<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!-- generator="WordPress/2.9.2" -->
<rss version="0.92">
<channel>
	<title>UsabilityBlog</title>
	<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com</link>
	<description>Blogging about user experience, usability, and design</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:59:33 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
	<language>en</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>Good Error Page From Slideshare</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

Here&#8217;s a server error page that makes you feel good about the company or service.
It humanizes them. By that, I mean that it makes you feel that they have a sense of humor &#8211; and humility &#8211; and hopefully gets you to realize that there&#8217;s people behind the service; it&#8217;s not [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/03/good-error-page-from-slideshare/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Website Usability and Conversion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week I gave a presentation at the Online Marketing Summit 2010 about website usability and conversion. I used the famous Ling&#8217;s Cars site as an example of conversion, arguing that &#8220;unique&#8221; (read: ugly) design coupled with &#8220;stealthy&#8221; usability can facilitate conversion.
You can check out the preso here, or go to Slideshare to see it [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/03/website-usability-and-conversion/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>New Ask UXmatters Article On Building UX Organizations</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Janet Six over at UXmatters posted her latest &#8220;Ask UXmatters&#8221; article. This time it&#8217;s about building UX teams. She featured a bunch of my thinking on how to prepare and change organizational cultures for more effective user experience implementations. Which was gratifying. I&#8217;m glad the field finds my content useful. (You can always read that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/02/new-ask-uxmatters-article-on-building-ux-organizations/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>How To Disable The Paypal Help Center</title>
		<description><![CDATA[(Note: Here&#8217;s another guest post from Andreas Bossard, proprietor of the blog News of the Future and author of several excellent UsabilityBlog posts. Today he talks about his travails with the Paypal help system. Enjoy. -Paul)
I wanted to get help in Paypal, that’s why I clicked on “Help” and expected to see the help section [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/02/how-to-disable-the-paypal-help-center/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>My Usability Marathon 2 Preso Embed</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I thought I did a decent job presenting about strategic user experience at Usability Marathon 2. I just remembered that they posted the webinar slides (and voice as well, if I&#8217;m not mistaken).
So here it is. I received good feedback on it. YMMV. But I hope you enjoy it.
Usability&#8230;Or Strategic User Experience?
View more presentations from [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/02/my-usability-marathon-preso-embed/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Two Completely Unrelated Observations</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size
Originally uploaded by Matthew Oliphant

Just saw this via Matthew Oliphant&#8217;s Flickr collection. I have two unrelated observations to share with the Twitterverse / blogosphere / interwebz:
1. Hey, at least they&#8217;re sayin&#8217; so.
2. &#8220;Chromed Bird&#8221; makes me think of Maltese Falcon.
Look, no one said I had to be 100% on-point and all [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/02/two-completely-unrelated-observations/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Nirvana Phone: Can I Have One Now Please?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday I posted about a discussion Jared Spool and I had about the import of the iPad.
I made the claim that the handset would continue to be the innovation driver, and as soon as it had the computing horsepower to drive a large LCD monitor and run productivity applications, it would be the primary and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/02/the-nirvana-phone-can-i-have-one-now/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Tablets Are (Probably) Superfluous</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I really thought I&#8217;d be able to resist bloviating about the iPad. But then I read this tweet from Jared Spool:
Is nobody else talking about the iPad&#8217;s interesting facet? It brings the gap between phone &#38; computer manufacturers closer together.
It got pushed to his Facebook as an update, where I flippantly responded:
And that&#8217;s a good [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/02/tablets-are-probably-superfluous/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Ling&#8217;s Cars: It Works</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
(Click to view full size)

Here&#8217;s the thing about LingsCars.com: It works.
Yes, it&#8217;s ugly as sin, an affront to the design sensibilities of practically everyone.
And this picture doesn&#8217;t do it justice. Go to the site, you need to see the seizure-inducing blinky-blinky.
But it works. It really does.
Let&#8217;s unpack that a bit. What do I mean when [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/02/lings-cars-it-works/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The First Thing We Do, Let&#8217;s Keep The Lawyers Out Of The UI</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
(Click to view full size)

