Web Performance Matters

I was going to write about performance and availability today, but this was not the post I had in mind. Technorati sidetracked me. So I'm going to write about Usability instead. Because Technorati provides a good counter-example -- how not to build a usable Web application that satisfies and retains customers.

In Web Usability: A Simple Framework, I described a way to think about Web site or Web application usability.

In a second post, The Dimensions of Usability, I presented the graphic shown here, and discussed the four dimensions in a bit more detail.

These four dimensions are not alternative functional goals, to be weighed against one another and prioritized. Web application effectiveness is a four-step challenge:

Click to read more ...

Coding Horror

The best products are designed with Human Factors in mind. That's why I often write about Web design and usability in my Web Performance Matters blog.

Jeff Atwood recently published Thirteen Blog Clichés, a post summarizing his "opinions about what makes blogs work well, and what makes blogs sometimes not work so well." These are presented as a list of common mistakes to avoid (or anti-patterns). If you have a blog, or are designing one, you've probably read similar articles before. Even so, Jeff's checklist is worth a look. All such lists tend to contain a core set of common guidelines to follow and/or pitfalls to avoid, but some of Jeff's opinions step outside the conventional wisdom.

Because I maintain two blogs -- Web Performance Matters and UpRight Matters -- I decided to rate both blogs against Jeff's criteria. Here are edited versions of his recommendations, and my responses. To read Jeff's full discussions of each guideline, see the original. And for the full story, see the many responses posted by Jeff's readers in the comments section of his blog.

Click to read more ...

Most bloggers, especially those who work in high tech, want to like Technorati. Its mission (and even its name) appeals to our vanity. When Technorati launched in November 2002, that mission was simple and easy to understand. By tracking links among blogs, and finding the most popular, it would determine which blogs were the most authoritative.

Over the years, that mission expanded from simply tracking the 100 most popular blogs to include periodic reports on the state of the blogosphere.

Click to read more ...

As a technical writer, my aim is not to publish a stream of original thoughts, but to sift, understand, highlight, explain, connect, and amplify the thoughts of others. So I'm always scouring the Web for good raw material.

Today I have added a new Recommendations page to the site. You'll find it listed in the sidebar, in the "related sites" section, just above the blogroll.

Click to read more ...

Most blog readers have now seen Tag Clouds. Technorati recently introduced a new widget that displays ... "your top tags with the Blog Top Tags in a beautiful cloud formation".

The trouble is, blogs come in all shapes and colors. So the size, shape, and colors of Technorati's standard tag cloud widget may neither look good, nor fit well, where you would like to display it in your blog's layout.

What can you do about that?

Click to read more ...

More site maintenance: I've added a blogroll section to the sidebar. It will not list every blog I might read, just those that may include posts related to Web performance.

Today [May 21, 2007] it contains links to the following blogs:

• Ajax Performance by Ryan Breen
• bitcurrent and Coradiant Blog by Alistair Croll
• Crazy Canuck Chronicles by Stephen Pierzchala
• Mobileslate by Eric Chan
• Webperformance@Peragro by Donald Foss
• Software Integrity by Nigel Cheshire
• Software Testing by Rahul Verma
• Testing Reflections by Antony Marcano
• TalkBMC: Adopting a Service (Management) Mentality by Peter Armstrong
• Technometria by Phil Windley

Click to read more ...

I've recently revised some details of the site's structure and layout, mainly to improve navigation and content findability.

Here's a rundown of the main changes:

Click to read more ...

As I explain on my Author and Objectives page, this journal began life as Performance Matters on Google's Blogger platform. Now I've got my own domain, I'm going to discontinue publishing on the Blogger site. So to form the foundation of the new platform, I'm copying across all the old posts. In the process, I'm making a few changes ...

Click to read more ...