A great addition to this explanation would be some discussion about modes.

A few examples they present include: a) a Microsoft Windows wizard experience, b) date choosers that use two separate month and year combo boxes instead of just one combined combo box.

In both cases, you take away control while introducing additional modes, which are invisible states that the user must divine through context clues around the implementation of the user experience. That's partially why engineers can make such truly awful UI -- but it makes sense to them because it matches their mental model.

Wizards encode modes into the fixed, rigid "choose-your-own-adventure" style of navigating seemingly disconnected questions that don't connect me with what is really happening. (GROSS!)

Ultimately the most telling slide is the one around progressive disclosure -- hide things where people will find them.

As an aside, I've been quite impressed with how Slideshare and Scribd have made Powerpoint docs super accessible. It's simply unprecedented how easy it is to absorb information in bite-sized chunks from such beautiful and well designed presentations.

Barry Ritholtz (who is an avid Posterous user, by the way, go subscribe!) puts together yet again some sobering news for those interested in what's really happening out there.

In 12 months, we've outlayed more public funds than the largest, most expensive government projects in 206 years.

Dang, we should have just gone to Mars instead.

The culprit for poor WiFi turns out, in almost all cases, to be interference. And it's not generally interference caused by other WiFi radios; the problematic interference is caused most by baby monitors, microwaves, [and] portable phones...

Wifi is as important as cell phone service. But the reliability and configuration experience for the standard is atrocious. I know I've probably spent untold hours in wifi configuration trying to get the dang thing to work, both on my laptop and for other people's machines.

Isn't it time we set aside some real bandwidth for this critical standard? Baby monitors and portable phones that mess with my wifi channel can go in the trash as far as I'm concerned.

If Wifi were as important as public roads, then our current system of allowing other services on the same 2.4Ghz band would be like allowing riding lawnmowers on the freeways. Tech policy wonks and networking equipment firms need to get their act together and prioritize wireless Internet access.

We measure traffic jams in terms of economic opportunity loss in the hundreds of millions. Is it time that we measure wireless access in the same way?