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Blog Details for "Website usability Help"
Website usability HelpWebsite usability HelpYour daily dose of research, opinions, and lessons learned about usability testing and research, web design, CSS and Search Engine Marketing Articles
Future Nightmare::Pointing the mouse instead of clicking.
2007-10-05 16:37:00 Dontclick.it, an interesting experiment in interaction design, explores a clickfree environment. It wants to explore how and what changes for the user and the interface once you can’t rely on the habit of clicking.Within this interface you won’t find any buttons. Instead you navigate the contents in a different way — by pointing the mouse to the areas of the site you are interested in. What sounds like an interesting approach might soon become a usability nightmare - just imagine web-users trying to open external links in a new browser window; besides it’s interesting to know how exactly users will be able to, let’s say, open a list of links in new browser tabs (updated to clarify why we’ve put Dontclick.it in this post). More About: Nightmare , Future , Mouse
Web standards checklist
2007-10-05 09:08:00 Web standards - more than just 'table-free sites'The term web standards can mean different things to different people. For some, it is 'table-free sites', for others it is 'using valid code'. However, web standards are much broader than that. A site built to web standards should adhere to standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, DOM, MathML, SVG etc) and pursue best practices (valid code, accessible code, semantically correct code, user-friendly URLs etc).In other words, a site built to web standards should ideally be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly.1. Quality of code1.1 Does the site use a correct Doctype?A doctype (short for 'document type declaration') informs the validator which version of (X) HTML you're using, and must appear at the very top of every web page. Doctypes are a key component of compliant web pages: your markup and CSS won't validate without them.1.2 Does the site use a Character set?If a user agent (eg. a browser) is... More About: Standards
Browser Tests, Services and Compatibility Test Suites
2007-10-04 16:32:00 Cross-browser compatibility is still one of the most complex issues when it comes to web-development. Web standards usually guarantee a (relatively) high degree of consistency, however no browser is perfect and particularly older browsers have always been quite good at surprising web-developers with their creative understanding of (X)HTML/CSS-code. Still you need to make sure that (at least) most visitors of your web-site can use it, navigate through it and find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible.Browser s Test s Are NecessaryThe truth is that a) you never know who might type in your url in his/her navigation toolbar and b) the browser-environment is still very quirky and the risk of inconsistent presentation is simply too high to ignore it. For instance, different browsers and operating systems use different techniques for rendering fonts (Win vs. Mac on handling fonts). The font size isn’t identical on different platforms and some fonts might not be installed on the... More About: Services , Tests , Compatibility
40 Firefox Extensions for Web Designers
2007-10-04 16:24:00 Web Developer Web Developer adds a handy toolbar with lots of options that are useful for web developers.IWebToolA webmaster’s toolbar with over 30 different tools.Load Time AnalyzerThe Load Time Analyzer allows developers to measure and graph how long web pages take to load in Firefox .FirebugFirebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.CSSViewerA simple add-on that lets you view CSS properties quickly and easily.EditCSSAllows you to edit the stylesheet right in your sidebar.CSS ValidatorWith one click you can quickly validate a page using the CSS validator from W3C (opens results in a new tab).ValidatyOne-click validation from W3C’s validator.HTML ValidatorAdds HTML Validation information inside the browser as you are viewing pages. Shows the number of errors for each page.Total ValidatorThis add-on performs multiple validations and takes ... More About: Extensions , Designers
Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries
2007-10-04 09:13:00 One of the things my team has been working to enable has been the ability for .NET developers to download and browse the source code of the .NET Framework libraries, and to easily enable debugging support in them.Today I'm excited to announce that we'll be providing this with the .NET 3.5 and VS 2008 release later this year.We'll begin by offering the source code (with source file comments included) for the .NET Base Class Libraries (System, System.IO, System.Collections, System.Configuration, System.Threading, System.Net, System.Security, System.Runtime, System.Text, etc), ASP.NET (System.Web), Windows Forms (System.Windows.Forms), ADO.NET (System.Data), XML (System.Xml), and WPF (System.Windows). We'll then be adding more libraries in the months ahead (including WCF, Workflow, and LINQ). The source code will be released under the Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL).You'll be able to download the .NET Framework source libraries via a standalone install (allowing you to use any... More About: Source , Code , Source Code , Ework
Convert Web Page URLs to PDFs on the fly
