Mobile Web 2009 = Desktop Web 1998

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for February 17 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-usability.html

Summary:
Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end
devices.
To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions.
	
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Usability Week 2009 conference

  > Washington DC, April 5-10 
  > London, May 17-22 
  > San Francisco, June 22-27 
  > Sydney, July 27-August 1

In-depth training:
  > 3-day camp on Usability in Practice

Specialized topics:
  > 14 in-depth tutorials

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

DEADLINE to save 10% on Washington registration: Next Friday, Feb. 27

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EXAMPLES WANTED

We are working on two new whitepapers: 

(A) Collaboration Features and Social Networking on Intranets

For example:
   - Enterprise blogging, CEO blogs, employee blogs
   - Micro-blogging, mobile postings, Yammer etc.
   - Discussion forums
   - Wikis
   - "Internal Facebook" or "Internal LinkedIn"
   - Collaborative workspaces

(B) Intranet Governance Issues

For example:
   - How should an intranet team be structured?
   - Branding and advertising/promoting the intranet
   - How to coordinate across departments?
   - Advisory councils or governing boards
   - How to introduce a revamp or new features

Please help if you can contribute examples, screenshots, or insights
(whether positive lessons learned, or things to avoid). You can remain
anonymous, or if you are willing to be quoted, you and your organization
will get substantial professional recognition from being represented in
the report. (You will approve all quotes and screenshots before
publication.) Also, of course, everybody who's quoted (whether by name or
anonymously) will get a complimentary copy of the report.

If you can contribute to either study (or both!) please send Patty Caya a
brief message at the following address and she will follow up:
   > [email protected]

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PROGRAMMER PRODUCTIVITY

The #1 guideline for programmer productivity is to hire good ones - they
deliver 3 times more than bad ones (the very best are 20 times more
productive than the worst):

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

The #2 guideline is to give each programmer a private office and minimize
distractions and interruptions. The New York Times had an interesting
story about the design of an office environment to maximize productivity
in a small software company:

  > http://nytimes.com/2009/02/08/realestate/commercial/08sqft.html
	
The company is run by Joel Spolsky who is the author of a good book about
user interface design, so he is clearly not your average development
manager. So much more reason to learn from him.