May 08, 2008: Book testing: how we did it

Joshua Kaufman of UXmatters interviewed Liz Danzico and me about Rosenfeld Media, specifically addressing how we determined book features and tested our designs. We describe a bit of the "show and tell" approach we used for identifying features, and a bit about the task analysis we did for the print and digital edition designs. It's a nice short read; Joshua and Pabini Gabriel-Petit, UXmatters' editor-in-chief, did a great job.

Speaking of books, I think we'll have sold 1,000 copies of Luke Wroblewski's Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks by tomorrow. That's not bad, considering it launched Monday! I wish I could take credit as some sort of guru of book promo, but it ultimately comes down to an excellent author and excellent content. Unfortunately, we're also experiencing all sorts of glitches with our shopping cart that are keeping me up way too late, but when your systems are suddenly hit by 20 times the normal activity, I guess stuff is bound to happen.

May 05, 2008: New Rosenfeld Media book: Luke Wroblewski's "Web Form Design"

Whew! It'd finally available. Joy. Relief. Here's the info from the Rosenfeld Media site:

We're excited to announce that Luke Wroblewski's long-awaited book, "Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks," is now available! And with hundreds of sales since our soft launch earlier today, apparently we're not the only ones!

When you buy directly from Rosenfeld Media, you'll pay US$36 for the paperback and digital editions, US$19 for digital only. (Compare with US$36 for paperback only at Amazon.)

The paperback is 244 pages with high quality paper stock, a sewn binding, and a full color interior. At 6"x9", it'll be easy to stuff in your carry-on bag for reading during the flight to your next client meeting. And of course, the digital edition (373 pages) is pretty easy to take along too; in fact, it's been designed, tested, and optimized for on-screen use. Both editions are graced with 216 illustrations, which we've made available for you via Flickr to peruse, download, and use in your own presentations.

We're quite thrilled with Luke's work—from his original research to the volume of practical advice he's managed to cram into this book. We hope you'll enjoy it as much as we have.

Apr 30, 2008: The Redesign Must Die talk

Just on my way home from an enjoyable visit to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Tim Offenstein and friends put on a great event. Sick (again; WTF?), exhausted, but happy. And happy to report that I should have a new book to go on sale later this week.

But enough of that; here are the slides. Much better with animation, but I had to upload a PDF, as the PPT was too large for SlideShare. Email me if you want the full 59Mb PPT. And thanks to everyone who made suggestions; it was a fun keynote to give (and hopefully to sit through):

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Apr 28, 2008: Tales from Redesignland

On Wednesday I'll be keynoting the University of Illinois' 9th Annual Webmaster Forum. The theme of the event is redesign, and for me, redesign boils down to two four-letter words. Double trouble. Redesigns are counterproductive; not surprisingly, my talk will be titled "Redesign Must Die".

So Judy Matthews' timing couldn't have been better when she pointed me to Tales from Redesignland, a fantastically funny (and apropos) new blog about the travails of those pushing the redesign rock up the academic mountain. Cool. Now I don't need to prep; I can just read Redesignland's cartoons out loud. I hope Tony Dunn manages to hold on to enough shreds of his sanity to keep producing this excellent blog. Highly recommended.