Now students can bore a hole through the entire planet

An interesting application of Google Maps - just for fun ...

"A National Geographic study concluded that 11% of Americans 18-24 can't find the US on an unmarked map. 70% can't find New Jersey. However, with the advent of new technology, there may be a way to make geography more interesting: have students bore a hole through the entire planet to see where they end up.

"Are you concerned about where you go to arrive if you dig a very deep straight infinitous hole on Earth?" asks Brazilian grad student Luis Felipe Cipriani. Yes? Well, luckily he has taken the time to manipulate Google Maps in order to answer this age-old question:

http://grad.icmc.usp.br/~cipriani/bighole.php?lang=en "   continued ...   (Via Captology Notebook)

A great learning experience.

Long Tail 101

A good definition of the Long Tail ...

"The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare."   continued ...   (Via The Long Tail)

Simple definition.

Hm, I Wonder What This Does: Motivation and Predictability

The user is always right ...

"Ever get in the situation where you had to take out a design sledgehammer to make something blatantly obvious to visitors? And for just a moment there in the usability studies, just for a nanosecond, you’re thinking, “maybe the user is stupid,” before your professionalism and experience tells you that despite the skywriter pointing out the search box, maybe it was still poorly designed.

It’s easy to fall into a trap of designing around a use case or flow that the team feels is “optimal”. “Well, the user should go here, and then search for ‘palaeontology’ and change the dropdown from ‘all’ to ‘books’. We’ll make sure they notice the search box and highlight ‘books’ in the dropdown to show they should change to that.” Or not.

Instead of designing around a specific flow, we can try to design around motivation and predictability. Why is the user searching for a book? What is the context of this search? Was it perhaps in reference from some other related content from which we can provide a more direct link? And does the user know what will happen when they take certain actions? Often, it’s not finding the feature that’s the problem (the blinking text and skywriter took care of that) but just because somebody notices a feature doesn’t mean they will act on it. The feature has to use vocabulary familiar to the user and contain obvious cues on what would happen if acted upon."   continued ...   (Via OK/Cancel)

Forcing the design with a sledgehammer.

Just Click It

Accessibility perhaps?

(Via OK/Cancel)

The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems

A sholarly paper analyzing collaborative tags on del.lico.us (PDF) ...

"Collaborative tagging describes the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content. Recently, collaborative tagging has grown in popularity on the web, on sites that allow users to tag bookmarks, photographs and other content. In this paper we analyze the structure of collaborative tagging systems as well as their dynamical aspects. Specifically, we discovered regularities in user activity, tag frequencies, kinds of tags used, bursts of popularity in bookmarking and a remarkable stability in the relative proportions of tags within a given url. We also present a dynamical model of collaborative tagging that predicts these stable patterns and relates them to imitation and shared knowledge."   continued ...   (Via HP Labs)

Tagging Intersection.

A Glimpse of the Future: Joe Reger's XML Schema Coolness

A very nice demo for what can be achieved with schemas ...

"Joe Reger, who calls what he does “data blogging”, has released a screencast of him uploading an XML schema file to his blogging software, which takes the schema file and creates a new log type out of it. What is a log type? A log type is akin to a content genre. Other examples include restaurant reviews, book details, different types of blog posts, almost any information that goes together. Basically, the same sorts of information you might create a database table for.

In the example, Joe creates his log type in an XML schema file, which defines fields such as ship-to address, name, and product in semantic markup. After he uploads it into his blogging software, he now has another option of what type of post to create. If he selects the shipping log type, he is presented with input boxes that correspond with his schema file. He can fill in the data, and everything is stored in a database. Also, the output format is written using structured blogging, which I mentioned in the semantic markup article.

It is easy to think of how this could be used for countless other purposes. Imagine many schema files that add log types for any usage you need. If you need or want to blog about music albums, for instance, you simply upload the music schema into your blogging tool and you can now create as many posts about albums that are already structured for you."   continued ...   (Via Bokardo)

Schemas made easy.

IDII: a life changing experience

Sounds like a good User Interface Design program ...

"Almost two years ago, twenty students from all over the world came to Ivrea, a city that once was the epicenter of Olivetti and of the Italian Hi-tech. They came to study interaction design, in IDII's interaction design Master's course. It was the beginning of a two years journey, of a life changing experience that taught them how to change lives with their design.

