obso1337.org

“If design were easy, it would have been good the first time.”

“… what we mean by information — the elementary unit of information — is a difference which makes a difference.”
– Gregory Bateson

“To conceive knowledge as a collcetion of information seems to rob the concept of all its life… Knowledge resides in the user and not in the collcetion. It is how the user reacts to a collection of information that matters.”
– C. W. Churchman

Design is not religion. You don’t have to defend the beliefs of your forefathers to the bitter end. Design is a business decision. You should follow the data and do what genereates the biggest profits for your company, not what wins design awards.”
— Jakob Nielsen

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
– Gandhi

“The fishing net is used to catch fish. Let us take the fish and forget the net. The snare is used to catch hares. Let us take the are and forget the snare. The word is used to convey ideas. When ideas are apprehended, let us forget the words. How delightful to be able to talk with such a man, who has forgotten the words!”
– Chuang Tzu

seele :: Apr.30.2005 :: General :: No Comments »

Elwing recently began a plugin project for using S/MIME encryption for signing and sending comments.

Encryption concepts are difficult enough, and putting options and configuration into words on a page is quite a challenge. I am working with her to create the administration page. The following is the first iteration of interface evaluations I did for her.

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seele :: Apr.27.2005 :: Blogging, General, Usability :: 2 Comments »

From Dictionary.com:

scotoma n. An area of diminished vision within the visual field.

The user developed a scotoma for the Windows(TM) Update icon and it became virtually invisible.

Think “hidden in plain sight”. A scotoma is a “blind spot” which can be attributed to physical limitations and degenerations of the optic nerve. It can also be used to describe a non-physically induced blindness by consistency and unchange. Things which are consistent and (should, but) have no meaning can create an information blind spot. Users can create a blind spot for something that never changes, so when it does, it goes unnoticed. This can be particularly dangerous for important error messages which may resemble persistent warning messages.

The May/June issue of Interactions had an interesting article from Dr. Usability about being too consistent. He replaced the concept of “consistency” with the Gestalt principles of “unity” and “variance”. Unity provides a homogenous environment so users know what to expect, but variance allows the design to change with the user information. Hmm.. interesting concept.

seele :: Apr.25.2005 :: General, HCI :: No Comments »

Forbes writer Arik Hesseldahl wrote a very interesting commentary on Google’s new option to save searches.

Heaven forbid that Google–the company with the slogan “Don’t be evil”–might actually improve its product by learning a little more about the people who are using it.

And he has a very good point. You dont have to use the service if you dont want to, and there seems to be enough demand for it to be a marketable feature for them to provide. Believe it or not, but not every company out there collecting information is a NexusLexus/Choicepoint/BigBrother.

Getting to know your audience is the best way to tailor and customize if for your customer’s needs, and improve a product. When Big Brother wants to know what youre searching, theyll be able to find out regardless of if its saved in a database, in the history of your computer or spewed out into the Internet on packets. If youre that paranoid about having a record of your search queries (or any information you transmit for that matter), you should be using a secure conncetion and anonymous proxy.

Summary: Privacy advocates chill the fuck out.

seele :: Apr.22.2005 :: General, Subculture, Technology :: No Comments »

Last night I sat at my computer and stared at my empty Desktop. “I hate you”, I thought to the screen, but I knew it wasn’t true. I tried again, this time trying to collect my emotions and channel them in to focus. “I hate computers”. I almost felt helpless knowing how far from the truth that was. Who ever knew it was so hard to hate?

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seele :: Apr.22.2005 :: General, Life, Technology :: 1 Comment »