Jef Raskin Center for Humane Interface gets $2 million in start-up funding

"Jef Raskin's name is a little bit symbolic of his view of how computers and people should interact. There's no need for that second 'f' in his first name, now, is there? It's just a waste of space and time. Think of all those redundant letters.

Likewise, there are too many bells and whistles, too many keystrokes, too much going on when people use computers. In Jef Raskin's world, a world that will undoubtedly become everyone's world someday, computers should be designed based on the way people work and think, not the other way around.

Already a household name for his work on developing the Macintosh computer while one of Apple's first employees, Raskin has recently set his sights on a larger goal. He wants a revolution in the technology industry. Remember the commotion created by that first Macintosh television ad? Well, now Raskin's mind is set on shattering something even bigger."

"We formed the Raskin Center for Humane Interface," he says, talking about the project from his Gypsy Hill home here in Pacifica. "And we have been funded by a multi-national corporation for $2 million. Our plan is to work out of this office to show the world how to make computers much easier to use."

A great demo of the new interface can be seen here.

Rare Enigma Machine for sale

"One the most significant machines in the history of computing, not to mention the world of espionage and counter-intelligence, the German Armed Forces during World War 2 relied on the Enigma machine to encrypt the most important and sensitive communications before transmitting the messages by radio. The code was cracked by the allied forces in what has become one of the most celebrated espionage stories ever documented , enabling access to much critical information and shortening the war by several years. Now there's a rare Enigma machine for sale."

Engineering emotions.

"As software developers, we focus heavily on efficiency. We're careful about optimizing expensive compiler operations, we're meticulous in writing smart code with slick destructors and our classes are as clear as a manual for a light switch. When GUIs are designed, we take what we've learned from usability studies and focus groups, and make idiot-proof interfaces that improve productivity for end-users. After testing our creation, which has grown into a seamless blend of impeccable design and solid engineering, the product beta-tested and further refined. The only problem is that no one wants this worthless, crappy application."

A Taxonomy of Stakeholders

"Systems engineers have often paid too little attention to the nature of the so-called 'users' of products under development. These are better called Stakeholders, as many roles are involved, and few of those are in direct contact with the developed products.

A simple and robust conceptual framework for classifying development stakeholders - a taxonomy - is proposed. The taxonomy is product-centric, with concentric "Circles" denoting broad categories of stakeholder. Within these, generic "Slots" describe typical classes of stakeholder; these are subdivided into "Roles" which are expected to vary at least in name with the domain. Examples are given, and a popular template is reanalysed using the framework.

The taxonomy has immediate value in identifying and validating stakeholder roles in requirements elicitation, helping to ensure that key viewpoints are not missed, and hence reducing the risk of instability and failure during development."

Vending Machines Fight Back

Usability: Subliminal U-Turns

"Usability has always been a term guaranteed to provoke a reaction among Web designers. Even now, when the return-on-investment argument in favour of usability has become widely accepted, some sites still fly in the face of usable design. Navigation is unclear, language appears on-screen straight from the brief, forms can�t be filled in.

So it might seem a strange time to start talking about making sites less usable; but that's one of the ideas starting to emerge from the financial services sector. The argument runs that some sites, particularly online banking sites, have become so easy to use that customers simply zip through them on auto-pilot, conducting their transactions with the minimum involvement possible before logging out. While this is ideal for busy consumers, it�s bad for the banks, which are losing the chance to sell more products to exactly those people who should be their hottest prospects - their existing customers.

So the theory is that the site owners should periodically rework their sites, changing them subtly to disrupt the user journey and force customers to pay more attention to their on-screen surroundings. As a result the users will also pay more attention to the any advertising, whether in-house or from third parties."

The Future of User-Centred Technology Design Mission

"The AIGA event in London in January reported on the Future of User-Centred Technology Design Mission to the US. We had three speakers, two from the mission, Rachel Jones from Instrata Limited and Dan Hill from BBC Radio and Music Interactive, and James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University who responded."

Reading between the lines, it seemed to me that the US ain't that far head, and like this country, more and more ground is being gained as we get more established. The report gives a more balanced perspective than this speaker.

