“local”
74 posts under this tag.
In a surprising study, Jakob Nielsen found out most (85%) of the learning gleaned from usability tests came from your first 5 user tests; 3 users tests will still give you a whopping 67% of the learning there is. He then goes on to advocate small and iterative testing over a single massive one (say, three tests with 3 users each and improvements in between instead of one lone test with 9):
You want to run multiple tests because the real goal of usability engineering is to improve the design and not just to document its weaknesses.
Combine that with Joshua Schachter’s, founder of Del.icio.us, idea of “Starbucks usability tests” (“offer someone coffee to sit down and play with your product.”) and you’ll know why I’ll be this Friday on Minerva’s Starbucks harassing three every pretty girl I can find with Domburi (TeenVogue recently had a feature on young fashionistas being excellent for usability tests, can’t find the link though).
I enjoyed a birriaWP orgy this Sunday at El Chololo, a popular restaurant near ChapalaWP, and just as I was entering the bathroom two brown, impossibly small indian kids were chasing each other out of it. The (slightly) bigger one yelled to his mate: ”Kevin, ‘perame!” (“Kevin, wait for me!”).
I think it was a moment to amber, because surprised as I was of the Irish name having found its way into this beautiful brown boy, beacon of a brown new world, my surprise was really at how Mexican it sounded, how accustomed I had become to hearing such Anglo-Saxon names (Celtic Brian is very popular too) in young Mexican children.
This past week was frantic and exhausting (not boring!) but yesterday it was all worthwhile: we—my sisters, cousins, and me—threw mom one helluva birthdayparty. Preparations started Sunday, August 20, at a virtual meeting of the Parra Cardenas where a Jewish theme was decided, an impossibly long menu was agreed upon, and (since we wanted something picnicky despite the monsoon that is August) we were all set for a tenting-camp dinner at the new store’s roof.
I can’t believe it has been almost 20 megaseconds since I started this blog (so long already?) and I’ve never talked about them:
Well, if you must know they’re simple cookies I got quite obsessed with some years ago. An acquired tasteWP, they’re way too dry for the uninitiated but just perfect with constant (cold) sips of Arizona Lemon Tea, Bonafont Levite, or milk. They come in several flavors but for chocolate all of them are to be avoided like the plague. They’re advertised like energy biscuits (“bizcochitos de poder” for the in-crowd) and I say the label’s fitting, though in my opinion not so much for any energizing properties they may or may not have, but because they can quickly, cheaply ($1), and somewhat healthily fill your stomach and let you go on with your late night spree (remember Bere?).
A small bakery from my cityWP, La Integral, makes them, but I’ve had reports they now sell them (in your nearest OXXO) as far as MonterreyWP (near the US border) and I like to think I had a tiny wee part in it. ;)
(I’m only linking to the products’ websites out of some sense of customer loyalty, the pages themselves are as lousy as you can get—really, truly, blatantly hideous.)
People flaunting their sexuality are no different from people who flaunt anything else.
Whether you wear a T-Shirt from your favourite band’s latest tour, a Leatherman™ Supertool on your belt or an Armani suit, whether you pepper your words with TechSpeak references or four syllable words from the world of philosophy, your behaviour is in many ways a reflection of what you would like people to think of you.
For some people the emphasis is on “smart”, for others it’s “rich”, and for many it’s “sexy” or “sexual”.
What’s the big?
Pues si, Cecilia Marquez anda perdida politicamente, y si, es otro caso mas de exhibicionismo perredista gratuito (con el que se las dan de muy “izquierda moderna”1), pero, vamos, como quejarse?
“¿Dónde trabajas, pinche vieja?” le eructo un anciano, intuyendo sanjuanera a la ex responsable de prensa del PRD en Jalisco.
Today marks the first day in a long time I had to wear a sweater in my room. The sticky hot season is officially over. Yey!
Don’t you feel you work much better when it’s briskly?
(On the flip side, it rains every damn day, power goes out frequently, and you can’t wear shorts because of mosquitoes… oh well.)
Mi storyteller hermana Shmito nos narra su mas reciente patoaventuraWP:
Manoloooooo!!!
I am in pain!!!
Tengo una lesion abrasiva en la parte inferior de mi gluteo derechoooo!!!!
