Jan 25, 2010 by Miranda Capra in Consumer Products, Usability, User Experience, Web & Software
Games are an interesting design challenge because if they’re too easy they’re no fun, and if they’re too hard they’re no fun, and “easy” and “hard” may be different for different people. Party games, or video games that you’d break out with a group of friends, are a special challenge because they need to be fun for the group, which may contain people with mixed skill levels or experience. Wii Sports is a great video game because the direct interaction style is fun. Want to swing the tennis racket? Just swing the controller! But it quickly became a party game, even for people that didn’t play video games. Why? Because it was intuitive, easy to learn. No need to memorize complex combinations of button presses used in many video games. Instead, people could pick up a controller and start playing immediately.
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Jan 14, 2010 by Miranda Capra in Consumer Products, Mobile, New Technology
Note: This week we are reacting to CES 2010, which was last week in Las Vegas.
Zomm has created a keychain fob that’s a Bluetooth accessory for your phone. It pairs with your mobile phone, and then it beeps if it gets more than 50 yards away from your phone, to help you remember to take your phone with you. It also doubles as a personal alarm and way to talk to emergency personnel. The folks at CES also thought it was cool, they awarded it “The Best of Innovations” Award. This is a great example of design to avoid mistakes. For many of us it’s pretty difficult to leave home without keys because we have to lock the front door and start the car, but it’s much easier to forget your phone at home or on a table at a restaurant. With Zomm, as long as you have your keys, you’ll remember your phone. If you keep your phone in your purse it can help you remember both, but if you forget your keys too you’re completely stuck.
Dec 30, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Usability, Web & Software
When my husband and I went home for the holidays, we got his parents on Facebook. They’re still not sure whether or not they should thank us – time will tell. But the process of explaining Facebook was much easier because we had them use Facebook Lite. This is a new version of Facebook, still in beta, that has pared the interface down to the essential features. It’s different from Facebook Mobile, which is designed for mobile phones and also has a more limited feature set, but doesn’t translate well to large-screen displays.
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Dec 18, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Consumer Products, Gestural Interfaces, New Technology, Usability
Our friends at Amberlight have written a review of Apple’s Magic Mouse.
If you haven’t heard, the entire surface of the Magic Mouse is touch-sensitive, and the mouse supports several touch gestures for interacting with your computer. So head on over to our other blog, TouchThinking, and read all about it!
TouchThinking is a gestural interfaces blog that members of the International Usability Partners contribute to (including us, HumanCentric).
Dec 02, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Usability, Web & Software
Last week I needed to create a special website for a client project. The specific website is unimportant, but it’s a service that several companies offer – you create an account and configure the site, and they host it. I looked into two different companies for this web service…
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Nov 23, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Consumer Products, Human Factors
A few years ago I bought a new can opener that leaves a smooth edge on the lid of the can so that you don’t have to worry about cutting yourself on the lid. The first time I tried to use it, it took me 10 minutes and I completely mangled the lid of the can in the process. Why? Because the new can opener look very similar to my old one, but worked in a completely different fashion. Let me show you some example can openers to explain what happened.
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Nov 09, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Usability, Web & Software
This week marks the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. When I visited their website in a browser that didn’t support Flash, I was greeted by a fantastic error message: F is for Flash! What was so great about this error message? It felt like something Sesame Street would say. It used letters and alliteration, it had a happy Muppet character next to it, and it tried to sneak in a little educational information about Flash. It was also great from a user interface perspective. Much of the rest of the site was still usable; it explained what was happening and why I couldn’t use this part of the website (feedback), and gave me a helpful link to download and install flash so I could use the site (feed forward). I love it!
Oct 16, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Community Involvement, Consumer Products, Green Technology, Local, User Experience
HumanCentric is creating designs for better recycling containers and recycling systems as part of a design challenge sponsored by TriUPA for World Usability Day. We are collecting information about how you recycle, what you know about recycling, and what you would change, and would love for you to take 5 minutes and fill out our survey. Thanks!
Oct 13, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Human Factors
Last month, the FDA issued a public health alert about Potential Medication Errors with Tamiflu Oral Suspension. Doctors in the US typically prescribe dosages for liquid drugs in terms of teaspoons. However, the eye dropper that comes with the medication has doses listed in milliliters. Users that do not realize this difference might under-dose themselves, leading to not being protected from the flu, or over-dosing, which could be potentially fatal, especially for young children. Now that doctors are aware of this problem they can issue dosages in milliliters, assuming that the doctor is able to properly do the conversion math. The best way to solve this would be to have the US using the same measurement system as the rest of the world, but that’s a huge issue all to itself. The next best solution is to have drugs that use the local units, or at least be labeled with both metric and English units…
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Sep 15, 2009 by Miranda Capra in Consumer Products, Usability
I have played computer sales associate for my family for years, helping guide them when they buy a new computer and translating the technical jargon that goes into computer specifications. I’ve patiently explained that the new laptop probably comes with an 80GB hard drive, not an 80GB CPU, that RAM is for running programs and not storing photos, and that you don’t need a high-end graphics card designed for gamers if all you’re going to do is watch a few YouTube videos. So I’m very excited to see that AMD is launching an ad campaign focused on tasks, rather than technical specifications.
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