. It's not that he's not capable; it's that he hasn't seen a compelling reason not to let AOL make it easy for him" (2000-02-13)

Goodbye Problems, Hello Benefits

According to this Don Norman editorial: "We've been at this IT stuff long enough. It's time to forget about exciting, cool technology with its concomitant breakdowns, frustrations, and bugs. Instead, let's focus on the benefits, services, and results of all this technology. After all, we want technology that just works and is taken so much for granted that we won't even know it's there--like sewers and the electrical wiring in our homes." (2000-01-10)

Improving digital cameras may overwhelm users

Dramatically higher-resolution digital cameras are soon to come, potentially altering the digital imaging landscape but perhaps also bringing a whole new set of difficulties. (1999-12-27)

Regarding Customers as Business Collaborators

"To succeed, Professor Prahalad said, companies will have to figure out how to experience their products as consumers experience them. They will have to understand what the customer encounters at every step, from beginning the search for a product to buying it, using it and finally disposing of it." (2000-02-13)

New skills for a new economy

According to this InfoWorld article: "The strategic requirements of e-business may also lead to the creation of new types of jobs within the IT department, according to industry watchers. Already companies are installing strategic leaders -- usually reporting to the CIO -- who can articulate an e-business vision and serve as liaisons between IT and other departments." (1999-12-27)

The Software Design Manifesto

In 1990 Mitch Kapor of Lotus wrote "We need to create a professional discipline of software design. We need our own community. Today you can't get a degree in software design, go a to a conference on the subject, or subscribe to a journal on the topic Designers need to be brought onto development teams as peers to to programmers. And the whole PC community needs to become sensitized to issues of design." (1999-11-22)

But The Computer Said ...

This article relates a story about an airline employee providing flight departures times shown in a computer systems, but when pressed provided an estimate based on personal experience and knowledge that was more accurate. The author wondered " Had the airline enforced so stringent a set of rules that its employees have no discretion to use their own common sense? Or was this vignette just another example of people viewing the technology we develop as a silver bullet, relieving them of all need to interpret the data they see before them on the screen?" (1999-11-15)

When help in the shop is a flop

According to this Salon Magazine article "...someone over at fashion central has since got it into their head that people want online shopping to be more like going to an actual store. Shoppers, they seem to think, miss those nosy salespeople hawking products. Say hello to the new generation of Digital Shopping Agents, appearing now at an e-commerce site near you." The article contains links to some site with these digital shopping agent. (1999-11-15)

A Century of Scams

According to this Bruce Tognazzini editorial "Defective software is costing the world economy billions and billions of dollars in lost productivity. A small costs is attributable to the technician-time necessary to straighten out the problems, but the larger costs are indirect, arising from employees standing around waiting for problems to be solved and the high peer-to-peer training costs associated with people learning where and where not to step in the software minefields." (1999-12-12)

Palm cofounder shares design philosophy

According to Jeff Hawkins, one of the designers of the PalmPilot, "One of the keys to successful product design is understanding the importance of a simple user experience. That simplicity can and should stop designers from overloading devices with too many unnecessary features" (1999-10-24)

The Visible Problems of the Invisible Computer: A skeptical Look at the Information Appliance

The future is said to belong to information appliances, specialized and easy to use devices that will have the car tell the coffee pot to brew a cup of coffee just in time for our arrival home. These gadgets are supposed to eliminate the complexity and resulting frustrations of the PC. The thesis of this essay is that while information appliances will proliferate, they will not lessen the perception of an exasperating electronic environment. The interaction of the coffee pot, the car, the smart fridge, and the networked camera will create a new layer of complexity. In the rush towards the digital era, we will continue to live right on the edge of intolerable frustration. (1999-09-25)

Defunct Keys and Odd Commands Still Bedevil Today's PC User

According to this New York Times article "Many designers criticize the keyboard for serving a befuddling mix of obsolete needs. Of the sprawling 101 keys on the standard keyboard, a good number are either redundant, confusing or vestigial." (1999-09-18)

The Stranglehold of the Priesthood has been Broken

This WebWord interview with Bruce Tognazzini explores his opinions about user interface design and the advantages of using Interaction Designers to design web sites, software and other products. (1999-08-07)

How Programmers Stole the Web

In this article Bruce Tognazzini asserts that "Engineers in effect stole the personal computer by building cumbersome, illogical development environments that no one other than an engineer could possibly understand." (1999-08-07)

Engineers Won't Design the Next Gen Systems

This new report quotes Don Norman as saying "There's a massive change being driven by consumers, a revolt against complexity and unreliability," According to the article Norman contents that the "...markets will be driven not by technology capabilities, but by the demands of late adopters and less savvy consumers who do not care about the underlying technology and who will not tolerate equipment that is difficult to use." (May-16-99)

Even if it's Your Fault, it Probably Isn't

This anonymously authored online article is about the software industries' failure to create programs and operating systems that novices can use with little or no initial training or external support. The author's strong views on this subject is illustrated by her/his statement that: "The computer industry has a stake in making you feel stupid, and it's time you got mad about it."

Value Behind The Bluster

According to columnist Michael Hammer "Knowledge management, like many other business fads, seems to have had its 15 minutes of fame and may be already fading from the public consciousness. This is both predictable and unfortunate--predictable because of the way the subject has been positioned and presented; unfortunate because, behind all the bluster, there is real business value in this concept." (1999-08-15)

The Writing on the Web

In this Webmonkey opinion Joshua Allen contents that "... writing (on the Web) should never be compromised. Text is the central way of communicating with other people on the Web, and it deserves closer attention than it's been getting." (1999-07-31)

A Computer User's Manifesto

This Business Week article present's Clare-Marie Karat's 10 point User's Bill of Rights. Karat is a PhD psychologist who evaluates the way people interact with their computers and designs for IBM. (Oct-29-98)

ERP Platforms: As The Pendulum Swings

According to this Information Week article "Enterprise resource planning platforms--once sold on the benefits of turnkey solutions--are rapidly becoming platforms for custom development and integration". The article concludes "The most popular solutions will be those that shield business developers from the underlying complexity of systems "plumbing"--instead allowing them to focus on business logic..." (Jan-01-99)

The Hidden Cost of Code Reuse

Code reuse is becoming the mantra of many IS shops, but according to this Information Week article "..it's becoming clear to some who work in this field that large-scale reuse of code represents a major undertaking that may not be worth the effort in every case". (Dec-05-98)

Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design

In the opening paragraph of this online article, Nathan Shedroff states that "The most important skills in the next decade and beyond will be the abilities to create information and experiences for others that are valuable, compelling, and empowering. To do this, we must learn new ways of organizing and presenting data and information." (Feb-15-97)

The Anti-Mac Interface

This online article by Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen explores the limitations of the current graphical user interface model as represented by the design principles for the Apple Macintosh. They suggest some new principles that could become the foundation of the next generation of computer interface. (Dec-27-96)

Transforming EPSS to Support Organizational Learning

This online article presents a conceptual model for using the principles of performance centered design to capture and provide access to organizational knowledge. The paper also summarizes the results of several studies that examine the factors the affect people's use and acceptance of computers. (May-25-97)

The PalmPilot Creator Reflects on Good Design

This short article contains some of Jeff Hawkins' ideas about good design. (Sep-06-98)

WebWord Interview with Alan Cooper

An interview with Alan Cooper, author of the book About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design . Alan's latest book, The Inmates are Running the Asylum , will be published in April 1999. (Mar-20-99)

WebWord Interview with Jered Spool

An interview with Jared Spool the founding principle of User Interface Engineering, a web usability research group. Spool is a recognized expert in web usability and is often quoted in the popular press. (Apr-18-99)

What is Interactive Design

In this article Craig Marion explores the meaning of interactive design and its implications for information designers. The article includes a number of links to other sites containing information about interactive design. (May-18-99)

Can Navigational Assistance Improve Search Efficiency

First Monday: Providing navigational aids to assist users in finding information in hypertext systems has been an ongoing research problem for well over a decade. Despite this, the incorporation of navigational aids into Web search tools has been slow. While search engines have become very efficient in producing high quality rankings, support for the navigational process is still far from satisfactory. To deal with this shortcoming of search tools, we have developed a site specific search and navigation engine that incorporates several recommended navigational aids into its novel user interface, based on the concept of a user trail. Herein, we report on a usability study whose aim was to ascertain whether adding semi-automated navigational aids to a search tool improves users' experience when "surfing" the Web. The results we obtained from the study revealed that users of the navigation engine performed better in solving the question set posed than users of a conventional search engine. Moreover, users of the navigation engine provided more accurate answers in less time and with less clicks. Our results indicate that adding navigational aids to search tools will enhance Web usability and take us a step further towards resolving the problem of "getting lost in hyperspace". (2001-09-16)

Exploring Users' Experience of the Web

First Monday: While browsing the Web is a widespread everyday activity there is a shortage of detailed understanding of how users organise their Web usage. In this paper we present results from a qualitative in-depth interview study of how users browse the Web and combine browsing with their other activities. The data are used to explore three particular problems which users have with browsing the Web. Firstly, users have problems managing their favourites, and in particular accessing their favourites through a hierarchical menu. Second, users have problems with combining information across different Web sites - what we call the "meta-task" problem. Third, users have concerns with security and privacy, although these concerns seem to change as users become more experienced with shopping on the Web. We discuss three concepts which address these problems: "home page favourites", "Web clipping" and the "Web card". These concepts are attempts at incremental improvements to the Web without affecting the Web's essential simplicity. (2001-09-16)

Effects of Link Arrangement on Search Efficiency

Forty-two subjects completed three tasks using either a 30-link or a 155-link Web page. Three treatments were used for each Web page design -- one-column, two-column and three-column link arrangements. In all of the 30-link Web page treatments, the link arrangements fit on a single page and did not require scrolling. For the 155-link Web page treatments, all link arrangements required multiple pages and scrolling. Subjects completed the study using only one treatment for either the 30- or 155-link Web page. Subjects randomly selected a task list of three links to search for on the assigned Web page. The subjects that used the 155-link Web pages had a significantly faster search time using a three-column link arrangement, while the two-column link arrangement had the slowest search time. Results for the 30-link Web pages did not show a significant difference in search times for any specific link arrangement. (2001-09-16)

HTML E-Mail: Text Font Readability Study

Web Marketing Today: This study found that: "At the 12 point size, Arial is preferred for readability 6 to 4, while two-thirds of respondents see Verdana 12 pt. as too large for body text. But at 10 pt. and below, the readability preference shifts to Verdana. At 10 pt. Verdana is preferred over Arial for readability 2 to 1. And at 9 pt. Verdana is preferred over Arial for readability by a 3 to 1 margin." (2001-09-02)

Empirically Validated Web Page Design Metrics

A quantitative analysis of a large collection of expert-rated web sites reveals that page-level metrics can accurately predict if a site will be highly rated. The analysis also provides empirical evidence that important metrics, including page composition, page formatting, and overall page characteristics, differ among web site categories such as education, community, living, and finance. These results provide an empirical foundation for web site design guidelines and also suggest which metrics can be most important for evaluation via user studies. (2001-08-19)

Comparative Usability Evaluation Reports

CUE-1 is a comparative usability test of a Windows calendar program (Task Timer for Windows, version 2) carried out by four professional teams. The results were published at UPA98 in Washington DC in June 1998. CUE-2 is a comparative usability test of the popular www.hotmail.com web-site. Nine teams simultaneously usability tested this web-site, but eight of the nine teams missed 75% of the usability problems. When you look at the total number of unique problems identified, only one team reported more than 25% of the these problems. (2001-08-12)

Impact of Navigational Models on Task Completion In Web-based Information Systems

This study investigated performance differences between three different web-based navigation models: linear, persistent, and semi-persistent menu structures. Forty-four college students were placed into one of the three navigation conditions and completed information-finding tasks. No significant differences were found among the models with respect to success in completing tasks or overall completion time. Use of other navigation aids built into the browser such as the HOME and BACK buttons was also measured, as well user satisfaction and perceived usability. No differences among models were found here either. Results of this study tentatively indicate that the three navigation models, as tested, performed equally well and further that designers should perhaps give fair consideration to each of the models pending the purpose and audience of the site being designed. (2001-08-05)

A Comparison of Popular Online Fonts: Which is Best and When?

