Articles

The Workflow Reference Model: 10 Years On

Last year saw the 10th anniversary of the Workflow Reference Model. This short paper reassesses the relevance of the Model in the current context of Business Process Management. It discusses the principles behind the Model, its strengths and weakness and examines how it remains relevant to the industry today. It concludes by introducing a number of considerations required to establish a "BPM Reference Model" and discusses how the various overlapping standards in this space may be categorised.

Gartner's Top Analysts Discuss "Business Process Fusion"

Increasing the responsiveness of IT to business processes has become a hot topic in the corporate world. Most enterprises have already made significant investments in automating key business processes; now they want to move to the next level. That is where business process fusion comes in.

Simple is sexy when it comes to open-source

These days, open-source software is the metrosexual in the IT industry. It's cool and sexy to be open-source. Those of us who've been around open-source for a long time always thought that, but now mainstream businesses and the mainstream press are picking up on that cool factor as well.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

"I anatomize a successful open-source project, fetchmail, that was run as a deliberate test of some surprising theories about software engineering suggested by the history of Linux. I discuss these theories in terms of two fundamentally different development styles, the "cathedral" model of most of the commercial world versus the "bazaar" model of the Linux world. I show that these models derive from opposing assumptions about the nature of the software-debugging task. I then make a sustained argument from the Linux experience for the proposition that 'Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow', suggest productive analogies with other self-correcting systems of selfish agents, and conclude with some exploration of the implications of this insight for the future of software." - Eric S. Raymond, First Monday

The 2004 Top 100

" 'If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.' If this oft-used phrase is true, then this year's Training Top 100 companies have the management of workforce development programs down to a science. While many companies continue to slash training budgets in the naïve hope of improving the bottom line, these 100 companies invested nearly $7 million—on average, 4.1 percent of their payroll—in bettering the professional and personal lives of their employees. By doing so, the 2004 Top 100 have gained a sustainable advantage over their competition by boosting key business metrics—revenue, productivity and quality, to name a few—through highly focused and tightly managed training programs." - Tammy Galvin, Trainingmag.com"

Targeted Email Newsletters Show Continued Strength

E-newsletters that are informative, convenient, and timely are often preferred over other media. However, a new study found that only 11% of newsletters were read thoroughly, so layout and content scannability are paramount.

The Business Needs Drive Training Evaluation At Bank of America

The project described in this article has earned a 2003 ASTD Excellence in Practice Citation in the career development category. Determining when a training solution is the right solution to a performance problem is at the very heart of what we do as learning professionals. Being able to clearly articulate the link between business needs, performance gaps and the impact of the learning solution is where we prove our value as professionals to our business partners. But how do we do that?

New Content Management Systems Lists

Usability News reports six new lists/blogs on the topic of content management systems.

The problem with internet advertising is the ads

Why does the most sophisticated communications technology suffer the most primitive forms of advertising? Except in a few cases internet advertising seems at best desperate and at worst antagonistic, writes Thomas Ordahl of strategic branding and internet consulting firm Siegel & Gale, from the DigitalBulletin.

Hold the Phone

Internet telephony is cheap: "The economics finally make sense." But as more and more companies are discovering, it also can let you do some nifty things. Voice over Internet protocol technology is keeping workers--in hospitals, Wall Street brokerages, law firms, even National Basketball Association franchises--connected as never before. -from Fast Company Editor's Note: I use VOIP to communicate with my software development team in India...for the cost of a local call. Shhh...don't tell the tariff police!

Compliance Regulations: Five New Articles

What's all the fuss about compliance? Big business, and big issues for performance support, that's what! Organizations are faced with a plethora of regulations, from HIPAA (health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996) to Sarbanes-Oxley to the Patriot Act. In the financial sector, for example, detecting patterns of money laundering (e.g., by terrorist organizations and links to them) is hot. System like Mantas deal specifically with Anti-Money Laundering, Broker Surveillance, Fraud Detection, and more. Intranet Journal includes five new articles on this exciting topic - that raise questions and challenges for the performance practitioner.

How Big is the Difference Between Websites?

The average difference in measured usability between competing websites is 68%. This is smaller than expected, but makes sense given the dynamics of design within individual industries.

Graphical View of the User Experience World

Javier Cañada has constructed a map of the user experience world as he sees it: unrepentantly subjective and rather fascinating. As he says' This image is a graphical representation of the user experience field based on my own coordinates, references and perceptions. It is not a precise work, but neither were those first maps made by Mediterranean chartographers.'

A Heuristic Evaluation of the Usability of Infants

Results from a heuristic evaluation of infants and their user interface, based on direct observational evidence and Jakob Nielsen's list of 10 heuristics.

The Big Ten Innovation Killers and How to Keep Your Innovation System Alive and Well

While it's probably impossible to compute the exact percentage of business initiatives that fail, it is widely acknowledged that most do. After years of research and observation, it is clear that the same reasons for any change initiative failure tend to be the same culprits that make innovation initiatives fail. Here are the top ten reasons for innovation failure... - From the Innnovation Network

Surprise Package

Surprise! It's those dudes in brown. UPS's new supply-chain arm lets companies outsource everything from cell-phone repairs to customer call centers. And yes, they do deliver. -from Fast Company

Intranet 2004: A No-Fuss Intranet Framework

Imagine you're looking to quickly create an intranet for your company. There are plenty of instant-intranet options around, but they all seem to duplicate tools you already have. It's nice that they come with group calendaring and forum tools, but you already have those up and running. What you need is a flexible framework that gives you the basics of document sharing and a way to connect your existing apps. If that describes your situation, look into Intranet 2004....

