5 for Friday

This is a special bunch, not just any old 5 for Friday, but 5 for Friday times 20!

If you are into user experience this is the listing for you to explore. Some of these sites have already been "hiked" here but so many more have not. Rather than wait for the hikers to make their way, let's just share them all at once and let you go do the exploring.

Pick one to start with and have fun!

Mark Sanborn Blogs

I saw Mark Sanborn present many years ago at Help Desk Institute conference. He talked about the Fred Factor. His new book, You don't need a title to be a leader, builds upon the Fred Factor.

The principles of greatness are timeless, but the application of those principles changes, whether in the marketplace or our government. We can learn much from emulating what created greatness in the past, but to simply copy a formula frozen in time doesn’t serve us well.

I’ve never liked the phrase “back to the basics” because I believe the basics, applied in a relevant way, take us forward. And some if not much of what made Ronald Reagan a great leader can help candidates and citizens today, but it won’t create a return to another era. Done well, those principles can create a new kind of greatness that is so badly needed.

Read Mark's full posting on A new kind of greatness.

Add this site to your RSS Reader of choice!

Jesse James Garrett's Hidden Agenda

Jesse is a creative force in user experience. He writes in his About page:

Since 1995, I have mostly worked on the Web -- first as a writer and interface developer, then as an interface designer and information architect. These days, I primarily do user experience strategy. I started a company called Adaptive Path to help people solve user experience problems.

Information architecture remains my primary interest among all the user experience issues I deal with, and it's the area to which I've devoted the most thinking. You can read more about the field and my ideas on my information architecture page.

I wrote a book about my work in 2002. It's called The Elements of User Experience and has turned out to be pretty popular, especially among executives and newcomers to the field.

His blog page speaks eloquently about simplicity and the user experience. Just observe the layout and functionality present. Elegant!

If you are interested in user experience and do not already have Jesse's site in your RSS Reader of choice, then I recommend that you add it.