2007-10-02 09:57:00 LOOP is a unique extension for Firefox that converts the web browser into a proper PDF writer that can do some amazing things sometime not possible in other free PDF conversion software.First and foremost, as you are browsing the web, click the Add URL button and that webpage will be converted to PDF almost immediately - the entire process requires a single click. You can continue browsing and keep adding more URLs to the PDF queue - all the PDF conversions will happen in the background with interrupting your work.If you have any local documents (like Word, Powerpoint, Excel or Images), LOOP for Firefox will convert those as well to PDF files - click the "add file" button.And finally, there's a "Combine All" button which will merge all the PDFs that you added to the queue and will create one PDF file out of them. You can also reorder the pages in the Combined PDF with the "move up" or "move down" buttons.Pretty innovative and useful extension. Requires you to create a quick account... More About: Page , Convert , The Fly , Vert
Download & Save Flash Animation Files in Firefox or IE
2007-10-02 09:52:00 Download and save Shockwave Flash swf files from the web browser to your hard disk using Firefox or Internet Explorer. There's a good chance that the animation or cartoon game you want to download was created using Flash. Use these tips for downloading Flash files from the Internet to your hard drive. You save all Flash animations from web pages, including Flash websites, Flash game, Flash Animation s, Flash Tutorials, Flash Movie Trailers, Flash Advertisements, or what ever Flash files you find in the web.Shockwave Games, Website elements, Screencasts (software demos) created in Macromedia Flash (swf) always fascinate me. I generally like to save these flash files embedded in webpages to my hard-drive for offline viewing.But saving flash animations from websites is not so easy. Macromedia Flash player context menu has no option to download or save the Flash movie from the web browser. The right-click context menu of most browsers won't work on Flash objects. So I will share some t... More About: Download , Files
Bypass Censorship, Unblock All Restricted Websites With Opera Simulator
2007-10-02 09:29:00 Internet filters are active everywhere - Flickr is banned in Iran & UAE, BBC & Wikipedia are blocked in China, Blogspot blogs are banned in Pakistan, YouTube & Photobucket are prohibited for US army overseas while social sites like Bebo, MySpace or Facebook may be banned in your office.Some companies even block access to mail websites like Yahoo or GMail under the pretext of security.Click To PlayIn the past, we have discussed atleast a dozen methods to help you access blocked websites that are banned in your office, school or by the government of your country. Here's a new method for unblocking websites - you'll probably enjoy it more than the previous hacks because it takes the geekiness out of the whole process and make it extremely easy to access blocked URLs.Opera provides a free online tool called Opera Mini Simulator that emulates the Opera mobile phone browser on your desktop computer. The tool is done in java and is quite popular among web designers for testin... More About: Censorship , Websites , Strict
Shared Stuff - new technology from Google
2007-09-28 15:49:00 Google recently introduced a new technology called Shared Stuff which allows you to share any web page, email or links with friends. Shared Stuff saves your shared page in a separate page similar to your profile page which is publicly visible or not on the web according to your settings.‘A Shared Stuff page is a collection of all the links that you want to share online with friends’.You can bookmark the Shared Stuff button in your browser for easy access. Whenever you see the Google sharing button, on the sites, click it to share the current webpage in whatever way you preferThis widget offers following three main ways to share content with your friends and family. 1. Add the item to your Google Shared Stuff page, 2. Email the page, with a custom message and 3. Posting the page to some related social bookmarking sites More About: Google , Technology
Compress your CSS to increase loading speed
2007-09-28 15:46:00 CSS Drive is a free utility to compress your CSS to increase loading speed of your web page and save on bandwidth as well.You can choose from three levels of compression like Light, Normal and Super Compact, depending on how legible you want the compressed CSS to be versus degree of compression. The "Normal" mode should work well in most cases, creating a good balance between the two. More About: Speed , Compress , Loading
The Web Design Survey, 2007
2007-04-30 08:28:00 Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?It’s time we learned the answers to these and other questions about web design. And nobody is better qualified than the readers of A List Apart to provide the answers. Participate in our first annual survey to increase knowledge of web design and boost respect for the profession. Selected participants, chosen by random drawing, will win one free ticket to An Event Apart event held in the continental U.S.; an Apple 30GB video iPod, an Event Apart jump driveDepending on how you answer it, the survey has up to 37 questions, nearly all of them multiple choice. A fluent English speaker s... More About: Web Design , Design , Survey , Sign
What’s in my menubar?
