kartooner.com

Apparently Ingvar Kamprad, CEO of IKEA, is not the world’s richest man as earlier reported. The Swedish furniture company has denied that Kamprad’s fortune exceeds that of the Microsoft founder but insists that he isn’t hurting either.

Gate’s worth is estimated at $46.6 billion, which means his grandchildren’s children won’t have to worry about flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets.

Didier Hilhorst, of superfluousbanter.org raises a good user design issue in regards to the commonly used ATM (or Automated Teller Machine), a device used invisibly in today’s society.

He mentions that when the ATM prompts you as the user for a receipt, it offers two options — yes or no — which depending on if you’re like me means ‘no’ considering I use the bank’s online site for record keeping. He also likens the ATM experience to something like an Indy 500 wherein the user flicks through the screens in a race to the finish line — or the withdraw and walk away portion.

If you follow this pattern you are used to going through the steps and then at the receipt prompt selecting your Yes or No, but what if the ATM is out of paper? Then upon selecting ‘No’ you are booted out of the process and are left scratching your head pondering the reason why what just happened, well happened.

Personally, I love watching people struggle over their items. Depending on if their doing a simple deposit to a more complicated deposit it’s funny to see their reactions to an otherwise nonreponsive machine. Typically it’s an operator’s error, possibly the result of the user waiting too long to slip in their deposit envelope.

I know I’ve had trouble with this in the past. After selecting the Deposit option I quickly fill out the deposit slip and then immediatedly push that into the bank envelope and all this time the screen is beeping until it finally stops and prompts me to try again.

Anyone remember that commercial from a few years back with the boy yelling “Ah-tee-em” and then leading the tourists to an ATM?

Paul Scrivens of Whitespace has posted an interesting article entitled “Google: Looking Forward, Moving Backwards” in regards to the current re-design of Google.com. He mentions how Google’s decision to remove the tab-based navigation was a poor usability choice, explaining that the tabs stationed the user comfortably within the site.

I couldn’t agree more on this issue. When I first noticed the redesign a few days ago I was floored to say the least. The reason being that the design prior was not only minimalistic but flowed perfectly. Google’s decision to include Froogle, their price comparison engine seems kind of frivilous to me. When I’m comparing prices for various items I’ll use just the search engine itself, afterall, that’s its purpose.

Replacing the tabs with a simple text-based navigation makes Google seem naked rather than purely minimalistic. It’s apparent that Google like Yahoo wishes to keep it’s design backwards-compatible without keeping out the population of users who still use Netscape 4.7, but this again seems like a step back.

If they used a sprinkle of CSS (more so than what is used now) and kept the design minimalistic with backwards compatibilty through standards instead of stripped Google of it’s robust qualities then everyone would be content. Afterall, you want the user experience to be a successful one and not one in which the user feels lost in what appears to be an empty white-walled room.