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Marla Sharp gives excellent presentations on HTML form usability and accessibility.  I first attended her presentation at the California Web Accessibility Conference (CalWAC).

I highly recommend her presentation on Accessible Forms. She runs a Web development shop called 10 Sharp.

I really dig Steve Johnson’s Interface Culture (1997).  Its old, but relevant, and very interesting to read with 10 years of hindsight. For example, he claimed the next big development in the interface will focus on text.  He was dead on (think Google).  Some other interesting comments on text (I’m on chapter 5, titled succinctly “Text”) include:

1. The modern word processor interface has changed the writing process and even our content.  We type faster, can delete instantly, change words mid sentence… the impacts of such abilities are limitless.
2. New technologies are often woefully under estimated.  For example, computers are highly susceptible to utility morphing.  One minute you have a calculator, the next its a word processor, and then its a CD and DVD cataloger.  As Johnson points out, “William Gibson writes in Nueromancer, ‘The street finds its own uses for things–uses the manufacturer never imagined’”.

   The mother of all such underestimations involves an Intel engineer’s mid seventies bid to the board of directors to make a personal computer.  The board asked him what a consumer would do with a PC, “…his most compelling scenario involved filling electronic versions of cooking recipes… It was like inventing the wheel and then immediatley demonstrating what a wonderful doorstop it made.” Johnson’s book is literated with such witty metaphors.

3. The command line was a barrier for user adoption.  Nothing new here, though I’d love to hear his thoughts on what feels like the rebirth of the command line.

Well, sorry to cut this short but back to my vacation (I’m in California remember)…

Tomorrow I leave for California for one week. I’ll be in Los Angeles and San Francisco. My first real vacation (with some work) in almost 3 years.

California here I come,
Right back where I started from,
Where bowers of flowers bloom in the sun,
Each morning at dawning
Birdies sing an’ ev’rything:
A sun-kiss’d miss said, “don’t be late,”
That’s why I can hardly wait,
Open up that Golden Gate,
California here I come

From the song, California, Here I Come. OK, enough for today. I thought about posting a link to a MIDI version, but its just not worth it