Cross Browser Testing, Website Authentication, Eye Tracking and more – The Monday August 8th Roundup

I was away last week packing my apartment and moving into a new neighborhood, so this is the first roundup in a while. I now live in a younger, hipper area with lots and lots of small dogs (that might be a bad thing…). Sadly it has increased my commute from 7 minutes to 20 minutes by bike. Oh, First World Problems.

This week we have posts on cross browser testing, website authentication, eye tracking and more.

Create

We start the week with a dozen cross browser testing tools. Yes, you should be using these when doing your dev work. I am so sick of sites that tell me “oh, we don’t support your browser” (I’m looking at you, Google Wave!)
The folks over at Stackoverflow are putting together a “definitive” guide to forms based website authentication. Read the comments for pages and pages of great information.

Attract

Greywolf again? Yep, this time on how to automate a Twitter feed using Hootsuite and Bufferapp. Sounds great yeah? Except that people HATE automated Twitter feeds, so unless it’s just augmenting your usual tweeting, then doing this isn’t going to net you much but bots.
Lots of companies really REALLY, need a better way to build up their email lists. Fortunately, Bronto blog has them covered.

Analyze

L3 has a guide to tracking social media with web analytics. The process is fairly straightforward: track your traffic sources, sharing buttons, and filter all social media channels into their own mediums.
e-nor is being all technical and awesome again. This time describing how to track press releases, complete with code examples and all.

Optimize

GazeHawk has an article on Reddit, specifically how new users read it, and how experienced users read it. There is a fair difference between these, illustrating something that’s always bugged me about website tests: what happens when the experience of interacting with the website changes how people behave on it? It’s a pretty interesting look at how experience changes the way we interact with a site.
Do you want to feel depressed right now? Read UX Matters on embodied cognition and how it affects judgement and decision making. Yes, we really aren’t as rational as we think, even when we charge ourselves with being so. In one example, people in hiring positions were given heavier clipboards. In so doing, they rated the resumes they got higher. The article goes on to apply these principals to UX design rather well, making it a great read for anyone interested in this kind of psychology or UX.
Dan Lockton is finishing up his PHD, and in the process posting excerpts from his thesis on his blog. This week it’s behaviorism and its relation

Kent Clark

Some have compared him to the Dalai Lama, others to Kublai Kahn. When he isn't teaching third world children how to purify water with nothing more than a plastic bottle and a garden hose, he is creating mad waves for surfers off the west coast with little more than a paddle. Some say there is a boat involved, others that he walks on water. Little is known about his background. he appeared from nowhere 15 years ago and claims heritage from a land with neither want not need. He makes little comment, stating only that it was a pretty cool place. Fire does not burn him, cold does not hurt him. Words could... but they don't. When he passes, pedals fall off branches. When he speaks, hair tugs at skin, pulling just slightly in his direction. He does not sleep but he does dream. He has muscled his way into the lives of the famous and whispered his way into their hearts. And in the wee hours he plays oboe softly, as if to sooth the night to sleep.