(That’s windows with a small ‘w’) Steven Garrity discusses web based applications over at Acts of Volition. The following paragraph caught my eye: “The browser canvas already lives in a window, often in a tab inside that window. Filling it
After quoting Joel Spolsky the other week I ended up rereading most of his site. He does write incredibly well and the articles provide material that would be of value to many outside of the software industry he is addressing.
Here I have put together a slideshow of the social aspects of the OLPC UI. I gathered the stills and information from the OLPC wiki. (The video is a mock-up of how the UI would work, if it were implemented
This is a piece of work I was involved with a while ago as part of an academic research group at Sussex and Nottingham University. It’s a large multi-user wall display designed to be used by small groups of people
This post is a collection of my concerns about the usability of the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child, aka the “Hundred Dollar Laptop”) and how well suited it is to its target user groups. If you haven’t seen it, take
Google Book Search behaves strangely when you use search terms that contain characters with diacritics (OK. I’m showing off. I mean accents) It would be nice to report this but Google shares something in common with that other megacorp in
The makezine blog has a great guide on how to try out the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) system yourself on Windows, but if you cant be bothered, I have put together a video clip of the OLPC UI in
Now Internet Explorer used tabs that means there isn’t a major browser on the market that doesn’t use them.Tabbed browsers work nicely when used with a mouse that has a wheel or (a third button) for the following reason. You’re
Look at IE 7’s tabs. They use more pixel space than Firefox, they are bright blue and they have Aqua-style 3D beveling. They are basically shouting off the rooftops “Hey, look at me, here I am, great new tabbed browsing!”
In his recent blog post, Paul Adams got me thinking about metaphors, and how useful they are in explaining usability in a hurry. A friend recently asked me for some advice to help him “improve” his website. The site involves
DV247.COM – fairly standard e-commerce site. I ordered something on Friday and on Monday started to wonder what day I needed to stay in for collection. Here’s their order status page: Now I couldn’t see any indication here of whether
Pac man pie chart joke (via Boing Boing)
Some call centers tend to treat you, the caller, like a document. You call up with a simple piece of information (e.g. “You’ve over billed me this month”) and then you get bumped between different staff members like an unwanted
I’ve just found out that I’ve been charged over £100 over the past year for a subscription-based polyphonic ringtone service that I never subscribed to. I am very pissed off. I managed to track down the perpetrating company, Stream Group
In an intriguing article in Wired about the new Darren Aronofsky film The Fountain, I spotted this nice quote from the chap responsible for the (non computer generated) effects: “The CGI guys have ultimate control over everything they do,” Parks
Do Not Push Button (via Adam Kalsey) A fair chunk of my work is involved in producing training courses to teach people software and systems that their employer has had developed. If people need to read stuff to figure out
I’m surprised to see the way ISPs and telcos still describe their products so misleadingly, even after the trouble that Talk-talk got into with the ASA about offering free broadband “Forever”. Orange are currently running a campaign that uses the
In Productivity and Screen Size, Jacob Nielson trashes a recent Apple survey on how fabulous large monitors are for productivity. (He doesn’t actually say he disagree’s with Apple’s results, just that their methodology was suspect). I’m not quite sure whether
I just tried to fill in an online form and I typed in my details (actually I pressed a little button on the Google toolbar that filled most of it in for me. Marvellous…) then submit. The form popped up
Andy Budd (the other slightly better known AndyB – he scolded me once on a mailing list for signing myself AndyB. Cheek!) demolishes thetrainline.com rather nicely. I wonder if companies get to read this kind of stuff and whether they