Category Archives: Usability
Flash pre-deployment pattern
Here’s a little pattern I made for«homework» about the integration of usability in a website. Now that I’m nearly on holiday I found the time to transform it for Flash only. This pattern is more developer oriented (but can overlap the designer work). Also these are the kind of thing « a bit boring »… Read More »
Internet Explorer 7 : Quick Tabs
It’s not often that I speak happily from Internet Explorer (IE) because of all the time they make me loose … But this time they have made a nice update to IE (only for Internet Explorer 7), the QuickTabs (Ctrl + Q) button will, once clicked, show you all the tabs you have opened in… Read More »
Using your tongue to interact with your PC
[…]At the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, researchers are developing a system that will use the tongue as the interface[…] […]Everything nowadays is so ubiquitous with mobile computing, and we need to find new, hands-free ways of interacting for environments where your hands and eyes are busy[…] From Sci-Tech Today … Read More »
Usability Resources List
In no particular order here are some link to usability resources, don’t hesitate to complete it 😉 Flash Usability Alertbox: Jakob Nielsen’s Newsletter Heuristic Evaluation Usability News Usability News 2/ Usability News 3/ Adaptive path » user experience publications Web Pages That Suck Web Design from Scratch InfoDesign Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites… Read More »
Internet Explorer 7 really don’t like Swf
Update:(July 26 2007)To avoid this behavior you need to load your Flash via Javascript. For this you can use the SWFObject, I made an extension for Dreamweaver to ease the use of it. In IE7 there is one more thing that they add that I find completely useless and unusable. There is now a little… Read More »
Internet Explorer 7 don’t like Swf
Update:(July 26 2007)To avoid this behavior you need to load your Flash via Javascript. For this you can use the SWFObject, I made an extension for Dreamweaver to ease the use of it. I just wanted to make a quick test of my website with IE7 beta 2, thinking that all would work normally but… Read More »
First online video in the “Great Minds in Development” series
Microsoft (DevSource), had put online a nice vidéos series “Great Minds in Development”. The First is with Jakob Nielsen, he talks about : Recognise that developer are not average people. Developer thinks what they do is simple to use, but it’s simple for them. Importance of prototyping, or you’ll loose time. User testing can be… Read More »
Opera and Css
I have just reinstall Opera since it is free and I want my website to be cross platform. I used it a bit, and went to labs.macromedia.com and I noticed that even them had trouble with Opera. Normally we shall see this: With Opera (8.5 on mac and pc) we see this: When will we… Read More »
Help search engines indexing your Flash content
Update: I have presented a clearer model to help search engines index your Flash content with a minimal work. Bad referencing in search engine is the only point that really bothers me with Flash. Why is it so hard for search engines to understand Flash content? Because it’s not text like they use to read… Read More »
The Benefits of Making your Website Accessible
According to Trenton Moss of Webcredible (http://www.webcredible.co.uk), there are seven reasons to make your website accessible : Your website will be easier to update Your website will be compatible with new browsing technologies Your website will appear higher in the search engines You will not have to incur legal fees The download time of your… Read More »
Flash + Usability = Love !
One more Top 10 Mistakes In Web Design, which include Flash. Here’s my personal answer about this topic. The Mistakes #3 according: http://www.bootstrike.com Flash, Director and Java Usage Flash, Java is cool. Shockwave, cooler. Director, awesome! They are good, but it brings a host of disadvantages to a site using it – * Can’t be… Read More »
Target Resolution Safe Area
Here’s a little table that I take from the book “Usability for the Web“(designing web sites that work). Target Platform Space Used by the Browser Target : 640 x 480 Target: 800 x 600 Target: 1024 x 768 PC Internet Explorer 43 x 160 597 x 320 757 x 440 981… Read More »
Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye
“Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors,” [Lindgaard] Here a nice publication informing that potential readers can make snap decision in just 50 milliseconds and the first impression last. It’s also well known that the crucial… Read More »
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
On useit.com I found a nice topics about the Top Ten Design Mistakes for Weblogs : 1. No Author Biographies 2. No Author Photo 3. Nondescript Posting Titles 4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go 5. Classic Hits are Buried 6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation 7. Irregular Publishing Frequency 8. Mixing Topics 9.… Read More »