Peter van Grieken

9 Years after "Don't make me think", Steve Krug wrote his second book "Rocket Surgery made easy (The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems)". As you may know, the term "Rocket Surgery" was coined in the first book to explain that anyone can (and should) do basic usability testing.

This second book is a how-to that explains exactly how anyone can do their own usability testing. It splits into two parts: the first part about  the usability test: planning it, recruiting testers and conducting it. The second part, "Fixing Usability Problems", covers what you should do next — like what to do with the information you’ve collected from the test.

If you don't plan to buy this book, at least watch this presentation by Steve Krug in which he talks about "the least you can do" about usability testing.

Although 2009 was a great year in many ways, unfortunately this last December month was also about some sad and hard decisions for me. I put on my happy face during the holidays, but I couldn't help thinking of the recent break up with my girlfriend of 3 years.

My optimism forces me to look forward to 2010, which I believe is going to be a great year. These are my resolutions I'd like to share with you.

2009 had a surprising ending for me, but apart from that, it was a good year. I'm really looking forward to 2010 to make that one even better. I've got some exciting things coming up.

One of the positive things about 2009 was all that great music and the concerts and festivals I visited. That's why I like to share my favorite music of last year with you.

Let me know what you think of it.

As you probably know by now, HTML5 is a working draft and it's the successor of HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0. HTML5 aims to reduce the need for browser plugins and it's coming at us at full speed. As a forward thinking web designer you can't wait to use all the new features, can you?

Or maybe you're wondering why you should use HTML5 now, most of the fuss seems to be about the <canvas>-element and structural elements like <header> and <article>, but there's so much more to discover. So why should you start using HTML5?

I've summed up 3 great reasons.

Last week I stumbled upon this article that states that "Web design is dead", a pretty bold statement. The web has been around for about twenty years so naturally, its content and the way people use it has changed. Those changes have asked for other ways to build websites and more skilled web designers and programmers.

By "Web design, the author of the article means "old web design", which means "first best guess design, where the web designer gets to submit their personal view of what will work, the client pays for it, and it's put live."

Do I agree with this statement?

If you are like me, surfing the Internet for useful stuff, you may have stumbled across articles like "How to be a rock star in your own niche", "10 things to do to become a rockstar blogger", "How to be a rock star WordPress designer" or, my personal favourite, "What journalists can learn from rock stars".

Most of the time these articles are accompanied by a picture of Kurt Cobain or some DJ and the occasional grunge effects in the design.

I don't know about you, but something about these articles piss me off.

I know, I know, Google Wave is soooo october 2009, but I got 8 invites. So if you want one, drop your e-mail in the comments.

Of course, first come, first serve.

You are now part of an experiment.

That sound pretty exciting right? Aside from my personal blog, this website is also my playground to test new stuff. As you are visiting this site, you are part of this experiment.

So, what is this experiment you ask?