September 2nd, 2010 by Raluca Ene
Earlier this month I attended Usability Week 2010 in Toronto. This week-long event was put on by the Nielsen Norman Group and it featured a series of full-day tutorials led by usability experts on a variety of subjects, ranging from information architecture through to user testing.
The tutorial I attended focused on the role the human mind plays in defining the principles of usability. It did a great job of presenting details about how humans process information and the impact that this has in predicting peoples’ reactions and making effective design decisions leading to intuitive interfaces. Read more on The Psychology of User Experience: Usability Week 2010…
Tags: UI, usability week, user experience, user interface, UX
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August 26th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
It’s been an active couple of weeks in terms of web browser news with a plethora of sneak peeks and leaked screenshots. Everyone’s trying to one-up each other in the battle of the browsers.
It started with the beta release of Mozilla’s Firefox 4 browser, which adds support touch events within the browser on Windows 7 machines. They’ve also added a few other changes like moving the tabs option to the top of the browser and enhancing the JavaScript support to beef up performance of all those slick HTML5 web app demos that are making the rounds.
Next was the Chrome 6 Beta. Many of the changes on this version can be considered cosmetic – mainly streamlined tabs and buttons. The major feature is the addition of a new auto-fill feature with integrated synch. This allows all instances of Chrome to share form data and use it to auto-fill forms. Read more on Battle of the Web Browsers Heats Up…
Tags: Chrome, Firefox, Google, IE9, Microsoft, Mozilla, web browsers
Posted in Rich Internet Applications, Trends and Technology | No Comments »
August 20th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
With the launch of Facebook Places this week, it got me thinking about how businesses can really take advantage of this growing trend of users “checking in” at various locations. In the early days of this technology with Foursquare and Gowalla most of the emphasis was placed on the personal social use of the application for meeting up with friends and finding friends nearby. But the value in the application has always been centered on the business angle. For retailers, restaurants, and other consumer-driven businesses it’s always been about collecting customer info and offering rewards to frequent visitors. Businesses looking to attract and award clients to drive loyalty should consider these tools as part of their marketing mix.
Read more on Does Location-Based Social Media Make Sense for Businesses?…
Tags: Associations, Facebook Places, Foursquare, Gowalla
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August 13th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
It’s been a dismal time for Google with the discontinuation of Google Wave, but some interesting news has surfaced about the market share figures for the Google Android operating system. In the second quarter of 2010, Android Smartphone shipments have surged by a whopping 886%. During the same period, RIM saw a 41% jump in Blackberry sales, allowing it to maintain almost a 50% market share lead over the iPhone. These are some interesting numbers, but why is the Android seeing such an incredible increase? One possible issue inflating these figures is the definition of what constitutes a “Smartphone”. While one would expect a Smartphone to be a robust, app-running device, for the purposes of market share data, pretty much any device that has the power to surf the web and is running Android to do so is counted as an “Android powered Smartphone”.
Read more on Why Businesses Shouldn’t Overlook Android…
Tags: Android, Flash, Google, Google Wave, Mobile, RIM, Windows Phone7
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August 3rd, 2010 by Laurent Brigaut
Going head-to-head with Google Maps and Mapquest is tough, but Microsoft has made strides recently with Bing Maps by delivering a new API and some interesting Silverlight 4 features that stir up the wow factor. The Bing Maps API has led to the development of some interesting, and even useful, applications that are available directly on the Bing Maps website.
Read more on Will the New Bing Maps Apps Help Stir-Up Some Competition?…
Tags: API, Bing Maps, Google Maps, Silverlight 4
Posted in Rich Internet Applications, Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »
July 28th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
After spending some quality time with the family iPad over the past two weeks, I’ve discovered some key usability challenges that are hard to ignore. A major issue with the device is the lack of consistency between applications. Although Apple claims to have a stringent review process, the experience and the behaviours vary considerably between apps. At one extreme you have the infinite page scrolling of the Gap 1969 Stream application, which is nothing more than a massive page that you can navigate through and click on items to view. At the opposite extreme, you have the Flipboard application that transforms a simple RSS reader into a new type of interactive magazine.
Here are my top five usability observations with the iPad: Read more on Five Usability Challenges of the iPad…
Tags: Flipboard, iPad, Usability, user experience
Posted in Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »
July 22nd, 2010 by Jason MacDonald
When companies like Apple and Scribd start using HTML5 for their offerings, organizations start to question whether they should be using it for their own applications. However, it’s important to remember that while HTML5 has made strong strides lately, it is still in the draft development phase and it is early for organizations to rely solely on it for their core business applications.
This point was clear when YouTube posted a rather lengthy blog post about its experience with the HTML5 <video> tag and how it does not yet meet the company’s rather intense requirements. Features like full-screen video, access to cameras and microphones, embedding content on other sites, and live video streaming are not yet fully supported by HTML5 <video>. Read more on YouTube and Hulu Say HTML5 Video Not Ready for Prime Time…
Tags: HTML5, Hulu, video, YouTube
Posted in Rich Internet Applications, Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »
July 15th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
In the past few weeks alone, the concept of “The Internet of Things” has been named as a top five trend of 2010 by ReadWriteWeb and has taken home the Cisco I-Prize, an award given to the global community in recognition of “the next major business opportunity”.
What is the “Internet of Things”? It’s when real-world objects are connected to the internet, often using sensors, barcodes and RFID tags. Implementations range from something mainstream like running web applications in a car, such as the new AppLink service slated to debut in Ford Fiestas next year, to complex web-connected sensors attached to physical devices that trigger feedback and actions.
Read more on Are You Ready for “The Internet of Things”…
Tags: barcodes, Cisco, Ford, HP, Mir:ror, Nabaztag, ReadWriteWeb, RFID, Violet
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July 8th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
For a trend named one of the top five of the year by Read Write Web, the mobile market certainly has Microsoft scrambling. Just six weeks into its launch, Microsoft has killed the Kin, its answer mobile effort geared toward the youth market. Maybe it was due to low sales, or expensive data plans, or the fact that Microsoft just isn’t hip enough to capture the teen market, but the Kin just never took off.
The Kin rose from Microsoft’s $500M acquisition of Danger back in 2008. This move was supposed to firm up the company’s floundering mobile strategy and provide a channel into the young, internet savvy and social customer market. Did Microsoft’s stogy corporate culture take over and stamp out the innovation the Danger team was known for? For now the Kin team has been rolled into the Windows Phone7 team and will work toward bringing this device to market. Read more on What does the Death of the Kin Mean for the Mobile Market?…
Tags: Android, Apple, Blackberry, Google, iPhone, Kin, Microsoft, Palm, Windows
Posted in Trends and Technology | 2 Comments »
June 25th, 2010 by Andrea Simmons
Why is it that when people talk about technology they reduce the concepts down to a black and white comparison? It’s always one technology against another or one product that’s good and one that’s bad.
This is case in point with the recent battle that’s emerged between HTML5 and Flash. HTML5 is being touted by developers, bloggers and press alike as the new “Flash Killer”. This angle seems to be based on the one-dimensional view that Flash is only used for video (rather than the full spectrum of game, 3D and application development it’s really suited for), and that the fast and reliable video support that’s offered with HTML5 will make it the new choice for developers. But don’t count Flash as dead yet, it still offers a number of unique features that are not yet supported in HTML5, such as live streaming, DRM, and rich video controls. Plus it has a much greater span of support than HTML5 does today. Read more on Why does it have to be HTML5 vs Flash?…
Tags: Flash, HTML5, Rich Internet Applications, Silverlight
Posted in Rich Internet Applications, Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »
