The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports (subscription) that a single iPod vending machine sold thousand dollars worth of iPods in one month. A VP of Business Traveler Services is quoted as saying, “We’ve done about $55,000 in a month in gross sales just for the one on Concourse A.
Category Archives: Science & Technology
Jakob Nielsen’s Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design
From usability expert Jakob Nielsen’s useit.com. I’ll plead guilty to #2 and #5 on a few of our sites. I’m iffy on a couple more. If you have a blog (or any kind of website), this is a handy check-list.
1. Bad Search
2. PDF Files for Online Reading
3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
4. Non-Scannable Text
5. Fixed Font Size
6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility
7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement
8. Violating Design Conventions
9. Opening New Browser Windows
10. Not Answering Users’ Questions
Mayo Clinic developing “Treadmill Workstation”
“Instead of sitting in chairs, workers stand in front of a raised workstation and slowly walk on a treadmill. Normally Levine keeps to a one-mile-per-hour pace, which requires little effort or concentration, allowing him to focus his attention on work. But the speed is fast enough to do some good, burning an extra 100 calories an hour – 8,000 calories over a 40 hour work week.”
“The researcher behind the project, Dr. James Levine, says his recent research shows that thin people tend to be on their feet an average of two and a half hours a day more than people who are overweight. Getting office workers up out of their chairs led him to build a prototype ‘treadmill workstation’.”
[ConsumerAffairs.com]
iPods replacing huge 3-ring binders?
Kevin O’Keefe (Real Lawyers Have Blogs) points to an interesting article about benefit managers putting content, such as benefits and wellness updates and bonus guidelines, online without always going through IT. The benefits department can easily become a news publisher of compensation and benefits information.
Pleased to say that we’ve been doing that at Learfield for some time now.
Kevin also reports at least one of his clients giving iPods to employees so as to keep employees abreast of company human resources matters and training materials. The iPods come preloaded with relevant content with updates streamed to employees via the net.
Now, that is a wired company.
The Case Against Caps
ALL-CAP TEXT REDUCES READING SPEED BY ABOUT TEN PERCENT. MIXED-CASE LETTERS HAVE VARIATIONS THAT BREAK UP THE TEXT INTO RECOGNIZABLE SHAPES, WHEREAS A PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS HAS UNIFORM HEIGHT AND SHAPE, MAKE IT APPEAR BLOCKY AND RUN TOGETHER. ALSO, THE USE OF ALL CAPS CAN SEEM CHILDISH AND AMATEUR, OR AGGRESSIVE OR UNPROFESSIONAL. RESERVE ALL-CAP TEXT FOR SHORT HEADINGS AND TITLES, AND FOR SHOUTING.
Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen, Hoa Loranger.