Updates will be infrequent, as I am out of the country for two weeks.

CHI-WEB archives -- September 2002, week 3 (#15) holds a wonderful post in which Manu Sharma takes apart the latest alertbox.

I'm leaving for Europe on wednesday, and bought my ticket through expedia. Today I recieved a travel guide for my destination, Paris. Wisely Expedia did not just push their services, they included weather, info about an upcoming art show and various tourist diversions. And of course, at the bottom, they suggest hotels. But the timing is right and the approach was classy.

tim's user interface guidelines provides one of the best descriptions about a common fallacy in usability testing assumptions: that intuitive use is always a good thing.

"Appropriateness of use is not necessarily easy or efficient use.
A bicycle is not easy to use. Anyone who remembers crashing into a tree as a kid can attest to this. But, I would offer, a bicycle is most certainly designed appropriately. The bicycle provides the functionality I desire when I ride it (I can sit on it, position myself above traffic, it's light and strong), but it is not easy to use. Sometimes, my bike isn't efficient to use, either. There are days I'd be much better served riding in a car when I'm in a hurry slogging my way up a steep hill.
What we're really getting at here is the notion of tools that know what they are. I was ridiculed for saying this once because of using big words, but I'll say it again. The more specific the tool or device, the more you know about its user and the context of use, and thus the more you know about the specialty for which the tool exists in the first place. In this way, there is less amibiguity about the tool and its purpose and you have as a result so clearly defined the morphology of use for the tool that the tool knows what it is and for what purpose it was designed. Why else would there be a reason for me to have seven different pairs of shoes for seven different outdoor activities (diving booties, cycling shoes, climbing shoes, running shoes, hiking boots, ice skates, and fins) than for the reason that each activity requires different tools for my feet?"

How do people prototype? Mostly with visio, it appears. Check out Visio - the interaction designer's nail gun to learn how they do it.

from Boxes and Arrows: Building the Beast: Talking with Peter Morville

"B&A: So why a second edition?

Morville: Last April, after the agonizing process of closing Argus, I managed to escape into the wilderness of Yosemite National Park for a few days. I liked the romantic notion of figuring out what to do with the rest of my life while hiking alone in the Sierra Nevada mountains. So, armed with a bottle of water and some beef jerky, I headed for the snowy peaks in search of transcendental moments and healing visions.

When we wrote the first edition, we had relatively little experience. Most of our massive IA projects at Argus came afterwards.
Now, I'd like to tell you that when I arrived at the summit, a disembodied voice thundered "Thou Shalt Write the Second Edition" or that while walking through the valley, I glimpsed a polar bear flitting gracefully through the forest, but those things didn't actually happen.

However, I did come down from the mountain with a strong desire to write the second edition and a whole bunch of brilliant entrepreneurial ideas. I wrote them all down on a couple of airplane barf bags on the trip home. I've still got them. Really."

Very funny. Also don't miss Lou's interview from last week. It's a pleasure to compare their voices which blend so seemlessly in the book.

Peter Morville wrote a poetic forward for my book-- it's a pleasure to read. PDF of forward to Blueprints for the web.

Drop your 20 bucks here.

As I creak through the last of the book, and work on a difficult project I find myself just dang sick of IA and all things computery at the end of the day. I just finished reading The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, the last half read entirely in the back yard in the hammock and while walking around watering tomatoes-- I couldn't set it down. Not because of plot cliffhangers, which is the usual motivation for carrying a book around with me everywhere, but because I didn't want to break the spell.

It's lovely, just really lovely. Part an exploration of being allowed into a secret subculture of Paris, part a reverant rediscovery of the joy and obligation of a piano in your life, this book seduces and relaxes in such a gentle way that as you finish you feel healed-- at least I felt healed-- like spending a weekend on an island. The craft of writing is so skilled, reading it is like having a leisurely coffee with an interesting friend.

good book.

I first discovered the high line in a new yorker magazine article. I was completely enchanted... the vision of a place just one story above the city streets where nature was reclaiming her right to run how the earth was decorated cheered me. Lately I've been despondant over humans. More on that, probably in a bit... but here is a case where nature was patient, saw her opening and went for it. And dang it if humans didn't have the sense to try to protect this small victory. Check out :: Friends of the High Line :: for some wonderful photos (of seasons! rare for us west coasters) and commentary.
More photos of the high line.

A Web-based Test of Fitts' Law
is hoping to gather data to reinforce/further understand people's ability to hit smaller or larger targets with a pointing device such as a mouse. One quirk of this study is the posting of the "high scores" of participants. I wonder, does this effect the outcome. I realized when I did my first test in my current set up (ergonomically correct right hander using a left mouse to avoid the reach across the number pad) I scored incredibly poorly--- the high scorer has a time a third of mine. SO I did the test again, this time with my stylus in my right hand, and this time the high scorer beat me by a larger margin, but a livable one.

So I moved from my typical mousing behavior when surfing into my high-control mode I only use for drawing, essentially for ego reasons. I also noticed that durning the test while I was faster I was also considerably less accurate, and relied on multiple "shots" rather than one accurate one.

Will their data reflect typical human behavior or competitive human behavior... and what does that mean to the study?

Does anyone know why sean connery made the Highlander II?

From Nua Internet Surveys Weekly Editorial

"...the battle between the two companies wasn't just about dramatic improvements in browser software. The war was also important because it mirrored the way the Internet changed from a warm, friendly community to a cut-throat world in which only the strong survive and prosper. "

Netscape has now reached a Mac-like low in numbers. I'm sad for Mozilla, but still dreaming that 4.7 disappears from the face fo the planet.

After reading Bridging the gap with requirements definition I suddenly remembered my favorite example of design-urge overcoming user-centeredness.

My grandparents hired my step-grandmother's son to design their house. He's a formal architect, and had studied Frank Lloyd Wright. My step-grandmother is a tiny woman... 4'10'' or the like. really tiny. A while back, I was in the house the architect designed for my grandparents, and she was complaining about this house. It seems that she had thought that this would be the first time she would finally have a kitchen that fit her. But no, like every kitchen she'd ever encountered, most of the cupboards are up too high for her to reach.

Even worse, as she's grown older, she can't stand atop a stepstool as easily as she did when she was younger.

So what happened? The architect certainly knew the house owner was tiny-- he had known her literally all his life. He knew her age and fragility as well.

I have two theories... one is that he was so excited to design a house-- architects get to do this less and less-- he forgot who he was building it for and built his dream house without considering the inhabitants. My second thought is that the patterns of kitchen were so deeply imbedded in his head he forgot they could be changed. I hope to see my uncle-in-law again sometime, so I can ask. For now I just see their house as a message to remember the person who must spend hours with the thing you design, while you've moved off to the next fun challenge.

Requirements gathering, especially user requirements, can make a big difference to the pleasure your design affords.

it's worth reading In telematics, no technology is a panacea
just to discover car consumers are sometimes called "eardrops."

I really loved reading Web Design Special "For the Love of Design" . As someone who spent almost all of yesterday getting some long overdue upgrades done to B&A, it's nice to hear from others plowing the field of design for the love of it.