Usability News: Several observations can be made regarding the examined font types. First, no significant difference in actual legibility between the font types were detected. There were, however, significant differences in reading time, but these differences may not be that meaningful for most online text because these differences were not substantial. It may, on the other hand, be helpful to consider using font types that are perceived as being legible. In this study, the font types that were perceived as being most legible were Courier, Comic, Verdana, Georgia, and Times. (2001-07-29)

What is the Best Layout for Multiple-Column Web Pages?

Usability News: Several observations can be made from this study. First, no significant differences between the layout conditions were detected in terms of search accuracy, time, or efficiency. However, significant subjective differences were found that favored the Fluid layout. Here, participants indicated they perceived this layout as being the best suited for reading and finding information, as well as having a layout that is most appropriate for the screen size (for both small and large screens). They also indicated that the Fluid layout looked the most professional, and consequently preferred it to the other layout conditions. Conversely, the Left-justified layout was consistently the least preferred condition. (2001-07-29)

Where Should You Put the Links? A Comparison of Four Locations

Usability News: Several observations can be made from this study. First, no significant differences between the four link arrangements were detected in terms of search accuracy, time, or efficiency. This suggests that the link arrangement for documents within a single frame does not have a great affect on its actual navigability. However, there were significant subjective differences between the links arrangements favoring the embedded links. That is, participants indicated that they believed that embedding the links within a document made it easier to navigate, more easily recognize key information, promoted comprehension, and was easier to follow the main idea of the passages while searching for specific information. Moreover, participants significantly preferred the Embedded link arrangement to the other arrangements. Conversely, placing links at the bottom of a document was perceived as being the least navigable arrangement, and was consequently least preferred. (2001-07-29)

Understanding Online Behavior

ecommerce-guide.com: According to Forrester Research, only 23 percent of companies currently improve their online operations by making use of the data associated with how customers use their Web sites. However, as experts agree and the brick-and-mortar world has demonstrated, understanding and reacting to customer behavior is the number one resource for acquiring and keeping customers. Forrester leaves us with the sobering pronouncement that fewer than 200 business-to-business sites will be standing in 2003. Will understanding "E-Metrics" be a key differentiator for survival? (2001-07-22)

E-Commerce Web Queries: Excite and Ask Jeeves Study

First Monday: This paper reports a study of business related queries submitted to the Excite and Ask Jeeves Web search services. We sampled a log of 10,000 Excite queries and 10,000 Ask Jeeves question format queries from 20 December 1999 to examine the business queries. Findings include: (1) business queries often include more search terms, are less modified, lead to fewer Web pages viewed, and include less advanced search features, than non-business queries; (2) company or product name queries were the most common form of business; and, (3) Ask Jeeves business queries in question form were largely limited to the format "Where can I buy ..." or the request "I want to buy ...". The study provides insights into the beginnings of e-commerce Web searching. (2001-07-15)

Computer passwords reveal workers' secrets

ZD Net News: A poll, which questioned 1,200 office workers, revealed four distinct categories of people when it comes to passwords. Nearly half of the employees questioned fall into the "family" group, choosing their own name or nickname or the names of their partners, children or pets for their login. A third of office workers fall into the "fan" category, by choosing sports stars, cartoon characters or pop stars. The more "self-obsessed" employee comprises 11 percent of the British workforce, picking keywords like "sexy", "stud", "slapper" and "goddess". The smallest group--the "cryptics"--with just 9 percent of the total, are also the most security conscious. (2001-07-01)

Are the Product Lists on Your Site Reducing Sales?

You can increase sales on your site as much as 225% by providing sufficient product information to your customers at the right time. In our recent research, we found that the design of product lists directly affected sales. On sites that did not require shoppers to bounce back-and-forth between the list and individual product pages, visitors added more products to their shopping cart and had a more positive opinion of the site. By understanding your customer expectations and needs, and designing your product lists accordingly, you can significantly increase your sales. (2001-06-03)

Online Groceries and Textbooks: Is E-Shopping the Answer for Today's College Student?

Usability News: Results from this series of usability studies demonstrated that the dot.com sites tended to outperform their brick-and-mortar competitors. For both the grocery and textbook domains, the clarity and intuitiveness of each site's home page was critical to participant success. On the albertsons.com site, participants struggled with the task of finding cheese because there was no dairy category identified. On the varistybooks.com site, participants struggled to find the cost of shipping charges because it was not evident on the home page. Other problems reported included small, hard-to-read fonts, counter-intuitive menu structures, and incomplete information. Such problems are not difficult to fix, but could have a profound impact on whether users continue with a site and more importantly return to it again. Usability testing is a fast, cost-efficient method to help developers find these problems. It doesn't seem plausible that an e-commerce company can afford not to do it. (2001-07-29)

Understand Online Message Dissemination

First Monday: This paper reports on the analysis "send-this-story-to-a-friend" data from ESPN.com. The researchers found that the number of times stories are sent out represent a miniscule proportion of visits to the site. With 6.1 million unique visitors to ESPN in February, only 5,500 stories were sent to a friend. (2001-05-13)

SHOULD MY LOVED ONE BE PLACED IN AN ASSISTED COMPUTING FACILITY?

Satirewire: For family members, it is often the most difficult and painful decision they will face: to accept that a loved one — a parent, a spouse, perhaps a sibling — is technologically impaired and should no longer be allowed to live independently, or come near a computer or electronic device without direct supervision. The time has come to place that loved one into the care of an Assisted Computing Facility. But you have questions. So many questions. We at Silicon Pines want to help.

Cubists Launch Unnavigable Web Site

The International Society of Cubists officially launched its Web site today, a brilliant rejection of natural form and perspective that metaphysically establishes the implication of movement, analytically redefines spatial relationships, and is an absolute bitch to navigate. (2001-04-29)

'Automatic Professor Machine' Is Unveiled -- by a Longtime Technology Critic

Chronicles of Higher Education: A longtime technology critic has fashioned a prototype of a device that he says could do away with traditional colleges and teachers, replacing them with knowledge-dispensing terminals that look like A.T.M.'s. The fictional device, called the Automatic Professor Machine, spoofs the ever-rising wave of education-technology products on college campuses. (2001-02-25)

useit.competition: Redesign Contest

The useit.competition is a mental exersize in the form of a public contest for the complete redesign of the world famous website useit.com. Links to contestants (and even entries) will be posted in this space as soon as we get them. It's an open, friendly contest, and early arrivers will be able to edit and improve their designs until the very end. We'd prefer to see development happening out in the open. (2000-11-12)

BuzzPhraser: A TechnoLatin phrase generator

BuzzPhrases are built with TechnoLatin, a non-language that replaces plain English nouns with vague but precise-sounding substitutes. In TechnoLatin, a disk drive is a "data management solution." A phone is a "telecommunications device."

Nuclear Web Site Slammed for More-Than-Three-Click Interface

The website interface to the nuclear arsenal of the USA is to be completely re-written from scratch following an assessment by usability guru Jakob Nielsen last week." (2000-10-08)

If Dr. Seuss Shopped on the Net...

One link two link, red link blue link Oh my gosh here comes a new link This click that click, here click there click Huh? click HELP! click

Bill Gates related cartoon

Bill Gates related cartoon

The usable planet

"Take a look into the future, a future that doesn't need usability experts anymore...!" (1999-11-22)

What if Speech Were First?

This is a parody of a Salon Magazine review of speech recognitions technology. The parody is a review of key-bored technology from the perspective that speech recognition technology is already the primary method for interacting with computers. (1999-11-15)

User Friendly - The Comic Strip

"What do you get when you put three techs, two salespeople, a designer, two executives and a couple of administrative staff together in an office? Answer: Columbia Internet, the friendliest, hardest-working and most neurotic little Internet Service Provider in the world. Throw in a mischievous Artificial Intelligence and a naive but curious Dust Puppy, and you have the makings of USER FRIENDLY, the chronicle of a group of well-meaning but misguided Internet workers."(1999-08-22)

Guru: Engineers Won't Design Next-Gen Systems

Techweb: "There's a massive change being driven by consumers, a revolt against complexity and unreliability," Norman said. "Embedded processors will enable this revolution, but they aren't sufficient to ensure it. They promise the revolution, but [it will happen] only if you adopt a human-centered design philosophy." (2001-04-29)

MS Office Helper Not Dead Yet

Wired News: While Clippy may not seem like a good ambassador for the technology of the future, the hapless paperclip is only partly based on a Bayesian system. In the mid-90s, the lab built a sophisticated Bayesian prototype called Lumiere that included a "deep" model of user confusion. Microsoft is using the software to help build a smart-help system that knows when to jump in and offer people assistance. The system monitored things such as the clicking on functionless icons, the opening and closing of dialog boxes without doing anything, and long inactive pauses to predict when the user needed guidance. (2001-04-22)

The "Computer as Assistant" Fallacy

Dan Bricklin: Many people think that the barrier to some applications is how hard they are to learn to use and that they will only catch on when it's "brain dead simple" to learn. I think in many cases the real problem is that the application is just not that valuable to the people -- they have ways to do the same thing that are OK or they just don't care. The challenge is in creating the right tools that are appropriate to the task as seen by the individual, and having the use be worthwhile. Making it "simple" often is translated into making it less flexible but it is often the flexibility we look for in our tools as humans. (2001-04-08)

Stationary Mobility

Alertbox: The article describes the i-pot as an example of user friendly internet enabled appliances. The i-pot, an Internet-enabled hot pot that dispenses boiling water for tea. Hot pots are common, everyday items in Japanese homes. This hot pot, however, does more. In addition to boiling and dispensing water, i-pots send usage statistics to a website that tracks users' tea-drinking patterns. Caregivers can monitor a user's well-being by watching for breaks in their tea-drinking routine, which are indicated in twice-daily email reports or by checking a website. The target market for the i-pot is elderly people whose children or grandchildren might live too far away to monitor them directly. (2001-03-25)

Microsoft Shows Digital Message Filtering

Microsoft's experimental "Notification Manager studies a user's location, his current activity level, the presence of other people, ambient noise levels, and other such factors to determine whether he's working, thinking, or meeting with other people. Based on this assessment, the application concludes whether the user might be doing something such as eating, sleeping, dining, or traveling in a car. All the information is then used to determine which, if any, means of communicating with the user would be most appropriate at the moment." (2001-03-18)

Web develops amazing new tangles

USA Today: According to this article about the future of the internet: "Up to now, the Net has been almost completely about viewing content or buying products over the Web, using a browser on a personal computer. In the next wave, the browser will no longer be a solo act. It will become part of an ensemble of software and hardware that uses the connections of the Internet to do much more than has yet been possible." (2001-03-04)

Making a Semantic Web

Joshua Allen: This article examine the possible uses of metadata to expand the capabilities of the web. The article provides examples of how this might enhance the web browsing experience. It also describes some of the technologies and techniques that may be used to implement these metadata features. (2001-02-18)

Beyond the keyboard and mouse

InfoWorld.com: "The fact that we know what a computer user interface is has become its single biggest problem. Good user interfaces are transparent to the user -- their sole purpose is to help the user achieve his or her computing goals. This is not a fantasy. Good user interfaces already exist in our appliances, in our automobiles, in virtually every modern convenience. Most of us never realize we are interacting with them." (2000-11-05)

Rethinking the human factor

A computer system that can be operated using a glove — along with eye contact and speech recognition — may not be much of a fashion statement. But Rutgers University researchers believe that it’s more natural for people to communicate electronically using such a system. (2000-09-10)

Microsoft Sees Software ´Agent´ as Way to Avoid Distractions

This New York Times article by John Markoff describes a Microsoft research project that is developing software to monitor and manage a person's email, telephone calls and instant messages. Based on the user's previous behavior, the software would prioritize the messages. The software would also be connected to a camera the could determine if the person was in their workspace and could be interrupted. (2000-07-23)

Giants Bet on Voice Recognition for E-Commerce

According to this E-Commerce Times article "Analysts believe that the widespread adoption of speech recognition technology will help e-commerce reach its true potential. Freeing shoppers from their keyboards, e-commerce over cellular phones and other mobile devices could lead to an explosion of online purchases, especially among those who shy away from computers." (2000-07-09)

