CoFactors

Usability of Presidential Candidate Sites

2008-08-06T16:02:59Z

So much has been made of the role of the Internet in this year’s presidential election. In particular, the Obama campaign has made some impressive claims about the success of BarackObama.com in fund-raising and organization of supporters. Even on the most superficial level, the two candidate sites have a lot in common in terms of structure and content. But, to our eyes, there are many differences in terms of the design approaches taken by the two organizations. We wondered how ordinary voters might see these differences, so we conducted a comparative usability study of the two sites. The results, which can be downloaded here, were really fascinating.

Have a look. We’re really interested in any feedback.

Also, if you are curious about other Catalyst White Papers, you can find them here.

Major Shout-Out! Life123 is Born

2008-07-29T19:34:56Z

We’ve been waiting a long time for this one…

Last night our client IAC launched Life123.com. Even in “Alpha” the site is a really robust How-To portal that allows site visitors to dictate how deeply into a topic they want to delve. We worked with the IAC team for almost a year on User Interface Design, Usability Testing, and Visual Design. Watch this space for more, as we’ll be eagerly tracking user and audience reaction to this exciting new product.

In the meantime, congrats to our buds Ben Joslin, Robert Deutsch, and Michael McFarland up in IAC’s Watertown office! Great work, guys! We are really pleased to have played a part in this effort.

Muy Bien! Kudos to Latina.com

2008-07-29T19:24:01Z

Catalyst client Latina.com has just been named a Top 5 pick in the Women’s Fashion/Lifestyle category by MinOnline.

The site’s design was specifically recognized as a reason for the choice:

Latina supplies the perfect balance of “hard” gossip news, advice and celebrity insight within a neat, easy-to-use homepage. Topped off by a concise rotating header that transitions between featured stories, this is tasty online eye candy.

Congrats to our friends at Latina!

Client Shout-Out: Paradigm5

2008-07-17T15:14:30Z

We’re very pleased to announce the beta launch of Catalyst client Paradigm5 — the next generation of business networking.

P5 started with an awesome and powerful back-end matching engine and we provided a clean and usable user interface and visual design. Check it out, join up and get down to business.

A Poem entitled “How the Web has Changed my Life”

2008-07-01T20:49:19Z

By Catalyst Senior UI Designer Mike Parker

I usta listen to music on a walkman at work.

Then I started downloading mp3 to my work computer and listening to them using winamp

Then I started using streaming sites to listen to music… the first being spunik7.com

Then I got ipod and filled it up with music

Now when I’m bored with the 5k songs on my ipod I listen to music via musician homepages on myspace… or via music videos posted to youtube.com

* note on myspace – find the desired musician using google (myspace name-of-musician). You can find anything, whereas you can’t find anything using myspaces’ internal search.

George Carlin, RIP

2008-07-29T19:24:40Z

For me, George Carlin defined “funny.”

At the tender age of 15, I memorized every word of his 1982 post-heart-attack-recovery concert at Carnegie Hall (which you can watch here in its entirety — thank you Google). It wasn’t just his ability to see the irony and absurdity in everyday language and situations — or the ensemble of characters and voices he housed (each with their own peculiar brand of lunacy). Carlin perfected the Outraged Curmudgeon — a character which, I can now admit, has probably exerted an inappropriate degree of influence on the formation of my own personality!

So, go watch that video… It’s dirty and pretty outrageous at times, but there is definitely a kind of genius at work.

TED Again

2008-06-20T15:11:52Z

A while back, I overdosed on TED talks. All that brilliance and creativity wore thin after a bit, so I took a break. I was lured back recently by a talk given by one of my favorite food writers Mark Bittman. Bittman’s basic premise is that the effects of industrial food production on a worldwide scale, particularly meat “production,” is comparable to the threat of nuclear holocaust… So we should all eat more vegetables. His talk is both scary and annoying. Scary, because you can easily see the validity of his points (except maybe the hyperbole of the nuke analogy), and annoying because it’s really hard to envision anything changing significantly; and Bittman doesn’t offer much hope.

While I was there, I allowed myself two other talks. Both are worth a viewing if you are interested in the role that humanity plays in the global ecosystem.

Michael Pollan argues that human beings are merely pawns, enslaved by our lawns in their fight for global dominance with trees.

Susan Blackmore gives a fascinating and a little alarming talk on memes and genes and temes and replicators… I can’t do it justice but she basically argues (in a way, similar to Pollan) that humans are not the real “actors” on the planet, but that we are being controlled by the technological “advances” that we think we are deliberately creating…

Work it! This month’s Client Shout-Out

2008-07-17T15:18:17Z

Seems like the Client shout-outs are coming fast and furious these days! Wish I could say the same about my blog posts

But enough about my issues! I’m here to shout-out to our client Rodale Publications about the launch of You24.com — a very cool site for the west coast gym 24 Hour Fitness.

In this case, major kudos are due to Chloe Walker (Creative Director) and Janine Coover (Sr. Usability Consultant) for bringing this one in for a landing. We did user interface design, visual design, and HTML on this one.

A BIG Client Shout-Out

2008-07-17T15:19:05Z

We are VERY excited to congratulate our friends at Christie’s on the launch of their new website. Catalyst provided the underlying user interface design for the site as well as the new visual design and HTML templates.

Here’s a snip from the press release:

Michael O’Neal, Christie’s Digital Media Director, says, “With new features designed to enhance clients’ online experience, improve site functionality and deliver superior service, the redesign of christies.com is a significant means for Christie’s to engage our clients throughout their collecting journey with us.

As the art market becomes increasingly globalized with potential buyers that are geographically dispersed, Christie’s is keeping pace with the changing needs of its existing and potential clients by offering new capabilities to enhance the remote auction process.

With increasing customization and transparency, we are positioning christies.com as a must-see destination for collectors. Visitors to the site can now easily explore property at a variety of price points as well as view Featured Auctions.”

Visio Tips — Episode #1, Basic Button

2008-04-02T15:35:16Z

Here’s a video of Mike Parker demonstrating how to make a basic button in Visio. We are considering creating a library of these tips. So, any feedback is most welcome. (Video window appears after the jump; click here to download a .wmv to save the video for your very own)