sinéad

The PermanentTSB website won a Golden Spider back in 2005 and since then hasn’t really changed it’s overall site design, infact, it has been virtually the same since 2002. A heuristic evalution of the site (undertaken in the Human Computer Interaction module of the MSc in Cyberpsychology) easily leads me to believe that it is in dire need of a redesign (yet their more recently launched “Yourmortgage.ie” is almost a replica of the main site). Out of a possible 23 heuristics, it only fully complied with 12 of them - meaning the site is littered with design inconsistencies, broken links, very clearly deviates from the current standard web practices (PDF files? really?) etc., etc.

It’s just another fine example of Irish web design firmly stuck in web 1.0. The .ie domain is virtually (no pun intended!) littered with them. I’m sure there are plenty more examples of badly designed Irish sites (not necessarily .ie) and would be thrilled to hear everyone’s own personal “favorites”.

Eircom.net is another firm favorite of mine for its sensational orange menu with white text, and dark grey text on a grey background for its sub-menu. Wonderful stuff.

I’ve always loved the art deco front of the old Strand Cinema and I’m glad they kept it for this apartment redevelopment. Though the apartments themselves are quite pricey and unfortunately are situated in a rather iffy area on the North Strand Road and close to the East Wall too. If they were closer to Fairview they might be worth the €300,000 each (edit: not 100% sure about this price). A real pity too, because the building itself is gorgeous and the redevelopment is lovely - complete with art deco style foyer with old movie posters.

I keep on coming across the same Pat Phelan reaction to the iPhone pricing and wondering…

Am I the only one who has ever noticed how expensive ALL of the mobile phone tariffs are (especially the data charges), on ALL of the networks in Ireland, in comparison to the U.K? The phone prices are also very different, and the range of phones.

It’s nothing to do with the iPhone itself, it’s the same old adage in this country it’s “what the market can bare” rather than “best value for money”. O2 keeps its prices high because they can, and people are still going to buy the iPhone despite the download cap and excessive pricing.

As far back as September 2007 I suggested that those desperate for an iPhone would be better off with an iPod Touch instead. The iPod Touch has everything the iPhone has except it’s not a phone (though the iPhone isn’t exactly brilliant at being an actual phone - no MMS messaging, difficult SMS input etc.,) oh and let’s not forget that the iPod Touch doesn’t have that god awful 2 megapixel camera, what a loss.

Buying the iPod Touch is even better advice today because of the Joikuspot Software. Or, you could take Pat Phelan’s advice and go to the North, buy the iPhone and get it unlocked to use on any network. But that means being stuck in an 18-month contract and paying a monthly fee for minutes you will never get (though I doubt this is possible as you need to be a resident of the U.K to sign up to a mobile contract IN the U.K).

Even if you DO have an unlocked iPhone and use it on another network - you will still have to pay the high prices for Edge mobile data, so what’s the point?

I’m in the early stages of writing my second thesis. My first one, for my undergrad studies in Psychology Applied to I.T was based on online advertising, was only about 5,000+ words and I had about 80 participants in my experiments.

This one will be three times the size, it will weigh in at about 10,000 - 15,000 words and I’ll be needing about 1,000 volunteers to fill out multiple online surveys for me (this step won’t commence until at least September). So wish me luck! Below are some of the aims I have developed, they form the basis for my upcoming research.

Aims:

1. To investigate the immediate and initial factors that influence the perception of credibility and trust online, in regards to non-commercial websites and blogs.
2. To explore and evaluate cues of trustworthiness online.
3. To investigate trust-inducing interface design features and tools employed by non-commercial web designers, blogging platforms and blog writers, and examine their effectiveness.
4. To examine online trust formation from a user’s perspective, including brand awareness and social experiences.

Though there is a lot of research with regard to the topic of trustworthiness online, almost all of this research focuses solely on e-commerce (eBay, Amazon etc.,) and does not delve into information exchange. Recently Wikipedia and Blogging has come under scrutiny by the traditional media for an apparent misrepresentation for information. However, this has in no way effected the popularity of these mediums. What I want to know is - why? Why do people trust certain websites and blogs but not others?

The next stage is to develop sets of hypothesis, which I’ve begun to do and have quite a few so far. I’m very much looking forward to getting feedback on my initial ideas from the college, I may have to alter the above aims as time progresses. If anyone would like to contribute some feedback or direct me towards any existing research, articles etc., please do.

If anyone else, like myself, is currently in the process of doing research into existing literature, online, let me suggest a wonderful tool called Zotero. It’s a file management system that works in conjunction with Firefox to help you sort, tag, reference, etc., research papers from sites such as Google Scholar.

Lots of strong emotions about this gig and a lost blackberry. Have a listen to the band here. There are many many more photos on my flickr page.

The Dublin Community Blog posted the list of winners from last night. Here it is with links too.

I definitely think that Grannymar & Head Rambles (joint winners) deserved the award for Best Personal Blog, which was the category that this blog was nominated in. I’m also really glad that Sabrina Dent won Best Designed, because her blog is gorgeous! Well done to everyone.

Robin Blandford (winner of Best Irish Technology Blog) posted some pictures of the actual award, and it’s so very pretty.

The Irish Blog Awards are on tonight, good luck to everyone nominated. If you can’t make the physical event in the Alexander Hotel there is a Second Life party (formal attire please!) in the Dublin sim, in St. Stephen’s Green. This is tonight at 7.30pm. A big part of me (the shy part!) wishes I could go to the virtual party instead!

Kudos and thanks to Damien Mulley for applying his many skills to this.

My blog design is currently in transition seeing as I managed to KILL my previous theme template. I did far too much fiddiling with the code! It’s my own fault. So, I’ve reverted to the standard Kubrick Wordpress theme. As soon as I am able to access the server my site is hosted on (having some issues!) I’ll be able to change it around and finally upgrade to the newest version of wordpress (I really need to do this! I’m getting far too much pharmaceutical related spam, it’s very weird).

Also - for anyone that is currently subscribed to my RSS feed I have recently setup a feedburner account, so please change your subscriptions to THIS new one - it’s a much nicer looking feed because of all the lovely options feedburner gives you, for instance, you can now see how many comments there are on each post.

For more photos see my Flickr homepage and this is a nice review of the gig.