RasterWeb!

I’ve seen too many organizations put usability last. They treat it like an afterthought. Functionality comes first, right? While having something that actually functions is important, having something that actually works is just as imporant…

What is the difference between something that functions and something that works? I think it’s usability. For instance, if you’ve got an approval system that sends an email to someone, requires them to log into a system, navigate to the proper place, type in a name, and do a search, all before they can approve (or reject) something, that might be a process that is functional, but it sure isn’t very usable. Sure it works, but it is too much work!

Harness the power of the information that you have. When you send the email, provide a link. This link should take the user directly to a page where they are presented with the information they need to approve, reject, or defer something. Does this seem like common sense? Many systems do this, yet many systems fail here, and it’s the users, not the developers that suffer.

The developers write the code, and hope that they do it right, and that is it. The users have to actually use these systems, day in, and day out, and if anyone feels the pain, it’s the users, not the developers. And believe me, the last thing you want is a group of users complaining over and over about how much work it takes to do a simple task in the system you built. Bad developer! Change your ways…

Podcasts are great. We’ve know this for years. Some of us more than others, but I digress… This is a request for people who speak at conferences. Please repeat the question!

Here’s the problem. I’m listening to a podcast from some conference where some smart person is talking, and they are taking questions, and you suddenly hear 30 seconds of near-silence, and then you hear the speaker answer. This isn’t always the case, but often the folks in the crowd asking questions are not mic’d, or you just can’t hear them. So you get something like this:

(whispers…)

Followed by:

RSS. Definitely it has been RSS…

Of course you don’t know if the question was “What is the most important part of your application?” or “What has been the biggest headache to deal with?” So you’re left guessing. This is easily solved if the speaker repeats each question before answering it.

I know, I should probably just attend all of these conferences instead of just listening to them. If you want to sponsor me, just get in touch…

I first heard of Mint when it came out, but I never really looked at it too deeply. A few months ago I heard about Mint again, and heard about Peppers, and wondered what the heck Peppers were… Well, Peppers are plugins for Mint.

Pepper is a cute name for Mint plugins. Pepper. Mint. Peppermint! There is even a 3rd party plugin site named Peppermint Tea.

Maybe it’s just me, but I sort of found the name ‘Pepper’ a little goofy. Yes, it distinctly says that we are talking about a plugin for Mint, but why not just call them plugins? Maybe since Mint is aimed towards web geeks, it’s ok, and if you are geeky enough to know that a Pepper is a plugin, it’s all good.

Still, should the WordPress folks have called their plugins “Papers” or “Letters” or something? Should the Movable Type folks call their plugins “Typefaces” or something? They we’d have to explain that a plugin for application X is called a “Foo” and a plugin for application Y is called a “Bar” and so on…

You like videoblogs? Good… You are in for a treat…

April 3rd, 2006 through April 9th, 2006 is Videoblogging Week 2006. Folks from the Yahoo! Videoblogging Group will be attempting to post one new video each day during the week. Fire up your copy of FireAnt, or democratize yourself with the Democracy Player, and keep an eye on videobloggingweek2006.blogspot.com

Have you checked out the O’Reilly Radar lately?

Tag overload!

Or as I like to call it: tags gone wild!

It’s like Web 2.0 on steroids!