Old-school readers of UsabilityBlog may remember my (ranty but well-reasoned) diatribe against EULA&#8217;s and how they&#8217;re presented in software user interfaces. (Also check out my follow-up posts here and here.)
This picture I took the other day  reminded me how easy it is to corrupt and degrade the user experience with obtuse [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/01/the-first-thing-we-do-lets-keep-the-lawyers-out-of-the-ui/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>So Bad It&#8217;s Good</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size


Check it out now. Today. Go on, you know you want to. And here&#8217;s the scary thing: IT&#8217;S STILL BEING UPDATED REGULARLY. How scary/awesome is that?
Here&#8217;s the URL: http://www.Havenworks.com.
I should also post Ling&#8217;s Cars. I&#8217;ll get around to that this week. In the meantime, enjoy HavenWorks, and try not to have [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/01/so-bad-its-good/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Guidelines For Design Guidelines</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This post grew out of my response to a question on the IxDA discussion board. Russ Wilson, fellow Austinite, UX VP at a large software co., and all-around good guy, posed this question:
I&#8217;d like to get people&#8217;s opinions on the value of &#8220;company-wide&#8221; design guidelines (for software applications/websites)?In theory, design guidelines could help to remove [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/01/guidelines-for-design-guidelines/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>You Can&#8217;t Make This Stuff Up&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Y&#8217;know that last post of mine where I pointed out that I didn&#8217;t know what to do with the &#8220;Yes&#8221; button?
I discovered what that button does. It&#8217;s probably the second-worst case scenario. (First worst-case scenario is that it makes you lose data or a setting you&#8217;ve selected.)
It CLOSES THE WINDOW.
Classic. You just can&#8217;t make up [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/01/you-cant-make-this-stuff-up/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>What Am I Saying Yes To?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

I just took this screenshot this morning. Here&#8217;s the situation: I&#8217;d just installed new trackpad drivers on one of my Windows laptops. This laptop&#8217;s trackpad is a bit hinky, so I knew I wanted to get into the trackpad&#8217;s control panel and make some settings changes.
So I clicked the trackpad&#8217;s system [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/01/what-am-i-saying-yes-to/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>UXmatters Article: Testing Your Own Designs Redux</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This is just a quick pointer to my latest UXmatters column, which is a follow-on to my article from September about the perils and pitfalls of testing your own designs.
In this follow-on, I revisited some of my more bombastic points about testing one&#8217;s own designs. Thanks to some excellent comments by several colleagues (and colleague-slash-wife), [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2010/01/uxmatters-article-testing-your-own-designs-redux/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>My Amazon Pay Phrase Is What Now?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

Not exactly a usability post. But still worth a chortle. Or maybe a guffaw. OK, how about a titter? No? Alrighty then.
And while we&#8217;re talking Amazon.com, I need to post someday soon about how fantastically great Amazon&#8217;s &#8220;Amazon Recommends&#8221; marketing emails are. They rope me in more than I&#8217;d like to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/12/my-amazon-pay-phrase-is-what-now/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Design To Make You Smile</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You *will* smile when you see this design. Trust me. You will.
Then come back and we can talk about why it&#8217;s so smile-evoking.



Philco PC from Dave Schultze on Vimeo.

]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/12/design-to-make-you-smile/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>First Name Form Fail</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

So I was looking for a good price on a little Honda I&#8217;m interested in. I stumbled across a site that pings all the dealers in my vicinity for their best price.
One thing I do when I&#8217;m not sure of how trustworthy a site is&#8230;is use my initials instead of my [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/12/first-name-form-fail/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Sorry, But I Don&#8217;t Know Your Acronyms Intel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

Illustrated in this simple dialog are three common errors that software producers make:

Assuming that users know what the heck their acronyms mean,
Not helping users understand  the implications of  selecting/not selecting an option, and
Using a single selection control to perform what appears to be a combination of two actions (e.g., [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/10/sorry-but-i-dont-know-your-acronyms-intel/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>This Is Going To Take Awhile&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

