August 1st, for folks outside the usability world I live in, was deemed the day for Usability Challenge 2008, a day when usability folks around the world would unite to make the world a better place in which to function! Or something like that.

I admit, I had several ideas, but have been busy today, so I chose the simplest issue that bothers me to work with. We were to:

1. Find a usability problem
2. Design a solution
3. Share it with a person who can solve the problem by implementing your solution

My issue is with Yahoo’s news features. My pitstop, numerous times throughout the day, is the Yahoo homepage. In fact, if the world outside is coming to an end, I would probably learn about it on Yahoo. So I often see a fascinating headline, but don’t have the patience or the time to sit through television ads in order to watch a video news story. I can glean the juicy bits faster by skimming an article than by watching a clip, and so it annoys me greatly that if there is a news story, there is rarely an accompanying printed piece to go with it, though we all know that somewhere on the web, one exists. (News needs sources, right?)

So I have remedied this solution, in a brilliantly executed stroke of genius, heretofore unheard of… with a LINK! Here is my official entry for the Usability Challenge 2008… enjoy!