You hear the word “intuitive” used frequently in relation to user interfaces or applications in general. You hear that a certain application or interface is intuitive — or, too often, that it is not intuitive.
The problem with “intuitiveness” is that it doesn’t have an objective existence. What’s intuitive to one person may not be intuitive to another. Specifically, in the case of software, what’s intuitive to the programmer may not be intuitive to the user.
The real problem is that even if the software designers decide to create software which will be intuitive for the user, that doesn’t mean it will be — what the designer thinks will be intuitive to the user still may not be what the user finds intuitive at all.
Two things could be happening in the last scenario; one is design of user interface as though the user is an idiot. The problem with designing a UI with the idea that the user is an idiot is that you just might wind up with an interface which is only intuitive to idiots.
Continue reading ‘On Intuitive User Interfaces’
This Steampunk Keyboard Mod is pretty cool, though more ambitious than I am likely to get in the near future…
Via Slashdot | Dell To Linux Users — Not So Fast: it sounds like Dell’s response to the overwhelming support for Linux on the desktop is:
- Yes, ok we will do that!
- At least, we will look into it!
- Real soon now.
You may have heard of or seen Dell’s IdeaStorm site, where they are actively soliciting user input, suggestions, and ideas.
It turns out the most popular suggestion, by far, is for Linux or other Open Source software to be pre-loaded, whether by default or as an option. In fact, the top few suggestions (as of this writing) can be boiled down to:
- Make (brand X) Linux an OS option
- Pre-install OpenOffice
- Make No OS an option
- Pre-install Firefox
- Make NO extra software an option
Bryan Richard at Linux magazine has an article about why he thinks Dell will choose to ignore these overwhelming requests.
He makes a good point — the only problem is, having initiated this site to allow customers and users to offer ideas, the whole exercise will be pointless if they proceed to ignore the most popular suggestions they receive.
So, are they going to listen? Or even make an effort to appear as though they’re listening? That’s the interesting question; what do you think?
I was reading a reprint of Paul Graham’s ANSI Common Lisp in Borders yesterday, so I thought I’d see if it were available yes on Amazon (which it is… sorry, Borders); I idly thought I’d see if any copies of Paul’s On LISP were floating around…
Amazon.com: Used and New: On LISP: Advanced Techniques for Common LISP
Well, yes. If you want to spend between $200 and $400….
Incidentally, the book is available in postscript or PDF from Paul’s own site.
UPDATE: Well… looks like the video referenced in this post has been removed from YouTube, apparently due to the poster’s concerns that he may have violated copyright laws.
A synopsis: So, this monk is trying use, um, a book and he apparently called tech support to, um, show him how to open it and turn pages and so forth, um. Yeah. It was a lot funnier that I just described. Perhaps it is available elsewhere online? I give you leave to search for it. Have fun.
Yes… sometimes tech support does feel like this…
The sound is a bit crackly — it’s all sub-titled, so you may just want to mute your speakers.
(video removed)
Via reddit.
I’ve been tweaking certain elements of the design again. Nothing radically different, mostly cosmetic adjustments. Any thoughts? Does anyone care? ;-)
I finally got around to watching King Kong (2005, Peter Jackson).
While it was a long movie, it wasn’t too long. I did think some the underground battle with the creepy-crawlies on Skull Island seemed to lean unnecessarily toward the “gross-out” side of the special-effects spectrum (or maybe I’m just squeamish?), but all in all, I thought the movie was well done. The connection between Ann Darrow and Kong was believable, in the context of the movie. Jack Black’s Carl Denham was likable and repellent at the same time, and for the right reasons. I’m not going to give it stars or thumbs up (Dammit, Jim, I’m a Systems Analyst, not a movie reviewer!), but if you like action/adventure movies, you’d probably enjoy it.
This is just a nice short plug for a site I’ve found over the last month or so: 901am has for its tagline: New Media News Every Morning. “New Media,” it would seem, covers any and everything on the Web — with an emphasis, naturally enough, on blogs, wikis, podcasts, and “Web 2.0″ scenes.
I’ve found that 901am and the del.icio.us/popular feed have become the two “general” feeds I scan most every morning. Great work; kudos to the team at 901am for building a great news site.
I have a love-hate relationship with digg.com… Specifically, I like to see the list of things that have wound up at the top of the various lists, but I hate to actually go to the site, and read the blurbs and comments. I had subscribed to the digg/technology RSS feed in hopes of avoiding actually visiting digg itself, but the feed links simply point back to the Digg.com article, rather than to the target story itself.
So I googled to see if anyone had created an rss feed that pointed to the direct links of the digg stories, and it turns out that someone has created Direct-link versions of Digg feeds.
So, I’ve eliminated my digg RSS feed and substituted one of these feeds… one less reason to actually go to digg.com.
