From: Gleanings To: drunken fist

From: Gleanings To: drunken fist Subject: Gleanings: post cocktailhour ponderings ***OPENING THANG Well, another great UE/IA cocktail hour […]

From: Gleanings
To: drunken fist
Subject: Gleanings: post cocktailhour ponderings

***OPENING THANG

Well, another great UE/IA cocktail hour last night. We toasted Argus and discussed how to sell IA and usability within our organization and too out clients. Got me thinking about the difference between being an IA in a product company and being an IA in an agency. If anyone has any anecdotes/observations, please share them with me! Send to twoias@elegnathack.com , and let me know if I can publish it to the list, or if it’s for my eyes only. 😉

one participant send me this funny story (well, funny to us ex-geeks)
www.mindjack.com/feature/monday/monday1.html

***IA & DESIGN MATTERS

Mr. Me has a great trip report from SXSW on his site right now.
http://peterme.com/

~~~~

did I glean this already? I’m getting old… anyhow, gabe writes

“nice article on usability and design

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/030101/creative_content.html?Page=1

article interviews 5 leading designers and asks them to briefly
describe their relationship between design and usability.”

~~~~

On the SIGIA list the question was asked: What are you reading regularly? here is a partial list of the responses
http://www.nathan.com | Nathan Shedroff
http://hannahodge.com | HannaHodge
http://www.kurzweilai.net/ | Ray Kurzweil (ok, not IA 🙂 but futurist tech)
http://www.tamu.edu/anthropology/news.html | Anthropology in the News
http://www.xplane.com/xblog/ | Xplane’s blog, much gleanings it’s a nice mélange
www.peterme.com/
www.futureofsoftware.com/
http://www.tomalak.org/ tomalak’s realm
http://www.webword.com/ webword (usability focused)
http://joel.editthispage.com/ joel sposky (a software engineer, formerly of MS, but with many wonderful essays in his archives and often very insightful)
http://www.camworld.com/ camworld (often more techie, not for everyone)
http://www.useit.com – Jakob Nielsen’s semi-regular usability newsletter
http://www.goodexperience.com – Mark Hurst’s semi-regular newsletter
http://www.spc.ca/resources/essentials/– spc’s project management newsletter

***ADVERTISING MATTERS

Web Site Ads, Holding Sway, Start to Blare
“Companies have been so user- centric that they forgot to be advertiser-
and sponsor-centric,” said Bill Daugherty, the co-chief executive of iWon.
“You can build the best user experience in the world, but if it doesn’t
work for advertisers that experience is going away.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/17/technology/17WEB.html?searchpv=site01
(you need an account to view it.)

USABILITY MATTERS

Microsoft: Building the User-centric Experience. (tomalak.org)
By putting the user in control, HailStorm makes it possible for the technology
in your life to work together on your behalf, rather than the current
situation in which you have to adapt to the technology and act as the human
bridge between different technologies in your life.
http://www.microsoft.com/net/hailstorm.asp

NEWS & COMMENTARY

Interactive Week: Robo Cop-Out.(tomalak.org)
Lay the blame for the collapse of the Internet economy on poorly designed
computers and applications that lack a human focus. That’s the message put
forth by the handful of big-picture information technology visionaries who
gathered for the ACM’s Beyond Cyberspace conference…
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2697695,00.html

Washington Post: Thinking Outside the Box.(tomalak.org)
Now a line has been crossed. With gizmos mutating at wild rates, engineers
love the endless stomach-churning ride of creating the firstest with the
newest. They’ve dragged us along with them. We’re climbing a slope of
interlocking innovations so steep as to seem more like a cliff…
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23937-2001Mar18.html

APROPOS OF NOTHING

time to return to the useless pages
http://www.go2net.com/useless/