Peter Van Dijck's Guide to Ease

Peter — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:41:02 +0000

Very exciting: Google analytics can track ajax interactions now.

Peter — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:10:05 +0000

The travel with kids forum is getting active. Check it out!

Peter — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:21:04 +0000

(via Simon) Amazon SimpleDB a complete flop?

Peter — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:08:47 +0000

Categorization problems in programming.

Peter — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:42:18 +0000

Mobuzz (the Spanish videoblogging company) is closing down.

Peter — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:33:38 +0000

Lou Rosenfeld is getting started with his new webinars series. Top UX people (and authors of books with him) give in-depth seminars on a specific UX topic (like webforms). It’s a geat learning opportunity, and you save an airfare to a conference. Plus, you get access to a edited version of the lesson online so you can review it later.

This code will get you a 25% discount: DIJCKWBNR

Go check it out: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/webinars/

Peter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:28:13 +0000

Categories embedded in infrastructure.

Peter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:12:08 +0000

Arrington is right, the new Google stuff sucks, I’ve been trying my hardest not to click any of the bazillion new little buttons on the search results page.

Cultural localization

Peter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:18:27 +0000

It’s always hard to customize your technology for a specific culture. Customize your features and UI too much, and you loose the advantages of scalability (speed, cost, …), customize too little and you’re open for local competition that is focused more on how the local market is different.

Here’s a good example: Google India now has a specific cricket item showing when you search for cricket (India is cricket-crazy). (A regular Google search just shows the Wikipedia result for cricket first).

I like it. It’s subtle, culturally-specific and non-intrusive.

Peter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:59:34 +0000

Here we go, http://prezelect.com

Peter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:26:40 +0000

Obama is the prezelect (383 hits on a Google search for prezelect)?

Peter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:51:02 +0000

A multilingual forum (4 languages are mixed within threads) about Belgium & Europe. I am a big fan of mixing languages in forums, poorbuthappy.com does it too. Many people speak more than 1 language. There are plenty of language-related UI tricks you can use when the forums get really busy or the amount of languages gets out of hand.

Peter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:46:18 +0000

Some findings of the digital youth project:

On social networks they mostly hang out with their real-life friends (Facebook, Myspace), not with people they don’t know. They pick up social and technical skills while hanging out, it’s a good thing.
On niche content sites, a much smaller number hangs out with other people they didn’t know before around specific interests. They get all geeky, which, contrary to popular belief, is actually a very social activity. This is where adults can also be part of the group, functioning as role models and experienced peers.

Peter — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:59:24 +0000

Gmail looks slightly more blue today and it’s really freaking me out.

Peter — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:04:17 +0000

Lou signed some great writers for a book on remote user research. Looking forward to it!