MetaFilter posts tagged with usability

The State of the Web 2008

netbros — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:25:52 -0800

The State of the Web 2008 is a report from Web Directions that includes details and analysis of all the responses to over 50 questions covering technologies, techniques, philosophies and practices that today’s web professionals employ. The survey was open for just under 3 weeks, from December 1st to 20th 2008. In total, over 1200 designers and developers from around the world responded to the survey. Respondents were likely to be self-educating, “early adopters” who keep abreast of developments in their field. Here are the tabular results. In short, what did the survey find? Some quite surprising results include:

just how few of the respondents use any form of Internet Explorer for their day to day web use (with only 3 out of over 1200 respondents using IE8), and similarly how few use Google Chrome as their primary browser, despite the splash the launch of that browser recently
nearly half of respondents use Mac OS X as their primary operating system, and only 10% use Windows Vista
less than a third of respondents test their web sites with Internet Explorer 8 (while Mobile Safari comes in at 20%, and Chrome at 40%)

There’s also a great deal of interest in terms of the nitty-gritty of web design philosophy and practice, from the high percentage of respondents who use JavaScript (around 95%), to the very small uptake of Silverlight (around 2% of all respondents) to the very high percentage of database driven sites (96%), overwhelmingly run on open source databases (over 80%). The number of responses, 1234 total, and the results themselves definitely provide both food for thought, and in many cases, cause for optimism that web development best practices are becoming more widely adopted over time. Web Directions conducts two major conferences annually in Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada, and covers the full range of interests for web professionals - web design, front-end and and back-end development, information architecture, interaction design, accessibility, data visualization and much more. Their more focused conferences home in on specific areas and segments, as seen from their podcasts, slides, and other presentation materials.

How usable is your world?

angry jonny — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:07:12 -0800

Happy World Usability Day. Download the poster. Take the global transport challenge. Get involved in a local event. Not sure what usability is? These guys can tell you. Usability principals are being applied not only to websites, but to increase the level of accessibility in all facets of life including voting, product development, and how we talk to one another. You're on your own to improve your own usability, though.

The Employable Web Designer

netbros — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:07:02 -0800

The Employable Web Designer ― Andy Rutledge at Design View constructs a list of suggestions to help aspiring designers better craft their own preparedness and, if necessary, adjust their degree plans toward a more effective and responsive result in the web design field. (previously) It is important to note that tools do not make the designer.

"If you can't make it good, at least make it look good."

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:06:51 -0800

Bill Gates files a bug report: "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job."

Usability issues and principles

psmealey — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:43:39 -0800

30 Usability Issues to be aware of In this article we present 30 important usability issues, terms, rules and principles which are usually forgotten, ignored or misunderstood. What is the difference between readability and legibility? What exactly does 80/20 or Pareto principle mean? What is the law of proximity? What is meant with minesweeping and satisficing? And what is Progressive Enhancement and Graceful Degradation? What is banner blindness? How can you measure eye-tracking? Why fold area isn't that important. OK, it’s time to dive in.

Rethinking Software Look&Feel

Gyan — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:14:35 -0800

Magic Ink - Information Software and the Graphical Interface

Usability frogs

carter — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 09:26:15 -0800

Frog Review - Talking frogs review websites.

Ye Olde Graphics Shoppe.

Count Ziggurat — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 19:07:38 -0800

Ye Olde Graphics Shoppe. We hope you will find something here to your liking. You will notice some changes and additions and a new look. We have decided to simplify things rather than have nonsense pages.....too many really :-)) We have a NEW Graphics Assistant Lady Belle ho has added some terrific new dusting graphics and page sets for you to enjoy.

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike In US - The Memo From A Design Perspective

turbanhead — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 11:05:41 -0800

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike In US - The Memo From A Design Perspective A desginer looks at the original memo and re-designs it for usability.

Really Stimpy?! You think we can do that?

ewagoner — Fri, 15 Aug 2003 08:47:06 -0800

Ren & Stimpy create a home page for the web, perform usability analysis on it, and analyze the results using multiple regression. "With the help of three hardworking, good looking, talented, and underpaid graduate students, we'll find a better way to make a home page!"

