I've had a hard time keeping this one under wraps for the past few weeks, but as of this morning, I'm finally allow to brag. My fellow silveroranges and I have gotten big props from the guru himself, Jakob Nielsen.
I'm hoping that this award will remain in our hands and not be lost to a technicality like our last award.
Comments
Melda - October 22, 2001 2:21 pm
Congrats Steve & Silverorange!
Rob - October 22, 2001 2:53 pm
Mad props!<P><P>
I used to work there! I am the Rob in Strob*.<P><P>Go oranges.<P><P>Go banana.<P><P>
<blockquote class="smalltext">* The strob was discontinued in early versions of the intranet, because it wasn't Jakob-appreciation material.</blockquote>
Charlie - October 22, 2001 3:22 pm
Bravo!
2 Questions:
1. Is there a transcript of his speech, to see what he actually said about the Intranet?
2. Did you actually win anything beyond praise?
Congrats!
Heather - October 22, 2001 3:30 pm
Much Respect to silverorange.
It is great to see you are getting recognition off of our small Island.
Steven Garrity - October 22, 2001 3:44 pm
Thanks, thanks, and thanks. Charlie, we'll have more info, including photos, soon.
If you read this in time, you can catch me bragging about the award on CBC Radio at 4:40 PM (Monday afternoon) - 96.1 FM on Prince Edward Island, or <a href="http://charlottetown.cbc.ca/charlottetown.ram" title="CBC Radio live in RealAudio">live in RealAudio</a>.
Steven Garrity - October 23, 2001 10:22 am
<b><i>"Web designers look at Jakob Neilsen the way a Jedi looks at Yoda."</i></b> - This Mitch Courmier guys' not bad.
<p><a href="http://www.radio.cbc.ca/regional/pei/realaudio/silverorange.ram" title="RealAudio Interview on CBC">Listen to my interview about the award on CBC Radio</a>.
Peter Rukavina - October 23, 2001 10:26 am
Congratulations silver and orange; nice to be recognized for your hard work and good design sense.
Steven Garrity - October 23, 2001 10:31 am
Charlie, to answer your questions:
<ol>
<li><i>Is there a transcript of his speech, to see what he actually said about the Intranet?</i>
<p>No - we're hoping that the <a href="http://www.nngroup.com" title="NNGroup.com">Nielsen Norman Group</a> will publish some more info on the speech. A few quotes that the silveroranges jotted down and transmitted back to silverorange compound can be found at <a href="http://www.silverorange.com/index.cfm?source=news&id=bestintranet" title="more info about the award">silverorange.com</a>.
<p>When an audience member asked for more detail as to why our intranet won (perhaps he was an angry and jealous Microsoft employee) Jakob deferred to his <a href="http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/" title="upcoming report in intranet design by the Nielsen Norman Group">upcoming report on the subject</a> in which we will be featured.<p>
<li><i>Did you actually win anything beyond praise?</i>
<p>We got a cool little glass trophy thing. We will also be featured in <a href="http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/" title="upcoming report in intranet design by the Nielsen Norman Group">the report</a> mentioned above. Should be plenty of leverage for us to be able to generate our own cash prize ;-)
</ol>
Alan - October 23, 2001 10:38 am
I add my congratulations. I have sent word and the audio clip chugging across the disfunctional PPHM intranet to let everyone know...maybe we can look at your widget again?
Charlie - October 23, 2001 11:20 am
Thanks Steve,
I'm not sure about angry Microsoft employees, but according to CBC there might be some angry Cisco and U.S. Dept. of Transportation employees!
Rob - October 23, 2001 1:47 pm
I would love to hear my fellow genius interviewed, but I refuse to let RealPlayer on my system. Somebody MP3ify it. I would, but I don't have RealPlayer.
Steven Garrity - October 23, 2001 3:05 pm
If I didn't hate RealPlayer so much, I'd scold you for being lazy.
Here's <a href="include/feature/intranet_interview.wma" title="WM version">the interview in Windows Media format</a> (I <i>know</i> you have installed).
Rob - October 23, 2001 5:02 pm
You said 'plunk', right on.
Peter Rukavina - October 23, 2001 10:29 pm
<P>
Don Norman (who is the <I>Norman</I> of Nielsen Norman Group) was one of the speakers at Pop!Tech. He was on a panel called "Internet Access for Human Beings" along with Marc Canter. As it turned out, Canter and Norman have completely opposite opinions about, well, just about everything. The essence of their differences appears to be essentially that Canter favours (a) getting working apps out the door, (b) the PC as the center of the digital universe, and (c) bravado, while Norman favours (a) careful user interface design, (b) individual non-PC devices as the centre of the digital universe and (c) thoughful restraint. Judging from the reaction during the session, and from dinner discussion afterwards, it seemed that the audience was pretty well split 50/50 along much the same lines: you either lauded Norman as a Design God and thought Canter was an unfocused lout, or lauded Canter as a rockin' impressario and thought Norman was an anal retentive dink. I tend to come just about up the middle.
Steven Garrity - October 24, 2001 9:52 am
Peter, I watched the session you mention via quicktime and having long been a Norman fan, I sway slightly away from being right down the middle.
I read an article by Donald Normal that is particularly interesting given that in the debate he is painted as somewhat of an out of touch idealistic academic. Norman discusses this very issue and how he learned the hard was that in many ways he <i>is</i> and idealistic academic. Read his unsuccessful real world account of trying to simplify the Macintosh Power switch.
David Moses - October 25, 2001 11:49 am
Having read the article you pointed out it's interesting that though the article refers to Mac computers many years old, Apple is still tinkering with the "Power Button Problem".
There has been some grumbling when apple stopped putting the power button on the keyboard. The now defunct cube didn't have a switch in the traditional sense, but rather a touch sensitive area...which led to some troubles when enjoying (as I often do) the sensual experience of fondling one's mac.
A similar and more sucessful touch area is now available on the new monitors which offers a natural, for lack of a better word, button experience. There are now the glowing power buttons on the g4 and iMacs both of which offer an elegant...but maybe a little unsatisfying... touch button.
Ryan Hillier - October 26, 2001 11:50 am
Congrats to all!<br>
<br>I especially liked this funny picture of Dan meeting Jakob.<br><br>
Nielsen: "What the... this is just a bar of soap!"
Charlie - October 26, 2001 1:33 pm
I like that Dan is wearing his cell phone in case someone more important happened to call at that moment! ;)
Steven Garrity - October 26, 2001 2:03 pm
Thanks Ryan. If you liked that photo, you'll surely enjoy the one of <a href="images/DCP_0425.jpg">Jakob directing our crew to leave</a> (actually, he was pointing at the box and casing for the award).
Jevon MacDonald - October 26, 2001 6:48 pm
Nick, your back is to the crowd. heh. Turn around boy.
Nick Burka - October 26, 2001 8:54 pm
Why yes. That is Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini with his arm around me. Thank-you, and God bless.
Jevon MacDonald - October 27, 2001 9:38 am
Nobody wanted to ask about that Nick,. And then you go and bring it up...
Steven Garrity - November 25, 2001 1:31 pm
The Nielsen Norman Group report on intranet design featuring our silverorange intranet has finally been released.
Also, this weeks AlertBox Column at Useit.com is all about the intranet report.