usability

On 9th March I swung by the session hosted by the Preloaded guys. Ten Commandments? The sheer (tongue-in) cheek of it intrigued me...

OK, so I know I was going to talk about the future of online font display this week, but I’ve changed my mind. I got kind of sidelined playing around with Typetester, so I’m going to talk about really useful tools for design development.

Typetester is an online application for comparing fonts for on-screen use. It handily puts fonts into three different groups:
• safe list
• Win default
• Mac default

The relative peace of these first three days back in the office has given me far too many opportunities to procrastinate on the rather impressive email mountain that's appeared in my inbox over the holidays. In a further, and I'd like to think, rather productive attempt to put off tackling this I cast an email out to the sages of the uk-netmarketing list hunting for 2008 predictions for digital media, either those they'd found online or, if brave enough, any of their own.

I love email. Well, I say love, what I actually mean is that it's my primary form of communication at work. Email can be great, especially if its well-crafted, but beware of what you send. Sometimes it can go badly wrong.

OK, so that's not strictly true and on the face of it not a great idea to put expensive and sophisticated electronic machinery into water. It might be fun to watch, and if blowing up things is your bag, try out some Smartie pyrotechnics à la Big Clive (Warning: not for the faint-hearted or children or chocolate lovers).

Site Testing
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - March 09, 2001

The uk-netmarketing list can be a very useful resource if you need a quick straw poll from a bunch of industry professionals. So, when Nick Horley asked for some advice for a friend thinking of offering site testing and re-writing services, there was plenty of advice on offer.

Are Users Stupid?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - February 16, 2001

In the heat of the moment, usually in the last minutes before a website is ready to go live, some smart Alec will pounce and ask why it's so difficult to use. Usability, essentially the practice of making something user-friendly [I'm paraphrasing a lot before all the experts pile in with length definitions], can help alleviate these problems.

Successful Conversion Rates
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 26, 2001

Working on a new website, or testing a new marketing tactic is always a tad nerve-wracking, especially when you don't have any previous results to compare your campaign against. There are so many factors involved in successfully converting a passing browser into an interested party, a benchmark for a 'successful' site can be a real help in working out whether you're on the right track.

The best tools for the job
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - June 2, 2000

The tussle between those who want graphical wizardry overriding concerns about the actual usability of a website tend to be ignited by pretty much any discussion of Flash.