Convert interface-centric questions into tasks for better user testing
— 10 Mar 2014
A useful trick for improving usability scripts. Identify a design-centric question, for example: "What does this red dot mean?" Write the ideal answer, in this case: "The red dot is the number of items needed to…
Human/machine readable format for titling links in Tweets
— 22 Jan 2010
Summary Give your Tweeted links titles by using the following format: "This is my link title": http://example.org/ Raison d'être Link titles enable us to add meaning to links. This is especially beneficial for…
Give me your links
— 6 Nov 2008
Someone just asked me if they can email me stuff from delicious, you can – here's how: You do it with a for: tag… When you're adding a link to delicious, just tag that link with for:{{username}} i.e. my username is…
Trusting the Cloud
— 9 Jul 2008
I've seen various articles recently, asking should we trust ('cloud based' apps such as) Google Docs for serious work? Overlooking the fact that Google Docs doesn't offer the functionality that some clients seem to…
Logos on Homepages
— 26 Jun 2008
In the context of the homepage, the image itself is part of the content, so it should be shown as an IMG inside an H1 – not a background in that H1. On other pages, however, it makes sense for the image to be the…
Mad Dogs and Enlgish Wine
— 4 Mar 2008
Henry (who talks at the Geek Wine Thing) and Andy from The Butlers Wine Cellar are doing a 2000 KM cycling trip to raise: money for the the Chestnut Tree House children’s hospice and…awareness of quality English…
Geek Wine Thing – Back for 2008
— 29 Jan 2008
Having just spoken to Henry from The Butlers Wine Cellar, I'm pleased to announce that the Geek Wine Thing is back for 2008. You can register on upcoming. We haven't agreed a theme yet, so please feel free to suggest…
3 Ways to Improve Your Website Based on Statistics
— 8 Nov 2007
Website stats contain so much data that it can be hard to know what to do with that information. Here are 3 ways that you can use statistics to make your site better: Look for the most frequent search term and work…
Emotional Engagement
— 8 Nov 2007
For several months now I've been irritated by a pair of annoying pop-ups (modal dialog boxes to be precise) that appear, one after the other, every time I start iTunes. This is the SRS iWOW plug-in telling me that my…
Week of SkillSwaps
— 1 Nov 2007
I'm helping organize a Week of SkillSwaps as part of the Brighton Digital Festival and I happy to announce that 5 sessions have now been confirmed. Links for Booking Photography 101 with Jane Dallaway Master…
Ugly Beautiful
— 18 Oct 2007
I've recently noticed a trend towards ugly marketing: lingscars.com (Via Tom Nixon)Skills Matter's HTML emailsReally ugly email from BordersI don't know yet whether I love it or hate it.
Keeping Things Public
— 12 Oct 2007
By default I always assume that things are public unless there's good reason to make it private. Of course I would always make sure that those involved are in the know before anything gets published.
A Flickr API Method for Getting Note Coordinates Please
— 18 Jul 2007
I recently did a rough interface design for an image grouping tool that a client has requested. Having uploaded the file to Flickr, I added some notes explaining how it would work. What I want now is a way of getting…
Art Meddler Blog
— 12 Jul 2007
Recently I've been working with Ben Sauer on an art-related web application, working title: Art Meddler. So far we've: Gone through the ideation stageMocked-up a few design ideas in paper (I think we might do more of…
Brighton's Homogenous Networks
— 12 Jul 2007
The Sussex Innovation Centre on the University of Sussex campus houses about 70 companies. I'm hoping that events like this morning's Open Coffee Sussex meet-up will bring what I perceive to be Brighton's two…
Idea for a £5 App: Snipget
— 4 Jul 2007
A central repository for your code snippets. A simple API means you can get (and manage) your snippets from any supporting 3rd party application. Snippets are discreet, taggable and shareable (and have their own…
Showing Impoortance in File-based Bug Management
— 28 Jun 2007
A while ago, when I talked about file-based bug management, I mentioned using colour coding in Apple's Finder to indicate priority… Since the finder allows labeling of files, some idea of the priority of a task can…
Themes for the Second Geek Wine Thing
— 11 Jun 2007
[update June 15th 2007] I've put a wiki up for the event, the only stuff on it at time of posting is a page where you can suggest ideas for future tasting themes (there's a list of past themes on that page too). The…
A Better ReadSpeaker Implementation
— 29 May 2007
Ben and I have recently been working on a project to improve the accessibility of a website we've been involved with for some time. One of the decisions we took early on in the project was to make the page…
