Simon Willison’s Weblog

Mail models

23rd February 2003

Matthew Thomas offers a fascinating example of usability gone horribly wrong (the explanation is provided here). Incidentally, while showing the above to my girlfriend she uncovered an interesting usability issue on Matthew’s site itself— “is this a collaborative weblog then?” she asked, having spotted the Posted by mpt on 2/24/03; 3:51:24 AM text below the entry. Clicking on the name link provided no extra information, bringing up a screen with no useful content at all. I imagine this is an issue with the CMS powering the blog, but it does neatly demonstrate how some CMS features can detract from the unserstandibility of a site.