May 2010

Data is provided by w3counter.com

• Somewhat “Lighter” more responsive overall  feeling.
• Plugins (Add-ons)
• One address bar that accepts both URLs and search queries (Saves you a mouse click or “Tab” key to switch the focus to the search bar in Safari)
• Clear on-screen indication that your download has started. Download progress integration into main window is also more useful than floating download window that often gets lost among other windows.
• Nice and settled UI animation affects.
• Smart history search in address bar. You can enter any part of the URL to trigger suggestions.
• Independent Incognito window as opposite to Safari’s “private mode” the applies to entire browse session.
• Right looking tabs. ( I know, I know…)

A rumor that Apple is releasing Safari 5 in a good news indeed and list of news features looks like Safari is going to give Chrome a fight (at least on it’s home platform)

• Safari Reader: Click on the new Reader icon to view articles on the web in a single clutter-free page.
• Improved Performance: Safari 5 executes Javascript up to 25% faster than Safari 4. Better page caching and DNS prefetching speed up browsing.
• Bing Search Option: New Bing search option for Safari’s Search Field, in addition to Google and Yahoo.
• Improved HTML5 support: Safari supports over a dozen new HTML5 features including Geolocation, full screen for HTML5 video, closed caption for HTML5 video, new sectioning elements (article, aside footer, header, hgroup, nav and section), HTML5, AJAX History, EventSource, WebSocket, HTML 5 draggable attribute, HTML 5 forms validation, and HTML 5 Ruby.
• Safari Developer Tools: A new Timeline Panel in the Web Inspector shows how Safari interacts with a web site and identifies areas for optimization. New keyboard shortcuts make it aster to switch between panels.
• Smarter Address Field: The Smart Address Field can now match text against the titles of web pages in History and Bookmarks, as well as any part of their URL.
• Tab Settings: Automatically open new webpages in tabs instead of in separate windows.
• Hardware Acceleration for Windows: Use the power of the computer’s graphics processor to smoothly display media and effects on PC, as well as Mac.
• Search History with Date: A new date indicator in Full History Search shows when web pages were viewed.
• Top Sites/History Button: Switch easily between Top Sites and Full History Search with a new button that appears at the top of each view.
• Private Browsing Icon: A “Private” icon appears in the Smart Address Field when Private Browsing is on. Click on the icon to turn off Private Browsing.
• DNS Prefetching: Safari looks at the addresses of links on web pages and can load those pages faster.
• Improved Page Caching: Safari can add additional types of web pages to the cache so they load quickly.
• XSS Auditor: Safari can filter potentially malicious scripts used in cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
• Improved JavaScript Support: Safari allows web applications that use JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to run faster and more securely.

Currently it’s just rumours but wait isn’t going to be long. We’ll know in a few days.

“Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold.” - Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, March 22, 2010.

1280×800 screen resolution gives us 1257×600 real life room users see without scrolling in the following browsers:

• Mac
  • Safari
  • Camino
  • FireFox 3
  • Omniweb 5
  • Opera 9
• Windows
  • IE6
  • IE7
  • IE8
  • FireFox 3
  • Opera 9
  • Safari

Still it would be a good idea to user target audience study or web analytics data or at least common sense when deciding what minimun resolution you need to support.

Government/Community websites should still support minimum of 1024×768 providing ability to access data to 99% of the market.

Retail/Financial industries usually don’t upgrade hardware and bank terminals until it is absolutely necessary and 1024×768 may be still safer choice for them.

IT industry routinely tries to be at the tech edge . Big screens, high resolutions of latest note- and netbooks make it  to take advantage of 1280×800.

These statistics are based on W3Schools users.

Here is content usage breakdown:

• Most popular activity is still text messaging (63,5%)
• Web surfing (28%)
• Games (28.6%)
• Accessing Social network sites (17%)
• Listening to music on mobile phone (12.8%)

Accessing social network has a boost of 3.5% in last month, text messaging has 1.5% while paying games have not  changed much.

Blackberry is still most popular device used by 43% of the smart phone owners. Apple has a share of 25%. Microsoft gave up 4% to Google which has 7.1% (4.3% up for 3 months). Palm is in trouble and down 2.1% to 5.7% total maker share.

From beginning of March european users will be able to choose which web browser they want to install as an alternative to Internet Explorer.

In random order MS shows Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera и Safari. These “primary” browsers list is visible instantly and scrolling down the page users can find Avant, Flock, Green Browser, K-meleon, Maxthon, Sleipnir и Slim.

This browser choice windows only appears to those users that have IE as their default browsers. Users of Chrome or Firefox won’t get to see alternative browser windows.

One more small step towards support of W3C standards and better user experience.

