In a recent issue of AlertBox, Dr. Jakob Nielsen comments on differences and approaches of designing interfaces for accessibility.
The key difference between user interfaces for sighted users and blind users is not that between graphics and text; it’s the difference between 2-D and 1-D. Optimal usability for users with disabilities requires new approaches and new user interfaces.
A look at the working drafts and recommendations for the new CSS3 standard. Some of the recommendations include a new Speech Module, and a new Content module which describes how to insert and move content around a document, for example, aiding the creation and referencing of footnotes, endnotes and section notes. This new module is referred as the CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content Module and became a recommendation on 14 May 2003.
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2003-05-17T01:10:24-10:35
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A few friends of us watched Matrix Reloaded last night for the first time. Not to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t watched it – the film was good (but wouldn’t go to the extent of calling it better than the first), it tied some new interesting ideas from the first film to Chaos and Control, and some of the philosophy followed on. With a slow beginning and amazing visual effects the film had a somewhat quick and surprising ending.
* If you stick around till the end of the credits you will see a trailer of the next film, Matrix Revolutions
The 10 Usability principles/heuristics by Dr. Jakob Nielsen:
1. The visibility of system status
2. The match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognise, diagnose and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation
Reference: Molich, R., Nielsen, J. (1990) Ed. Nielsen, J. (1994)Ten Usability Heuristics
[Online] Available: http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html
The owner of the UNIX operating system today warned that Linux is an unauthorised derivative of its software and that commercial users of Linux may be legally liable for violation of intellectual copyright. The article was written by Sam Varghese and published in the Sydney Morning Herald, it also contains a list of related external links.
There is a great article in New Architect by Jesse James Garrett titled All those Opposed: Making the case for user experience in a budget-conscious climate. The article comments on some of the important aspects of User-Centred design, and more importantly some misconceptions, including user research, interface design and user behaviour. The article also includes an excerpt from JJG’s book The Elements of User Experience available from New Riders publishing.
Jeffrey Zeldman, a well known author on Web Standards comments in his journal on the ratio between users clicking or simply reading over a link, when they read an article or paragraph online. Interestingly a lot of people, 4 out of 5, would read or skim a link without actually clicking and following the link further, he shows this by making references to the statistics of users clicking on his website.
This is a particularly interesting discussion as it brings up several things which are noticeably affecting readers (users) today more and more.
My thoughts are with my post-grad uni lecturer’s family and relatives from last semester, James Sawers, who sadly passed away suddenly yesterday. James was an inspiring person to me, who re-affirmed the importance of Accessible design, Accessibility on the Web and W3C compliance – a strong direction this new version of reloade is focusing on. He lectured at the University of Technology, Sydney on Technology & E-Learning since 1997.
A US based company, audblog has developed the first audio blog software, which let’s you remotely publish to a website via a mobile phone. It is currently available only in the US, costs $3 for 12 posts a month and can be done from anywhere in the world.
To all you mum’s out there, Happy Mother’s Day.
Jeffrey Zeldman has published his book, Designing with Web Standards. It will be available for purchase from May 14, 2003 and is being published by New Riders Publishing. The 1st edition ISBN is 0735712018.
The book has an accompanying mini site hosted by New Riders with related material, author bio and samples of Chapters 8 and 10 – “XHTML by Example: A Hybrid Layout (Part I)” and “CSS in Action: A Hybrid Layout (Part II)” respectively.
Mark Hurst, the founder of GoodExperience.com has uploaded a summary of the first GEL (Good Experience Live) Conference that was held on Friday May 2, 2003 at the New-York Historical Society, New York City, USA. The summary page is an updated page with comments, links to external sites, photos, transcripts and blogs of event speakers and guests.
New Scientist comments that music with violent lyrics increase aggressive thoughts and emotions. The finding is interesting because previous popular belief showed that aggression and increased aggressive tendencies were thought to be influenced by violent graphics in imagery and/or videos, such as some styles of rap and heavy metal music videos.
The research was conducted by Researchers at Iowa and the Texas Department of Human Services in Austin, USA and tested over 500 students in five s.
E-Marketer comments that nearly 30% of worldwide Internet users type two word phrases into search engines when searching online and that over 24% use three word phrases when searching. The results are based on findings by OneStat over the past two-month period, as of the end of April 2003.
This is an interesting finding particularly the relationship and comparison between worldwide users and their use of key Phrase and Key Words:
2 words: 29.22%
1 word: 24.76%
3 words: 24.33%
4 words: 12.34%
5 words: 5.43%
6 words: 2.21%
7 words: 0.94%
Reference: E-Marketer (7 May 2003). Searching Online: From Keyword to Key Phrase [Online] Available: http://www.emarketer.com
Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Science Centre have released a copy of the SARS Genome for you to download and look at.
There are also several interesting links to SARS related areas and a ton of images in their SARS associated coronavirus pages.
