Web site developers and bloggers, your attention please

Information we get daily is doubling every 18 months. To get attention we need to make dead simple and readable websites and blogs. But not all web developers and bloggers are with us. They want to show off their newly learned design skills and use all possible colors, flashing and scrolling text. External website widgets are another source of cluttered and bloated web pages.

I have been using readability tool by Arc90.com since it was released in early 2009. This tool removes all clutter from the web page you are reading. This tool is also available as a firefox addon and google chrome extension. See the screen shots of a web page below before and after applying the readability tool.

Safari browser by Apple, a company built around design and usability, now has this functionality built into it.

Hey, web developers! Do you still need proof people want simpler and readable websites?

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

Enough

From Derek Sivers blog:

Two friends were at a party held at the mansion of a billionaire. One said, “Wow! Look at this place! This guy has everything!” The other said, “Yes, but I have something he'll never have: enough.”

And ...

I live simply. I hate waste and excess. I have a good apartment, a good laptop, and a few other basics. But the less I own, the happier I am.

Derek was a multi-millionaire who gave away all his wealth to a trust.

Website of world's richest man

Warren Edward Buffett is the world richest man with estimated net worth of $62 billions. His company BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. ranks 17th among the world's biggest companies. Its worth having a look at its website.

I would also suggest to read some of its pages. Content is free of buzzwords with to-the-point information and personal tone.

This website is not an exception. Personal and business websites of Jakob Neilson, who is considered authority on making usable websites, are also worth looking at.

There are countless others including the one you use daily.

Management Evolution

Procedures and functions of organizations get complicated with the passage of time. We need to make conscious effort to keep things simple.

In my last post, bosses hierarchy, I pointed out towards the unwanted layers of management which get build when an organization evolves. I just got a power point presentation from a friend of mine which describes the exactly same concept in an interesting way.

Do have a look at this presentation [the_ant.pps].

Shopping Mania

Shopping centers are so much organized and fun here in UK (and every where in the western world) that I ended up with a number of useless things in my hands while visiting few shopping places. Even the people who are crying of hard times are constantly buying more and more junk to fill their homes. All the 'poor' people in London seem to have every luxury imaginable in their homes and still feeling unsatisfied.

Westfield, the third biggest UK shopping center opened two days ago. Enormous crowd was reported by newspapers and other media. London mayor is urging people to spend, spend and spend.

But do we really need to do all this spending?

Annie Leonard of The Story of Stuff has correctly analyzed why we love shopping and why we should not do this. Visit storyofstuff.com and watch this 20-minutes eye-opening story.

Best Things in Life

Best things in life are simple and free:

• Homeopathy medicines to cure the diseases.
• Lateral Thinking to keep your head clear and focused.
• Yoga to exercise your body.
• Watching sunset and eating home made food. (compared to dining in a 5 star restaurant)
• ... (i could list hundreds of things)

Unfortunately the corporations are hell bent to make us believe otherwise using the power of marketing.

So what is your choice?

Simple and free or complicated and expensive?

Simplicity and Design

It seems economy came down crumbling like a falling house of cards. Latest computers, powerful databases and top of the line analytical tools could not help predict and prevent this fall.

As part of my consulting business I am required to provide more and more tools and reports for analysis of business data. It is time we realize that our obsession with analysis is not going to help us much. As de Bono says "You can analyse the past but you have to design the future". We waste a lot of energy and resources on analysis. Let us divert some of it towards simplicity and design.

Seth Godin writes:

I've always been frightened by big-firm accounting. The sort of financial legerdemain in which skilled accountants work hard to make the numbers look the way the CEO wants, instead of making them clear. Cash accounting run on a simple bookkeeping system is the small way to do it... even if your company is huge. That's because sooner or later, management has to know what's actually happening as opposed to what they can pretend is happening.

Rule 20-80

Rule 20-80 states:

1. 20% people have 80% wealth.
2. 20% of your customers generate 80% revenue.
3. 20% of your employees complete 80% of their assignments.
4. 20% of your reading is enough to provide 80% knowledge.
5. 20% of your effort generates 80% of your expected outcome.
6. 20% of a software fulfills 80% of your requirements.
7. and so on ...
   

The rest 80% usually gives you only 20% and can be ignored if you love free time and higher productivity. The trick is to identify the 20%.

Free Yourself

Internet and web applications allow you to free yourself from physical office.

• You can check your email anywhere using web mail.
• You do your banking on Internet.
• Your branches share a single online database for all inventory operations.
• Your customers track their orders and accounts without bothering you.
• Your projects get managed through Internet from remote locations.
  
• Your pictures, videos, documents, spreadsheets, backups are all in the cloud.
  
• Your London office phone rings in Lahore.

and so on. Possibilities are endless.

But the question is, are you doing any of the above?

Intellectuals

"The first rule of intellectualism is: 'If you do not have much to say, make it as complex as possible.' A true intellectual has as deep a fear of simplicity as a farmer has of droughts. If there is no complexity, what is there to work with or write about?"

"There is no end to the complexity of descriptions. You could divide a simple pencil into ten parts if you wished and then proceed to describe all ten parts and the relationship of the parts. Once you have a handful of concepts you can choreograph the most complex of dances. There is no limit to the word games that can be played with words."

Edward de Bono in Teach Your Child How To Think page 9.

Buzzwords

UK's local authorities body has warned the British bureaucrats to stop using buzzwords, saying they confuse people and prevent residents from understanding what local governments do.

This body prepared and sent a list of 100 buzzwords which includes words like synergies, stakeholders, sustainable communities, empowerment, coterminosity, revenue stream among others.

Two years back, I attended a discussion at LCCI about developing service oriented business and exporting services. Participants were few foreign consultants, secretary of a government department and few other 'intellectuals'. This discussion was full of so many buzzwords that I had troubleg concentrating what everyone was saying. The end result of this discussion was obvious. We accomplished nothing during the 2 hours session.

If British people are having difficulty understanding buzzwords, how can our people be comfortable with these. It is time that we clear our websites, marketing material and discussions of these buzzwords.