navelfluff

Don Norman, usability demigod, is working on a new book, The Design of Future Things — working drafts of the first chapter and The Afterword are on line.  I haven’t read all of chapter one yet (about cars that fear, among other things), but the three page Afterword is a gem. The Afterword, titled “How to talk [...]

On my work computer (the one with Windows :)), i usually play my music using iTunes or Winamp (due to their scrobbling capabilities) and as a test, i installed Jajuk (because of its network qualities, and because i’m a geek). Everythings been nice and fine. 
The other day, i stumbled across SF-Anytime, an online movie rental site supposedly [...]

Scott Hanselman describes the “synch software” in the following, illustrative terms:
Here’s the saddest part. The Desktop Connect Reader software is so profoundly bad, so poorly designed, so truly evil that there are not word to full express the breadth and depths of its unspeakable lameness.
It’s almost like Fish at work…
The sad part though is that [...]

What started as a whine about the horrendous amount of “bye-bye” options in Windows Vista has turned into a rather interesting tour of software project management.  Joel Spolsky today (well, yesterday) published an entry about the Windows Vista development process (if that’s what you can call it), based on input from a real live and actual [...]

If you haven’t seen this demo of a “Minority Report” style user interface (and you’re into human computer interaction), you need to.  Heff Han demos an “interface free” user interface taking the concept of direct manipulation of data into another level.  Includes piffy applications of geo visualization (spinning maps, that is), ten finger lava lamp [...]

Joel Spolsky sums up Usability on one line, standing on one foot:
Something is usable if it behaves exactly as expected.
That’s it. The rest is just commentary.

Two things regarding web user interfaces happened to me within the last 24 hours.
First, i stumble upon the blog Jabbering Giraffe (possibly through CSS Mania). On the surface, there’s nothing special about the Jabbering Giraffe user interface (UI) but look closer at the top row. From there, you can “personalize” the display: toggle rendered headline [...]

Bruce Togazzini wrote of how bad usability made Scott Adams delete 500 moderated comments from his blog. This is stuff tought at “Usability 101″ which you old usability pharts should know already. And for you who’re not, see how a lack of planning can create a lot of havoc in what said usability pharts like [...]

Soneco on julkaissut kännykän jossa on yksi nappi. Ikään kuin MacKännykkä. Soneco SCC on suunniteltu erityisesti näkövammaisille, ja kuvaavaa onkin että Sonecon tuote-esittelysivulla ei puhelimesta ole kuvaa. Hoh-hoijaa. Eikö tässä ole jo menty vähän liian pitkälle. Sokea ihminen ei ole idiootti. Sokea, tai näkovammainen ihminen tarvitsee vain kännykän joka on käytettävä myös silloin kuin sitä [...]

Whop. Today is World Usability Day. There are even two events in Finland, one in Oulu and one just nearby. Both have already started, and one is pretty far away. I guess i wasn’t prepared. And our usability lab’s server is down.