Neuroscience
The New York Times reports today that during last week’s transit strike, the New York City news site NY1.com displayed a “stark black-and-white page with basic blue headline links” rather than its usual flashy graphics. Folks at NY1 say they streamlined their site to help site visitors get information quickly (hits increased from an average 30,000 to 100,000 during the strike). The Times suggests that NY1 stripped it down to prevent potential load problems — odd, they argue, since the site is owned by cable Internet provider Time Warner which should have the bandwidth to handle anything.
Either way, it’s an interesting approach to a crisis: make an important web site more usable. Then again, why not make the site more usable ALL THE TIME?! [sigh]
When News Breaks, Flashy Content Loses Out
By DAVID F. GALLAGHER
New York Times, December 26, 2005
Visitors to NY1.com seeking news about the city's transit
strike found a stripped-down design featuring basic blue
headline links and no photos.
- Media Plus Content
There’s a lot of exciting work being done in neuroscience today. And the commercial potential is substantial. But the market sector has been oversaturated with the recycled, repackaged commodity offerings by the big players. What neuroscience really...
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From David Pogue's New York Times blog comes this: Technology / Pogues Posts: A Wacky Persistence of Vision Test New York Times, June 10, 2005 By DAVID POGUE This wild and wacky persistence-of-vision test is a new one on me. There is absolutely, positively...
Neuroscience
Does Usability Change with Events?
The New York Times reports today that during last week’s transit strike, the New York City news site NY1.com displayed a “stark black-and-white page with basic blue headline links” rather than its usual flashy graphics. Folks at NY1 say they streamlined their site to help site visitors get information quickly (hits increased from an average 30,000 to 100,000 during the strike). The Times suggests that NY1 stripped it down to prevent potential load problems — odd, they argue, since the site is owned by cable Internet provider Time Warner which should have the bandwidth to handle anything.
Either way, it’s an interesting approach to a crisis: make an important web site more usable. Then again, why not make the site more usable ALL THE TIME?! [sigh]
When News Breaks, Flashy Content Loses Out
By DAVID F. GALLAGHER
New York Times, December 26, 2005
Visitors to NY1.com seeking news about the city's transit
strike found a stripped-down design featuring basic blue
headline links and no photos.
- Media Plus Content
There’s a lot of exciting work being done in neuroscience today. And the commercial potential is substantial. But the market sector has been oversaturated with the recycled, repackaged commodity offerings by the big players. What neuroscience really...
- My Summer Vacation
It's definitely summer here in North Carolina: we've had 36 days with temperatures at or above 90º in June or July (in 1952, we had 45 such days in June or July, says the News & Observer), and things are hot & sticky down south! It's...
- Usability Talk
I'm going to do a short presentation on usability for Simmons GSLIS (West) on March 24. I'll talk about good usability principles and show some examples from some recent testing I helped do at work. If you're part of the GSLIS community, I...
- About The New Orleans Paper
I heard a NewsHour podcast this morning about how the New Orleans Times Picayune is covering New Orleans after Katrina. This is what the NewsHour web site says about the story: "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, like so many other local institutions...
- Optical Illusions
From David Pogue's New York Times blog comes this: Technology / Pogues Posts: A Wacky Persistence of Vision Test New York Times, June 10, 2005 By DAVID POGUE This wild and wacky persistence-of-vision test is a new one on me. There is absolutely, positively...