Usability News & Articles

For those of you who are forced to think on a regular basis about making websites appeal to users, Advanced Common Sense offers a temporary reprieve.

Your users and your brain will thank you.

Our very own Gerry McGovern will be conducting a masterclass called Creating Customer-Centric Websites.

If you want to catch it — and we’re definitely biased in that direction — mark your calendars for November 28-29, and prep for a visit to the auditorium at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa.

During a short-lived stint as a science major in college, I used to write my biology labs in the narrative format, rather than using the mandated department guidelines of appropriate lab-speak.

I did this because I took pity on the teacher’s assistant, who’d be grading report after report, and who may find my descriptive narration of Petri dishes and mold to be a welcome respite.

Though the bio department was none too appreciative of my creative writing, narrative tendencies have proven effective in life outside the lab for helping explain how a website meets the needs of different users. Indeed, nothing paints a better picture than scenario-building to inspire a purchase.

As a designer seeking to improve my skill-set, I appreciate a conference that realizes that I am a one-woman show: Usability specialist, content manager and information architect all wrapped into one, with a bit of SEO and flash mixed in for good measure.

Which explains why I am excited for the upcoming Voices That Matter: Web Design conference hosted by New Riders, the leading publisher of web design books and resources.

At the outset, building a Web Content Management System from scratch can seem like a good idea. And frankly, for some of us techy types, building such a thing can sound like a lot of fun as well.

After all, commercial content management systems are expensive and require a lot work to learn, configure and deploy. Furthermore, if an open source CMS is going to be considered, and you expect to have to learn and modify the code-base, why not just build one from the ground up?

Reporting live from Web Content 2007 here in Chicago, I attended (rock star and creative director of Duo Consulting) Yvonne Doll’s Designing Content for Usability session this morning. Yvonne stated her case clearly, reminding those on hand that all website projects succeed or fail for the same reason — communication.

In a move that will likely earn the exultations of many a web developer, the W3C’s Web API working group has published the First Public Working Draft of a specification that focuses on what are being called Progress Events.

A simple website charges you less time. A complex website charges you more time. Time is your most precious resource.