an experiential adventure
An interesting article from British scientists using sophisticated eye tracking software about how we process information visually while we read. Sometimes our eyes are aligned on the same letter, sometimes they are unaligned and focused on different letters. And sometimes we’re cross-eyed.
Rosenfeld Media’s UX Zeitgeist deserves a bookmark for anyone involved in usability. I’m glad to see I’ve read at least 2 out of the top five recommended books.
Clearleft’s BETA application, Silverback, that caused so much curiosity from all of us has now been revealed to be a guerilla usability tool for low cost usability testing on OS X. Just as interesting about Silverback is Jon Hicks awesome guerilla icon and the impressive parallax technique developed by Paul Annett.
If you’re not a regular listener of the Boagworld weekly web design / development podcast then you need to subscribe to it. They’ve had a month off and are back with episode 116 and a new site redesign - don’t mention the cows because its the part Paul didn’t design and everyone mentions it. They also provide a full written transcript on their podcast page. And don’t mention Paul’s new way of referencing his supporting links in the podcast (in human non-friendly terms), we’re all smarter than that right. Ha ha.
Seriously, if you’re a professional in this industry this is a staple of your diet. Get to it.
Luke Wroblewski’s new book Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks is published by Rosenfeld Media and available in paperback or digital. Its also on my must read list for 2008.
Magus have produced the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 124: Defining, implementing and managing website standards. Its a hefty 85 pound price tag but for a company its small change when you think about it. (via Matt Robin)
Why Your Site Sucks is another good list of things you might fix on your website.
Daniel Lafreniere on Boxes and Arrows has written a great article on Extreme User Research and shows a solid example of its benefit on a recent web project. He says ask the call centre and helpdesk people to find out what the real users are about.