Interface Dropbox

Working on Interactiondesign Blog

2006-09-12T01:15:00.000-07:00

At the moment I am a bit busy setting up a blog for interaction designers (mainly located in Austria). That's why I do not really find time to write my next review. I'm sorry for that, but please be patient, I promise to do my best to come back :)

Until it is so far - are there any suggestions for the next review? As mentioned, I wanted to take a closer look to Blinklist (because they asked). Another interesting stuff would be Vox from the people of Sixapart.

cu, thx, Erhard

zooomr.com

2006-08-12T06:55:00.000-07:00

Yes. I always wanted to write a review about zooomr.com, because from the first day on I think that photos combined with their geographical location (using google map) is a killer combination. The funny thing is that for my opinion there is no real application (until now) which uses the full potential of these opportunities.

Most of the pictures I see, are just snapshots from anywhere in the world, which do not give me any special benefit and I wonder why e.g. the tourism industry has not yet jumped on that train. Wouldn't it be nice to be introduced on special holiday goals including photos and location of the hotel, the nicest bars, sightseeing points, beaches and so on?

(One exception - I heard from that guy who provided pictures from real-estate combined with the location of the houses. This for example is a real benefit for his customers I think)

I (as mountainbiker) always dream of mountainbike tracks, which show me the track on a map, combined with photos and videos from all the different places of the track (the more the better). I would love that and hopefully some day I can realize this kind of project ;)

Of course it can be that I just didn't find out that these kind of applications already exist, so if you have any hints, please write me :)

First Impression ....
Look and Feel .........
Usability .................
Features...................
Benefit ....................

First Impression
The zooomr layout became clearer since the last redesign for my opinion.
I can clearly realize the areas of navigation, search, and so on. Furthermore the mainpart - geotagging photos - is displayed on the front page.

Only the sign up process confused me a bit. I'm not sure if I ever understood what was going on there with the myopenid functionality.

And there's my first suggestion: The point where the photo has been taken is much too detailed for my opinion.
"Where am I?" I would strongly recommend an overview of e.g. the land or the continent, because the name of a street in a town I can't identify does not give me the information I want or even expect.

I miss the slider (2) in the small map and I think it would be nice to get the opportunity to zoom in to the maximum (1) the map can display, so that I don't get these "Sorry, the map cannot be displayed..." text which appears a bit too often for my opinion.
The overview (3) link could bring me back to a (system-defined) zoom scale. Ok, I know this is hard from a programmatic point of view, but here it's only a suggestion.

One could also add a detailed view (5) using a simple mouseover (4) on the image.
Look and Feel

Colors
I like the different colors of the navigation bar, though it can easily be a little bit confusing. Because the eye has to adjust very fast on the different background color.
Fonts
The Fonts are ok, I think. Maybe a bit small and the grey on top for "Hello ..." and "Sign-Out" is a bit too dark.
Icons
I think the icons could be designed a bit more professional. The graphic-design has not really a consistent look and the meaning of the icons sometimes is time not really clear.

It is very difficult to explain things like "Get nearby photos for this photo" and so on with icons. I would try to solve it either with a context menu or with a separate menu (click on the photo > select the menu entry). I know this needs one mouseclick more, but let's take a look here ...

Proposal for a contenxt menu solution

Proposal for a toolbar menu solution

Usability

Navigation
The different colors zooomr.com uses for their tabs are quite nice. There's only one thing which disturbs me, WelcomeMat and Upload are designed as tabs, though they are links

I would just display WelcomeMat and Upload as simple links.
Start GeoTagging
To be honest, it took me quite a time until I realized that I just have to click (shortly) into the map. I expected some kind of ... context menu or special kind of cursor, pointer or something.

zooomr.com uses the hand
-symbol as cursor for defining the point in the map and that was confusing for me. The other thing is that at first I always clicked long into the map - and nothing happend. (That's a bug for my opinion.)

I would provide the cross-cursor or any special kind of cursor so that the user knows, "Ok, now the system is ready for defining a point"'

That's nice. When you move the mouse over a selected photo it gets a red border, when you move it over a photo in the left column it gets a green border. I like this metapher for ADD and REMOVE. (Though it is a problem for people with red-green color blindness.)

Start Over is a bit unclear to me.

Ok, here we are.
Tabs:

MiniMap: I'm not really sure what the benefit here is
ADD (+): Uuups. A button disguised as tab. (usability bug ;)

Features

Ok, most of the features I already discussed before, but some small things are still left.

Discover > GeoTagged
One of the icons in the photo provides the function "Get nearby photos for this photo". But at that moment I don't know the location of the current photo, so what is "nearby"?

The World > Tag Map
When I type in e.g. Mountainbike I get the following result below. Again, I don't know, where I am and why can't I type in e.g. Mountainbike, Austria?

The main problem at the whole application for my opinion is that the geo-reference is not combined with the users location.

So normally I am mostly interested in photos of Austria, so it would be nice if the system could set Austria as my main destination (and not North America). And for all those who do not like that - one could make it customizeable ;)

Upload
I like the design and the information I get here, but what I miss is the possiblity for multi-upload and a progress bar.

Benefit
As mentioned on top of my entry the possiblities of zooomr.com have the potential of a killer application for me. I am really looking forward to see upcoming ideas which use more of this possibilities.

Thank you,
Erhard Wimmer

coming soon ... zooomr and blinklist

2006-08-07T04:10:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working on two reviews for zooomr.com and blinklist.com.
Hopefully the zooomr review will be online at the end of the week.
Thanks for your patience :)

Note: I had the possiblity to participate a meeting at the knallgrau office, where the home of blogr.com is. We spoke about the design and some usability things i mentioned in my last review. Was very interesting and quite nice. Thanks to Matthias.

blogr.com

2006-07-07T01:01:00.000-07:00

Well, another blog-foto-.. site and this time it's from an Austrian crew again, called Knallgrau! This is enough reason to take a closer look and discuss the interface and 'look and feel' of this application.

What I like is this new kind of style with the big letters and big input fields as e.g. Dropsend or Photojojo also use it. What I also appreciate is a kind of new communication with the users which increases usability a lot, as I think. Further details can be read under thinkvitamin (can't find the entry at the moment...)

First Impression

As I mentioned before the first impression is really nice, the registration works uncomplicated and looks very clear. The second step (into the app) becomes a little bit more complicated on the first look. So I need some time to orientate myself, and I think the colors for the default-template are one reason for that.

Look and Feel
What I find a little bit disturbing is this kind of separation blogr.com uses for its main areas Photo, Video, Blog in this strange-looking "L" form ;)

The colors and fonts could sometimes use a little bit more contrast, especially the grey fonts are sometimes not so easy to read. All in all the design of blogr.com is not as fancy as most of the other web 2.0 apps, but has it's advantages.

Usability
The concept of View and Edit is not completely satisfying designed for my opinion. At first I was looking for an opportunity to add videos and photos in the "View" section besides Photo and Video (as I am used that from flickr.com and zooomr.com) after I realised that I've to change to Edit Mode using the menu in the second line.

The problem is that blogr.com uses the concept of blogs (edit & view, as e.g. blogger.com does that, too) also for the videos and photos area. But here I expect the same behavior as used at flickr.com or zooomr.com and this means a direct upload opportunity at the photos itself.

And the other problem is, that I often don't know in which mode I'm currently in. The only orientation I see is the orange Visit Space button. As I mentioned before, the wording Manage this Space / Visit Space could maybe be improved ;)

The Edit Mode itself has wonderful opportunities, but also some kind of unsolved problems as I think:

blogr.com uses different navigation opportunities in the Manage section:

A combination of the menu on the left side and the tabs, when you are in the Manage mode.

And the shortcuts (Manage.., Upload, ..) in the second line, which lead you directly into several areas of the manage mode.

The main usability-problem is that the tabs are also affected by the navigation on the left and several function buttons in other tabs. That's really confusing and a big usability bug for my opinion ;)

For example, Upload is a menu point and a tab. When you open the Upload tab, the complete menu point (and not the tab) changes. (and so on...)

Create New Posting is a button and a tab, so when you click on the button the tab changes, which is also not ideal

Features

Edit Photo: amazing feature where one can edit the surface of the photos - in a web app.
Upload: Missing progress bar and Save functionality. What happens, when I forget to save after uploading an e.g. 30MB video file?
Picture Size: I love that, you can define your picture size just by using this slider. Great.
Delete: brings me to the manage area after I deleted a photo. But do I want that? Suddenly I am in the menupoint Mediastream?! The rollover behavior in this area is also a bit 'unusually'.
Create a photoalbum: A great solution for my opinion. One click adds a photo, click on the [x] icon of a photo removes it. That's the way it should be :) No dialog window, no checkboxes.

Benefit

The combination of videos, photos and blog is a logical next step in the web 2.0 scene and it's great how knallgrau did that job for most parts of this app. As mentioned before it's really easy to registrate and get your own URL.

ohdontforget.com

2006-06-22T04:28:00.000-07:00

or the maximum of minimalism
http://ohdontforget.com

I found that nice tool on http://www.thinkvitamin.com and started to try it out. It looks quite easy, but then.. I fail on the cell-number :(

The Look and Feel of the web-app looks simple and clear, but for my opinion ohdontforget.com made it a little bit too simple and clear ;)

On the first look it's interesting, that the whole description of the application is written under each input field. That has a kind of new feeling to me. A Webapp with (almost) one side :)
But what, if that is not enough for me? In my case: Which kind of numbers are supported?

Besides a more significant error message, I miss a How to.. or Help function.
It could have been easy, if

they've told me which number is being supported
and if they wouldn't have deleted my input fields (aargh)

All in all the approach looks cool, but for my opinion the design process is not yet completely finished.

Google Calendar

2006-04-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it was just a question of time ;) ...
http://calendar.google.com

I think one needs a Gmail account but there's also the tour:
http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/tour.html

First Impression / Look and Feel

The first impression reminds one on Apple's iCal. Not only the color but also the Manage Calendars feature which I would like to introduce later a bit more. All in all it's very easy and it makes fun to add new appointments, move, enlarge and edit them.

The feel of webapplications using Ajax is great, because they don't feel like webapplications anymore ;)
Usability

As mentioned before I really appreciate the feel of this application. Google's calendar team really found easy solution for example to create new events..

C r e a t e E v e n t

Really simple, just click on a day, type in the event and confirm. That's what it should be. No dialog, no complex input fields. If you want to describe the event more detailed, you can also do this now using the link or later, opening the event again.
Q u i c k A d d

That's great, I love this feature. Try it out it really works.

It also works, if you type in the date, e.g. "30.4. 10pm"
S h a r e C a l e n d a r s

The share - respective the search - functionality is one of the core points for me. So you can find every calendar which is shared in the web. That makes collaborative work a lot easier for people who don't (want) to use e.g. a Microsoft Exchange Server or something like this.

And it's funny to search for e.g. "Google" or "Apple" to see who has this kinds of event in his calendar.

M a n a g e r C a l e n d a r s

The reason why I select this feature for a "redesign" is that I found it quite unclear using it the first three, four times. So I think it's worth for a closer look.

My Calendars vs. Other Calendars
-----------------------------
When I open Google's calendar for the first time I do not know the difference between "My Calendars" and "Other Calendars". And to be honest I'm still not sure if one really needs such a strong separation here.

Maybe 10 px of whitespace would be enough, because normally I know my own calendars Maybe the word "Other" was selected a bit unhappily.

Add new calendar
-----------------------------
Normally I associate the "+" symbol with 'Adding a new row'. I did not expect a dialog here. So I would replace the plus-symbols with a simple "Add" function.

a) My first screenshot provides a small toolbar with one Add function. So I would just add this tab to the Add Other Calendars tabs.

b) The second suggestion simply replaces the "+" symbol with the word "Add" and places it on the right side.

Search
-----------------------------
The search field under "Other Calendars" seems to be pracitcal on the first sight, but makes the whole feature a bit toocomplicated. It's good to find the search field where you act with your calendars, but ... when I use Google I expect o n e search field on top of the site. So I would add another button called "Search public calendars".

Manage Calendars
-----------------------------
I'm not sure why "Manage Calendars" is a link. It feels a little bit strange and I find it does not really look good. So I add another toolbar function called "Manage".

Babyname Wizard

2006-01-30T12:42:00.000-08:00

Please let me introduce you a little java tool that symbolizes for me what infographic can be: babynamewizard.com is an example how 'boring' statistics can be transformed into an exciting, funny and also informative experience.

It's really easy to get the point and to use and 'understand' this tool. Of course, names are not really boring, but the fascinating point for me here is the composition of the following three things, which symbolize for me the success of babynamewizard.com

color coding (boys vs. girls :)
lightly animation and
hard facts (statistics)

The color coding of course is nice but it is also informative, because you can separate on the first look between boys and girls. The color coding also is selected very fine, it reached very exactly this 'baby-feeling' :)

And especially the lightly animation brings some aspects of 'Spannung' (excitement) to the user ("How far will it grow?"). We can also find this kind of animation at TV presentations of election results, where the 'Balken' of each party grow from the ground to the finally reached end result. And this is really exciting for me each time :)

Though the whole tool is really simple, I also found some disadvantages on the usability side.

no back button

Instead of the back button you can use the DEL button on your keyboard, but for my opinion this is not enough. What if you first type in 'Esmeralda', then you type in 'Emanuela' and then you wanna go back to 'Esmeralda'? It's not possible, and that's a pitty.

no support of the browser back button

Beneath the missing back button the site also does not support the browser back button. Why? The whole site is contained in a Java Application, so if you type in 'Emanuela' (concerning to the former example) and wanna go back to 'Esmeralda', what you then get is the former visited page(!) - Google for example. So that's really terrible, and every time you are going back to babynamewizard.com again the site has to load the Java App again. Of course it is in the cache already, but the system everytime starts loading the Java App again and again. :(

The really terrible point for me here's that people are usedto use the browser back button and the system 'bestraft' ('hurts') them every time they do what they are used to do. (Bad developer ;) So I do not get around that this strongly reminds me on Stop Smoking attempts in the seventies, where you got 'electronic shocks' every time you grap for a cigarette :D
no zoom functionality

If you type in e.g. "Ja", the result is a huge amount of names, which cannot all be displayed. So you have to reach every entry with your mouse, which of course is not always possible. I could not detect any zoom functionality but I am wishing one.

Front Row

2006-01-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

The most amazing thing at Front Row for me is the remote control. It's funny that a company like Apple at least had to come to design the first remote control for home entertainment that is easy to use :) The question is, how could they realize that and why did so many other companies fail?

I think the first important point is that Apple reduced the features of Front Row to a minimum (and that is quite not so easy as it sounds). And then they adapted the user interface of an already established tiny, little piece of hardware, the iPod. That's interesting, because that interface was designed for a hardware tool, but also works on a computer as well. (Speaks for their designers :)

And in such a way Apple created it that not the remote control, but the software carries the functionality, and that is much easier to handle. Based on that they were able to get this typical sexy Apple look. (The picture I like mostly is where S. Jobs compares the Apple remote control with several others)

But let's take a closer look. What does Apple's Front Row really provide?

Menu
Play/Pause
Skip
Rewind
Volume up
Volume down

That's it. Looks quite simple, doesn't it? So there is no need for more than 6 Buttons on the remote control, which now looks really revolutionary.

The 3D main menu offers these really big 'icons' and does not even seem to be a typical menu, so I think I had no problem sitting my grandma in front of this and let her use it.

For my opinion, the only 'problem' on the whole home entertainment srory is that you always have to run a computer. That also means that you have to start up a machine, even if you just want to hear music or something. Currently I am used to shut down my computer, if it's not needed anymore, and that means you have to turn it on again. That's not really a 'problem' but it makes the usage a little bit more complicated.

itunes - Today it happened

2006-01-17T11:47:00.000-08:00

No, I'm sorry, this will unfortunately not be a review of itunes - it would take me days to review an almost perfect app, but... today it happened - I bought a title at itunes I didn't wanted to buy. =:-0 So how could this happen and why should it be interesting? Let's see.

I wanted to buy an album which I already dropped in my shopping cart weeks ago. So all I had to do was clicking the "Buy Album" button. But instead of this I hit the "Buy Title" button below the title I wanted to buy. Hm. The confirmation dialog popped up where I entered my password (I do not select the "Remember my Password" option). The only thing I missed was the next confirmation box "Are you sure you want to buy...". But anyway, after I entered my password I went away.

After coming backing to my computer I opened the Purchases section and looked for the album... Nothing. What happened?! The first question that appeared in my head was, "Did they charge my credit card?" Okay, I trust Apple, so I started over with my daily work and after a while I forgot the whole thing.

Sometimes later in the evening I discovered the mistake. There was a new song under Purchases I could not remember buying. So I started to take a closer look at itunes purchase process.

Per default the Price column is on the last position, where it is quite difficult to follow the line from Title to the button "Buy Album". iTunes offers the opportunity to move this column - but not to the first position (before the title), where I think it could be placed.
The second point is that iTunes does not open a confirmation dialog ("Are you sure ...") when you buy only a title. That's confusing for me because I always expect a confirmation dialog if I spend money.
And I think that maybe the font in general could be a little bit bigger and the lines higher.

Well to be honest it's real fun to review such a cool tool as iTunes and I think it could be worth to write a review about it. But as you see there not much movement from my side on this blog, because it is so time intensive to write a high quality review, especially for bigger applications.

"So please be gentle I'm still learning..." :) and please write some comments, because it makes much more fun to hear what others think about ones own work. Thanks in advance.

jajah

2005-12-01T07:47:00.000-08:00

I appreciate the whole VOIP technology very much and I think this is a real revolution concerning the worldwide communication.

The first time I used e.g. Skype I was really amazed about the brilliant quality and I couldn't believe that this was ever possible. Some times later I read in the news that it was an Austrian company which produced this powerful Skype competitor. So of course I was quite curios about the tool and finally tried it out at last. Here are my impressions...

First Impression ....
Look and Feel .........
Usability .................
Benefit ....................

First Impression

icons

viloet 'lights'

tab rows

dropdown

Look and Feel

Colors
As I said, the gray default style does not impress me too much, the two other styles I found, are nice but I think there plenty of space for some more ;)

Fonts
I use a notebook with 1600x1200, so for me the font is too small

Icons
As mentioned above, I think using more kind of modern icons would be nice.

General
The tabs need a lot of space and make the whole UI a little bit too "busy" for my opinion.

Usability

M e n u r i g h t o n t o p

Set
Seem to be a little bit too small and are quite difficult to match.
Set is a toggle button, which is the only one (out of the three on top) which gets a 'pressed' status. For my opinion the status could be more graphically worked out.

Shop
A website is being opened, but the button becomes not pressed. (Why?)

Help
The system own help tool is being opened, the button becomes not pressed.

T a b s

Overview
The Info is cut off at the bottom. As also mentioned, I'd find it usesful to get the information of the different phone opportunities (by mouseover on the input field on top) here, too.
'My account' and 'Load my Account' is very useful for my oppinion and on the right place here.

Quickstart
It is interesting how the jajah team solved the opportunity to switch off this tab. Anyway the "Make a test call" opportunity works ok.

Buddy List
The content area is small at all and the scrollbars waste valueable space, too. So there is not too much space left for the buddy-list itself.
What I also miss is the possibility to Remove and to Edit buddies. After checking out the forum I found and entry describing these features. One has to double-click on a buddy and the edit mode is being opened. I would not have found out this by myself.
It is possible to create two buddies with the same name (which is a bug for my opinion). I am not sure if it is possible to add no email adress.

When I select the name of a buddy only the "Send Message" button is active (Why not the "Call" button, too?)

The Buddy profile looks ok, but again the graphical solution of the buttons at the bottom ... I think they can be improved, too ;) But the whole solution without dialogs is done really great. Except clicking on the link "Search for users..." takes me to the "Search" tab, which is not ideal, because I cannot get back to the profile. The link itself has the same background color as the buttons, I think this is not really necessary.

Call history
Seems to be a very useful feature and looks ok.

Messages
Hmm.. I open the tab and only the "Add Buddy.." button is active. So I click on it, which does not really make sense. I realize after some time that I have to type in a user in the inputfield/dropdown on top. I would it find useful to provide the buddylist in the dropdown on top.
The buttons at the bottom (Open, Delete, Reply) show the wrong alt text (Open - Save this buddy...)
What I love is the Message field iteself: the translation tool (including the "Undo" function), the costs, the animation and so on. But I also can send a message to a landline number, which cannot work and costs € 0,0540. (Maybe it is possible to send messages to landline numbers anywhere, but I do not know)

Search
The search works quite good for my opinion, the progress bar could be more prominent. If I double click on a found user, then a call starts. I expected that the user would be added to my buddy list. Anyway this is one of the less points where a confirmation dialog would be helpful.
The "Add buddy" is also active if no user is selected. This gets me to an empty Add Buddy window.

I c o n s

B o t t o m

Violet Lights
Really no idea what this means :(

Status
I did not expect that it is possible to change the status here. I thought this is just an information, but one can change the online status here.

Benefit

Mobile Shopping in Japan

2005-11-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

It was an article in Der Standard from August 8th, were I read about shopping using a mobile phone in Japan. Xavel a trendy japanese fashion label succeeds in offering brands for young ladies between about 18 and 25 years and this article was one of those which made my brain jumping up and down one whole day ;) But why what is so special on retailing via mobile phone, okay, it's funny but why am I so excited?

One prerequisite for the success on Shopping via a Mobile is some kind of "unused" time which can be made "useful". In Japan where most of the employees need 2 hours to go to work and 2 hours again to get back home, lots of this "unused" time is available. The traditional japanese normally uses that time to sleep.