Space Station Sim

"If NASA is ever able to put a man on the moon again, or on Mars, it's very likely that the agency will owe a bit of thanks to a small Maryland video-game developer.

In recent months, Vision Videogames has been putting the finishing touches on SpaceStationSim, a game timed for publication when the next space shuttle launches, supposedly this spring. As its title suggests, the game lets players pretend they're astronauts on the International Space Station in a 3-D, simulated environment. "

But pure fantasy this is not. In fact, Vision Videogames designed the game using technical specifications from NASA as part of a Space Act agreement. And now the company is under contract to play a crucial role in the development of the crew exploration vehicles, or CEVs, that could someday prowl around the moon or Mars.

"We were asked ... to build a virtual vehicle and demo the concept of being able to build a dynamic vehicle and model the ergonomic efficiencies," said Bill Mueller, Vision Videogames' president. "In the future (we'll) do virtual vehicle simulations using our AI and the software, SpaceStationSim."

Concept Cars

"Concept cars play an important role in the automobile industry. These exercises are great opportunities to test potential designs. Originally, these were pure explorations in style -- an excuse to let the stylists display their creative juices before returning to the mundane world of production models. But over time, the ideas have developed into a combination of exploration and show. Sometimes the original intention to explore design themes has been taken over by the public relations crew, so the result is an attempt to impress the car-buying public, the press, the executive suite, and, just perhaps, rival designers at competitive companies, which especially means designers of different models within the same company.

But good design is a lot more than style. Good design includes substance: function, comfort, pleasure, safety, economy, environmental friendliness, and a lot more besides. A concept car should be an opportunity to explore all of these directions. Alas, few take this opportunity seriously. Pity."

Time has come to standardize street signs

"Drivers in some of Canada's largest cities can have trouble just going from one part of town to another because of the wide range of street signs."

Alison Smiley, a signage expert for the firm Human Factors North, has studied street markers around the world. She works in both Vancouver and Toronto. She asks: "What do drivers need in order to be able to read [signs] in time to change lanes before they get to the intersection and slow down and turn comfortably?"

The size of the lettering is crucial -- the characters used in many cities have traditionally been 10 centimetres high. Smiley says that allows a downtown driver only two seconds' warning before the vehicle reaches the intersection's stop bar.

"In the suburbs you have higher speeds, so that means you have to be able to read the name even farther away from the intersection so you can line up in the right lane. And there are more lanes. So you really need advance signs," she says.

Touching Your Own Future: Haptic Tools

"I've had a bit to say in other articles about where haptic research is headed these days, about how the gurus of grasp are taking us by the hand and leading us into synthetic worlds that blur the differences between human and machine, so I thought it was time to kick back and have a look around at the goodies you can buy this afternoon to make life with your PC pretty virtual. But while I was busily investigating the potential of assorted haptic mice and force-feedback steering wheels, I also landed smack in a book by Andy Clark, called Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. It takes the mind-punching point of view that we humans are not just becoming one with the machine, not just tripping down hell's high road that will lead eventually to our all becoming cyborgs; we are cyborgs already. What's more, we always have been.

Because of our cortical plasticity, tools become an extension of not just the human hand but the human brain as well.

Who could resist a theory like that?"

Usability Severity Rating - Improved

"When testing a product, it is important to rate the severity of the issues found. This will help focus your efforts, and keep an overall summary of the current status of your product. This is nothing new, severity ratings has been around for a long time and has proven useful too.

But, testers and developers are not rating usability problem as they should. Current scales encourage people to see usability issues as secondary. Usability is also rated differently than other types of bugs, causing developers to threat them differently too.

We need a fix, so I am introducing a new, improved 'Usability Severity Rating Scale'. It is modified version of the scales used by e.g. Bugzilla since there is no difference between a program bug and a usability bug. Many companies fail to understand this, but for a person using your product, it is the same. "

Making Personas Sparkle Like Diamonds, Part 2

BMW pushes its "Ultimate Driving Machine" to men who usually end up driving 40 mph in rush-hour traffic. Yet these men view themselves as mighty conquerors of a limitless asphalt horizon, roaring full throttle through life and leaving testosterone in their wake. BMW sells to these men's masks.

The full picture is actually a little more complicated. This persona's character diamond breaks out accordingly:

- Views himself as powerful, a leader. He wants his car to reflect this. (He doesn't have to be a powerful leader, just see himself as one.)
- Likes recognition for being rich and important. On some level, he feels he needs more recognition.
- Likes to go his own way in the world -- not a follower.
- Is intelligent.

Just as Ricky Fitts' mask is part true, part phony, so too are some BMW drivers' masks. Some drivers really are conquerors -- but not on the road. The problem of being a world conqueror as you sit behind a desk and wield a mighty keyboard is no one knows you are one. Though you're not allowed set land speed records with your BMW, it still symbolizes you have the power to lay the opposition to waste.

Smoking out these complex persona aspects requires proper discovery. The character diamond is a key persona component. When you design a Web site or an ad campaign, you must address the character diamond of each persona you want to reach.

American Airlines To Offer In-Flight Entertainment To Rival Smaller Carriers

"American Airlines now has an answer to all the in-flight entertainment being offered by JetBlue, Delta Song, and just about every other carrier.

'It's called a personal entertainment device but we're going to brand it later and what it does is provide passengers with a whole range of entertainment and information options,' says Ned Raynolds of American Airlines. 'The device is yours to rent for the duration of the flight. All you have to do is slip a credit card through the slot and the credit card in this case will take $7.95 off your credit card. You will have 12 feature movies, out of first run, but not yet on DVD, you will have 12 music videos, you will have games, you will have music and a vast array of options.'

Although it doesn't offer any mid-flight connectivity for emailing or web surfing, the device is synched every day so it can offer you the morning papers."

User Interface Design and Development

"User experience and interface design in the context of creating software represents an approach that puts the user, rather than the system, at the center of the process. This philosophy, called user-centered design, incorporates user concerns and advocacy from the beginning of the design process and dictates the needs of the user should be foremost in any design decisions."

An excellent set of papers from Microsoft ...

alt tags - The Accessibility Challenge

"We recently completed a large website redevelopment project. The site, when launched, contained nearly 1,000 individual content items. Since launch, that number has grown. We expect it to continue to increase, especially as the departments who took a wait and see attitude start contributing content to the site. If past experience holds true, this site will have close to 5,000 content items within a year or two.

One of the stated goals for the site was accessibilty. Granted, this was not the term used, but as we went through the process of identifying the site's customers, local senior citizens were mentioned. Because this is a city website, they do not have to comply with Section 508 - however, as many local government agencies choose to do, the city made compliance a goal. Throughout the design process, we kept this in mind, and, because the backend of the site is a content management system, we included "hooks" to ensure things like alt attributes weren't forgotten."

Better, Faster ... Older

"The long-held belief that older people perform slower and worse than younger people has been proven wrong. In a study published today in Neuron, psychologists from McMaster University discovered that the ageing process actually improves certain abilities: Older people appear to be better and faster at grasping the big picture than their younger counterparts.

'Going into the study, we knew that ageing changes the way people see the world,' says Allison Sekuler, one of the senior authors and a Canada Research Chair at McMaster. 'But these results are an unusual twist on the standard 'ageing makes you worse' story, and they provide clear insight into what is changing in the ageing brain.'

Using computer-generated stimuli, the researchers monitored how much time subjects needed to process information about the direction in which a set of bars moved. When the bars were small, or when the bars were low in contrast (light gray vs. dark gray), younger subjects took less time to see the direction of motion. But when the bars were large, and high in contrast (black vs. white), older subjects outperformed the younger subjects."

Navy to Christen the Littoral Surface Craft - Experimental (X-Craft) Sea Fighter

"The Navy will christen the experimental X-Craft "Sea Fighter" and designate it as the first Fast Sea Frame, Feb. 5, during a noon PST ceremony at Nichols Bros. Boat Builders, Whidbey Island, Wash."

The high-speed, experimental vessel will test a variety of technologies that will allow the Navy to operate more effectively in littoral, or near-shore, waters. Sea Fighter will be used to evaluate the hydrodynamic performance, structural behavior, mission flexibility, and propulsion system efficiency of high-speed vessels, and will also serve as a test bed for developmental mission packages. It will serve as a “risk reduction,” experimental vessel for the Littoral Combat Ship and Coast Guard’s Deepwater Program concept of operation development at sea.

