This Usability.gov page succinctly captures the qualities of different testing methods. I keep encountering people who want to run surveys (to keep the customer at arms length?) instead of one-to-one usability studies. The mnemonic I’ll keep in my head to remember this difference in meetings is behavior vs. opinion, qualitative vs. quantitative.

Mark comments, ‘This is one of the sad things about the computer world right now: everybody knows better, and hardly anybody seems willing to do the work.’ and yet… ‘This is one of the great things about computer science right now: you can walk in off the street, roll up your sleeves, and with a…

‘ About five years ago, Farmers moved from this ad-hoc approach to projects to the implementation of a release methodology that ensures monthly delivery of one of three concurrent releases on a 90-day software development lifecycle, for a total of 12 throughout the year. According to Fridenberg, the business and IT arrive at defined deliverables,…

The pyrotechnic birthday celebration by and for Central Park, Light Cycle, was awesome. What it lacked in size and shape it made up for in experience as thousands of New Yorkers huddled together in the rain around the reservoir to witness the show. It was wonderful to see fireworks in a new composition, different than…

I’ll be in San Francisco Sept 8-10 for Seybold. Give me a shout if you’d like to hang out. The main purpose of my visit is to speak on the topic of Content Models and Information Architectures along with the lovely Ann Rockley, co-author of Managing Enterprise Content. If you plan to register for the…

Reading about breadcrumbs and wondering if people don’t use them that much because they’re trying too hard to establish a new convention, or pushing a new mental model of going back that’s different than how we think about going back. Maybe instead of HOME > CATEGORY > PAGE we should try to leverage a sub-genre…

Michael has the best blackout story I’ve heard yet. The best blackout idea I’ve heard yet was from a waiter who said, ‘We should do this every year.’ Yes, every Earth Day. If we could plan for it, there’d be no commuters trapped on trains, and we’d keep power going to essential places. But all…

Steve Krug last night was his usual humble, humorous self with more than enough advanced common sense to please everyone. He spoke of kayaks (unexpected user behavior that’s not all that bad, like rolling over in a kayak), boxfish, and a missing chapter from the book: Why Your Website Should Be a Mensch. Indeed. The…

Where I’ll be tonight: Don’t Make Me Think: Steve Krug on Web Design Tishman Auditorium The New School, 66 West 12th Street Wednesday, Aug 27th 6 to 8:30 PM To RSVP for this event, please email rsvp@usableproducts.com Please bring photo ID.

I just started working with a designer who created a site for the Dalai Lama. I hope some of that holiness rubs off.

Alan Cooper, in his new column The Origin of Personas, claims to have developed personas as an original idea. While he qualifies his words (“introduced the use of personas as a practical interaction design tool”, ” the history of Cooper personas” (stress mine)), he cites the first published mention of them was 1998’s The Inmates…

Challis points out Welchia, a noble virus that repairs damage done by the Blaster virus. Now all we need is a noble virus that infiltrates web servers and fixes crappy navigation.