Closeness of Actions and Objects in GUI Design

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for March 8 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/action-object-closeness.html
	
Summary:
Users overlook features if the GUI elements - such as buttons and
checkboxes - are too far away from the objects they act on.
		
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Usability Week 2010 conference

  > New York, NY: March 22-26
  > Chicago, IL: April 19-24
  > London, UK: May 16-21
  > San Francisco, CA: June 14-19
  > Toronto, Canada: August 9-14

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

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DEADLINES

Last chance to save $200 on NEW YORK CITY registrations
and 10% on CHICAGO:
  * Next Friday, March 19

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CANADIAN conference announced

The first-ever Usability Week conference in Canada is coming to Toronto in
August.

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/toronto/agenda.html

New seminar:

  * Visioneering
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/visioneering.html

Visioneering, or "vision engineering," is a systematic approach to
creating a design direction based on long-range vision for a website,
intranet, application, or product. Though the long-term outcome will
almost certainly not be realized exactly as envisioned, it is important
for development teams to share the same goal as they look out for factors
that may require changes to the plan.

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NEW (OLD) CHAIRS

I am getting some new dining room chairs today. After extensive
test-sitting, we chose "PP503" designed by Hans Wegner in 1950. Among
other things, this chair is famous for having been used during the
televised Kennedy/Nixon presidential debate in 1960. However, we bought
PP503 because it's so extraordinarily comfortable to sit in.

There are plenty more modern chairs, but none as pleasant.

  > http://www.pp.dk/index.php?page=collection&cat=1&id=11

I usually say that humans don't change much over the years, which is why
usability guidelines tend to stay stable. Sadly, the physical size of some
people has been increasing, but a 60-year old design is still fine for me.

The PP503 is a nice example of the long life a product can get from
focusing on simple, clean design that's optimized for human needs and
characteristics.

(It's also an example of iterative design, because it's an improvement
on the PP501 chair from 1949 that's slightly less comfortable.)