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Friday, August 10, 2001

OPENING THANG

I read the news today, oh boy! I've got bad mefi withdrawal, so I went trolling and as a result, the news&commentary section is back, full of news that ranges from relevant to not-quite-so-very. Eh!
To combat withdrawal, I decided to try out plastic, which turned out to be AGS (another gray site). Dang, pretty soon the entire web will be grayscale.

my collection of gray sites includes (in order of gray-ness)

http://www.peterme.com (recently gone gray)
http://a.wholelottanothing.org/
http://www.carboniq.com(of course)
http://www.biggerhand.com (though lightened up with photos)
http://www.waferbaby.com
http://www.motivo.com
http://www.heyotwell.com/heyblog/
http://www.davezilla.com/and http://www.designiskinky.net/ are semigrays
http://www.dithered.com/index.html
http://www.blackbeltjones.com/index.html is nearly white

add another, or explain to me why gray is the epitome of elegance.

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Posted by christina on Friday, 08/10/01 09:17 AM CST

DESIGN & IA MATTERS

Rather nice sitemap-design.

a typeface foundrie that reminds me how tasty serifs can be

lovely new giantant

Inspiration for the worst designers:
I feel pretty good when I realize this elegant site

was preceded by this

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Posted by christina on Friday, 08/10/01 09:03 AM CST

USABILITY MATTERS

yesterday's opening thang said server logs couldn't tell you what your users bandwidth is. it seems I was mistaken. useful stuff!

John tells of his pain with microsoft's listbot; not an interface tale but a customer relations story....

the chi-web list has had some interesting threads lately. if you aren't subscribed, you may wish to check these out

Usability contributed to my layoff

Unemployed and selling usability

The Usability of Usability (over three weeks)
1
2
3

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Posted by christina on Friday, 08/10/01 09:01 AM CST

NEWS & COMMENTARY

A growing number of online companies are ambushing competitors through software that puts ads where marketers want them most--in front of customers visiting rival Web sites.
via stylewithsubstance.com

Salon not only lives, they are heading toward profitability. whew.
Salon's Newfound Financing Has a 14-Person Price TagNew Money Keeps Lights On At Salon

Lights Dimming at BlueLight
The online retailer lays off nearly half of its staff, leaving a 'skeleton crew' to maintain the site for parent Kmart.

Dutch Firms Struggle as Labor Gets Scarce

Offering hope that a rapid rise in diabetes in the United States can be reversed, a large clinical study has found that even modest lifestyle changes cut the incidence of the disease by more than half among those most at risk.

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Posted by christina on Friday, 08/10/01 09:00 AM CST

APROPOS OF NOTHING

Dog translator barks up the right tree
A new gadget released in Japan is trying to reduce the lingual divide between dog and its owner.

World-Wise Web Teeming With Traveler's Sites

Thanks for the honest comments about html mail.
I'll keep looking for a plain-text solution. meanwhile, if any coders want to take Lane's suggestion.... Also the redesign creaks along as I find time and a few more comps are here
on either these topics, please post!

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Posted by christina on Friday, 08/10/01 08:57 AM CST

Wednesday, August 8, 2001

OPENING THANG

We got another reader-fueled gleanings this a.m.!

Marnie sent me this survey

and it's interesting for two reasons: how many people are surfing at 56k and below, and how much more broadband folks surf. It's that wacky old 80-20 rule again... your most valuable customer may be broadband and huge downloads may be acceptable for some sites. Once again we are reminded that "the rules" are different for each site. Sadly, unlike OS or browser, your log files can't help you here....

feel free to argue, of course.

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Posted by christina on Wednesday, 08/08/01 08:27 AM CST

IA MATTERS

Matt Jones writes
"check this out... my take on it, FWIW..."

it's worth quite a bit, actually....

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Posted by christina on Wednesday, 08/08/01 08:26 AM CST

USABILITY MATTERS

Mike Farley sent me his User-centered design methodology that he advocated at lucent. Lots to pull from here.

I'm also exploring UCD methods put together by software developers. pretty interesting stuff.

one more "me" link: we all have to fight popups at one point or another-- if you've got ammunition, please share.

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Posted by christina on Wednesday, 08/08/01 08:25 AM CST

APROPOS OF NOTHING

My sister send me some sites that participated in the blog-a-thon
"Bloggerlist is a list of all the
participants. Then there's davezilla
Dad liked this one
This is the one that did website reviews"
Of course she participated also...

one more thing.. to make this process more streamlined (i.e. easier for me) I'm considering moving to html mail. I'd like to know if this will make anyone's life hell....

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Posted by christina on Wednesday, 08/08/01 08:23 AM CST

Tuesday, August 7, 2001

OPENING THANG

I'm kinda of back-- returned from Seattle, the talk went great thanks for asking. For you dear readers, I offer this small URL

if you want the heaps of notation that went with it, you'll have to sign up for the next conference. That will be a macromedia Conference, and in hopes of giving the best talk to that very special audience, I'd love it if anyone can share special Flash-usability challenges.

meanwhile the plot for badpractices continues to take shape. please drop any suggestions you may have here

or take the survey

and as Philippe and I find our daily rhythm, I fear the gleanings will still be more sporadic than regular. But hey, ain't love grand?

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Posted by christina on Tuesday, 08/07/01 01:04 PM CST

IA MATTERS

Okay, I quit-- this blog has it all!

a few highlights

a look at webml, a website modeling language

"OVID (Objects, Views, and Interaction Design) is a formal methodology for designing the user experience based on the analysis of users' goals and tasks."

"Information design is the process of discovering an inherent structure from a data set with the goal of divining a desirable model from which the information within may be simply and logically revealed." (drool)

Guidelines For Improving Content Usability For The Web

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Posted by christina on Tuesday, 08/07/01 01:03 PM CST

DESIGN MATTERS

Tolleson Design Gallery
Lovely and richly illustrated article. I bought the book yesterday; quite excited to receive it!

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Posted by christina on Tuesday, 08/07/01 01:02 PM CST

APROPOS OF NOTHING

an intriguing side effect of napster shutting down seems to be that porn is more accessible than ever before. or as the friend who sent me the link said, "Isn't it great how we have the government to make it easy for people to find the tools and get the instructions for how to find pornography?"

Television pictures were beamed around the world last week of great white sharks tearing chunks of flesh from the dead Southern Right whale while sightseers in boats patted the sharks' snouts and even climbed onto the back of the whale as the sharks fed.
Officials were aghast and even considered imposing new laws "to protect people too stupid to protect themselves."

Followed a link from the redoubtable victor lombardi, and it lead to the fine home of the Gallery of Regrettable food which I reviewed in my first web job ever in... er... a while ago. (where did I leave my memory pills?) 1996? Anyhow, nice to see it's alive and thriving. Check it out, it's a good source of giggles.

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Posted by christina on Tuesday, 08/07/01 01:02 PM CST