Author Archives: Harry Brignull

Count the passes (the inattentional blindness phenomenon)

I don’t normally link to items from Etre’s Reaction blog , because I’m assuming that it’s probably already in your feed reader. If not, you’d do well to add it. Their posts are fun, visual and frequent, which is rare … Continue reading

Opt-in / Opt-out upsell practices: the fine line between salesmanship and sneakiness

The debate about the ethics of opt in / opt out defaults in web forms never seems to go away. If you’ve read Chris Anderson’s Wired Article “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business“, then you might know where … Continue reading

Bill Scott on refining search

Providing a good UI for sorting and filtering search results key fundamental to making your long tail work. Bill Scott (Director of UI Engineering at Netflix) wrote a post on this yesterday with lots of video clips and screen grabs. … Continue reading

The Story of the Microsoft Office Ribbon by Jensen Harris

This is a great presentation by Jensen Harris, talking through the history of the MS Office UI and the design approach that brought about the ribbon. Contains nice shots of the early prototypes from slide 60 onwards. | View | … Continue reading

Google’s New Advanced Search: tidier, but how much better?

You may have noticed that Google changed their Advanced Search page eariler this month. The new version certainly is a lot tidier than the old one, which was a complete dogs dinner – take a look at a screen grab … Continue reading

You know you’re a usability nerd when…

… When you chuckle to yourself about drop-down menu items. I laughed to myself about this one eariler when buying tickets for Mavis Staples at the Brighton Dome. I ended up going for “Group Captain”.

Hey, can I borrow you multimedia computer to make a quick call?

According to this Article by Darren Waters, Nokia have started calling their devices “multimedia computers”. This makes me laugh – can you actually imagine any normal person ever using that term? “Hey, can I borrow you multimedia computer to make … Continue reading

Who’s your user? – Usability Rap video

Apparently this did the rounds last year but, like all great works of art, has a timeless quality. Found via Information Architecture Television. :-)

Clearleft’s Silverback app: is it for user research?

Last week Clearleft announced that they are building a revolutionary new app, called Silverback. As a viral marketing tactic, they haven’t told anyone what it actually does, and have only released a rather lovely splash page. Well, I’ve clearly succumbed … Continue reading

Tip for choosing a High Definition TV: see how it copes with standard definition

I’ve spent the last couple weeks choosing a high definition LCD TV, and in doing so I’ve been chatting to a lot of sales staff in different stores. Interestingly, a few have admitted to me that returns of HDTVs are … Continue reading