Expression Blend and SketchFlow

I know M'soft just came out with Expression 4, and this video is showing Expression Blend 3, but the product is very good for making mock-ups. Check this out: http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/c01f

I can't wait to start a new project like this. I'm impressed. Go M'soft!

Website Accessibility and Usability

I was reading some pages on the "National Center on Disability and Access to Education" and ran across this. It basically says don't go crazy coming up with some new design if you want people to be able to use and navigate your site. Stick with a known paradigm, and make the site speedy.

For Krug (14) (2000), the cardinal rule is"Don't make me think!" He stresses the importance making things visible and intuitively easy to understand. Buttons should look like buttons and links should be clearly labeled. Avoid anything that could cause a user to have to stop and think unnecessarily. Krug's second law of usability is:"it doesn't matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice." He refutes the rule that states that you should be able to find anything on a site within three mouse clicks. As long as the pages load quickly, having a couple of extra clicks is better (and faster) if they are well-marked and ‘mindless' choices. Krug's third law of usability is parsimony. People don't read on the web in the same way they do hard copies. Eliminating unnecessary words make it easier to find what they are looking for, reduces the visual overload, and helps to avoid scrolling. The author recommends"Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left." In particular, he recommends getting rid of ‘happy talk' such as welcome blurbs (with the exception of one on the homepage) and promotional stuff.

According to Krug (14) (2000), surfing a site is much like going to the store, you should be able to find what you want using an existing paradigm and easy to see and recognize links. However, unlike a department store, you have no sense of scale, location, or direction on the web so he suggests the use of signposts and page names on every page letting you know exactly where you are at any given time. A metaphorical ‘You Are Here' in a prominent and consistent place on each page. In addition to signposts, Krug also recommends including ‘breadcrumbs' that trace your route to a particular page. Navigation tools and search functions are also an essential part of making most websites usable. Search functions that make you choose the type of search from a pull-down menu (e.g. keyword, author, title etc…) again make you have to think more than necessary. The use of visual hierarchies and cues for showing the relative importance of different parts of a page, making buttons look like buttons rather than graphic boxes or text, and the use of ‘tabs' to provide a large number of navigation options in a small amount of space all help contribute to making sites as intuitive and easy to understand as possible.

Although the citations are from 2000, I think they're still valid today.

Yahoo! Mail for Android

Yahoo mail checkers/apps for the Android OS have been lacking. If you use the default mail client on Android 2.0+ it will let you get to your inbox, and alert you of new messages, but if you have a rule in your Yahoo mail that sends new emails to a different folder, you don't get the notification of a new mail, nor can you get to that folder to see it.

The http://m.yahoo.com/mail site allows you to get to all of your folders, but you won't get notifications of new email on your phone.

I tried K9 Mail and also had trouble getting updates.

Yahoo! to the rescue. This morning they released their own mail app. I haven't received any notifications yet, but the interface is pretty nice.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2265793/yahoo-brings-mail-messenger