As Far As I Can Tell

Misconceptions About Teenagers

Web usibility guru Jakob Nielsen recently completed a study of website usability for teenagers.  Several surprises came up.  Most notably:

Teenagers are not in fact superior Web geniuses who can use anything a site throws at them. We measured a success rate of only 55 percent for the teenage users in this study, which is substantially lower than the 66 percent success rate we found for adult users in our latest broad test of a wide range of websites.

and...

We did confirm that teens like cool-looking graphics and that they pay more attention to a website's visual appearance than adult users do. Still, the sites that our teen users rated the highest for subjective satisfaction were sites with a relatively modest, clean design.

Read the full report on Jakob's website.  On a separate but related topic do you ever wonder why the web's usability guru has one of the blandest websites around?  You know it's not that easy to use either....

What's My IP Address?

OK, so we're all read the articles about using the human body as a network, but here's an article a friend sent me that appears to be further down the path than the others.  According to the report a Japanese company claims to be able to send data over the surface of the skin at speeds up to 2 Mbps using the bodies own electric field.

This could turn the welcome/greeting time at church into a whole new ballgame... you could exchange contact info (no more forgetting names), prayer requests, attendance info, etc with a single handshake...

Read the full article...

LCD TV's from Dell

I was approached a few weeks ago by my boss to order 20" LCD monitors for some custom ministry carts we're developing for our new Connecting Place.  After talking through the requirements a bit and doing a little research I pitched the idea of using LCD TV's instead.  The benefits for such an approach are:

• LCD TVs have integrated speakers (no need for separate external speakers)
• Are available in a 16:9 aspect ratio which allows us to provide more appealing video
• Allow for several inputs (VGA, DVI, S-video, analog, coax, HDTV, etc)
• Ability to run Picture-in-picture (picture this... we run a looping infomercial on small groups until someone what to know about groups in their area.  We then swap the video into a window in the corner as we use MapPoint to display groups in their neighborhood)
• and finally the ability to control the setup (inputs, volume, pip) from a remote control

I quickly ordered a 26" Dell model to test(if they didn't work I could easily send them back via their 21 day complete satisfaction guarantee).  When it arrived a crew of us through open the box and set it up immediately.  The picture is amazingly sharp and bright.  I'd like to keep it for my desk!  These things are going to work beautifully.  I'll post a picture of the completed solution when the carts arrive.

Behind the Scenes @ Google

Urs Hoelzle, vice president of engineering at Google, gave a presentation on EclipseCon 2005 where he spoke on the architecture that runs Google.  eWeek has a great summary of his talk.  Well worth the read for those who like to know how things work.  Read the article

Soda vs Pop

Ever have the discussion of the different terms people use for Code and Pepsi... soda vs pop.  It seems to come up in my circles quite a bit.  Perhaps it's because we live with a high number of transplants.  Anyways, I found this chart of the regional usage patterns interesting.  (click on the image for a larger version).

 

Church Branding

BrandChannel has a great article on church branding.  My favorite quote:

"People are not ashamed of Christ, but they are ashamed of their church. The brand creates a persona that the internal community is proud of. They become more inspired and more effective at inviting others."

ChurchMarketingSucks.com Reviews U2 Promo

CCV's U2 Ticket Giveaway promo has been commented on by ChurchMarketingSucks.com.  Overall a very favorible option.  Some good food for thought at the end.  Read the review.