December 2009

Vision-themed Potpourri

December 20, 2009
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Today’s potpourri happens to be related to understanding or enhancing what your users see (or don’t see): Google Browser Size let’s you see how much of your web content is visible by users. Rocker Lou Reed (of the Velvet Underground) designs an iPhone app for near-sighted users.  It basically increases the font size in the contacts application.  It appears that [...]

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Encouraging Sanitary Behavior at the Urinal

December 19, 2009
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From reader Scot M. comes this NPR story. To encourage proper “aiming” at urinals, some places are now placing images of bugs so that men have something to aim toward. I’ve seen these at Schiphol Airport as well as my local grocery store bathroom (and I live in a tiny town). Keiboom in Amsterdam says the original fly idea was [...]

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Database Three: Mining safety data

December 17, 2009
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This post is part of a series on free data available to curious researchers and professionals: Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) This database contains more searching capability than browsing. You need the specific geographic location of a mine before searching (state, county). Once you zero in on a particular mine, the types of reports available are: Overview Inspections Accidents [...]

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Database Two: Aviation safety data

December 15, 2009
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This post is part of a series on free data available to curious researchers and professionals: The Aviation Safety Network Database The ASN Safety Database, updated every week, contains descriptions of over 12,200 airliner, military transport category aircraft and corporate jet aircraft safety occurrences since 1943. Here is a link to their recording of the recent landing on the Hudson [...]

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Human Factors in the World’s First “Purpose-Built” Law Enforcement Vehicle

December 14, 2009
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In the near future, you may see one of these cars in your rear-view mirror. They are new purpose-built law enforcement vehicles that will appear in 2012. I found this press release while searching for something else on the web. The cockpit was designed with human factors input from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI): The Carbon Motors E7, slated [...]

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HF Potpourri

December 14, 2009
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More potpourri from the web: Jakob Nielsen has a new book on using eye-tracking in web usability. View a 32 page chapter PDF (26 mb) for free (via PhotoshopSupport). Using autistics for software quality-control work. Would this work for usability? An obsessive attention to detail is good for design/usability (via Slashdot) The HF/usability company HumanCentric held an internal competition to [...]

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Pssssst! Free occupational safety data!

December 11, 2009
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Do you love databases? Especially if you are interested in safety, there are a number of carefully archived databases of events out there. A couple of years ago, I found one of these while trying to answer the question “What kinds of human factors interventions would be most increase agricultural safety?” Six months of coding later, I had some answers [...]

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Data visualization tools

December 10, 2009
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Foreshadowing Anne’s upcoming series of posts on large, public, and free data sets, here are two interesting tools to help you visualize massive quantities of data. First, my grad student Margaux informed me of Google Fusion Tables (shown above). The site lets you upload data and visualize it in different ways. The website has some samples. From the website: Look [...]

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Human Factors and Healthcare: The older patient & nurse

December 10, 2009
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I‘ve recently published two papers on the topic of human factors and healthcare. Each paper covers a different “stakeholder”: the older patient and the nurse.  The first paper is available for free but the second paper (a collaboration with my architect colleague Dina Battisto) is available at your local library (or you can request a PDF reprint from me). Pak, [...]

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Medication Adherence Case Study

December 9, 2009
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I talked with an 80 year old man last weekend about how he remembers to take his medication. His solution? Put all the pills in one bottle and take out what he needs each day. It appears to be an anti-organizer. If you or your loved ones are more interested in environmental support, a new free application created by Consumer [...]

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Smells like more potpourri

December 8, 2009
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The end of the academic semester is upon us in the U.S. so we’re backed up with deadlines which is why we’re having Potpourri again for lunch. But tasty potpourri: First, a curmudgeonly three-part series on things that give too little feedback or have too few buttons: I just got an iPod Shuffle which uses a system of taps on [...]

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The Toyota Saga Continues…

December 7, 2009
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Update of an earlier post topic. From Consumer Reports: Analysis shows over 40-percent of sudden acceleration complaints involve Toyotas Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/

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Usability/Design/HF Potpourri

December 4, 2009
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Just in time for the end of the year:  Top 10 interaction design books from Kicker Studio Making cooking safe for the blind (via Real World Design) Deciding when you need graphics (via uxforward) We’ve posted before about the man who designs the UIs in movies, but Gizmodo has posted his new streaming demo reel…fascinating. How will reading change with [...]

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Web-based tool to measure task workload

December 3, 2009
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I frequently use the NASA TLX workload assessment tool to measure a user’s perceived workload after they complete a task (e.g., complete an information search task). When the test is administered with paper it can be quite laborious to administer and score. A stand-alone computer-based version has been available but has some usability issues itself. For one thing, the TLX [...]

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Driving and Writing: Audi MMI

December 2, 2009
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The new Audi A8 sedan has a novel text entry input system:  writing.  Instead of using a knob (an indirect velocity control) or touchscreen (direct position control), the system accepts input using a touch sensitive pad (indirect position control) that can recognize letter input: This seems to be an improvement over current systems that make you use an indirect input [...]

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HFBlog at HFES 2009 in San Antonio

December 2, 2009
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We were at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual conference in San Antonio.  This post is merely here to collect our six-part posts on various talks.  These only scratch the surface of what was presented. Part 1:  The Mechanical Bull Part 2:  Eliciting knowledge structures Part 3:  Health, Internet, and ROBOTS! Part 4:  Hearing and understanding Part 5:  Rich [...]

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