2007-04-30 07:34:00 Seems like every time another Mac user looks over my shoulder, they freak out over the number of little icons I have up in my menubar. And — like all Mac geeks — we have to immediately start trading information, learning tricks, and sharing tips. I’m sure you know the drill by now.If you were looking over my shoulder right now (and I hope that you are not) here’s the stuff you’d see in my menubar. The larger version on the Flickr will, where appropriate, let you mouseover for the name and a link, but I’ll save you the trouble of a click by repeating the links below.Adium - excellent IM app Skitch - Beta of a mind-blowing screen capture app Twitterrific - Gives me my Twitter crack iScrobbler - Relays my “now playing” info to Last.fm quicksilver - Duh. It’s Quicksilver Spirited Away - Handy app that hides non-active apps. As seen in my MacBreak demo. Would benefit from an update to Universal Binary ChronoSync - Very cool app for keeping two folders synced Growl - Not... More About: Menu
Why Do Intelligent Internet Entrepreneurs Get Involved in Such Sleazy Stuff
2007-04-30 06:48:00 Have you ever met a fairly smart person and then watch their activities in business and just wanted to puke? It certainly gives entrepreneurship a bad name. Indeed, it makes me sick to my stomach. Why do they stoop so low? Well it appears that they do it because it works and that there is a sucker born every minute and rather than having a little integrity and ethics they simply get down to the lowest common denominator and take peoples money.But why do they do it; that is to say; Why Do Intelligent Intern et Entrepreneurs Get Involved in Such Sleazy Stuff ? I know for a fact that they do not have too, they are smart enough to figure out a better way and yet will not? It is such a shame to see bright people do this and it makes all business people look bad. It puts a tarnished image on the business community and makes an already skeptical public even more weary. And some of the hype marketing out there is utterly ridiculous.My theory is that folks are just lazy, both rich and poor, sm...
SEO Guidelines for Website
2007-04-28 06:04:00 Designing 1. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.2. Java script and CSS should be defined in a separate file.3. Avoid toggle4. Remove unnecessary spaces5. Use instead of 6. Linking level should not be exceeding more than 3 levels.7. Try to avoid nested tables/Div, DIV based website is best as per SEO point of view. Search engines can easily crawl DIV based site.8. Review and remove Hidden text or hidden links. (Due to CSS sometimes it happens by mistake).9. Links should be properly working. Remove 404 error links.10. Use colors to distinguish Visited and Unvisited colors11. Avoid pop ups12. Maintain Uniformity throughout the website. Development 1. Java script should be in separate file.2. Try to reduce code by using functions and include files.3. Database should be optimized. (To load pages faster, we can decrease response time).4. Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These tech... More About: Website , Guidelines , Line , Lines , Guideline
Click Usability & Accessibility
2007-04-23 20:52:00 An overview of what impaired users encounter when using in accessible websites. More About: Click , Usability , Clic , Bili , Accessibility
Google - Click Privacy
2007-04-20 18:21:00 Three public-interest groups are expected to file a joint complaint on Friday with the Federal Trade Commission calling for an investigation into the potential threat to consumer privacy posed by Googl e 's planned acquisition of DoubleClic k . The Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), along with the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG), are asking the FTC to stop the $3.1 billion merger until the trade commission investigates Google's data collection and storage practices, orders DoubleClick to sweep out its data storehouse and requires the search giant to offer a public plan for safeguarding consumer privacy.