First lesson learned was to leave any assumptions at the door when coming to design for other people. You need to observe, ask and try to understand the culture of the other. Too many times, what might look obvious to you is not so to someone from a different background.

The teaching methods took after the Arts and craft movement, “learning by doing” was a principal concept in IDII. The first year was devoted to teach skills and create a foundation for the thesis work in the second year. In the first year students were introduced to electronics and programming, learned how to control and sense real and virtual environments and create engaging interactions."   continued ...   (Via uiGarden)

The Eco-Pods Project.

The Top 10 Myths & Truths about Design in China

Don't be too worried about loosing your UI job to China ...

"Are you worried as a designer in the U.S. that design jobs will migrate to China? Are you concerned about the increasingly competitive pricing on design jobs and its resultant outsourcing? Are you curious about the quality of design work over there?

Being concerned is one thing, but being fear struck and cynical without learning about the facts is far worse. A bi-polar mindset will always lead you to presume a win-lose situation, where the other side is always the wrongdoer, but the truth is when you can see both sides of the coin, things can become much clearer.

In the Top 10 Myths and Truths below, we will decipher the mystic topic about design in China and debunk what you think you already know:"   continued ...   (Via uiGarden)

Chinese design work.

Should you finalize site structure based on card-sorting?

Don't base a website design on card sorting only ...

"The latest article from StepTwo raises an interesting question - should you finalize site structure based on sorting, or other types of classification exercises?

Broadly I agree - site structure cannot be final final till you consider page layout and other aspects of the design. Card-sorting results are merely suggestions. You need to add in other design and business considerations.

But the problems with creating structures based on card-sorting, mentioned in the article, are not really problems with card-sorting. The problems are more with half-baked understanding or usage of the technique. For example, the article mentions that browser pages cannot accommodate too many top-level headings, long titles etc., and how this impacts structural decisions. But these and other issues can easily be handled with good card-sorting practices and more better analysis."   continued ...   (Via Rashmi Sinha)

Cardsorting to determine structure.

90% of S&P Global 100 Companies Fail Annual Report Usability Standards

Even the big guys can't get it right ...

"Less than 10% of the world's 100 largest public companies are meeting basic usability requirements for their online annual reports to shareholders — and standards have worsened over the past three years.

These are the main findings of an in-depth comparison of the online annual reports of the S&P Global 100 Index companies, the world's highest profile listed companies. The study was conducted jointly by IR Web Report, an independent investor relations website evaluation firm, and GeBer Geschäftsberichte, a web production firm.

ONLY EIGHT COMPANIES MEET BASIC REQUIREMENTS
Out of the 100 large-cap companies in the study, only eight met all of the basic usability requirements for online annual reports. These requirements, recommended by the likes of the UK Investor Relations Society and the London Stock Exchange, meet the needs of investors who want to either view information online or download all or parts of the report for offline use or printing."   continued ...   (Via eMedia Wire)

Meeting advanced HTML standards.

Knowing when something is Usable, not how to make it so

Trying to get a handle on what constitutes User Interface Design ...

"The ISO 9241 (part 11) and ISO 13407:1999 standards give us a definition and measurement framework for determining whether something is usable, but does not tell us how to make something usable. The usability and user interface design profession suffers from a lack of a consistent operationalisation of usability. Guidelines are often ambiguous, being descriptive, not prescriptive. All of this means too much variability between designers, too much iteration to get it right the first time and no robust teaching framework.

So what really makes something usable?
Over the last 6 months we’ve been interviewing a couple of people per week, coming from diverse backgrounds such as psychology, graphic design, communications, IT, user centred design, organisational consulting, and ranging from no experience to 10 years. Sometimes they’ve brought along things to show us — generally what they expect to happen in an interview.

We’ve taken a different angle to our interviewing and evaluating whether a candidate is a good user interface designer, causing much surprise and, (un)fortunately, discomfort for candidates."   continued ...   (Via Usability News)

ISO 1941 Organization.

ThinkFree Office Online

Web-based applications are in our future. Here is a new suite of office applications with a good interface and free signup ...

"ThinkFree, an easy-to-use, affordable software suite features a Microsoft-like user interface, critical feature support, and seamless interoperation with existing Microsoft Office files - all for a price that is a fraction of a stand-alone copy of Microsoft Office. ThinkFree's unique Java architecture allows for rapid deployment on and interoperability between Linux, Windows, or Macintosh operating systems, as well as flexibility that makes it an ideal home, education or small-business "Office" complement or alternative."   continued ...   (Via FreeThink)

FreeThink interface.

