Subsonicparticles http://holygekko.posterous.com bits n pieces posterous.com Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:08:48 -0700 The Four Key Components of a Great Web Design http://holygekko.posterous.com/the-four-key-components-of-a-great-web-design-6 http://holygekko.posterous.com/the-four-key-components-of-a-great-web-design-6 Nice post with beautiful examples by Henry Jones over at webdesignledger.com

The Four Key Components of a Great Web Design

1. A Solid Layout
- Use Wireframes
- Be generous with whitespace
- Learn more about layout and wireframes

2. Effective Typography
- Big = important
- Make it legible
- Learn more about typography

3. The Right Color Scheme
- Dare to be different
- Sometimes little color is the right color
- Need help choosing the right color scheme?

4. Appropriate Design Elements
- Consistency in action
- Attention to detail
- Less really is more

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:55:47 -0700 Tony Hsieh: Why I Sold Zappos http://holygekko.posterous.com/tony-hsieh-why-i-sold-zappos-0 http://holygekko.posterous.com/tony-hsieh-why-i-sold-zappos-0
Tony-hsieh-zappos

Tony Hsieh built his online shoe retailer into an e-commerce powerhouse. But with credit tightening and investors eyeing the exits, Hsieh was forced to ask: Was selling Zappos really the only way to save it?
...
By early 2009, we were at a stalemate. Because of a complicated legal structure, I effectively controlled the majority of the common shares, so that the board couldn't force a sale of the company. But on the five-person board, only two of us -- Alfred Lin, our CFO and COO, and myself -- were completely committed to Zappos's culture. This made it likely that if the economy didn't improve, the board would fire me and hire a new CEO who was concerned only with maximizing profits. The threat was never made overtly, but I could tell that was the direction things were going.

It was a stressful time for me and Alfred. But we'd gotten through much tougher times before, and this seemed like just another challenge we needed to figure out. We began brainstorming ways that we could get out from under the board. We certainly didn't want to sell the company and move on to something else. To us, Zappos wasn't just a job -- it was a calling. So we came up with a plan: We would buy out our board of directors.

We figured to do so would cost about $200 million. As we were talking to potential investors, Amazon approached Alfred about buying Zappos outright. Although that still didn't seem like the best option to me, Alfred sensed that Amazon would be more open than last time to the idea of letting Zappos continue to operate as an independent entity. And we felt that the price Amazon was talking about was too large for us to ignore without potentially violating our fiduciary duty to our shareholders.
...
The acquisition closed on November 1, at a valuation of $1.2 billion (based on Amazon's stock price on the day of closing). Our investors at Sequoia made $248 million. Our board was replaced by a management committee that includes me, Jeff, two Amazon executives, and two Zappos executives. As CEO, I report to the committee every quarter, and Zappos is responsible for hitting revenue and profitability numbers. But unlike our former board of directors, our new management committee seems to understand the importance of our culture -- the "social experiments" -- to our long-term success. In fact, one Amazon distribution center recently began experimenting with its own version of Zappos's policy of paying new employees $2,000 to quit if they're unhappy with their jobs.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Thu, 27 May 2010 01:22:00 -0700 The lynda.com Story: 10 things i know to be true http://holygekko.posterous.com/the-lyndacom-story-10-things-i-know-to-be-tru http://holygekko.posterous.com/the-lyndacom-story-10-things-i-know-to-be-tru
The lynda.com Story: Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman share accounts of learning, teaching, and building their company.

  1. Things i did early in life may not seem to have meaning then. But today they make all the sense in the world.
  2. Business doesn't have to be a win / lose or winner take all proposition. Everyone can win.
  3. Your passions are your drive in life, love & career. Do not ignore them.
  4. To master anything in life you must do it again and again, over and over. Often without success, but learning and fine tuning along the way.
  5. Education is life long. Stay hungry. Stay curious.
  6. Our biggest successes happened when the biggest doors of opportunity were slammed shut. Learn to look for other ways to achieve your goals when opportunities close. Own your problem and invent your own solution when others will not solve the problem for you.
  7. Do what you love and do it really, really, really well.
  8. My best education experiences happened when I was the motivated learner, making up my own experience.
  9. Curiosity only kills cats.
  10. Make your mistakes, frequently, fast and often. Just not repetitively.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:20:19 -0700 Webmonkey on Information Architecture http://holygekko.posterous.com/webmonkey-on-information-architecture http://holygekko.posterous.com/webmonkey-on-information-architecture Great article about Information Architecture from webmonkey. I think i came across this article for the first time around 2005. It appears it has been assimilated into the wired site.

