Some great articles linked to webword today.

One in particular caught my attention. Out of the 100 largest global companies, only 8 met usability requirements and only 5 met advanced usability requirements. How sad is this? As an investor as well as a usability engineer, it makes me wonder. The best investing is based on sound research, but how can you do sound research if the sources are not well done? Maybe I'll put my money under my mattress after all.

It makes me think of the book chapter that I just wrote for Mike Wogalter's new book on Warnings. Not to plug myself (well, maybe a little :-D), but part of what I cover there is the risk of complicated legal documents and contracts. There is not a lot of research on how to make these easy to read, but there is enough to meet the corporate annual report guidelines (see http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/9/emw282111.htm for the list). It is really sad that they don't.