Of all the portions to quote, John chooses the heartbeat metaphor...

Nice article. Shows great sensitivity to the post-dotbomb, post-911 corporate mindset by focusing on reducing apparent costs and increasing the sense of security and control. (Note the use of "apparent" and "sense"). Just avoid any critical analysis of the actual information content...

Posted by: Ron Zeno on July 18, 2002 10:35 PM

 

Agile Usability?
After seeing attempts by Management to impose usability from above fail time and time again, this is a timely article.

In projects I have been involved in over the last few years we have introduced usability to the team by getting team members involved. We will have a session with a professional and them let them loose. Whilst this can be very inefficient at first, there are always one or two team members who get really involved and evangelical about usability.

We also get the team to realise that they will be responsible for the testing, maintenance and support of the system in the future. It really helps to make a developer user-centric when they realise they may have to man the helpline to deal with 'features' that users have problems with.

Posted by: Mac on July 19, 2002 03:33 AM

 

Just a quick thought. I prefer the print friendly (or should it be called user friendly) version of this article for reading. I find that I always hunt for a printer friendly version of articles, especially when I see the dreaded page x of y. And I hate A List Apart and their damned CSS Miracle Print trickery.

Posted by: Mac on July 19, 2002 04:06 AM

 

I used to prefer print versions until I learned to override typeface preferences (e.g., override accessibility-unfriendly Zeldman-like pixel-forced font sizes).

In IE, Tools > Internet Options > Accessibility > Ignore Font Sizes Specified on Web Pages.

It gives you a new measure for checking good design. Crappy designs fall apart with flexible typeface.

Posted by: Jack on July 19, 2002 07:51 AM

 

Jack, in this example I also prefer the print version because its less cluttered, easier to read and brings the article from 2 screens to 1, thereby reducing my cognitive overload (have I used that phrase properly, or am I showing my barely concealed ignorance of big words !)

Posted by: Mac on July 19, 2002 10:29 AM

 

Clutter? Cognitive overload? I wouldn't know. I use a number of devices to assist web browsing, including blinders to keep me focused on a page's body text.

Posted by: Jack on July 20, 2002 05:27 PM