Reading through it I came across the following interesting section:

"Metaphor Exploration
This next step, which is called “metaphor exploration,” can help refine your vision of the site’s structure, but it’s important to remember that this step is only an exercise. It will give you many good ideas, but they may be impractical, at best. Don’t let that discourage you, though - it can be a lot of fun.

It’s useful to explore various metaphors in trying to determine the site’s structure. A good metaphor can go a long way in helping users understand how to use and navigate the site. However, no metaphor is perfect, so don’t feel that you have to adhere rigidly to just one. You could take the best parts of several metaphors and roll them into one (or you might not find any useful metaphors at all).

Three types of metaphors are useful to site design:

Organizational metaphors

Organizational metaphors rely on the existing structure of a group, system, or organization. For example, if you are creating a site to sell groceries, your metaphor could be a supermarket, where products are grouped logically by type (canned vegetables, dairy products, cereal, snacks, household items, etc.). Beware that copying the organizational hierarchy of your client company is usually not a good idea - grocery customers couldn’t care less about a supermarket’s corporate structure.

Functional metaphors

Functional metaphors relate tasks you can do on the site with tasks you can do in another environment. Photoshop, a graphics program, relies on a lot of functional metaphors:You can figuratively “cut,” “copy,” and “paste” graphics on a computer - as though you were using real-world scissors and glue.

Visual metaphors

Visual metaphors are based on common graphic elements familiar to most people in our culture. If you are designing a music site that allows users to play songs, you might want to use the traditional “start,” “stop,” and “pause” icons found on CD players everywhere.

To begin exploring metaphors, gather your people and brainstorm ideas. Review and evaluate each metaphor. Try not to discourage any suggestions you do not like, at least not right away. A metaphor’s punch might not be obvious right away. Try to map out the major sections of the site by connecting elements from the content inventory to each metaphor.

After what was probably a lively and entertaining experience, you must choose a metaphor or a rationale for the site’s structure. Remember, no metaphor is perfect. The overall site might not be explainable as a metaphor, but perhaps the navigation system (or smaller subsets of the site) can be."

Hadn't thought about it like this before! :)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 06:53:52 -0700 Yahoo mail is utter crap http://holygekko.posterous.com/yahoo-mail-is-utter-crap http://holygekko.posterous.com/yahoo-mail-is-utter-crap
Pauldj_05

Quite a bold statement don't you think? Unfortunately it's true. There's a lot wrong with it (e.g. looking more like outlook/hotmail than gmail, always starting with the "what's new" tab, big annoying animated banners), but the absolute biggest failure is that it's not possible to send email in an easy straightforward way. Every other message I want to send I have to proof being a human being by solving an at some times very difficult to read CAPTCHA image.

I appreciate them trying to weed out spammers, but this is ludicrous! What use is a mail program if it isn't easy to send an email? To make matters worse you won't have this problem by using the iphone mail client. So that's the route I'd choose if I was a spammer :' )

One last thing, there's no way to give feedback to the development team. So that's why this is here. Anybody want to comment on this?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:36:00 -0700 Michael Pritchard's water filter turns filthy water drinkable http://holygekko.posterous.com/michael-pritchards-water-filter-turns-filthy-8 http://holygekko.posterous.com/michael-pritchards-water-filter-turns-filthy-8

Simply amazing!

Buy the lifesaver bottle here: http://www.lifesaversystems.com/buy.html

It's not just a great invention but it also has been put to the test! This is from haiti:

Media_httplh5ggphtcom_hrehc

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:29:28 -0700 Primal Blueprint http://holygekko.posterous.com/primal-blueprint http://holygekko.posterous.com/primal-blueprint
It all sounds very logical, but on the other hand we have been doing agriculture for the last ten thousand years. So why do we do it if it's not what our body needs? The best thing about eating unprocessed foods, I think, is you don't get all the conservation crap :)

".. I call it the Primal Blueprint. It eschews complicated workout regimens, tedious calorie counting, and weight loss gimmicks. My Primal laws are based on a rock solid foundation: evolutionary biology and anthropology mixed with modern human ingenuity. I take what worked for tens of thousands of years throughout human prehistory and incorporate contemporary science to confirm its veracity. When you go back and look at the fossil records of our hunter-gatherer, pre-agricultural ancestors, you find that they were healthy, strong, and largely free of degenerative diseases – especially compared to the health of post-agricultural and even modern humans.