Innagural Geek Wine Thing
— 23 May 2007
Last night was the inaugural Geek Wine Thing and it was a real success. So I want to say thank you to everyone who came, including Henry and Will from The Butlers Wine Cellar. This was the first time I've taken…
Geek Wine Thing Update
— 18 May 2007
I recently posted an introduction to the Geek Wine Thing. For those attending, a quick note: you have to sign-up on upcoming. Unfortunately all places are taken now. However, if you add a comment saying you want to…
StripMe.org
— 18 May 2007
Hot on the heels of my recent post about stripping comments from CSS… Dave called saying he'd written a PHP script which did exactly what I needed. He gave me a test address and sure enough it worked. I immediately…
Where I work
— 17 May 2007
This is also where the Geek Wine Tasting is going to be held. Zooming into a birds-eye-view of the building I work in. Other file formats are available on Revver: http://one.revver.com/watch/271594 Done with Snapz…
Enjoying CSSEdit 2.5
— 15 May 2007
I've recently upgraded to a CSS editor called, surprisingly enough, CSSEdit and have been really impressed. One of things I've been quick to start using is the application's group feature. This allows me to break my…
Idea: CSS Comment Stripper
— 14 May 2007
Update: StripMe.org is live. Yandleblog post about it. I recently read a post on a local mailing list where someone emphatically said "style sheets should not have comments in them. Ever." (or something along those…
Certificates are Irrelevat in New Media
— 23 Apr 2007
Rosie is against certification , and I have to agree with her. Certificates measure a persons abilities in a specific area at a given point in time. Whereas anyone working in new media has to be constantly learning…
Geek Wine Thing
— 12 Apr 2007
Update: http://yandleblog.com/2007/05/geek-wine-thing-update.html Some of you may have heard me talk about the 'Geek Wine Thing'. Well it looks like it might go ahead. Tuesday the 22nd of May is the likely date.…
Are You Reading This?
— 30 Mar 2007
Well obviously you are but how do I know if you don't comment? Go on - massage my ego and tell me who you are.
Experimental Desktop
— 29 Mar 2007
Inspired by the following question (from Roger Johansson of 456 Berea St): Do you maximise your browser window? …and since I'm always telling people that the best upgrade they can make to their computer is to get…
Get into Adobe Apollo
— 29 Mar 2007
If you haven't heard of Apollo, this is how Adobe describe it: Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing Web development skills in HTML,…
Will the iPhone Feature Haptic Feedback?
— 28 Mar 2007
A common criticism of on-screen controls is the lack of physical feedback. This article (found via small surfaces) suggests that there may be an answer: http://touching-people.com/posts/view/23 Will/can the iPhone…
A Potential Tipping Point in Translation
— 7 Mar 2007
A colleague of mine asked me how the translation on a the Royal Ocean Racing Club website works, I explained that it was a free service offered by Google and that it could easily be applied to any site for free. (The…
To Little
— 7 Mar 2007
Web application designers have been using the 'less is more' mantra now for a few years but there is a growing trend towards applications that, in various ways, don't do enough. TODOLIST is a good example of this. I…
Useful Dashboard Widget: Minutes
— 1 Mar 2007
For those of you not familiar with CRON, 'Minutes' presents an easy way to trigger events in OS X. This is one of the few useful widgets I've found and it's pretty simple. Turn the knob to set counting time, the…
Get a better service in Google Mail
— 27 Feb 2007
Long story short: set your preferred language to be English (US) if you want a better service in Google Mail. I've been meaning to use Google Mail rather than Thunderbird for my email for a while now and just…
Another 'Upside-down' Interface
— 7 Feb 2007
Whenever I've tell friends or colleagues that mobile devices should present a more ergonomic interface where the keypad is above the screen, I'm met with with ridicule. So it's gratifying that I'm not alone: London…
Another Minor Flickr Success
— 6 Feb 2007
A couple of weeks ago a mentioned the Fabrica new years card. Well, now I've had another minor success in Flickr: This time a picture taken looking down into Victoria Station was used by SHiFT, an organisation that…
GUI Widgets Broken Link
— 23 Jan 2007
Ages ago I posted a link to an Illustrator file full of useful little GUI widgets to help with web application design. I'm not sure how many people actually got to see the file however because at some point I broke…
Organization Personas
— 17 Jan 2007
