Usability week ending August 7th

Friday, 5th August, 2:43 PM
@sugarsock content aware fill, woo hoo! #cs5

Friday, 5th August, 2:04 PM
Game mechanics a part of #design and #usability, takes understanding users wanting gratifying flow: http://j.mp/cJB4b0 #ux #gamification

Thursday, 4th August, 2:25 PM
Understanding how users learn can help us design experiences that support the user throughout the entire process: http://j.mp/oDUGly #ux

Wednesday, 3rd August, 5:05 PM
British government says #copyright over-regulates to the detriment of the UK, wants to make "format shifting" legal: http://j.mp/pwEdsO

Wednesday, 3rd August, 3:48 PM
Like Horseshoe crabs or those giant flies in the jungles of South America, fax machines have proven nearly unkillable: http://j.mp/qOtLw9

Tuesday, 2nd August, 1:23 PM
@sugarsock Yes http://t.co/ca7gW24 is a side project to make vid hosting simple. Thanks for checking it out. Let us know what you think.

Tuesday, 2nd August, 1:06 PM
@sugarsock Best luck with the talk. Do you have a little Flip video or Kodak Zi8 to record it? Post it on sugarsock.vive.ly!

Monday, 1st August, 11:54 PM
@sugarsock today mine was 39 days out of warranty. fell on stone, shattered face, they replaced free, in & out under 5 mins, & easy restore

Monday, 1st August, 11:49 PM
@sugarsock On ITVfest Hollywood theme, u wrote "not dressing"... "don't keep a lot of... clothing on". Twitter matching isn't too smart.

Monday, 1st August, 11:21 PM
@sugarsock I think, to be fair, both Nokia and Samsung make no-profit phones for pay-as-you-go services. But I like Apple's model better!

Monday, 1st August, 1:37 PM
What profits can look like when people love, and evangelize, your product's user experience: http://j.mp/rdGroN #iphone #stats

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending July 24th

Friday, 22nd July, 1:25 PM
Chosen is a fantastic #javascript plug-in for #jQuery and #Prototype to make long select boxes usable: http://j.mp/pULEaN #ux #ui

Wednesday, 20th July, 7:49 PM
Tom Anderson, MySpace founder, on whether Google will favor an algorithmic or user-controlled approach to your stream: http://j.mp/qYWDd6

Wednesday, 20th July, 1:07 PM
Picking apart the TechCrunch redesign with a user test: http://j.mp/oOkuHc #ux #design #usability

Monday, 18th July, 9:11 PM
The #iPhone Home Button shows how intuitive a single simple action can be if performed in context: http://j.mp/qf9s92 #ui

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending July 10th

Friday, 8th July, 6:17 PM
User testing in the wild -- when your user has never used a computer: http://j.mp/psldVH #usability #ux #testing

Thursday, 7th July, 7:37 PM
The inscrutability of Gmail Detailed Technical Info and Yahoo Error Code 15 http://post.ly/2M1dZ

Thursday, 7th July, 5:18 PM
How building a great admin #dashboard can lead to an amazing product: http://j.mp/p1Tv8i #ui #saas /via @MapleButter

Thursday, 7th July, 2:20 PM
YouTube gets finger friendly usability redesign: http://j.mp/pE7xJi #youtube #ux #ui #vod

Wednesday, 6th July, 3:23 PM
Thoughts on Google+ attracting users and influence through intuitive #usability: http://j.mp/qlUD4j #googleplus #ux #facebook

Tuesday, 5th July, 3:27 PM
Why the WSJ Mobile App gets such terrible customer reviews, and how to fix it: http://j.mp/mDmYMP #ux #design #iphone #usability

Tuesday, 5th July, 3:13 PM
The imprimatur of the creator/publisher/distributor/retailer is its reputation for selecting/producing works users enjoy: http://j.mp/lVXDtx

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending June 12th

Saturday, 11th June, 10:56 AM
How to find iPad or iPhone device ID (UDID) when stuck on iOS 5 beta update: http://j.mp/lOAF21 #ipad #iphone #guid #udid #beta #ios #tip

Friday, 10th June, 11:17 PM
Why the new task UI in Taskrabbit has great behavioral design: http://j.mp/kH8LO7 #ux #ui #ia