The result is an incredibly simple, incredibly effective way to live, move, and eat: eat the things our ancestors ate, get the amount of sleep our ancestors used to get, and make the same movements our ancestors used to make before agriculture.

Take Action

If you take anything from this post remember these two action items:

1. The ideal human diet should consist of only whole, unprocessed foods – meat, fish, fowl, plants, fruits, and nuts. Whatever you can kill, pick, or dig up and eat on the spot. This is what your ancestors ate and what your body is meant to consume.

2. By the same token, the best exercise consists of natural, full-body movements – lifting heavy things, sprinting, walking, swimming, hiking, climbing, crawling. This is how your ancestors moved and how your body is meant to function."

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:13:04 -0800 Streetview fame http://holygekko.posterous.com/streetview-fame http://holygekko.posterous.com/streetview-fame See twitter and google maps streetview!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:22:51 -0800 Infographic van het jaar http://holygekko.posterous.com/infographic-van-het-jaar http://holygekko.posterous.com/infographic-van-het-jaar
Infographic-van-het-jaar

;)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:12:30 -0800 verkiezingen in nederland http://holygekko.posterous.com/verkiezingen-in-nederland http://holygekko.posterous.com/verkiezingen-in-nederland Stuk uit de column van Nico Dijkshoorn. Weet nog niet of ik het ermee eens ben, maar de tranen liepen me over de wangen van het lachen :' )

"De geregisseerde emotie. Vooral bij Agnes Kant. Die had, na de dramatisch verlopen debatten op Radio 1 en bij Pauw en Witteman, een middagje met wat mediadokters om de tafel gezeten. Dat moeten mooie gesprekken zijn geweest.
‘Agnes, kijk me eens aan. Ja, goed zo. Wat deed je nou net, toen de koffiejuffrouw langskwam? Precies, schreeuwen. En wat schreeuwde je? Geen suiker, hoer. Ja, precies. En voor wie komt de SP op? Zeg het maar. Voor de zwakkeren in de samenleving, ja. Dus wat moet je dan niet doen? Geen hoer schreeuwen. Schrijf je dat even op, in je handpalm? Geen hoer zeggen. Niet schreeuwen. En schrijf op je andere hand: “niet de mond laten hangen. Niet met enge dunne armen zwaaien.” Denk je dat dat gaat lukken? Antwoord nou nog eens, en dan zachtjes. Goed zo! Houd dat vast!”

Gedrogeerd
Agnes Kant leek gisteren de eerste minuten van het slotdebat gedrogeerd aan tafel te zitten. Je zag het malen in haar hoofd, als Femke aan het woord was. “Geen hoer roepen, geen hoer roepen, niet schreeuwen.” Je zag haar wegdromen als Femke sprak. Waarom kon zij dat niet, praten met zo’n omfloerst stemmetje? Femke kan hardop fluisteren. Dat is een gave. Wat ze ook zegt, al is het het woord “kernkoppen” of “hondenbelasting”, het klinkt als een oneerbaar voorstel.
Femke, daar wil je in de kibboets voor eeuwig sinaasappels mee plukken. Jij, in een stenen nederzetting, wachtend op het meisje waar je deze vakantie verliefd op bent geworden. Daar komt ze aanlopen met een mand vol natte zuidvruchten. Ze zwaait naar je. Je weet het zeker, Groen Links is jouw partij. Agnes Kant plukt geen sinaasappels, die schreeuwt in twee seconden een hele boom leeg. Hoef je alleen maar naast haar te gaan staan met een lege mand.

Doodsbang
Agnes hield het precies zes minuten vol en veranderde toen weer in de gelijkhebbende, met de armen zwaaiende tanige vrouw. Je keek er naar en wist: hier spoelt iemand 30 jaar werk van Jan Marijnissen door het toilet. Kant is de Verdonk van de SP."

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:59:46 -0800 99% Behance Conference and Threadless http://holygekko.posterous.com/99-behance-conference-and-threadless http://holygekko.posterous.com/99-behance-conference-and-threadless

"Jeffrey Kalmikoff and Jake Nickell, the masterminds behind the hugely successful, crowd-sourced t-shirt design website Threadless, chart their changing working styles and mindsets throughout eight years of partnership. Their "Do-First Work Ethic" encompasses virtues like: staying scrappy, being 100% reactive to your community, embracing a DIY approach, learning from failure, and always (always) taking the first step."

