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
Author Archives: Harry Brignull
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
“It’s not a website – it’s an application”
Proponents of various abuses of Flash and Ajax cleverness have a frequent defence of their sins: “I’m allowed to break the back button, bookmarking and ‘open in new window’ and all that other stuff people take for granted because that … Continue reading
Photoshop CS3 – usability is more than just UI
Adobe have uncharacteristically released a public beta of the new version of Photoshop – mainly so those people with shiny new Intel Macs don’t have to put up with running Photoshop under emulation any longer. Everyone’s very excited. There’s a … Continue reading
why splitpane views suck… (but they suck less than other stuff)
SitePen Blog » Blog Archive » why splitpane views suck.. He’s got a point and Gmail is a marvel in it’s range of subtle usability tweaks. But on the desktop splitpane views are pretty much becoming the norm. And as … Continue reading
The new Photoshop will be limited to producing compelling content only
I’ve read several pieces from Adobe listing the new features due in Photoshop CS3. One of the new features is the ability to “design, preview, and test compelling mobile content”. Whilst I understand the need to cater to those who … Continue reading
Good Alertbox this month!
It’s almost like the old curmudgeon is getting whimsical in his old age. I especially like number 3. Of course he has to go and spoil it at the end by tacking on a moral. But in British pub discussions … Continue reading
Accessibility Field Testing
When people normally think about accessibility they normally think about standards compliance, automated tests, and box ticking. This is really important stuff, but it isn’t user-facing. In other words, you don’t get to find out what it is really like … Continue reading
Why Three aren’t scared of offering unlimited Skype
Craig Barrack had a great article in the NMA last week explaining why Three aren’t scared of offering unlimited Skype and Instant Messenger … on their top end “X-Series” contracts, for now. Conventional wisdom on the future of mobile operators … Continue reading