Collection of useful resources
2007-04-20 18:14:00 PlotKit - Javascript Chart PlottingJavaScript library for creating graphs. [via Hackszine]phpMyIDA single script for hosting your own single OpenID identity. Easy to set up with Apache. (IIS with ISAPI_rewrite, hard.) Supports the sreg extension.OpenID Enabled: Simple Registration ExtensionHere's the "sreg stuff" for OpenID. Avatars aren't mentioned in the spec.Pavatar - Recognize me!Avatar auto-discovery standard. Seems like a natural fit with OpenID. This should be added to the optional sreg stuff.Vitamin Features: Serving JavaScript FastCal on caching, chunking, compression, and integrating all of the above with a workflowUser Script CompilerTurn any Greasemonkey script into a full-on Firefox extension (Add-On). [via Spun]PodCorps: Recording Spoken-Word Events WorldwideDoug Kaye's latest venture.Doug Kaye's PodCorps launches todayJon Udell on public-service podcasting. Excellent ideas here. "This isn't podcasting to build audiences and 'monetize' downloads. It's podcastin... More About: Resources , Resource , Useful , Sources , Coll
Don't be a hero: Giving up is good
2007-04-20 18:09:00 Everyone wants to be a hero. Techies especially so. And there are special occasions where true glory awaits the hero. When there’s a crisis, it can pay to just carry on no matter what. Get the problem solved and celebrate victory. Winning through shear effort.But most days are not like that. Most features need not heroes. They need realists. People who are willing to give up and walk away. Being a hero is all about sitting aside all costs and winning anyway. That’s not a prudent way to drive everyday development.Here’s the problem: You agree that feature X can be done in two hours. But four hours into it, you’re still only a quarter of the way done. The natural instinct is to think “but I can’t give up now, I’ve already spent four hours on this!”.So you go into hero mode. Determined to make this work, but also embarrassed that it isn’t already so. So the hero grabs his hermit cape and isolates himself from feedback. “I really need to get this done, so I’ll turn... More About: Giving , Good , Hero , Ving
Blinksale Send Invoice Online
2007-04-19 17:34:00 Blinksale is perfect for anyone who needs to invoice clients for services or products sold. Blinksale is an excellent choice for attorneys, accountants, designers, IT professionals, software developers, journalists, contractors, engineers, architects, videographers, and more. Basically, if you need to send invoices, Blinksale can work for you. More About: Online , Send , Line , VOIC , Blink
MySpace takes on Google News and Digg
2007-04-19 17:10:00 MySpace is going into the news business with a service that will scour the internet for news stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure. This approach blends elements of Google News and sites such as Digg and Netscape, which rely on readers to submit stories and determine their prominence. It also marks the site’s ambitions to become a web portal like Yahoo!, providing its users with a front door to the internet. MySpace, which is owned by News Corp, also the parent company of Times Online, will display headlines from external new sites, a practice that attracted legal challenges when Google used it for its news service.The search engine recently reached a settlement with Agence France-Presse after the news agency claimed that Google had infringed its copyright.Dan Strauss, who headed the group that developed MySpace News, said that publishers would be able to opt out of the service if they didn’t want their stories to appear on it. He also said that medi... More About: Myspace , Google News
Froogle dumped for Hot Babe
2007-04-19 16:46:00 Froogle has been renamed “Google Product Search” says Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search & User Experience. It also sports a redesign, and product results are now returned at the top of normal Google search results at appropriate times.Thus ends the name Froogle as a Google brand. It was launched in 2002, never really went anywhere, and was unceremoniously dumped from the Google home page last year in favor of video search. Traffic to the site fell dramatically. More About: Froogle , Babe
