Bryan Zug's Flat Hatter Collaborative » usability http://zug.flathatter.com Bryan Zug's blog on interactive development and the art of thriving in a world of change. Fri, 10 Jun 2011 21:03:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Seattle Mind Camp 5: Sustainable Work/Life Patterns http://zug.flathatter.com/sustainable-worklife-patterns-calacanis/ http://zug.flathatter.com/sustainable-worklife-patterns-calacanis/#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:43:55 +0000 bryanzug http://zug.flathatter.com/?p=159 Kendall Guillemette and I are gonna get a discussion session together at Seattle Mind Camp tomorrow on sustainable work/life patterns. We’re calling it “Seattle Mind Camp 5: Sustainable Work/Life Patterns (…is Calacanis a Saint? Something Else?)”.

See flier below. Some seeds for the discussion –

  • How do you structure your work?
  • Is banking on a buyout like saying, “I’m gonna play in the NBA?”
  • What’re your successes?
  • Your epic fails?

Also cool — we plan to use an iPhone audio meter to insta-poll the crowd on what we should talk about (if it’s a decent size).

Special shout out to all those who need a refresher on “All Your Base Are Belong to Us”.

Seattle Mind Camp 5: Sustainable Work/Life Patterns

]]> http://zug.flathatter.com/sustainable-worklife-patterns-calacanis/feed/ 0 Search Boxes are Big In Japan http://zug.flathatter.com/search-boxes-are-big-in-japan/ http://zug.flathatter.com/search-boxes-are-big-in-japan/#comments Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:44:32 +0000 bryanzug http://zug.flathatter.com/search-boxes-are-big-in-japan/ Nice post from Cabel Sasser on how Japanese ads are dropping URL’s in advertisements in favor of search boxes with keywords.

Lots of back and forth in the comments on how regular folks don’t use the address bar like they’re “supposed” to — money quote from the comments –

I don’t think us web geeks have any idea of the heinous crimes that the average user is committing out there.
]]> http://zug.flathatter.com/search-boxes-are-big-in-japan/feed/ 0 My Chumby Just Arrived http://zug.flathatter.com/my-chumby-just-arrived/ http://zug.flathatter.com/my-chumby-just-arrived/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:37:35 +0000 bryanzug http://zug.flathatter.com/my-chumby-just-arrived/ My Chumby just arrived — here it is (except mine is black) — and yes, this is a realtime reflection of what it is showing –

]]> http://zug.flathatter.com/my-chumby-just-arrived/feed/ 0 Make My Logo Bigger Cream http://zug.flathatter.com/make-my-logo-bigger-cream/ http://zug.flathatter.com/make-my-logo-bigger-cream/#comments Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:36:28 +0000 bryanzug http://zug.flathatter.com/make-my-logo-bigger-cream/ I wish they had embed code for this video, would go wider much faster. Since they don’t, just go visit the site — Make My Logo Bigger Cream — so funny because it is so true.

]]> http://zug.flathatter.com/make-my-logo-bigger-cream/feed/ 0 Mike Wesch discussing “Web 2.0… The Machine is Us/ing Us” video at Web2Open 4:00 http://zug.flathatter.com/mike-wesch-discussing-web-20-the-machine-is-using-us-video-at-web2open-400/ http://zug.flathatter.com/mike-wesch-discussing-web-20-the-machine-is-using-us-video-at-web2open-400/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:09:41 +0000 bryanzug http://elearningskinny.com/mike-wesch-discussing-web-20-the-machine-is-using-us-video-at-web2open-400/ So when I saw this video, I just about peed my pants. It’s a Ken Burn’s-esque animated screenshot/text/typography video that tells the story of the web up to today.

Just found out that the guy who made it, Michael Wesch, will be discussing the video at the Web 2.0 Expo today today at 4:00 pm.

It all takes place at the Web2Open gathering that is an unconference running in parallel (and in conjunction) with the main conference.

This is the kind of loosely coupled teaching/training that is going to take us into the next “age”.

]]> http://zug.flathatter.com/mike-wesch-discussing-web-20-the-machine-is-using-us-video-at-web2open-400/feed/ 0 Whitespace: 34% More Retention in Half the Time http://zug.flathatter.com/whitespace-34-more-retention-in-half-the-time/ http://zug.flathatter.com/whitespace-34-more-retention-in-half-the-time/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:37:24 +0000 bryanzug http://elearningskinny.com/whitespace-34-more-retention-in-half-the-time/ Cool article this AM from the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. It’s a review of an eyetracking research study called “Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design“.

Best quote –

“What if you could engage users in a story for about half the time, yet have them remember about 34 percent more of the content?”

Visit the article for cool screenshots of the noted before and after design. Main takeaways are that retention increased with a redesign that emphasized –

  • Increased white space
  • Concise main idea
  • Removal of unnecessary images
  • Shortened lines of text
  • An added graphic for each restaurant ranking
]]> http://zug.flathatter.com/whitespace-34-more-retention-in-half-the-time/feed/ 0 Firefox 2.0, with spellcheck! http://zug.flathatter.com/firefox-20-with-spellcheck/ http://zug.flathatter.com/firefox-20-with-spellcheck/#comments Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:44:33 +0000 bryanzug http://elearningskinny.com/firefox-20-with-spellcheck/ I am using Firefox 2.0 and it has red squiggly spellcheck that automatically runs on any text field. Who knew that something so mundane could be so satisfying?

As Scott says, it shoulda been there years ago, but better late than never, eh?

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