OpenID will succeed.
Where Microsoft failed, the open source, non profit OpenID will work. It will work because people are sick and tired of trying to manage multiple log-ins across all of the sites that they visit, there is no company at the centre for people to get nervous about handing their information over to and in these highly competitive times, where the user is king, websites are falling over themselves to make the user experience better than their competitors.
In every verticle we will see one player jump on board in order to offer a better experience and we will then see every competitor jump on board, not to be outdone.
I give it 18 months. By the end of 2008 I believe we will see 80% of the most popular websites supporting OpenID.
Peter Cashmore over at Mashable is convinced that Google are doing evil by embedding GOOG Video in the SERP’s.
I beg to differ. I think this is a classic example of the ‘tall poppy syndrome‘ and a case where Peter is only kicking up a fuss because it is Google.
Let’s break it down a little bit:
- Google doesn’t appear to be skewing the organic results to inflate Google Video or YouTube content.
- Google isn’t serving other people’s content directly on the SERP.
- Google are merely providing a service that enhances the user experience by delivering its content on the SERP, thus removing the need to go to a new page or open a new tab.
Evil? No. This is merely a company trying alternate ways of serving its own content. Nothing evil in that.
Smart? Yes. By enhancing the user experience, Google are more likely to keep their users happy.
Bad for competitors? Can’t see how. As long as Google continues to fairly index all content then its competitors have as good a chance at a high SERP ranking as a Google owned property.
Good for consumers? Yes.
Nice one Google!
While still reeling from the MyHome debacle (read previous post) I happened to stumble upon Dark Roasted Blend, a really interesting blog. In fact there is so much interesting content that I’ll have to go back and spend some more time there.
Anyway, my link into the blog was to the page on Incomprehensible Intersections and Spaghetti Junctions which is a collection of aerial photographs of ridiculously planned intersections. Some of the maps are also quite amusing.
What these photos highlight is the fact that without effective planning, design is difficult at best.
I like to think that software application design and development are analogous with civil design and construction. The following are examples of software design roles and their civil equivalents:
- usability practitioner = engineer
- producer = architect
- graphic/visual designer = interior decorator
In a living, growing web application, like many of the ones that I work with, the design has generally evolved over time and the initial blueprint is very different to what the code is today. Spaghetti code replaces the spaghetti junctions but for all intents and purposes, the code is as difficult for a developer to navigate as the junctions are for a driver.
Every application I have worked on is full of spaghetti code. Is software doomed to be built as poorly as these highway intersections? Are software architects failing in the same way that these town planners failed?
I shudder to think what the off ramp at line 3225 of the MyHome website looks like!
MyHome - PBL’s new giant killer website launched today and as far as I can see, it certainly won’t be a giant killer any time soon! I won’t be making it my home for real estate searches.
UI is less than inspiring, functionality is less than functional, many less properties than their competitors.
Not much different or right about it IMHO. I’m convinced that this is destined for failure in its current state. Early days, but I was hoping for something a bit more innovative and definitely something with a much better user experience, that would help people to make the decision to switch.
I am amazed that a company with the resources of PBL can get this so wrong. Surely PBL could have leveraged some of the talent at NineMSN who recently relaunched their site with great improvements to both functionality and user experience.
The site performs so badly and I had so many problems navigating and trying to get my head around the IA and navigation structure that I wonder how a ‘normal’ internet user would ever understand the conceptual model.
I think the teams over at Domain and REA can sleep easy tonight!
Lisa Herrod, over at SitePoint, asserts that Usability Stifles Creativity. She uses the site Etsy as an example.
I’m struggling to see an inverse relationship between testing and creativity.
Creative designers shouldn’t be stifled by usability testing, it should confirm and inform their design rationale.
Of course, clever people can do a very good job of designing an interface without user testing. BUT, there are many things that Etsy could improve - their “cute” naming of their features doesn’t always give a clear scent or indication as to the outcome of a click (what is Alchemy, that is the difference between time machine 1 & 2), there is no “title” / “alt” behaviour on the navigation, would it be more desirable to show more of the sellers other items in the right hand column, given there is a fair amount of white-space at the bottom of that column.
Usability testing can ALWAYS be used to validate and inform decisions. I see no reason why this should stifle creativity. If anything, usability testing should allow the designer to test waters that they may otherwise be wary of.
Usability testing allows us to step out of our ivory towers and see how our application is used by REAL people in the REAL world. In this sense, and with these goals in mind, the only time a designers creativity is stifled is when she has designed something that is not optimally usable.
Read/WriteWeb has an interesting article theorising that Web 3.0 will be the product of the following formula:
Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS).
4C = Content, Commerce, Community, Context | P = Personalization | VS = Vertical Search
I tend to agree. Commerce and content have been the drivers of the internet for many years. Community is very 2.0, as is personalisation. Add context and vertical search and I think you’ll start to see a whole new generation of sites emerging.
It is a logical evolution. As the generalist 2.0 sites become so large, there will be a market need for more specialised and contextual information management and deliver.
Web 2.0 has just completed its Bachelor of Medicine. Let’s see what type of specialists the graduates go on to become.
Competitive analysis is a vital part of product strategy and feeds into the design and features of a website. Dan Brown has published a great article on Digital Web.
Outlined are the steps to consider when conducting a competitive analysis as well as some useful methods to create useful artifacts.
While we’re on Yahoo!, I thought that the current storm over Yahoo Suggestions was quite humerous. Here I am posting about Yahoo! patents one minute and then posting about Yahoo copying Digg the next.
Frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. The screenshots below show the similarities between Yahoo Suggestions and Digg, with voting for stories to the left of the short blurb. All looks very similar.
Yahoo:
Digg:
No doubt, Digg created a great system and UI for user generated and rated content. It is a given then, that others will “copy” it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with “reapply with pride”. Yahoo! even went so far as to credit Digg on it’s blog so I can’t see what all of the fuss is about.
I’m with Yahoo! on this one, can’t see what all of the fuss is about.
The Eolas patent was bad news for the internet. It meant that millions of websites became less usable overnight. Depending on which side you are on, you would argue for or against Microsoft pushing the “security patch” that resulted in embedded objects requiring 2 clicks to be activated where they previously required 1. I believe they should have just coughed up the $40 million or so in order to ensure that users of IE had no degradation of their browsing experience.
So, reading today on CrunchGear about how Yahoo! have lodged a patent claim for a bunch of concepts concerned with the “creation of dynamic pages” I fear that the big news of 2007 may be Yahoo! enforcing their patents at the expense of innovation and user experience. I hope I am wrong!
A fantastic video, outlining the history and evolution of the internet. From humble, linear text beginnings, to user driven content where we become the machine. Fascinating viewing and a good 101 for those unsure of what this “whole web 2.0 thing” is about.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]
The premise that “we are the machine” is a little scary from an out there science fiction point of view. That much information about us, our habits, our likes and dislikes in the wrong, smart hands could be used to do all kinds of scary artificial intelligence stuff. Hell, this post could have me targeted by the machines as a conspirator against the machine uprising.
Well, I guess it’s time to read How to Survive a Robot Uprising again!!