Web.UI 3.0

An extensive suite of User Interface Design controls with live examples ...

"The Essential Suite of Advanced User Interface Controls for ASP.NET"   continued ...   (Via ComponentArt)

Web UI 3.0.

Mobile made headscratching

An example of unnecessary complexity and comments from the designer ...

"Winksite's tag line is "mobile made simple," but when I got to it's homepage, all I see is complexity.

This reminds me of Professor Maeda's post, comparing the evolution of the Yahoo and Google home pages.

True simplicity is remarkably difficult to achieve. And you don't get there through taglines."   continued ...   (Via peterme)

Complexity, complexity, complexity.

Mixed Reality Check

Slides for an interesting presentation on role of mobile-mediated experiences in a converging world ...

"As we look around us inanimate things are slowly coming to life, veneered with layers of digital information.
From payments made by touching things to street signs that broadcast messages our belongings are moving from supporting our behaviors to developing their own.

In the brave new world mobile connected devices will be at the center of the convergence of wide-band wireless connectivity, RFID and (A)GPS-enabled applications.
They will stop being purely at the receiving end of data streams and become conduits, mustering bits from objects and infusing them into other objects.

How will all of this impact the design of mobile-mediated experiences? Are we moving towards a world of seamless socio-economical transactions or rather towards a permission-based reality, plagued by constant confirm/cancel requests? What new scenarios will be driven by these innovations?"   continued ...   (Via freegorifero)

Multivergence through mobile devices.

Mystery Meat Navigation

This "Daily Sucker" takes navigation to a new level. You have to move the cursor first, to see the navigation options - one at a time ...

"I don't know how to describe this site...except "Oh My God!" This is a new variation on "Mystery Meat Navigation." This site has been suggested multiple times.

I realize this is a band site and, as such, is normally excluded from any discussion of bad web design, but you just know web designers and saying to themselves, "This would look great on that web site we're doing for that sheet metal company."   continued ...   (Via Web Pages That Suck)

"Soulwax" navigation to behold.

Nokia: Gap in assumption and use of tech

Useability is in the eye of the beholder ...

"Nokia said Wednesday that there is still a disparity between perceived use and actual use of mobile technology.

In its study entitled "State of Workforce Mobility," which surveyed 6,000 corporate executives in the United States, Germany and China from January to April of this year, Nokia found that those at larger companies "have not come to fully recognize the extent to which their employees utilize mobile technology."

At the same time, employees at large corporations are making far greater use of mobile phones and laptops than their bosses realize, Nokia said."   continued ...   (Via PhysOrg)

Nokia Mobile.

Mobile users clueless on data

Usability issues reduce adopton of data services for mobile devices ...

"Despite increasing numbers of data-enabled mobile phones it seems that users are lost when it comes to data services.

The survey found that perceived high prices, poor usability and unreliability of service were the main reasons for customers shunning data services.

Usability and reliability of downloads is also a major factor. In many cases downloading was overly difficult for non-technical users, and is adversely affecting the whole data market.

"If people get stymied once or twice they do not do it anymore," said Michel Quazza, chief executive at SurfKitchen."   continued ...   (Via vnunet)

User survey for mobile data services.

What is Web 2.0

An introduction to Web 2.0 with many helpful links. A new blog by Richard MacManus on ZDNet ...

"You've probably heard the phrase "Web 2.0". You may've even read some of the various definitions of it. And Web 2.0 does appear to mean different things to different people, so you would be forgiven for still feeling confused about the term. Here are some of the definitions of Web 2.0 floating about:

Web 2.0 = the web as platform

Web 2.0 = the underlying philosophy of relinquishing control

Web 2.0 = glocalization ("making global information available to local social contexts and giving people the flexibility to find, organize, share and create information in a locally meaningful fashion that is globally accessible")"   continued ...   (Via ZDNet)

A new blog about Web 2.0.

An introduction to user journeys

Designing websites to answer customer needs ...

"Designing a website’s structure around customer needs creates trust—trust in the web as a valuable space to interact with a brand, product, or service. Such a website provides your customers with a valuable first point of contact.

User journeys are a method for conceptualising and structuring a website’s content and functionality. These journeys allow us to shift away from thinking about structure in terms of hierarchies or a technical build.