Great video of my favorite t-shirt company :D

See here for more video's of this amazing conference!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:01:05 -0800 paralax scrolling is nice :) http://holygekko.posterous.com/paralax-scrolling-is-nice http://holygekko.posterous.com/paralax-scrolling-is-nice http://www.bellette.com.au/

Navigate through the different sections to see the effect. Nice for presentations too? Or a presi combi / mashup?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:29:04 -0800 great dudi hasson http://holygekko.posterous.com/great-dudi-hasson http://holygekko.posterous.com/great-dudi-hasson
Pauldj_05

Great photography showcase site: http://www.dudihasson.com/

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:53:00 -0800 Google Goggles alternative AR? http://holygekko.posterous.com/google-goggles-alternative-ar http://holygekko.posterous.com/google-goggles-alternative-ar

65300253_3238bffe37

via TechCrunchimage

Today, at their Search Event in Mountain View, Google demoed a brand new product set to launch in Google Labs:Google Goggles. Humorous name aside, the product looks to be a huge leap forward in the field of visual search — by which I mean, you point a camera at something and Google figures out what it is.

The example that Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotrashowed on stage involved taking a picture of a particular bottle of wine. When he ran it through Google Goggles, the result showed that the particular bottle has a hint of apricots. You also be able to use Goggles to look up things such as CD covers and bar codes (this is likely similar to the popular Android app ShopSavvy). For text, Google Goggles uses optical character recognition (OCR) to try and read things like logos and labels to aid the search.

It seems as if this new functionality, which should be live in Google Labs soon, will be destined for Android phones at least at first.

In his keynote speech today at the Mobile Web Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Google CEO Eric Schmidt showed off what could end up being a crucial tool for anyone trying to figure out a menu in a different language or a street sign in a foreign country.Google Goggles, which creates search queries based on images instead of typed-in keywords, will soon start to be able to translate from foreign languages usingGoogle Translate. It will do this using optical character recognition to first convert the images of letters into words it can understand, and then put those through Google translate.

I wonder if this could be called an alternative form of Augmented Reality? 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:17:00 -0800 Atoms Are the New Bits http://holygekko.posterous.com/atoms-are-the-new-bits-2 http://holygekko.posterous.com/atoms-are-the-new-bits-2

In an age of open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design, all you need to conquer the world is a brilliant idea.

Read the whole article here!

via wired.com

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:20:00 -0800 Combining sleep cyle and ipod or how I tricked my iphone into multitasking http://holygekko.posterous.com/combining-sleep-cyle-and-ipod-or-how-i-tricke http://holygekko.posterous.com/combining-sleep-cyle-and-ipod-or-how-i-tricke

Photo

Sleep cylce is an iphone app that's topping the charts in itunes at the moment. I heard al lot about it from my friends so I decided to give it a try! I didn't realize however that I have a bit of a ritual when i fall asleep. That is I usually listen to music or an audiobook when I fall asleep. Currently that's not a feature Sleep cycle supports and given that I rather listen to the ipod app than have insight in my sleeping patterns I havn't used sleep cycle once..

Today I decided to have a look at the sleep cycle site to see if I could post a feature request. To my delight the faq already stated they are working on it: "Planned in future versions: Listen to music or audio books when going to sleep". So that's great, but then I suddenly realized that it's already possible to trick the iphone and sleep cylce into this! :D

  1. enable ipod controls (settings > general > home > ipod controls > on)
  2. go to the clock app, set a timer and use it to "Sleep iPod" when it elapses (you don't wan't to have yourself brainwashed all night ;)
  3. start your ipod music or audio book
  4. start sleep cycle and WHILE it's booting double tap the home button!  <-- this is the trick part
  5. a window with ipod controls pops up now, wait for the app to completely boot up and stop the music
  6. now you can click the play icon in the pop up window, the music starts playing. Close the pop up and use sleep cylce!

