Tag: Usability
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Speaker Notes: How To Be Invisible
Speaker notes from a talk I gave earlier this year at Try!Swift, and 360iDev. There was an article I read last September that profoundly affected my thinking. It was by Sarah Tavel, and is called “Times have changed — going after dollars vs minutes”. She breaks products down into minutes – which I think of as attention…
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Lasers and Practical Skills
I first “met” Dan a year ago, right after GHC last year. He reached out to me because of the stuff I’d been writing about men and male allies. We became twitter friends, and so I got to read a preview of his book – which is great, because I’d realized that Dan was someone I…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…