What Game Design Can Teach Us (BayCHI)

"More is known about making things usable than making them fun. Player experiences are not user experiences. We do not play computer games because they are usable. We play because they are fun.

As computers integrate themselves into more aspects of our lives, it follows that the services they provide should be self-motivating. This is more true of computer games than any other category of computing. So exploring the interaction between player and game provides product designers and usability professionals a fresh perspective on affective computing.

It's not the game, it's not the graphics, it's not the story, and it's not the AI. People play games for the experiences that games create:

- Hard Fun
- Easy Fun
- Altered States
- The People Factor

Creating more compelling experiences is the key to creating better games. Nicole will offer insight for the usability professional into what people like most about popular games through mastering difficult challenges and social interaction."

Nicole Lazzaro - Tuesday, February 8, 2005: Monthly Program (BayCHI) PARC's George E. Pake Auditorium, Palo Alto, CA.

Claviature 1.2 for Pocket PC released

" Microth, Inc. has released a new version 1.2 of Claviature for Pocket PC. More then 80 national layouts are supported now.

The main new feature of version 1.2 is the support of Ergonomic Layouts for English, Spanish, German, French and Italian languages. The Claviature Ergonomic Layouts provide a key arrangement optimized for on-screen keyboards and pen input in different languages. They are computer designed to minimize input time using Fitt's law describing efficiency of keyboard depending on letter pair frequencies in different languages and distances between them. The company used advanced mathematical methods were used to calculate optimal keyboard layouts.

For example, in the English Ergonomic Layout practically all letters are placed at just 6 buttons, frequent digraphs like th, re, er, nd, ng, es and 2-letters word like he, in, an, of, or are placed at adjacent positions at the Claviature. Moreover, letters of three most frequent 3-letter words the, and, for are also located together. Claviature provides simple input of spaces by horizontal left strokes at any position - this also increases entry speed. The developers estimate that English Claviature Ergonomic layout is about 50% faster then QWERTY layout for both US and UK English."

Design and Develop for Usability Over Speed !

"Sometimes in web site design we lose site of our users, even when we think we're staring them right in the dial-up connection. What I'm referring to is the concern over document weight over usability. Excessively fat markup that is not borne with semantic markup in mind is wrong, but there are times when your pages will not slide in under the ten second rule (or is it 8 seconds now?). This is article is not designed to help you speed up your site, but instead is to re-affirm your choices for semantic markup."

It is important to set reasonable goals for your development and design projects regarding size, speed and content. If you’ve not set reasonable goals you could find yourself beating your head against the wall attempting the miraculous due to bad goals. If you’ve got a lot of content to fit onto a page with a great many graphics (as various sites are in need of if multiple products or logos) you can expect that speed will be slower. If speed will be slower optimize your page so that text is shown quickly and that images show up secondarily allowing users to find content regardless of server, image or bandwidth issues.

Take a deep breath and realize a few things that are to your advantage ...

Usability Severity Rating - Improved

"When testing a product, it is important to rate the severity of the issues found. This will help focus your efforts, and keep an overall summary of the current status of your product. This is nothing new, severity ratings has been around for a long time and has proven useful too.

But, testers and developers are not rating usability problem as they should. Current scales encourage people to see usability issues as secondary. Usability is also rated differently than other types of bugs, causing developers to threat them differently too.

We need a fix, so I am introducing a new, improved 'Usability Severity Rating Scale'. It is modified version of the scales used by e.g. Bugzilla since there is no difference between a program bug and a usability bug. Many companies fail to understand this, but for a person using your product, it is the same. "

Understanding Interpersonal Awareness in the Home

As the development of home technologies continues to
increase so does the need to understand and design
technologies to support and enhance the everyday lives of
home inhabitants. The focus of this paper is on one facet of
home life that technology can be designed to support,
namely interpersonal awareness. Specifically, we outline
the beginnings of a conceptual framework for interpersonal
awareness where we describe the types of people for whom
this awareness is desired, the low-level details of
maintaining this awareness, and the maintenance problems
faced by home inhabitants in gathering this awareness. Our
goal is to provide designers and practitioners with a unified
and detailed understanding of interpersonal awareness that
can guide the design of groupware applications to enhance
the domestic routines of home inhabitants.

