Why do I care about PageRank? It’s not like I have, nor desire, any ads. I don’t even have much traffic. Yet, recently when my pageRank went from 4 to 5 in the google toolbar, I got this warm feeling. It makes me wonder if there is a UX nugget in here somewhere. How can…
I often see technology out there that is solid, but lacking a tiny bit of the details from a UX perspective. Or I would like to extend it a little bit more for a UX reason. When that happens, every once in a while, someone tells me I am “complaining” and says, “Why don’t you…
I actually am having trouble finding a decent Design Pattern for a Tree. A tree is a critical user interface element and is being used more and more on applications. Since, I can’t find one, I am going to quickly summarize the pattern I proscribe. Let’s start with the EXT JS Tree. This tree is…
I have been getting a little bit on a roll with the book. I got one chapter approved and another chapter written in first draft form. I like the style of it. I hope the publisher can get me an illustrator. There are tons of pictures and my reliance on Microsoft Clip Art is pretty…
My bosses recently purchased an Ikea couch. I won’t go into all the details, but here is the salient point: The directions did not have a single word. All pictures. I liked it very much. It was international. I found the directions clear and concise. Good job. Interesting, there is an ikeaFans.com website. It says…
Microsoft just released a new upgrade to their Maps site. (I still think its a horrible name, maps.microsoft.com would be smarter) Anyway, it’s a good upgrade. The bird’s eye view is so much better than anything Google Maps has to offer. The Google street view is interesting, but in reality, I use the bird’s eye…
There is an old story that I like, but I can’t find it on the web. It goes something like this: This was back in the days of large servers with big vacuum tubes. A major server stopped working, causing panic in a large corporation. All work ground to a halt. The engineers could not…
Although it was a rocky beginning, (see resolution) I have really fallen in love with EXT, specifically the 2.0 release (currently in beta.) The quality of the interaction design is top-notch. Jack Slocum has the extremely rare combination of talents including programming, visual design, interaction design and CSS. He is able to take the modern…
As a follow up to the Filespots review, someone at Freshlogic asked me to review their competitor called Folders. Although I feel that my expertise should be PAID for, I still can’t help myself. Someone asking me to write a review of a cool new Web 2.0 app? What can I do? Maybe I should…
Recently, I have been getting alot of comments fall into the Akismet net. I am experimenting with a Captcha plugin for WordPress. A captcha forces the user to type in a word before they can comment. Spambots can not read the words, so only human beings can make it work. The one I am trying…
I think Opera has a chance to do something really awesome. Assuming that the technology was possible. They should release a browser with Opera, IE6, IE7, FF and Webkit rendering engines built in. They should enable a <META> tag to indicate on the page WHICH rendering engine to use. Default would be Opera, of course. …
I was looking at Technorati just now. Some really neat features. It has a way to claim your blog on it. So this post does that. I need to link to my Technorati Profile and it should work. I will review the UX of Technorati later when I get a little experience with it.
It appears that Amazon is widely testing a new homepage. I took some screenshots of the old and the new. You can get the new page by deleting your cookies and refreshing the page. Looks like it might even be a 50/50 split. Additionally, they have information about the redesign here. At first, I was…
Last month, my brother and his wife got us a new toaster. Our toaster was old and crusty, but it had a simplicity that I liked. It had a dial for temperature and “toast” lever. You pressed the toast lever and when you heard the bell, BING, the toast was done. It was a small…