Recently, a few colleagues, friends and pseudo-random internet acquaintances have asked for usability/web-related blog recommendations.  Today’s post is a link list of blogs that I’ve found to be either useful, informative or interesting enough to foment some of my own ideas.  My goal is not to deflect anyone for continuing to ask me for recommendations (honestly).  I’d be interested to know if any feed readers already check out these blogs or have their own recommendations to share.

So here are the three I’ve been most interested in of late, with notes and the addition of one rogue blog that is no longer but still worth back-tracking through for some wisdom about creative disruption:

•  Occam’s Razor - Avinash Kaushik is well versed in web analytics and his blog is a good resource for content providers looking to broadly assess their UI’s success from a statistical viewpoint.  His “Web Analytics Demystified” thread is a great intro, but his general tips on getting the most out of loggable, aggregate user information to improve service quality is worth a read.
• UIE Brain Sparks - With a name like “User Interface Engineering,” how could you go wrong?  Brain Sparks blogs about UI design theory and practice, does practical reviews of good web UI and also serves as a good way to stay alerted about UIE events.
• Simple Bits - Although not updated frequently, this small design shop covers browser developments and type-face (sort of a UI designer’s secret vice) content and commentary.  I’ve found that small design shops with a strong aesthetic are great sources of very pragmatic information–in particular, the cost at a small shop of maintaining cross-browser compatibility can lead to some tips/tricks that bigger shops can learn from.  Plus, these guys developed Foamee, which allows you to owe someone a beer through Twitter.  Sweet.
• Creating Passionate Users - Great blog.  Sadly, it’s not maintained now because the author was harassed by other bloggers.  Focusing on non-traditional advice for software and service designers, this blog also provides a great example of how images can be used in a blog to convey information very effectively and break up the doldrums of seas of blocked text.  I promise to work on that…

The best learning is hands-on, of course, so I highly advise trying new web apps that pop up with a fan base and doing your own pro and con assessment.  Of course, UI-opinionated blogs are a great way to discover these apps.  I continue to be a fan of Flickr, a photo-sharing site purchased by Yahoo! some time ago.  Recently, I used their integrated online photo editor to touch up a camera phone pic and the experience was quite smooth.  Overall, it was more efficient than using iPhoto.

I continue to mourn the loss of Newshutch, my favorite feed reader.  I’m getting more used to Google Reader, though, and there’s still no sane alternative to feed reading for keeping up with all these blogs

I hope you all had a great holiday season.  It is really, really cold at headquarters today.  Time for another cup of tea.