User Testing is Not Entertainment

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for September 11 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/user-testing-showbiz.html
		
Summary:
Don't run your studies for the benefit of the people in the observation
room. Test to discover the truth about the design, even when user tasks
are boring to watch.

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User Experience 2006 conference

  > Seattle, October 22-28 
  > London, November 5-11 

Full conference program, with list of the 29 full-day tutorials:

  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

Deadline to save 10% on Seattle registration: NEXT FRIDAY, Sept. 22

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Joel Spolsky wrote about the choice of implementation technology for
enterprise projects, making two great points:

(*) There are three platforms that are all known to work, so pick one of
them, avoiding the fancy, but risky ones that don't have a sufficient
ecosystem.

(*) As long as you use one of the safe platforms, success or failure of
your project will not be due to which technology you chose, so go with the
one your software architect knows the best.

  > http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/01.html

Joel's second point matches with our findings from intranet portal
projects: what makes a good portal is not the technology (they all suck),
but how you fit the tech to your company's needs:

  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/portals

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Following up on my note in the last newsletter about Dave Winer's mobile
interface to news, The New York Times has released their own design at
http://mobile.nytimes.com

The Times needs to edit its decks (summaries under the headlines) more
tightly. Current story summaries are too verbose for mobile reading,
making for too much scrolling. And they should skip the bylines on the
front page - bylines are not sufficiently important to take up an entire
extra line on the tiny screen.

Photos must be selected judiciously. For example, the article "Bush Urges
Congress to Pass Surveillance Bill" was illustrated with a photo of the
President - just in case you didn't know who the headline refers to, I
guess... There's half a screenfull gone on my mobile.

The mobile user experience is different than the desktop user experience:
content should be edited differently as well. Repurposing is evil.

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I'm speaking in my old hometown, Copenhagen, Denmark in November:
  > http://www.intrateam.dk/Default.aspx?ID=2065