IntraNet on Demand: Mindbridge Plays Host for Small Companies

Intranet professionals already know Mindbridge Software because of its popular enterprise-level intranet product, IntraSmart, which debuted in 1999. Designed for companies with more than 75 employees, IntraSmart is an instant intranet that offers a full-service solution with only a little customization. That's fine for larger companies, but what about smaller businesses that don't have the resources but still need a way to share information?

If He's So Smart...Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Limits of Innovation

The battle over digital music is just another verse in Apple's sad song: This astonishingly imaginative company keeps getting muscled out of markets it creates. So what does Apple have to tell us about innovation? Carleen Hawn

Wireless in San Diego

For a view of how wireless telecom will change the way we work and live, head to San Diego--where everyone from pharmacists to real-estate brokers is now coming unplugged. Alison Overholt

Help Wanted: a Chief Knowledge Officer

For your company to be successful, you've got to know when to hold and when to fold--and you need a CKO to deal it to you straight. Lester Thurow

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Ten Steps for Cleaning Up Information Pollution

Better prioritization, fewer interruptions, and concentrated information that's easy to find and manage helps people become more productive and stop wasting their colleagues' time.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003

Sites are getting better at using minimalist design, maintaining archives, and offering comprehensive services. However, these advances entail their own usability problems, as several prominent mistakes from 2003 show.

Choosing the Right CMS: A Few Pointers

Deciding on a content management system (CMS) to help your organization streamline business processes and aid in compliance efforts can be a mind-boggling job. And while looking at CMS vendors would seem the good first step, there's a little more to it than perusing a few brochures and talking to a couple of sales folks. Here are a few tips from the experts that may help.

Features Talk, but Behaviors Close

What’s a feature? Features are often the currency of software development and marketing, yet few people can agree on what exactly defines a feature. The term can be used to describe a particular piece of functionality, an entire set of functionality, a capability, or sometimes even a possibility. The experts are no help. Typical is webopedia.com, which goes out on a limb by stating that a feature is, “a notable property of a device or software application.”

Intranet Design Journal: Collaboration is King with Workshare 3

With Workshare 3, clients who use Microsoft Office products along with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Domino Server gain an easy way to send documents for review, then collect the changes.

Intranet Design Journal: A Stocking Stuffer for Content Creators

Adobe has packaged its indispensable design apps into an suite of tools dubbed Adobe Creative Suite. It's not only a tremendous price bargain, but the tools work together — and work in team environments — in ways that are sure to appeal to intranet pros.

Intranet Design Journal: When is Web Content Management Right

When it comes to software for maintaining your intranet, you can choose between a Web content manager and portal software. The right choice depends on exactly what type of intranet you want to build and what type of information you want available to your users.

EAI Journal: Out With the Old, in With the New

With all that’s at stake in any system implementation, cutover requirements need to be given much thought early on. By Ira Gershkoff

EAI Journal: Mainframe Web Services: Turning Big Iron Into Gold

This article explores how Web services can extend returns from mainframe applications. By Michael Blank & Chris Pottinger

EAI Journal: The Next Wave: SOA Adapters Needed

One of the largest holes in the new world of service-oriented integration is the lack of adapters that support services. By David Linthicum

EAI Journal: Renaissance Man: BAM From Simple to Rocket Science, Part I

This months’ column, the first of a two-part series, reinterprets the five styles of potential BAM deployments. By David McCoy

EAI Journal: Business Activity Monitoring: The End-Game of the Real-Time Enterprise

The promise of the real-time enterprise (RTE) is compelling, but what will it take to operate effectively in real-time? By Mo Klein and Francois Besson

EAI Journal: Beyond EAI: Unifying the Disconnected Enterprise

You need to unify your data and fix your data problems before an EAI, BI, or Web services strategy can be successful. By Tim Stefanini

Love Is the Killer App

If you want to fix your future, start by fixing yourself. In the face of war and recession, what the business world needs is less greed -- and more love. So says Yahoo senior executive Tim Sanders, who argues that now more than ever, the road to prosperity is paved with a commitment to generosity. (2002-03) Interesting... a bit of a weird take on KM" - Gloria Gery

Power to the users

Managing content across multiple Web sites and portals. Vignette has released V6 MultiSite Content Manager (VMCM), an extension to its V6 Content Suite. It claims VMCM is the first application to allow organizations to easily manage content on multiple sites and portals within an organization via a single application. (2002-03-04)

Knowledge Management Vendors Go Vertical

Struggling against a tough economy, some players in the knowledge management industry are trying to increase their business proposition to potential clients by developing offerings aimed at specific vertical industries. This article talks about how these companies are targeting these specific industries and what a variety of business sectors are looking for in a knowledge management solution. (2002-03-12)

Mapping the Information Society Literature: Topics, Perspectives, and Root Metaphors

