If you tend to consume Pepsi products, then you’ve probably been playing this Every Ten Minutes promotion that Mountain Dew has been pushing with Microsoft to give away a new XBox 360 every ten minutes (appropriately).
Archive for October 2005
Carol threw together a lovely account of our Six Pound Burger Quest on her website. Check it out!
Back when I was deciding when to do my undergraduate work, UNO was barely listed in any of the college reference books. Well, they are starting to make a name for themselves, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind. Apparently, in a recent study, UNO ranked as the 11th fattest university.
Whether or not the stat is true, what’s annoying is having UNL’s student paper point it out, whereas UNO’s Gateway has nothing to say. It’s like someone else pointing and laughing at the fat kid – er – university while they just sit there and take it. I’d like to see the Gateway come out with a piece showcasing people staying fit at UNO; even if the stat has merit, this piece might show people how to balance physical health with the pursuit of intellectual greatness.
I heard the funniest usability story in my Software Engineering class today. One of the professors was talking about an old system that supported one level of undo. Apparently, if you pulled up a document and typed “edit,” you would delete the entire document forever. How?
E = Select entire document
D = Delete selection
I = Insert mode
T = {Types the letter T}
Since there’s only one level of undo supported, you’re left with a document with the letter t, and undo will get rid of that one letter for you. Awesome.
I’m currently in my fourth class that requires The Design of Everyday Things as a required book. (Don’t believe me? Human-Computer Interaction, UNO … Human Factors, UNO … Interface Design & Development, CMU … Methods: Deciding What to Design, CMU. Ha.) Don’t get me wrong, I like the book. When I was first feeling out the field of HCI, I was talking to this guy about my Psych / Computer Science double major, and he recommended this book, and it was a good fit for me.
The issue I have is whether or not this book is actually teaching what the professors want it to teach. In IID and Human Factors, the applicability was immediate since the topic of the courses was the usability / interaction style / etc. of tangible, everyday objects. My HCI course took those lessons and applied them to software, which is also very reasonable.
My concern lies in a Software Engineering class giving its students the Design of Everyday Things, making them do a homework assignment on it, and expecting them to understand (or at least appreciate) usability and everything that goes into evaluating it as a result. We are devoting one day to summative methods of usability in this class. One day. Will Norman’s book really be enough to give the students an appreciation of usability? Or is there a better book out there for this circumstance?
Apple has a lot of images to tell us how to look cool with an iPod, but one of these images is not like the other. Can you guess which one? If so, you get a prize…
While three posts in one day is probably a record for me, I just couldn’t let this one slide. My Pier 1 credit card payment was due today, and as I’m sure is typical for a grad student, it slipped my mind until the last minute.
My Pier 1 credit card is the one bill that I can’t pay online. When it was one of three or four, it wasn’t so inconvenient; now, however, I think that Pier 1 needs to get with the program. But that’s not the extent of my rant. No, my rant hasn’t even started.
On the bill, it says, “You can pay at any Pier 1 Imports company store or by telephone (EZ Pay 1-800-767-3662).” So, one would assume that, by calling said phone number, you could pay off your credit card immediately, right?
On Saturday, five HCIers and myself took a 2 1/2 hour drive to Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, home of some friggin huge hamburgers. It’s discussed in detail on this urban legends site, but the short story is that Denny’s serves 2lb, 3lb, 6lb, and 15lb burgers (though the 15lber is the weight of the entire end product, whereas the others weigh the beef itself), each with various eating challenges associated with it.
It may be mind-boggling to think of what a 6-pound burger might look like, so here it is sized up against yours truly:
Jakob Nielsen sent out an AlertBox today about blog usability. Specifically, he outlines 10 usability atrocities commited by blogs. Alas, even I, the aspiring HCI professional, did not make it through the article without a couple issues applying to me. In this entry, I’m going to try to correct my usability errors; I hope my blog feels more usable as a result.
While I think that most of what Nielsen says has merit, I think it’s based on three assumptions: (1) what we are doing now is correct for usability, (2) there is no better way to achieve usability, and (3) usability is all that we care about.
It’s the third assumption that I find to be the most compelling, and it’s one that I’ve struggled with for a few years now. As I completed my undergrad studies, a lot of my work with Dr. Jerry Wagner at One Innovation Place was built around the idea that the experience matters; and at times, the experience was promoted in front of usability. I’d go home with a feeling of pride to show my business-oriented family, who would say, “That’s cool, but I would never use something like that in a business setting. There’s no time to play around at work.”
Well, the laptop situation has been resolved. You may recall that the pin to my power adaptor broke off inside my computer, and at the last update, I was attempting to fish it out using what remained of the power adaptor pin and some super glue.
Sadly, it didn’t work. I know you are all shocked. However, I did become slightly more assured that Apple would consider it accidental damage, seeing as how I had dried super glue on what remained of my power adaptor pin. Sweet.