Jon Stahl has some Initial Thoughts on a “Plone For Nonprofits” bundle. The first comment beneath the blog post was to do with Linguaplone a plugin or 'product' for Plone which allows a site to be translated into…
Social Web Application Idea: Open Heuristics
— 17 Jan 2007
There are basically two steps (after registering): Site owners submit a website (or site section or even page) for heuristic evaluation.Evaluators submit a list of errors - each tagged with zero or more…
Fabrica New Years Card: A Minor Success for Flickr and the Creative Commons
— 16 Jan 2007
Just before Christmas I got a phone call from Fabrica (sorry I can't remember the persons name if you're reading this) asking for permission to use a photograph of mine that they'd found on Flickr for their new years…
Idea for a Widget: MyBlogPrefs
— 16 Jan 2007
Blogs that display a huge array of little icons asking the visitor to bookmark their site with services like Reddit or del.icio.us remind me of what 80s skaters referred to as victims – the kind of people who…
File-based Bug Management
— 4 Dec 2006
In 'Using things for other things Jon Hicks outlines little sort of hacks which involve using products in new ways, which inspired me to write this. Having tried and failed with monolithic more fully featured bug…
How to Make Setting up an Ecommerce Store as Easy as Logging into Flickr.
— 1 Dec 2006
Here's an outline for a website idea (that we shall call WebsiteX) that could make setting up an ecommerce store as easy as logging into Flickr. What Shopkeepers Do (Steps 1+2 aren't necessary for people with Flickr…
d.Construct 2007 Ideas
— 28 Nov 2006
I attended the d.Construct 2006 conference earlier this year and thought it was good but lacking in certain areas. Here are some areas that I would like to see covered next year:Ubiquitous Computing Usability and…
Avoid 'Demographics' in Personas
— 16 Nov 2006
In 'Bring Your Personas to Life!' Zef Fugaz suggests ways for us to get into our personas heads but I think there's something wrong with the language he uses in one part: "…may include information about the persona’s…
Clients: Don't Apologise for Submiting Bug Reports
— 16 Nov 2006
Right now Ben and I are putting the finishing touches to a Plone-based website for a client in Bolton. I just read an email from a client that started like this: Subject: feed bug P.B. wrote: > Sorry Danny these…
'Upside-down' Interfaces for Handhelds: Good. Reins on a Car: Bad
— 2 Nov 2006
I just saw Samsung/Bang & Olufsen's 'Serene' phone (found via a Signal Versus Noise post). These are my first impressions of the device: I would like to see more devices where the controls are at the top as this is…
Joining Google's Office Apps
— 31 Oct 2006
Recently I've seen complaints that Google have done a bad job of integrating top of thier office applications like Gmail, Docs & Spreadsheets, etc together - all they've done so far is show a row of links to each…
Cognitive Biases Cheat Sheet
— 11 Oct 2006
Cognitive biases cheat sheet is now available. This is just a repurposed Wikipedia page but if you're involved in user-centered design this may be useful to you.
Information Architecture Conversations
— 21 Sept 2006
Some good information architecture-related listening: Chiara Fox of Adaptive Path: Understanding Your Content Peter Morville of Semantic Studios: Ambient Findability
Integrating Plone with Other Systems
— 20 Sept 2006
From 'Plone Lovers Unite!: An Interview with Plone Conference Organizer Jon Stahl' Integration with other systems: Plone is really good at connecting with other technology systems. For example, it's really easy to…
Get Your Ideas Accepted
— 29 Jul 2006
Inspired by "Designing Through the Storm" If you’re sure that the client has missed an important point or made a decision without understanding the potential consequences, you’d be remiss if you didn’t make a calm,…
Nice Venue, Shame about the Newsletter
— 28 Jul 2006
Two of the best know Brighton Venues - The Brighton Dome and someday both need to improve their newsletters. KomediaI understand the idea that the black background creates a theatrical feel but the dark text just…
Cheap ≠ Inaccessible
— 27 Jun 2006
In answer to the question ' 1: Why are so many sites still inaccessible?' (in a recent interview for .Net magazine) Andy Budd said: …It is the responsibility of the web development profession to educate clients about…
What to do about WCAG2.0
— 6 Jun 2006
In this article on A List Apart, Joe Clark, author of Building Accessible Websites says 'To Hell with WCAG2': http://www.alistapart.com/articles/tohellwithwcag2 What do you think? Should we: stick with version 1try…
Road Trip Effect in Google Maps (update)
— 23 May 2006
In my first blog entry (just over a year ago), I suggested using Google Maps to create a roadtrip effect, well it seems someone's now done it (sort of). via: Oreilly Radar
Do You Really Need Search on your Website?