Pioneering web designer and artist Auriea Harvey (zentropy8) describes web design as “thought patterns, processes, paths.” User journeys tap directly into this model, reflecting the thoughts, considerations, and experiences that people go through in their daily lives, beyond the web.

Creating a user journey places a strong emphasis on personas and also merges the creation of scenarios and user flows. However, unlike user flows, hierarchies, or functional specs (which explain the interaction between a user and a system’s logic and processes), user journeys explore a user’s mental and lived “patterns, processes, and paths” and translate these into web-based experiences."   continued ...   (Via Boxes and Arrows)

Content and functionality to answer needs.

Conversational writing kicks formal writing's ass

A good argument for informal content writing ...

"If you want people to learn and remember what you write, say it conversationally. This isn't just for short informal blog entries and articles, either. We're talking books. Assuming they're meant for learning, and not reference, books written in a conversational style are more likely to be retained and recalled than a book on the same topics written in a more formal tone. Most of us know this intuitively, but there are some studies to prove it.

Your sixth grade English teacher warned you against writing the way you talk, but she was wrong. Partly wrong, anyway. Then again, we aren't talking about writing the way you talked when you were 12. Or even the way you talk when you're rambling. What most people mean when they say "write the way you talk" is something like, "the way you talk when you're explaining something to a friend, filtering out the 'um', 'you know', and 'er' parts, and editing for the way you wish you'd said it."

So why aren't more technical books or articles written this way? One computer book author (who hates my books) sent me an email saying, "With your books, you want people to have fun" (he said it like that was a bad thing, but that's a different issue). "But with my books, I have a reputation as a consultant to think about, and I want people to have the impression of, 'listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once.'" Whatever. I've talked about the danger of writing a book from the perspective of what it will do for you vs. what it means for the user in How to write a non-fiction bestseller."   continued ...   (Via Creating Passionate Users)

Learning more from informal writing.

Comfort on the Desktop Goes Hand in Hand

A good technical discussion on the ergonomics of the new Microsoft 4000 keyboard ...

"A Microsoft ergonomics expert discusses how the new Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 breaks the mold and sets a new industry standard.

Microsoft Hardware introduced Microsoft’s first true breakthrough in ergonomic keyboard design since the Natural keyboard came to market over 10 years ago. For Natural keyboard loyalists, this announcement is particularly significant. As this group of fans will readily attest, once you lay your hands on an ergonomically designed split keyboard, you’ll never return to the more common flat keyboard design. Recognizing the need for a variety of comfortable PC-peripheral designs, Microsoft’s Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 leads a new line of comfortable products including the Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 and Comfort Optical Mouse 3000. With as much time as people spend on their computers these days, being comfortable is key."   continued ...   (Via Microsoft)

Microsoft 4000 Ergonomic Keyboard.

Fitts' Corners

A good discussion about HCI based on an article shown below ...

"Procrastination led me to this article: Top 8 Reasons HCI is in its Stone-age. Among other things he asks: Why do modern Desktop Environments not exploit Fitts' Law?

One of the implications of Fitts' law is that there are five spots on a mouse-operated display that are easiest to target, the four screen-corners and the spot directly under the cursor. This is a fairly sensible conclusion, so why don't any major Desktop Environments exploit the screen corners?

I have a good reason: it's because they are the easiest spots to hit with the mouse.

Setup your OSX box to trigger Expose when you move the mouse to a corner. Now count how many times during the day you nudge the mouse into the corner and trigger Expose by accident. It's very useful to be able to easily trigger Expose, but it's very annoying to be able to easily trigger Expose. The annoyance is such that I would definitely argue against inflicting such behavior on people by default. Apple apparently agree with me, by default you can only activate Expose with the F12 key."   continued ...   (Via amaroK)

HCI in the stone age.

Top 8 Reasons HCI is in its Stone Age

This is an anonymous article but does give some food for thought ...

"1. Screen Corners
2. OS GUI's are Designed for Beginners.
3. Visual Attention - Sine Qua Non
4. Multiple representation of the file system.
5. Our love of choice
6. Our Disrespect for Spatialness.
7. Terminology
8. Accessibility"   continued ...   (Via Anonymous Usability Designer)

HCI designer?

New search engine 'revolutionary'

This innovation could make the way we search more usable ...

"Orion finds pages where the content is about a topic strongly related to the key word. It then returns a section of the page, and lists other topics related to the key word so the user can pick the most relevant.

