Tuesday, March 30, 2004

PeopleAggregator - An Open Source Social Network [Slashdot] 11:59:08 PM      Google It!.

Human interface guidelines for the Internet. Apple, of course, wrote the book on human interface guidelines by visualizing and documenting a range of interaction scenarios in meticulous detail. Today we have a variety of platform-specific guidelines -- for Windows, for GNOME, for Flash MX. But we lack general guidelines for how Internet applications should behave on all platforms. E-mail programs don't agree on how threading, foldering, and filtering should work. Web browsers don't agree on how drop-down search boxes should work. RSS readers don't agree on how the orange XML icon should work. Media players don't agree on how playlists should work. We need HCI (human/computer interface) guidelines more than ever. And we need them not only for Windows, OS X, GNOME, and Flash, but for the uber-platform that subsumes them all. We need human interface guidelines for the Internet. [Full story at InfoWorld.com] The impetus for this column came from this posting on S/MIME signatures, which argued that confusion about whether or how to trust a signature is a problem of UI, not cryptography. Robb Beal violently agreed. He wrote: Yes! Every technical spec that has user-facing implications should have a corresponding functional spec. See my functional annotation of Mark Pilgrim's HTTP tests for an example. ... [Jon's Radio] 9:06:24 AM      Google It!.

THG On Migrating To Linux [Slashdot] migration checklist 9:04:37 AM      .

Hitachi Shows Off A Fuel-Cell PDA [Slashdot] 9:03:02 AM      Google It!.

You're Watching Less TV [Slashdot] TV watching by men from 18 to 34 (most wired 75% have internet access) fell 12% from a year ago,  18 to 24 year olds dropped  20%. 9:02:07 AM      Google It!.

'Pop off to the Pub to Take An Exam' - Dominic Hayes, Education Correspondent, Scotsman.com. People could soon pop along to their local pub to take an exam with their pint as technological advances will make computerised assessment increasingly common, the head of England’s testing watchdog said today. People who hated traditional pen and pape [Online Learning Update] 8:43:35 AM      Google It!.