November 2010

Reminder: Proposals due for APA 2011 on Dec. 1st!

November 23, 2010

APA Division 21 (Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology) invites submissions for the 2011 Convention of the American Psychological Association, to be held in Washington, D.C. August 4-7, 2011. Proposals for papers, posters, or symposia in areas related to applied experimental/engineering psychology, or human factors/ergonomics, are encouraged. Broad topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Issues in automation across [...]

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Blogging APA Division 21: “One Thing at a Time” (but over a really long time)

November 21, 2010

I held off for a while writing this post because I wanted to make sure I could include media Dr. John Senders included in his talk. I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait! At the 2010 APA convention, John W. Senders, Ph.D. presented “One Thing at a Time: From Eye Fixations (1951), to Sampling (1954), to Information Theory [...]

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Redesigning the airline boarding pass

November 15, 2010

Designer Tyler Thompson gets frustrated with boarding passes and attempts to redesign them.  I recently had a very similar experience with a boarding pass: my first flight was delayed and my connecting flight was taking off in minutes.  As I sprinted through the airport I glanced at my boarding pass only to stop dead in my tracks as I had [...]

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Wishing Everyone a Usable Day

November 11, 2010

Today is World Usability Day! Many of you are probably attending events (I’ll be at SAS tonight for the one sponsored by the Carolina’s chapter of HFES and TriUPA), or even online ones. Here is a quick video from www.worldusabilityday.org to enjoy (and maybe pass on to your non-HF friends).

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Color Coded Elevator Buttons – Wow!

November 4, 2010
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Human Factors.. it’s just common sense, right? Oh dear. Found on Robyn’s Posterous.

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More usability in the news: CAPS LOCK OFF ON STREET SIGNS

November 2, 2010
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It is unfortunate I only found the NY Post as a source for this, but it is still an interesting moment of research-to-practice. From the article: The Capital of the World is going lower-case. Federal copy editors are demanding the city change its 250,900 street signs — such as these for Perry Avenue in The Bronx — from the all-caps style [...]

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Was it the interface?

November 1, 2010

A story at The Chronicle discusses the appointment and immediate resignation of a faculty member elected as chairperson of their department. Below are some quotes from the article that make me wonder what one had to do to remove one’s name from the ballot. Mr. Sheppard was elected under an online-election system, introduced last year, that was designed to make [...]

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