Thursday, 9th June, 6:46 PM
Try "persuasive design" to change attitudes or behaviors of users through #persuasion and social influence: http://j.mp/kV1641 #design #ux

Thursday, 9th June, 5:58 PM
Google adds indexing support for rel="author" HTML tag property, to track and rank content creators: http://j.mp/kMHpuF #google #seo #ia

Wednesday, 8th June, 8:17 PM
You can’t convince a smoker to quit smoking. They need to just decide they’ll do it. It's the same for UX: http://j.mp/lmKhbU #ux

Wednesday, 8th June, 6:55 AM
UI testing suggests ways for #iPad app-makers to make their #apps more intuitive and ergonomic for users: http://j.mp/jPZVoX #ui #ux

Tuesday, 7th June, 5:59 PM
Forget #social... Build a tool which people find useful immediately: http://j.mp/lgZDIc #ux #startup #mvp

Tuesday, 7th June, 8:37 AM
On 1 Aug 2011, #Google will discontinue support for Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3: http://j.mp/l5cY8D #ux #browser

Tuesday, 7th June, 12:05 AM
#Apple has taken a better approach to #cloud #sync by focusing on its fundamental benefit to users--simplicity: http://j.mp/mfeRcW #ux

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending April 24th

Friday, 22nd April, 3:05 PM
Two clear reasons why services get user attention: happiness (enchantment) and utility (solving a problem): http://j.mp/fDvw67 #ux

Friday, 22nd April, 12:27 PM
The dividing line -- #Amazon has moved digital goods to the top of its 'Shop All Departments' list: http://j.mp/hL4iY2

Wednesday, 20th April, 12:13 PM
What becomes possible when one is able to store entire documents in URLs?: http://j.mp/dXYxGU

Tuesday, 19th April, 12:27 PM
The right mentality is a user-centric mentality: http://j.mp/eZnETQ #ux #ia

Monday, 18th April, 3:49 PM
For a #mobile #app to be lovable, it must be useful, usable and desirable: http://j.mp/i7Srvo #ux #iphone #ipad #android

Monday, 18th April, 2:17 PM
#LibreOffice escape from #Oracle shows how open source forking can protect community autonomy from exploitation: http://j.mp/hACStj

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending April 17th

Friday, 15th April, 12:11 PM
I love fonts, and Google Web Fonts just keep getting better. Free to use, hosted by Google: http://j.mp/h98YKf #font #design

Friday, 15th April, 9:13 AM
Fascinating #usability testing results from the latest desktop Linux, Ubuntu Unity. Thinking like new users is hard: http://j.mp/f3kfda #ux

Wednesday, 13th April, 8:15 AM
Loads of hidden or little-known features of #Mac OS X. I didn't know about 'proxy icons' or 'pbcopy': http://j.mp/dIwykl #tip

Tuesday, 12th April, 3:34 PM
Details matter -- lessons from reality on the #iPhone tab bar user experience: http://j.mp/fGcUcw

via twitter.com/terretta

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

The disappearing PC

The article below is a couple months old but interesting to look back on now the iPad has sold close to 4 million units, supporting Job's point of view.

Ballmer commented yesterday that Apple's sold more iPads than he would like. He was surprised by the iPhone, and is surprised by the iPad. After all, Microsoft was already selling phones, and tablets, and if so many people wanted them, they'd have bought them ... right?

You see the problem in Ballmer's iPad interview below. He thinks everything is a PC, just evolving form factors. The hardware shape changes like a fashion fad, but it's still a PC, and people are going to do the same things on it.

On the contrary, it's not the hardware form factor people are excited about. Joe Wilcox didn't repurchase an iPad because it was fashionable. It's the shape of the software — the usability. The iOS multi-touch platform pushes the OS into the background, putting goal-oriented apps front and center.

Everyday people (tech geeks call these people "normals") can poke a button for the thing they want to do, and the device becomes a tool to accomplish that thing. Your goal, in a sleek metal frame.

It's not a personal computer riddled with OS anxiety between you and your goal. Turn it on and it's a personal radio, Facebook, magazine, navigator, or photo album. It's whatever you need it to be at the time, and nothing else.

