March 2010

Soft Keyboard: Smart Idea or Incredibly Frustrating?

March 22, 2010

ThickButtons is a replacement soft-keyboard for Android phones that works in a very unique way. It uses the predictive word functionality available in many soft keyboards (where it can predict what word you are likely to be typing based on what you’ve typed) but takes that one step further by enlarging the next letter on the keyboard. Take a look: [...]

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Stirring the pot… with a saw

March 22, 2010

If you’ve seen video of the SawStop, you remember it. A table saw spinning at full power that can stop and drop away if it comes in contact with a finger. If you haven’t seen the video, I suggest a watch. Clearly, the SawStop comes in above warnings in the hierarchy of hazards. Design out (hard to do with a [...]

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“Sully” Sullenberger to Speak at the HFES 2010 Conference

March 17, 2010
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I received word today that Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger will give the keynote address at the 2010 Human Factors and Ergonomics Conference in San Francisco this October. Not only am I excited to hear him speak, I am excited because he is the perfect choice for a Human Factors audience: he has spoken publicly on interface and instruction issues in [...]

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Personas & Windows Phone 7; Apple Mouse Fix

March 15, 2010
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Two unrelated posts; both usability-related: I’m sure that Microsoft has used personas in design and evaluation before, but have they advertised it so broadly–even bragged about it?  I think one of the major benefits of personas is that it focuses development (and evaluation) reducing feature creep; something that the old Windows phones were definitely guilty of [Engadget]. This third-party “fix” [...]

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Doctors Visits Decrease With Electronic Health Records/E-mail

March 12, 2010
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A study that show that the use of electronic health records (with built-in secure messaging capabilities) can reduce the number of office visits for patients that do not need them.  Office visits are the most expensive form of health care delivery (as noted by the NYT).  No mention of any usability issues, however. Information about KP HealthConnect (the EHR examined [...]

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Exit Signs Across Cultures

March 11, 2010
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Slate.com has a nice article on the difference between U.S. exit signs and the rest of the world, as well as a nice history of the evolution of the symbols.  Here is an excerpt to get you interested: The text-based American exit sign has its origins in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, a blaze in a downtown Manhattan garment factory [...]

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Complex Clickers in Class

March 8, 2010
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I will be teaching general psychology to a large undergraduate class this Fall.  I had planned on using the “Clicker” to encourage interaction with students (link to company that makes them, wikipedia page that describes them).  They are essentially remote controls that allow the instructor to record votes from students.  For example, I could present a multiple choice question to [...]

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HF Potpourri

March 8, 2010
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Touch Usability’s Kevin Arthur is soliciting input for a presentation he’s doing at UPA Designing for Human’s Rob Tannen posts an online video of a presentation (ergonomics for interaction designers) he gave at the School of Visual Arts in New York Edward Tufte will help us understand and track where stimulus funds are going (via Slashdot) The Internet does not [...]

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Human Factors Blog @ SXSW

March 4, 2010
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Anne was invited to be a panelist at SXSW on Friday, March 12 at 05:00 PM.  SXSW is a yearly music, movie, and interactive media festival held in Austin, TX.  The title of the interactive panel is With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: The Future of Video Games. Here is a description: Video games are more popular than ever, and [...]

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Making virtual worlds more accessible – a new context area for Human Factors

March 4, 2010
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The Consumerist blog (of Consumer Reports) posted an article on the state of California suing Sony because their online Playstation services were not accessibly designed. Quoted from The Consumerist post: At the crux of the plaintiff’s failed case was their contention that, because PlayStation allows people all over the world to connect and play games together via their now-repaired PlayStation [...]

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HF and Medical Device Workshop (again) in April 2010

March 1, 2010

John Gosbee sends along this announcement of an upcoming workshop on medical human factors: Those readers who want to know more about the practical and regulatory aspects of  human factors and device design might be interested in our workshop (or the approach we use). Our writings and this workshop continue a decades long effort to bring the HF and healthcare [...]

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UXURLS: A usability news aggregator

March 1, 2010

Harry Brignull has created a convenient news aggregator for user experience and usability news from around the web.  A nice one-stop shop.

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