THE SECOND COMING — A MANIFESTO

According to this article by David Gelernter on the future of computing "The power of desktop machines is a magnet that will reverse today's "everything onto the Web!" trend. Desktop power will inevitably drag information out of remote servers onto desktops." (2000-07-01)

A Chip in Every Pot

Manufacturing companies are hiring design firms and consultants to research whether people would use something like a networked washing machine or a refrigerator that knows when they're out of milk. (2000-04-16)

Cool XUL Provides Cross-Platform UI

So what does XUL do? Essentially it provides a language to describe a user interface, with many more widgets than are provided in HTML itself. Such widgets include tree controls, scrollbars, and splitters. A user interface description ("package") contains various elements that control the interface appearance and behavior: (2000-03-10)

Researchers: High-tech to transform shoes, pens

Academic research and the growth of the Internet is prompting a movement toward embedding computing and communications devices in nearly everything, according to speakers at Intel's Computing Continuum conference. Among the examples: pens containing built-in scanners, shoes that emit notes depending on how the wearer moves and personal global positioning systems. (2000-03-19)

A GUI for the Gurus

Regardless of where you think computer interfaces are going in the future (voice activation, artificially intelligent avatars, interactive 3d projections), the fundamental principles behind those interfaces will have to inherit a lot from current designs. Unless humanity undergoes a sudden and overwhelming psychological and neurological shift, the things that make sense now will continue to do so. (via webword) (2000-03-12)

Make Way for M-Commerce

If the buzz at this year's CeBIT is to be believed, then wireless technology will usher in the next wave of electronic commerce -- the so-called m-commerce. (2000-03-05)

There's a PC in My Salt Shaker

At the Invisible Computer conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology on Friday, speakers were talking about pushing the envelope further than the concept of just moving the computer from the office into the living room. They were touting bottles you open to get the weather report, watches that record every physical move you make, and fountains that recite monologues. (2000-02-27)

What The Linux Community Needs To Grok

"Several Linux fans wrote to me stating that the "application problem" is actually a "user problem". Users are incorrectly resistant to change, the argument goes, when they should be accepting something that is new and better. This is backward thinking. People create computers to do the things that people want to do. It is not the job of the masses to adapt to your computer system." (via webword.com) (2000-02-27)

Prettying Up Linux

Efforts to put a pretty face on Linux are increasing but it may be some time before the makeover is complete. Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither is anywhere near as easy to set up and use as the Mac OS or Windows. Indeed, users must occasionally resort to typing commands into a command-line interface. (2000-02-27)

Linux in every lap

"Right now, to do system management [for Linux] requires a pretty intimate knowledge of how the software is constructed," says Hertzfeld. "You need to know about various system components -- a user of a word processor needs to know what graphics library or string library they have. Someone who just wants to upgrade their word processor needs to understand a lot of technical detail." (2000-02-27)

Apple, AOL veterans making Linux easy

A start-up called Eazel is at work on a graphical user interface (GUI) for Linux that founders say will extend to every aspect of the Linux computing experience. (2000-02-20)

The User Interface Domain

"The User Interface Domain seeks to improve all user/computer communications on the Web. In particular, the Domain is working on formats and languages that will present information to users with more accuracy and a higher level of control." (2000-02-06)

Portable devices get wearable

Soon your wristwatch will not only tell time, but also contain your contact and schedule information. At Comdex, Casio demonstrated PC Unite, a $99 watch that uses a wireless infrared connection to link to a Cassiopeia Windows CE device or to Microsoft Outlook on a desktop PC. (2000-01-16)

Turn on, jack in and geek out with wearable PC

This CNN article describes the Xybernaut Wearable Computers which "...includes a small flat-panel display, head-mounted display, vest, video camera mounted to the side of the headset, external floppy drive and a full port explicator" (2000-01-16)

AT&T Online Text to Speech Demo

Check out this next generation text to speech demonstration where you can type text and then listen to the telephone quality speech output. (2000-01-10)

Overcoming information overload

According to this InfoWorld article "Technology vendors have developed products intended to make information access easier. At IBM, for example, researchers have yielded a technology known as Web intermediaries, which can provide a customized view of Web information to make it easier to focus on specific information." (2000-01-16)

Chunking & Phrasing and the Design of Human-Computer Dialogues

The design of the syntax has a major effect on the quality of the user interface of an interactive system. It affects learnability, the frequency and nature of user errors, the retention of skills (as with non-regular users) and the speed of task performance. A major problem for users is the cognitive load imposed by remembering the tokens of a command and their order. (1999-12-27)

Desperately Seeking: Helping Hands and Human Touch

Information Brokering, new Forms of Using Computers, Agency, and Software Agents in Tomorrow's Online Marketplace: An Assessment of Current and Future Developments (1999-12-27)

Talking 'bout a computer revolution

According to this article "Speech recognition technology promises to transform how we interact with computers -- or turn us all into mindless gibbering automatons." It examines the current state of speech recognition technology and concludes that more progress is still required before this technology is ready for everyday use. (1999-11-10)

Natural Human Computing

Researchers have developed a computer algorithm that imitates a fundamental characteristic of human intelligence –- the ability to distinguish patterns within large amounts of data, text, or images. The program, called an algorithm for non-negative matrix factorization, could one day lead to faster and more accurate video conferencing, data storage and transmission, and web searches, scientists said. (1999-11-10)

Designing the Invisible Computer

This New York Times article answers the questions "..'when computers are everywhere, what will the information they display look like? Will it be elegant or informal? Or will it be so integrated into our activities that we see, well, nothin'? (1999-11-10)

Talking around the Web becomes a reality

According to this InfoWorld news report " As the number of users browsing the Web, using e-mail, and sending instant messages surpasses the number of people using word processors, voice-technology companies are ramping up their efforts. Next month, Lernout & Hauspie (L&H), one of the three leading voice-technology software developers, will introduce Now You're Talking on the Web, a $50 software package that will allow users to dictate to Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, and other e-mail packages, as well as letting users input Web links and instant messages." (1999-09-18)

Simpler PCs to debut for the holidays

This CNet Story describes the features PC manufacturers are adding to try to make PC's more usable. The story reports that "In focus groups, Intel has found that one of the more popular PCs with consumers are the "all-in-one" flat panel computers such as NEC's Z1..." (1999-09-05)

Component Architecture

According to this article "It is unusual to find a consensus among vendors of operating systems, development tools, and database products, but there is broad agreement that component-based development (CBD) is quickly becoming the dominant model for software development." As a paradigm, CBD will supplant earlier programming archetypes, such as structured programming and object-oriented programming, as the approach most likely to yield significant productivity and reusability benefits." (1999-08-15)

Personalized Information Environments

According to the authors of this paper "A Personalized Information Environment or "PIE" is a conceptual architecture that allows unified, highly customizable access to distributed information resources by providing users the tools to compose personalized collections from a palette of information resources. The architecture also provides for the efficient exchange of inter-resource meta-information like collection statistics in order to maximize retrieval effectiveness." (1999-07-25)

Andreessen singles out consumers as key to Web future

Netscape's chief technologist Marc Andreessen seems to be getting it. According to this InfoWorld article Andreessen "... said the only things that resonate with consumers are things that make their lives easier and help get things done faster, such as VCRs, microwaves, cell phones, and WalMarts. He said computing needs to have as simplistic a user interface as television for it to hit consumers." (1999-06-01)

Designing HotJava Views

This white paper describes the design of the HotJava views Network Computer desktop. The designers decided to change the windows desktop paradigm and created a desktop that is like a web browser. (Nov-28-97)

Excerpts from Don Norman's New Book

This site contains excerpts from Don Norman's new book "The Invisible Computer". The book will be available in the Fall of 1998. The book talks about the life cycle of Technology and the transition from technology centered designs to human-centered designs. (Mar-03-98).

More than Screen Deep

In response to a request from the National Science Foundation, the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council convened a steering committee to evaluate and suggest fruitful directions for progress in user interfaces to computing and communications systems. This website and the report "More than Screen Deep: Toward Every-Citizen Interfaces to the Nation's Information Infrastructure" is the result of that work. This site contains the full text of the report. It also contains the full text of the position papers from interface design experts like Terry Winograd, Bruce Tognazzini and Ben Shneiderman.

The New User Interface

This Byte Magazine article describes the current development of HTML and Java based user interfaces for Network Computers. For example, with the recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator, you can create an HTML based desktop interface that will lay on top of or replace your operating systems desktop interface. With this feature you could create a task oriented interface to replace the operating system's application oriented interface. (Sep-07-97)

SAP puts a kinder, gentler face on business applications

According to this InfoWorld news story, SAP is in the process of developing a new and more user friendly version of their enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, The EnjoySAP website has some screen shots of the new interface. (Mar-20-99)

The Cranky User: The Principle of Least Astonishment

Throughout the history of engineering, one usability principle seems to me to have risen high above all others. It's called the Principle of Least Astonishment -- the assertion that the most usable system is the one that least often leaves users astonished. Web pages violate this rule constantly, flagrantly, and in ways that produce a great deal of the ill-will that Web designers sometimes face. Web pages astonish users by hiding buttons, providing buttons that don't work, and redefining the basic visual cues that are supposed to allow users to navigate a page. When users are astonished they usually assume that they have made a mistake; they are unlikely to realize that the page has astonished them. They are more likely to feel that they are at fault for not anticipating the page. Don't take advantage of this; making users feel stupid is not endearing. (2001-09-02)

Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce?

Jakob Nielsen, Alert Box: User success rates on e-commerce sites are only 56%, and most sites comply with only a third of documented usability guidelines. Given this, improving a site's usability can substantially increase both sales and a site's odds of survival. (2001-08-19)

Broken links and poor information architecture design

Gerry McGovern: Links are an essential infrastructure that allow web content to be navigable. Without links, you might as well pile all the billions of documents on the Web into one huge container. Link management is thus an important part of the activity of running a website. A broken link is a sign of an unprofessional website. (2001-08-19)

Attack of the Back Button

Webword.com: Getting stuck on a web page can be painful. The back button doesn't always work. While there are many ways to escape from web pages, many users don't know the tricks. A company can stop hurting users by doing more testing, using proper development methods, and being aware of the issue. (2001-07-08)

True Simplicity: Krug-o-rama!

WebWord.com: An interview with Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think "The whole notion that users are dying for "rich content" has always struck me as a strange one. I think it's based on the idea that the Web is going to be TV when it grows up, and the only thing that's keeping it from growing up is a lack of bandwidth. For me, it's like saying that movies will be better when they're all holographic, or even that they got better when they made the transition from black and white to color." (2001-07-01)

Abandoned Shopping Carts: Enigma or Sloppy E-Commerce?

Ecommerce-Guide.com: People don't abandon shopping carts without a good reason. And the phenomenon of the abandoned shopping cart -- this blight upon the Internet retail landscape -- is not merely a wayward hobby, Internet prank or something hackers do in their down time. These are real shoppers, potential customers with products in hand, evaporating before your very eyes. (2001-07-01)

Understanding the Art and Science of Web Design

WebWord.com: An interview with Jeffrey Veen, author of The Art and Science of Web Design. According to Veen "The principles for Web design are pretty straightforward: know your audience, keep it simple, be fast, know the rules before you break them. With the exception of the speed thing, I'm not sure they're all that different from designing in any other medium. Applying common sense to Web design would make 90 percent of the sites out there so much better. It's just so easy to get caught up in what you can do and forget about what you should do. It's a classic technology paradox." (2001-07-01)

A failure to communicate

While usability is obviously important, it's far from the only consideration in designing a user experience. There are at least three aspects to sites: information, experience, and interaction - fact (or fiction), form, and function, if you will. The most appropriate design for a site depends on the relative importance of each of these. (2001-06-17)

Edu-centives Can Drive Online Sales

Eduventures, through extensive research on the e-learning market, opines that many consumers are attracted to sites, not only because of their product offerings but because they cater to their educational needs and interests. They uphold that e-vendors can make their sites more 'sticky' by merging e-commerce with e-learning initiatives. (2001-06-17)

Web Dominance: A Matter of Choice?

