UserZen

Really like this new way to search for flights or train. A timeline re-sortable by price, time, and other descriptors. Great infographics result.

And hey! It’s even usable!

http://www.hipmunk.com/

OAuth is a relatively new open authentication protocol that allows secure API communication without the necessity of continually passing a username and password with each request. The idea for OAuth was conceived in 2006 by a group of individuals working on the Twitter implementation of OpenID. After reviewing both OpenID and other existing industry practices, such as Amazon Web Services API and Flickr API, it was decided that a proposal should be written for a new open protocol for application authentication. The movement quickly gathered momentum, with support heralded by Google, and in July 2007 an initial specification was drafted. We find ourselves using OAuth Core 1.0a today, with a new 2.0 spec being drafted.

How Does It Work?

Here’s a real-world example — one that you may have already come across and not even known it.

Let’s follow the OAuth path of how foursquare sends tweets on your behalf:

• foursquare has initially registered themselves as an “application” with Twitter. In doing so, they’re provided with a token set called “consumer key” and its paired “consumer key secret.” These are used by foursquare in their application code and as a part of the OAuth model in generating requests.
• From a user perspective, when you log in to foursquare and click the “please link my Twitter account” button, foursquare uses its consumer key to contact Twitter and generate a “request token.” You’re then provided with a special URL that whisks you off to Twitter’s website.
• If you aren’t already logged into Twitter, you’ll be prompted to just like always, and then presented with a screen that asks if you’d like to provide said application with access to your account.
• Clicking “Allow” tells Twitter that this app (foursquare) which has requested access using its particular consumer key should have access to your Twitter account. Twitter then redirects you back to your application (the foursquare website) with an attached coded verification string.
• The foursquare application then reads the previously generated request token, and takes the returned verification to ask Twitter to generate a final token set called “access token” and “access token secret.”
• Now when you perform an action on foursquare and it’s tweeted, foursquare calls the Twitter API by creating a request using its Twitter-provided consumer key and the newly stored access token for your account.

And amid all of this, your Twitter username and password are never seen, let alone stored, by foursquare.

By the way, the best graphical representation of this process I’ve found is documented here by Digg.

The most important variable in any research, whether it is usability, marketing or other scientific study, will always be the quality and relevance of your participants.

If you choose to take on the recruiting yourself, it is important to know that there are many methods to getting people (see article below) but be sure that that friend who is doing you a favor may not be exactly who your product is geared to.

from an article on usability news

In case you don’t have a team or resource in your organization that dedicatedly looks after participant recruitment and coordination of usability testing activities, or you don’t have access or simply don’t want to spend on a professional recruitment agency to do the task for you, the following tips will help you to effectively find participants for usability testing on your own without having to work into a cold sweat wondering where are all those people and how can you get them to participate.

1. Let people find the participants for you

Instead of looking for the participants on your own, let people know that you need them and what the criteria for selection is. Once you get contact details for potential participants from these people, you can then screen them to ensure that they fit the bill and also try and determine whether they’d participate fairly or simply try to complete the session in the easiest and fastest manner possible so they can walk away with the compensation. But where are these people who can help you out? They are all around. You can:

- Use the company mailing /distribution list
What better way than using your organization’s distribution list to let a large number of people know that you are looking for participants for a usability test, all in one go. The bigger your company, the better. Try and send it out to the largest distribution list that exists in your office for the particular location you are situated at (assuming you’re not planning on conducting remote usability tests, in which case the ‘global’ list might be a better option). Take permission if required before shooting off the mail to a large group. If you decide to do so, make sure your mail is usable itself. Avoid jargon and explain everything you need in the participant clearly and in the simplest language possible.

- Use the company’s website /product websites /mailers
Let your product users know that you are looking for participants. Add the information to company mailers or have a separate mailer just for this purpose. Put up the information on your organization’s website or your organization’s product websites if so may be the case (this you should do as part of your strategy for creating a usability test participant database anyhow).

- Try and get the HR department to help you out
If you feel that the participant criteria would match that of the job seekers applying to your organization, talk with human resources and let them know the profile of people you’re looking for. After HR completes their interview process, they could let the interview candidates know about the opportunity to participate in the usability test in exchange for gratuity.

- Take help from your friends and family
Spread the word amongst your friends and family. This might not be so useful for recruiting the usual participants but is rather helpful in cases where gratuity can’t be the motivation, as is discussed in the last tip.

2. Find participants on your own

- Use the internet
The internet is your answer to look for anything you need to find if you can search smart, looking for usability test participants included. You will almost definitely find the right users on the net. Look in forums, websites like Yahoo! Answers, classifieds websites… the list goes on, but hopefully you get the idea (In case you don’t, let me know and I’ll be glad to elaborate depending upon the type of users you are looking to recruit.)

- Look around (not in) the office
You might have a lot of people around your office building that would fit your participant profile. Be it the guys from Green Peace, credit card and banking-related services salesman, or students, there’s definitely someone who’ll fit your participant profile. Try persuading them to participate in your usability test.

3. When gratuity just won’t do (or: recruiting users in executive leadership)

There are cases where gratuity is not sufficient motivation for the participants you need to recruit. Take the case of executive leadership and senior management. Besides having no time to spare, gratuity isn’t what they’re looking for, or what you can probably match with their expectations. What will motivate them is the request for participation by someone they know personally who matters – that might be your boss, your parents, your friends or even you. It pays to know the right people and be in their list of loved ones in this case.