Messages such as “HTTP 404 – File not found”, which appears when a web page is unavailable, and “invalid credit card number” on e-commerce sites, make people feel stupid when they have not done anything wrong. This scares them away from exploiting computers to their full potential, he says. But Jonathan Klein, who builds robotic…
Before you read on let me note Gmail is still the best free web mailer around, in fact you won’t find any other even playing in this league. But hey, we come to expect that from Google. Some things however we do not… —Philipp Lenssen —Looking Back on Gmail (Google Blogoscoped) Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch…
Chunking | Forms | Frames | Fitts Law | Flash Usability | Guidelines & Principles | Link Rot | Liquid Design | PDF | ROI | Writing, Reading & Content | Articles & Related Links —Usability (The Net Place) Great collection of links to practical online articles on each of the above subjects. Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek…
blind users are finding that they are spending disproportionately more time sorting through their junk e-mail than their sighted colleagues. That’s because sighted users can simply scan large batches of messages for that one important piece of mail, whereas blind users must listen to the subject line of each message before they know whether it’s…
Now, I’m really not interested in just complaining about the fact that LeapFrog hasn’t made this move. It’s a massive strategic issue for them, and they do have shareholders to answer to. At the same time, I refuse to accept one justification I heard at the conference, namely that shelf space pressure was one reason…
Unscrewed: Finding Replacement Screws for Palm Tungsten T3 (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) A few weeks ago, I was comparing PDA’s with Josh Sasmor (a Seton Hill math professor), when Josh noticed that one of the four tiny screws on the lower body of my Tungsten T3 was missing. I forgot to bring the charger home one…
Since the best way to make a good choice is by using the Internet, I ask all my readers to reach out to a senior citizen who doesn’t understand computers. Clip this column and invite a senior — perhaps a relative or someone who lives in your neighborhood — to line up his or her…
Amusement parks just wouldn’t be amusing without all the warnings that we ignore. Whipper-Snapper Whiplash Worries Bull’s-Eye BS Astounding Amusement Park Physics —Dennis G. Jerz —Cruel Amusement Park Instructions (Jerz’s Online Reading Room) Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Visiting the #scienceofpixar exhibit @kaminsciencecenterQuick visit to…
Traditional sources of water collection are from dams, springs, rivers, streams and farm reservoirs, with the introduction of boreholes where these traditional sources of water are unavailable. Until now such boreholes have been operated by handpumps as the use of modern alternatives such as diesel, petrol or electric pumps are costly to install and have…
Since I started using computers, they’ve become almost a million times more powerful. Although big computers can be alienating, their evolution generally leads to a better user experience…. Although the bigger, newer mainframe had an actual CRT screen, it also had obscure commands and horrible usability. Worst of all, it was highly alienating because you…
After a couple of hours of subscribing to favorite feeds, your news grazing habits will be changed forever. Just as TiVo lets you watch TV more efficiently, RSS readers do the same by letting you scan your favorite blogs and news sites faster or letting you cast your net over a wider range of material.…
You will need the following items, depending on what you plan on doing with the orange: 1. Oranges, lots of them in case you are hungry or if you mess it up. 2. Two bowls, one to peel them over and one to put them in. It’s important to peel them over a bowl because…
Because she does all of her teaching online, Ms. Achterhof can handle many more courses, at many more colleges, than she could face to face. She is an adjunct professor of business and management at four institutions, in three states, moving among her teaching duties with the click of a mouse while her black Labrador…
A lot of designers think that a work is part of a person, that it has come from some mysterious place inside. How it will sell depends on who we are as individuals. But an interesting thing for me is that I think we ourselves change from time to time. I may be Tung Chiang,…
Testing my new RSS feed I am having some trouble coding up my new RSS feed. If you’ve got a content aggregator, and you’d like to let me know how my feed works for you, please let me know. BTW… What’s a content aggregator? Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and…
Diaries and journals are a longstanding fixture of writing and foreign language classes. Journals are also commonly employed in other subjects, including lab notebooks in the sciences, and sketch books and portfolios for teaching the arts. Teachers often encourage students to keep notes of their own, and sometimes use these notes as an additional indicator…
Better Dialog BoxJerz’s Literacy Weblog) I recently wrote about a survey with a confusing dialog box… while trying to download a Microsoft update, I came across this dialog box, which does a much better job. Similar:Quick visit to see my mother and siblings.Students are trusting software like this to do their work.A former student working…
Voice recognition systems have come a long way in the last decade and are used in places like call centres, home PCs and even mobile phones. Dashboards are becoming the hub of the car But over the next 10 years, we could even be holding virtual conversations with the car dashboard. —Richard Taylor —Talking to…
Thousands of patients in NHS hospitals are being forced to watch television for up to 15 hours a day… Matt Durcan, an IT specialist, said he complained to staff at North Hampshire Hospital after he was unable to turn off the TV set beside his son’s bed. —NHS patients ‘forced to watch TV’ (BBC) Didn’t these…
‘Click Cancel to Proceed’: Pop-Up Dialog Rhetoric A little while ago, I got an e-mail from a Ph.D. student working on a research project. Would I mind filling out an online form that asked questions about leadership and religion? The form says I can leave certain questions blank. So I do. After I’ve filled out…