An interesting paper in PDF format ...

INTERVIEW:Design as a Core Strategy

"Many have discussed the intersection of design and business, describing this junction as an overlap where the two philosophies come together and collaborate. John Zapolski has been thinking about the intersection of design and business very differently. He asks, what happens if the realms of design and business completely overlap and design is the core strategy of the business? John works with organizations to design human-centered products, systems, strategies, and decision-making structures. He is a renowned expert in digital media design, and is highly regarded for his ability to use design as a tool for illuminating and clarifying strategic choices"

An interview with John Zapolski, national AIGA board member and expert in the design of human-centered products, systems, strategies, and decision-making structures.

HP, Nokia mobilize digital pen technology

"Hewlett-Packard Co.'s 'digital pen' technology is going mobile -- with a little help from Nokia Corp.

The digital pen is a real ink pen that takes 100 pictures per second to digitally record what the user is writing. A new model from Nokia can send that information via Bluetooth to a Nokia phone and from there to a server over a standard mobile data network, the companies said today.

HP and Nokia teamed up to add more mobility to a system that was designed to quickly and efficiently transfer information from paper forms to databases, according to Eric Chaniot, vice president and general manager of HP's digital pen and paper business. HP's current digital pen uses a cradle wired to a PC via USB. Users have to put the pen in the cradle in order to upload data."

Moving mobile improves golf swing

"A mobile phone that recognises and responds to movements has been launched in Japan.

The motion-sensitive phone - officially titled the V603SH - was developed by Sharp and launched by Vodafone's Japanese division. Devised mainly for mobile gaming, users can also access other phone functions using a pre-set pattern of arm movements. The phone will allow golf fans to improve their swing via a golfing game. "

Hangin' on the Telephone

"Those nagging suspicions you've always had about your colleagues on the remote end of a conference call? They're true.

Nine out of 10 employees admit to multitasking during an audio conference call, according to a study released in December by Russell Research. The survey was conducted among 385 respondents who said they participate in a conference call at least once every two to three months."

Many of the extra tasks cited in the survey are business-related: 70 percent of the respondents said they work on other projects; 51 percent read e-mail ...

Up next... phones with an exciting new touch

"EXPECT a Nokia cellphone in the near future to feel different. The cover will be made of velvet, metal, rubber or other more exotic materials, said Nokia director Peter Ollikainen.

He was giving an idea of what phone designers are working on now 'to give people a more interesting sensory experience'. He was speaking at a press conference here by visiting senior Nokia executives on Tuesday.

A start had already been made when Nokia launched its velvet and stainless-steel Fashion Collection range last September."

Andrew's Usability in the Real World: Predictive Usability

"Historically, usability research was focused on identifying obstacles to success, not on assessing how intensely people will desire a new product or service. The field of usability evolved studying how military personnel interacted with weapons systems and how employees used the software their bosses required of them. The goal was to increase efficiency and decrease errors, not necessarily to attract new customers.

A bog-standard textbook lab-based usability test on kiosks would have been able to identify classic usability issues, perhaps that the navigation was a bit awkward or that the buttons didn�t offer enough affordance; but without clever research design, they could not have predicted that hundreds of people would pass them by, not even noticing they existed.

In the real world, what is the more important finding? Isn't it more important to note that a product will be a hulking expensive waste of space than to propose in detail what the size of buttons on the screen should be?"

Usability in E-Learning

While a large number of organizations have adopted e-learning programs, far fewer have addressed the usability of their learning applications. More attention should be devoted to assuring the usability of e-learning applications if organizations are to fully benefit from their investments.

It’s no surprise that a large percentage of organizations have actively developed and implemented online learning programs. The reasons are clear: e-learning programs can be highly versatile and they have the capability to provide on-demand training that transcends geographic and time boundaries. Program offerings are frequently diverse and address the needs of employees, customers, and suppliers. The versatility, convenience, and scope of offerings would seemingly suggest that all is well for these adopters of e-learning applications. However, training practitioners within many organizations are discovering that individuals are, for the most part, not embracing the new medium of instruction to the extent that it was initially hoped. In fact, online learning programs typically exhibit higher dropout rates when compared with traditional instructor-led courses.