StumbleUpon and Google's StumbleUpon clone
2007-04-19 12:06:00 Just as StumbleUpon (a popular toolbar that recommends web pages) is rumored to have been acquired by eBay (congrats, Garrett!), Googl e personalization guru Sep Kamvar announces a similar feature integrated into the Google Toolbar.StumbleUpon recommends web pages based on pages you explicitly rate while the Google Toolbar recommendation feature learns from the implicit information in your Google search history to determine what kinds of web pages you seem to like. In my usage, both return a lot of misses and some hits, enough hits to be fun and occasionally useful exploration tools. More About: Clone , Lone , Stumbleupon , Bleu
~Difference between Microsoft 1.0 and Microsoft 2.0~
2007-04-19 11:43:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Today there is some talk about Google creating a new feature for their Google Toolbar which is a personal attack against StumbleUpon. I don't agree with this argument. It's not the exact same thing. But more importantly this new feature just gives Google more and more information about you. I wonder if sites that use Adsense or Adwords will get more dice rolls than others?If we look at Micro soft back in the 80's and early 90's, they would look at what their competition was doing, and then incorporate that into the next release of their software. Google is doing the exact same thing. BUT. Yes, there is a BUT.In the Microsoft 1.0 time, it was different. Software took months or years to get out so implementing these changes took time. With Microsoft 2.0 (Google), it can take mere minutes to create the same technology. In the case of this new Toolbar feature, once they complete the development and testing, they can roll it o... More About: Difference , Ferenc , Ween
Bottled Water, Bottled Hype
2007-04-19 11:19:00 Have you ever stopped to think about just how incredibly odd it is to buy bottled water?My mother would always argue that there was no need to BUY water when you could get it from the tap. I always rolled my eyes and assumed that my mother simply didn't GET IT. Not that I buy a lot of bottled water. But I do occasionally purchase it, if only to avoid drinking soda machine excretions when I treat myself to a veggie burger at Burger King. But I'm only recently coming to understand just how ludicrous the whole thing is. Really, think about it: America has some of the best civil infrastructure in the world. Most Americans have clean drinking water piped directly into their sinks. Yet, we persist in buying the bottled stuff. Sales of bottled water topped $35 billion in 2003, and have gone up steadily since. Bottle d water costs consumers of the Starbucks Ethos brand roughly $9.85 per gallon, just a tad more than gasoline. Oh, wait - yes, that's triple the cost of gasoline. Now, not eve... More About: Water , Hype , Bottled Water
Google 411 from Google Labs
2007-04-18 06:19:00 Right after Microsoft acquired TellMe, Googl e Labs has launched a local search using voice recognition at 1-800-GOOG-411.In my tests, Google Voice Local Search worked fairly well, good enough that I intend to use it for most local searches from my cell phone. Others report more mixed results.Some of the reaction to to this has been interesting. Paul Kedrosky says, "Google just killed the directory assistance business," a statement that probably gives too much credit to Google, but may accurately describe the long-term trend.Tim O'Reilly mentions Googler Peter Norvig's love for big data and wonders if this is "designed to harvest voice data to build Google's own speech database" to create a "competitive advantage in speech recognition."Probably true, but I doubt that is their primary motivation. Rather, I suspect they are trying to work around the UI problems of search on mobile devices.I am convinced that the long-term success of mobile search will require overcoming the issue of... More About: Google Labs
Understand Microsoft's CloudDB?
