Cognitive Walkthrough for the Web

I'm still laying the groundwork for the Mobile Website Usability study. Reading in the SIGCHI 2005 conference proceedings, I came across "Tool for Accurately Predicting Website Navigation Problems, Non-Problems, Problem Severity, and Effectiveness of Repairs." Written by Marilyn Hughes Blackmon, Muneo Kitajima and Peter G. Polson, the abstract states; "We conclude that CWW has high psychological validity, because CWW gives us (a) accurate measures of problem severity, (b) high success rates for repairs of identified problems (c)high hit rates and low false alarms for identifying problems, and (d) high rates fo correct rejections and low rates of misses for identifying non-problems." Reading through the first few pages of the paper, this may be a good way to weed out non-issues on the Mobile Website Usability Study. As we dig into the sites, our perception on issues may interfere with the true numbers and I'd like to keep them as "clean" as possible. Much of the data at first glance looks to cover headings and links. Will this work for actual navigation? We'll have to try it out and see.

Hip title sequence

Came across these two sites tonight. http://www.magnetbox.com/ is brilliant. The design alone makes this stand out from everyone else. But the content is just as strong. There are a lot of hip links including http://www.submarinechannel.com/ Check out Forget the Film Watch the Titles. It breaks out Title Sequences into categories. Since it starts out with a Fistful of Dollars, you're in good company.

Smartphone Decision and updates

Ok, it's now down to the Palm Treo running Windows Mobile and the iPhone. It's doubtful that I can get my hands on the iPhone so let's face it, it's the Palm. I've read through some more posts on usability on Mobile sites and still feel we'll be in a nice spot. I should conduct a couple of task analysis plans and then mock up some actual tasks. I'm looking to have that completed by mid-July and maybe then run a few tests to see who they go. No eye capturing equipment yet for the phone unless anyone wants to float 30k or so my way! This is the one we're looking for, Eye tracker but will need a grant to get it... which is on the list of tasks.

Smartphone Usability Supporting Documents

Continuing to research Smartphone Usability and developing possible tasks and sites to conduct the test on. Meanwhile, also searching for supporting documentation and similar studies. I've come across the following:

Usability in mobile interface browsing - Meikang Qiua,, Kang Zhang and Maolin Huang
This study is a strong start but there are several differences between this study and the one I am proposing. They used emulators and only conducted tests on reading documentation rather then complete tasks. The test I am drafting will be to complete everyday tasks on an actual smartphone.

How Younger and Older Adults Master the Usage of Hyperlinks in Small Screen Devices - Martina Ziefle, Ulrik Schroeder, Judith Strenk and Thomas Michel
Just found this document so I still need to read through it however the title seems promising to provide some base numbers and reference points.

Smartphone Research Continued

Updated reading for project:
The Inmates are running the Asylum, SIG CHI 2005 conference, Mobile Usability, Designing with Standard and various sites. A full reading and research list will be posted in the next couple of days. Created a short list for the smartphones, they are as follows:
Motorola Q - good phone but maybe too simple, Blackberry 8800 - solid and it's own browser, Palm Treo 750W - good phone and Windows Mobile. I need to decide if I want to run with Windows Mobile or is this not common enough to facilitate a frequently occuring task? Project plan for the tests will be created shortly with further details on the tasks and the scope of the project.

Wilco - Summerteeth

Absence makes the heart grow fonder... or something like that. This afternoon, I heard Summerteeth for the first time in years. It's an amazing album and I regret not listening to it for years now. It's right in line with the late 90's Chicago sound . However, I still find it more amazing how quickly music can shift you back to a time when said album was relevant, or in heavy rotation.