| It's been a while 10.12.1999 |
| I've been way too busy lately to regularly
add to this site. In fact, I still am. |
| I added another image
of my dream kitchen. |
| My 4-year-old son now has a website. (It was his idea!)
Check it out. |
| I'll try to keep more current. |
| Clarification 09.15.1999 |
| A visitor to this site pointed out some
possibly misleading statements I made about spam
filtering (below). |
| Outlook '98 does allow you to filter
by "to" (but not by "cc"). As
stated before, this really doesn't address the
problem. Also, using the filter by "to"
and "cc" method may sometimes filter
wanted mail (if you are on a mailing list). In
actual practice, I filter suspicious mail to a
"junk" folder which I check
occasionally to see if it caught any non-spam.
I'm not confident enough to send it directly to
the trash. |
| Spam that am spam 09.10.1999 |
| It has occurred to me that Hotmail seems to
attract spammers because it doesn't allow you to
filter mail by who it is sent to. |
| Most bulk mailers send to al large list of
recipients in the BCC (blind carbon copy) field.
Normally, all you have to do is set pereferences
to automatically delete any mail that does not
include you in the TO of CC fileds. This would
eliminate 99% of all junk mail. |
| I hate to speculate on why Microsoft doesn't
have this feature in Hotmail. It is in most other
Internet mail providers. Suspiciously, another
Microsoft product, Outlook Mail also doesn't
allow this. Do they like spam? |
| Speed of thought? 09.07.1999 |
| I just installed NetZero
(Free internet access) on my PC before the
weekend. I can tolerate alot if something's free
(like bad interface and annoying ads). |
| As I connect through their dial-up, (they say
they support up to 56K but actual connection was
slower than 24K), I realized something really
obvious. The experience and use of the web is
directly dependant on connection speed. I'm used
to the high speed connection at work, when I had
to experience what most home users do, it really
affected my use of the web. |
| If most home users routinely experience what
I experienced this weekend, the web is more a
novelty than a useful tool to them. Once
technology allows affordable high speed
connection for everyone (and I believe that will
happen soon) the internet will REALLY permeate
the culture. There is still significant growth on
the horizon despite the recent surge in net
usage. Maybe internet stocks are not really
over-valued! |
| Creating
discontinuity is what we're best at! 09.01.1999 |
| This link to PARC is the first I ever found from them
that actually contains anything sensical. (PARC
is an advanced reseach center at Xerox.) |
I love their mission
statement:
"Supporting Xerox' vision of the document by
creating discontinuity in core
businesses, enabling emerging businesses, and
defining new opportunities." |
| In other words, PARC is there to ford off the
beaten path - to discover totally new
technologies. |
| GIFs
belong to Unisys? 09.01.1999 |
| Unisys is exerting legal power
to cash in on the use of LZW compression
technology to create gif files. (This is one of
the 2 major graphic formats on the web.) |
| This not only applies to GIF but some types
of TIFF, PostScript and PDF files. The issue is
the Unisys LZW compression used on these files. Some
would have you believe Unisys will sue you if you
use gifs on your site. This is not entirely clear
but I doubt it. |
| Apparently a license is required for software
that reads or writes gif images and for sites
that might use images that may not have been
created by licensed software. |
From the Unisys FAQ:
"...reading and/or writing of GIF images
requires a license to use Unisys patented Lempel
Ziv Welch (LZW) data compression and
decompression technology..." |
From a related Unisis page:
"Why should you get an LZW Web site
license?...You won't have to go to the trouble of
verifying that each vendor is licensed by
Unisys." |
| ClearType
inventor not clear 08.31.1999 |
| I just ran across this claim that a technology very similar to
Microsoft's ClearType was actually invented by
Apple Computer 20 years ago. |
| Kitchen
Interaction 08.30.1999 |
| I've been working on the re-design of my
kitchen. I've managed to find the most
frustrating piece of design software in
existence. Not only does it lack real-world
features but the interface is impossible to
learn. I bought this particular package because
it promised to render photo-realistic images
(which it does!). |
| Good thing competition drove the price down
to about $20 after rebate. However, considering
all the time I spent struggling with the tools
rather than designing, I would have paid more. |
| I'm from
the government and I'm here to help 08.27.1999 |
| This "scary article about big-brother
taking over usability testing" reminds
me a bit of the age appropriateness labels on toy
boxes. (I consider these to be very accurate but
nobody seems to look at them when they buy my
child a toy.) A consortium is gathering
requirements for a uniform usability rating to be
available for all software products. |
| On the surface, it seems nice to use
usability testing as a badge of shame or honor.
However, because a large number of corporations
(infamous for their lack of standards) are
involved in creating these standards, I am
skeptical that they will hold themselves to any
high standards. It would be in their own interest
to make sure their products sail through this
test. |
| The story mentioned an insurance company
doing it's own usability test, preempting a $5
million purchase of a software package was
encouraging. If more companies were that wise,
our job would be an easier sell. |
| Computers
that behave 08.27.1999 |
| A thought provoking concept from the Cooper book. Computers should
be "polite." They should behave like
you might expect your friend or good co-worker
would. A good co-worker would anticipate your
needs, act in your best interests, never blame
you, never bother you with it's own personal
problems... According to research he sites,
people attribute a kind of personality to
computers because they are at least minimally
responsive. The friction comes when the computer
acts antisocially, demanding that you cater to
it's needs. |
| Bribing
Programmers 08.25.1999 |
| I read just a small section of Cooper's book last night. I'm
finally getting to the solutions part of the
book. He talks about creating user-profiles of
fictional representative users. Nothing new
there. I do this as part of my current process.
However, Cooper goes a step further by giving
these personas names and pictures! This has the
effect of making them seem real. Now I can refer
to them by name. It's much more convincing to
say: "C'mon now, would Clevis be able to
figure that out?" than to say "The
user-profile for the novice user would not get
this." |
| One compelling idea was the idea of bribing
programmers. Cooper relayed the story of one
interaction designer who would give chocolates to
programmers for notifying her of changes and
other good behavior. I keep thinking about this.
If I can find some treat that comes with stickers
or some other lasting memento, this could
motivate developers (who are very competitive) to
try to amass the most points. I can't wait to try
this. |
| Previous Interaction Design thoughts |