"By displaying results to other associated key words directly related to your search topic, you gain additional pertinent information that you might not have originally conceived, thus offering an expert search without having an expert's knowledge.

"Take a search such as the American Revolution as an example of how the system works. OrionTM would bring up results with extracts containing this phrase. But it would also give results for American History, George Washington, American Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Boston Tea Party and more. You obtain much more valuable information from every search.""   continued ...   (Via PhysOrg)

Orion could be in our future.

Ease of Use Key to Uptake of Mobile Data Services

Making mobile devices more usable ...

"A handset software vendor, Action Engine has released the findings from a Mobile Usability Study, its first annual worldwide study on the usability of mobile data services and application delivery. The study included participants who were located in various countries throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The survey questions were developed from the usability criteria defined in "The 7 Rules of Mobile Data User Experience," a paper written by wireless industry expert, Elliott Drucker. Since 1998, Drucker has been featured regularly in the publication Wireless Week and is considered to be a leading authority on wireless usability and network design.

Usability is the #1 Purchasing Influencer: When asked which factor most influenced their purchasing decision, 59% of respondents cited "Ease of use/Positive user reviews" as their most important buying criteria, exceeding "Value for Price." For respondents based in Europe, this percentage rose to 95%, demonstrating the strong impact that usability has on product sales."   continued ...   (Via Cellular News)

Design it so a monkey can use it.

Writing Semantic Markup

A good follow-up to a Web 2.0 article by Joshua Porter and Richard MacManus ...

"The biggest and most welcome change on the Web in the last five years has been the astronomical growth of Web feeds: XML files containing a snapshot of a Web site’s newest content that saves readers a tremendous amount of time. In 2000, there was only a handful of feeds. In 2005, there are millions.

In Web 2.0, the Web as platform, Web feeds are a simple way to share and receive content. If we think of a Web URL as a really simple interface for requesting information—a simple application programming interface (API)—then a Web feed is the simplest responses we can receive. We type in a feed URL and receive the content that is there—usually the last 10 items added to a Web site.

The hard work that RSS does allows us to keep up with many more Web sites in much less time. But it also allows us to share information that we weren’t sharing before, allowing others to remix our content in new, useful ways.
RSS, or really simple syndication, is one type of Web feed format. Its adoption by blog software vendors and major media outlets has created an amazing efficiency in the way that we use the Web. Instead of having to browse to our favorite sites over and over again to see if something is new, we can simply subscribe to an RSS feed with any feed aggregator. There are Web and desktop aggregators that periodically poll the sites you’re subscribed to and notify you if something is new."   continued ...   (Via Digital Web Magazine)

Moving toward a semantic Web.

Book: Bulletproof Web Design

An interview with Dan Cederholm, the author of a new book: Bullet Proof Web Design ...

"We understand that this book is about being “bulletproof,” and has something to do with design—other than that, we’re pretty much clueless. Care to tell us what it’s all about?

DC: Gladly. The book’s subtitle is a tad more descriptive: “Improving flexibility and preparing for worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS.” What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that the focus is on utilizing Web standards to make designs as flexible as possible. Flexibility from a content perspective (size and amount), as well as flexibility in terms of environment (e.g., without CSS or sans images), and development (lean, easy-to-read markup). So, with the term “bulletproof,” I’m referring to the protection we can apply to our compelling designs.

The goal is simply to get people thinking more about “What happens if…?” What happens if a low-vision user bumps the text size up a notch or two? What happens when there are three sentences in this box, rather than the two that were originally planned? Or what happens when images or CSS aren’t present? Can this specific design requirement handle each situation? It’s important to ask these types of questions, and makes for pages with more integrity—adaptable to a wider variety of situations."   continued ...   (Via Digital Web Magazine)

Bulletproof Web Design : Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS



Check-out more books at Usernomics.

The Slow Tail: Time Lag Between Visiting and Buying

Getting a handle on converting a search inquiry to a buying customer ...

"Users often convert to buyers long after their initial visit to a website. A full 5% of orders occur more than four weeks after users click on search engine ads.

Dr. Alan Rimm-Kaufman from the Rimm-Kaufman Group recently tracked one million clicks on search ads on Google and Yahoo. These advertising clicks eventually translated into 41,377 conversions on the target websites. Although the clients in question must remain anonymous, they presumably have good sites since their conversion rate (4%) is twice that of average websites (2%).

