Once you give users an intuitive graphical user interface, they won't want to go back to anything complicated.
The Art of Change
Design and development. Including content, product and contact management.
To say the very least, work has been pretty hectic over the last six months. I've been involved with some very exciting projects which I hope to detail here very soon!
One of these projects has just been launched: Fingertips - Your personal online newspaper. Feel free to check it out!
Despite the current gloomy economic climate, this winter looks like it's going to be a very busy one for me. So much so in fact that I've had to re-think much of my day-to-day workflow.
I have put into place some of the aspects of GTD (Getting Things Done), a system devised and popularised by David Allan.
In a nutshell, GTD is about implementing procedures to record everything that needs to be done in a trusted system. This allows you to keep your mind clear for other tasks, such as doing the actual work.
Not all of the GTD workflow applies to website design and development, but it's still very useful, especially for getting the housekeeping in order.
I've also adopted an automated time logging and billing system. Estimating, invoicing and accounts are now a breeze. This is a great relief for me as a freelancer as this allows me to focus on the work and not the overheads.
I'd recommend GTD to anyone looking to bring control to hectic schedules and lifestyles in which there never seems to be enough hours in the day. A mind free of clutter is a productive one indeed.
Google have released their very own web browser called “Chrome”, which was announced just a couple of days ago on the Google Blog. The new browser isn't quite finished yet and has the inevitable Beta label, but it's now available for download. Only a Windows version is available at the moment, but Mac OS X and Linux versions are in development.
The browser is open source and contains components from both Mozilla Firefox and Webkit (the foundation of Apple's Safari browser), both of which are also open source.
The browser has been specifically designed to handle modern web-based applications well. Of course, Google knows a thing or two about web applications, so it was just a matter of time before they released their own browser. As you would expect, it also integrates Gears.
Some interesting ideas have gone into making Chrome. They have produced a lengthy comic strip detailing its features. Here are a few of them:
Each tab or browser window runs in its own isolated process so that a problem in one tab will not crash the whole browser. They have even built a task manager that operates much like what you find in modern operating systems.
All these concurrent processes increase memory usage, so Google have implemented some advanced Garbage collection to try to offset that.
The efficiency of JavaScript execution is becoming more and more important with the prevalence of web-based applications, and because of this, Google have developed a JavaScript virtual machine called “V8”. JavaScript is traditionally executed by an interpreter, which can be slow for complex tasks. The new "V8" virtual machine compiles JavaScript source code into machine code on the fly. This should significantly boost efficiency and performance.
The interface is very minimal, featuring just the basics needed to get by. There is no traditional application menu, bookmark toolbar or internet search field.
The tab system is interesting because it is positioned above the address bar and navigation buttons. This is arguably more logical than what is found in most other browsers as the tab encapsulates everything associated with it.
Chrome certainly looks promising, and I look forward to putting it through its paces.
I've put together an article that discusses how the usability of a basic, unintuitive form can be hugely improved by thinking like the user. It uses a real example from a web-based application I recently developed.
Make a website intuitive and customers are far more likely to return. In the case of web-based applications and intranets, users will be more productive and will require less training.
Firefox 3 had more than 8 million downloads in the 24 hours of Download Day. After careful review by the Guinness World Record people, it's official! They will be presented with the actual certificate next week in London.
Firefox has been steadily growing in popularity over the past few years and the publicity generated by this record should further boost that. Even the BBC has written an article - it's great to see the browser making mainstream news.
Firefox 3 has been downloaded 28.7 million times so far with about 1.2 million of those downloads being from the UK.
Update (10th July 2008):
Mozilla have now been presented with the official Guinness World Record certificate!