accessibility

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) [...]

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Little Printer Concept

November 29, 2011

In the “why didn’t I think of this!” department, we have the Little Printer Concept by Berg.  It basically seems like a cash register thermal printer (in much nicer packaging) that sits in your home and prints messages, puzzles, etc.   I could see this being very useful for older consumers who are resistant to technology.  Imagine printing medication instructions [...]

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Speedometer Design

November 2, 2011

This page contains an interesting inventory of past speedometer designs from Chevrolet.  Quite a variety!  Is usability getting better or worse? I like it when the design works such that the prevailing speed limit (e.g., 60 MPH) lets the needle be oriented in a cardinal direction (pointed up or left) like the one below: (via Kottke)

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Crowdsourced Usability III: Skype

April 1, 2011

The new Skype client for Mac has received some very loud complaints about the redesign mostly centered on usability.  Skype has heard the cries: We want you to create the chat style for an upcoming version of Skype for Mac that will be enjoyed by millions of people around the world. We’ve put a template together containing everything that you’ll [...]

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Designer of movie UIs to design real UIs

February 11, 2011
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We’ve discussed Mark Coleran before with his fantastical work with those fake user interfaces you see in movies (see movie below).   According to this Fast Company blog post he will have a hand in designing real interfaces. But Coleran doesn’t just throw out the rule books on user experience and “human interface guidelines.” In fact, because many of his clients know [...]

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Designing Displays for Older Adults: Chapter 4 Cognition (excerpt)

January 10, 2011

Below is an excerpt of Chapter 4 from our book.  The book is available where fine books are sold or directly from our publisher CRC Press.  Until January 31, 2011, you can get 20% off the cover price when you purchase directly from CRC Press using this link and this code: 810DE. Chapter Contents (excerpt is bolded below) 4. Cognition 4.1 How [...]

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Designing Displays for Older Adults: Chapter 3 Hearing (excerpt)

December 29, 2010

Below is an excerpt of Chapter 3 from our book.  You can read an excerpt of chapter 1 here. You can also enter to win one of two copies.  The book is available where fine books are sold or directly from our publisher CRC Press.  Until January 31, 2011, you can get 20% off the cover price when you purchase directly from [...]

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Online Map Readability: A Comparison

December 3, 2010

Justin O’Beirne presents an extremely thorough and interesting analysis of why Google Maps appear more readable than its competitors. I’ve noticed this as well. It’s one of the major reasons I still prefer Google Maps despite some very compelling features of Bing and Yahoo maps. One visual trick that Google applies to maps is a localized de-cluttering around major cities. [...]

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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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Almost Here: Designing Displays for Older Adults

July 20, 2010
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After a long process and over a year of work, Anne’s and my book on user interface design for older adults is almost available!  The cover of our book has been finalized (shown below).  The book will be released September 21st, 2010 and will be available where fine books are sold or directly from our publisher CRC Press. We’ll give [...]

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Usability Potpourri

June 23, 2010

First, some thoughts on mobile usability from Google user experience designer Leland Rechis. Next, decisions, decisions, decisions…when did buying gas become so difficult? As Travis says, At this point, why not let me use a slider to create my own mix? That’s a keyboard, touchscreen and 5 grades of gasoline. From somewhere in Florida on I-75″ (Thanks Travis Bowles). Finally, [...]

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Evil Interfaces

May 3, 2010

Excellent post at the EFF describing “evil interfaces“, or interfaces that may be deliberately designed to make you do things you did not intend to do: As Conti describes it, a good interface is meant to help users achieve their goals as easily as possible. But an “evil” interface is meant to trick users into doing things they don’t want [...]

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Facetted Navigation Primer

April 22, 2010

A List Apart recently posted an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Search Patterns by Peter Morville and Jeffery Callender that presents a great description of facetted navigation (FN), a type of search interface. FN is contrasted with just text searching (e.g., Google), taxonomies (e.g., Windows Explorer or Mac Finder), and tag-based interfaces (e.g., Flickr).  See illustrative figure below if you [...]

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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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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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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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