This article concerns the Information Society literature and is set in the context of teaching and learning about it, particularly in educational technology settings. In spite of the infancy of the Information Society phenomenon, a large literature has emerged in recent years that discusses its nature. Not surprisingly, the literature does not present a uniform view; rather, there are differences of opinion as to the nature and significance of the Information Society. We argue that the literature constitutes an educational problem for those teaching and learning about this complex territory. The discussion visits the complexity by constructing a comprehensive map that charts 1) topics, 2) perspectives, and 3) root metaphors. Mapping the literature helps both teachers and learners find their way in a potentially confusing field of study. Special emphasis is devoted to root metaphors - philosophical views about the nature of reality that in turn help teachers and learners become more sensitive to critical, underlying features of the Information Society discussion. We argue that some root metaphors are more helpful than others for understanding literature about the Information Society. (2001-12-27)

I don't watch TV to like learn anything":The Leisure Use of TV and the Internet

This paper is an analysis of how Norwegians use television and the Internet in their leisure time. It sets up a taxonomy using the degree of engagement in the mediated information on one axis and the degree of sociability on the other. Within this matrix one can examine the similarities and differences between the two media and also differences between the generations. The analysis is based on 15 in-home interviews with Oslo-based families. (2001-12-27)

Post-Modern Knowledge Management: A One-Question Interview(TM)

Kevin Werbach, the editor of Esther Dyson's Release 1.0 (http://release1.edventure.com), wrote an excellent issue on Knowledge Management that's much in accord with what we've been blathering on about. Further, he says he's writing about "Post Modern KM" and we here at JOHO are such suckers for anything POMO that we once paid a guy at eBay an extra $25 because he offered to say the uninterruptible power supply we'd bought was in fact post-modern. So, we put the question to Kevin:"What is postmodern knowledge management?" (2002-02)

The Day the World Changed: Implications for Archival, Library, and Information Science Education

The terrorist attacks of September 11th on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have had profound implications for many aspects of American and global society. This essay explores the many implications for library and information science schools educating the next generation of information professionals. The essay considers an array of opinions by the faculty located in one such school regarding how to reflect on the aftermath of the attacks for basic aspects of teaching, research, and curriculum design in library and information science schools. Topics examined include disaster preparedness and recovery, knowledge management, workplace design and location, technology and the human dimension, ethics and information policy, information security, information economics, memorializing and documenting the terrorist attacks, the role of the Internet, and preservation. (2001-29-11)

Libraries, the Internet and September 11

As the public clamored for information after September 11, libraries and librarians answered their call. This paper examines the response of libraries and librarians while noting some unexpected impacts on the profession. (2001-03-12)

Portals: The Power and the Peril

The purpose of portals is to leverage existing applications into a better view, one that is familiar to people. Creating portals is a good first step in leveraging unstructured information. The problem is how do you use it, maintain it, keep it current. Creating a business MyYahoo! is a pretty good rough diagram for a business plan, but it’s a long way from there to complete solution. And what we have learned from compiling this White Paper on Enterprise Information Portals is: we ain’t there yet. (2001-08-12)

Extending Document Management Systems with User-Specific Active Properties

Xerox Palo Alto Research: Document properties are a compelling infrastructure on which to develop document management applications. A property-based approach avoids many of the problems of traditional hierarchical storage mechanisms, reflects document organizations meaningful to user tasks, provides a means to integrate the perspectives of multiple individuals and groups, and does this all within a uniform interaction framework. Document properties can reflect not only categorizations of documents and document use, but also expressions of desired system activity, such as sharing criteria, replication management and versioning. (2001-08-12)

How to make knowledge management more rigorous

KM World: "Although the knowledge management field is maturing, a great deal of hand waving and hype surrounds it. False promises and over-expectations are being created; many vendors are calling their products “knowledge management” tools even though they might simply be database, information management or document management tools; a dearth of rigorous methodologies for doing knowledge management exists." The paper presents the outline of a methodology called SMARTVision. (2001-04-22)

Knowledge management with human smarts

InfoWorld.com: "The real payoff in the knowledge management arena is still three to four years away. As neural networking techniques evolve, knowledge management solutions will become not only more adept at distilling and classifying vital information, but will also extract hidden trends and relationships from huge volumes of data, requiring knowledge workers to sift through less information and giving them more relevant information for making decisions." (2001-02-18)

Knowledge Management on the Shop-Floor

This article report that a: "Comparison of the successful and failed implementations of Task Supporter and the prototypes suggest that a successful introduction of a shop-floor information support system requires three things: (1) a clear definition of the objectives of the new system, (2) solid co-operation between the developers and end users of the system and (3) an in-house "agent" driving the project from conception to upkeep of the results." (2001-01-14)

Knowledge Management 101

Intranet Design Magazine: Knowledge Management is the buzzword of the year. As with many new terms, the definition of knowledge management depends on who you're asking. For a small organization, it is difficult to really know what it means. I thought I'd give you some pointers and definitions in this article. (2000-12-10)

Starting small: first steps toward KM orchestration

KM World Online: This article examines the sometimes overlooked and often underused Internet-centric tools applicable to knowledge management. Effective use of these high-performance tools must be orchestrated with a comprehensive strategy to support the organization's goals. (2000-12-10)

