Writing a website is a complex task. The website needs to cater to the very human needs of it’s visitors, but also requires a certain amount of consideration for it’s non-human visitors: web browsers of all sorts, search engine spiders, or any piece of software which gathers information from the internet. These two aspects can’t easily be separated: humans are using computers to interface with your web-based information, so the information received by your visitor is biased by the device […]
Continue reading “Think like a human; code like a computer” »Category: Usability
Usable Category Navigation in WordPress Pages
Wordpress isn’t really designed to be used as a CMS (Content Management System). It’s designed for blogging – nonetheless, it’s a surprisingly powerful little content management system, and with a little bit of tweaking you can pretty easily turn it into a nicely flexible system. Read more about WordPress Pages. One of the challenges that needs to be dealt with is the use of Pages. A “Page,” in WordPress parlance, is a document which sits outside the blog chronology. For […]
Continue reading “Usable Category Navigation in WordPress Pages” »Open Source Usability Issues, or not?
Following an article by Larry Constantine, I began a thread at Cre8asite Forums discussing the usability of open source software. The subject of the original article is the advantages (and disadvantages) of open source software – one of the chief weaknesses cited by Constantine is poor usability. Now, I don’t have the kind of knowledge of open source software to be able to make that kind of judgement. Some open source software I know is quite difficult to use, but […]
Continue reading “Open Source Usability Issues, or not?” »5 Ways to Make Your Website Quit
When it comes right down to it, a website is like an employee. An employee who works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, never asks for vacation time, and religiously keeps track of every transaction it makes with your customers. But that’s not really where the analogy ends. If your website is abused, it might just quit working for you. What does it mean for your website to quit? Oh, it’ll still be there (maybe) – hangin’ out […]
Continue reading “5 Ways to Make Your Website Quit” »Sitepoint’s Usability Kit
Hat tip to John Rhodes of WebWord. Sitepoint has recently released their Usability Kit, first edition: a binder containing 400 pages of documentation (usability evaluation and design techniques, forms, templates, blueprints, etc.), a CD-ROM containing digital versions of the contents, and a complete set of “Magnetic Web Widgets” (while stocks last.) At $197, this isn’t precisely a “cheap” guide to usability: but hey — you get magnets. Actually, if you’re going to buy this, I’d suggest buying it soon. The […]
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