“Technology pioneers typically get steamrollered, then look on helplessly from the sidelines as a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies make billions. First movers, the theory goes, are too smart for their own good, churning out gizmos that are too expensive or too complex for the average consumer’s taste.” Brendan I. Koerner —TiVo, We Hardly Knew Ye: Sorry…
“The exchange of love letters was central to the courtship of my grandparents (who were separated by the First World War) and of my parents (who were separated by my father’s service after the Second World War). By the time that my wife and I were courting, we handed our love letters back and forth…
“Better-written technical documents enable people to work with greater speed, recall, accuracy, and comfort. These qualities, when taken together, make up the usability factor. Caution: simply gathering opinions is not usability testing — you must arrange an experiment that measures a subject’s ability to use your document.” Dennis G. Jerz —Usability Testing: What is It?UWEC)…
“But despite the universality of URLs, we often forget that they’re not just a handy way to address network resources. They’re also valuable communication tools. They help orient users in your architecture, and can suggest whether other options are available.” Jesse James Garrett —User-Centered URL DesignAdaptivePath.com) Ironic… the URL of this article is needlessly long:…
“On June 27, 2002, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued guidelines that recommended that any ranking results influenced by payment, rather than by impartial and objective relevance criteria, ought to be clearly labeled as such in the interests of consumer protection. It appears, then, that any algorithm such as PageRank, that can reasonably pretend to…
“Florida found itself in another voting debacle during last week’s primary election: Tens of millions of dollars spent to abolish hanging chads and they still can’t get it right.” Lauren Weinstein —A Vote for Touch and Go Away [Florida Ballots]Wired) Similar:Me Checking into My #4C19 Conference Hotel RoomI’ll just mark a few more papers before…
Whiteboards vs. Blackboard: “So, on the one hand, we’ve got a classroom board that can be written on only with special pens. You can never tell when the pens will run out before they actually do so, and there’s no good way to extend the life of a pen once it finally expires. On the…
“If all you have is a hammer then everything is a nail. How else can you explain why web sites are so incredibly painful to use? If I were paranoid I’d assume there was a conspiracy to assure that the Internet is kept lame. But perhaps it is a combination of ignorance and laziness.” Bob…
“Navigating through digital texts was one of the e-book users’ biggest complaints. They found moving from page to page ‘tedious.’ They also found it difficult to find specific chapters in texts and to find particular words.” —Students Complain About Devices for Reading E-Books, Study Finds (Chronicle) Similar:Florida Woman Bites CamelIdentifying her as a “Florida woman,” as…AestheticsNotes…
“A computer chat program that speaks Hindi could open up computers to India’s illiterate millions. ” —Hindi Chatbot Breaks New GroundBBC) Similar:Kairos: Open Since 1996As a plucky new faculty member I wrote a…AcademiaDon’t worry: It’s not just art!Before a school play, a principal worrie…AestheticsWhy NORAD Tracks SantaThe call had come in on one of the…
“U.S. federal Judge Colleen McMahon has dismissed a claim by British Telecom that it developed and holds a patent to the hyperlink technology used to whisk Web users from one site to another. ” Michele Delio —Judge Tosses BT Hyperlink Case (Wired) Similar:Certainty vs. uncertainty: "In which are we more likely to be deceived, and in…
“Tiny text tyrannizes users by dramatically reducing task throughput. IE4 had a great design that let users easily change font sizes; let’s get this design back in the next generation of browsers.” Jakob Nielsen —Let Users Control Font SizeUseIT.com) This apparently the Week of Cute Headlines. Why not “Tiny text type terribly trashes task throughput”?…
"Several years ago, the State University of New York at Buffalo took stock of its proliferating Web sites and found more than 250,000 pages spread out across 17 different servers. Not surprisingly, students and faculty members were having a hard time finding information they needed, even though they knew it was probably online — somewhere." Florence…
“Usability expertise is mainly an issue of talent and experience rather than theory. Much of usability work requires pattern matching, which is why it’s so dependent on brain power and past experience: Once you observe slight traces of a usability issue in users’ behavior, you must deduce the underlying implications for design.” Jakob Nielsen —Becoming…
“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 Better (jnd.org) Similar:Wearing A Mask Is A Sign Of Mutual Respect During The Coronavirus PandemicShortly after my region…
"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) Similar:Can you melt eggs? Quora’s AI says “yes,” and Google is sharing the resultGoogle Search is already well-known…CybercultureJournalism, Fake News, and "Clickbait…
(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…
“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) Similar:Had…
“Open the pod bay doors, please,” astronaut Dave implores Hal 9000. We command, the machines execute. If they fail, they do so politely: “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” W. Wayt Gibbs —Whatever You Say (Scientific American) Yeah, after they have killed our astronaut partner, but that’s not the point the author’s…
“A Writer’s Perspective on an Emerging Medium” —What’s Happening on the Web? Similar:MTV VMAs: Will Smith Family's Reaction Was to Gaga, Not Miley (Video)I didn’t watch the show, but I did see t…BusinessAny pasta can become a pasta salad when the office microwave stops working!CultureClosing the Door on the Video Store Era (with tweets) ·…