"Designing an account registration and sign-in process that doesn't frustrate users turns out to be very difficult to achieve. It looks easy at the outset, but a pile of subtleties can sneak up on your experience, making something that should be simple become stressful for the users... Here are 8 common design mistakes we often see as we watch users try to create accounts and sign into the site."

Nice list, good explanations. Don't agree with all of them - some can be security risks, but more sites should put this much consideration into signin systems.

"Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been driving the design of a cross platform shape and control set for Firefox 3... Our goals are to design an interface that is simple, modern, and visually lighter than previous versions of Firefox. A lot of careful thought went into determining which controls we could integrate or remove. We also focused a lot on how we could leverage visual design (namely grouping and patterns) to form a user interface that is both simpler and easier to use."

Very interesting, not only for Firefox, but also the design/branding process they went through and reasons behind it.

"Considering how much amusement can be had by using the MacBook Pro's accelerometers for completely unintended purposes, it stands to reason that hacking into the iPhone's sensors would be a virtually endless font of entertainment... power of the iPhone's 3-axis accelerometer is largely untapped in the OS itself, so it'll be great fun to see what sorts of crazy business the homebrew folks can dream up."

Pretty cool video. There's so much more than can be done with accelerometers, but implement it too fast and the consumers won't be ready and won't like the device.

"This morning at TechEd Australia 2007, I attended the “Interface Design Patterns” session by Darryl Chantry, an architect on the Architecture Strategy Team at Microsoft (Australia). A session mostly directed to developed on how they should start thinking about designing application for the user, instead of themselves."

Interesting recount. It's nice to see the focus Microsoft is putting on UX, but not close enough to Apple yet. Now, when is Linux gonna join the revolution?

Regarding Google's 'I'm feeling lucky' button -
"... the reason the "I feel lucky" button stays is not its click through rates, but the message it sends about google's corporate culture. "
"They can't remove that button now, it's part of their branding, part of their identity... The few extra bytes of page size and the small extra cognitive load is more than made up for the positive feelings it engenders in users."

The power of a button eh? It doesn't really bother me, as I never visit google's homepage anymore, thanks to browser shortcuts.

"Nicole Lazzro is founder of XEODesign, which helps game companies make their games better (she’s been running that for 14 years)."

Interesting interview, but it's a bit disturbing that people get pleasure out of stroking their iPhone. I do like the 'easy fun' concepts, just like people who click their pens incessantly.

Many agree that the iPhone is a breakthrough handheld device. It has many impressive qualities, but perhaps one of the most interesting ones is that it leverages and even bends the laws of physics. Apple's software is tuned to respond to our hand gestures in a way that makes an impression of interaction with the physical object. Yet, the interactions are fundamentally digital. Everything feels light and easy because there is no friction."

Interesting, and something more products should be like.

"Microsoft is run by geeks. You know the type. They don’t understand why you need to design in animations, great sounds, and a flow from one experience to the next. They, at heart, think that a simple text list is just as good as something that has nice animations, fonts, graphics, etc. Heck, most of the developers who work at Microsoft live in text editors all day long. Even if they do get it, the committees kill these features when the project runs behind schedule because they take a ton of coding time, a ton of testing time, and don’t provide any “hard” value to the product."

So true, but they're changing slowly, but not fast enough to head off Apple, or even compete sometimes.