Notes on Techonology: Software Simplicity

"I was (re)-reading Tony Hoare's and Nicklaus Wirth's Turing award lectures, and it is remarkable how pertinent their call for software simplicity still is .

Two comments by Hoare stand out -

1) For a tool to be useful, the time it takes to learn the tool must be significantly shorter than the relative time savings the tool provides.

2) The primary cost of any software feature is not the cost of building the feature - the primary cost is in the complexity added to the end-product. It adds another aspect that the end-user must learn about."

Ten ways to improve the usability of your ecommerce site

"More and more money is being spent online as consumers switch to shopping on the web. Yet so many websites don't seem to have considered the usability of their site and of their ordering process, resulting in users prematurely giving up and abandoning their shopping basket. Here are ten ways to improve the usability of your ecommerce site, so that you can maximise your conversion rate and help convert the contents of users' shopping baskets into orders:"

1. Identify a user using their email address
2. Break up the ordering process into bite size chunks
3. Let users know where they are in the ordering process, and how far they have to go
4. Don't make the ordering process harder than it needs to be
5. Address common user queries
6. Specify and highlight required fields
7. Make the ordering process flexible
8. Put users' minds at ease
9. Ask users to confirm their order and provide confirmation of orders placed
10. Send a confirmation email

Army gets new combat uniform

"On the Army's 229th birthday, senior leadership introduced the Army Combat Uniform during a Pentagon cake-cutting ceremony. Soldiers were on display, suited-up in the wrinkle-free uniform with a digitized camouflage pattern."

There were 20 changes made to the uniform, to include removing the color black and adapting the digital print from the Marine Corps uniform to meet the needs of the Army, said Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Myhre, the Clothing and Individual Equipment noncommissioned officer in charge.

"This isn't about a cosmetic redesign of the uniform," said Col. John Norwood, the project manager for Clothing and Individual Equipment. "It's a functionality change of the uniform that will improve the ability of Soldiers to execute their combat mission."
Uniform changes include:

1. Mandarin collar that can be worn up or down
2. Rank insignia centered on the front of the blouse
3. Velcro for wearing unit patch, skill tabs and recognition devices
4. Zippered front closure
5. Elbow pouch for internal elbow pad inserts
6. Knee pouch for internal knee pad inserts
7. Draw string leg cuff
8. Tilted chest pockets with Velcro closure
9. Three-slot pen pocket on bottom of sleeve
10. Velcro sleeve cuff closure
11. Shoulder pockets with Velcro
12. Forward tilted cargo pockets
13. Integrated blouse bellows for increased upper body mobility
14. Integrated Friend or Foe Identification Square on both left and right shoulder pocket flap.
15. Bellowed calf storage pocket on left and right leg
16. Moisture-wicking desert tan t-shirt
17. Patrol Cap with double thick bill and internal pocket
18. Improved hot-weather desert boot or temperate-weather desert boot
19. Two-inch, black nylon web belt
20. Moisture-wicking socks

And another article here.

Correct seating can improve employee health

"Employers can help solve the problem of repetitive strain injury (RSI) by installing ergonomic furniture in offices, says Soren Kraen, general manager of UAE-based Gemaco Interiors."

According to Kraen, RSI costs some countries more than £3billion a year in lost employee time, much of which is preventable. Kraen explained: 'Criteria such as the height of workstations and desks, arm position over the keyboards and lumbar support in chairs can all help employees' day-to-day health.

'Equipment and furniture should all be positioned correctly, as well as using ergonomic furniture to avoid postural strain and muscle tension.'

Credit card size cell phone and camera

"NEC N923 is the next version of NEC thin series. NEC N900 is 8.6mm thin and the latest N923 is 9.5mm with about the same features, longer talk time."

The phone is available in China and pconline.com.cn bring you some photos. Basic specifications: 1.8" 65k colors LCD screen, 128 x 160 pixels, 64 polyphony, 0.3 megapixel camera. The size is 85 x 54 x 9.5mm and weight 70g. Its standby time is 120 hours, and with a talk time of 100mins.

