spy.typepad.com

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: March 2005

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Thursday, March 31, 2005. The "beyond usability" debate. Beyond usability" is a phrase one is starting to hear often. Google lists nearly 10,000 pages containing the phrase. What's going on? Is usability somehow inadequate? Asked the profession: "Are you positive? Caroline Jarrett, a seasoned usability professional and coauthor of a new HCI textbook, has explored the richness and limitations of usability in her article,. Or how do they fit in?

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: February 2005

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Monday, February 21, 2005. Making it easy.to make mistakes. Link to this article. Posted by Michael Andrews @ 7:59 PM 0 comments. Always on, always rebooting. I understand the technical reasons why a computer must be restarted to load a new software version. But my techno-hostile side says it shouldn't be necessary. Just make sure nothing loads without my approval. Link to this article. Posted by Michael Andrews @ 7:59 AM 0 comments. Fame tells...

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: May 2005

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Tuesday, May 31, 2005. Can users "love" something important? Could it be that users don't want excitement for things they "need", they only want excitement for things they don't need? If so, what limits does that place on what kinds of things can be addressed by emotional design? I've been revisiting Del Coates' excellent book,. Watches tell more than time. Some of these implications sound like they fit, even though I also have some doubts....

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: June 2005

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Wednesday, June 29, 2005. We hear constantly that jargon is "bad" because outsiders don't understand it. But jargon is also good because it represents a highly developed and meaningful vocabulary among a social network. I admit to feeling uncomfortable when hearing jargon I don't understand. I sometimes wonder, "Am I supposed to know what this means? Link to this article. Posted by Michael Andrews @ 10:03 AM 0 comments. Sunday, June 26, 2005.

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: September 2005

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Thursday, September 29, 2005. The loss of precision. Link to this article. Posted by Michael Andrews @ 9:25 PM 0 comments. Tuesday, September 27, 2005. Enterprise automation and human productivity. Link to this article. Posted by Michael Andrews @ 8:39 PM 0 comments. Saturday, September 24, 2005. Is the future of user centered design watching people, or probing people? Link to this article. Posted by Michael Andrews @ 9:25 PM 0 comments. Mixed ...

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: July 2005

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Saturday, July 30, 2005. The mass market ethnography. I've finished Kate Fox's. Watching the English: the hidden rules of English behaviour. The only useful data tip was if you want to interview DIY enthusiasts in the parking lot of a DIY store, offer them tea and donuts, since that is in keeping with the spirit of their DIY mindset. I found this insistence of the immutability of English culture silly. I think good anthropologists today bel...

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: November 2004

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Monday, November 29, 2004. Limits of offshore user experience research. Offshore usability is a hot topic. Aaron Marcus has a editorial on the subject in the current. Magazine, and there are increasing numbers of articles profiling the growing capabilities of India and China. Is usability, like programming, "easy" to outsource to foreign countries? Samsung's European studio has done interesting user research on kitchen environments, and has sha...

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: January 2005

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_archive.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Sunday, January 30, 2005. Firefox: after the hoopla. I really find it strange I can find no one who will say anything negative about Firefox. If Firefox is supposed to be a revolution in browsers, I'm pretty disappointed. Sorry, it just ain't that different from any other browsers, and I've tried a few. Finally, I hate the included search window. In the default skin, it is too small to put much of anything, and one has. Link to this article.

michaelandrews.blogspot.com

Modules and Wholes: user agency

http://michaelandrews.blogspot.com/2005/11/user-agency.html

Discussion around human centered design and human potential. Sunday, November 06, 2005. Garden variety psychologists - the kind who write advice columns, rather than study rats and undergraduates - often talk about attribution. Is the consequence of my action the result of my skill, or some external factor? The organizational psychologist Yiannis Gabriel has talked about the increasing tendency for workers to desire to "be discovered." Previously, hard steady work was the recipe for advancement. ...Poste...