E-Commerce Times: According to this editorial, Yahoo!, America Online, Microsoft, and Napster account for half of all the surfing time in the U.S. because they are a snap to use. There is very little brainwork involved in navigating around, say, Yahoo!. Everything has a place and a label that is clear and for the most part self-explanatory. It gets even easier when you return. That's what e-commerce needs to understand. Smart e-tailers already know that their audiences are coming at them from AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft, but once the surfers are brought to an e-tail site, keeping them there seems to be another trick altogether. Too many e-commerce sites still present visitors with riddles in terms of their layout and design. Site-specific search engines too often don't work, or return hundreds of hits. All those hits might have seemed like a bounty in our exploration phase, but in the practical age, they are a waste of time. (2001-06-10)

The Four Horsemen of Usability

webword.com: As of June 2001, four web properties control more than 50% of all the time spent online by U.S. surfers. This means that you can throw away your usability guidelines and follow these companies. They spend millions on usability testing and they are driving standards by sheer market force. You have no choice but to follow their lead. (2001-06-10)

Employing Strategic Content Management For Successful Intranets

Intranet Journal: An intranet site is only as good as its content. No matter how much form and function goes into the framework, it is the transfer of information that drives intranet success. Which is why intranet strategy - from conception, to implementation, to change - must revolve around the right content management technology and methodology. (2001-06-10)

'Mouse-trapping' locks Web users in a virtual maze

USA Today: According to this article a growing number of Web sites are using "mouse-trapping" to control visitors' online behavior. Mouse-trapping prevents a user from backing out of the site. "People don't want to get locked in," Krikorian of top9.com says. "We get e-mail all the time from people who say, 'We'll never visit that site again.' " (2001-06-03)

User Advocate Or Enemy Of Creativity?

Var Business: Much of today's bad design can be blamed on over inflated egos--whether they belong to the companies that own sites or the Web designers who create them, Nielsen says. "You still see a lot of Flash intros, for example, which are just there to make the designer or Web site owner feel good," he says. "But we all know users always click the 'Skip Intro' button right away because they want to get to the facts." (2001-05-27)

KISS Your Customers If You Want Them Back

ClickZ: Programmers dream of elegant code. To them, simple is elegant. That's true of the language the rest of us use: The best writing is often the simplest. So too with Web sites. The idea is to communicate, after all. Designing for simplicity is anything but simple (as if I needed to tell you that). But well-thought-out simplicity is what makes the successful Web sites successful. When you want to learn to be the best at something, do you study the amateurs or the pros? (2001-05-06)

Educommerce: Online Learning Migrates to the E-commerce Arena

Eduventures.com Many companies are experimenting with free online learning as a tool to simultaneously increase e-commerce sales and decrease e-commerce expenses. This paper examines the convergence of online learning and e-commerce-known as "educommerce" as a marketing and sales strategy. It describes the evolution and role of educommerce in the Internet economy, presents tools for assessing key players in the educommerce market, and offers an analysis of the market challenges and opportunities facing these key players in the months ahead. (2001-04-29)

Best Practices For Successful Intranets

Intranet Design Magazine: Thinking big in the first phase of intranet planning is the nature of e-business, but then it's time to start asking the tough questions. One needs to figure out where the business goals and the user goals need to meet in order to create an intranet that offers the most value. Asking why will lead you to understand what the organization needs, what the user needs, and help prioritize them. Most organizations with mobile workforces, geographically dispersed business units, extensive partner networks, or large employee bases benefit greatly from using Web-based communications, making the decision to create a corporate intranet, or even multiple intranets, the most logical choice. Often, however, the more extensive the needs, the more complex the intranet can become. Figuring out how to get the "quick hits" in terms of usability and ROI is a matter of looking from the outside-in to determine what content and functionality will benefit users most, how this information will further help the organization's operational efficiency, and ultimately, the bottom line. (2001-04-22)

It May Flash, but It Doesn’t Streak

ClickZ: Yes -- irritating enough on a broadband connection and deathly slow over a modem (even when streaming) -- those nifty, techno-fueled, groovy, whizzing logo animations that so many designers feel compelled to put in front of their Web sites suck. Plain and simple. The time has come for Web consumers everywhere to scream, "Stop the madness!" (2001-03-18)

The Architecture of Online

eCom Resource Center: The problem here is that even seriously interesting design can interfere with usability. Innovation, whether aesthetic or technical, can disrupt user interactivity, design purpose, or commerce objectives. It's true that mouse-over navigation bars - especially the ones that activate telescoping sub-directories - look impressive. Similarly, a solid flash intro can show that your e-business is not an Internet fly-by-night. But the problem is that form can subvert function, notably when design involves innovation or requires the user to adapt to a new set of usability rules or a new kind of interface. And when form distorts function, then the medium does not become the message - it obscures it. (2001-01-18)

Guideline dogma

Systems-Concept.com: "Nobody would deny that usability guidelines, applied in context by a usability professional, are extremely valuable in guiding a website evaluation. The problem occurs when non-professionals apply these guidelines out of context. This can result in an unimaginative site that looks bland and homogenous. To design usable sites that truly engage customers we need to replace simple guidelines with a customer-centred design process." (2001-02-04)

E-Shopping Carts on Wobbly Wheels

E-Commerce Times: Even though we've heard glowing reports about the online consumer experience, the Accenture study found that 80 percent of shoppers using apparel sites are not satisfied. Of those who had a bad time online, 72 percent said they would be unlikely to return to the scene of the crime. The common complaints? Confusing site navigation and difficulty finding information about sale prices, gift certificates and returns. These are the very elements of the shopping experience that brick-and-mortar companies have almost perfected. Shoppers are attracted to the basics: low prices, good signage and colorful displays. It is often the visuals that count most. (2001-01-28)

Repent from Flash Sins

Streaming Media World: I hate to say it but Web sites that do not make money are not long for this world. Sure, there will always be sites that show off the latest Flash tricks. But those that do so at the expense of their original message will not be successful. Imagine that. There will come a day when a Flash expert cannot get work. It is horrifying to think about it. The time to repent is now. I encourage you to spend some time studying up on usability research. True, the common sense solutions proposed can be a bit boring. But then if you decide push the edge, you will have a better understanding of what the risks and costs are. (2001-01-28)

Top Reasons for Abandoned Online Purchases

ClickZ: After examining the top reasons, the author concludes: "I think the moral of this story is pretty clear: Be more conscientious about what and how much information you ask for. We need to do much more work to earn our users' trust. We need to do user testing and be diligent about designing sites that are easy to use. We need to provide consistent, pleasurable experiences." (2001-01-21)

Linking customer behavior to e-commerce strategy

CNet News.com: Consumer behavior should be the principal determinant of corporate e-commerce strategy. While technology will improve, consumer loyalty, for example, is likely to differ significantly between, say, online booksellers and providers of financial services. Two factors seem critical in predicting behavior and determining an appropriate e-commerce strategy. (2000-12-10)

It’s Time to Go Beyond “Gee Whiz”

Grokdotcom: When it comes to using the Internet as a medium for sales, the game isn't about the wow of technology or the wow of design. It’s not even about the wow of marketing. E-commerce companies that have focused on the “wow” are going the way of the dodo, dying out faster than one major player every day; nobody even knows how fast the smaller ones are simply disappearing in silence. The time has come to move beyond wide-eyed wonder and put an emphatic wow into getting results. (2000-12-03)

Diss My Web Site, Please

Business Week Online: "Nielsen preaches a gospel of minimalist design. Sites should be laid out simply, with clear headlines and labels, directories of what's on the site, summaries of new information, and easy-to-spot search buttons. A pet peeve: Web links that strong-arm your browser window into opening a new window--something that you then have to close to get back to the page where you started." (2000-11-19)

Stop Dumbing Down the Web!

E-Commerce Times: Keith Regan contents that: "A Web site should do all it can to be interesting to my eyes. Engage my mind, and the rest of me is likely to follow. Bore me, and I'm off to the mall. At least they've got a food court." Comment: Unfortunately he provides no studies to back up his opinions. (2000-11-19)

Web Guru: It's the User, Stupid!

Wired News: "Nielsen believes the industry's refusal to heed the calls of usability proponents directly affected the steep Internet market drop. Many of the recently dead dot-coms, he said -- especially in e-commerce -- made the fundamental mistake of drawing users to their sites with expensive promotions, then losing them forever with ineffective design or subpar services." (2000-11-19)

The hollow promise of Internet banking

The Economist: "Convenience was supposed to be the big attraction of Internet banking. But service has proved unreliable. Servers crash and connections can be slow, especially over home telephone lines. Often it is easier, and quicker, to telephone. Internet-only banks have also been slow to offer a full product range. The convenience of online banking is greatly diminished if a customer has to maintain a current account, for example, offline." (2000-11-12)

Does online shopping need a dose of technology?

Lighthouse on the Web: "After spending most of the late 1990s revelling in new browser-based technologies, many commercial Web sites have spent the past 18 months sobering up. They've ditched client-side Java, been cautious about the increasing popular Flash, and ditched eccentric interfaces for emerging standards. They want to succeed in selling by keeping things simple, the way Amazon, Yahoo, Dell and eBay do. The post-tech-wreck failures such as Boo.com have only encouraged them to Keep It Simple." (2000-11-12)

Skip Intro

This essay describes the Flash phenomenon in more detail, analyses Flash's aesthetics and discuss Macromedia's business strategies for its success. Developments towards a more corporate and controllable internet are contrasted with an analysis of the internet's underlying economic structures, followed by a discourse of possible outcomes and expectations for online experiences in the future. (2000-10-15)

All They Want for Christmas is the Site to Load

According to this Cyberatlas report: "The Gartner Group, which already published its 2000 holiday e-commerce forecast, found that consumers are running low on patience for online stores that don't deliver the goods. Web merchants that fail to provide a positive Internet shopping experience this year risk being out of business by the second quarter of 2001..." (2000-10-08)

Make-or-Break Time

According to this Internet News report "Gartner cited three major Web site problems that are driving consumers away: lack of product fulfillment information; poor customer-centric, intuitive site navigation; and a lack of reasonable, reliable shipping fees and delivery dates." (2000-09-30)

The speed of business

InfoWorld.com: "SPEED KILLS, BUT not on the Web. When it comes to the Web, we love life in the fast lane. The faster your pages download, the more likely your customers are to stick around." (2000-09-17)

E-Tailers Avoiding Advanced Web Technologies

According to this Internet News article by Michael Pastore a recent Jupiter Communications Inc. ".. report advises that online retailers abandon conservative Web site development practices and optimize their interactive presence in order to match the technical capabilities of most online consumers, which can now adequately support a rich interface." (2000-09-10)

Personalisation goes one-on-one with reality

This Lighthouse on the Web editorial contents that: "the very idea of Internet personalisation is flawed on three levels; (1.) Customers don't want relationships with corporations; (2.) Personalisation technology understands consumers poorly; and (3.) Personalisation costs. (2000-09-04)

Internet Companies Learn How to Personalize Service

Ask a handful of Internet executives to define the term "personalization," and invariably the conversation turns to the analogy of a shopkeeper who knows not only his customers' names, but how much they can afford to spend and what size shirt they wear. (2000-09-04)

Why Internet Sites Fail

In the Advistor.com article Linda A. Rossetti presents four reasons why Web sites fail. 1. Misunderstanding the true currency of the Internet: the customer relationship; 2. Missing the opportunity to engage the appropriate parties in the discussion; 3. Difficulty separating the objective from the implementation; and Aiming for perfection vs. structured learning. (2000-08-27)

The Web's Still-Unfulfilled Personalization Promise

"Personalization -- the idea of content that's custom-tailored to a site's every visitor -- has long been touted as the Web's coup de grace, the quality that differentiates it from how business is done in the real world. Some call it customization. Others say it's only a fancy term for direct marketing. But whatever its moniker, personalization may represent the best chance for survival by online merchandisers in the ongoing Internet shakeout." (2000-08-27)

End of Web Design

In this very controversial article Jakob Nielsen advises that: "...each Internet service needs to be based on a task analysis of its specific users and their needs. You can combine standardized user interface elements in many ways, and the better sites will support the way users want to approach the problems." (2000-07-30)

Usability Experts are from Mars - Graphic Designers are from Venus

According to this article by Curt Clominger "There is an unarticulated war currently raging among those who make web sites. This war is between usability experts and graphic designers." (2000-07-30)

The Elements of User Experience

This one page pdf document prepared by Jesse James Garrett provides a clear and concise model of the roles and processes involved in the development of web site (content) and web applications (software). (2000-06-04)

Trapped on the Web?

