"Seven tricks that Web users don't know" from IBM developerWorks presents presents "Web site features that typical non-technical users aren't familiar with," such as the convention that a site's logo links to its home page. Although this article is from June 2001, it's still an informative read. (Link from Digital-Web)
The Polaroid effect aims to solve the problem of losing one's place while scrolling in a long Web page. The author's solution is to set off new text (that is, the next screen reached after scrolling) in a different background color for a split second, in order to give users a visual landmark of where they left off and where to begin reading. This is an interesting concept. Come to think of it, I often highlight text with my mouse before scrolling in order to keep my place in a long document; why shouldn't there be a built-in browser feature that does this for me? (Link from WebWord, which has some good discussion)
A Bob Greene/chicagotribune.com follow-up: All traces of the columnist who resigned Saturday have been removed from the site, as far as I can tell. His archive page is gone, he's no longer listed on the columnists page, and a search for his name yields only the resignation announcements. They cleaned it all up. I do think they should have left his columnist page up for a few days longer, with a note explaining why his columns will no longer appear, for the sake of those who've bookmarked it directly and haven't heard the news. (See my previous blog entry.)
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