Productivity and Screen Size

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for October 23 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen-productivity.html
		
Summary:
Apple's study of the benefits of big monitors fails on two accounts: it
didn't test realistic tasks, and it didn't test realistic use.
Productivity is a key argument for workplace usability, but you must
measure it carefully.

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User Experience 2006 conference

  > Seattle, this week 
  > London, November 5-11 

29 full-day tutorials, 3 keynote sessions open to all:

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

Deadline to save £140 on London registration: NEXT FRIDAY, Nov. 3

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Drop-Downs Deliver Defective Data

Another reason to use drop-down menus sparingly, as I wrote in 2000:

  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001112.html

Most users now have mice with scroll wheels. When you select a value in a
drop-down and then use the wheel to move down the page, you often change
the value of the drop-down selection instead. Users often don't realize
that they have changed their input but proceed to submit the form.

This is particularly error prone in cases where users have to select a
date on a long form, say for reserving a trip or specifying the ship date
for a package.

Check with your customer support people and see if they get many
complaints about things that were "mysteriously" entered into the system
with a ship date or reservation date that's later than what the customer
expected. Many of these expensive errors are likely to be caused by the
use of drop-down menus on your forms. Try changing to type-in fields and
you'll probably see support calls go down and customer satisfaction go up.

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1/3 of Business Users Write Down Their Passwords

... according to a recent survey. I think it's more, since people are
unlikely to answer truthfully when asked about something they know they
are not supposed to do.

The report recommends single sign-on and biometrics. We haven't studied
biometrics yet, but I can certainly echo single sign-on, which emerged as
a prime benefit in our study of intranet portals (when it worked, that is,
but it's more complex than the vendors let on).

  > Password study: http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6126924.html
  > Portals study:  http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/portals