March 2009

The $12,000 Design Mistake

March 26, 2009
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Paying bills online may be a time saver to some, but it can adversely impact older users. Last week, 73-year-old Arthur Simmons decided to pay his home phone bill online for the very first time. He was supposed to put in $124.14, but he forgot to enter the decimal point. He didn’t notice that the Qwest website added the decimal [...]

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“Internet radio so simple that even an old, stupid idiot can use it”

March 24, 2009

The title of this post is a tongue-in-cheek quote from a post about a new internet radio, called Ira, that seems to be designed with older users in mind.  The primary design feature seems to be its simplicity. In fact, so simple is the Ira that it apparently needs no instructions. The site is empty of any kind of technical [...]

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Consumer RFID technology–The Mirror by Violet

March 23, 2009

Violet has introduced an interesting computer peripheral called the Mirror that is an RFID reader for home users.  You apply RFID tags to everyday objects, program their actions, and when waved over the mirror, the actions are run from the computer. When I first saw the following video, I was skeptical–their initial use cases in the video seemed silly.  But [...]

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“Smart” devices may help dementia sufferers remember to shut off stove, live at home longer

March 5, 2009

From Peter Squire (of The Daily Human Factor) another interesting story on using technology to support aging in place: “The whole objective is to enable people to stay at home as long as they can,” says Bruce Carey-Smith, a BIME design engineer. The system reports the wealth of information it collects—from potential problems to successful interventions—to health care providers. “It’s [...]

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Lighting up the lives of the elderly – adaptively

March 2, 2009

From Peter Squire (of The Daily Human Factor): Artificial light affects us in subtle ways. At its best, ambient lighting can relax, soothe or excite, but used poorly it can drain us of energy and disrupt sleep. What if lighting could adapt automatically to meet our individual needs? The result, say a team of European researchers, would be an improvement [...]

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In 2019 I will be 44…

March 1, 2009

Here is a neat vision of what 2019 will be like courtesy Microsoft Office Labs.  This concept video was produced by Microsoft and shown at the Wharton Business Technology Conference.  Two things that caught my attention were the prodigious use of touch interface and gestures (which I am not crazy about; my finger/hands get tired using my iPod touch to [...]

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