Web/Tech: August 2004 Archives
Skype just launched a public beta version of its new OS X client software. This means the Voice over IP software that has almost 10 million registered users is now on every major desktop platform -- another major step forward for the product and the people behind it. I've been playing with a pre-beta version of the OS X software, and had some difficulty. The new version does seem to be an improvement. I already have VoIP at home, but this will be quite useful when I'm traveling and find a broadband connection, among other things. At the moment, I'm finding the most intriguing feature of Skype to be its built-in encryption. Since the product also offers instant messaging, I now have something that none of the big IM vendors are bothering to offer individual end users like me: end-to-end encryption. I'm asking my IM "buddies" to consider switching to Skype for this reason. Especially when I'm on a wireless system, IM shouldn't be visible to the entire world. I had a conversation with Niklas Zennström, Skype's co-founder and CEO, yesterday. It's no secret that he has big ambitions for this product and company, and some of those ambitions are starting to be more clear. One is connecting with other kinds of gear than just PCs. Zennström told me that Skype is launching a set of APIs, or applications programming interfaces, to help hardware vendors put the product on their handsets and other equipment. He said Siemens is already doing so. I wish Skype was more open in some ways, such as using industry standards. But the company has done a lot right so far, and it's hard to argue with its achievements. (I'll have more on all this in tomorrow's column.) Skype is a true phenomenon of the Net.
[Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
Halley points us to a piece by Dan Bricklin wrote a while ago that explains RSS so clearly that you could varnish your furniture with it. Nice writing.
[Joho the Blog]
Important breaking news from wired.com:
Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the "I" in internet. At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net.
BTW, what is the recommended spelling for email, e-mail, etc. ?
Thanks to Robin Good's Latest News, I rediscovered useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Website and a great list of recommended books on web design and usability. It is worth checking out.
The SharePoint Links on the right nav of my blog have been updated. I've been remis, and there are lots of good bloggers out there. I still haven't found a good getting started document, though... if anyone can point me to one I'd be very grateful. The target audience is people who have very basic computer skills, and aren't very familiar with navigation concepts, etc., so it all has to be spelled out (and I'd really like to not have to write it ;-) For you RSS readers out there, here's the list:
- Amanda Murphy
- Arpans' Weblog
- DevHawk (Category)
- Drewby (rss)
- Eric Legault
- Frank Fischer (in German) (rss)
- Jan Tielen (rss)
- Jim Edelen (rss)
- JohnWe's Sharepoint Blog (rss)
- Lamont Harrington (rss)
- Patrick Tisseghem (rss)
- Point2Share (Daniel McPherson) (rss)
- Random Ramblings...
- RandomElements Blog
- SharePointBlogs.com (rss)
- Stramit's Blog
- Tangible Thoughts (rss)
- Tim Heuer (rss)
[LauraJ's Weblog]
Chatango is a lightweight flash based chat program that lets you put a chat window on your web page. If I'm online, you can chat with me. Otherwise you can leave me a message. I'm going to try it out in this post. If it proves to be useful, I'll give it a more thorough testing in my sidebar.
Comment - TrackBack
[Joi Ito's Web]
Just finished a brief heuristic evaluation of a client site, basing part of my feedback on a set of questions that I find quite useful for just about every IA-related project. Every information architect should always have a set of favorite questions in their back pocket; they really do come in handy.
I categorize mine into groups that correspond to the five areas that a user is most likely to interact with a site’s information architecture:
- Main page
- Search interface
- Search results
- Site-wide navigation
- Contextual navigation
This approach works for me because it underemphasizes the main page, which all too often garners way too much attention at the expense of the other areas. There are plenty of other ways to group IA heuristics: top-down versus bottom-up; search versus browse; content versus users versus context; by users’ information needs (e.g., known-item versus research versus open-ended); and so on. Pick what works best for you.
Ok, on to the questions (and some brief comments):
Main Page
- Does it support multiple ways to reach content? (By “ways,” I mean search, site-wide navigation, site index, site map, etc.)
- Does it highlight the best ways to reach content? (Supporting the few most useful ways of getting users to content is obviously more important and cost-effective than providing them with all possible ways.)
- Does it orient the user to what this site is about and content is available? (Important if there are many newbies visiting the site.)
- Does it serve users who have been here before and know what they’re looking for?
Search Interface
- Is it easy to find and consistently placed?
- Is it easy to use? (The simple "box" and a search button are usually sufficient and generally all a user will put up with during his first stab at searching.)
- Does it support revision/refinement? (Searching is an iterative process; hopefully your site acknowledges this. "Revise your search" is probably a more accurate and better way to think of the thing called "Advanced search".)
- Are query builders used effectively? (Query builders include spell-checking, stemming, concept searching, and thesaural searching.)
Search Results
- Are useful results available at the top of the list? (Wouldn’t that be nice? Hard to test though.)
- Is it clear what the query was? (Most search engines will repeat the original query.)
- Is it clear what was searched? (Especially important if your site employs search zones.)
- Is it clear how many results were retrieved?
- Are useful components displayed per result? (These should help users understand enough about a result to distinguish it from others.)
- Are the results grouped in a useful way? (Usually results aren’t grouped at all, but clustered results are becoming more and more common.)
Site-wide Navigation
- Is it possible to move through the site without experiencing click fatigue?
- (Try out a few common scenarios.)
- Are breadth and depth balanced?
- Are labels clear and meaningful? (Metadata 101 stuff here.)
Contextual Navigation
- Is it clear where I am, both in terms of which site and where I am in the site? (For more on this topic, see Keith Instone’s Navigation Stress Test.)
- Are there a few navigation options that lead me where I’d want to go next? (Related links are rare, but incredibly useful when implemented well.)
- Are they clearly labeled? (More Metadata 101.)
Clearly, there are dozens of other questions that could be added to this list (feel free to suggest some here). And probably many better alternatives to this grouping scheme. But if you’re starting out, you might find my list helpful.
[Bloug]
