Getting back to good habits, here’s another issue of the usability review of the week. I should actually be called usability review of the day, as all the good stuff I came across was published on April 3rd.

• Big impact, small changes on Amazon (04/03/2008)
• Effective text only emails (04/03/2008)
• A Refreshing Take on Usability (04/03/2008)

Shall you stumble on great usability pages, feel free to leave me a comment and I’ll give it a look.

Big impact, small changes on Amazon (April 3rd, 2008)

You probably didn’t notice unless you’re a savvy Amazon shopper (whether you shop for books or for usability practices) , but Amazon recently made subtle but great changes to the design. They improved readability of key information elements, and redesigned the up-selling space. Check the link below for a great before/after comparison (that I didn’t feel comfortable to rip even if I was going to credit the author).

Via: Future Now’s blog

Effective text only emails (April 3rd, 2008)

Text emails don’t have to be bad and boring. Okay, they’ve got to be boring. But still, when HTML emails aren’t an option, or even just to provide a text alternative for all these new non-HTML cell phone email readers out there, there are ways to make text emails look better:

• Put links on new lines
• Uses lists with asterisks as bullets
• Try to keep it short
• If you can’t keep it short, divide in sections
• Call to action

Via: Shape Shed

A Refreshing Take on Usability (April 3rd, 2008)

This is more a funny heads up than a news, but it shows how well one can use available information to improve user experience.

Via: B#

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