In this E-Commerce Times editorial Elizabeth Blakey asks, "So, why is it that many e-commerce sites feature clunky navigation? The so-called mousetrap -- a Web site that traps surfers because hitting the "Back" button takes the visitor right to the same site -- appears more often on the Web than one would imagine, and is emblematic of the failure of e-commerce companies to see the bigger picture." (2000-05-21)

The Dao of Web Design

When a new medium borrows from an existing one, some of what it borrows makes sense, but much of the borrowing is thoughtless, "ritual", and often constrains the new medium. Over time, the new medium develops its own conventions, throwing off existing conventions that don't make sense. (2000-04-16)

Use and Abuse

It's easy to feel sorry for the people who visit websites; unless they've been sitting in on the meetings where blow-dried marketing executives wed brand identity to increased sales of boats and boating accessories, users have no idea that they're only valued for what they can spend at a website, and they're blissfully ignorant of the industry contention that the average web surfer is ... well, ignorant enough to be gulled by pricey ads and shiny graphics. (2000-03-26)

One-in-four suffer e-shopping failures

According to a new Boston Consulting Group study, 28 percent of all attempts at online commerce fail, for reasons ranging from technical problems to delivery mix-ups. (via webword) (2000-03-12)

Web Denial

According to this KM World online editorial: "Most companies moving their businesses onto the Web are in denial. And their Web sites -- internal and external -- show it." (2000-02-27)

On the Web, relaunches can sink you

Yet the evidence suggests site relaunches carry heavy risks. Most Web site visitors want to do something or find something. Make them change the way they do things at your site, and you may confuse or discomfit them to the point where they leave. (2000-02-20)

Is technology or content king?

"What will ultimately propel the Internet as an entertainment medium is creativity, not technology," he (AOL Chairman Stephen Case) added, contending the AOL-Time Warner deal had recrowned content as king of the Internet. (2000-02-06)

Please Santa, grant me these special holiday wishes, and improve Web commerce too

"In my adventures online, it seems like every new site I go to is a new adventure in frustration and inconsistency. There are a few things I'd like to see on each and every single Internet-commerce site." (1999-12-27)

E-Business Must Consider Its Customer

One of the biggest causes of e-business failures is the inability of companies to build a system from the customer's viewpoint. (1999-12-27)

Levi strategist comes clean about Web failure

Mark Hurst, president of US ecommerce consultancy Creative Good, said: "Customers shop online for convenience yet Levi.com slows customers down by displaying irrelevant pictures of its pouting models. No wonder Levi.com proved to be a bad return on the company's investments," (1999-12-20)

Improving Information Retrieval with Human Indexing

"As company intranets grow in content, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the exact information that an intranet user may be looking for. Companies have traditionally used search engines to locate information on their intranets. However, many are finding that search engines (even the newer, so-called "intelligent" ones) are just not enough." (1999-12-20)

Using the Net for Brainstorming

Today, increasing numbers of companies are using the Internet to stimulate and manage innovation--and to put the brightest new ideas into the hands of the people who can turn them into products the most quickly. (1999-12-12)

XML experiences growing pains

Although the signal-to-noise ratio surrounding most emerging technologies is typically quite low, the potential of Extensible Markup Language (XML) seems to be off the chart. What began as, and still is, a simple tagging language, has emerged as a powerful e-business enabler -- a mechanism for data interchange that is being infused into all levels of corporate infrastructures. (1999-11-28)

Creating Good Customer Experiences

A Motley Fools article about the usability of e-commerce site. The article "../estimates that $6 billion in potential revenues will be lost this holiday season as a result of the "customer experience gap" -- the difference between what customers want and what they get. Many shoppers will become frustrated by the process of shopping online and will turn to traditional channels for their purchases." (1999-11-07)

Making the Right Technology Decision

In this article Bruce Tognazzini cautions that "...web browsers are an appropriate mechanism for application delivery only when an application must be made available to the public (or rather all networked computer users) at large. While the approaching universality of web browsers is unmatched by any other platform, that singular advantage comes with an amazing set of disadvantages." (1999-08-07)

Intranets Fail To Deliver Business Value

According to this TechWeb article "Large corporate intranets are failing to deliver business value and return on investment, forcing companies to reassess their strategies for these internal information networks." (1999-07-03)

HP works to make the Internet more automatic for users

This InfoWorld news story Hewlett Packard's new global strategy to transform the Internet into a "do it for me" network. According to the story HP wants to make the web an environment with an "implicit, intuitive access to services " See the HP website for more information about this vision. (Mar-20-98)

Simulation Levels in Software Training

Learning Circuits: Web-based training is a common method for instructing end-users on how to work with software applications effectively. A key aspect to WBT programs is the use of simulations. However, even relatively simple software applications can be extremely complex and require a large range of user interactions. But building a simulation of every application feature makes the training module as complicated as the application. For this reason, instructional designers employ several techniques to simplify simulations for training, including screen capture, point-and-click, data input, multiple paths, and full simulation. (2001-09-16)

Re-usable Learning Objects (pdf)

Cisco Systems recognizes a need to move from creating and delivering large inflexible training courses, to database driven objects that can be reused, searched, and modified independent of their delivery media. This effort is called the Reusable Information Object Strategy. This document defines the standards and guidelines for designing and developing Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs). (2001-09-16)

Can an Intranet Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?

Intranet Journal: This article has only scratched the surface on the topic of e-Learning. There is still the issue of whether to build your e-Learning solution on top of your existing intranet infrastructure or hiring someone to build it and house the material externally. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the notion of electronic learning has been around for a while, it is in its infancy. There is still no clear leader or dominant company in this arena, although there are companies that have chosen to adopt these titles by self-proclamation rather than consensus. Whatever you do decide, there is no one perfect solution. In the end, I believe that the most successful e-Learning model may be one that combines the interactivity of a synchronous, instructor-led program and an asynchronous, computer-based program. (2001-08-12)

KM and e-learning: a growing partnership

The real value of e-learning lies in its ability to integrate into enterprise business processes and to better leverage intellectual capital. Using e-learning, a company can automate training delivery and offer customized training. New software tools allow knowledge located throughout the enterprise to be more easily captured and distributed as e-learning modules. The differences between training and performance support, between formal and informal learning, are becoming less meaningful. A broader view of “knowledge transfer” is taking hold. No longer relegated to the first few weeks of an employee’s tenure at a company, learning is being incorporated into all stages of an individual’s career. Some tools, such as collaboration software, play a strong role in both e-learning and knowledge management, and are providing an infrastructure where the two can meet. (2001-07-29)

Seeing it through

Tactix: You may think you've done enough by the time you've installed the latest learning management system and populated it with shiny new content. You've even launched the system in a blaze of marketing, with the vocal support of your chief exec. Unfortunately you must think again, because seeing it through means much, much more. The dream that organizational learning could be left entirely to the employees, under the control of technology and with never a manager or trainer to be seen, was nice while it lasted, but it's time to wake up. High drop-out rates tell us that learners need more and that e-learning needs careful managing. In this article Clive Shepherd looks at the causes for e-learning drop-outs and takes some advice on how to get completion rates going through the roof. (2001-07-08)

eLearning and the Attention Economy:

LineZine: Tom Davenport: We live in an attention economy. At this point in history, capital, labor, and information are all in plentiful supply. Computer processing power increases by leaps and bounds, but the processing power of the human brain stays the same. Telecommunications bandwidth is not a problem; human bandwidth is. The implications for business are dramatic. Through research and simple observation I’ve become convinced that attention is the scarce resource in today’s economy. Education and learning activities, and elearning in particular, are major consumers of attention. How will they compete? And what are the implications for knowledge workers already struggling to divide their attention between their worklife and homelife, while also being told that “anytime, anywhere learning” is the wave of the future? (2001-01-07)

21st Century Dilemmas: Balance, Integration, or Learning It All? Hypotheses from the Front Line

In an age where the markets influence our moods, mercies, and marriages, we thought it time to break from the business of learning, per se, to focus on its place in what matters most. Each of us works hard to create time each day, amongst our agendas and emergencies, to learn. We can do so because we’ve both accepted it as a necessity while also making it somewhat of a hobby. Here are the reigning truths that help us through. (2001-07-01)

Collaborative E-Learning: The Right Approach

Learning is fundamentally both social and experiential. It is the context of the learning––all of the elements that comprise the experience around the content––that is most important. This paper will lay out the OTTER Group's model for how best to teach and learn online. It will look at many of the elements that must be managed to create e-learning programs where real knowledge is gained, where communities of learning are created, and where high levels of student satisfaction are generated. (2001-06-10)

Learning curve

The lack of standards casts a long shadow on the e-learning and learning management systems market. Final LMS standards appear to be a year or two away, and until then there is no guarantee of any possible plug-and-play compatibility among systems. Content providers are slow to comply with budding standards because of costs. They providers have a lot of proprietary software development tools that were built at a time when standards didn't exist. They'll have to throw those away and start using industry-standard development tools. That will cost them money at a time when content profit margins already are fairly competitive. (2001-06-10)

Games e-learners play

Perhaps the single, biggest obstacle to the future success of e-learning is just plain boredom. Too many courses deal with abstract concepts rather than real-world practice; they're passive, when learners want to be doing things; they're sterile, when what's required is a little excitement. In other words, they're just plain dull. In this article, Clive Shepherd argues the case for simulations and games as engaging, life-like and highly-interactive learning activities, capable of providing the foundation for second generation e-learning products that really deliver on the hype. (2001-04-08)

E-Learning: Does It Make the Grade

CIO Magazine: This article describes the what several organizations have learned about using e-learning systems. According to the spokes person for one company: "E-learning is not a panacea," she warns. "An information dump on Microsoft Office is perfect for online. And that frees us to deploy experts at the high end of the spectrum. When we need role-playing, coaching, one-on-one feedback, the benefit of sharing best practices still comes from a real person." (2001-01-21)

User-centered Learning

LineZine: According to Judee Humberg: "Too often organizations only replicate a classroom system that is set apart from the flow of everyday life situations. Experts present courseware like pearls of knowledge without offering interaction or practicum experience—that’s not new or better. Technology is used in service of an old education paradigm. Intermixed with the experts’ wisdom is little or no peer-to-peer exchange or exploration of the natural synergies between shared experiences and insights." (2001-01-01)

Wireless Learning in Your Palm

This Suite101 article examines the present day realities of the mobile learning (mlearning) vision that: "mLearning is the intersection of mobile computing and elearning: accessible resources wherever you are, strong search capabilities, rich interaction, powerful support for effective learning, and performance-based assessment." (2000-01-01)

The Instructional Use of Learning Objects

This is the online version of The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, a new book that tries to go beyond the technological hype and connect learning objects to instruction and learning. You can read the full text of the book here for free.(2000-12-10)

Web-Based Training

WebTechniques: The specialty of Web-based courseware development thrives at the crossroads of technical complexity and human factors engineering. Its practitioners must be experts in all of the elements of platforms and development tools. They have to know how to apply those tools to achieve the training objectives: to educate a given number of students, within a given period, using vaguely similar or widely different platforms. (2000-12-03)

Online Learning: The Competitive Edge

This Information Week article recommends that "E-learning must be integrated into ongoing training processes at companies and viewed as an adjunct to face-to-face classroom instruction." (2000-09-04)

Student Use of Course Newsgroups

In a series of four studies, student postings on newsgroups created for their courses at Carleton University were monitored, and opinions were gathered from samples of students and instructors regarding their newsgroup activities. Results show that an overwhelming majority of students never posted messages on newsgroups, nor did their instructors. In addition, a large majority of students rarely read what others had posted. (2000-09-04)

Iconoclast Says Show, Don't Tell

In this Wired News article about educational technology, Roger Shank, director of the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, says "Your education starts when you start doing things. Let's create everything in a learn-by-doing environment because that's what works." (2000-08-20)

Learn At A Distance

According to this Information Week article: "Businesses have done the math. They know, for example, that conventional classroom instruction costs hover at about $75 an hour, with full-week programs costing $3,000 to $5,000. Computer-based training, by comparison, costs about half that. What's more, training via the Web can serve up instruction globally--there are no seat restrictions in these classrooms--around-the-clock, and without travel costs." (2000-01-16)

