• Jared Spool offers some interesting advice when it comes to testing an institution’s branding: Under the direction of Walt, Disney built the brand quality that they are ‘magical’. Adults interacting going to a Disney resort see the ‘magic’ in the design of their products, both in the direct interaction with the elements of the resort…

  • Monday

    Introducing Monday. I can hear it now: ‘Monday we’ll meet with Monday…’ That PWC could pull a MarchFirst says to me either the management has as much taste in names as Accenture or that they’re really embracing new economy ways. Suddenly Razorfish doesn’t sound so ground-breaking anymore. We’ll have to push further out. Maybe Emmanuel,…

  • girlwonder

    girlwonder is looking fabulous with her new minimalist boxes-on-white design like, well, like me. Is white the new gray?

  • Jim Kalbach published his case study of the Audi.com and Audi.de sites. Highlights: GoLive for schematics, dynamic layout changing with browser width, and heavy usability testing of the non-conventional navigation.

  • Clicking a Link Most web pages contain links you can click to move to other pages. 1. Move the pointer until it changes to a pointing finger. This happens whenever the pointer is over a link. Most links are underlined text, but buttons and pictures can also be links. 2. Click the link once. While…

  • oh my, Amazon is trying their version of Blue Light Specials (communicating artificial exclusivity to generate demand). But just as with Kmart’s merchandise, it’s all crap. A George Foreman Rotisserie? Ugh.

  • Width

    It’s a portrait design in a landscape world

  • It’s Puerto Rican Day in New York, complete with parade. I’m listening to West Side Story… ROSALIA: When I will go back to San Juan.ANITA: When you will shut up and get gone?ROSALIA: Everyone there will give big cheer!ANITA: Everyone there will have moved here!

  • The current social networks thinking is fascinating, and will only get better once more people dig into web services, and then the semantic web. It’s a little disconcerting, embarrasing even, that no IAs are at the forefront of these discussions. Isn’t that what we do, find interesting patterns in information and present them to people?…

  • I just strolled through my local gigantic Barnes & Noble. I think I saw more computer books in one place than ever before. Some observations: There are a surprising number of books on designing with usability in mind, which is reasuring. There are plenty of general web design books, so many it must be hard…

  • Nils Rydbeck, former Ericsson phone designer and inventor of GSM outlines four different scenarios for the future of the mobile phone: 1. The phone contains everything that you have at home in your computer. 2. The phone becomes an entertainment and gaming device for youth, possibly with a display showing the person you’re talking to.…

  • 1 + 1

    Here’s a Philip Glass composition you can play yourself, as printed in Score: An Anthology of New Music (out of print I assume but probably findable in a university’s library): Any table top is amplified by means of a contact mike, amplifier and speaker. The player perfoms 1 + 1 by tapping the table top…

  • Book Fair

    Wow, so many great books being published. Peter stopped by the other night with an actual hardcopy prototype of his user-centered design book. Owen and other luminaries lay down the CSS goods. Wert and company cough up a tome on Usability. And Rebecca’s Blog book is out. Don’t go crying that you’re bored this summer.

  • PeterV’s story of automated phone system vs. web (why is the phone system, which forces one to navigate a tree, easier to use?) reminded me of a story from Chris Fahey of Behavior. Chris was designing an interface for a mobile screen, I forget whether it was a PDA or a mobile phone. Of course…