Monthly Archives: January 2007

Funny story about the origin of the Office ribbon menu

According to Diggnation, Microsoft ran a number of focus groups for Office 2007 and asked people what new features they wanted Office to do. They gave a list of needs and nice-to-haves. Funnily enough, all of the requested functionality was … Continue reading

Why didn’t they call the iPhone OS *Mobile* OS X?

If you check out the official iPhone site you will see that it declares: “All the power and sophistication of the world’s most advanced operating system — OS X — is now available on a small, handheld device that gives … Continue reading

Has Apple cracked the touchscreen usability problem?

Touchscreens. Pockets. Keys. Big Fat Thumbs. These things haven’t managed to go together very well in the past … but have Apple managed to crack it with the iPhone? The great thing about physical buttons is that they stay in … Continue reading

The enchanted office

The enchanted office Microsoft using a comic to sell the benefits of the new Office UI brought home to me what a big event this is. This is going to affect more people than any other piece of interface design … Continue reading

The OLPC has had no user testing!

According to this article on Yahoo! news, the OLPC “Sugar” UI has had absolutely no user testing carried out on it yet. Shameful stuff! I’ve also heard rumours that the UI design has taken place predominantly behind closed doors at … Continue reading

New years resolutions for mobile operators: “Be nice”

Imagine how wonderful it would be if mobile operators wrote these new years resolutions and promised to keep them. (It’s a complete fantasy of course, but there’s no harm in dreaming) Stop making our customers choose their tariffs in advance … Continue reading