Usability week ending February 13th

Thursday, 10th February, 5:28 PM
Involve decision makers and implementers in #UX to give them understanding of the issues and incentive to fix: http://j.mp/g0KDgG

Thursday, 10th February, 7:57 AM
No part of dynamic AJAXy magic requires beating the Web to a bloody pulp with a sharp-edged hashbang. So stop it.: http://j.mp/guN3Fe

Wednesday, 9th February, 4:55 PM
When technical good intentions go wrong -- how Gawker and Lifehacker broke their websites with JavaScript and hash-bangs: http://j.mp/g4xylU

Tuesday, 8th February, 10:59 AM
A definitive guide to Landing Page Best Practices -- with infographics: http://j.mp/fnGNRX #ppc #adwords

Monday, 7th February, 11:43 AM
VOD UI designers take note: families don't want lean-forward involvement from a lean-back medium: http://j.mp/gk6bYq #ux #tv #vod #ui

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending February 6th

Friday, 4th February, 9:40 AM
Force yourself outside your zone for unbiased external perspectives to explain their world, hold a mirror to yours: http://j.mp/hjIQaG

Thursday, 3rd February, 11:07 PM
Reviewing #wireframe mockup applications Balsamiq, Mockingbird, and MockFlow: http://j.mp/gntyv2 #ia

Thursday, 3rd February, 11:01 PM
You don't need to build features requested by your customers to make them happy: http://j.mp/gjV2gI

Wednesday, 2nd February, 5:08 PM
TUAW's first impressions of iPad newspaper "The Daily" UI and navigation: http://j.mp/g7oQ74 #ux #ui #ipad #tuaw

Wednesday, 2nd February, 5:05 PM
"Today marks the day that a content company made a significant change to embrace truly new ways to deliver the news": http://j.mp/gt3y9t

Monday, 31st January, 12:05 PM
How Steve Jobs and #Apple managed to beat the tech titans of Japan by playing their game, only better: http://j.mp/h30Jro #simplicity #zen

via twitter.com/terretta

Wikileaks, Karl Marx and You — Comments on the Information Technology Revolution

An opinion/analysis piece by a supporter of Liberty & Solidarity

Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement. The better analyses have found it interesting that the Swedish Pirate Party are aiding Wikileaks; some note links to the German Chaos Computer Club. But only “geeks” and “hackers” (technology workers) are aware that all of these organisations are members of the same movement.

This social movement, which has been termed the “free culture movement”, has a thirty year history. It incorporates elements reminiscent of earlier workers’ movements: elements of class struggle, political agitation, and radical economics. The movement’s cadre, mainly technology workers, have been locked in conflict with the ruling class over the political and economic nature of information itself. As Wikileaks demonstrates, the outcome will have implications for all of us.The free culture movement exists as a consequence of the internet’s political economy. Personal computers have radically transformed the economic nature of information. Before the 1970s, a given piece of information was tied to a physical object - a piece of paper, an LP, a roll of film. Entire industries were built on selling paper, LP’s and rolls of film with particular bits of information on them. Then the personal computer arrived and suddenly information of all kinds could be duplicated infinitely at minimal cost - and distributed by the internet to a global audience. Every human could have a copy of every piece of art ever created for the cost of a broadband connection.

Sociable machines

“Where once artificial intelligence researchers proposed artefacts that would win us over with their smartness, designers of these latest machines aim to seduce with sociability. Sociable robots press our “Darwinian buttons”: we respond to humanoid objects that make eye contact, track our motion and say our names as “creatures” with intentions, consciousness, even feelings.

Indeed, when an object reaches out and asks us to care for it, we find we not only want to care for it, but want it to care for us in return. Nurturance turns out to be the “killer app” in our relationships with the inanimate. We are vulnerable to new attachments, seduced by machines that ask for our care. They “pretend” to converse, but do not understand what we say. Engrossed by sociable robots, we are alone yet experience a new sense of intimacy.” [...]