Finding the Lasting Value of Knowledge Management

CIO Magazine, Tom Davenport: "IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT still a big deal?" I'm often asked this question by conference attendees, consulting clients and concerned friends. The inference is that the movement is getting a bit long in the tooth. Those who observe such things might notice that the number of knowledge management conferences is down, and People magazine stubbornly refuses to name any KM expert as one of its 25 Most Intriguing People in the past few years." (2000-11-05)

Managing institutional knowledge

In this TechRepublic article, Ken Hardin reports that: "While next-generation businesses are on top of data that can be reduced to 1s and 0s, they are stumbling over the challenge of "institutional knowledge," the intuitive and undocumented whys and hows that determine an enterprise's ultimate success." (2000-08-27)

Organizational learning and communities-of-practice

This paper by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid concludes that "By reassessing work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three." (2000-08-13)

Developing a Knowledge Strategy

This article by that Michael H. Zack that appeared in the Spring, 1999 edition of California Management Review. "...most knowledge management initiatives are viewed primarily as information systems projects. While many managers intuitively believe that strategic advantage can come from knowing more than competitors, they are unable to explicitly articulate the link between knowledge and strategy" (2000-08-13)

Harnessing Corporate Knowledge

According to this Information Week product comparison article "Microsoft is gunning for the knowledge-management market with the upcoming Exchange 2000, sporting tighter application integration and a Web repository, but Lotus has a big head start and ambitious plans to link collaboration and transaction systems." (2000-08-13)

Knowledge Management Mistakes

In this Computer World article, Johanna Ambrpsio reports that according to some experts the failure rate of knowledge management projects is as high as 70%. One expert attributes this phenomena to "...initiatives that rely too heavily on technology." The article presents five KM mistakes and how to avoid them. (2000-07-09)

100 companies who matter in DM, WM, CM, KM and BI

KMWorld Magazine assembled a list of the 100 "...developers, vendors and service providers who are positioned to influence markets in the way rudders, flaps or trim tabs on boats or planes influence the direction of the entire craft." The ".. may not be the best marketer or innovator, but may, because of sheer mass, have inordinate influence over technology adoption and market penetration." (2000-05-29)

Why Can't We Get Anything Done?

In this Fast Company article, Jeffery Pfeffer offers 16 rules that explain why, despite so much knowing, there's so little doing -- and what you can do to get something done in your company. (2000-05-15)

A Model for Knowledge Worker Information Support

This study examines how knowledge workers use information during decision making processes. A model of information support for knowledge workers was developed and validated, and a computer software strategy is proposed for coupling knowledge worker processes with the information they need. (2000-03-26)

What is knowledge management?

"In practice, knowledge management often encompasses identifying and mapping intellectual assets within the organization, generating new knowledge for competitive advantage within the organization, making vast amounts of corporate information accessible, sharing of best practices, and technology that enables all of the above — including groupware and intranets." (2000-01-22)

Mining in Textual Mountains

According to this Mappa Mundi article "In text data mining the researcher seeks relationships between the content of multiple texts and then sets about linking this information together to form a testable hypothesis about new information. The literature of medical research is a promising target for text data mining: a large and growing database of medical journal articles exists in digital format, and the formalized and detailed content delivery style of medical journal articles makes them a good subject for computerized TDM analysis. Because of the large number of journal articles published, it's unlikely that any one researcher could read (and remember) the contents of all of them. In theory, at least, TDM ought to be able to help researchers find possible linkages in published research findings, even across disciplines. (1999-12-05)

Myths and Realities of Knowledge Management

According to this TechWeb article "Tapping the knowledge and experience of individuals within an organization, and sharing that expertise across a company, has long been one of the most strategic goals of IT and business managers. But knowledge management is a moving target, surrounded by misconceptions. To really understand it, those myths must be dissected. Here are 10 of the biggest." (1999-11-28)

The Knowledge Fuss

According to Paul Strassman "...what passes for knowledge management applications invariably calls for overlaying short-lived technologies on top of the existing software junkyard. That is unlikely to produce lasting value. Before you are swayed by the vendors and the hawkers, keep your sense of balance about such investments; don't be easily swayed. Insist that any "knowledge management" system produce verifiable gains in your company's earning capacity. That's the only way to distinguish between a passing utopia and the capacity to deliver increased economic value." (1999-11-01)

The Knowledge Conversation

In this article, David Weinberger, argues that "The promise of KM is that it'll make your organization smarter. That's not an asset. It's not a thing of any sort. Suppose for the moment that knowledge is a conversation. Suppose making your organization smarter means raising the level of conversation. After all, the aim of KM was never to take knowledge from the brain of a smart person and bury it inside some other container like a document or a database. The aim was to share it, and that means getting it talked about." (1999-10-10)

The Knowledge Warehouse: Reusing Knowledge Components

This article, by Michael Yacci, Associate Professor, Information Technology Rochester Institute of Technology appeared in Performance Improvement Quarterly, Vol. 12, Number 3 (1999). The article describes a conceptual model for enabling the reuse of knowledge. It also "..takes the first steps towards defining a standardized classification scheme for storing knowledge components." (1999-11-07)

