A useful reference to Web Development Methodologies

I’ve found a useful site about Web Development Methodology". This site introduced six processes and six elements for web development.

For each processes and elements, writer will give a summary at first and follow with detail explanation. This design is more readable as user can has a brief concept first. If user interested in any of the topics, user can simply click on the hyperlink to get more detail information.

One of the most impressive points I read from the web is the five stages of Capability Maturity Model (CMM). It is developed by “Carnegie Mellon University”, one of the world famous universities in technology field. This site give a detail explanation of the five stages (Initial level, Repeatable level, Defined level, Managed level and Optimizing level). They are more or less similar to the 10 tips introduced by Kelly Goto & Emily Cotler. This is a good supplementary to Kelly's Book.

ISO 13407: Human Centred Design Process for Interactive Systems

When I search "web usability standards" from www.yahoo.com.hk I found an interesting article about a new standard for Web Usability, ISO 13407, which is developing by ISO.

This article help us to learn more about the coming new international standard for web usability. The article explains the reasons and details of this new standard. It also included some references for web usability. If you would like to know more about web usability standard, you are highly recommended to visit this site .

PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption

I have found an article, "PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption" from the internet. The writer stated that “PDF is great for one thing and one thing only: printing documents." The writer also stated seven PDF Usability Crimes and quoted six user evaluation reports. All of them point out that compare with web page, PDF is not convenience for web viewing.

I agree with the writer that PDF is more suitable for printing instead of viewing. Since PDF has fixed the format of the document, user needs not to resize the document to fit the printing size. However, since PDF works like an image file, it’s hard for user to edit the content. Therefore it’s more suitable for distributing some documents that not expected the user to edit. Moreover, since it requires extra software to view the document. PDF file may not view in public terminal PCs, as the reader cannot be installed. Even though the reader can be installed, it takes long time to load the plug-in and the reader.

To conclude that in order to improve the web usability, PDF file should be avoided to distribute information that user may amend the content.

Know user tolerances

I've searched "web usability" in Google and found 10 tips for the web design. Some of the tips I think are particular important and useful for web design and I would like to share them with all of you.

The Know user tolerances stated, “Users are impatient. Design for a 2-10 second maximum download. Reuse header graphics so they can load from cache. Avoid excessive scrolling.” The other point is, Multimedia – be discriminating stated that "Too much movement distracts, slowing reading and comprehension" I totally agree with this two points, as one of my previous web projects was help my friend to redesign his web site. His requirement was to make the web site more “active and interesting”. I added many flash animation with high-resolution photos. The animation takes long time to download them. Finally, I need to recreate all animation since I haven’t considered this point at the beginning of the web design.

Therefore, I would like to share this “good lesson” with all of you and hope you can learn from it.

First Post - Who am I ?!

"I think therefore I am"

I am against no one.
I am youth.
I judge nothing.
I am innocent.
I come from the past.
I am the future.
Who am I ??
I am one of your classmate~ ^.^