“Alone with robots, we feel connected; together with people but not fully relating to them, we feel alone. We are in the still centre of a perfect storm. I call this the “robotic moment”, a technological moment in which we fear our lives with technology are out of control, and we fantasise, paradoxically, that it is technology that will help us re-establish control.”

via 
newscientist.com

Usability week ending January 16th

Friday, 14th January, 7:47 PM
Google handing the keys of web video’s future right back to Flash: http://j.mp/dOMCVE #codec #webm #vp8 #h264 #flash

Friday, 14th January, 6:09 PM
Apple's philosophy, “We’re going to make these decisions for you,” is called "design": http://j.mp/ieW639 #design

Friday, 14th January, 8:42 AM
Apple's #design iterations are simplification steps removing cruft, not adding features: http://j.mp/h3X2KB

Friday, 14th January, 8:26 AM
Traditional pay-per-click is a waste--only 8% of Internet users now account for 85% of all clicks: http://j.mp/g4v2Sa @comscore #stats #ads

Thursday, 13th January, 2:10 PM
The entire #Android device market seems to be made specifically for gadget blogs and early adopters: http://j.mp/enaC5A #ux #wp7 #usability

Wednesday, 12th January, 3:36 PM
The primary failure of MySpace was usability -- what happens when users make decisions on design: http://j.mp/f9AKkA #ux #usability

Tuesday, 11th January, 10:03 AM
Easy to read -- standard font size, active white space, reader friendly line height, clear contrast, no text images: http://j.mp/gEVFIq #ux

Monday, 10th January, 4:50 PM
Usability's dark side -- the paradox of the guided user: http://j.mp/hPhovz #ux #usability #ia

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending January 9th

Friday, 7th January, 8:15 AM
The new Mac App Store shows human centered DRM -- your identity as key to generous rights: http://j.mp/geoDEN #drm

Thursday, 6th January, 6:30 PM
Everyone is a designer. Design is a fundamental part of everything. Keep this in mind throughout your project: http://j.mp/i1ivbf #ddd

Thursday, 6th January, 9:12 AM
Software Updates, System Update 10.6.6, Restart, New App Store icon in Dock, Twitter, Free ... Twitter icon in dock, Tweet!

Wednesday, 5th January, 11:18 AM
@kiwi_app i'll buy when you can. cheers.

Wednesday, 5th January, 10:41 AM
@kiwi_app where or how do you set your bit.ly api key to use with j.mp/bit.ly?

Wednesday, 5th January, 7:05 AM
Progressive signup -- as the user uses our product, we gently prod them to give us more info: http://j.mp/dENcnI #ux #ia

Tuesday, 4th January, 4:17 PM
The anatomy of a perfect landing page: http://j.mp/fIheah #ia #webdesign #ux

Monday, 3rd January, 5:21 PM
Essential and desirable skills you should look for in your UX designer: http://j.mp/dV4YKc #ia #ux

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending January 2nd

Friday, 31st December, 7:52 PM
Like the "webcast of the century" a decade ago, join EarthCam again for New Year's 2011: http://newyears.earthcam.com/ #earthcam #nye #nyc

Thursday, 30th December, 6:39 PM
Customers will tell the truth, if you ask them. Depending on your perspective, that's either disturbing or valuable: http://j.mp/efhmOc #ux

Wednesday, 29th December, 4:17 PM
Why TV lost: http://j.mp/h98HUs

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending December 26th

Friday, 24th December, 4:46 PM
"Merry Christmas" in languages from around the world: http://j.mp/hSxpBY

Thursday, 23rd December, 5:04 PM
How a well-rounded #developer can become a #UX professional, too: http://j.mp/eTImk6

Wednesday, 22nd December, 3:20 PM
#FCC bans outright blocking and “unreasonable discrimination” of Web sites or applications: http://j.mp/hzeW2B #netneutrality

Tuesday, 21st December, 2:34 PM
Never give a client choices to choose from, just give them the one you think best: http://j.mp/hTcQJ5

Monday, 20th December, 7:50 AM
For web success -- quick loading, easy, a visual ID, platform independent, open, geared for transactions, CRM-friendly: http://j.mp/eFRJV8

via twitter.com/terretta