WebProNews

Men Want It Fast, Women Want It All

The following is based on research, not sexism or prejudice of any kind. Conclusions are by nature overly general, and there are many exceptions to the following “rules” of masculine and feminine behavior. Quite simply, there really are general and stark differences in the behaviors men and women, but this fact should never be used for discrimination or other types of abuse. Also, in the following, jokes and wisecracks abound. The author apologizes in advance if you don’t find him funny and reminds you they're only jokes.

Gmail Does Something It Should've Done A Long Time Ago

Gmail has been all about improving usability lately. Most recently they've announced a big improvement in this area fixing a problem that has annoyed countless emailers including Googlers themselves. You know how when you get more than one conversation going based on one message, you don't always have time to read each new one? It can get pretty confusing when trying to remember which ones still need to be read when you go back to them. If you mark the whole thing as unread, then you have to wade through the ones you've already read.

Make Facebook, Yahoo, and Google Products Better

We live in an age of great communication. The world is literally at our fingertips at the click of a mouse or the stroke of a key, and that puts the companies behind the products we use everyday right within our reach.

Accessibility Information Webmasters Can Use

Web Accessibility organization WebAIM has posted results from an interesting survey on the use of screen readers. Webmasters should pay attention to this, as accessibility is an important part of your online presence, but is often ignored or overlooked. Just ask Target, who settled an accessibility lawsuit last year for $6 million.

Gmail Makes Changes to Contacts

Google has announced four changes to Gmail's contact manager. Each change is a feature to enhance the service's usability.

Google Looks At Itself Through Your Eyes

What captures a user's attention on their screen can play a large part in whether or not they click through to a search engine result. Naturally, that makes finding out where eyeballs go on a SERP vital to their overall search experience, and hence, vital to Google's strategy. Google of course obtains this knowledge through extensive eye tracking research. The company has a post up today revealing some findings from their latest efforts in this area.

New Twellow Feature Increases Usability

Twellow introduced a new feature today that allows users to easily follow and unfollow Twitterers directly from the Twellow interface. Whereas in the past, you would have had to clicked through to a user's Twitter page to do so.

7 Ways to Get More Conversions Out of Google Site Search

The future of search engine optimization is uncertain right now. Google is experimenting with personalization, and the need for quality, engaging, and usable content is becoming more important than ever. One part of a site's usability is the ease with which a user can find desired content. A common way to make this easier, is site search, which Google itself happily provides.

Using the Data that Site Search Uncovers

I recently posted about ways to get more conversions out of Google Site Search. This was based on tips that Google itself offered for capitalizing on its potential. These tips were: 1. Make your search box easy to find 2. Make sure search is always available 3. Customize the appearance of search to fit your site 4. Experiment 5. Be open to feedback 6. Learn what users are looking for

Mozilla Collects User Data for Usability Testing

Mozilla has a new project called Test Pilot, which it uses to test usability of its products. It collects data from users on a strictly voluntary basis, and shares that data with the public anonymously so others can use it too. In fact, the testing platform itself will be available to the public as well.