Anne McLaughlin

Fun with confusing medication names!

February 2, 2012
Thumbnail image for Fun with confusing medication names!

Check out this post from The Consumerist about how unhappy the FDA is with Durezol and Durasal. A hint: It’s ok if you accidentally use Durezol when you wanted Durasal, but the penalty is high for using Durasal instead of Durezol!* This link contains an explanation of the names: When drugs are submitted to the FDA for approval, the Agency carefully screens [...]

Read the full article →

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 →

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 →

Redesigning a Mortgage Statement

December 27, 2011

Enjoy this video by Tristan Cooke and Thomas Nelson at Humans in Design. Some of the blame for our current financial crisis lies in the opacity of legal documents. In this post, a mortgage statement gets a facelift to become easily interpretable and allow the homeowner to predict and well as understand the payment schedule.   The Mortgage Statement Fix from [...]

Read the full article →

Learning to use a steering wheel with no vision or feedback

December 20, 2011
Thumbnail image for Learning to use a steering wheel with no vision or feedback

Here is a link to an enjoyable radioshow called “99% invisible,” about the “design, architecture & the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world.”* 99% Invisible-37- The Steering Wheel This episode covers the difficulty people have in correctly miming use of a steering wheel (spoiler: they can’t!) and how they can learn to do so correctly with no visual feedback. [...]

Read the full article →

Beyond Touch: the future of interaction

November 9, 2011
Thumbnail image for Beyond Touch: the future of interaction

Follow the link to read “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design” by Bret Victor. The briefest of summaries would be that we over-use simple touch in our visions of the future, when we could be including many other cues, such as weight and balance. From the post: If you’re with me so far, maybe I can nudge [...]

Read the full article →

Rudder knob in cockpit mistaken for door latch

November 1, 2011
Thumbnail image for Rudder knob in cockpit mistaken for door latch

Any aviation experts want to chime in about a knob turning a plane upside down? Also, please note this was characterized as “pilot error.” Pilot error causes airliner to flip, fly upside down From the article: According to the safety board, an analysis of the aircraft’s digital flight recorder indicated the co-pilot, alone in the cockpit while the captain used [...]

Read the full article →

Call for Papers! APA 2012 in Orlando, FL

October 21, 2011
Thumbnail image for Call for Papers! APA 2012 in Orlando, FL

A message from the Program Chair: APA Division 21 (Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology) invites submissions for the 2012 Convention of the American Psychological Association, to be held in Orlando, Florida, August 2-5, 2012. 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 [...]

Read the full article →

Update on the BMW iDrive

September 8, 2011
Thumbnail image for Update on the BMW iDrive

Nice writeup by BimmerFile on the iDrive, a single-button input device for the non-driving functions of the BMW. I’ve excerpted my favorite portions below — specifically their connection of iDrive design to the proximity-compatibility principle and the principles of importance and frequency of use.  BimmerFile was recently invited to Munich and into the very secret BMW labs that birthed the [...]

Read the full article →

Human Factors in the News: Next Generation Aviation

August 17, 2011
Thumbnail image for Human Factors in the News: Next Generation Aviation

I don’t know how I missed this back in March! They even use the words “human factor” in the title! The article is an interesting overview of the “NextGen” systems coming to aviation and explains our field to the general public. Air traffic overhaul hinges on ‘human factor’ From the article: Human factors’ engineering Even amid the amazing technological achievements [...]

Read the full article →

Coming to APA 2011: A Conversation Hour on Use of Electronic Health Records in Clinical Practice

August 2, 2011
Thumbnail image for Coming to APA 2011: A Conversation Hour on Use of Electronic Health Records in Clinical Practice

Drs. Kelly Caine (of guest post fame)  and Dennis Morrison will be presenting on human factors considerations for the design and use of electronic health records.  Audience participation is welcome as they discuss this important topic. See abstract below. In this conversation hour we will discuss the use of electronic health records in clinical practice. Specifically, we will focus on [...]

Read the full article →

Treemapping Your Way to Healthier Food Choices

August 2, 2011
Thumbnail image for Treemapping Your Way to Healthier Food Choices

Renee Walker, MFA in Design, came up with an innovative use of treemaps to provide nutrition information – winning the Rethink the Food Label contest. Can you imagine the horror of food companies once they realize how much of their treemap has to say SUGAR? This visualization is certainly easier than the rule of thumb I was taught: “If sugar is [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries