General

Jakob Nielsen’s current Alertbox column: Low-Literacy Users has implications for users with disabilities and a host of others as well. More:

Long experience shows that improving usability for users with disabilities typically increases usability for non-disabled users as well. Similarly, improving websites for lower-literacy users can also help higher-literacy users. That said, some sites are targeted mainly at higher-literacy users:

    * B2B sites that target business professionals, managers, and decision-makers
    * E-commerce sites that sell expensive or intellectual products
    * The public relations and investor relations areas of corporate sites
    * Content sites that cover scientific or other advanced topics
    * Intranets for knowledge workers

Today is the Race For The Cure walk/run in Washington, DC. Like last year, the weather isn’t great. Thought I’d scan the organization’s message boards to see what the chatter was, if others were also thinking of staying home or whatever.
The boards seem to be a great support mechanism for helping and healing. I was however surprised that there wasn’t a local tie-in to the boards. Figured that I’d at least find a pointer to a local Yahoo, Google Group or something. This is probably a missed opportunity in terms of leveraging the organization’s passionate supporters. If they organized supporters on a local level, they might see a lift in fundraising efforts.
I did some more looking and found local space on the site. Here, they take advantage of Kintera’s nifty fundraising tools through story sharing. They could probably do more in the relationship building area though. A local tie-in might even get involved with or grow local Meetups.
Oh well, just thoughts on a rainy, Saturday morning.

On Friday, I went up to Capitol Hill. I was meeting with a couple of Senate staffers about some list management issues they are having. The town was buzzing with activity for this weekend’s WWII monument dedication. I knew that I wouldn’t run into Washingtonienne but thought of her anyway as I entered Hart. On the way back through Union Station, I struck up a conversation with the duck man and couldn’t help but wonder if my future also held the possibility of one day quacking my way through Washington, DC.