To Twitter or not to Twitter

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 24 February 2008 11:56AM CST

Section: Internet

TwitterI’ve never quite been able to grok Twitter. I tried it when it was new and shiny and just didn’t get it. But it kept coming up so I kept coming back. Still didn’t get it—even over an extended period of time.

Howard Rheingold has published a list of why he’s hooked on Twitter. Things like openness, immediacy, variety, reciprocity, and a channel to multiple publics sounds very appealing but that’s just not my Twitter experience. I get redundancy and the mundane and nothing very important or really interesting. That’s pretty much what I give, too. Sure, Rheingold twitters when he’s got a new video entry available, but that’s available via RSS which is much less intrusive. And that bit of information has very little immediate value to me.

Then, here comes David Weinberger with his Twitter love list: entertaining, revelatory, intimate.

I’m going to give Twitterific another go—maybe it’s that I’m following the wrong people; suggestions welcome.

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Usability refresher

By Michael Fraase

Thursday, 24 January 2008 07:12AM CST

Section: Internet

User experience design processWe’ve just implemented a new information architecture on the College of Design Web site at the University of Minnesota. It’s been a long, excruciating process and now comes the fun part—usability testing. I really like the usability testing process because, like open or closed card sort exercises, it yields valid data for improving the site. And I’ve been doing it long enough to be comfortable with it.

I’m quite excited about this particular exercise because the college’s chief of staff has approved a budget for using the University’s usability lab, complete with fancy-dancy eye-tracking capabilities. One thing that’s always driven me nuts with usability testing is when the subject hovers the cursor right on top of the appropriate navigation element and fails to “see” it. Now I’ll be able to tell what they’re actually looking at.

I’ll be working with a team without much, if any, usability experience so I’m using this as a refresher for myself.

Usability simply measures how well the Web site meets the needs of its users through five basic aspects suggested by Jakob Nielsen:

  1. Learnability: Users unfamiliar with the site must be able to learn how to use it to accomplish basic tasks without becoming frustrated.
  2. Efficiency: Experienced users should be able to accomplish basic tasks quickly.
  3. Memorability: Casual users should be able to remember how to use the site, as assisted by the interface design. The classic cognitive reference for this is George Miller’s “The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information.”
  4. Error tolerance and recovery: User errors should be minimized and users should be able to recover from errors quickly by figuring out where to go if they make a mistake.
  5. Subjectively satisfying: The interface design should be aesthetically pleasing. Users should enjoy using the site and be eager to return.

Nielsen just published a new article and research report indicating that the return on investment for usability has fallen over the past six years from 135% to 83%. Nevertheless, getting an 83% return on whatever is budgeted for usability is still a no-brainer.

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FCC to enter network neutrality fray

By Michael Fraase

Wednesday, 09 January 2008 08:07PM CST

Section: Internet

Network neutralityFederal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Kevin Martin said the US government agency will investigate complaints that Comcast “actively interferes with internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online.”

Last October, the Associated Press discovered that Comcast was blocking its customers BitTorrent traffic. Comcast continues to deny that it blocks file sharing traffic, but acknowledged to the Associated Press that it was “delaying” some of its customers filesharing traffic.

The FCC investigation should indicate where the agency stands with regard to enforcing network neutrality, the fundamental principle that all internet traffic be treated equally by internet service providers.

Meanwhile, at a Consumer Electronics Show panel discussion, NBC, Microsoft, and AT&T said it’s time to start filtering copyright infringing content at the network level using digital fingerprinting techniques.

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