It's great to outsmart your iphone ;)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:13:36 -0800 Maar hoe was de opening van het nieuwe trimm pand dan? http://holygekko.posterous.com/maar-hoe-was-de-opening-van-het-nieuwe-trimm http://holygekko.posterous.com/maar-hoe-was-de-opening-van-het-nieuwe-trimm
Photo

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:17:01 -0800 Crossen met de Africa Twins http://holygekko.posterous.com/crossen-met-de-africa-twins http://holygekko.posterous.com/crossen-met-de-africa-twins Zaterdag de Africa Twin opgehaald samen met Niek en meteen lekker wezen crossen. Lekker zonnetje, goed temperatuurtje en een hoop modderige bospaadjes :D Wat een super dag!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:41:00 -0700 User experience strategy http://holygekko.posterous.com/user-experience-strategy http://holygekko.posterous.com/user-experience-strategy

This is a topic I'm researching a lot lately :) 

Today I was reminded about an article I found some time ago: "Why Microsoft had to destory Word" by Peter Merholz. His article is about the design process of the Microsoft Office Ribbon interface. They used what he calls Experience Principles:

Harris and his team realized that they had to essentially burn down the interface and rebuild it. After conducting deep research on how people actually use the tool, they came up with a set of what they called "Design Tenets" that guided the decision-making for the new Office UI:
A person's focus should be on their content, not on the UI. Help people work without interference.
  • Reduce the number of choices presented at any given time.
  • Increase efficiency.
  • Embrace consistency, but not homogeneity.
  • Give features a permanent home. Prefer consistent-location UI over "smart" UI.
  • Straightforward is better than clever.
These tenets were the new religion of Office 2007. Any suggested UI functionality was mapped against these tenets, and if any were violated, that function wouldn't make it in. So, a tool like Clippy, which tries to figure out what you're doing and offer suggestions, gets removed because "straightforward is better than clever."
 This is also something that is a part of the process they use at Miskeeto:

How we do it
To develop your user experience strategy, we do the following:
  • Evaluate the usability of your site/product and any competing sites/products
  • Interview stakeholders (we travel to your offices)
  • Define business and project goals
  • Evaluate technical and business constraints
  • Define success metrics
  • Establish the guiding tenets for your “experience vision”
  • Establish design criteria for all designs
  • Create sketches, wireframes, and prototypes (when needed)
  • Work with your team on implementation considerations
  • Communicate the experience vision to the team via training and presentation
  • Create documents to help you communicate the vision and our findings throughout your organization
  • Communicate and collaborate with you throughout the process
For more background information read "Developing a user ecperience strategy" by Robert Hoekman Jr. Very interesting!

At the end of Peter Merholz's article he thanks his colleague at Adaptive Path,Brandon Schauer, who turns out has also   got some great insights into this subject matter :)

I havn't read much yet of his blog, but some things I like to reference:

4 Experience hacks

I’ve been looking at my own practices and thinking through the case studies of others to identify relatively low-cost and low-effort activities that can up your slugging percentage. While none of these are panaceas, I hope they can really help improve the chances of success. I’m still working on the exact language, but here’s where I stand today:

  1. Get customer empathy into your business — see a handful of customers face-to-face, finding patterns of insights that tell you how to meet your business objectives. I think this can become almost recipe-like given the right picture of integrating business objectives and customer insights.
  2. Define the experience you want customers to have — this is an obvious step that’s too often skipped. Beyond being freaking “friendly” and undoubtedly “easy to use”, what should the experience be like? Create some experience principles to guide every design decision.
  3. Customer experience ideas are cheap. Have lots of them, but only execute the best handful. — Avoid the decision-making bias of primacy. Your first idea is rarely the best idea. Don’t waste development cycles and customer attention to find that out. Instead, have many ideas and use your insights and experience principle to vet them and find the best bets.
  4. Return to the customer context. Often. — Working on a fast-paced design project we realized that we had become so engrossed in our own understanding of the business requirements that we lost the perspective of the customer. We didn’t have budget for usability testing, so we instead conducted a “dry-run-of-one.” We found a single representative customer, halted the design process for an afternoon, and walked the customer through our best paper-based simulation of the current design. We learned tons. It was such a good use of valuable time that we stopped and conducted other dry-runs-of-one at other points in the design process. It’s may not be as rigorous as full usability testing, but it was a great ROI.

to be continued.. :)

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:22:00 -0700 Optimal width for 1024px resolution? http://holygekko.posterous.com/optimal-width-for-1024px-resolution http://holygekko.posterous.com/optimal-width-for-1024px-resolution
I’ve been using 960 for some time now, as it’s slightly smaller than full width, and it’s divisible by 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 16 (imagine the grid possibilities). I’d love to hear what all of you are wrestling with.

I was wondering why 960 was the magical number for a 1024 resolution screen when I found the above. Also see http://960.gs/ for more on grid systems!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/76623/twit_pic.png http://posterous.com/users/1berAzw9oqd Paul de Jong holygekko Paul de Jong