Confusability

Re-Usability #4

The idea for the 'exploding' rat - now immortalised as part of the SOE legend - was developed in 1941. The aim was to blow up the enemy's boilers by lying the rat on the coal beside the boiler, with the fuse being lit when the rat was shovelled into the fire. They were never used, as the first consignment was seized by the Germans and the secret was blown.

British Special Operations Executive (SOE): Tools and Gadgets Gallery

Re-Usability #3

From Indymedia UK

Amazon TypeList : Is Six Apart Anti-Canadian?

Did someone at Six Apart drink a dodgy bottle of Bordeaux? Or maybe they are upset about the Mickey abuse at Eurodisney?

Where are amazon.ca and amazon.fr ?

We think Typelists will be one of the most unique features in TypePad, and as we add even more kinds of TypeLists in the future, we're hoping to give users the chance to connect to the rest of the web in new ways. - About TypePad

Select the vendor you wish to use from the “Local Vendor” menu. If your local version of Amazon is not listed in that menu, that means that Amazon doesn’t offer Web Services for your country. - From TypePad Knowledge Base

So, can I can blame Amazon for the fact that TypePad can't deal with French or Canadian Associates?

If Six Apart are to make TypePad a success with people who have never blogged before, then they must get their existing Typelists right before they start introducing new ones. You can see an example Reading Typelist called Understanding Programmers in the right-hand column.

The ability to type in an ISBN and have an item added to the list is an excellent idea, but it needs to be implemented properly instead of doing half a job. This Reading TypeList feels like something that has been designed from a very specific point of view instead of looking at the requirements of the wider group of users. The fact that the section shown in the screenshot above is titled "Miscellaneous Information" shows that this functionality may have been cobbled together instead of thoughtfully designed.

I live in the UK and have associate account with all the english speaking amazon sites (.com, .co.uk and .ca). I would have associate accounts with the other sites, but I can't fill in the application forms as my foreign language skills are terrible. On my own book lists I provide links to all of the amazon sites as I don't want to be .com centric. I do hope that Six Apart have not included amazon sites based on the availability of their own asociate IDs.

I think that the Amazon TypeList should allow you to enter an associate ID for each of the national amazon sites. Instead of just allowing me to select one "Local vendor" I should be able to choose which national sites I want to appear on my list. If I chose .com, .co.uk and .ca TypePad should display three little flags that would link to the appropriate amazon site. Failing this, it should detect the locale of the user and present them with the amazon link which is most suitable for them.

I don't like the way the standard associate link takes you to the "You may also be interested...." page instead of the product details page. I find that my eye is drawn away from the book detailsto the table of related items underneath.

If you want to link to the product page rather than the related to page then enter ref=nosim/[associate id] rather than [associate id] into your Amazon Associates ID box. (You should be aware that this method has it pros and cons.) If you change your Associates ID in TypePad then all of the amazon links on your Amazon TypeList will be updated, but if you change the Local vendor (.com .de .co.uk etc.) the change will only affect books that you subsequently add to your lists, it will not update existing entries in your list.

No Image Available

It does not take much effort to use the Amazon Web Services to get thumbnail pictures for books. If the .co.uk Amazon sitre does not have an image, then try and get it from the .com site. If you try this and you still can't get a thumbnail from Amazon (or you only get a zero pixel size image) then please, please, use the No Image Available image.

I sincerely want TypePad to succeed. Heck I'm almost a paying customer. I believe that the sort of functionality provided by TypeLists will make or break TypePad and if Six Apart don't put 110% into making them absolutely fantastic then TypePad will just be a cheap host with some fancy blogging software.

"Good Enough" is no good. This feature must build on the Amazon Web Services instead of just exhibiting the same limitations. I want to see the Reading TypeList implemented in such a way so that I can show them to people and hear they say "wow".

Re-Usability #2

Ignorance Is Strength

Information Pollution is the latest article from Jakob Nielsen. Whilst it's message of "Saying less often communicates more" is laudable, it can be taken too far and may result in content being reduced to meaningless sound bites. This call for utilitarian, minimalist content is effectively a call to reduce the human touch to the level of a sterile press release.

I would prefer to be given travel information by a human being rather than a controlled inhuman electronic voice, no matter how 'usable' it's presentation skills.

Jakob also asks us to "Vote for politicians who promise to simplify the tax forms.". Now excuse me for being a bit of an idealist, but I would hope that people are voting for politicians for something other than their policies on usability.

If you want to know where an extreme view of usability could lead us, then try reading IBM and the Holocaust.

Re-Usability #1

From Subvertise.org

Posting from w.bloggar

My first major problem with TypePad is that I cannot post from my workplace as all https urls are blocked.

As I have only paid for the basic package, I can't make use of the e-mail/moblogging options. If Amazon can manage to give me a http solution why can't TypePad?

Anyway, I looked around for some client tools that would use the XML-RPC API. I found out how to set up w.bloggar to work with TypePad, so I downloaded the latest version and then tried to post this message.

All over for Blogs?

After reading this article by Bill Thompson I wondered why I had never started a blog.

After careful consideration I decided that there were two main reasons:

1) I didn't like the look of Blogger.
2) Didn't have anything worthwhile to say.

So I decided to do a usability review of TypePad and take the opportunity to see if blogging had any value for me.