A button is a button right? Move the mouse over it. Click. Not much to it, eh?

Well, when it’s a well-designed button, all the work your brain is doing to click the button is invisible to you. However, when it’s poorly designed, things start to become harder. Maybe you overshoot the target area? Or maybe you have trouble clicking because the button is too small. Often its not difficult to recover, but it costs attention and attention is expensive.

In this week’s podcast, we discuss the implications of Fitts’ Law. In short, the law states, “The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.”

 

 Usability Tools Podcast: Applying Fitts’s Law [14:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this week’s podcast, Brian Christiansen and I continue exploring usability techniques for web-based applications.
This week, we explore the usability technique toolbox, focusing on those methods that help us with web-based applications.

 

 Usability Tools Podcast: Useful Web App Usability Techniques, Part 2 [21:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this week’s podcast, Brian Christiansen and I explore usability techniques for web-based applications. Web-based applications are different from content-based web sites because the users are involved in a transaction. When we’re researching the usability of a content-based site, we’re focused on how users will find and react to the information. However, with web-based applications, there are many other considerations that we need to account for.

Because this is a big topic, we’ve divided it into two podcasts. In Part 1, Brian and I lay down the framework for what our usability research needs to tell us about our web-based application. In Part 2, will look at the techniques for finding that information.

 

 Usability Tools Podcast: Web App Testing, Part One [16:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Almost every company has to struggle with the balance between customer needs and internal business objectives. In this episode the crew examines the recent situation at Facebook. While trying to please both users and build a business model, the fast moving organization has stepped on many toes.

 

 SpoolCast Crew Episode 7 - The Book of Face [01:18:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

How do you communicate complex and interactive design ideas to the development team? To answer this question, I had a chance to speak with with D. Keith Robinson, the Creative Director of Blue Flavor.
We had a great discussion regarding the “backstage” portion of web app design.

 

 SpoolCast: Web App Deliverables with D. Keith Robinson [34:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s podcast features a fascinating conversation I had with New York Times graphic journalists, Andrew DeVigal and Steve Duenes. Andrew and Steve are part of the team responsible for taking data and raw information from the day’s news and turning it into highly interactive and informative online experiences.

 

 SpoolCast: Making Data Engaging: A Talk with the New York Times Interactive Design Team [23:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s tempting to spend a ton of time creating slick flyout, dropdown, or pop-up navigation on our site, but is it worth the effort? This week, Brian Christiansen and I discuss interactive mouseover techniques for navigation. Are they a good idea when it comes to actually using your site? Based on our testing, we don’t think so.

 

 Standard Podcast [24:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Derek Featherstone travels the globe as a premier expert speaker on web accessibility, and I had a chance to sit down and interview him for the SpoolCast. I think you’ll find our talk enjoyable and informative!

 

 SpoolCast: Accessibility with Derek Featherstone [23:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, we discuss avoiding redesigns. When we talk about avoiding redesigns, we don’t think your should stay anchored in the past, far from it. But we think the best route to change is through incremental deployment.

 

 Avoiding Redesigns [13:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Slideshare.net’s Slidecast technology is pretty slick.
With very little effort, I easily added the soundtrack to the slides I’d uploaded earlier:

| View | Upload your own

Kudos to Rashmi, Jon, and the folks at Slideshare.
Thanks to Andy Budd at d.Construct 2007 for letting me use the audio.
[Note: the slides don't completely match the audio, as I [...]