Usability

A month ago I stepped into a second hand bookshop and noticed that they arranged books not by genre, title or author but by colour. James Andrews, previously of Foviance, told me that arranging content by colour is not a new idea. Chris Cobb started organising books by colour in his Adobe installation in 2004.

Read more about: Why you should judge a book by its colour

A few weeks ago, Foviance was commissioned by a major UK retail bank to conduct user testing sessions on online application processes. The main objective of the research was to compare the newly designed process with the current one. And from there, stemmed a finding that challenges one of the most profound customer experience beliefs: the simplest way is not always the best. Read more about: The simplest way is not always the best

It has been 14 years since I first surfed the web using a PC, so it is no surprise that it is increasingly rare for us to observe novice users of the Internet (yes, while they do exist, they are becoming fewer in number, and are less likely to volunteer to take part in research involving Internet use than more experienced Internet users). However, the same cannot be said for mobile Internet users. Read more about: Mobile Internet variety doesn’t match skill

Nanopayments (the idea of making a profit by getting a large number of people to pay a small amount) have been talked about for a while now, and although not in their current form, the idea of nanopayments is not a new one.

For example, it is the way that mobile operators make a profit off text messaging, and remember the Million Dollar Homepage? A student from Wiltshire sold a million pixels’ worth of 100-pixel blocks, which companies could purchase and advertise on at $1 per pixel. However, the deployment of this type of payment to general consumers within the online sphere is relatively new. At the moment, for example it is used on social networking sites to buy items such as virtual gifts or in games to buy extra levels. Read more about: Where smaller might be better

This article, written by Catriona Campbell was originally published on iabuk.net and is republished here with permission.

According to the noted neuroscientist Baronness Susan Greenfield, the human brain until the age of ten has the capacity to learn at astonishing rates in comparison to later years. No-one really knows how our learning process is slowed after the age of ten, but slow it does. It is almost as though it has programmed itself, and now just needs refining. Read more about: Information overload

Recently I got back in touch with an old friend who had been trying to contact me via an email address I’d not used in years. This got me thinking about my online presence and just how many log ins I’ve created over the years: Read more about: Online Life After Death

Keyboard accessibility is one of the most important aspects of web accessibility. There are a whole host of reasons why certain users will find mouse usage difficult or impossible. Some users may have no use or limited use of their hands or arms and rely on the keyboard or alternative input devices to navigate websites. Blind people using screen reading software almost exclusively rely on keyboard navigation. Read more about: Keyboard navigation impossible

Not one to follow the hype or emerging trend, I was still intrigued by why anyone would queue from 5.30am to buy something, namely the new iPhone which launched last week in the UK. On catching up with my brother-in-law last weekend, an avid iPhone user (and essentially all things Apple), I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. He proudly pulled out his phone and handed it to me, initially I was amazed he would trust his new prised possession in my hands, what if I ‘broke’ something by pressing the wrong button? It would seem that it’s not possible. Read more about: The Internet without the clutter