Behind The Numbers: Sharing Knowledge Isn't Easy Yet

According to the Information Week research report "Knowledge management is as much, if not more, an organizational and cultural challenge as a technology issue. Most IT managers say the impetus to improve knowledge management has to come from the business side--and based on the results of a recent InformationWeek Research survey, that's quite a challenge." (1999-08-22)

Whipping Users into Shape

We need minimum competency standards for Web use—some sort of butterfly ballot test. Don't be afraid to get tough. "You want to visit my site? You can't handle my site." Screen those eyeballs. I don't want any more visitors with a liberal sense of entitlement to a good user experience. Nobody's entitled to a good user experience. It has to be earned. And you don't necessarily get it even then. Life isn't fair. (2001-08-12)

Usability and online financial services: big losses

TaskZ.com: The Internet killer app that never came to be was online banking and financial services. A study published by CyberDialogue found that 33% of the early adopters of online banking abandoned the online experience after one year. According to Michael Weil of TowerGroup's Primary Market Research, "Irrespective of the fact that the majority of U.S. consumers are now ready for online banking in technological terms, behaviorally they continue to be slow to migrate away from traditional channels like the local bank branch or call centers." Recent numbers suggest that online financial services, when adjusted for market growth, are dead flat. Why haven't online financial services begun to reach the customer penetration levels projected? The primary reason: USABILITY. (2001-07-29)

This Week's Agenda: The Usability Industry

ClickZ: In Web site design, users are the one stakeholder who do not have a voice at the table, so speaking up for their needs is an important job. Simplicity falls by the wayside if it is not explicitly and vigorously defended at all times. It is so tempting to add another feature or to make a fancier Flash animation that design bloat is the natural direction of all projects unless somebody fights against it. (2001-07-29)

Good Grips: Usability before Branding

Ask Tog: Lately, web companies start out with a branding strategy, use up 90% of their resources developing that strategy, then find out they have neither time nor screen real estate left to develop a useful product. The result? A whole bunch of Flash and little substance. (2001-07-08)

Second sight

Guardian Unlimited: Do web designers hate users? Or are most of them simply incompetent? Either way, there is no doubt about the mismatch between what users want and what the vast majority of commercial web sites provide. As a user, I know what users want. They want information and they want it fast, which is why they flock to sites such as Google and Yahoo Web designers, however, seem to be more interested in showing off their "design skills" - or lack of them. The result is gratuitous Flash intros, over-large graphics, pointless "applets", inconsistent menus, and pages that take far too long to download. (2001-07-01)

Keep it simple, stupid!

The Dalai Lama once said that simplicity is the key to happiness in the modern world. This philosophy can be adapted into the realm of web design and digital interface design. The expressions "Keep it simple, stupid", "Kill your darlings" and "Less is more" all pinpoint the fact that simplicity is important. Simplicity lasts. Simplicity is necessary in order to properly convey any idea. (2001-06-24)

Alan Cooper sees planning as key to downstream dividends

InfoWorld: In this interview, Cooper talks about what ails the industry today and what it should do -- including abandoning browser technology -- to reinvigorate itself. According to Cooper:: "The browser is a red herring; it's a dead end. The idea of having batched processing inside a very stupid program that's controlled remotely is a software architecture that was invented about 25 years ago by IBM, and was abandoned about 20 years ago because it's a bad architecture. We've gone tremendously retrograde by bringing in Web browsers." (2001-06-24)

Content Is Not a Technology Issue

ClickZ: The wrong people are in charge of too many content projects. Content is not a technology problem. Content is about people. And people who understand content are enthused by the content itself, not the technology that is used to deliver it. (2001-06-24)

Technology stars decry state of industry innovation

The direction of technological innovation has gone off track by focusing on overly complex systems, losing sight of the goal widespread adoption, a panel of experts said Tuesday evening. Speaking at the InfoWorld CTO Forum here, the group agreed that both enterprises and consumers are turned off by systems that are simply too hard to understand. (2001-06-24)

Please Stand By: We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulty

Context Magazine: Speech recognition; phones with Web browsers based on the Wireless Application Protocol, or WAP; Internet-based telephone calls; interactive television; and online bill payment have been touted for years—some for more than a decade—as having the potential to revolutionize business by giving consumers new ways to purchase goods, gather information, and get service. Yet the combined effect of the technologies has so far been almost imperceptible. Their promoters could be accused of, in effect, hanging out signs promising: "All Your Problems Solved...Tomorrow." It’s not that these technologies don’t hold promise. Most hold enormous promise. It’s just that the predictions about when they will start to fulfill that promise have been wildly optimistic. (2001-06-03)

Complete the Revolution: An Interview with Michael L. Dertouzos

Computerworld: "There is a lot of confusion between pervasive or ubiquitous computing on the one hand and human-centric computing on the other. They are not the same. Pervasive computing implies a lot of equipment, where the focus is on a lot of devices that are themselves computers. Human-centric computing, however, focuses on the human. Today, computers are hard to use. If we make them more pervasive and use more of them, there will be that much more aggravation around us. By focusing on human-centered systems, we declare that our goal is to serve humans. Whether that calls for more or less stuff is secondary." (2001-05-13)

