Accidentally in Code

Category: Usability

  • Smart Calendars

    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…

  • 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…

  • Google Wave

    Google Wave

    I was super excited this morning when I got an invite to Google Wave. I’ve read about it, but whilst there’s been a lot of hype around it no-one seems to describe it such that I’ve really got it. Note – don’t expect me to be any different, I tried to explain to my boyfriend…

  • I <3 Google Docs

    Check out the video from Google, below. I thought it was really cute. Google docs is a great, free alternative to MS Office, but that’s not where the real power of it lies. For collaboration, for any document that anyone else is going to use, it’s such a better alternative. During the summer, I was…

  • Why SEO is a Load of Crap

    A blogger I read, wrote this post commenting on SEO. I suggest you read it, because it’s good, but in brief the question she’s asking is – what is SEO? Why isn’t blogging about content? I commented on her post, but I think my thoughts on SEO merit their own little forum. So here we…

  • Average Browsing

    Saw this video the other day – Google in New York asking people if they know what a browser is. Most people didn’t. Or rather – they essentially think the browser is Google. Is the browser so pervasive that people don’t register that it’s a distinct “thing”? Or does the average user basically just not…

  • If You Can’t Find It, You Can’t Buy It

    Recently, I tried to pay my Rogers (Canada) bill online. Considering that you’re trying to give them money they really make it very difficult for you. Eventually I managed to set up an e-billing account for my banking. Linking this to Rogers for some reason necessitated downloading Firefox, as it does not support Safari (this…

  • Average Users

    Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the “average user”. Who are they? What do they use their computer for? What do they know? And – I think this is the most interesting question: How much do they care about the things we [programmers] spend all our time on? I recently wrote a paper about…