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Random HCI Related Tidbits

IBM has some interesting HCD PDF posters available for download. My favorite one is “Computing is about people, not machines“.

seele :: May.24.2005 :: General, HCI, KDE/Kubuntu, Technology, Usability :: 4 Comments »

Browser Wars - Whose Team Is Netscape On?

A coworker spammed this story about Netscape 8.0 having the ability to render pages like Internet Explorer.

WTF?!

Basically you can set preferences for webpages to have it render using AX or Gecko. So why bother taking the time to develop using standards that break in IE when you can switch to FF, or why bother trying to mark pages that work in IE to work in FF? Lets throw crossplatform developing out the window and one again say “screw you guys” to anyone who chooses or doesn thave the choice to not use products with ActiveX. Now theres no more pressure for IE to follow standards because another piece of the browser pie is using its rendering engine.

Bakka. This makes me want to cry. And then **** something up.

seele :: May.19.2005 :: General, Technology :: 1 Comment »

Book Challenge

Today, I finished Emotional Design by Donald Norman. He has a very open mind of how emotions effect how we interact and react with the “things” in our life. There are many research and books cited and and explained. Norman is such a contrast from his associate Jakob Nielsen.

My favorite chapter in the book was the last. Norman gives his views on robots and the future and how they could be incorporated in to our everyday lives.

On another note, the other two books I ordered are sitting in the Post Office waiting me to pick them up during very inconvenient business hours. For some reason I got a final delivery notice without getting an initial notice and I had no chance to give directions to leave the package at my door. Bakka.

Read Books 2005: 17/50

seele :: May.13.2005 :: Books, General :: No Comments »

Reading On The Web: A Study

Right-hand navigation seems to be the status-quo of weblog layout. Why is that?

Right-hand navigation seems to create an easier-to-read layout for reading large amounts of text. It is much easier to read content where the navigation is on the “ragged” edge (right) of the text than if the “ragged” edge of the navigation was closest to the left-justified edge of the text (left). The left-hand navigation distracts the eye when a new line is started.

But what if there was some kind of wall or guide seperating the left-hand navigation and the left-justified edge of the text? Would there be enough of a performance increase to be comparable to right-hand navigation?

I aim to find out just that.

seele :: May.10.2005 :: General, Usability :: 5 Comments »