Usability week ending April 10th

Friday, 8th April, 11:06 AM
Media's ageing audiences: Peggy Sue got old - The Economist http://post.ly/1rwsS

Thursday, 7th April, 3:47 PM
Truth is, predicting the future accurately is pretty tough: http://j.mp/dWePaq #iphone #android #wp7

Thursday, 7th April, 1:10 PM
Users to Developers -- "If you are going to change a standard UI behavior, you better have good reason for it.": http://j.mp/fKKDkS #ux

Wednesday, 6th April, 8:33 AM
11 fundamental guidelines for e-commerce checkout #usability--we saw 430% lift using similar ideas on our store platform: http://j.mp/eaKR8T

Tuesday, 5th April, 11:24 AM
Apple founder Steve Wozniak says tablets are PCs for 'normal people', Steve Job's goal from day one http://post.ly/1r2tf

Monday, 4th April, 12:54 PM
Make the web easy to read -- standard font sizes, active white space, good line height, contrast, no text images: http://j.mp/f1sjbt #ux #ui

via twitter.com/terretta

Media's ageing audiences: Peggy Sue got old - The Economist

The noisy disruption of media business models by the internet in the past decade has obscured a profound demographic transformation. Whether they are buying music, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or watching television, media consumers are ageing even more quickly than the overall population. Rather than trying to reverse this trend by attracting younger people, many companies are attempting to profit from the greying of media.
via economist.com

As your audience ages, approachability matters more. Kids see a new technology like a video game: a challenge to figure out. Their elders see it as work.

But the greys have money. As the article notes, "people aged 60 or over spent more on pop-music albums in 2009 than did teenagers or people in their 20s".

This is a strong—though generally overlooked—incentive to make new technologies feel comfortable and familiar.

Apple founder Steve Wozniak says tablets are PCs for 'normal people', Steve Job's goal from day one

"The tablet is not necessarily for the people in this room," Wozniak told the audience of enterprise storage engineers. "It's for the normal people in the world," Wozniak said.

"I think Steve Jobs had that intention from the day we started Apple, but it was just hard to get there, because we had to go through a lot of steps where you connected to things, and (eventually) computers grew up to where they could do ... normal consumer appliance things," Wozniak said.

via networkworld.com

A "personal computer" can take a lot of forms — the term need not be stuck referencing the Wintel duopoly beige box days. The iPad is arguably the most personal of PCs yet.

Usability week ending March 27th

Friday, 25th March, 11:17 PM
Customers' needs are more accurately identified through UX #personas than through #demographic data: http://j.mp/hurCz4

Thursday, 24th March, 4:06 PM
Today’s TV apps offer confusing interfaces, make us squint, or don’t have a point at all. How to make #TV #apps work: http://j.mp/if8kiy #ux

Tuesday, 22nd March, 7:48 AM
Is Receivd's real-time filesharing for family and friends better than Droplr and Dropbox? Try it out: http://t.co/v2wQGlj

Monday, 21st March, 11:40 PM
A "bold" new approach to publishing a book with a dramatically different user experience: http://j.mp/gsXRPn

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending March 13th

Saturday, 12th March, 5:14 PM
The exceptional home page is not a bulletin board, it's a demo-showroom: http://j.mp/gNwUj9 #ia

Saturday, 12th March, 12:02 PM
A well-designed #UX is consistent, forgiving, rewarding; #Nokia's user experience was inconsistent, unforgiving, hostile: http://j.mp/fZCygF

Thursday, 10th March, 9:17 PM
@kiwi_app Can I set my own j.mp key yet in a Kiwi app I pay for?

Thursday, 10th March, 9:16 PM
@sugarsock Haven't tried Sword and Soldiers. Liked Fieldrunners, also Spirits, Trainyard, and World of Goo. Angry Birds felt tedious!

Thursday, 10th March, 10:39 AM
Why hover menus are a #usability disaster -- and not just because users can't hover on an iPad: http://j.mp/eWA40n #ux #ui

Thursday, 10th March, 8:59 AM
Reserve your connect.me username: http://cxt.me/am5w3A #connectme

Wednesday, 9th March, 1:46 PM
World's shortest guide to #SEO: http://j.mp/h5JMBj

Wednesday, 9th March, 8:19 AM
FTC puts patent trolls -- sorry, patent assertion entities -- on notice: http://j.mp/f4vUry #patent #patents

Tuesday, 8th March, 3:55 PM
Why is Angry Birds' interface so engaging that users cannot stop interacting with it? A cognitive teardown of #UX: http://j.mp/f68z1Q

Tuesday, 8th March, 10:35 AM
Five key principles to fostering better conversations in your site's #comments section: http://j.mp/fUsBKr #ia #ux

Monday, 7th March, 4:16 PM
Deciding on a tablet by comparing specs? You've missed the point: http://j.mp/dJB8Tf #ipad #xoom #ux #ipad2

Monday, 7th March, 1:34 PM
The first step towards real “unbundling” is to put the viewer at the center of audience building: http://j.mp/eXD4w0 #vod #ux

Monday, 7th March, 1:32 PM
Where are the app experiences befitting the iPad and its hardware capabilities?: http://j.mp/eSC4Dv #ux

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending March 6th

Friday, 4th March, 8:10 AM
Building an international auxiliary #language, shared #symbols to break down barriers of understanding between people: http://j.mp/gw5tAZ

Wednesday, 2nd March, 10:56 AM
#Piracy the preferred means of acquiring TV not because it's free, but because it's the best way to consume TV: http://j.mp/i2nEnf #vod #ux

Tuesday, 1st March, 6:10 PM
Rapid #prototyping with #Sinatra apps to make great proofs of concept or Minimum Viable Products: http://j.mp/hLF80S #ruby

Tuesday, 1st March, 12:16 PM
Tendency to over-specify potential capabilities of a #VOD system leads to huge technical problems: http://j.mp/fgPAw1 #ott #design #ia #ux

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending February 20th

Friday, 18th February, 12:42 PM
The Experience Economy -- it a focus on good experiences causing America to generate less material wealth?: http://j.mp/h5bBZp #ux

Thursday, 17th February, 2:18 PM
Less I in UI makes users adopt plan-based behavior, smarter solution paths, and better declarative knowledge: http://j.mp/gTeaMe #ui #ia

Wednesday, 16th February, 10:22 AM
I have seen the future and I am opposed — Don Norman http://post.ly/1d5vM

Monday, 14th February, 4:31 PM
The trend away from “hard-edged science” to systems “where predictability is tempered by a heavy dose of randomness”: http://j.mp/dNhZlA

Monday, 14th February, 4:23 PM
To make sure you meet user expectations: do user research, review competitor sites, follow usability guidelines: http://j.mp/hBhRgp #ux

Monday, 14th February, 4:22 PM
Embrace #iPad virtual physicality--an invisible spine defined its edges, signaling content just a swipe away: http://j.mp/gTxHHl #ui

via twitter.com/terretta

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