2007-04-18 06:10:00 It appears that Micro soft is working on a clone of Google's BigTable codenamed Blue/Cloud DB.Mary Jo Foley reports that "CloudDB is a file-system-based storage system ... 'Blue' also seems to refer to the query processor that builds on top of the cheap, file-system-based storage enabled by CloudDB."That sounds quite similar to BigTable, a distributed database built on top of GFS.It seems hard to track down any other information about this effort. I was able to find a microsoft job posting for a senior SDE that says:Our team is building a geo-distributed, reliable and high performance internet facing service. You will help internal and external partners to realize Microsoft's vision of seamless access to your data - anywhere, anytime, any device.You will learn about the Blue/CloudDB storage system, you will work on an API definition, solve problems around security and Quality of Service guarantees.Do you find it fascinating to build a service that is scalable, geo-distributed, has... More About: Loud , Understand , Under
Google buys PowerPoint editor
2007-04-18 06:02:00 Filling in a hole in its Googl e Apps suite, Google has acquired Tonic Systems, which provides a set of tools for the online editing, viewing, and sharing of presentations created with Microsoft PowerPoint . Tonic Systems describes itself as "Java PowerPoint Specialists." Google says it will incorporate Tonic's technology into a new presentation service that will be added this summer to Apps.Tonic's TonicPoint tools allow you to open a PowerPoint presentation with your web browser, edit it, add new slides to it, extract text and images from it, and save the edited version in various formats. What makes TonicPoint particularly interesting, in the context of Google's ambitions, is that you don't have to have a copy of PowerPoint installed on your PC to open and edit a PowerPoint file with the tools. You only need the file. You can, effectively, work in a Microsoft app without buying the Microsoft app.As with Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets, Google seems to be designing Google Pr... More About: Powerpoint , Editor
Website Usability Roles and Definitions
2007-04-14 07:15:00 What is the Definitions and Role s of Usability ?efficiency with which a user can perform required tasks with a product, for example, a website. Usability can be measured objectively via performance errors and productivity, and subjectively via user preferences and interface characteristics. Web design features that affect usability include navigation design and content layout.That quality of a system that makes it easy to learn, easy to use and encourages the user to regard the system as a positive help in getting the job done. User A person who uses a system to perform a business function.Usability is a multidimensional attribute that relates to the impact a product has on its end-users. In general it refers to the efficiency with which a customer can do their tasks with the product, and their overall satisfaction with that process. Usability should be considered from a systems perspective including the hardware and software interfaces, the documentation, packaging, and any other co... More About: Website , Bili
The IT Factor
2007-04-14 06:59:00 What is the current role of IT? A quick Google search gives us a few options:Includes all matters concerned with the furtherance of computer science and technology and with the design, development, installation, and implementation of information systems and applications; a term that encompasses all forms of technology used to create, store, exchange and utilize information in its various forms including business data, conversations, still images, motion pictures and multimedia presentations; Information technology provides the "engine" used to drive useful information systems. This includes computers, software, Internet/Intranet and telecommunications technology. The term "IT" encompasses the methods and techniques used in information handling and retrieval by automatic means. The means include computers, telecommunications and office systems or any combination of these elements.The technology of computers, telecommunications, and other devices that integrate data, equipment, person... More About: Factor , Actor
Google Acquire DoubleClick
More articles from this author:2007-04-12 21:07:00 Google Inc. announced today a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleClic k Inc., a global leader in digital marketing technology and services, for $3.1 billion in cash from San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman along with JMI Equity and management. The acquisition will combine DoubleClick's expertise in ad management technology for media buyers and sellers with Google's leading advertising platform and publisher monetization services.The combination of Google and DoubleClick will offer superior tools for targeting, serving and analyzing online ads of all types, significantly benefiting customers and consumers:For users, the combined company will deliver an improved experience on the web, by increasing the relevancy and the quality of the ads they see.For online publishers, the combination provides access to new advertisers, which creates a powerful opportunity to monetize their inventory more efficiently.For agencies and advertisers, Google and DoubleClick will... More About: Google , Acquire , Googl , Doubleclick 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
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