Usability

What Should I Do, Sky?

Last night I put off going to bed so I could watch the Women’s Skeleton in the Winter Olympics.  There was a chance of Britain picking up an unlikely gold medal (we did!).  As the night hours turn into the morning hours, and the skeleton enters its final runs, my Sky+ HD receiver decided to […]

Newspaper Website Interface Review

I’ve been working on a WordPress theme for a while that’s geared towards high-content sites – sites that produce a lot of content on a regular basis.  Whilst I had a general idea of what I wanted to aim for, I thought some research was in order.  I wanted to see how high-content, high-traffic sites […]

BBC Weather gets updated, but is it any good?

Of all the weeks for the BBC to relaunch the weather section of their website, perhaps this wasn’t the best. A quick search of Twitter for the hashtag #uksnow will reveal the fact that there’s been a touch of snow falling in the UK this week. A quick search of any number of news sources […]

How Poor Usability Can Irrevocably Damage A Brand

Natuba launched a new iPhone focused social photo sharing site. They were fortunate to get coverage on TechCrunch, a leading blog, but the initial post pointed out functionality the site didn’t appear to have. Although it actually did. So how much did this usability failing hurt Natuba?

WordPress 2.5 – Usability Oddities

The new WordPress 2.5 admin interface has been completely revamped with a focus on usability. But what slipped through the cracks? What can be improved on?

Failing to Serve Basic Visitor Needs

There are some breeds of website that should be tailoured to users with little internet experience. These are essential sites, sites that all sorts of people need to use. So why, in this case, where three of these “every man” sites so awful from a usability point of view?

Does the WordPress Codex have the World's Worst Search?

When I’m developing a new WordPress theme, I inevitably end up hitting the WordPress Codex fairly regularly. Unfortunately, the more I get drawn into it looking for answers, the more it frustrates me. The problem isn’t necessarily the content, which does vary wildly depending on the page you’re looking at, it’s more about the navigation […]

Blog Usability – Get the facts

Usability should be a key requirement of any website, regardless of it’s purpose. As someone who deals in web app usability every day, it’s easy to look down at blogging. After all, many of the complex user interactions associated with fully fledged web apps, such as GMail, aren’t really found on blogs. There are, however, […]

Apple Store Oddity – They don't want my money!

I was browsing the Apple UK store today, trying to decide whether it’s actually time to put my money into a new MacBook Pro, and I noticed something very strange. And it’s strange on two levels, multiple layers of strangeness even. I’m talking about the page you arrive at having selected to purchase a MacBook […]

5 Ways to Improve the iPlayer

I wrote up a review on the BBC’s iPlayer a few days ago. I admit that I took a fairly negative standpoint, but didn’t provide any real suggestions for improvement. At this point I’d also like to point out that I admire the BBC for what they are attempting, the UK has been behind the […]

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