Author: Victor

Flash is evil. Not. While I agree that Flash used badly is bad, but that’s true of every technology. Saying flash makes “the Web much less usable” is like saying the Web makes FTP much less usable. We’re extending the media, folks.

The web enables you to view all those files intermingled in one screen, whereas FTP forced you to download documents then use them. As the web was extended to include interactivity, it only makes sense that would eventually include animation and rich media. Sure you have to install a plug in, just as you had to install a web browser, just as you had to buy or seek out a computer. It is another hurdle, but it’s worth jumping in some cases.

In this article on an interactive music system, the author says, “I would claim that we have passed the musical Turing test.”

Since human played music has been pushed so far in every direction (minimalism, serialism, free jazz, etc.) I would think the only thing a musical Turing test could test would be whether something is humanly possible to play on a given instrument. E.g., 256th notes on a trumpet would be tough for a human but cake for a computer.

Just posted a draft of a research paper I hope to discuss next week at CHI 2000:

Interrogate Your Project: Connecting Business Goals with Design Using HCI Design Patterns
(download a Microsoft Word file)

comments welcome

Just posted a new photo essay, “Green St., Summer 1999”

A couple of the most popular songs from 1999 have these feel-sorry-for-myself lyrics that probably appeal to most everyone, and especially teenagers…

“…scar tissue that I wish you saw…” – Chili Peppers

“…and I don’t want the world to see me

cause I don’t think that they’d understand…” – Goo Goo Dolls (I think)

OK, here’s one good solid rational usability reason the MS Office Assistant can be annoying: the default location covers the lower, right corner of the window. This sucks in Windows where, because windows maximize to fill the whole screen, there are about 6 interface widgets that are blocked by the Assistant (scroll up, down, window size handle, etc.).

The Assistant does have an option called “move when in the way” but it doesn’t move as far as I can tell. It DOES remember its last location, so if you put it in a good spot it will go back there next time. But people prolly just get frustrated the first time and turn it off.

The paper clip is so cute, it’s my friend. I love the paper clip.

People in general seem to really dislike the Microsoft Office paperclip (the “Office Assistant”). I don’t have time to think about this now, but my initial impresion is that people are uptight. Here’s this fun little character thrown in to make life easier and people just instinctively reach for the fly swatter. Hmmmm, maybe the size and animation instinctively remind us of bugs? Must continue this train of thought later…

Back in October of ’99 I talked about writing ematter about epinions, epinion about ematter, ematter about blogger, etc. I did end up writing an epinion about Blogger, which earned me lots of traffic and $50.

I don’t think I thought of a blog about blogs, which is a fun idea and which Adam does well. I burned out on the blog community after I dove in head first. Now I just have my feet in the water.

His subtitle rocks as well: “post post-modern. meta-metafilter. n degrees removed from content.”

If anyone is reading, I corrected that 5k post below. Keep forgetting to close my darn quotation marks in that pesky HREF tag.

Yeeeehaaaa…I blew past my one year anniversary as a blogger a couple weeks ago (3/10/1999). I’ve gone from unknown to somewhat popular and on to mostly unknown. For the most part I’m happy with the blog, it’s been a great writing outlet. My only complaint is that I still, even after warning others away, don’t post real personal stuff. I might have to start another blog for that.

When I first heard of the 5k award I almost immediately thought how disappointing it is that there will probably be no entries from Razorfish developers – we tend to make big, splashy designs and (quite rightly) emphasize function over download time.

So I was very happily surprised when I strayed past someone’s desk as he was looking at the entry page. When I inquired, he showed me his entry. Wow, amazing. Impressive in general, and even more so that he widdled it down to 5K.

Currently feeling sluggish and grouchy, coming off several weeks of cranking out information architecture for 60+ hours a week, now I can only sit back and watch to see what the designers do with my work.

The first week of April I’ll be at CHI 2000 and know I’ll come back with a thousand refreshing ideas I’ll want to implement right away and will probably experiment with this site.

My desk neighbor and I were just commenting on the beauty of honey bears as she prepared her tea. They’re practical, easier to use than a jar, and it’s oh-so-fun to squeeze their little hunny tummies. Why aren’t more products packaged this way?

Jared Spool follows up the ComputerWorld article below with a message to the WEB-CHI list. Another quote:

We’ve found that when users generalize
their behaviors about the web, they don’t describe anything that we
end up observing.

Really slams home the importance of user testing over interviews and focus groups.