B2C sites comprised 85% of the sample, leaving 15% for B2B. Conversions were mainly defined as actual sales, though a few sites used other definitions, such as catalog requests or other forward movement in more complex sales cycles.

The following chart shows the days required to reach a certain percentage of the ultimate conversions."   continued ...   (Via Alertbox)

Slow Tail Sales Cycle.

Conducting intranet needs analysis

Making an Intranet Useful as well as Usable ...

"The fundamental question to ask for all intranets is: what is the intranet actually for? While this is an easy question to ask, answering it meaningfully involves gaining an in-depth understanding of staff and organisational needs.

At the end of the day, staff will use an intranet if it is useful. To ensure this, there are a range of practical 'needs analysis' techniques that can be used to identify staff (and organisational) requirements.

Much effort is being put into ensuring that intranets are usable, that information is quick and easy to find. As discussed in the earlier article The difference between usable and useful, this is not enough. More than just being easy to use, the intranet must provide the information and tools that staff need."   continued ...   (Via KM Column)

A needs analysis will result in suggestions for a usable site.

Don't finalise site structure until you've created page layouts

A word to the wise when designing websites ...

"There is a worrying trend emerging in the field of information architecture: organisations are attempting to finalise site structures without evaluating their effectiveness in the context of a web page.

Card sorting and card-based classification provide excellent insights into the inherent structure behind content. Both are excellent tools for defining strict taxonomies, but they do not necessarily generate the most approachable structure for a site. Content centred design is not necessarily user centred design.

The site structure should be considered in context."   continued ...   (Via CM Briefing)

Evaluate within web page context.

Reference vs. Learning: pick ONE

When writing content, you must decide if it is reference or instructional information ...

"The difference between facts and information is straightforward: information organizes facts into a meaningful pattern. Without information, data and facts can be arbitrary and useless. There's a crucial place for reference information, and information architecture is art + science. (Two info architect bloggers are Louis Rosenfield and Jesse James Garrett, both who've written books.) Turning facts and data into meaningful information is--for a lot of books, websites, and manuals--often the destination. The thing the users want.

The big problems happen when the user wants and needs knowledge and understanding but gets only information. If information is a meaningful, useful organization of fact and data, understanding is about knowing how--and more importantly why--to apply that information to do something creative.

Our advice to our authors is: "You MUST choose one, and you must commit body and soul and keyboard to doing that one single thing--either reference (data and information) or learning (knowledge and understanding), while letting go of the other. Accept that you can't meet both goals, and that most of your readers don't have both goals, and figure out the best way to satisfy that one goal.""   continued ...   (Via Creating Passionate Users)

Get the facts straight.

Squirrel helps with mobile calls

Emotional Intelligence coming to a cell phone near you ...

"Whether we are having a private conversation, snowed under with work, or just not in the mood to speak to anyone, the phone keeps ringing.

MIT research student Stefan Marti may have the answer: ditch your mobile phone, and get a squirrel.

Specifically, an animatronic desktop squirrel which deals with your calls for you. The squirrel answers phone calls, works out if you are busy or asleep, evaluates how important the incoming call is and takes messages.

When it wants to alert its owner to a call, it waves and moves about rather than making a sound. And, it is ridiculously cute.

"If you have a less intelligent metaphor that you base your interface on, humans are less likely to be disappointed with the limits of the interaction," he told the BBC News website.

The key principle behind the Autonomous Interactive Intermediary (AII), or "cellular squirrel", is that machines should display what psychologists call social or emotional intelligence."   continued ...   (Via BBC NEWS)

Let a squirl answer your phone.

Observer XT - Observational Software

A new tool with Usability Testing implications ...

"The Observer XT represents a new direction in observation software. The scope of studies moves from coding observational behavior only to multimodal data acquisition and integrated analysis.

Whether you wish to observe a scene from different angles, combine video images with full size screen capture, or place cameras in different rooms, The Observer XT allows you to play two synchronized videos at multiple speeds, frame by frame, backward and forward. Playing more video streams is possible with an extension."

Observer XT screen.

UPA 2006 Conference - Usability Professionals' Association

As usability professionals, we weave stories that have been harvested from user communities. While using products we help to develop, they tell us stories of frustrations and joyous discoveries. Observing and analyzing users and their tasks creates stories that will bring the user community alive in the minds of others. Even older stories, told in the ancient tradition of Native American tribes, can teach us how to communicate with and educate our peers.

