Gerry Gaffney asked Brian Donohue from iQcontent (www.iqcontent.com) about when, why and how to use web analytics.

Brian talked about avoiding 'zero insight', and how you can use analytics to understand users, improve your site, and validate success.

A few books and resources were mentioned:

Web Analytics Demystified by Eric Peterson (tinyurl.com/ys498j)
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik (tinyurl.com/2bnc8d)

Google Analytics Shortcuts by Justin Cutroni (www.gashortcut.com)

Sitescan (sitescanga.com)
Emetrics (www.emetrics.org)
Advanced Web Metrics is Brian Clifton's blog (www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/)
Occam's Razor is Avinash Kaushik's blog (www.kaushik.net/avinash/)

Duration: 22:49
File size: 7.83MB

Gerry Gaffney interviews social media maven Tom Raftery.

What does it mean to be a 'social media consultant'? In a wide-ranging discussion, Tom talks about:

• The meaning and relevance of social media
• Whether bus drivers in Cork will use social media software
• Why companies should embrace complaint
  
• Carbon-neutral data centres

Tom's blog is Tom Raftery's Social Media (www.tomrafteryit.net/)

You can follow the progress of Tom's carbon-neutral data centre - the Cork Internet Exchange (www.cix.ie/). Tom's presentation on reducing IT's carbon footprint is online (tinyurl.com/2u5bvz).

Several venues and conferences are mentioned:

Barcamp Galway (barcampgalway.wordpress.com/)
Barcamp Dublin (www.barcampdublin.com/)
Reboot Copenhagen (www.reboot.dk/)
Le Web conference (www.leweb3.com/)
Web 2.0 Expo (www.web2expo.com/)
DLD Munich (www.dld-conference.com/)

Duration: 23:17
File size: 8.2MB

Gerry Gaffney asks Jason Furnell about designing for mobile devices.

Along the way, Jason talks about the poetry of movement, the Agile development methodology, and how to navigate a career path in design.

He tells us that without a vision, great minds can go to waste; and how high-fidelity wireframes can help communicate a simple vision.

Jason's blog is 'the architecture of everything'. (jasonfurnell.wordpress.com)

The William Gibson book is 'Spook Country'. (tinyurl.com/2a7mf9)

Duration: 20:29
File size: 7.2MB

Dave talks about giving ourselves permission to draw, about how the printing press led us to communicate in a particular way, and about how that can limit our communication in a digital environment, about how PowerPoint can be both inhibiting and comforting, and about how where we are with video today is where we were with PageMaker 20 years ago.

Dave says 'You don't have to be an expert to start - you just have to start'.

There are several references in this episode:

Dave's blog is Communication Nation (http://communicationnation.blogspot.com/).

His company is Xplane (http://www.xplane.com/).

Edward Tufte's inspirational book is 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information' (http://tinyurl.com/27dw8s).

Betty Edwards' book 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' can teach you to draw - even if you don't think you can (http://tinyurl.com/36jbxj).

The culture map is Dave's representation of the culture at his company Xplane (http://tinyurl.com/3a27bp).

Dave's 'ListMania' booklist is on Amazon.com (http://tinyurl.com/25jqas).

I mentioned Lee Brimelow of Frog Design. One of his sites is the WPF blog - it contains his presentation to the Microsoft Remix conference. (http://www.thewpfblog.com/)

(References to individual books on this webiste are links to Amazon.com - we earn a small commission on any purchases you make on following such links).

Duration: 30:57
File size: 14.2MB

What is the current status of Version 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines?

Gian Sampson-Wild tells us the story.

She also explains how Flickr and Google have used Ajax without sacrificing accessibility.

For more on the Maguire vs SOCOG case, see Joe Clark's reader's guide (www.contenu.nu/socog.html).

A listener subsequently pointed out a USA case - National Federation of the Blind v Target, as described on the Disability Rights Advocates website (http://tinyurl.com/djrfd) - thanks elDavo.

Gian's blog is The Kismet Heuristic (www.tkh.com.au).

You can also read her peer review of the Samurai Errata. (samuraireview.wordpress.com)

You might also want to check out the WCAG Samurai Group website (wcagsamurai.org).

Gian mentions the work of Cameron Adams and Jeremy Keith. Cameron wrote 'AJAX: Usable Interactivity with Remote Scripting' (www.sitepoint.com/article/remote-scripting-ajax) in 2005. Jeremy Keith's book is 'Bulletproof Ajax' (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321472667/informdesign); you can read an interview with him on Digital Web magazine (www.digital-web.com/articles/jeremy_keith_2)

... and the giveaway:

Andy Budd of Clearleft (clearleft.com) has donated a free ticket (worth 85 pounds sterling plus VAT) for dConstruct 2007 (2007.dconstruct.org) to a UXpod listener. To be in the draw, send an email to gerry at infodesign.com.au, with the subject line dConstruct, by June 28. Winner drawn on June 30, and notified by email. Ticket is non-transferrable, so please only enter if you or a colleague wish to attend.

Duration: 16:40
File size: 11.5MB

Luis Arnal speaks about usability in Latin America, about poverty as the mother of creativity (imagine usability testing at stop lights), and about the importance of observational research.

Luis is founder and president of In/situm (www.insitum.com).

