Trapster lets you report speed traps, people slow down, everybody wins

I just signed up for Trapster, a free application for your cell phone or PDA that lets you report speed traps - and alerts you to speed traps that others report. I am going to download it to my iPhone and see how well it works. You call an 800 number to report any speed traps. Your alert is relayed to the PDAs and phones of people in the vicinity. They can rate the reliability of the reports. You can add it to Google Maps using Loki. It is an intriguing use of presence awareness.

Maximize your web copy's message: the F-shape and eye scans

Want to write powerful copy for your website? Learn about Jakob Nielsen's studies. The usability guru once categorized the typical way someone reads hypertext as an F.

He found that most of us read text from left to right

==========>===================>==========>
then return ||
<====================<=================<==

then read down the left side
| |
| |
| |
| |
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\/
then go to the right and back again
==============>=========>
| | | |
| | | |
| |==<=========<=======<==
| |
| |
\/
and then down the left some more, forming a visual "F"
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
\/

He also found that people, unsurprisingly, do not intensively read text (although they do scrutinize small text.) They scan the words.

How is this useful? Well, if you

1. emphasize the first two sentences of your text
2. use clear and powerful language at the beginning of sentences, the beginnings and ends of paragraphs. and
3. use bullets, subheads, and small graphics to highlight your main points

you will increase the likelihood your reader will get the idaes you want to convey.

Interesting expansion on the related usability concepts of eye tracking and heat maps here. I cannot vouch for the company's work, but their video example is very useful to better understand these concepts.