Alex Barnett blog : usability

Designing Web APIs - Twitter Learnings

alexbarnett — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:08:00 GMT

Although I made it to Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last week, I didn't make it to a session Matt McAlister blogged about by Twitter’s Alex Payne and Michael Migurski of Stamen Design who presented learnings from the perspective of an API provider.

But I can see the slide deck discussing the Twitter API and so can you:

| View | Upload your own

More Web 2.0 session slides available here. Recommended:

Videos of sessions here. Check out Clay Shirky's session, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (a good read btw).

Top-10 Web App Design Mistakes

alexbarnett — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:53:00 GMT

Jakob Nielsen is considered the web’s usability guru by many web designers and therefore very influential when it comes to perceived best practices in this domain. Last week he shared his thoughts on web application design, specifically the top 10 mistakes made by web UI designers.

No matter how experienced you are, or how many sites and web apps you've created, or how much you think you know about web design, this article is still worth a read and some digestion.

One piece of advice to really take to heart is this well known (but regularly overlooked) gem:

“…Whatever you do, at least promise me this: Don't just implement feature requests from "user representatives" or "business analysts." The most common way to get usability wrong is to listen to what users say rather than actually watching what they do. Requirement specifications are always wrong. You must prototype the requirements quickly and show users something concrete to find out what they really need.”

If you follow this simple principle, the chances of creating mystery meat navigation will diminish with every new data point gathered and considered.

Top-10 Application-Design Mistakes

Summary:

Application usability is enhanced when users know how to operate the UI and it guides them through the workflow. Violating common guidelines prevents both.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-mistakes.html

Redmonk, Guinness and random stuff

alexbarnett — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:58:00 GMT

In San Francisco last night, catching up with the Redmonk folks celebrating their 5th birthday (thanks to James for inviting me). Caught up with some industry legends - Steve Gillmor, Chris Messina, Dan Farber and Ryan Stewart, and made some new friends there too, e.g. Ed Hermannn - the guy who created Wii interface into an SAP app). .The Guinness is good at the Shields.

Right, so here's a bunch of random stuff that's been capturing my attention the last week.

Firstly - weird:

Synthetic Biology: The conclusion of the very beginning
"The question is not so much whether synthetic biology will remake society, but who will be in control when it does."
Contact Lens or Computer Display?
Augmented reality - here we come.
Jedi Ginsu Knife Brings Out the Chef/Jedi in You [Lightsabers]
I want one of these.

Next - wow:

Amazon Web Services Make Earnings News
“Over 330,000 developers have registered to use Amazon Web Services (AWS), up more than 30,000 from last quarter."
Amazon Earnings Call Details: Web Services Use Up More Bandwidth Than Amazon.com
"startups and other companies using Amazon’s Web-scale computing infrastructure now bigger collectively than Amazon."

Next, next - quite right:

YouTubers given share of ad cash
Share the love (and the cash).

~~Next, next, next~~ - useful:

UI-patterns.com
via ksharkey: "The purpose of this site is over time to fill some of the gaps - especially by providing code examples as to how how the different patterns can be implemented: to join theory with practice."
Short Bits: CableCARD, Beta Testing
links to everything you wanted to know (and can never know) about the nightmare that is CableCard (I need to angrily rant on this topic one day)

Joshua Porter - talking Social Design for the web (podcast)

alexbarnett — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:54:23 GMT

Last week I had the chance to some spend time with Joshua Porter (of Bokardo.com) to discuss his thoughts on "Social Design" for the web. We recorded the conversation and it's up now up as a podcast.

Josh has a new book coming out soon, "Designing Social Applications (Voices That Matter)":

"How do you create and launch a vibrant social web application that people are motivated to use? Getting people to participate (and stay participating) is the key to any web-based strategy, but you have to do more than simply add features. This book teaches you how. By using real world examples and a bit of social psychology theory, this book provides a solid foundation for designing your next great web application"

I miss our chats.

Jakob Nielsen admits a horrid truth

alexbarnett — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:55:00 GMT

Jakob Nielsen admits a horrid truth:

"I've been reluctant to discuss one of the findings from our eyetracking research because the conclusion is that unethical design pays off."