Noise Between Stations

Yesterday my wife received a call from John Kerry, the American presidential candidate. She was pretty excited, but realized fairly quickly that it was a recording. When she was done listening, she tried to delete the message. ‘No honey,‘ I said, ‘it’s a phone call.‘ ‘Which number do I use to delete again?‘ ‘Honey, it’s [...]

PeterV’s story of automated phone system vs. web (why is the phone system, which forces one to navigate a tree, easier to use?) reminded me of a story from Chris Fahey of Behavior. Chris was designing an interface for a mobile screen, I forget whether it was a PDA or a mobile phone. Of course [...]

New Architect’s By Design: Wisdom from the Industry gives off lots of sparks, especially this one from Henry Lieberman, Agents Research Lead at MIT Media Lab: Applications and menu operations are like hammers and screwdrivers. Each is specialized to do a particular task. There’s nothing wrong with tools, but having a different tool for each [...]