Deje le hago la cronica de lo sucedido:
 Pues mire, sucede que aqui en Guadalajara los domingos de 8 a 2 de la tarde cierran varias calles por el centro de la ciudad y le llaman Via Recreactiva. Va mucha gente a andar en bici, caminar, correr, on en patines. Yo opte por la ultima, los patines, porque me los compre alla en Houston y los queria estrenar. Pues fuimos mi familia y yo a la mentada via recreactiva. Todo iba bien—shhht-shhht—deslizandome por las calles de cemento, hasta que llegamos a un paso a desnivel (de los que son por arriba, no los subterraneos) y pues con todo mi esfuerzo subi, y a la bajada dije ”uju! Voy a agarrar un impulsito super cool!!”. Fui estupida, lo se—inocencia quiero llamarlo. Total que iba hecha la madreeee!! Manolo, agarre muchisisisisimo impulsooo!! no me podia frenar!! Temi horrible por mi vida! Mis opciones eran, estamparme intencionalmente contra el camellon o el como barandalito de los lados (lo que era un madrazazazo seguro y una probable muerte en el intento), o seguir bajando e intentar lograrlo.  Asi que segui bajando, agarrando cada vez mas y mas velocidad, temiendo cada vez mas y mas por mi vida, tratando de esquivar toda imperfeccion de la calle que pudiera causar mi caida. Todo iba bien, casi lo logro Manolo!! Cuando inesperadamente me di cuenta que justo cuando se termina la bajada, se termina tambien el cementito bonito y empieza un asfalto horrible lleno de pequeñas y letales piedritas e inumerables baches (imperceptibles a los carros y bicicletas, pero la pesadilla de cualquier patinador). Pero a esas alturas era muy tarde para intentar hacer algo. Asi que iba yo con todo el impulso de la bajada… llegue al asfalto… y sucedio lo inevitable… cai Manoloooo!!! Fue horribleeeeeeeeeeeee!! Me fui como de lado, raro… porque cai con mi mano derecha apoyada (ahora raspada) y con mi trasero-pierna derechos (raspadisimos). No me podia levantar Manolooo!!!  Mi piernita temblabaaaaa! Pero unas señoras se apiadaron de mi y me ayudaron a levantarme, y como no habia desayunado nada, como que del susto y todo me empeze a marear. Pero bueno, me recupere y segui patinando, ya no me quedaba de otra. Me dolia mi pierna en el lugar del golpe, pero no habia baños ni nada donde me pudiera ver. Asi que segui como por una hora y media mas, hasta que terminamos nuestro recorrido en un restaurante para desayunar. Para esto ya traia super super hinchada mi piernita en esa areaaa!! Cuando entre al baño a verme… Santa madree Manoloo!! Me asuste!! Se ve horriblee, es como una gran quemada, mezclada con raspada, mezclada con el aporreamiento del sentonazo!! Se ve super super feo, y duele aun peor!!!
Llegando a mi casa me iba a bañar, pero me quede dormida y despues de como 8 horas me desperte. me lave y #$$%&x%x madre, me dolio hasta el alma, pero bueno, ya esta limpito ahi.
Ahora solo tendre que esperar como 1 año de aqui a que sane esa horrible herida.
Bueno, esa es mi historia. Se la platico esperando que se divierta un rato a expensas de mi sufrimiento.
Ese fue un subtitulo de la portada del Publico de hoy. Para ser honestos, no suelo tener el menor interes por los deportes pero lo lei de rapido solo por aquello de enterarme de lo mas relevante del dia. Lo curioso fue lo primero que pense al leerlo:
...interesante, “festejo ganandole”, mmm, “festejo ganandole”, interesante, no es una forma que uno ve muy a menudo, por que la habran escogido? “festejo ganandole”, como mas podrian haberlo escrito? a ver, a ver, mmm, a ver, “festejo…”, “festejo ganarle al..”!, muy bien, ah!, “festejo al ganarle..”, muy bien, ya son 2 formas alternas, cual es la diferencia entre ellas y la forma original, en verdad difieren en significado? bueno, pues, si, creo que si, con “Atlas festejo ganarle al Boca Juniors” estableces claramente que el Atlas festejo por haberle ganado al Boca Juniors, con “Atlas festejo al ganarle al Boca Juniors” tambien dices que festejo por haber ganado pero insinuas que tambien tenia otro motivo de festejo, finalmente, con “Atlas festejo ganandole al Boca Juniors” no dejas duda de que aparte de festejar por ganar, el Atlas definitivamente tenia otro motivo para festejar de antemano…
Estoy enfermo?
...que hasta yo lo tengo!”
Vicente FernandezWP dixit (supuestamente).
Es increible pero el articulo de la Wikipedia en ingles sobre Vicente Fernandez esta mucho, mucho mas completo que el de la Wikipedia en español. Nuestra lengua materna esta devaluada en internet mucho mas alla de lo que nadie se atreve a decir en voz alta (o en letra grande).
Marketing MyopiaWP, from the recently deceased economist Theodore LevittWP is a fascinating article from 1960. Despite its now quaint and outdated examples, despite being wrong in several of its predictions, this is one of the classic articles of marketing and deservedly so. Perhaps the biggest surpise for me was to reread a sense of marvel and respect at business, a lucid and bracing criticism of capitalism, that I hadn’t seen since I read some Peter DruckerWP last year. The “intellectual” community, specially in Mexico, has so often made deriding business and its babbits its raison d’etre, that I find such cogent analysis incredibly refreshing.
Here two fragments:
The difference between marketing and selling is more than semantic.
Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the
buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product
into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by
means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating,
delivering, and finally consuming it.
In a sense Ford was both the most brilliant and the most senseless marketer in American history. He was senseless
because he refused to give the customer anything but a black car. He was
brilliant because he fashioned a production system designed to fit market
needs. We habitually celebrate him for the wrong reason, his production genius.
His real genius was marketing. We think he was able to cut his selling price
and therefore sell millions of $500 cars because his invention of the assembly
line had reduced the costs. Actually he invented the assembly line because he
had concluded that at $500 he could sell millions of cars. Mass production was
the result, not the cause, of his low prices.
At the end of the article, there’s an equally engaging retrospective commentary fifteen years after. Levitt could write.
Of course, I’d do it again and in the same way, given
my purposes, even with what more I now know—the
good and the bad, the power of facts, and the limits
of rhetoric. If your mission is the moon, you don’t use
a car. Don Marquis’s cockroach, Archy, provides some
final consolation: “An idea is not responsible for who
believes in it.”
As a sidenote, this was an article originally published in the Harvard Business Review, which I’ve always dismissed on the base of its exorbitating price. I’ve been reading through online article abstracts from the current edition and I’m most impressed. I’ll be sure to buy it next time.
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