Usability: September 2008 Archive Page

Students in my "Media Projects" class are getting practice learning complex, new systems quickly. We've learned Blender 3D, we've started on Inform 7, and later we'll move to Flash. My sister (or possibly her husband, who sometimes uses her e-mail address) sent me a link to an editorial on what it's like to learn a new software system while you're also dealing with the daily deadlines that define the news business.  I hope that my New Media Journalism students will be well-prepared to excel in an environment where their ability to do their job depends so heavily on their ability to adapt to new tools.

Many of you can relate to the learning curve and butterflies that come with switching over to ever more complex and powerful work technology. All of that comes with a few added wrinkles in this business.

Because we create our products entirely anew seven days a week, we can't ease the transition by working ahead or catching up when things settle down. Every day brings a new race against the clock.

Someone at our place likened it to changing a tire on a car while it's hurtling down the highway. I like to think of it in terms of the movie "Speed": The bus doesn't blow up if you don't slow down.

But many of us have been through this drill before, nearly a decade ago when the system we're getting ready to junk was the next big thing. And while the new system we're going live on requires increasingly fine-tuned skills, the circumstances last time were more challenging. (Pat Howard, Erie Times-News)

I haven't seen the ads in question, but thought this InformationWeek commentary was blogworthy.

"Some may wonder what Jerry Seinfeld helping Bill Gates pick out a new pair of shoes has to do with software," Microsoft concedes. No, probably everyone who watched the ad is wondering what shoes and Seinfeld have to do with software.

The answer, Microsoft says, is nothing. Oh, right -- that's so very Seinfeld.

The deliberate obscurity shows just how sclerotic Microsoft has become. It's a form of brand-first advertising that says, "Never mind our products, hooking up with Microsoft is a gas." It's just like hanging out with Jerry, Elaine, and the rest of the gang at the coffee shop.

(Apologies to readers under 30 who don't get these references, but you can catch reruns on Fox after the nightly news. Sorry, "nightly news" was a form of broadcast journalism where highly paid anchors once ... never mind.)

Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines (a government website that identifies research backing up good web design practices).

A wonderfully expressive, almost wordless essay on language, problem-solving, and code.
The Synonym Problem  (See also Jono DiCarlo's "These Things I Believe" -- a humanist manifesto about computer code.)

A financial researcher comes across a six-year-old article about United Airlines. Thinking it is a current news story, he summarizes it, then republishes the summary out of context. Within 10 minutes, a mass panic hits shareholders who are responding to his summary. More than a billion dollars evaporates into thin air.

Tribune Co. said Wednesday that the confusion over a 2002 article on UAL Corp. started because Google Inc.'s automated search couldn't separate breaking news from older stories on the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's website.

Tribune said it identified problems with the search engine months ago and had asked Google to stop using the function to find stories on its newspaper websites. Google continued to pull articles from the Sun-Sentinel's website, where a link to the old story on United Airlines parent UAL appeared last weekend, according to Tribune. (LA Times)

See also Forbes, Slashdot.