Current members:

• América Móvil
• AT&T
• Bharti Airtel
• China Mobile
• China Unicom
• Deutsche Telekom
• KT
• Mobilkom Austria Group
• MTN Group
• NTT DoCoMo
• Orange
• Orascom Telecom
• Softbank Mobile
• Telecom Italia
• Telefónica, Telenor Group
• Telia Sonera
• SingTel
• SK Telecom
• Sprint
• Verizon Wireless
• VimpelCom
• Vodafone and Wind
• Samsung
• LG
• Sony Ericsson

Purpose of the alliance is “to create a ’wholesale applications community’ that will establish a simple route to market for developers, in turn, providing access to the latest and widest range of innovative applications and services to as many customers as possible worldwide. This alliance will deliver scale unparalleled by any application distribution ecosystem in existence today”.

The terms of the new service is still unclear.

Aperture 3 is out and packed with more than 200 new features such as:

• Full screen
• Metadata Pane Map
• Nondestructive Brushes
• Support for Pressure-Sensitive Tablets
• Feather Tool to blend adjustments more easily
• Multiple Instances of Adjustments
• Faces
• Places with support for iPhone Photo GPS Locations
• Web publishing to Facebook, Flickr, MobileMe
• Video support
• Audio Support
• Slideshows
• Enhanced Printing optioins
• Vanishing HUD and mother other UI improvements.

Read more here http://www.apple.com/aperture/features/

Update:

Trial version is still not available. As of today (Feb 10th) there is no email from Apple with the download URL.

20% of the market sound like a lot but on other hand this number will inevitably become smaller and smaller every month. Many designers have moved to liquid design that gives resolutions-independent feeling, full screen browsing “friendly” and potentially makes it easier to accommodate higher resolutions in the future.

Still we should probably stat with 1024×768 for a little longer and here is why:

• About 76 % of users don’t browse using full screen mode. They simultaneously chat, emil, access widgets.
• Users that have 1600×1200 and higher resolution, usually don’t used full screen and instead have multiple windows / websites open, which is more productive.
• 20% is still a significant piece of the market that should not be ignored.

That being said one needs to take into account user audience demographics. Designing for b2b website for IT industry that routinely uses latest generation of computers and monitors, it would be save to go one step  up and optimize a site for 1280px. Retail sites should aim at 1024×768 to be able to support casual users that don’t upgrade their hardware unless it’s necessary. Learning target audience is always a good idea that helps delivering more usable product.

So we have 3 players: Google with half-open Android, Apple OS with closed iPhone OS and now Symbian with fully open code.

At the end of the day it’s all comes down to UX and it will be interesting to see what approach will be more beneficial to a end-user. Most of us care about how much can we do of what we need to do and how easy it can be done. Right now iPhone OS looks like a clear leader in it’s simplicity and user satisfaction.

“Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”

With Google’s YouTube switching to HTML5 Flash takes a big hit. I’m not missing Flash on my iPhone, I try to skip Flash splash page when I run into one surfing the web and I never ever advice my clients to use Flash on their sites unless they need to build an interactive app with Cold Fusion backend. So no hard feeling about absence of Flash on future Apple devices.

ASCII once dominating the web is down to 20% and it is probably pages that have not been updated in last several years.

Pros:

• Beautiful design
• Vertical and horizontal modes
• Long batter life (10 hours)
• Amazing stand by time of 1 month
• LED screen, which delivery reach colors and wide view angle.
• 3G connectivity
• Wi-Fi N connectivity
• PRICE (!)

Cons:

• No multitasking. Works pretty much the same way as iPhone. One needs to close one app to open another
• No camera and video chat
• Quite heavy (1.5 pounds)
• iBookstore – US only at launch

* This is initial thoughts and we’ll be probably updating the list.

According to MSN.co.uk which conducted the survey, computer problems are “as frustrating for people as being stuck in traffic or losing a wallet” . Almost half of users say that they just want a computer that “works” and would like to avoid “flashy updates” or new features.

Probably half of the frustration can be attributed to hardware issues, drivers compatibility and overall OS stability issues. But the other half is purely in hands of UI designers. Things like UI inconsistency, badly designed workflows, confusing colour schemes and mystifying error messages – each taking valuable user time and creating a frustrating user experience.

For those who still think they don’t need to employ UX or UI designers,  just think about saving your valuable customers four days a year by simply creating a better interface.

• Adobe Illustrator CS4 is here
• Adobe illustrator 8 is here
• Adobe EPS is here

• Adobe Illustrator CS4 is here
• Adobe illustrator 8 is here
• Adobe FireWorks Layered Vector PNG is here

UPA (Usability Proffesinoals’ Association) 2010 International Conference: Embracing Cultural Diversity – User Experience Design for the World will be hosted in Munich, Germany 24 – 28 May, 2010!

Early bird discounted registration NOW OPEN!

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