Whoever had the wonderful opportunity to visit Japan (I can only recommend that, you will never forget this experience :) will also remember another picture of the country - Wherever you go (Subway, train, Cafe, ...) you'll find thousands of (normally young or very young people), who stare like banned on their mobile phones. So what they do is not really talking but playing games, sending SMS or MMS using iMode services and so on. So what we've got here is "unused time", devices which are accepted by most the (young) population and a technology which is ready for commercial use.

What else is missing? Right, we still need the a product. A realization that works right plus a marketing concept that creates the "Must Have" effect. And exactly on that point I discover the strength of a japanese company. The focus group was set so tight that the developer could create an exactly defined product. Try to visit the site http://www. girlswalker.com (the website of the mobile shop) and you won't have any difficulty to find out for whom these products are made. (I'd say) 18 to 25 year old girls and women. There is no try to motivate a housewife buying in this shop, or 50 year old managers or maybe 20 year old boys (don't worry all these things will come). No, just one exactly defined focus group. Without if and however. Additionally there is this great idea of spreading, where friends can inform each other about their purchasings ... and voila a new market is being born :)

Of course other traders will follow, some will succeed, some won't. However, shopping via a mobile phone could also be a part of life in our latitude. The question remains how long it will take to find the right people who can do it right in the practice.

Windows Live

2005-11-15T06:19:00.000-08:00

First of all I really want to congratulate the start.com team for their amazing work. I remember very well the day this site found its way to our usability group at Hyperwave. We were really impressed about the DHTML solutions of the MS team and the way they handle a browser based application. Thanx for that.

After reading about live.com and I when realized the concept of this whole "live" stuff of Microsoft in my brain it made 'click' and I decided to take a closer look on the design and the usability of the whole application. So I'll try to figure it out at the following points:

First Impression

Look and Feel

Usability

First Impression

The light-blue/white colors seem a little bit flat to me and the "Windows Live" logo has a little bit too much of a beta-look ;) One could say the design looks quitly (which I would prefer), but for my opinion it is too "normal" and has a bit the look of "under construction" yet.

The next point is the "

Search"

field. For my opinion the shadows on top, left and the colored one on the right side are too much. The "search for..." value is not really necessary.

The

on the left side confused me a little bit, because the icons seem to be a little too big in comparison to the font size. And what means "Add content" on top of the row? It took quite a time until I realized the meaning of that. At the first look it's difficult to understand this.

Look and Feel

First of all - applications without dialogs can be great, for my opinion this is really the greatest challenge and I think the guys from MS did a great job here.

The white space between logo and "Sign In" functionality seems to me as wasted space. And Why use a whole line only for the search field? Okay, it should look like Google but I think in that case it could have been better to combine the first two rows.

Again, I think a combination with the "Sign In" menu points would be useful. When I try out these three menupoints, I realize three different kinds of 'links'.

Settings

Opens a menu, which works very good.

What's new

Opens a new site in the same window

Hide

Hides the whole content.
(The "hide" functionality is a mysery for me ;) What is it good for?)

As mentioned before "Add Content" on top of the list seems confusing to me. The icons look a little bit too big in comparison to the text, and why did MS rotate the open icon ?! Normally the open icon looks down 'v' .
So that seems confusing too, cause it is a change of a known behavior. The wording is simple and sounds okay to me.

The ligh-blue/white colors, as I said before do not really "excite" me ;) It seems a little bit too normal for my opinion. There is no wow-effect. The lines are also hardly to see.

I love this, it's really great ;)

Usability

It took a while until I got the point of this function... (Why shall I add a search result to my portal? RSS Feed is clear, but does not work always correctly.) When I open the "Add Content" function the system shows me the same functionality (Search) two times. So either there should be a combination or the "Advanced Options" could be opened always per default. I'd prefer the solution at start.com. The advanced options show the following:

Subscribe to a specific feed by entering the URL below

The whole copy and paste process looks a bit complex to me. I'm not sure if I would use that

Add a Gadget by URL

.. is unfortunatly added under "My Web"

Import OPML file

This is new to me. Don't know exactly how to use this at the moment.

The add to my page function could be placed besides back to my page. I would not always provide this function.

The subscribe function is not an ideal solution I think. It took me again some time to realize that the RSS Feed is being placed under "My Web" from where I can open and add it.

Well, I tried out the "Remove a content" functionality. Unfortunatly it has been removed without a warning, which is a bit unusual. The other problem is that there is no way to get the content back. (On http://www.google.com/ig they solved this quite nice using a yellow backgrounded message with undo functionality)

I love the "collapse all" and "expand all" functionality. What I miss is an alt text at the more>> link that a new site is being opened now.