What does it mean to blog about a blog about an article? No fresh ideas? Too much time on my hands? Just curious, it’s not going to stop me from doing it.
Jenn blogged today about one of Jakob Nielsen’s Alertboxes from the past year. At the time I had decided to let the point drop, but now that it’s been brought back to the forefront of my mind I can’t just let it drop.
Usability of movies? Really?! His list of 10 usability “issues” in movies are technically correct, but I’m not buying the reason why we should care. Admittedly, the typical computer user isn’t like me (thanks Bonnie), but I just can’t accept that someone sits down to watch 24, and gets up thinking, “Gosh I’m a failure. Why can’t I use a computer like the people in the shiny box?”
I think it’s easy to get carried away with this trend, and it can have dangerous consequences. It’s like how, after four years of high school debate, I could have chosen to argue with everyone and brutally win every argument. In fact, a friend of mine did just that. And he was a royal jerk when it came to anything even remotely political.
The same is true with usability. “That movie isn’t usable.” “That blog isn’t usable.” “That newsletter isn’t usable.” To an extent, it’s our job, and we should pursue it (and aside from the movie one, I do appreciate Nielsen’s insights). But at the same time, for anyone who has worked in a culture where usability is looked at with a touch of dread (“Oh no, here comes the Designer” and lots of caveats like “Of course, this isn’t as good as if you did it”), calling out usability problems of every little thing can really frustrate people.
Ultimately, when it comes to movies, I say suspend your disbelief and move on. Unless the dialog about technology is so bad that you simply can’t stand it. On that note, I have to say that today’s Penny Arcade wins the award for best comic I’ve read in a looong time.
Some people have complained that my blog is purely NOT USABLE.
However, what if I had intended that way? As I must have mentioned before, I want people to have an immersive experience in the content. It’s about experiencing as I write. It’s not about keeping an update on my life. It’s reading as I think…uncategorized like real life.
Although at some point, I did start adding titles.
BY THE WAY, SAM, THANKS FOR THE PINGBACK! PING!
I think it’s ok for fiction to bend the reality of technology in order to make a better story. The medical field has been putting up with worse infractions longer than we have. My problem comes when these things start seeping into my everyday life. For instance, someone once gave me a grainy digital image containing a blurry face of a person whom they wanted to identify. They wanted me to “enhance” the image so that the four pixels making up the person’s face became a high-resolution photo. So I said, “Computer, enhance sector 7B”, but nothing happened.
lol
Reminds me of Star Trek 4 The Voyage Home, where Scotty is sharing the chemical formula for transparent aluminium by talking to the PC.
“Computer? … Hello computer? … oh, a keyboard. How quaint.
That PA strip was teh funny. No seriously, I about died laughing.
Oh, and since we don’t really keep up, hope all is well and all that.