Borders.com just announced the new Borders.com [http://www.borders.com/online/store/MediaView_newborders] I ambled over curious if there were any new Ajax style interactions. And what did I find? A classic example of the anti-pattern Animation Gone Wild. This is when you employ gratuitous animation that

Update: Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596516258?ie=UTF8&tag=looksgoodwork-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0596516258] is now available on Amazon for pre-order. Planned release is December/January timeframe.Since about February

Velocity Conference [http://en.oreilly.com/velocity2008/public/content/home] was great! Takeaway I think the greatest takeaway is how seriously the Firefox and IE8 team are taking client performance. In particular, the work of Steve Souders [http://stevesouders.com/], the Yahoo! performance team [http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/], others

My quick talk on Improving Netflix Performance Experience from June 23 at the Velocity Conference [http://en.oreilly.com/velocity2008/public/content/home] is available here: Improving Netflix Performance Experience [https://www.slideshare.net/billwscott/improving-netflix-performance-experience] from Bill Scott [http://www.slideshare.net/billwscott]

In the previous article [measuring-user-experience-performance] I discussed our full cycle tracing mechanism we built at Netflix. When I was trying to explain the capabilities of this system to others in the organization, I started doodling in Apple Keynote to see if I could create a single diagram that captured all

One of the projects my team at Netflix is busy with is improving the end-user performance experience. Anyone that reads my blog regularly knows that I am a champion for great user experiences. Often the performance angle is not included in discussions of the user experience. But as we all

[http://en.oreilly.com/velocity2008/public/content/home]My friend Steve Souders [http://stevesouders.com/] (Mr. yslow and author of High Performance Web Sites [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/www.amazon.com?ie=UTF8&tag=looksgoodwork-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=www.

(*and even the bad parts) [http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=looksgoodwork-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0596517742]At Yahoo! I had the privilege of working directly with Doug Crockford [http://crockford.com] and got to review a book he was writing at the time, Javascript

(*but were afraid to ask) [http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/webforms/]My good friend and former Yahoo! colleague, Luke Wroblewski [http://lukew.com/], has just published a most excellent book called Web Form Design [http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/webforms/]. Forms are everywhere. And when something is so ubiquitous, it

Theresa Neil [http://designgenie.org] has recently been designing an iPhone application. In the process she created a wireframe stencil for OmniGraffle [http://www.graffletopia.com/stencils/358] to make her life easier. Thought I would pass along. [http://www.graffletopia.com/stencils/358] You can find the stencil [http:

Update: Both positions have been filled. Sr. Web UI Engineer At Netflix I have an immediate opening on my team [http://jobs.netflix.com/DetailFlix.asp?flix2118]. This is an exciting opportunity to ply your amazing web development/engineering talents to one of the most recognized brands on the Web!

In Alan Cooper's About Face 3 book [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470084111/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0470084111&linkCode=as2&tag=looksgoodwork-20] he states a simple principle: Don't stop the proceedings with

In my previous article I ranted about Google Blogger [http://blogger.com/]. Let me rant some more :-) Besides being a good example of the One at a Time [anti-pattern-one-at-a-time-google-blogger-reader-and-backpackit] Anti-Pattern it is also a good example of the Pogo Stick Anti-Pattern (I first heard this term from Jared Spool

Ok, I really shouldn't use blogger. I mean I get a disdainful look from most other bloggers. How can I have a serious blog on blogger? And at times some of its deficiencies drive me completely nuts. I keep planning to move to WordPress but inertia keeps me

Theresa Neil [http://designgenie.org/] has another great post this time on The Ultra Rich Search Experience [http://theresaneil.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/the-ultra-rich-search-experience/]. She finishes up the article with a stab at redesigning the carmax.com [http://carmax.com/] search example more as a true car finder using

Had a great time last night [http://www.ebig.org/sig/sig.aspx?SIGid=42&EventID=894&old=y] giving a talk at eBig [http://ebig.org/], forum for Web Devs & Designers in Emeryville. Nice attendance. Lively discussion and great Q&A afterwards. You can find

Pretty fun stunt. Clever use of animation. Kind of a Rube Goldberg [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg] effect. [http://producten.hema.nl/] Try it out [http://producten.hema.nl/]. It's for their main site http://hema.nl [http://hema.nl/]. Certainly something viral. I mean I&

Javascript and CSS * John Resig - The Performance Paradox [http://ejohn.org/blog/the-performance-paradox/] * Ajaxian » jQuery UI and jQuery Enchant Alpha Versions Released Today [http://ajaxian.com/archives/jquery-ui-and-jquery-enchant-alpha-versions-released-today] * danwebb.net - Event Delegation Made Easy In jQuery [http://www.danwebb.net/2008/2/8/event-delegation-made-easy-in-jquery] * Surfin’ Safari - Blog

Some interesting announcements around jQuery * Ajaxian » jQuery Validation Plugin v1.2 Updated [http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/ajaxian/%7E3/225840258/jquery-validation-plugin-v12-updated] * Ajaxian » jQuery UI Lead is hired by Liferay [http://ajaxian.com/archives/jquery-ui-lead-is-hired-by-liferay] * Ajaxian » Dreamweaver Users Rejoice! Support for JS Libs Now Available. [http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/ajaxian/

Theresa Neil [http://designgenie.org] (longtime friend, co-conspirator on Open Rico [http://openrico.org], Sabre UX team and various other projects) has posted her first blog [http://theresaneil.wordpress.com/] :-) Yes folks there are still a number of really smart people who don't take the time to

Update: Position is filled. We are looking for the following engineer: This is a research opportunity on a small team trying to build the next generation of the Netflix user experience. The team is comprised of a designer, a UI engineer, a product manager and you. You’ll be working

Update: Positions have been filled. Nancy Mott recently joined Netflix to head up the design team. She is in the process of expanding the team. Netflix is in the midst of a lot of exciting new directions for the site that you can be on the ground floor creating. Here

Another anti-pattern we should consider relates to how we use visualizations or present charts. Edward Tufte [http://edwardtufte.com] calls the clutter that often obscures charts or visualizations chartjunk [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk]. Usually it's meaningless colors or styles that hinder rather than help clarify the

Anti-Pattern: Missed Moments Recently Tim O'Reilly pointed out the nice Ajax interface [http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/11/rogers_chocolates.html] that Roger's Chocolate [http://www.rogerschocolates.com/] employs. While I think it is pretty cool it does exhibit a common anti-pattern [anti-patterns-talk-at-web-builders-2007]. As Tim

Events This Week - Dec. 2nd [events-this-week-dec2] Attending & Speaking [http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/webbuilder/2007/agenda.aspx] at Web Builder 2.0 [http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/webbuilder/2007/] this week in Las Vegas, NV (Dec. 3-4). Later in the week I will be one of the judges