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Technology

URLs as a measure of user experience

I’m spending part of my morning looking through tech specs on various desktops and laptops for use as exemplars for our new building. Finding, deciding, and then sending links to our architects  for the systems I’m interested in, so that they can track down heat loads and such for HVAC calculations.

Tell me…which of the following URLs shows a company that cares about User Experience:

Dell Studio One
http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/desktops/desktop-studio-one-19/pd.aspx?refid=desktop-studio-one-19&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~desktop-studio-one-19_anav_1~~

Lenovo C Series
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=00C718E6D6AB498383A1A2F8DFF428C3

Apple iMac
http://www.apple.com/imac/

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

2 replies on “URLs as a measure of user experience”

You'll hear many people say that average people don't care about the format or structure URLs, that they barely even understand the concept, which I believe holds true when they're in the browser, but that assumption completely breaks down when they leave the browser and try to send a URL to someone via email or another method. Lenovo makes great computers but crappy websites.

You'll hear many people say that average people don't care about the format or structure URLs, that they barely even understand the concept, which I believe holds true when they're in the browser, but that assumption completely breaks down when they leave the browser and try to send a URL to someone via email or another method. Lenovo makes great computers but crappy websites.

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