Really? I need permission from EVERYONE?
Well OK, but I think that&#8217;s going to take awhile&#8230;can you give me some time to get everyone&#8217;s permission? Or do you need to know right now?
Fine, be that way.
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/10/this-is-going-to-take-awhile/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Computerworld Article On Linux Drawbacks Misses Usability</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I just read an article I found via Digg (my favorite guilty pleasure social news aggregator) about the drawbacks of desktop Linux. The writer touches on the ecosystem-related reasons that desktop Linux is languishing, but almost completely glosses over the fact that many people who try out a Linux distro are beset by significant and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/10/computerworld-article-on-linux-drawbacks-misses-usability/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Lazy Programming 101</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

Not parsing phone numbers into area code-exchange-suffix is just plain lazy coding. It makes for hard-to-read numbers.
&#8217;nuff said.
OK, I didn&#8217;t say enough. This is yet more evidence that the price of usability is eternal vigilance.
Stepping off the soapbox now. Have a good day y&#8217;all.
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/10/lazy-programming-101/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>My Usability Marathon Preso</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I just posted my Usability Marathon presentation to Slideshare. (I love Slideshare btw&#8230;no surprise; Rashmi Sinha started out as a UX person.)
I&#8217;m getting good feedback and nice retweets on Twitter; which is a good sign.
Normally, I&#8217;d pull some choice quotes to whet your appetite. But I&#8217;ve got a pile of storyboarding and wireframing to do [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/10/my-usability-marathon-preso/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Time Zone Drop-Down List Fail</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

In general I try to be strategic, which usually means talking about &#8220;big&#8221; user experience and staying oriented on the business value of UX.
But every once in a while I just have to point to a particularly bad interaction, then cluck my tongue and wag my finger.
So it is with this [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/09/time-zone-drop-down-list-fail/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>My UXmatters.com Article On Testing Your Own Designs</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In my last post I advised that my pending UXmatters.com article would be covering the topic of whether designers can usability test their own designs. The article is now available here. In it I presented feedback from several people about the wisdom of testing one&#8217;s own designs, and generated some recommendations for how to do [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/09/my-uxmatters-com-article-on-testing-your-own-designs/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Testing Your Own Designs: Discussion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m putting an article together for UXmatters on the topic of usability testing and validating one&#8217;s own designs. My goal is to develop some guidelines for self-testing.
I&#8217;d love to get your feedback on some questions I have:

Testing your own designs: all-around bad idea? Or is it possible to do it well?
If so, what should you [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/09/testing-your-own-designs-discussion/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The End of &#8220;Just Google It&#8221;? Twitter-Based Search Behavior</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Let me be up-front about this from the beginning: this is a half-formed thought. But its implications are very, very interesting.
So here&#8217;s what just happened: I had a desire to take in some emerging thoughts in the user experience field. I wanted some fresh thinking, some exposure to new presentations.
For about 8 years, my first [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/09/the-end-of-just-google-it-twitter-based-search-behavior/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>&#8220;Beyond Here Be Dragons&#8221; &#8211; Or, Don&#8217;t Design For The Edge Cases</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click to view full size

Found this on Digg.com today, and promptly added it to my &#8220;Questionable_Designs&#8221; set on Flickr.
What a great example of after-the-fact design modification.
It makes me wonder what the context was. Did someone set this up for a young child or an older relative? Or did they do it for themselves?
In any case, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/09/dont-design-for-the-edge-cases/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Questionable Designs: A Flickr UI Collection</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been collecting and tagging pictures of interesting user interfaces on Flickr for about three years now. Typically I&#8217;ve blogged them one at a time.
It suddenly occurs to me that UBlog readers may be interested in seeing the whole set now that it&#8217;s pushing 75 pics.
So here&#8217;s the link. Enjoy! 
Questionable Designs  ::?  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/09/questionable-designs-a-flickr-ui-collection/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Low-Rent Usability Tech Tip: Remote Usability Testing With Observers Watching</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today&#8217;s post is a simple little usability testing &#8220;tech tip.&#8221; It&#8217;ll help you run a remote usability test with a participant running an app or browser on your test machine while other remote observers are watching the session.
My investigation into this started when I was asked to conduct remote usability test sessions for my client. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.usabilityblog.com/2009/08/low-rent-usability-tech-tip-remote-usability-testing-with-observers-watching/</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>