The cultural importance of usability testing

When conducting usability testing in different countries there is definitely differences in the way people think. Differences don’t always come out, but they can certainly be there.

First, you have to consider language. There are some classic examples of where language has caused International product issues, take for example:

- Chevrolet's new Nova was released in Spain, before they realised that 'NO VA' in Spanish means "wont go".

- Ford's Pinto failed to sell as expected in Brazil. 'Pinto' translates there to 'Tiny male genitals'.

Although these are real-world products and not usability tests, we often see the same thing – product categories that are meaningless or confusing when rendered into a second language, buttons that don’t draw attention because they use non-standard or confusing terminology for this culture. It’s absolutely vital that you use local experts who speak the local language as their first language, to ensure these kinds of issues are identified and removed.

Folksonomies Tap People Power

"'The job of tags isn't to organize all the world's information into tidy categories,' said Stewart Butterfield, one of Flickr's co-founders. 'It's to add value to the giant piles of data that are already out there.' "

"It's very much people tagging information so that they can come back to it themselves or so that others with the same vocabulary can find it," said Thomas Vander Wal, the information architect credited with coining the term "folksonomy."

"Tags are great, but the thing that is hard is getting people to use them," said Caterina Fake, who co-founded Flickr with husband Butterfield. "But the thing that has happened recently is they've become part of a social arena in which they are valuable not only to the individual but to the group."

Drivers on cell phones kill thousands

"When young adults use cell phones while driving, they're as bad as a 70-year-old on the verge of a nap and signaling for that eventual left turn. And yes, you can blame the chatty 20-somethings for the stop-and-go traffic on the way to work."

A new study confirms that the reaction time of cellphone users slows dramatically, increasing the risk of accidents and tying up traffic in general.

"If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone," said University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer. "It's like instantly aging a large number of drivers."

The study was announced Tuesday and is detailed in winter issue of the quarterly journal Human Factors.

Cell phone to baby monitor

"Psiloc BabyCare is a noise-detection application that adds the babysitter function to your phone. With this application activated a phone placed in the children room will listen to the noises and when it detects that the child has woken up it will call you at a telephone number you have defined (e.g. your home number). So you can do whatever job there is to be done around the house or enjoy your favourite pastime without constantly thinking and checking out on the child. You can also call the BabyCare-enabled smartphone in the children room to listen to what is going one inside. The phone will recognise your number and silently receive your call. When the child has woken up you can talk to it via the phone."

Power tools for women

"There are now at least two lines of women's hand and power tools designed for this growing market.

Babara K designed a line of hand and power tools specifically for women based on her experience as a construction worker. The major design differences, mentioned on her website, include:

-The tools weigh a little less.
-The grips are sized to better fit a woman's hand.
-Patented spring-loaded handles on pliers.
-Built-in thumb rests on screwdrivers.
-Screwdrivers and hammers have induction-heated tips and faces for extra hardness.

Tomboy Tools, offers a line of specially selected tools that they sell online and through 'tool parties' where consultants called 'Tomboys' conduct in-home demonstrations to teach women techniques for basic home repairs from leaky faucets to plaster repair."

Fitting the tool to the user ...

What Should Drive Site Organization And Design: Consistency Or Flow?

Should a site navigation be driven by principles of consistency and accessibility to all other information available on the site, or should it be directed by flow principles?

We should limit pervasive navigation to five or six basic features and let people go back to the front page, if they want to start from the top. Instead, we should focus on getting users to what they want and provide useful links to related content.

iTECH Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard

"A new era of wireless mobile communications is about to begin with the introduction of the world's first wireless Virtual Keyboard by iTECH. The Bluetooth VKB is an enhanced version of their Virtual Keyboard (VKB), which is a tiny device slightly larger than a pack of gum that projects a full-size keyboard on any flat surface through a unique system using infrared technology. Truly, we are about to enter into an era of unprecedented convenience!"

One very "COOL" device that promises to be the "Accessory of the Year" ...

