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Quote of the Week:

One more reason to stop using Internet Explorer 6 and upgrade already

Google announced that it's discontinuing support of Internet Explorer 6. This is welcome news, as it's one of the largest resource sinkholes any web developer has to face when working on site design and development. And there are some much better, more compliant browsers out there for people to use, in any case. Now, some organizations' audiences still skew heavily toward IE6, and I (and others) will assuredly continue to develop sites that are IE6 compliant when necessary; but I think it's safe to say that it's no longer a standard that most developers will hew to automatically.

Google is the latest, not the first, large web-based concern to move away from IE6 compliance. IE6 accounts for just over ten percent of total browser usage as of January 2010. That's down nearly 50% from January 2009. At this rate, IE 6 will account for something just north of 6% total user share by January 2011.

IE6 denial message image courtesy of RobotJohnny

Labels: usability, UX, W3C, web design

posted at 2:27 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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1.18.2010

New York Times' Times Reader site seems to be "Unavailable"

In getting info ready for a story, I noticed that all links to the New York Times' Times Reader application (an Adobe AIR-powered desktop news reader app) are unavailable. And it's not just one URL. All the URLs leading to any mention of the Times Reader, even those linked within Times stories about the Reader, are busted. Might just be some late-night maintenance, but any hiccup involving the Times' online delivery of news at this point, with a rumored deal between the Times and Apple (of the rumored soon-to-be-unveiled slate-newsy-reading device) in the works....makes you wonder.

Labels: newspapers, usability, UX

posted at 10:59 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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11.04.2009

Can we have "Talk Like a Pirate Day" last all year?

Well, if we live exclusively on Facebook, we can. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the 'English (US)' link. That'll get you into the language display preferences for your account. Select "English (Pirate)" and you can transmogrify your facebook account into some sort of 18th century-21st century mashup of language and technology.

Relevance to web experience design: language, and especially vernacular language, MATTERS. If you give people something they like, but aren't expecting, you can engage them at a deeper emotional level. It's up to you to make sure you engage them positively rather than negatively, so do your homework.

Labels: experience design, usability

posted at 10:09 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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10.26.2009

GeoCities, we hardly knew ye (really, does anyone remember GeoCities?)

...I do!

Back in the day, there was a lot of cool content there. It was easy to set up a page and show the world how much you loved black backgrounds (wait...if you're seeing this blog in its native state, um, I guess you see how much we still love black backgrounds. Anyhoo....)

Well, xkcd is commemorating the closing of GeoCities, and you should check it out. It's brilliant.

Labels: humor, usability, web design

posted at 9:00 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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6.01.2009

CoTrip.org has a new interface

For travelers in Colorado, the state's Department of Transportation has given you a little gift for your summer journeys: an updated user interface at their site, CoTrip.org. They've smoothed out user interactions for finding traffic cameras (something I look at when planning a ride in metro denver, or heading up to the mountains to go skiing), and the programming seems to have speeded up load times as well. At first glance, it's a great improvement over the functional but hard-to-navigate version I was looking at just a couple of weeks ago.

A few other items worth noting: all the most-accessed info is now right there on the front page, including latest road conditions/weather, traffic speeds, and alerts.

Labels: usability, visual information, web design

posted at 6:23 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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3.31.2009

Even God wants the Old Facebook Back:

From a Facebook Haggadah, by Carl Elkin. Check out the whole thing!


via hgm's twitterstream

Labels: humor, information graphics, interface, social networking, usability

posted at 10:20 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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3.06.2009

Web Interfaces: Not just about the hockey stick, people.

I love the variety of purpose-driven interfaces that you can leverage to deliver info on the web successfully:

This, and a heck of a lot more, here.

Labels: information graphics, interface, usability, web design

posted at 8:28 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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3.03.2009

The official Recovery and Reinvestment Act project logo

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has a logo, which will appear on all projects funded by the Act:

It's nice, I suppose. One interesting thing I noticed is the upper left borders of the two stars that intersect with the blue background border (in the upper left quadrant of the logo) aren't there. These two stars look like they've opened up, blossomed, perhaps, into the white space of the circular inner border.

Another nit-picky thing: the "RECOVERY.ORG" typography is very small. If you're using it at the size you see on this screen, it's about 14 points in size (nice use of old standby Trade Gothic, BTW. Is there a subliminal message to be had there, in the use of a typeface whose name reflects commerce?). When this mark is used in smaller sizes, the type is going to become illegible. I could see this happening when the ARRA money is being used along with other funding for a large project, and promotional roadside signs, posters, and web banners have to fit a lot of logos into a small space (they become, in PR parlance, "bugs".)

The little reverse swiss cross that forms the center of the big gear in the lower right quadrant of the mark...it alludes to the health plan reform, perhaps, as being integral to the recovery?

[3/3/09 22:24] UPDATE: This emblem, along with one specific to transportation projects, was designed by MODE in Chicago. Um, if you don't know by now, they did the Obama "O". (I can't wait for a Denverite to be President: more branding work for us Queen City designers...).

Other comments? Post them below!

image via abc news

by the way: looks like the folks over at recovery.gov are using Numbers for their charting:

Labels: branding, bug, design, graphic design, illustration, information graphics, politics, typography, usability

posted at 2:28 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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2.24.2009

A user interface straight from a 1990's German car radio

VW has been using this blaupunkt-style navigation menu interface for a couple of years now, and even when it was new, it looked pretty old.

Takes up a lot of space, too, and doesn't integrate with the look and feel of anything on the rest of the site. Wassup with that, VW? I love the chunky german radios in your older cars as much as the next guy, but what are they doing on my computer monitor?

Labels: branding, cars, interface, usability, visual information, web design

posted at 10:57 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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