Looking Back to Move Forward

WebTechniques.com: It's our responsibility as innovators and business professionals to ensure that we approach this latest technology trend with professionalism and consideration for the end user. We must develop applications that address the user's specific needs. We can't simply modify existing Web applications by slapping together code and delivering the apps wirelessly. It's time to tap into the amassed knowledge of what makes a quality product that users will integrate into their lives. If we do that, the result will be wireless applications that make sense and that account for the strengths and weaknesses of the technology. (2001-06-03)

The Whole World In Their Hands

Information Week: This is a story about a newly developed handheld computer that lets Sun Microsystems field engineers scan bar codes on server components, look up information on those components, order parts, or enter advisories in the support database. The appliance also includes a browser, an E-mail client, and encryption/authentication capabilities. (2001-04-15)

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal - August 1999

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal / August 1999 / Vol.38 / No.7

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal - July 2000

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal / July 2000 / Vol.39 / No.6

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal - August 2001

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal / Aug 2001 / Vol.40 / No.7

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal - December 2002

ISPI Performance Improvement Journal / Nov Dec 2002 / Vol.41 / No.10

Performance Improvement Quarterly - 1995 Special Edition

Performance Improvement Quarterly / 1995 / Vol.8 / No.1

When 15-Minute E-learning Doesn’t Work

By: Mark W. Brodsky. Fifteen-minute e-learning, delivered to learners via an intranet or the Internet at their workstations, has received much positive publicity lately, but little attention has been given to its drawbacks and limitations. When implemented correctly and used appropriately, 15-minute e-learning is a very powerful emerging training strategy. Unfortunately, some organizations have denied themselves the benefits of this exciting new tool by jumping on the bandwagon with little forethought or for the wrong reasons. It's important to understand what 15-minute e-learning can and cannot do.

Putting Context Into Context

The User, The Tool, and Their Context: The Three underlying elements contribute to whether a user will succeed with a design.

Investing in Usability: Testing versus Training

“Usability professionals offer so much more than just testing. Usability dollars can be spent in other ways; in fact, I argue that usability training is often a far better investment than usability testing.”

Electronic Performance Support Systems What are They and Why Should I Install One?

An Electronic Performance Support system is the primary delivery mechanism that provides assistance to the user base to help them perform their jobs in accordance with company policies and directives. Much more than just a website, an EPSS typically provides some level of context sensitivity for the users to take them directly to the information that will help them most when they are operating within the company's ERP system.

Types of Usability Methods

We are all somewhat familiar with the range of methods that can be used to usability test our products or even early designs. But there may be more methods than you’ve thought about. How many of the following methods are you familiar with?

Heuristics to Evaluate Online Help

The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.

Defining an Effective Electronic Performance Support System

Are your products, services, and technology changing too fast for your customers and employees to keep up with? Are traditional training approaches adequate and cost-effective?

Quality Assurance: Much More than Testing

Quality assurance isn’t just testing, or analysis, or wishful thinking. Although it can be boring, difficult, and tedious, QA is nonetheless essential. Ensuring that a system will work when delivered requires much planning and discipline. Convincing others that the system will function properly requires even more careful and thoughtful effort. QA is performed through all stages of the project, not just slapped on at the end. It is a way of life.

Authentic Behavior in User Testing

Despite being an artificial situation, user testing generates realistic findings because people engage strongly with the tasks and suspend their disbelief.

Ten Ways to Kill Design

Building better, more innovative, and more profitable products requires organizational change on a deep and difficult level. Kim Goodwin explores some of the pitfalls to avoid when integrating "Design" into an organization.

Using Personas to create user documentation

Personas and other user-modeling techniques are often solely discussed as tools for product development, but they are useful tools in other arenas, as well. Technical writers responsible for writing user documentation can benefit greatly from a well-defined persona set, too.

The Usability of Open Source Software

Open source communities have successfully developed a great deal of software although most computer users only use proprietary applications. The usability of open source software is often regarded as one reason for this limited distribution. In this paper we review the existing evidence of the usability of open source software and discuss how the characteristics of open source development influence usability. We describe how existing human-computer interaction techniques can be used to leverage distributed networked communities, of developers and users, to address issues of usability.

Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content

Every time someone makes a list, be it on a blog like Kottke’s or a list of groceries, content is aggregated. The act of aggregating content (usually content that is alike in some way) makes it more understandable. Instead of looking at a whole field of information, you choose smaller, more logical subsets of it in the hopes of understanding those. After you’ve done that, you can apply what you’ve learned to the whole, or even just a larger subset.

Seven Common Usability Testing Mistakes

What's the easiest way to conduct a usability test? Well, you could just sit a person down (it doesn't matter who) in front of your design and ask them to do something (it doesn't matter what). If this is so easy, why does a standard usability test contain all that other rigmarole? Because that rigmarole goes a long way to ensure that the test will produce quality results.

Six Steps to Ensure a Successful Usability Test

In the early days of usability testing, most design teams waited until the end of production to test. They were doing what they thought of as "validation." They hoped users would sail through the tasks and their design would emerge as a resounding success. Designers equated success in the usability test with success in the design. If you wait until the end to do usability testing, however, you are almost certain to find serious problems in the product. And then you have the frustration of neither time nor resources to fix the problems.

Perfecting Your Personas

A persona is a user archetype you can use to help guide decisions about product features, navigation, interactions, and even visual design. By designing for the archetype—whose goals and behavior patterns you understand very well—you can satisfy the broader group of people represented by that archetype.

Prioritize Usability Testing and Web Analytics

If you've performed usability tests and tried to reconcile those results with your current site metrics, you've probably been left scratching your head. Usability respondents find something wrong on a particular page, yet the same "problem" isn't evident in the site analytics.This leaves you with a rather big question: How do you justify Web analytics and usability, and what role does each play in the conversion equation?

SEM and Site Usability

Usability and search friendliness go hand in hand. If products and services are easy to find, and the Web site easy to use (resulting in higher conversions), the site should easily maintain high-quality search engine traffic. Yet many search engine marketing (SEM) firms offering search-engine-friendly design don't have staff trained, certified, or experienced in Web site usability.

Are You Designing for Usability or Sales?, Part 1

A handful of people misunderstood my thoughts about usability when I recently asked, "Does Usability Actually Sell Anything?" I'm a big advocate of usability as a tactic. In fact, I've written about usability countless times in this column and my company's newsletter. We certainly don't want to place obstacles in front of users. However, for the last three years, I've urged people to go beyond usability. Usability is related to the individual's subjective experience. The same 64-ounce glass mug I love to drink from is a disaster waiting to happen for my two-year-old daughter. Is the mug usable? Yes, for me. Not for her.

Ads Are Here To Stay: Planning For Ad Placement

“What must be developed… is not a way to make ads go away, but rather a better way to incorporate ads and ad content into our sites.” Ads: IAs dislike ‘em; I dislike ‘em. And, as an information purist, I believe everyone dislikes ads. They interfere with navigation. They flash annoyingly. They disrupt the flow of content, awkwardly placed, as so many of them are, right in the middle of the content we want to read. Even worse is when they have been somehow blended into the content, as if we wouldn’t notice. Ads, in short, dilute content and diminish the effect of a page.

Architecting Our Profession

I would like to encourage the community to talk about the need for professional networks within the information architecture field, especially as it relates to creating successful software and information systems. And, I would like to compare our needs in the field of IA with the systems that have been used in other areas to determine if we can develop an appropriate support system in moving towards specialization in our profession.The change within the interface design process over the past five to ten years has coincided with an increasing number of large companies refining an industrial style model of design instead of focusing on specialization or interaction sustainability through design accuracy. As a result of the overriding strategy, many smaller companies emulate the corporate model but find that it is indeed not sustainable; especially if they want to design appropriate interfaces and continue working within the respected boutique and agency models. This model of simply acquiring a larger IA strategy needs to change in order to give IA a place on the whole market and to allow professional networks to develop.

Making Knowledge Management Work on your Intranet

…a genuine commitment to knowledge management (KM), a KM strategy centered in the application of knowledge towards specific business objectives, and tactics that use the company intranet as a platform to further those KM initiatives, will go a long way in realizing new organizational value.

Extending a Technique: Group Personas

Spock: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Kirk: “Or the one.” —Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan

Crafting a User Experience Curriculum

During the curriculum development process I was forced to examine my own perceptions of the user experience industry and address a number of important questions about how to teach user experience.

Uncovering Users In Your Own Organization

It’s still research, but from an internal perspective. There is a wealth of information at your fingertips in your own office, and surprisingly, some of it is usability-related.

Making Personas More Powerful: Details to Drive Strategic and Tactical Design

Alan Cooper popularized personas as a valuable design tool, but many people who adopted them failed to take into account the context of Cooper’s practice, which had fairly specific needs.

Are You Designing for Usability or Sales?, Part 2

Did last week's column on designing for sales leave you with enough empathy to recognize your own site has several archetypical visitors, each with her own set of motivations, perspectives, and understanding of what you offer? Now, let's discuss how this is accomplished with scenario design.

Are You Designing for Usability or Sales?, Part 3

The last couple columns discussed the need to develop archetypical fictional characters, called personas, who represent your buying audience. We use personas to plan the click-through-experience models, or persuasion scenarios, each persona will have on the Web site. We must allow for multiple personas to reach many of the same pages, but must separately address their needs.

B2B E-Mail: A Completely Different Ballgame

"Take audio clips, for instance," says Mullen. "In the B2C [business-to-consumer] arena, audio clips often work great. But when you send a B2B e-mail to someone sitting in a cubicle, an audio clip can create a lot of noise, which can be pretty embarrassing and annoying." Your latest software release dancing across the screen, in other words, could go from brand genius to branding disaster in a matter of two seconds.

How to Monitor the Chatter

While major companies spend tens or hundreds of thousands on projects that incorporate research, focus groups, and "account planning," thousands of consumers provide information to companies that is summarily ignored. Irate complaint letters go unread. Online chat-room information is ignored. Usenet groups (define) aren't even looked at. Blogs are unvisited.

Are Unique Visitor Counts Over?

Are your unique visitors truly unique? As many as 39 percent of online users delete cookies from their primary computer each month, according to a new Jupiter Research (a Jupitermedia Corp. division) report. The survey referenced in this report found 12 percent of consumers delete cookies monthly; 17 percent weekly; and 10 percent daily.

Accelerated Keyword and Engine Testing, Part 1

Keyword and engine expansion are fact of search engine marketing (SEM) life. Most marketers start campaigns with the obvious keywords and search engines. The good news is keywords that were obvious to the marketer were probably obvious to prospects and customers, too. Most search volume in an industry category is in those no-brainer keywords.

Use of Narrative in Interactive Design

By making a conscious effort to integrate narrative into our work, we are better able to support creative learning, problem solving, and task completion by the people who use the things we build.

Designing Embraceable Change

Imagine living in the same house for 10 years. Over that period, you've accumulated a lot of stuff...That's exactly what happened at one of our clients' companies...

Art and science of usability analysis

Chris Rockwell is president of Lextant, a company specializing in user research and interactive system design. Test Center Lead Analyst Jon Udell asked Rockwell to comment on the art and science of usability analysis and on the impact of new tools such as Morae and VisualMark.

What I Learned From Television

Despite the increasing number of website ads, consumers aren’t necessarily getting their feathers ruffled more, they’re getting smarter. Adoption of tools such as pop-up blockers and ad blockers have rendered a user who is in control, while forcing smart advertisers to develop more compelling strategies.

Accelerated Keyword and Engine Testing, Part 2

Keyword expansion can be critical to maintaining campaign efficiency and scale for paid placement search. When I test new keywords, I know the list will have winners and losers. Last week, I discussed aggressiveness when adding new keywords and engines to a campaign and how testing costs extend to testing new creative (ads and landing pages).

Folksonomies: A User-Driven Approach to Organizing Content

Many of the design teams we talk to face the same major issue: how to organize the information on their sites. From creating navigation schemes to developing site hierarchies to refining checkout sequences, it’s highly important for design teams to organize information effectively for their users.