What's the Problem?: A List Apart

'"One of the biggest problems in delivering a website, and yet probably the least talked and written about, is how to decide, specify, and communicate just what, exactly, is it that we're going to build, and why. What problem are we solving? Who needs it? What's this site for, anyway?

Poor understanding of target user needs or our client's vision, ineffective use of limited resources, misguided emphasis on the wrong design priorities, over-emphasis on pet technologies - all will contribute to a failed, late, inappropriate or too-expensive website. Experience can teach us how to avoid pitfalls, but the greatest lesson can be learned by the least experienced: the earlier that purpose and goals are clearly defined and recorded, the more easily problems are identified and solved, the easier it is to stay focused, and the better the result is for everyone. "

Functionality Is Dead

The name of the game in the 1990s was functionality and technology. The new game is ease of use and accessibility.
A client recently asked me to survey its customer base about what these customers consider of most value. We assumed that it would be some combination of functional and technological superiority. We couldn’t have been more wrong:

- “Ease of use, ease of use, ease of use,” said one interviewee.
- “Simple to use and low cost of implementation,” said another.
- “No training and the package is very accessible,” said a third.

A very interesting report in PDF format ...

PCs of the Future Today

"If you want to look to the future, think Dow Chemical. Yes, Dow, and, no, I didn't suddenly lose my marbles. Dow has developed a process to make PCs, particularly laptops, look unique. The technology is from their Inclosia division. They can use metals, woods or other materials to make a notebook look like a piece of nautical gear, a purse or anything you might desire."

Claude Gagnon: The All-Terrain Engineer

"A weekend of high adrenaline with friends? Not exactly. For Gagnon and the others, the fun was important, but that trip was work as well. The group was out in the woods of southeastern Canada to push some machines to the limit and evaluate their performance, from the ergonomics of their seats to their maneuverability across various terrains.

Tests like this have become routine for Gagnon, a design project manager at Bombardier Recreational Products Inc.- BRP, as it's known - which last year had revenues of more than US $2 billion selling snowmobiles, watercraft, ATVs, and engines for karts, motorcycles, and airplanes. At the company's headquarters in Valcourt, Que., Canada, Gagnon leads a team of engineers and technicians whose job is to make sure BRP has some of the coolest recreational machines in the world. "

Why are academics such a waste of space?

In my regular work in professional education, I have encountered some very interesting research, often about its quality. You can see this from the articles about validity that I have written here.

"However, in human-computer interaction, a lot of the research methods are qualitative. Of course, certain task measurements might be inserted, such as the time to complete a task, the number of errors, the severity of errors, and the time wasted in indecision (which isn't an error per se, but can still be important). But outside of these metrics, how many researchers honestly perform reliability and validity analysis on the tools that they use? In education, it is paramount and a lack of this research would probably result in rejected papers. So what', you say. I have a real job."

“That’s all very well for the dreaming spires and ivory towers of academia, but in the real world we care not for such things: we have work to be getting on with, and only so much time/money/participants to go around!” and you begin to get annoyed with out-of-touch academics.

But stop for a moment: if you are using a tool and you haven’t tested its validity, how can you be certain that your findings are any good? Experience? Gut instinct? Luck?

Lead users take innovation to the extreme

"What do the six-time Tour-de-France winner and an expert who tracks the movement of seals under ice have in common?

They can be considered lead users. Lead users are individuals or organizations that have critical needs that cannot be filled by any solution on the market, and as a result, are forced to innovate solutions for themselves.

By strategically finding lead users, learning about them and involving them in the innovation process, companies can develop concepts for radically new, breakthrough solutions, services, and strategies. It's all part of the lead user process, developed by Eric von Hippel, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and founder of Lead User Concepts, Inc. (LUCI), a firm that helps companies leverage the process.

Breakthrough ideas are especially important in today's marketplace, as companies face constant pressure to create new products, solutions, services, and new ways of doing business. But expectations on short-term results and the lack of a system for achieving breakthroughs forces many companies to produce mostly line extensions and incremental improvements to their existing offerings.

'Lead users are a new source of information,' said Susan Hiestand, a research consultant with LUCI. 'They're on the extreme edge, and they can tell you exactly what they want to solve their critical need.'"