Shiny Things

11:55 am - "A Reuben Sandwich Teaches Quality"

A colleague sent me this: I don't know the original source. I was intrigued because of the conjunction of two things I'm interested in: quality (in the form of good interaction, at least) and Reuben sandwiches.

09:15 am - I Hate Notes

This is an actual email I had to send to several colleagues this morning:

My apologies. <rant>Lotus Notes is the dumbest, most worthless, most despicable piece of broken trash software I have ever dealt with.</rant> Okay, now that's out of the way....

I didn't realize that Notes would not keep track of who had actually accepted my meeting invites. Or rather, it _does_ keep track of them, but only until I invite more people. At that point, all previous reponses from prior participants go away. If you don't keep the actual acceptance messages, as I did not, you have no way of knowing who accepted.

So please remind me if you accepted the invite to the May 13th Reuben outing at The Ram (at 11:30am). I will write your names on a piece of paper with a pen so I don't lose this information.

Again, my apologies.

-Carl

05:45 am - State of the Career(s)

Current Mood: content

08:06 am - Usability Observations for the Morning

1. Default selections are not always a good idea. While you may be confident that most of your users will indeed select "White" from the Race selection box on your demographic questionnaire, it's pretty insensitive to set it as the default.

2. If you are writing a book on usability, you'll make yourself much more credible if you put the page number, chapter number, and chapter title in a consistent location on every page in the book. Usability isn't just about software.

09:32 am - Handheld Computers Endanger 2010 US Census

The 2010 US census has become the most expensive ever, costing $11 billion. A big part of that expense was preparing handheld computers for census agents. However, the computers are proving too complex for many temporary census agents to use. Combined with difficulties in transmitting the large amounts of generated data, the bureau may be forced to revert to paper-and-pencil technology in order to get the census completed on time. (CNN.com)

The most telling quote in the article was from a spokesman for the computer's manufacturer: "After you spend about 30 minutes to an hour familiarizing yourself with it, it's as easy to use as a modern cell phone." No wonder the agents couldn't figure it out!



 

08:14 am - Apostrophe Trouble

People with surnames like O'Brien or Al-Kurd or van Campen are being forced to change them because of bad interface design and bad programming. This comes as no surprise to me, but it's good to be reminded of it.

09:55 am - Head-Tracking VR

Johnny Chung Lee, using a Wii remote and sensor bar, demonstrates a VR system that changes the perspective of your display as you change your viewpoint. Very, very shiny.

I found this on the Etre blog. I'm going to stop linking to things from the Etre blog, because you should be reading it yourself. It's that nifty. Here's the RSS feed. Now you have no excuse.

09:03 am - Second Life Ergonomics

bushi7 sent me a link to these articles about ergonomics for Second Life avatars. I thought they were fascinating: it's one thing to remember to make things easy for people to use, but virtual people have different needs. I'm sure much of this same advice applies to all virtual 3D environments.

• Part 1
• Part 2

06:03 am - Stupid Security Questions

On logging in to my phone service provider this morning, they announced a security upgrade. I had to select two security questions and enter answers for them. Here's a sampling:

What is your favorite movie?
What was the name of your favorite childhood pet?
What was the name of your favorite teacher?
What is the name of your favorite author?

Do you notice a trend here? There were two sets of five questions, and I had to choose one from each set. In each set, all, or nearly all, asked me about my favorite X.

So what's wrong with that? Opinions change. If my favorite author was Tolkien, then I read a book by LM Bujold, Tolkien may no longer be my favorite author. These sorts of questions should be about personal facts that cannot change. Of all the questions available, only one was about a fact.

After I selected the questions and entered my answers, the system displayed my selections and told me to record them in a safe place. Let's be realistic. The main reason I would ever use these questions is because I forgot my password, right? If I didn't record my password, why would I record these? Jeesh.

11:33 am - Back to School

I got my acceptance email from IUPUI, so yesterday I registered for my taught-by-web HCI class. Now I hope that enough other people enroll that the class actually takes place: the head of the program voiced some doubt about this when I talked to him on the phone, and so far only one other person has registered.

01:36 pm - Application Submitted

I just applied to graduate school. My goal is to get a certificate in Human Computer Interaction through IUPUI's School of Informatics, in order to better align my career with my interest in interaction design (especially as it applies to computer games).

It feels strange to think about going back to school again, in any capacity.

09:41 pm - Gapminder World

This is one of the most impressive data visualizations I've ever seen. Okay, that may not make some of you as excited as it does me, but dang, this is nifty. And fun to play with.

06:09 pm - Lovers' Cups

A pair of Internet-connected drinking vessels. When you drink from yours, your beloved's cup glows. Kinda sweet and yet sorta goofy. I wouldn't get them for my valentine.

07:59 am - The Hug Shirt

No, really. It's Bluetooth enabled and everything.

08:16 am - IDEO's "Ten Faces"

Article about the ten personas that are critical to building an innovation culture. (uiGarden.net)

I might be something of a Cross-Pollinator. I'm getting better at being an Anthropologist, but I'm not there yet. I should be an Experimenter, but I still have this problem where I see failed experiments as a waste of time rather than a new source of information: I need to get past that. I haven't developed the people skills for any of the Organizing personas, but I could maybe be a Collaborator someday. I aspire to being an Experience Architect.

08:54 pm - Fitts' Law

What is Fitts' Law, and why should software designers be more aware of it?