Jens Meiert

How Much Intelligence Does Good Design Really Require?

Of the definitions for art, design, and decoration I published back in the days, I do believe in the statement that design works – or has to work, respectively – the most. However, one thing’s still challenging me, and that is how much intelligence good, working design requires …

¶ April 28, 2009, filed under Usability, Design.

Website Optimization Measures, Part VI

In this episode: On the utilization of Google Friend Connect, maintenance of Google Analytics, sanity checks, type attributes, charset rules, cite elements, and ICRA labels. Fresh and sexy.

¶ March 10, 2009, filed under Web Development, Usability, Design.

Another Survey (Plus System Usability Scale Template)

I’m doing it again; do you’ve got another 15 seconds to answer a couple of questions? Survey: How usable is meiert.com? I might return the favor then: The survey you filled out is based on the System Usability Scale (SUS) John Brooke presented in the 80s. Which means nothing less …

¶ February 25, 2009, filed under Usability.

The Greatest Secret in Web Design

Alright I cheated, this isn’t really a secret for professionals. Or an open secret. Or whatever. It’s that web design is a process. Good web design is an ongoing endeavour; and thus, excellent web design an expensive undertaking …

¶ December 1, 2008, filed under Web Development, Accessibility, Usability, Design.

Website Optimization Measures, Part V

Almost half a year since my last article in that regard it’s about time to present version 5 of some random website optimization measures hopefully being great for your site as well. Short and crispy, to use some equally random German saying …

¶ November 3, 2008, filed under Web Development, Usability, Design.

When Guidelines Should Be Descriptive or Prescriptive

Every time I’m setting up guidelines and standards, mostly within companies, one of the questions I need to ask and answer myself is whether or not they, or which parts of them, should be descriptive or prescriptive. For coding guidelines this would mean the difference between …

¶ September 13, 2008, filed under Web Development, Accessibility, Usability, Design.

Google Chrome

I love it: 99.9 % of the readers of this site already know about Google Chrome, the browser my employer just released. Still, I am not talking as an employee here, and still, there might be something in this post that you didn’t know …

¶ September 4, 2008, filed under Web Development, Accessibility, Usability, User Experience.

Updating a Definition of Art

When I once tried to define art, design, and decoration, I described art as: “Art hides. Art has a meaning, and it hides it, on purpose. Art delivers a message, and that message is hidden, on purpose. It is an art to create art. Art is unusable, by definition.” Several months and discussions later …

¶ July 29, 2008, filed under Usability, Design.

10 Measures for Continuous Website Maintenance

Website maintenance and quality assurance mean the backbone of high quality offers of information, and they represent the difference between an amateurish or professional approach to web design and development. Consequently, guidelines for quality web design define maintenance …

¶ June 24, 2008, filed under Web Development, Usability, Design, User Experience.

Thoughts on Email

Email was, is, and will stay the web’s true killer application, but spam, top-posting, incompetent use of newsletters, and the HTML email problem mean serious challenges. I can’t but get rid of …

¶ June 10, 2008, filed under Web Development, Usability, User Experience.