Categories
Foursquare Organization Social Networking Usability

Unreasonable Expectations for my Calendar

At the moment I’m trying to work out where I’m going to be for the next two months. A trip to New York is fixed, but a trip to Europe is not. And then there’s the maybe on Utah… too many dependencies! I find scheduling things stressful – the CompSci in me wants to find […]

Categories
Usability

Don’t Snippet Me, Damnit

One of my favorite blogs just moved to snippets in the RSS feed. I hate snippets in my RSS, except for techmeme because I mostly tend to use the headlines to stay on top of industry news in a manageable way. If you’re trying to monetize your website, it makes sense – it drives more traffic, right? […]

Categories
Usability

Computers as Appliances

Typically, the first thing I do when I get home is put the kettle on. In fact if I’m working from home I’ll get up around every 45 minutes to make more tea. Don Norman wrote about automating the process (so the coffee machine talks to the cupboard, fridge, dishwasher etc) and that would be […]

Categories
Reflections Usability

Books and Paper and Letting Go

My mother, a busy GP, has accumulated a stack of newspapers that she has not had time to read. She keeps them in the hope that she will, one day, have more free time. I pointed out that she would be unlikely to want to spend this new free time reading newspapers from ages ago, […]

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email Facebook Foursquare Social Networking Twitter Usability

Social is Normal

Last week, I read Coders at Work (Amazon, Google books). I really enjoyed it, it was fascinating and I learned a lot about the history of programming and the programmers themselves. There’s a great quote from Douglas Crockford: Progress isn’t always forward. Sometimes we’re leaping forward and sometimes we’re leaping backwards. When we leaped to […]

Categories
Facebook Social Networking Usability

I’m Back on Facebook, but I Still Hate It

After some time without Facebook, I’ve become quite happy without it. However, it’s my birthday next week and I’m headed to Seattle for the weekend and later on next week, we’re planning a party for the Awesome Foundation (which is GO – we have 10 trustees and a project, I’m so excited – expect more […]

Categories
Usability

Usability Impacts Decisions

My boyfriend and I both hate filling up the car with gas. We live 3 blocks from one gas station, and 4 from another. The first time we went to the one 3 blocks away, and it was a giant pain as we tried to work out how to use it. The credit card terminal […]

Categories
Programming Usability

Programmers Will Change The World

On Tuesday, I went to an event at The Code Factory. Michelle Gauthier spoke for CapCHI on “User-Centered Design: A Cultural Challenge” (full details). I found it fascinating. I’ve been thinking about programming as a force for good a lot lately so it was great to hear an example about that. The talk was about […]

Categories
Organization Usability

Smart Calendars

Below is a picture of my schedule for this week: Bear in mind, that the scheduled times are typically those when I am not working – yes I am a little stressed, and incredibly unsympathetic to people who tell me they don’t have time to do things because they are “too busy”. I’ve had to […]

Categories
Programming Reflections Usability Visualization

The Difference Between People-Speak and Programmer-Speak

After I gave my presentation the other week, someone asked a question. It was: So, basically what you’re doing is data-mining? And I said, no, well yes, but that’s not how I think about it. I see it as creating something that will help people understand their use of Twitter. The fact that I achieve […]