Monthly Archives: September 2008

Fixing Sutton Council’s usability with Greasemonkey

How to fix the link colours, clock/calendar and text size on Sutton Council’s website with a Greasemonkey user script. Continue reading

Posted in Sutton, Usability, Web design | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Permalinks — a guide for the perplexed at Sutton Council

How Sutton Council have broken all the links to their new website and how they can prevent this linkrot in future by using permalinks. Continue reading

Posted in Sutton, Usability, Web design | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Morden town centre regeneration consultation — a Plain English summary

Merton Council are running a consultation called moreMorden until 10 October 2008 on outline proposals for regenerating Morden town centre. What follows is my summary of the main consultation document (PDF) and its supporting fact sheet (PDF). I don’t work … Continue reading

Posted in Planning, Urban design | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Estimating upload and download times with Google Calculator

While this won’t be news to some, most people still don’t know that you can use the standard Google search box as a sophisticated calculator and unit conversion tool. So if you type: 2 * 3 into the search box, … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Parsimonious design (or not)

In which we explore the parsimony principle in design with reference to two horribly over-engineered ideas: the Segway personal transporter and ebook readers. Continue reading

Posted in Design theory, Product design | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The features you have vs. the features you use

Of the 21 features on my phone, I use just five. Can’t someone make a phone without all the rest? Continue reading

Posted in Design theory, Product design, Simplicity, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Reboxing videos

We need reboxing videos to show us how to get our tech toys back in their boxes. Continue reading

Posted in Product design, Usability | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Estimated date of birth — an interaction design pattern

How to avoid asking people for their date of birth when you don’t need it but still gain enough data to be able to produce meaningful age segmentations. Continue reading

Posted in Design theory, Software design, Uncategorized, Usability, Web design | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment