September 2009
21 posts
2 tags
Presentation Tips
When you are going to be giving a presentation, be it at a conference, to a client, or in class, it would behoove you to be prepared. I’m repeatedly surprised by how unprepared presenters often are. These tips seem obvious to me, but perhaps they are worth repeating.
If at all possible, test the presentation equipment beforehand. Even if it is only five minutes before you are to start, you should...
2 tags
Up to Snuff
Back in the beginning of August, I posted about my dissatisfaction with the way NewsGator handled the transition of their syncing over to Google Reader. Well, I’m happy to report that the transition is finally complete. The new version of the NetNewsWire iPhone app was released last week, so after two months of feeds on my iPhone being out of sync with those on my home and office machines, I’m...
3 tags
This Side Up
I noticed this sheet of paper tacked to the wall just above a Xerox color Phaser printer in our office. Obviously, somebody was trying to print on letterhead and needed to know which way to put it in the printer to get the correct orientation. They marked the top-left and bottom-right corners, and the side of the page that was facing up, when they put it in either the manual feed tray or the...
2 tags
Acknowledged
Thanks to companies such as Apple, Target, Oxo, Simple Human, Dyson, Ikea, and so on, Design is gaining notoriety. The general public is becoming more aware of it—more cognizant of well-designed products. I was reminded of this by a bit of fast food marketing.
It’s the in thing to include clever copy on all of the fast food packaging. Humorous little snippets entertain us while we snarf down our...
2 tags
Tales from the Field: Digital Data Collection
Power system engineers require a lot of detailed information about the electrical system of an industrial facility before they can model and analyze it. A technician takes large (tabloid size) forms that represent common couplings of electrical components to record information about breakers, panels, substations, and the like. The problem is that the electrical systems they are recording often...
3 tags
Practical Lessons from Games: Inventory
One common feature of most adventure and roleplaying games is the inventory. This is where you store objects that you find and pick up throughout the game. When you need a particular item, you access your inventory, select the item, and then use it to interact with the game world in some way. Inventories are represented in a wide variety of metaphors, typically bags, briefcases, backpacks, and the...
3 tags
Leave Me Alone
If you read DesignAday regularly, it’s obvious I’m a Mac user. Of course, as an Interaction Designer working for a software development firm, I do have to use Windows on a regular basis. I typically remote into PCs on our network to test my code in IE, for example. When I do, I’m deluged by little alert bubbles. They inform me that new software is ready to install, that Java updates are available,...
2 tags
Designer’s Toolbelt: Yojimbo
One of the tools I rely on and use almost daily is not really a design tool at all, but a general information manager. I read a lot of blogs and web publications about design. Most content is HTML, but a fair amount is in PDFs or even image files. I collect information that I think I might want to use in the classes I teach or that I want to have for later reference. I will also collect things...
2 tags
Tales from the Field: Harsh Environments
By its very nature, a mobile computer must withstand a lot of physical abuse. At the same time, it must not become a hazard itself.
An average day for a power systems technician will find him in any number of conditions, including extreme temperature changes, indoor and outdoor locations, low lighting, loud noise, tight quarters, roofs, and crawlspaces. They must climb ladders, negotiate...
4 tags
Commiseration is Good for the Soul
We had a great event last night. Hosted by General Dynamics Viz, IxDA Pittsburgh gathered for an evening of presentations about interaction design for the military. We had about 45 minutes to visit and eat before we got down to business. I kicked things off at around 6:20 with a presentation about mobile computing and the design of Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals. Then David Bishop of...
3 tags
Tales from the Field: Postponement
Oil drilling platform technicians relate a tale common to maintenance in most industries. Rather than making a trip to the control room to grab a job card and document the work they just completed, they’ll continue to the next task, making a mental note to fill one out at the end of their shift. They’ll usually remember to do so, but even when it’s not completely forgotten, how accurate is the...
3 tags
Worth a Mint
I’m a long-time user of Quicken, but Intuit hasn’t been making Mac customers very happy recently. The current version of Quicken is from 2007 and it shows its age. It never really behaved like a Mac OSX application, and it’s a bit buggy. It’s feature rich in the same way that MS Word is—meaning I don’t use or even know about a large percentage of the features. And they keep postponing the next...
2 tags
Interaction Design for Military Users
This Wednesday, IxDA Pittsburgh is holding an event centered around military-related, interaction design projects. Here’s the announcement:
The challenges that face the Warfighter are like no other, and Interaction Designers are tasked to design products, systems, and services that address their unique needs. The decisions that we make affect their operations, situational awareness and...
3 tags
Managed
Perhaps one drawback of my career is that I have never had a senior designer as my boss. My only true design mentors have been my professors, whom I’ve had limited contact with in the past ten years, and so little direction. I’ve primarily worked under the supervision of software engineers. For this reason, I’ve had to rely on my own motivation to continue to grow as a designer. My participation...
7 tags
Interaction 10 Proposal
The deadline for session proposals for the Interaction 10 conference is rapidly approaching. I submitted a demonstration today. All proposals are publicly available on the conference website. Not only can you read them, but make comments that will be taken into account when the committee decides which proposals to except. Not only that, but you can leave comments as to how the potential presenter...
2 tags
Let Teachers Teach
There are serious problems with our current educational system, and this week’s mailing from my children’s school is an excellent example.
The president of the United States is planning to address the nation’s children during a televised speech on the importance of education, work ethic, and goal setting on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009.
We understand that some families feel strongly in favor of...
2 tags
Toner Moaner
I’ve only been the owner of a laser printer for less than a year, and while I’ve used plenty of them at work, and at school before that, I’ve never been responsible for the consumables. I was surprised when all of the color cartridges in my Brother color laser reported that they were low at exactly the same time. This seemed highly unlikely to me, and I haven’t printed all that much in color...
3 tags
Modularity
“Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces.”
This rule from Eric Raymond’s book The Art of Unix Programming, while referring to software architecture, can also be applied to the structure of a user interface. The point is to build small chunks of code that can be tested and upgraded separately, reducing the complexity of the whole. The correlation in UI design is to create bounded, easily...
1 tag
Defining Design
I kicked off my course this semester with a discussion about the definition of design. Here are some of my favorite quotes on the subject.
“Defining design is not about coming up with a single definition, but resolving the seemingly conflicting and incompatible definitions.” Dan Brown, greenonions.com
“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But, of course, if you...
4 tags
Cornucopia of Conferences
The folks over at Interaction-Design.org have just released a new resource that will be quite useful for any designer looking for opportunities to share their work or to learn from others that do. Their World Map of Conferences provides a Google map with pins for IxD-related conferences. Interested in visiting Hawaii? There is UMAP 10 next June. On the other extreme, there is NordiCHI 10 next...
3 tags
Design Pattern: Persistence Pays Off
Contextual forms are great! At least, they are better than dumb, non-contextual forms. When I make a selection in question 2 that makes five other fields on the page inapplicable, those fields should be disabled or hidden. Ah, but what if I filled out those five fields and then answered question 2, such that those fields don’t apply? The information in those fields isn’t needed, so it can be...