You can read his article 'No pregunte, observe' online (PDF, in Spanish) (http://tinyurl.com/35bcch) .

Luis' 2003 article which I quote from during the interview is also online (PDF, in English)  (http://tinyurl.com/2gmgr9).

Luis mentions Spencer Tunick's latest and largest nude shoot (18,000 people at the Zocalo plaza in Mexico city). Here is a short link to photos of the event on Flickr: http://tinyurl.com/2bvaoe

Thanks to Stuart Celarier of Portland Jugglers (www.portlandjugglers.com) for permission to use the image of the Toltec juggler as an illustration for this episode. Stuart is a software engineer who blogs at www.ferncrk.com/blog and points out that the ball over the juggler's head was not present in the original.

Duration: 17:30
File size: 8MB

Peter Benda describes University of Melbourne's work on 'QuitCoach' - an online service to help people stop smoking. Peter works at Melbourne University's Department of Information Systems - www.dis.unimelb.edu.au

He talks about some of the unique aspects of this research - such as participatory design as therapy, and the 'confessional' needs of the quitting smoker.

The current version of QuitCoach is at www.thequitcoach.org.au

The National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia is at www.nhmrc.gov.au

The New Zealand STOMP (Stop smoking with mobile phones) trial is at www.ctru.auckland.ac.nz/research/stomp/index.html

Florian 'Floyd' Muller's paper is 'A table tennis game for three players' - http://tinyurl.com/3ylovs

... and the Northcote Social Club (Melbourne) is at http://northcotesocialclub.com/pages/giglist.php

Duration: 24:25
File size: 11.1MB

What makes good customer service?

Joel talks about fixing everything two ways, not outsourcing technical support, taking the blame, and about the puppet.

Check out Joel's blog (http://www.joelonsoftware.com)

I mention the Irish Guitar Podcast (http://www.irishguitarpod.com)

Daniel Szuc and I wrote The Usability Kit (http://www.theusabilitykit.com).

Duration: 23:10
File size: 10.6MB

Steve Krug talks about clarity, about deleting Solitaire from his Mac, and about his admiration for Douglas Adams and Jakob Nielsen.

He also considers how we can do things well with Ajax, and the importance of user testing.

Steve's excellent book is "Don't Make Me Think" (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321344758/informdesign
).

Steve also mentioned Jakob Nielsen's article on teengers' use of websites (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050131.html)

People ask me about the cartoons on UXpod. Most are done by Gina Ellis, but this one is by Naomi Tong.

This episode is just over 23 minutes in length. File size is 10.5MB.

William Gaver is Professor of Design at Goldsmiths College, at the University of London.

He developed the 'cultural probe' user research technique. (We covered this in a previous podcast episode with John Murphy - uxpod.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=108708)

He also developed the 'drift table' and other items based around the concept of 'ludic' design.

In this interview, he talks about ludic design, and about systems that can help us while we 'find our own ways of leading meaningful lives'.

Sound quality, unfortunately, is not very good.

The book Bill mentions is Homo Ludens, by Johan Huizinga (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0807046817/informdesign).

Bill also mentioned Andy Crabtree (web.mac.com/andy.crabtree/iWeb/Site/Home.html).

See the Interaction Research pages at Goldsmiths College (www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/interaction/exhibitions.html)

The company that provided the aerial footage is getmapping (www.getmapping.com).

Duration: 21:46
File size: 9.97MB

Genevieve Bell is Director of Intel's User Experience Group.

In this interview, she talks about what it means to build technology with the home in mind, about cultural influences in the use of technology, about the connection between religion and technology, and about sheds.

Genevieve says that part of what people want is for technology to be invisible.

"Computational power is important but what people see is the experience."

Security and usability are frequently in conflict. Workarounds are common, and there may be unrealistic expectations of what users would or should do.

I mention that ChinesePod made Time Magazine's Top Ten Podcasts of 2006. (www.time.com/time/topten/2006/podcasts/10.html)

The Usability Kit (Gaffney/Szuc) is available for purchase online. (www.theusabilitykit.com)

This episode is 7 minutes 10 seconds in duration. File size is 4.1MB.

I asked Apala about designing for low-income, low-literacy audiences.

Apala also talks about cultural differences between India and China, and between India and 'the West', about the dangers of being overly-polite, about why foreign insurance companies may not do well in India, and about the use of rasas for measuring emotion.

You can read more about Apala on the Human Factors International website (www.humanfactors.com/about/Apala.asp).

See Wikipedia's entry on Rasas (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasa_%28art%29).

(I referred to Paul Sherman's presentations at User Friendly 2006 in China - Paul's put them online, and there are pointers on his blog - www.usabilityblog.com/blog/archives/2006/11/my_user_friendl.php).

This episode is 20 minutes 43 seconds in duration. File size is 11.8MB.

I asked Alan Cooper (over a rather echoing connection) why he is outraged by bad software, and how he developed the concept of 'personas'.

I was interested to hear the 'father of Visual Basic' say 'What I need is a computer that doesn't make me feel bad and a cellphone that doesn't make me feel stupid'.

Alan's company is Cooper Consulting (www.cooper.com)

The two books of his that I mentioned are:

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
(www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672326140/informdesign)

About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
(www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764526413/informdesign)

This episode is 19 minutes 44 seconds in duration. File size is 11.3MB.