Steve Jobs' and Steve Ballmer's starkly different visions of the future

"PCs are like trucks," Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg Tuesday night at the Wall Street Journal's D8 conference. When America stopped being an agrarian society, people started buying cars. Devices like the iPhone and the iPad, in Jobs' analogy, are the cars of computing as society transitions into what he calls the "post PC world."

"And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy," he predicted. "People from the PC world."

Enter Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft (MSFT), who was, in his D8 turn two days later, the embodiment of the uneasy PC guy, whether attacking Google's (GOOG) "incoherent" operating system strategy, damning Research in Motion (RIMM) with faint praise, or dissing Apple as living in "the bubble of Terranea" -- a reference to the swanky resort where the conference was held and whose participants could afford to own "five devices per person."

All Things D has posted excerpts of Ballmer's interview (along with Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect) on its D8 site. We've pasted several below the fold, along with the Steve Jobs video that includes his vision of the post-PC world. It begins at the 3:30 mark in the first clip. Ballmer's response is in the video about the iPad.

 

Steve Jobs on the iPad and the post-PC world:

Steve Ballmer on the iPad:

Ballmer and Ozzie on cloud computing:

Ballmer on the battle for control of the mobile phone business:

via tech.fortune.cnn.com

Usability week ending June 6th

Thursday, 3rd June, 1:01 PM
Which groups in your organization influence your web UI? Who's responsible for making #design decisions? Why?: http://j.mp/c2XrRF #ui #ia

Tuesday, 1st June, 9:42 AM
Quantifying usability -- injecting #usability principles into bug tracking software reshapes approach to #UX design: http://j.mp/9x0PJx

Monday, 31st May, 8:12 PM
#Android Fanboys care about openness and choice. #iPhone Fanboys care about presentation and experience: http://j.mp/auRIRK #ux

Sunday, 30th May, 3:00 PM
@sugarsock Funny #BP now thinks they own the land and airspace, to stop reporters from filming. Maybe execs should have to move there.

Sunday, 30th May, 8:00 AM
The #iPhone is the first computer in a long time that doesn't make people afraid: http://j.mp/bkeCcT #usability #software #apps

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending May 16th

Friday, 14th May, 11:16 PM
What information architecture is, why it’s related to #usability, and the common tools used in iA: http://j.mp/bTfm6p #ia #design

Thursday, 13th May, 5:38 PM
Faceted #navigation is arguably the most significant #search innovation of the past decade: http://j.mp/bbRV1x #ia

Wednesday, 12th May, 3:00 PM
Know how to critique a web page in 30 seconds or less? Your users do: http://j.mp/bRdC7r #ux #ia #usability #design

Tuesday, 11th May, 12:07 PM
#iPad at Work: use case user stories from a Programmer, Designer, and QA Expert: http://j.mp/9hcZYO #ux

Monday, 10th May, 2:10 PM
iPad Usability: Jakob Nielsen's first findings from #iPad user testing with popular apps: http://j.mp/bDjgJl #ux #ui #ia #usability

Sunday, 9th May, 6:21 PM
A paperback is a versatile and easy device--cheap, replaceable, takes very low level of care to keep in working order: http://j.mp/dl2XsB

Sunday, 9th May, 2:24 AM
RT @hilittle: Excellent: RT @resultsjunkie: LOVE this article! Nothing missing. @morville is #brilliant Ubiquitous Service Design http:/ ...

Sunday, 9th May, 2:18 AM
RT @deanzilla: RT @uxs: Google Drawings Wireframing Kit http://bit.ly/bZpebp #ux #webdesign

Sunday, 9th May, 2:16 AM
RT @deanzilla: #design, #innovation, and #growth are linked: http://bit.ly/bgdV0l /via @danklyn and @semanticwill

Sunday, 9th May, 2:13 AM
RT @8x3h: Take another view after reading "The iPad is just a big iPhone. Isn't it?": http://bit.ly/dCkRjs #ux #ipad #iphone #usability

Sunday, 9th May, 2:01 AM
RT @Alyssa_Milano: #Facebook tries to make violations of Terms of Use into crimes: http://j.mp/beUdxF #socialweb #law #data #api

via twitter.com/terretta