Design: July 2002 Archive Page

"The Internet is fueling an increase in library use which, in turn, has led to a library-construction and renovation boom." Steve Freiss

--The Web Didn't Kill Libraries: It's the New DrawCS Monitor)

"In an age of big-budget titles and state-of-the-art technology, Skotos wants to revive the old text genre." Brad King [See also the sidebar: "Games Started Off Without a Bang."]

--No Bells, No Whistles: Just GamesWired)

"In an amazingly short time, software has become critical to almost every aspect of modern life... Yet much software simply doesn’t work reliably."  Charles C. Mann

--Why is Software So Bad?MIT Tech Review)

"Design matters, but which design is preferable depends upon the occasion, the context, and above all, upon my mood... Why do I own several teapots? Because I like them." Don Norman

--Emotion and Design: Attractive Things Work Betterjnd.org)

"This site is a repository for pictures of do not enter signs. Since this is one of many international roadsigns the collection is diverse in geographical context." James Canavan

--Do Not Enter!donotenter.com)

(The Economist) "...goes roughly as follows. The QWERTY design (patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868 and sold to Remington in 1873) aimed to solve a mechanical problem of early typewriters. When certain combinations of keys were struck quickly, the type bars often jammed." But the real problem is that "economists seem to adopt bogus anecdotal histories and then get locked in." 

• A drier, more academic version: "The Fable of the Keys."
• A rebuttal, from The Dvorak Keyboard: "[P]ro-QWERTY articles are written by people that don't care about typing efficiency, but rather want to make an academic point by shooting down the Dvorak keyboard."

--The QWERTY Myth...

"[U]sers—confounded by too many choices—fail to take advantage of their office equipment’s power-saving features." 

--One researcher’s unlikely crusade: to overthrow the on/off button.Technology Review)

"[U]sers—confounded by too many choices—fail to take advantage of their office equipment’s power-saving features." 

B>One researcher’s unlikely crusade: to overthrow the on/off button. (Technology Review)

"It's very enjoyable to visit a website that works, where everything just clicks for you. In contrast, a user interface that doesn't do things the way you want feels sluggish, unpleasant, and possibly even hostile, despite the designer's no doubt sincere attempt to invoke positive emotions." Jakob Nielsen

--User Empowerment and the Fun Factor (Alertbox)

"How did a Swingline Stapler change from humble office product to hot personal accessory? First it got a coat of red paint. Then it went Hollywood."

B>Cult Film, 1999's Office Space, Transforms Swingline Stapler (WSJ)

Once upon a time, the written word depended exclusively on papyrus from the Nile: "Egypt had become the Microsoft of antiquity: whoever craves knowledge can come crawling to us, and we'll see what can be arranged." Enter the codex -- the bound book. Tom Bradley

A href="http://www.jackmagazine.com/essaytbradley.html">No Baudelaires in Babylon (Jack)

"The kids who grew up steering Pac-Man around his dot-filled maze have grown up to make video games one of the biggest slices of the entertainment-industry pie. Yet no game to date has come close to dominating the popular landscape the way Pac-Man did in the early 1980s." Chris Green --Pac-Man (Salon)