January 2012

Excerpts from the NASA ASRS

January 28, 2012
Thumbnail image for Excerpts from the NASA ASRS

One of my students last semester (thanks, Ronney!) turned me on the “Callback” publication from the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System. These are almost all first person stories written as case studies of errors and accidents or near accidents. There aren’t so many that it falls under my list of neat databases, but it certainly is interesting reading. I’ve collected [...]

Read the full article →

What values are pilots allowed to enter for the weight of the plane?

January 22, 2012
Thumbnail image for What values are pilots allowed to enter for the weight of the plane?

I’d assume when pilots enter a weight estimate for the plane prior to takeoff that there would be a decision aid to prevents gross miscalculation. It certainly seems like an undue load (no pun intended) on the pilot to require entering multiple components for weight correctly. From the article linked below I am no longer sure how much automation is [...]

Read the full article →

Neat SciAm Blog Post on InfoVis

January 18, 2012

This story was passed to me today by Matt Shipman, who writes about research on The Abstract. An excerpt: [Right - Comparison of two road signs, Highway Gothic on the left, Clearview on the right, 2007. Credit: Wikimedia Commons - click on link to see large] The previous road sign font, Highway Gothic, was hard to read because of very small [...]

Read the full article →

Intuitive Interfaces for Software Developers

January 9, 2012
Thumbnail image for Intuitive Interfaces for Software Developers

Here is a link to some neat new research being done by my colleagues at NCSU.  It’s about the development of a tool that instantly changes the look of software code as it’s being developed, allowing for different ways to investigate bugs and features, but without changing the code in any way that might introduce errors. Dr. Emerson Murphy-Hill developed the interface [...]

Read the full article →

“I wasn’t trying to make a computer interface, I was just trying to make a drum” – NPR interviews Bill Buxton

January 7, 2012
Thumbnail image for “I wasn’t trying to make a computer interface, I was just trying to make a drum” – NPR interviews Bill Buxton

NPR interviews Bill Buxton on the technology side and Sherry Turkle on the social impacts side. The Touchy-Feely Future Of Technology Excerpts: “I wasn’t trying to make a computer interface, I was just trying to make a drum,” Buxton tells NPR’s Robert Siegel. “Did I envision what was going to happen today, that it would be in everybody’s pocket — in their smartphone? [...]

Read the full article →

Influence of Environment on Behavior

January 4, 2012

Two articles came up that both touched upon the topic of how behavior is shaped and influenced by the environment and how we shape our immediate environment to suit particular behaviors.  The topic of how behavior is constrained by the physical environment is a long discussed topic in psychology and human factors (e.g., affordances, ecological psychology, situated cognition, “cognition in [...]

Read the full article →

ATM Accessibility (not)

January 3, 2012

I’m catching up on some older topics I never blogged about. This is one of my favorites. The Consumerist posted a video of a blind user interacting with an ATM. As they said, “Overall, it seems like whoever designed the ATM didn’t ask a blind person to try it out first.” Quotes from the video: (Re: finding the headphone jack) [...]

Read the full article →