The Humane Touch: Bad Design Can Be Costly

Forbes, Jef Raskin: Bad user interfaces may be more expensive than you think, including software your company buys as well as software your company writes. For example, everybody knows that Microsoft Word, Excel, and other popular programs can be maddeningly frustrating, but few take the time to figure out what their shortcomings mean in terms of lost work, lower worker morale, and wasted dollars. Microsoft Word requires at least 30% more keystrokes and 100% more mouse moves to accomplish certain editing tasks than would an optimal word processor. Decreasing physical work not only saves time but also decreases incidents of repetitive stress injury. Good design can eliminate many of the steps that are most damaging to nerves and tendons. (2001-05-13)

Looking Back to Move Forward

Webtechnique: It's our responsibility as innovators and business professionals to ensure that we approach this latest technology trend with professionalism and consideration for the end user. We must develop applications that address the user's specific needs. We can't simply modify existing Web applications by slapping together code and delivering the apps wirelessly. It's time to tap into the amassed knowledge of what makes a quality product that users will integrate into their lives. If we do that, the result will be wireless applications that make sense and that account for the strengths and weaknesses of the technology. (2001-05-13)

Simplicity costs less and works better

It's cheaper to develop a simpler website, or product, or interface. It's also cheaper to avoid building a complex technical support mechanism, writing long manuals, and hiring staff to take phone calls from irate customers because your product is too hard to use. I'll even go one further, and say that simplicity will generate more money, because, even though you may not be offering every service to everyone, you'll be offering something valuable to just the right people. You can spend $10000 on a fancy Flash introduction to your website that offers no value to your users. They don't pay to see the animation (nor would they), and they aren't getting a service from you. In fact, most users will either see it once, and ignore it, or just skip it altogether. Lose that animation, and save $10000. (2001-05-13)

The New, New IT Strategy

CIO Magazine: According to this article by Tom Davenport "...successful companies make their IT investments in the core of the business, consistent with their product and service strategies. In almost every case, there's a link between the technology and something the customer can see and buy. The company that's excellent at IT strategy today must excel at ERP in the back office, CRM and e-commerce in the front office, as well as data warehousing, mining and KM. Virtually every key process—internal and interorganizational—has to be reengineered through IT. (2001-05-06)

The Cosmic Usability Test

Information Week: Usability may sound like yet another techie buzzword, but what it represents philosophically is a willingness to maximize a user's experience, and thus heighten a product's effectiveness. This concept goes well beyond asking users where to place the navigation bar. It's more than a collection of rules that dictate the percentage of visitors you'll lose if your Web pages require excessive scrolling. The quality of the customer interaction is key. And usability is the science behind it. (2001-04-22)

The Butterfly Ballot: Anatomy of a Disaster

Ask Tog: If you haven't had enough of the US election snafu then check out Bruce Tognazzini's post mortem analysis of the usability of the butterfly ballot. Bruce writes: "So here I come doing a little Monday morning quarterbacking. Sure, it's easy enough to see now what a stupid design it was, now that they game is over. That's what user testing is for. So you can play the game before you play the game. A competent designer, in my opinion, would have predicted this outcome just from a glance at the ballot, but even a beginner should have had enough sense to user test the design before release. That rather obviously was not done in this case, and a serious miscarriage of thousands of voter's wishes resulted." (2001-01-08)

Loyalty is Priceless

Grock Dot Com: "To create loyal customers you have to get away from what you want to give them. In the customer-empowered world of e-commerce, your customers aren’t interested in what you want to push. In fact, they’re not interested in being pushed at all. They’re interested in finding what they want to buy, and in finding vendors who will help them. So learn to give them what they want, and you are a heck of a lot more likely to get what you want: more sales, more repeat business, and more referrals!" (2001-01-28)

Yo! It's MRC, Not CRM!

Grock Dot Com: According to this insightful editorial about the hot new trend to use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software: "Building a relationship takes time. Shoving some tech-heavy CRM application at your customer is more likely to push them away than draw them in. If you want to get it right, you need to follow MRC, not CRM: Manage your e-business correctly so you can establish a Relationship from which you can develop a delighted and loyal Customer. Only then can all the other stuff you do have the impact you want." (2001-01-28)

The Iteration Trap

Alan Cooper: "High-tech companies are in a hurry—as well they should be—but many hurt themselves by trying to move products out the door too quickly. I often hear executives repeat homilies like "Ship early, ship often," and "Launch and learn." They assume that there is no penalty for simply slapping something together, shipping it, and then upgrading their product or site in a rapid iteration cycle. Unfortunately, there is a big, hidden cost associated with this tactic." (2001-01-28)

Overwhelmed by Tech

U.S. News: "According to a recent study by the market-research firm Gartner Group, 43 percent of the time Americans spend with electronic appliances when they first get them is devoted to fiddling or figuring out how they work; even then, hardly anyone figures out all the functions. "Most people use about 35 percent of the capacity of any one technology they get their hands on," says Michelle Weil, a psychologist and product-design consultant, "and then they stop." (2001-02-04)

The Interface Revolutionary

Computer World: According to Jeff Rasikin: "Anytime you make a system faster to use, easier to learn and less frustrating, there are psychological benefits to the individual user and bottom-line productivity benefits to the enterprise. There are also physical benefits: an interface that takes fewer keystrokes and less "mousing around" creates less repetitive stress injuries." (2001-02-18)

Are Users Stupid?

Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox: "Opponents of the usability movement claim that it focuses on stupid users and that most users can easily overcome complexity. In reality, even smart users prefer pursuing their own goals to navigating idiosyncratic designs. As Web use grows, the price of ignoring usability will only increase." (2001-02-18)

Debunking the myths of UI design

IBM: In software development, design is widely misunderstood and undervalued. Often no explicit user interface design is done separately from the code. Iterative design then becomes recoding. This is a short-sighted strategy because it results in significantly more code being written in the long run. Because design is unavoidable, the real issue is whether it is left implicit in the software being developed, or made explicit and captured separately. The useful debate is about how to do design work well, and how to capture it in an optimal form for communicating to those who implement it. (2001-03-18)

Thinking Outside the Box

Washington Post: That flashing "12:00" has become a symbol of technology as tyranny, taunt, impotence, ignorance, intimidation, humiliation, stone in the shoe and pain in the butt. It stands for innovation created without humans in mind. Yet humans have grown to live with it. To expect it. To adjust themselves to the selfishness of these machines. Like sheep. (2001-03-25)

Remember The User's Point Of View

Information Week: Compressed software-development cycles make early feedback from users more important but less likely to happen. The Web's sprawling nature means IT shops often lack an accurate picture of their apps' eventual users--who may be customers, employees, partners, or the simply curious. Just as important, integration between an application's user interface and its back-end data-processing portions has moved to the fore of usability concerns. One example: A user error on a simple name-and-address form often returns another blank form--a big turnoff to Web patrons. (2001-04-08)

High tech's missionaries of sloppiness

Salon Magazine: According to this article: "In analysing repair histories of 13 kinds of products gathered by Consumer Reports, PC World found that roughly 22 percent of computers break down every year -- compared to 9 percent of VCRs, 7 percent of big-screen TVs, 7 percent of clothes dryers and 8 percent of refrigerators." The article also reports that "...the Gartner Group discovered that there was a failure rate of 25 percent for notebook computers used in large American corporations. " The author concludes that "A culture of carelessness seems to have taken over in high-tech America. The personal computer is a shining model of unreliability because the high-tech industry today actually exalts sloppiness as a modus operandi." (2000-12-17)

Butterfly Ballot Causes Performance Problems

Audrey Choden, Suite 101: Consider the ballot as a performance support tool designed to aid voters in an election. The performance support tools you design may not be used to elect the president of the United States, but they are used to guide on-the-job performance. If not designed properly, these tools can cause employees to make mistakes affecting customer service, production, and safety. (2000-12-03)

Jef Raskin on Cooper

UIDesign.net, This is a letter from Jef Raskin about Alan Cooper's philosophy of software design. According to Raskin, Cooper "...leaves out that what we are limited by is the fundamental characteristics of humans, what we learn when we study ergonomics and cognetics. It is human capabilities that must be understood deeply, and these are as controlling in interface design as physics is in mechanical and electronic design." (2000-11-19)

Second sight

The Guardian: "The people who succeed in the device-driven networking economy of the future will be those who create applications, interfaces, and designs that conform to human need and expectation. The businesses that continue to work on strategies for "getting people to do this", or "figuring out how to make people do that" will fail as surely as WebTV." (2000-11-12)

Flash: 99% Bad

Jakob Nielsen: "Although multimedia has its role on the Web, current Flash technology tends to discourage usability for three reasons: it makes bad design more likely, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction style, and it consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core value." (2000-11-05)

Five Uneasy Pieces

CIO Magazine: "...technology doesn't always work as advertised. To help quiet the hype, CIO has put together its latest round of Five Uneasy Pieces. These takes offer a more skeptical perspective on a quintet of the hottest tech trends: e-marketplaces, speech recognition, wireless technology, CRM software and even the Web itself. (2000-11-05)

Application Service Providers: Condemned to Repeat History

In this CIO editorial about the latest information technology trend; Application Service Providers (ASP's), the anonymous author observes that "Among the more interesting claims being made about the virtues of ASPs is that instead of paying a lot of money up front for software that will soon be obsolete, companies may opt instead to pay a monthly fee to rent applications and have them run from a central location. To begin with, when was renting anything ever cheaper in the medium term or long term than buying? The fact is, what is being characterized as an ASP offering by companies such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel is nothing more than the same old software licensing deal, except that the license price (plus interest) is divided by the number of months the customer wants to use the software. (2000-10-29)

Trouble in Paradise: Problems Facing the Usability Community

According to John Rhodes of webword.com "There are problems with usability and the usability community. This article is my attempt to raise some of the most important and interesting issues. In my opinion, usability as we know it is dying. It is outdated, misunderstood, and it faces very serious challenges in web and software development circles." (2000-10-22)

Artificial stupidity

In this Salon.com interview, Jason Lanier contents that" "[Programmers] are sacrificing the user in order to have this fantasy that the computers are turning into creatures," he says. "These features found their way in not because developers think people want them, but because this idea of making autonomous computers has gotten into their heads." (2000-10-15)

Why Great Technologies Don't Make Great Products

According to Scott Berkun of Microsoft Corporation "We all love technology. That's why we're in this industry. We have an unspoken belief that technology will save the world from all of its problems. We excel at creating technologies and packaging them into boxes or Web sites, but we often fail to put them together in ways that our customers can easily use and appreciate. Sometimes we respond with awe at things we know were hard to implement or difficult to build, without regard for the purpose they might serve. Over the years I've noticed that our love for technology doesn't always lead us in the right direction. In this column I'll try to describe the kind of thinking that's missing." (2000-10-08)

The Ideology of Ease

Journal of Electronic Publishing: "I don't think we should abandon the movement toward making computers easier to use and therefore more accessible, enjoyable, and powerful for as many people as possible. However, I do think that as ease becomes the end, rather than the means to the end, many things are set aside." (2000-09-17)

The Desktop is Dead. Deal with it...