Medical Usability: How to Kill Patients Through Bad Design

A field study identified twenty-two ways that automated hospital systems can result in the wrong medication being dispensed to patients. Most of these flaws are classic usability problems that have been understood for decades.

Evangelizing Usability: Change Your Strategy at the Halfway Point

The evangelism strategies that help a usability group get established in a company are different from the ones needed to create a full-fledged usability culture.

Identifying the Business Value of What We Do

Imagine we're starting work on the user registration functionality of a web site. After conducting a thorough set of user tests, we discover that half of all users who attempt to register can't successfully complete the process. Those who do register find the process very frustrating. Fixing the registration process to eliminate any frustration would be important, right? Not necessarily.

Improving Usability: Principles and Steps for Better Software

When many people think of usability, they think of "interface guidelines." Guidelines are a key element to any solid approach to software usability. However, I find that they are dwarfed in importance compared to open and intelligent engagement in design. There is simply no list of rules that can, by itself, make software usable. In the end, it comes down to smart people paying attention to the right things. On the other hand, it is not always clear what these important things are. Even roughly following a good design process can avoid common mishaps. In the first section, I discuss several principles of good design. In the second, I suggest a practical design process.

Evaluating the Development of Online Course Materials

If online courses are to become a permanent feature of higher education—not merely a fad of the dot-com era—college faculty must believe that developing online materials has academic value. In addition, such online education requires certain resources to be in place.

Paying Attention to Attention

One of the more significant challenges we face in online learning is climbing the wall that blocks our view of learners responding to a course. In a classroom we can see who is making eye contact, nodding in agreement, or sighing with frustration. Above all, in a classroom, you can (usually) tell if somebody is tuning out. Without these cues, we are really just speaking into the void, hoping somebody hears us.

What Makes Users Unhappy: Share-Point Team Services Web Server Security

Computer & Internet Security is very important but sometimes it is so confusing and frustrating that it makes users very unhappy— to a point where the system is so secure that it cannot be used by its most legitimate users, like system administrators

5-Second Tests: Measuring Your Site's Content Pages

On your site, the content page is the user's most frequent final destination. This page contains the information the user came to the site to find. Sites often have hundreds, if not thousands (and in some cases, millions) of these critical pages.

Streamlining Usability Testing by Avoiding the Lab

The usability lab, with its fancy cameras, one-way mirrors, and comfortable observation suites, is often considered a can't-do-without necessity for conducting serious usability tests. Even those who feel it's not required will jump at the chance to use a lab when available. However, while studying successful projects over the years, we've found that usability testing can often be more effective when the team eliminates the lab from the process.

Develop a Landing Page Framework

Why do landing page campaigns so often convert poorly? Because in planning them, the creators fail to think beyond the page itself. Typically, prospects click through an e-mail or a banner ad to a single landing page with a single call to action and little, if any, persuasive copy.

Alertbox: Ten Years

300,000 words of usability essays have had an impact: online user interfaces are considerably easier to use now than they were in 1995. Many predictions and recommendations have come true, though the full Alertbox vision is far from realized.

User-Centered Design FAQ

User-Centered Design is a method for designing ease of use into the total user experience with products. It enables organizations to consistently develop engaging products that are easy to buy, easy to set up, easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to upgrade. It calls for a multidisciplinary team to design everything the user sees and touches and to gather user input and feedback during each stage of the development process.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - Usability: Empiricism or Ideology?

Summary: Usability's job is to research user behavior and find out what works. Usability should also defend users' rights and fight for simplicity. Both aspects have their place, and it's important to recognize the difference.

Time Budgets for Usability Sessions

Up to 40% of precious testing time is wasted while users engage in nonessential activities. Far better to focus on watching users perform tasks with the target interface design.

NewsForge Explores the Semantic Web with Piggy Bank

NewsForge has an article on exploring the Semantic Web using Piggy Bank. Created by the SIMILIE project, Piggy Bank is a Java-powered extension that turns Mozilla Firefox into a "Semantic Web Browser". The article explains how to use Piggy Bank to collect and aggregate RDF data from a number of websites and then organise it to discover relationships. Thanks to Tomas Marek for the link.

Disruptive Technologies: Semantic Web

... For manufacturers, taking advantage of these technologies would bring significant -- even disruptive -- competitive advantages including better integrated and less costly supply chains as well as more seamless engineering, production and distribution processes. Key to all of this is the Semantic Web, whose technological underpinnings have been in development since the mid 1990s when commercial Internet applications were still a gleam in the eyes of many business people...

An introduction to user journeys.

User journeys are a method for conceptualising and structuring a website's content and functionality. These journeys allow us to shift away from thinking about structure in terms of hierarchies or a technical build; instead you create a narrative around your user's needs.

Characteristic, uniqueness, and overlap of information sources linked from North American public library Web sites

This article reports on the availability, domain distribution, percentage of Web sites versus Web pages, perceived value, and category of 31,400 Web–based resources selected by 50 public libraries in the United States and Canada. Eighty–seven percent of these resources were available, 60 percent were Web pages, and resources selected by 20 percent of the sampled libraries were finding tools such as general or subject specific search engines. Ninety–three percent of the resources were selected by just one of the 50 libraries; only 17 percent of the resources appeared to be primarily of local interest. The public may be unaware of these unique resources. The public library community must develop programs to increase the awareness and sharing of these evaluated resources.

R.I.P. WYSIWYG

Macintosh-style interaction design has reached its limits. A new paradigm, called results-oriented UI, might well be the way to empower users in the future.

Open source software development: Some historical perspectives

In this paper we suggest that historical studies of technology can help us to account for some, perplexing (at least for traditional economic reasoning) features of open source software development. From a historical perspective, open source software seems to be a particular case of what Robert C. Allen has termed "collective invention." We explore the interpretive value of this historical parallel in detail, comparing open source software with two remarkable episodes of nineteenth century technical advances.

Hard disks: the autumn years

It makes more sense to keep our data in the same place we use it...

Measuring the Benefits of Ajax

There's a lot of hype surrounding the latest Web development craze, Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and a considerable amount of skepticism about its usefulness in the business realm.... Ajax is a method of employing JavaScript, DHTML, and the XMLHttp behavior in the browser to provide truly dynamic content on a Web page without a page refresh...does away with the traditional "Click-and-Wait" Web-application architecture of yesterday, making it possible to provide the responsiveness and interactivity users expect from desktop applications.

Accessibility Is Not Enough

A strict focus on accessibility as a scorecard item doesn't help users with disabilities. To help these users accomplish critical tasks, you must adopt a usability perspective.

What Have You Done for Your Customers Lately?

Four ways to maximize post-transaction customer retention opportunities. What does your company do after the cash register rings? Do you view a sale as the start of the relationship, or the end? Do you exert as much effort to keep customers as you do to acquire them? Sometimes, the most effective marketing and selling efforts take place after the first transaction.

Net Pioneer Wants New Internet

One of the fathers of the internet wants to be a daddy again. David Clark, who led the development of the internet in the 1970s, is working with the National Science Foundation on a plan for a whole new infrastructure to replace today's global network.

8 guidelines for usability testing

In professional web design circles, the usability testing session has become an essential component of any major project. Similar to focus groups in brand development and product launches, usability testing offers a rare opportunity to receive feedback from the very people the website is aimed at - before it's too late to do anything about it.

One Billion Internet Users

Summary: The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.

Web Site Usability and SEO

Nothing makes me happier than shopping on a user-friendly Web site, one on which I can easily find the products I'm searching for. With the holiday season close at hand, user-centered, search-friendly e-commerce sites will surely have the upper hand when it comes to sales and findability.

Embedded Micro Browsers Offer Enhanced Navigation Within Web Pages

"Micro, web-page embedded browsers, open up new possibilities for navigating and finding additional relevant content with great ease of use and while never leaving the original page."

Interaction Modeling

Interaction modeling makes design decisions explicit. In principle it's simple: record what users "should" do, what they actually do, and then explain the differences between the two. Of course there's more to it than that, and Matt Queen gives us all the details in this story.

Users Interleave Sites and Genres

Summary: When working on business problems, users flitter among sites, alternating visits to different service genres. No single website defines the user experience on its own.

The devil you don’t know: The unexpected future of Open Access publishing

 

Macromedia Contribute 3: Ready for Enterprise

For those hearing about Contribute for the first time, it's a tool that lets even the least tech-savvy person in your organization edit your intranet or Web site with ease. An administrator sets up editable areas in pages, so that users can only change certain things like headlines and articles. Then users open the pages and update them as if they were working in a word processor. Most of the changes to this version revolve around enterprise functionality, such as the new review and approval system. The first versions of Contribute were for small teams or individuals, so they didn't need an automated approval process, but bigger teams need a strict workflow. Administrators can now create ordered workflows and specify who can make pages live and who can only edit pages. After Contribute users have finished updating their pages, they can send a notification for a manager to check them and make them live. The managers can send the pages back for revisions if necessary.

Conviveon's SiteConnect Offers Intuitive Functionality

Looking for a truly easy content management system? The newly released Conviveon SiteConnect Server 6.0 has so much functionality, it's hard to know what to describe first. Besides making it simple for any user in an organization to update site content, it works across multiple sites within an organization, and has new shopping cart abilities that work within the content management engine. The beauty of SiteConnect Server is how easy it makes content management. The developers know that many content management systems fail because they're too difficult or cumbersome for the end users, and that if a program is even a little bit technical, people will avoid using it. That's why their tool feels intuitive and natural, and works through a common Web browser on any platform. Simply log in and, when you surf your pages, you'll see editing options below editable text.

When Search Engines Become Answer Engines

The website is becoming a less prominent locus of experience as people use search engines to bring up answers to their current questions. How can sites cope with masses of freeloaders? by Jakob Nielsen.

B2B Usability

User testing shows that business-to-business websites have substantially lower usability than mainstream consumer sites. If they want to convert more prospects into leads, B2B sites should follow more guidelines and make it easier for prospects to research their offerings.

The Elements of a Design Pattern

Design teams are discovering that a well-built design pattern library makes the user interface development process substantially easier. A quality library means team members have the information they need at their fingertips. Choosing usable components that work smoothly for users becomes the developer's path of least resistance. Innovation, while not prohibited, is reserved for those times when it's really necessary, allowing the team to leverage the work already done by others.

A reflecting and/or refracting Pool: When a local community becomes autonomous online

The Pool is an online project developed by faculty and students in the New Media Program at the University of Maine that aims to facilitate the sharing of skills and ideas among its users. Still in the development phase, while performing the "release early, release often"" ethic of open source software development, The Pool's sources are mostly limited to a steady stream of students from the New Media Program. That The Pool to date, is limited to geographically local, and contextually specific use might engender answerable questions about the nature of evolving collaborative systems. This study explores where local context influences Pool evelopment dramatically and where it appears to make little difference by focusing on three main themes: 1) collaboration; 2) student attitudes and strategies of resistance to The Pool; and, 3) licensing trends in The Pool. One of the most interesting aspects of the study shows that as a project develops, users tend to lessen the controls of attribution, and non–commerciality, while increasing the controls of no–transformations and no–combinations. This phenomenon reveals a surprising, anti–intuitive shift in emphasis during the creative process.

Common Elements of Risk

Traditionally, responsibility for completing a mission and the resources needed to pursue it aligned with organizational boundaries. However, key drivers in the business environment, such as the globalization of business and the fast pace of technological change, have resulted in increased outsourcing and partnering among organizations. It is now common for multiple organizations to work collaboratively in pursuit of a single mission, which creates a degree of programmatic and process complexity that can be difficult to manage effectively. In today's business environment, management and staff must be able to deal with intricate and unclear interrelationships and dependencies among technologies, data, tasks, activities, processes, and people. Mission success in these complex environments requires people to sort through the inherent complexity when making important decisions. Effective risk management that is based on a solid conceptual foundation is an essential part of this decision-making process. This technical note begins to define this foundation by identifying the basic elements of risk and exploring how these elements can affect the potential for mission success.

Traffic Log Patterns

The relative popularity of a site's pages, the number of visitors referred by other sites, and the traffic from search queries continue to follow a Zipf distribution.

Guiding Principles for Providing "Remember Me" Personalization

Catering to the unique needs of each customer is the dream of any business. Technology can help us get there but we need to know how to please users without intruding their privacy. This article presents a set of guiding principles for personalization design.

