From: Gleanings
To: Mikes and Not-mikes
Subject: Gleanings: Mike Tuesday
OPENING THANG
I mentioned Mike Kuniavsky yesterday, and got a few inquiries as to who he is. I imagine that question won’t be asked once he finally finishes his book on user research for O’Reilly, but for now I’ll say he’s one of those thugs over at adaptivepath.com (hi guys!) and the man I’m having breakfast with in an hour.
Need more?
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/14/index3a.html?tw=design
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/radio/mikek.html
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/34/index1a_page13.html?tw=design
and
http://www.stockpuppets.com/ (check out “who built them”)
USABILITY MATTERS
Scenarios were the hot topic on chi-web, and I got some great links from it…
Scenario building is another relatively inexpensive and quick method for collecting requirements and task information. The primary advantage of scenario building versus exploratory surveys is that it allows users to create a context for their requirements and tasks.
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/moderator-guide/requirements.html
narrative scenarios as a design tool
http://www.davidbliss.com/index.asp?unique_id=232
(btw, davidbliss.com has a lot of great info. be sure to explore…)
It’s the User, Stupid
How do Open Source app designers figure out what users want? Most don’t bother, says UI researcher Mike Kuniavsky – and software and user both suffer.
http://sendmail.net/interviews/interviewkuniavsky.shtml
IBM Ease of Use: Putting it to the test. (tomalak.org)
At the Fidelity laboratory, there have been over 120 usability tests of web
sites or applications in the past three years. The new state-of-the-art lab
doubles the testing capacity of the original one, which Tullis helped
establish, and employs a wide range of new evaluation techniques.
http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/1564
MARKETING MATTERS
Clueless Is as Clueless Does
“I’m constantly entertained by the Internet strategies of Big Media companies. They’re always good for a laugh. ”
http://clickz.com/article/cz.3518.html
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Salon: Do you kick Yahoo? (tomalak.org)
Scott Rosenberg. All of which raises the obvious question: Plainly, the
market’s pundits were way off a year ago, at the pinnacle of Net stock mania;
so why should we put any more stock in them now? Their downside is looking
just as insane as their upside.
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2001/03/10/yahoo_down/index.html
Inside: Copy This! Can ‘Military’ Technology Beat Digital Piracy? (tomalak.org)
A small Austin start-up run by intelligence community alums is parachuting
into the burgeoning, post-Napster, copy-protection market with a remarkably
thin, invisible software product that claims to offer nearly invincible armor
for music, video, film and e-books alike.
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=25476&pod_id=13&user_type=2
“In the beginning was the Command Line” on the history of the GUIs, Operating Systems, and the future of Linux. by Neal Stevenson (alpern.org/prof)
http://discuss.userland.com/msgReader$7161#7162
IFCC: Auction sites generate most complaints (nua.com)
Most consumer complaints with regard to the Internet relate to fraud
at auction sites such as Ebay.
Embassy of Belarus (US): Internet economy healthy in Belarus (nua.com)
Note: I’d never heard of Belarus. Reading the article, turns out it’s mostly men in Minsk looking for a date. Now that’s a killer-ap.
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Mike of biggerhand.com writes
“go here: http://www.10socks.com
it might be the only case i can think of where a slow modem
connection actually ENHANCED the experience. I was anticipating each
and every sock!”
Is it possible someone hasn’t heard of the clock of the long now?
http://www.longnow.org/
FEEDBACK
Kylie Baxter writes:
“I use Powermarks to manage my bookmarks and think it’s fab. It works by
keyword so bookmarks are stored in a flat file format. I have over 2000
bookmarks now and it’s so easy to find stuff now!
Not free, but worth every penny/cent.”
http://www.kaylon.com/power.html