"Listen up all you interface designers, interaction experts, user experience engineers, web graphic artistes and web usability specialists – it’s time to start over. Period. It all goes. I mean all of it. I’m not kidding here, either. We can’t blame those hyper-aggressive marketing types or over-caffeinated engineers for our problems any longer. It’s our turn to take the lead in software design. And it’s our job to keep it." (2000-08-27)

Experience Design

In this "A List Apart" article, by John Locke, reports on a survey of experience designers where he found that: "designers who work in the physical world – designers of themed products and environments – have a vastly more developed theoretical base they can call on than do designers who work in the online world. While the latter have recently gotten most the ink, a lot more money and labor goes into the design of tangible objects and places intended to engender experiences." (2000-08-27)

Aggregating Experience Problems delivering User Centered Design

This UIDesign.net editorial predicts that the "Big end-to-end service providers like AOL Time Warner EMI have the opportunity to use their corporate size to communicate faster and exact better control over their designs, in comparison to competitors forming loose business alliances. Consequently delivering better product with a better user experience leading to higher usage and greater revenues." (2000-08-13)

Time to Bin the Big Iron

According to this UIDesign.net editorial "The user believes that when they do something from their web browser, the server at the other end receives and processes it immediately. That isn't always the case. Sometimes, it doesn't happen until tomorrow." (2000-07-30)

Consumers Pay a Price for Internet Phone Convenience

According to this San Francisco Chronicle article "...many pundits and tech magazines are hyping the wireless Internet as the next big thing. But some industry players are already beginning to sense a backlash, as early users complain that it's not as simple to use a Net phone as it is to flick on their home computers." (2000-07-30)

Wireless Wonders Are Passing Fads

In this E-Commerce Times editorial Tim McDonald exclaims: "Sorry, IBM, I am nowhere near ready to wear my computer. I want my machine on the desk where it belongs, or at the very least, in my briefcase. I will not wear it as a hat. I do not want it dangling from my neck, wrist, finger or front tooth." (2000-07-09)

Skin Cancer: Opinion on Netscape 6

Long relegated to the back seat of the software development process in favor of ever-more useless features, usability has recently been chloroformed, hog-tied and stuffed in the trunk. Exhibit A: the newly prereleased Netscape 6. The tyranny of the skins has begun. (2000-04-16)

The Mud-Throwing Theory of Usability

It has recently become popular to design new websites and innovative Internet services with the idea to throw it at the wall and see if it sticks. The metaphor of treating design like mud supposedly leads to shorter time-to-market and thus faster success in growing the business. The assumption is that speed is everything. If the initial design has weaknesses (i.e., drops off the wall), then they can always be fixed in the redesign. (2000-04-09)

The Seven Stages of Web Grief

In this humorous article David Weinberger compares the five stages of grieving with the stages a company goes through in finally recognizing and accepting the important role the web. (2000-04-09)

The Emperor Has Beautiful Clothes

In the six months that the Online Journalism Review has been publishing, our job has been to assess the quality of content on the Internet. Our conclusion: Much of the Web's content, with notable exceptions, lacks substance -- it does not have a deep impact on one's life. A session on the Web is like eating a meal that still leaves one hungry. (2000-04-09)

Preference Does Not Equal Performance

People have a funny way of deciding when, where and how they will using something. So, a core web site design rule is that just because something looks cool and people tell you that the site is great, it doesn't mean they will spend time there or that they will buy your goods and services. If you want to do it right, you have to test your customers. (2000-04-02)

Latest Isn't Always Greatest

The more time I spend browsing various Web sites, the angrier I get with those developers who take liberty with the amount of software I need to view their pages and navigate their site. I realize that developers want to stay on top of what is cool and unusual and eye-catching and create a site that is visually appealing, engaging and all that. But do they realize that your average member of the browsing public doesn't care at all about these things? (2000-03-19)

Novice vs. Expert Users

According to this Jakbob Nieslen article "Web usability has traditionally been focused on increasing ease of learning for the novice users. This makes great sense and should continue to be the main goal ... but the pendulum will soon start swinging a little bit in the other direction, even if it won't swing all the way back to a single-minded focus on experts." (2000-02-13)

5 Habits of Highly Effective Revolution

"The feeding frenzy surrounding the Internet looks new, and it is, at least in our lifetime. But the same patterns of behavior occurred in the development of earlier technologies, including steam engines, telegraphy, automobiles, airplanes, and radio. Investors who know something of the history of these eras can extract valuable lessons to help them understand how the Internet economy is likely to evolve. (via tomalak.org)" (2000-02-13)