November 2008

Personalized User Interfaces

November 29, 2008

Researchers at the University of Washington have created a system that can tailor a user interface to the motor and visual abilities of the user.  After a short assessment, the system presents a user interface with presets for the user based on the assessment.  I remember reading about adaptive interfaces quite a long time ago.  Could something similar be built [...]

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Interface aid for hyper-milers

November 26, 2008
Thumbnail image for Interface aid for hyper-milers

I have at least one friend who admits to “hyper miling,” or watching the MPG gauge at all times and trying to keep his average as high as possible. In one way I find this to be a fascinating task that one could use to study multiple-cue learning, pattern recognition, or adoption of superstitious behavior. (After all, was it kicking [...]

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Crowdsourced Usability Testing?

November 25, 2008

Feedback Army is a new service where you submit your website, $7, and you receive 10 comments.  I wonder how effective such ultra discount usability evaluation would be.  I guess if some is better than none, this is a pretty good service.  However, who exactly is offering the feedback, what are their qualifications?  And is it more than, “your website [...]

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Where are visitors coming from?

November 25, 2008

This post isn’t human factors-related but I just wanted to share with you an image showing where the last 100 or so visitors came from (click for a larger image). For our United States readers, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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StickySorter from Office Labs

November 18, 2008

Card sorting is a popular usability activity to help determine intuitive menu structures.  There are several options for doing a card sort on a computer but for one reason or another I haven’t been satisfied with any of them (too expensive, too limited, too buggy).  When I need to do a card sort, I still use an old and buggy [...]

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Feedback is a valuable brand “differentiator” for mobile phones

November 13, 2008

Here’s an interesting story about how Verizon eliminated a tiny feature (a checkbox indicating a successfully sent SMS message) and discovered that users apparently relied on that feedback.  This video clip is from AdAge so they don’t discuss the human factors angle but it’s there!  I can’t embed the video so check it out: NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — A tiny [...]

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Who Watches the Watchers?

November 5, 2008

Testing products can be a dangerous job, even when you are well aware of the potential hazards. Thanks to The Consumerist for pointing me to this blog entry at Consumer Reports. Believe us when we say we are unapologetic sticklers for safety here at Consumers Union. We think about it and talk about it all the time, but that doesn’t [...]

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