SpaceTime 3D Browser from Microsoft

...reminds me suspiciously of Apple's Time Machine but check out this video anyway:
http://www.spacetime.com/

the reflections give it away: definitely copying Apple Design-- but who isn't these days?

Super Cool Project from Yahoo!

Yes, Yahoo. Actually, Yahoo!'s Media Innovation Group-- We hope they haven't been decimated by the recent layoffs (anyone know if these are rumors or not?), because this News Globe project is amazing. They've been doing some incredible stuff with Flash-- really innovative. The NewsGlobe consists of three basic pieces: a Yahoo News Top Stories RSS feed, a geo-encoding web service from Yahoo! Maps, and a free, open-source library of 3D classes for ActionScript 3 called Papervision3D. The application loads the Y! News RSS feed every few minutes and extracts the dateline for each story.

read more about it here >
check it out >

Magnetic Web Widgets!!

Magnetic checkboxes, dropdowns, generic logos, etc-- great for prototyping
...or just sticking on the fridge. OK, maybe not sticking on the fridge.

Too bad it comes with a book and all that, because the $200 price tag for the whole Usability Kit it comes with is a bit heavy if you just want the magnets.

I just think having website elements in magnet form so you can move them around and draw around them on a whiteboard is brilliant!

check them out (they are mace by sitepoint)

Shoutbox-- a way to put chat on your site

Someone pointed out this pretty cute little comment box/tool...your message goes up right away. leave me a message!!






check out the details at myshoutbox.com

$100 Laptop: Not Enough User Testing?

There's a good Business Week article with a slideshow that's worth checking out. It talks about the Graphical User Interface (called Sugar) on the famous laptops (XO and the "one laptop per child" program is an idea that arose out of the "failure of standard attempts to use computers in education to improve the lives of underprivileged children")

To quote the article, "Typically, a handful of computers, designed for business applications, are installed in schools; students only use them in special computer classes and are forced to share. Negroponte's idea was to give a laptop to each student that he or she could take to every class and bring home at the end of the day. "OLPC is child-centric, designed to be a seamless part of their lives at home, at school, and in play," he says."

What is shocking to me is that they apparently did not do any user testing. This goes for both the hardware and the software. The article quotes John Maeda as saying,"They're backed up by John Maeda, a user-interface design guru from the Media Lab who has been watching the XO development process from its beginnings. 'They're using the Steve Jobs method,' he says, referring to Apple's famous chief executive and design whiz. 'You don't use focus groups. You just do it right.'"

Will they have guessed what underprivileged kids want and how they behave on a computer correctly? We'll find out in the next few months...

Visual Apartment Search Maps

here's a new one: hotpads.com

A lot like Housingmaps, which uses Craigslist as a source and Google Maps as an interface to show you photos of apartments right on the map, HotPads just got started and is still working out some interface/design issues but they have a good solid Flash interface with some cool features like links to specific neighborhoods and neighborhood info (pulled in from Wikipedia), which, if you are moving to a new city, is very important. For example, I learned that notable residents of the neighborhood I would like to move to include OJ Simpson, who grew up there, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Must be a fun neighborhood!

here is a direct link to the San Francisco rentals map if you want to check it out. The NY City one's good too.

Bad usability calendar: not usable at all (just kidding) but full of good advice!

Check out the Bad Usability Calendar site!

Before you start pointing out the bad usability mistakes in my blog (which I am well aware of, thankyouverymuch) take a look at this calendar-- it's really good, though its purpose is not to actually be a calendar, but to demonstrate one interaction design mistake for every month of the year. Plus they provide the "source" files so you can make your own.

Nice.

Also, funny.

oldie but goodie: nice interface reminder: NID GALLERY

i keep forgetting the url for this site, and since del.icio.us makes it so hard to find anything (see previous post). I will post it here instead!

lalala i have a blog lalala!

here is the link: http://www.nagaoka-id.ac.jp/gallery/gallery.html

PLEASE NO FORGET ME