Bad Usability Calendar 2008
The 2008 edition of the Bad Usability Calendar is out and available for download. Go get it.
randy hall archives
“That kitten was so sad!”Pete
“It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal. Teach our members that if they have a good, miserable day once in a while, or several in a row, to stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life.”President Boyd K. Packer (“That All May Be Edified” [1982], 94)
Microsoft builds prototypes in PowerPoint. Check it out here
“Establishing a bond of brotherhood is critical. If those who serve with you feel this mutual love and trust, the work of the Lord will thrive and heaven will aid you in your efforts. Fail to establish this bond, however, and you may find your work tedious, toilsome, and unproductive. Average leaders used the carrot and the stick to motivate those around them. Great leaders communicate a vision that captures the imagination and fires the hearts and minds of those around them. Average leaders inspire people to punch a time clock. Great leaders inspire industry and passion. You can get people to work by using threats or by promising rewards. But if you want to create a band of brothers, you must inspire those who work with you and encourage them to give their all in a great cause.”Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, in Band of Brothers
“We should eliminate the weakness of the one standing alone and substitute it with the strength of working together to make this a better world.”President Thomas S. Monson in the Feb. 4, 2008 press conference.
“I’m doing the ‘Agile diet.’ I have 5 pound iterations, 15 pound milestones, a daily scrum to assess progress and iteration retrospectives to reflect back each week.”Kaleb this this morning reporting recent weight loss.
Arial or Helvetica?
Prove your typographical know-how with the Arial or Helvetica test. I got 8/10. (If you have no clue, the differences between Arial and Helvetica are explained in a link at the bottom of the page. Check it out.)
“A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures”Michael Eisner, CEO Disney
Sorry for the lame camera phone picture, but I had to show you all this vending machine. It’s in the Church Office Building cafeteria. It’s the worst selection in a vending machine snacks I’ve ever seen. It’s totally empty! Lame. I remember it being completely stocked full last week. I guess someone must really love junk food.
History, Digitized (and Abridged)
A very interesting New York Times article on digitizing historical documents. In the article they mention the Church’s ongoing work to digitize genealogical images:
“Genealogy experts affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are fanning out, digital cameras in hand, making copies of genealogically relevant records in 200 cities around the world [...] Over the next five years, the church expects to have hundreds of millions of digital images available.”
Web 2.0 in 5 Minutes
Nice video capturing some of the progression of the web to the Web 2.0 point at which we find ourselves. Presented by Information Aesthetics (infosthetics.com).
“A (infographical?) movie, constrained to just text & pictures, explaining Web 2.0 & how it effects affects global society.”
Take a look here: web2.0 in 5 minutes
(via Steven)
The Q1 2007 issue of GUUUI points out some of the most common pitfalls of prototyping and how to avoid them in The dark side of prototyping
Some of the points mentioned are:
- Make sure that the design reflected by the prototype is realizable within the project constraints
- Keep fidelity at a minimum throughout the design phase
- Involve colleagues in the design process
“It’s so not my fault.”
my mbp 40˚f cooler! – Mac Forums ...mine has actually dropped 26˚ so far, and still dropping. Note: use the apple script you can download from page 4 of the forum post (look for a post by user: “Rokem”) rather than the semi-riskier method detailed in the first half of the topic. Oh, and for you who are leery of trying this, rest assured you can easily just reset to default values. That being said, if your MacBook Pro goes up in flames or develops ice crystals it’s your own fault :-)
“To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify.”Elder M. Russell Ballard – 176th Semiannual General Conference, Oct. 2006
2007 SXSW Interactive Panel Proposal Picker is now live. Go make your selections.
Four Principles of Interaction Design
More good info from Jeff Veen. Four Principles of Interaction Design:
- Discoverability – Make finding stuff easy.
- Recoverability – Actions should be without cost.
- Context – Sense of time, space and meaning.
- Feedback – How the system responds.
I like his take on these aspects of interaction design.
Design techniques
I liked this tidbit from Jeff Veen when i heard it at the Future of Web Apps conference today:
“use design techniques to help people engage with data”
More context to follow, but the gist of it lies in the ability of design to add meaning and understandibility to raw data.