Join us June 12-16, 2006, to tell your story at the Omni Interlocken in Broomfield, Colorado, located just outside Boulder and Denver.

UPA 2006.

Why technology misses the masses

More evidence for needing simple products with simple interface designs ...

"How many times have you stared blankly at a horrifically expensive new gadget which promised the earth, only to find out you cannot actually work out how to use it?

If this sounds familiar, you are not the only one, according to a recent report into the use of technology in France, Germany and the UK.

Technology has a peculiar way of being utterly inscrutable - jam-packed with features we will not use and overcomplicating the features we will.

While this might be something the early adopters can live with, it is no surprise that this culture has got technophobes running even more scared."   continued ...   (Via BBC NEWS)

Examples of complexity.

Future smart cars could help to cut road accidents

Adding new modalities to UI can enhance usability ...

"Dr Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at England's University of Oxford, said on Monday scientists were studying utilizing the senses such as smell and touch to develop features in cars to make driving safer.

"Touch is completely unused at the moment," Spence told a science conference.

Drowsiness and distraction are leading causes of road traffic accidents and deaths, but Spence said vibrating seats, belts or foot pedals could alert drivers in a subtle way to a dangerous situation."   continued ...   (Via Reuters)

Citroen is getting a head start on the concept.

The human factor in engineering voice applications

A good description of the role of Human Factors in relation to other related fields such as Human-Computer Interaction ...

"If your work includes speech technology, you know that speech user interfaces and human factors professionals seem to get a lot of attention. But how do they work together, and just as importantly, why? Learn more about the human factors profession; you'll soon understand how much a project benefits from inviting these specialists into your finely tuned speech project.

You may never have heard of this field, even though there are a lot of names for it: psychologist, designer, usability expert, or user engineer, for example. Adding to the confusion, there are also many acronyms and terms for the methods they use, such as UCD (user-centered design) or UE (user engineering).

It might surprise you to find out that human factors combines engineering and psychology. Human factors professionals might also hold a master's degree from an engineering or psychology program that specializes in human factors or human-computer interaction. In the speech technology field, background in social psychology (for example, social interaction and social cognition) and communication (for example, speech/language, interpersonal communication, conversation) is especially helpful for creating natural-sounding speech interactions."   continued ...   (Via IBM)

Human Factors Methods for Design: Making Systems Human-Centered


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PCWorld.com - Sharp Shows Dual-View LCD

An interesting application for a display concept incorporating dual User Interface Designs ...

"Sharp has begun mass production of a new LCD that can simultaneously display different information depending on which direction the screen is being viewed from, the company said this week during a news conference at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. The Japanese manufacturer also named its first customer: General Motors.

Adam Opel, the German arm of the U.S. car manufacturer, plans to test the dual-view display in its Vectra Caravan model, according to Michael Kurpies, director of marketing at Sharp's German subsidiary.

The plan at Opel is to use the left side of the screen as a navigation system for the driver and the right side as an in-car entertainment center to show DVD movies."   continued ...   (Via PC World)

Two displays in one.

Where Visual literacy and Interface Design meet

An excellent article putting User Interface Design in historical perspective and offering minimimum design criteria ...

"From archaeological records, we know that prehistoric cave dwellers were able to communicate with each other through signs and symbols. As mankind evolved, the form, function and meaning of visual communication changed drastically, but unfortunately, the understanding of the nature and importance of visual communication has not improved significantly over time. We generally accept that humans are dependent on vision for most of their information. Scientists tell us that visual communication is natural human behaviour which all normally sighted persons engage in every day and take for granted, yet it is the product of a complex human intelligence that is very poorly understood.

The functionality of a computer application and its representation in the user interface is simply a message that the designer is trying to communicate to users. To ensure effective communication, the designer needs to use more than just his or her natural, inborn or intuitive, verbal and visual talents. It requires knowledge of the elements of visual communication of a particular medium, as well as the structuring and functioning of these elements in effective communication.

In this short overview of visual communication, I have tried to indicate that there is more to the design of user interfaces than "meets the eye"! The computer as communication medium is ideally suited to exploiting the principles of visualisation - visually attractive and culturally appropriate interfaces can serve as an intrinsic motivator in task performance. There are such obvious parallels between effective visual communication and usability that it is surprising that not more attention is paid to visual literacy in UCD."   continued ...   (Via Usability News )

Early attemps at interaction design.