Posts Tagged: Usability & Design
Hiding in the FedEx logo
Posted by on Saturday, October 26, 2002 in - 25 comments
I'm sure that most of those of you that will care will already have noticed this, but for the few, like me, who hadn't: the FedEx logo contains an arrow in the negative space created by the E and the x. Beautiful. • I guess that's why I've always thought that FedEx was a progressive and …
Edward Tufte's Graphic of the Day
Posted by on Sunday, August 25, 2002 in - 9 comments
From Edward Tufte's Graphic of the Day, the brilliant Princeton University Acceptance Letter. • Does anyone know how to pronounce Tufte's last name? I've been calling him "tuft", but I've recentely been told that it's actualy "tuftee" (with the emphasis the second sylable pronounced as a long …
Excuse me Microsoft, the people have a beef.
Posted by on Monday, August 19, 2002 in - 8 comments
Well-known figures of web development are calling out to Microsoft. The complaint is that Microsoft's Internet Explorer on Windows doesn't let users resize fonts if they are specified in pixels with stylesheets. I'm not going to go into the details of the feature here, but it is an important …
Predictable spam whinning
Posted by on Sunday, August 11, 2002 in - 2 comments
There have been endorsements for a spam filter called SpamAssassin all over the web in the past few weeks (see Salon article). As the amount of spam I've been receiving has been increasing lately, I tried it out myself. • As I understand it, SpamAssasin in an open source Unix based spam filter …
Floppy Disks: They're not floppy at all!
Posted by on Tuesday, July 30, 2002 in - 15 comments
Slashdot is running a story on the slow and painful death of the 3.5" floppy drive. I would like to see the major manufactures start to default machines without a floppy drive. While we're at it, let's include an on-board Ethernet adapter by default and lose the parallel, serial, and PS/2 ports …
Jakob Nielsen on Flash
Posted by on Monday, June 3, 2002 in - 5 comments
After his now infamous (and totally fair) October, 2000 column, Flash: 99% Bad, usability dude Jakob Nielsen and his Nielsen Norman Group, are joining up with MacroMedia to help product usability guidelines for Flash developers (see the press release). • Jakob cites usability improvements in the …
Kids don't distinguish between content and advertising
Posted by on Sunday, April 14, 2002 in - 5 comments
Jakob Nielsen's research suggests that children do not distinguish between advertising and content on the web. Apparently the kids were aware of privacy issues. "Don't give your name to strangers" is burned into the neurons, but parents aren't teaching their kids what advertising is and how it …
fancypants keyboards
Posted by on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 in - 8 comments
As I read Ars Technica, I came across a post and then a discussion about fancy new keyboards. The following caught my attention and facinated me: • Projection Keyboard • This little device was the first one to catch my attention. Sadly, they don't seem to discuss the technology used in its …
Banking feature request: Simple spending categorization
Posted by on Thursday, February 14, 2002 in - 17 comments
I use either my credit card or debit card for almost everything purchase I make (curse Tim Horton's for their cash-only policy!). It follows that somewhere, a robot (also known by its more innocuous name, ‘computer') knows what I've bought, when and where I've bought it, and how much it cost …
thoughts on iMac and the future of the universe
Posted by on Monday, January 7, 2002 in - 24 comments
My thoughts, since I know you are all eagerly awaiting them, on the new iMac: • Design is ok - kinda dopey looking. I'll reserve final judgment until I've seen it in person. • Concept is good - those who watched the Keynote Address in shitty QuickTime video will notice how Jobs explained why …