— 7 May 2006
Gerry McGovern : Gerry McGovern (a content management expert) asks 'Do you really need search on your website?' saying: You need to be doing ongoing analysis and refinement to ensure that your customers get the best…
Does Search Make Web Designers Redundant?
— 29 Apr 2006
In 'The Search Lurch: Have We Become Lazy Googlers or Smarter Web Researchers?', 4 distinguished internet luminaries answer questions on people's evolving use of search. While search provides users with a consistent…
Is Your Homepage Immature?
— 29 Apr 2006
adaptive path » is your homepage immature? This article gets across some good principals but when it comes to the 'Six Steps to Help Your Homepage Grow Up' a bias towards large corporate websites is in evedence -…
Firefox Flicks
— 2 Dec 2005
Obviously it should have come as no surprise that the folks over at Rocket Boom recorded a Firefox/IE survey today since the Mozilla foundation are actively encouraging a grass roots advertising campaign.
Add an Alias to the Applications Folder in Your OS X Installers
— 30 Nov 2005
I recently wrote about how easy the Gizmo installer for OS X was, it seems that this style is becoming a trend for installers, with the newly released Firefox 1.5 following suite. My only criticism of this design is…
Fluxiom
— 24 Nov 2005
fluxiom matches about as many web 2.0 criteria as any app I've seen and it's not even available yet.
New Plone-based Website for Local (Brighton) Gallery
— 23 Nov 2005
We just finished a new website for local gallery: Two Kats and a Cow. It's a fully editable Plone-based website and all the content added by it's owners (3 artists).
Gizmo Installer
— 16 Nov 2005
One of the complaints I have about open source software is that it's not always the easiest to use, however the Gizmo, an open source equivalent to Skype) has one of the best OS X installers I've seen. Under OS X you…
Movies Showing how to Use the Plone Content Management System
— 29 Sept 2005
Several movies demonstrating how to edit your website using the Plone content management system are now available for your viewing pleasure. Originally these movies were made available to BPMA (British Postal Museum…
Password-only Login
— 30 Aug 2005
Jason Fried at 37 Signals recently asked: …What benefits are gained by doing away with the username and password process and replacing it with a cryptic URL that you can’t remember?Users bookmarking unmemorable,…
Article about developing editable sites in Plone.
— 17 Aug 2005
After completing work on The British Postal Museum and Archive's Plone based website, I colaborated with the client to produce this article: Postal heritage and Plone, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love…
Some Websites I Designed
— 27 Jul 2005
This is not an exhaustive list, I've actually designed more than 50 websites, these are some of the more recent ones. AdbibKelmscott Manor Sue Bond PR British Postal Museum & Archive Youth Arts Online PeoplePlayUK…
GUI Widgets in Adobe Illustrator
— 24 May 2005
This is an Adobe Illustrator (version 10) document containg various useful GUI (graphical user interface) elements. I would really like to hear feedback about what needs to be added to make the thing more useful.…
PHP Password Generator
— 24 May 2005
Does anyone know of a PHP-based system which is capable of generating passwords from randomly chosen adjectives and nouns e.g. - savoury manlike oracle - exclusive malformed seal - old free papaya - etc. Maybe the…
The Road Trip Effect in Google Maps
— 14 May 2005
The Road Trip Effect is an OS X application which allows you to create map route animations of journeys. But it's limited to using a straight line between 2 points. A plugin could be written for Firefox that uses the…
