Google Personalized Mobile - would you like fries with that?

Google today has released their mobile version of Google Personalized. All I can say now is that I wish my current cellphone had any access to browse the web but I shall see that this problem gets fixed soon, only hoping that my cellphone provider and their network enables free or at least cheap and unlimited usage to surf the web.

So when you're waiting at a fast food drive-thru and your order takes more than 5 mins, pull out your mobile device and glance a peek at your personalized Google Mobile for new emails, your local weather and more. After all, if you live in the sunshine state, you'd like to know how hot the temperature is outside and use that info to complain about your long waited order to the manager.

God Speed - Mobile Googlers!

Ignoring the end-user experience

While stumbling upon the Blue Flavor website (a respected and collaborated new media consulting firm in Seattle, WA) - I browsed and read through their entertaining and funny blogs, in which I spent an enjoyable 5 minutes reading their post on Blue Flavor's 2006 Prediction Show. As I thought more and shared their perspectives on web design and new media, Matt May (of Blue Flavor), wrote in the section for "User Experience" what I have been thinking about for such a long while on the industry of web design...

“The problem with UX is clear: all of the stakeholders think they'd have happier users if the Web design process went more their way...”

I believe this is completely true and most of the times designers, coders, and others neglect to consider the end-user and their comprehension and usage of the web. I admit I'm also included on this and point the finger to myself. But I have taken percaution and spent time on developing easier systems to tackle the users' usability of web projects I may be developing by conducting small studies and surveys on how they interact, read, and navigate through my work.

For 2006, one of my professional resolutions is to improve my knowledege of usability by end-users and conduct further analysis on future and current projects to better serve my clients and their web customers with design flows, structural content and of course, user input on the websites themselves. After all, its the end-user who will use the website more frequently and profoundly than my actual client or myself. As I progress, we shall see considerable changes to my style of web development and great results to web interaction. So having said all this, I've learn not to ignore the end-user and their experience.

Happy New Year

This is my first blog post of the year and i hope this year brings more entries of what i might be thinking and want to blog.

Lets start a brand new year 2006. Happy New Year!