Home Broadband Adoption 2006

Adoption of high-speed internet at home grew twice as fast in the year prior to March 2006 than in the same time frame from 2004 to 2005. Middle-income Americans accounted for much of the increase.

The Write Stuff

The primary service search engines provide is relevancy. You enter a query and the search engine provides what its algorithms consider to be relevant results from the index. It's that simple.

Strategies for developing sustainable open access scholarly journals

Abstract: This paper discusses different forms of open access publishing and argues that small independent journals that are funded though subsidies provide an important niche in scholarly publishing. One such journal, Medical Education Online (MEO) is used as a case study characterizing the dilemma these journals can face in maintaining their operations as they become successful and their need for resources grows. The paper discusses several strategies for addressing this problem and how they have been implemented for MEO.

User Testing is Not Entertainment

Don't run your studies for the benefit of the people in the observation room. Test to discover the truth about the design, even when user tasks are boring to watch.

A Web 2.0 Tour for the Enterprise

While Web 2.0 sweeps the internet buzz machine, businesses are a bit slower to pick up the new paradigm. Shiv Singh shows how taking the leap and embracing the collaborative nature of Web 2.0 can provide great rewards.

Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers

A national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology. Blogs, the survey finds, are as individual as the people who keep them. However, most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression – documenting individual experiences, sharing practical knowledge, or just keeping in touch with friends and family.

The Death of the Web Site, Part 1

Does the hyper-speed growth of user-generated advocacy mean Web sites are becoming outmoded? Part 1 of a two-part series.

Data Warehousing, Part 1: Building the Virtual Organization

Since the technology of data warehousing has risen to become common currency, it has been at the epicenter of leading-edge advances in database, data analysis and decision support systems theory and practice -- and for good reason. With experts estimating that the amount of data in any given organization doubles every five years, and with much of this data dispersed across private and public networks using a variety of standards, protocols and operating systems, the question of how to best access, store, organize and make use of it is being examined in a new light.

Systems of Systems: Scaling Up the Development Process

Some systems have some but not all properties of systems of systems (SoS). We refer to these as SoS-like systems. This report reviews the fundamental process and project-management problems of large-scale SoS-like programs and outlines steps to address these problems. The report has eight sections. Section 1 summarizes current thinking on the nature of future complex systems, and Section 2 discusses the systems-design problems of the future, particularly the partitioning of massive systems into system-of-systems structures. Section 3 points out how large-scale systems development efforts have typically failed because of project-management and not technical problems, and that the solutions to these problems are known and highly effective, but not widely practiced. It explains why, if the project-management problems of the past are not promptly and effectively addressed, large-scale systems development programs will likely be unmanageable. Section 4 discusses the requirements for a scalable process, and Section 5 both reviews and explains the quality-management principles upon which any scalable process must rest. Section 6 reviews the nature of the project-management problems currently faced by large-scale software-intensive system development efforts and explains why attempts to scale up current methods to very large-scale systems work will almost certainly fail. Section 7 describes process strategies for supporting development of a network-like system of systems and it outlines the process and project-management topics needing further research and development. Finally, Section 8 reviews the process considerations for supporting the very large-scale integrated development programs of the future. The report concludes that, unless steps like those outlined in this report are taken in conjunction with continuing technical research and development, the large-scale systems development efforts of the future will almost certainly fail, and often catastrophically.

Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute

In most online systems, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

Metrics for Heuristics

Web analytics typically provide intelligence for executives and marketers, but the real value comes from evaluating the online experience. Andrea Wiggins shows how designers can use analytics to quantify the user experience.

Riding the Waves of "Web 2.0"

"Web 2.0" has become a catch-all buzzword; the Pew Internet Project and Hitwise provide data to put it in perspective.

Behavioral Ads Convert Better Out of Context

Behaviorally targeted ads can generate a higher click-through rate when shown in a contextually relevant category, but are more likely to lead to a conversion when viewed out of context...

Quantitative Methods for Software Selection and Evaluation

Abstract: When performing a "buy" analysis and selecting a product as part of a software acquisition strategy, most organizations will consider primarily the requirements (the ability of the product to meet the need) and the cost...

Fast, Cheap, and Good Usability Methods

The sooner you complete a usability study, the higher its impact on the design process. Slower methods should be deferred to an annual usability checkup.

Enterprise Information Architecture: A Semantic and Organizational Foundation

People disagree on what happens when IAs grow up, but Tom Reamy knows. He offers a foundation for information architecture as it advances, grappling with problems across the enterprise.

Designing Web Applications for Use

Larry Constantine, IDSA, of Constantine & Lockwood, describes several of the recurring problems with user-centered design and discusses how designing for use rather than for users is a way to focus design more sharply.

Riding the Waves of "Web 2.0"

"Web 2.0" has become a catch-all buzzword that people use to describe a wide range of online activities and applications, some of which the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been tracking for years.

Technology Foundations for Computational Evaluation of Software Security Attributes

Abstract: In the current state of practice, analysis of the security attributes of software systems is typically carried out through subjective evaluations by security experts who accumulate system knowledge in bits and pieces from architectures, specifications, designs, code, and tests. In contrast, this report describes foundations for a new computational security attributes (CSA) technology. This innovative approach provides precise computational methods for defining and analyzing security attributes based solely on the data and transformations of data found within programs. CSA permits security attributes to be evaluated through automatable analysis of the functional behavior of programs. The technology can support specification of security attributes of systems before they are built; specification and evaluation of security attributes of acquired software; verification of the as-built security attributes of systems; and real-time evaluation of security attributes during system operation.

Metrics for Non-Transactional Web Sites

How do you measure success or improvement on the vast majority of Web sites where there's no transaction or direct financial benefit?

The Potential Disruptive Impact of Internet 2 Based Technologies

This paper assesses the development of emerging computing applications that fall under the family of digital applications and technologies. These applications and technologies — Internet 2 based technologies for short — enable new ways of connectivity for networking, interfacing and producing content. They have the capacity and the force to disrupt existing social and economic relations and thus have major impacts on society. Hence, the term 'e-ruptions': emerging e-trends with potential disruptive power. This paper investigates the socio-economic impact of emerging e-ruptions, in an attempt to try and contextualise their implications and relevance for policy formulation.

Does User Annoyance Matter?

Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient, less pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can.

Open educational resources in a global context

Can open educational resources help solve the global education shortage? Will a social authoring process enable developing and developed countries to create educational resources together? This paper analyzes these and other questions around the emerging use of open educational resources in a global context. Global perspectives are provided via analysis and extracts from discussion and case studies that took place in a UNESCO online discussion forum involving 480 participants from 90 countries. Open educational resource types, benefits, business models, and futures are explored.

Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them

Information-seeking behavior varies from situation to situation. Donna Maurer explores different ways in which users look for information and offers tactics for accommodating them.

The Myth of the Genius Designer

Having a good designer doesn't eliminate the need for a systematic usability process. Risk reduction and quality improvement both require user testing and other usability methods.

Deceivingly Strong Information Scent Costs Sales

Users will often overlook the actual location of information or products if another website area seems like the perfect place to look. Cross-references and clear labels alleviate this problem. by Jakob Nielsen

E–learning and language change — Observations, tendencies and reflections

This paper discusses the globalization of e–learning, changes in languages as an effect of distance technologies and the lingua franca of modern times, English, and its effects on other languages. Hybrid languages such as Spanglish (Spanish English) and Swenglish (Swedish English) emerges as an effect of the increasing interaction between non–English languages and the dominant English language. The need for speed and efficiency in communication and the adaptation to new technology changes language dramatically as is observed in chat and SMS–mediated communication. The complexity of modern human communication is discussed with a historical perspective — the old modes of communication can now be used via Internet but this transfer changes their characteristics.

This Way, Mr. Roboto: Guideance for Non-Technical Professionals

Have you ever felt like you were going in circles trying to explain programming to non-technical people? Simply telling them what programmers do just isn't enough. In this week's StickyMinds.com column, Naomi Karten demystifies the programming world by showing non-technical people how to think like programmers—on a basic level. This seemingly intricate journey starts with a few simple directions. Editor's Note: Technical issues are too often presented as barriers to good performance-centered design. But developing a common understanding of both business and technical issues toward leveling expectations is a must. In this article Naomi Karten provides insight toward this end. Take a look at the Book section for some of her works.

FLOSS At Large: Selected papers from the FLOSS workshop at 4SEASST joint conference, Paris, 25-28 August 2004

The free/libre open source software (FLOSS) has emerged as an important phenomenon. Seven papers in this special issue of First Monday examine the FLOSS community and how innovation, cooperation, and trust develop in this exceedingly diverse group.

Top 10 Ways to Lose Your Intranet Users

There's a saying in show business, "Getting to the top is easy, staying there is not." This same sentiment can be applied to any intranet implementation. But you probably want your intranet to have a healthier life than that of some poor second-rate soap opera actor whose career is filled with minor roles like that of the loud-mouth taxi cab driver, the one-eyed hotdog vendor, and the Gypsy fortune teller with a feral monkey. Intranet developers and content owners are able to grab the attention of their users through momentum. Interest — caused by curiosity, marketing, word-of-mouth, or hype — is raised during initial rollout. And there will always be a surge in your Web server's usage logs during this period. But once the novelty has worn off, will your intranet have enough true substance to transform that initial momentum into regular usage? Well, unless you actually want your users to abandon your intranet, make sure that you avoid these 10 common intranet mistakes:

Beware the Bleeding Edge and Feature Creep

In July Paul Chin of Intranet Design Journal wrote a feature discussing how developers and content owners can increase their chances of selling an intranet to "old-school" users — those who, regardless of age and experience, are afraid of change and least comfortable with the adoption of new technologies. While the majority of the feedback he received on that piece was very positive, there was a small handful of readers who seemed to have missed the point entirely and saw it as an argument for the blind acceptance of all new technology — but this isn't the case. The article was meant to warn against the inability, or outright refusal, to adapt to new corporate technology standards to the point where some employees end up with outdated skill-sets, making it increasingly difficult to do their jobs. But the solution to this type of technological immobility doesn't automatically translate to a blind faith acceptance of the "bleeding edge" — technology that's so new and untested that developers risk system integrity by using it. You want to make sure that your systems have a certain amount of longevity — prolonging system lifecycle, avoiding the risk of obsolescence, and maximizing your return on investment — by making use of current technologies while not hastily chasing bleeding-edge promises of some sort of high-tech eden.

Feature Richness and User Engagement

Summary: The more engaged users are, the more features an application can sustain. But most users have low commitment -- especially to websites, which must focus on simplicity, rather than features.

Foundations of Interaction Design

Interaction Design focuses on the behavior of interfaces, rather than their form or structure. David Malouf proposes four foundations that underpin that practice. They help orchestrate a holistic narrative and give us all things to seriously consider when we look at our creations.

Five Survival Techniques for Creating Usable Products

Usability tips and techniques found to be crucial to a development team's success.

Personalization Technologies: A Primer

A brief rundown of the most common personalization technologies, what they're normally used for, and the pros and cons associated with them.

Seeking Open Infrastructure: Contrasting Open Standards, Open Source and Open Innovation

Summary: While "open" normally has connotations of public goods, the idea of "open"–ness has been used for decades as a competitive strategy by firms in the computers and communications industries. Phrases like "open standard," "open source" and more recently "open innovation" have been used to refer to these strategies. What do they have in common? Which ones really are "open"? What does "open" mean, anyway?

Extreme User Research

Clients don’t know a thing about their users, and designers think that if they like it, everyone will. Sound familiar? Daniel Lafreniere's 30-minute "extreme user research" plan comes to the rescue for those of us facing this exact situation. With this practical method, you can generate loads of useful data that will have a real impact on design, thus making the website more effective and profitable.

Can Google Apps crack large enterprises?

Adoption of Google Apps by the corporate world could be a cultural challenge as much as a technological one

Four Bad Designs

Bad content, bad links, bad navigation, bad category pages... which is worst for business? In these examples, bad content takes the prize for costing the company the most money.

3 Important Usability Challenges for Designing Web Apps

Matching the user's natural flow is just one challenge a web-based application developer needs to address during the design and development process. To help our clients, we've compiled a list of three challenges they'll want to keep their eye on.