usability
This Human Factors International presentation (ppt) references something called a Columbia Obstruction Device: I couldn’t find any actual references to the Columbia University science experiment they’re referring to, but it certainly seems plausible enough. The parallel with users and usability is natural. Either maximize the cheese (make your
technology trends
I recently took the plunge and upgraded to a plasma television, mostly because I want a decent native resolution for my home theater PC under Windows Media Center Edition 2005. Analog televisions don’t do 640x480 very well, and can barely be coaxed into legible 800x600. However, HDTV or EDTV
software development concepts
Here’s a data point supporting my hypothesis that users will jump through any hoops to get things for free as in beer. It’s the SourceForge top downloads list: Seven of the ten top downloads are pure p2p file sharing clients. The other three directly relate to media ripping.
security
Microsoft gets blamed for a lot of security problems, and for the most part, they deserve it. There’s no excuse for the irresponsible “on by default” policy that resulted in so many vulnerable Windows 2000 IIS installations. That’s why Nimda was so devastating. Windows 2003 has a great
ui design
Occasionally I run into UI elements so boneheaded, I have to wonder what the programmers were thinking. It’s a standard convention for installers to show (estimate, really) how long the install will take. That way users have some idea how long they’ll be waiting, and whether they can
user experience
I’ve talked about irresponsible use of dialog boxes before, but a few pages I’ve read recently highlighted an interesting aspect of this topic that I hadn’t considered. First, Joel Spolsky: This may sound a little harsh, but you’ll see, when you do usability tests, that there
security
This Slate article highlights an interesting statistic: A few years ago, Microsoft set up the Windows Error Reporting Service to help find out where crashes come from. After a Windows application – or your whole PC – shuts down, a box pops up asking you to send a confidential error report. Using
programming languages
I had no idea this was happening, but it is fantastic news: according to this GamePC article, the latest 2005 version of Windows XP Media Center Edition will be released as a retail product within a few weeks: Windows XP Media Center Edition was originally launched roughly two years ago,
software development
How many things would you classify yourself as “expert” at? I drive to and from work every day, but I hardly consider myself an expert driver. I brush my teeth at least twice every day, and I’m no expert on oral care; just ask my dentist. I use Visual
microsoft
Don’t be too quick to dismiss Microsoft’s effort to solve the double-click problem. Try it yourself. On any explorer window, select Tools, Options, General: I believe this feature was introduced with Windows 98; it’s an attempt to map everything to the single mouse click, using the web
bug fixing
Recently, we had this strange problem with a particular smart client application at work. It happened when the user clicked the OK button on a specific form. Like all difficult bugs, it was impossible for us to replicate. We put a bunch of diagnostic scaffolding into the deployed executable; this
programming languages
I was reading an interesting entry in Rocky Lhotka’s blog when something in the URL caught my eye: http://www.lhotka.net/WeBlog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=b28971dc-ac4b-4494-8a21-7a5105a39b07 I guess it’s a DasBlog thing, but good lord: a globally unique ID in a blog hyperlink? Has it really come