From the category archives:

usability

Complex Clickers in Class

by Richard Pak
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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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Human Factors Blog @ SXSW

by Richard Pak
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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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HF and Medical Device Workshop (again) in April 2010

by Richard Pak

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 worlds [...]

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UXURLS: A usability news aggregator

by Richard Pak

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

Share/Save

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Dissecting the iPad’s User Interface

by Richard Pak
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This Flickr image set does a nice job of pointing out the unique UI elements of the iPad.  Much of the interface is adapted from Apple’s extensive work on the iPhone but there are several unique elements.
Say what you will about Apple (positive or negative) but their tight reign on software and hardware and extreme focus on details really shows.
On [...]

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This does not bode well for the on-device user experience…

by Richard Pak
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Gizmodo reviewed the Nook e-book reader from Barnes & Noble. Unfortunately (for B&N), the process of opening the package was so cumbersome, most of the review dwells on that aspect:
In other words, the Nook packaging actually necessitates these lengthy instructions, as ridiculous as they are in their own right. Somehow, Barnes & Noble invented a box that’s [...]

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Design & HF Potpourri

by Richard Pak
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Comparison of text entry input speeds.
Steve Krug (of “Don’t make me think“) has a new book on usability titled Rocket Surgery Made Easy.  See the first few chapters.  [via Photoshopblog]
Smashing Magazine has a list of how various websites portray progress in multi-step tasks.
A piece on complicated and overwrought design from the NYT.  Choice quote:
Sadly, more and more products seem set [...]

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3D is better than 2D, right?

by Richard Pak
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It seems that every few years, 3D technology is in the zeitgeist (with 3d movies).  User interfaces are not immune to the frenzy of 3D.  However, there is quite a bit of past research in 3D interfaces (I won’t even scratch the surface but see this simple Google Scholar search to start). Much, but not all, relate to [...]

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Tabs, tabs, and more tabs…

by Richard Pak
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This post on Smashing Magazine about vertical navigation had me thinking about the book Anne and I are writing (manuscript due this Friday; panicking…I’m a 10 on the Wong-Baker scale).  In one of the chapters I discuss tab navigation.  When I was looking for a particularly bad example of the use of tabs I remembered Amazon’s website circa 2000.  Fortunately, [...]

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Vision-themed Potpourri

by Richard Pak
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Today’s potpourri happens to be related to understanding or enhancing what your users see (or don’t see):

Google Browser Size let’s you see how much of your web content is visible by users.
Rocker Lou Reed (of the Velvet Underground) designs an iPhone app for near-sighted users.  It basically increases the font size in the contacts application.  It appears that Mr. [...]

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Human Factors in the World’s First “Purpose-Built” Law Enforcement Vehicle

by Richard Pak
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In the near future, you may see one of these cars in your rear-view mirror. They are new purpose-built law enforcement vehicles that will appear in 2012. I found this press release while searching for something else on the web. The cockpit was designed with human factors input from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI):

[...]

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HF Potpourri

by Richard Pak
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More potpourri from the web:

Jakob Nielsen has a new book on using eye-tracking in web usability. View a 32 page chapter PDF (26 mb) for free (via PhotoshopSupport).
Using autistics for software quality-control work. Would this work for usability? An obsessive attention to detail is good for design/usability (via Slashdot)
The HF/usability company HumanCentric held an internal competition to [...]

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Human Factors and Healthcare: The older patient & nurse

by Richard Pak
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I‘ve recently published two papers on the topic of human factors and healthcare. Each paper covers a different “stakeholder”: the older patient and the nurse.  The first paper is available for free but the second paper (a collaboration with my architect colleague Dina Battisto) is available at your local library (or you can request a PDF reprint from me).
Pak, R., [...]

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Smells like more potpourri

by Richard Pak
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The end of the academic semester is upon us in the U.S. so we’re backed up with deadlines which is why we’re having Potpourri again for lunch. But tasty potpourri:
First, a curmudgeonly three-part series on things that give too little feedback or have too few buttons:

I just got an iPod Shuffle which uses a system of taps on an [...]

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Usability/Design/HF Potpourri

by Richard Pak
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Just in time for the end of the year:  Top 10 interaction design books from Kicker Studio
Making cooking safe for the blind (via Real World Design)
Deciding when you need graphics (via uxforward)
We’ve posted before about the man who designs the UIs in movies, but Gizmodo has posted his new streaming demo reel…fascinating.
How will reading change with e-books?  (via Twitter/Steve Portigal)
Traffic [...]

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Web-based tool to measure task workload

by Richard Pak
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I frequently use the NASA TLX workload assessment tool to measure a user’s perceived workload after they complete a task (e.g., complete an information search task). When the test is administered with paper it can be quite laborious to administer and score. A stand-alone computer-based version has been available but has some usability issues itself. For [...]

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