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I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• Readability: the Optimal Line Length – Baymard Institute
  Having the right amount of characters on each line is key to the readability of your text. It shouldn’t merely be your design that dictates the width of your text, it should also be a matter of legibility.
• A List Apart: Articles: Art Direction and Design
  Glorifying the supposed arrival of art direction on the web is one of the latest trends in interactive design. There are several galleries devoted to it. There’s even a plug-in for it. Sadly, many designers don’t understand the difference between design and art direction; sadder still, many art directors don’t either: Art direction gives substance to design. Art direction adds humanity to design.
• How to Communicate Value and Engage Users Instantly | UX Movement
  Does your web site offer value to users? The chances are that it does, but users can’t see it. If users can’t see the value of your web site, there’s no chance they’ll stick around for long.
• Usability for Handheld Devices Versus Computers :: UXmatters
  Many people now use different mobile devices—including smartphones, digital cameras, MP3 players, eReaders, and GPSs (Global Positioning System)—in particular contexts. How are users interacting with these devices when they are away from their computers? How does the design of a device—including the controls its hardware provides, its interaction models, and its form factor—determine the design and usability of the software applications that run on it? How can we understand user experience on the move?
• Conversion Room: Introducing Web Analytics TV
  We’re excited to introduce Web Analytics TV – a fun and interactive source of information for everything Analytics related. This exciting series of YouTube videos is presented by Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski from the Google Analytics team. You can ask questions, and vote for your favourite questions from other viewers, via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and then have our experts answer them in the next installment.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• YouTube Blog: Should quality matter in web video?
  Since I started working in web video, the most common misconception I face is, web video equals low quality video. This week we asked “What do you think the differences are between making videos for the web versus other venues like film festivals or TV?” on YouTube's Facebook fan page. Though there were a lot of positive voices talking about the immediacy, democracy and audience engagement of web video, some of the comments unsurprisingly echoed this idea.
• Photos as Web Content (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
  Users pay close attention to photos and other images that contain relevant information but ignore fluffy pictures used to "jazz up" Web pages.
• Ideal line length for content
  I’d like to design a site that uses optimal line lengths. I also want the line length to stay within the optimal range no matter what default font size the user has set in their browser. Is it possible?
• UXMovement: Applying the Golden Ratio to Web Layouts and Objects | Usability Counts | User Experience, Social Media
  1.618 is a number all serious designers should know. It’s known as the golden ratio found through out nature, art and architecture. Seashells, the Mona Lisa and the Parthenon all show the golden ratio. Our faces and bodies are also proportional to the golden ratio. It’s so omnipresent that it’s even found in sounds and intervals of time. If there ever was a mathematical way to explain and express natural beauty, the golden ratio is it.
• 4 lessons The Apprentice candidates should learn about focus groups–Making Websites Easy To Use
  Every year I watch The Apprentice I grumble to my partner about the appalling way the candidates grill focus group participants. Their approach is to either present them with an idea and ask if they like it, or they tell them about the concept, ask for thoughts and then argue the participants into submission. When this doesn’t work and the focus group clearly dislikes the concept they just ignore it and carry on regardless.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• 54% of H.264 Web Video Now Available in HTML5 – Mac Rumors
  Media search site MeFeedia today released the results of a new survey showing that 54% of H.264-encoded video on the Internet is currently available in HTML5 format, double the share of just five months ago. The rapid increase has been driven by the explosion in the mobile industry, led in part by Apple's iPhone and its lack of support for Adobe's Flash platform.
• Customer Service: A Culture, Not a Department
  As the iconic Nordstrom Inc prepares to open its newest store in Cincinnati’s Kenwood Towne Center It seemed logical to reflect on the essence of what makes great customer service.
• HOW TO: Build an App for Your Small Business
  So, you’re a small or medium-sized business, and you want to build a Facebook, mobile or web app. You’re undertaking something that’s both simple and ambitious, and you’re probably looking for a bit of help.
• Wireframes Magazine » Site Architecture Stencil for OmniGraffle
  Austin recently came up with a sitemap or site architecture OmniGraffle stencil that makes room for some extra description. In the stencil, beside each page title there is now a little space for an explanation of what the page is about. He shared the downloadable stencil which can be obtained right from his site. Awesome. Thanks!
• Persuasive purchase behaviour – Understanding the power of the Goldilocks Effect
  Persuading people to commit to a transaction online can be achieved by applying any number of psychological techniques. And although the term ‘persuasion’ may, at times, been seen to have certain negative connotations there are plenty of ways in which we can encourage behaviour through a well designed interface without resorting to deception or the use of ‘dark patterns’.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• xSort is a free card sorting application for Mac OS X
  Free card sorting application
• 500 Internal Server Error
  500 Internal Server Error
• Four Essential Elements For Creating Captivating Websites | Usability Counts | User Experience, Social Media
  The four principles of design are balance, rhythm, emphasis and unity. Each one of them is essential for bringing together the different visual elements that are necessary to achieving a strong design, which, in turn, is imperative for a website to succeed on any level. What follows is an examination of each principle, with insights about how to incorporate them into your own Web design for optimal results.
• Top retail names guilty of spamming customers, finds email study | News | New Media Age
  Andy Yates, co-founder of Spam Ratings, said, “Trusted brands are making a big mistake by not acting responsibly, openly and fairly with customers. Businesses spend millions building brands and then seem intent on destroying them by sending millions of unwanted emails.”
• » Beyond Staggered Sprints: How TheLadders.com Integrated UX into Agile Johnny Holland – It’s all about interaction » Blog Archive
  Agile has a relatively short history in the broader view of software development. Integration of User Experience into Agile has an even shorter history with relatively few stories of overwhelming success. Over the last eighteen months, we at TheLadders have had some successes—and some failures—in our foray into a post-waterfall way of developing elegant, efficient and sophisticated consumer-facing software. This is our story.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• State of the Internet: Mobile Web’s Explosive Growth: Tech News "
  In 1999, it was the rapid growth of wired web services that was the top story. Fast-forward to today, and it is all about the massive and seemingly unstoppable growth of the mobile Internet that is all the rage. The demand for the mobile Internet (and its subset, the mobile Web) is upending all expectations and predictions. Between Apple and Google, about 500,000 new portable Internet devices are getting connected to the Internet.
• Do iPhone or Android Users Watch More Video? (And Other Video Trends)
  Mobile video optimization firm Bytemobile has just released its most recent "Mobile Minute Metrics" report, a look at wireless users' video consumption trends and behavior based on metrics from a cross-section of nearly 2 billion Bytemobile customers in 58 countries around the world.
• The Value of an Existing Customer / Flowtown (@flowtown)
  The value of an existing customer
• Thoughts on UX Design – By Jon Searle
  I carried out a survey with 200 people to investigate the emotional values associated with certain colours, the results are shown below followed by a brief discussion. You can get the basic outcomes of the research just through studying the image below, however.
• LukeW | Killing Sign Up Forms
  In my recent Sign Up Forms Must Die presentation, I outlined a few solutions for getting people engaged with digital services without asking them to fill in a bunch of input fields up front. In case you are interested in trying one of these alternatives to sign-up forms, here are some resources to get you started.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!