Usability in Open Source

Adman — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 14:59:21 -0800

Usability Bazaar sounds like a crazy idea: getting together a group of people that will create usability guidelines for open source projects. Do you think that can work? Do OSS projects actually have usability problems? And can this actually work? Generally, usability people don't seem to get involved in open source. Why? (via webword.com)

K is for Kookie. And Kompressor.

Su — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:23:36 -0800

Just in: Jakob Nielsen Declares the Letter “C” Unusable.

Su — Sat, 13 Jul 2002 14:19:19 -0800

Emotion and design: Atrractive things work better.
Of note here is that Don Norman works with Jakob Nielsen. In this essay he addresses the accusation that usability people want ugly design.

mikewas — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 21:00:06 -0800

30 days to a more accessible website This series is entitled "30 days to a more accessible weblog", and it will answer two questions. The first question is "Why should I make my weblog more accessible?" If you do not have a weblog, this series is not for you. The second question is "How can I make my weblog more accessible?" If you are not convinced by the first answer, you will not be interested in the second.

Su — Mon, 27 May 2002 12:01:48 -0800

Guimp.com claims to be the world's smallest web site. And it probably is.
Jakob must be spinning in his crypt.
You don't have to scroll, though.

mathowie — Sat, 13 Apr 2002 14:34:06 -0800

This orthopaedic surgery site seems more like a design exercise than an actual attempt at an informative site. Imagine that someone told you to make the site using poor technology choices, couple it with non-professional content not conducive to trusting the doctors, and add a map to the office that does more to enable chuckles than get people to into the business. It's so bad, it's good, and most definitely do not skip intro on this one.

christina — Mon, 20 Aug 2001 18:16:05 -0800

happy birthday jakob Though we all like to scream about his pronouncements or catch him when he makes an error in his own rules, it's time everyone who has a job relating to human factors to acknowledge that Jakob Nielsen's tireless promoting of usability is very likely the reason our bosses or our clients are willing to consider allowing usability testing. Thanks guy! Wish I could afford to buy you that rogers and hamerstein collection...

justgary — Wed, 18 Jul 2001 05:04:13 -0800

Driving Over Jakob Nielsen: use left arrow to move left, right arrow to move right (which is quite useable really!)

waterfrog — Mon, 25 Jun 2001 00:04:01 -0800

Usability Analysis of UseIt.com How well does usability guru Jacob Nielsen fare when his site is analysed in terms of his own usability guidelines?

wackybrit — Fri, 18 May 2001 15:48:33 -0800

Jakob Nielsen on Bill Gates' Micropayment Strategy (news section on right) Jakob Nielsen has acknowledged that Bill Gates might be smarter than him (no sh*t, Sherlock!). Gates would rather integrate micropayment systems into their server apps than IE to make Linux a non-issue for businesses wanting to use their micropayment system. Yet more monopoly nonsense or a smart business plan?

Brilliantcrank — Wed, 16 May 2001 12:10:24 -0800

Something is coming...something wonderful! It's not a monolith but it is black and full of stars. It's iaslash, a new and remarkable slash-site that focuses on information architecture and all the sub-categories that fall nicely underneath. This comes as close to a one-stop-shop for IAs as any other resource available. Visit often and make your comments heard.

Dugout — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 12:04:26 -0800

A Flash usability white paper that says Flash can improve the usability of a web site.

"When executed correctly, with attention paid to the needs and wants of users, Macromedia Flash content can actually improve the user experience on any Web site." Can Flash be saved if developers start thinking about usability? Is this going to impact Jakob Nielsen's 99% figure?

owillis — Sun, 11 Mar 2001 12:29:42 -0800

Palm Beach Butterfly Ballot Reportedly Cost Gore "The newspaper said the ballot confusion also hurt President George W. Bush; 1,631 people voted for both Bush and Buchanan, whose hole was directly under that of Bush"

tregoweth — Fri, 16 Feb 2001 20:26:00 -0800

According to an Alexa Research report, Web users are morons (entering URLs into search engines to get to sites) and perverts (most popular search term is "sex"). I, for one, am shocked.

fraying — Fri, 12 Jan 2001 11:02:29 -0800

Invasion of the Usability Experts! It's about time someone said this, and I'm glad it was Dale. [ via kottke, where another conversation is going on ]