Usability problem of the day (an adventure in an English washroom)

In the courses I teach about human-computer interaction, I typically open each class with an example of a usability problem. I'm putting these online, in case others find them useful.

Okay, not an adventure. Last year, during a layover at the Heathrow Airport, I had occasion to visit the washroom. The fixtures looked familiar, as they do almost everywhere, but they gave me trouble. I couldn't figure out how to turn the water on.

NCSU HFES talk

These slides are for a presentation to the NCSU chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Usability problem of the day (duplicating in iPhoto)

In the courses I teach about human-computer interaction, I typically open each class with an example of a usability problem. I'm putting these online, in case others find them useful.

I'm a casual user of iPhoto. The application is up to version 9, and it's been around since 2002, so you'd expect it to be bulletproof with respect to usability. It's not quite that.

Usability problem of the day (microwave oven controls)

In the courses I teach about human-computer interaction, I typically open each class with an example of a usability problem. I'm putting these online, in case others find them useful.

This is the control panel on my microwave oven.

Usability challenge of the day (Jitterbug)

In the courses I teach about human-computer interaction, I typically open each class with an example of a usability problem. I'm putting these online, in case others find them useful.

A couple of years ago ads for a new cell phone for older users, called Jitterbug, were everywhere on TV. (The ads were annoying, to be honest, but maybe that's just me.) Online, here's how the Jitterbug was advertised:

Introducing the world's simplest, cell phone experience [sic]...

It doesn't play games, take pictures, or give you the weather.

For people like me, who want a cell phone that's easy to use.

That sounds great, doesn't it? I wondered how they manage it, and so I looked up the Jitterbug user manual. Here's the table of contents.

Usability problem of the day (iPhone scrollbar)

In the courses I teach about human-computer interaction, I typically open each class with an example of a usability problem. I'm putting these online, in case others find them useful.

Here are two screenshots of the Settings app on my iPhone, from a couple of years ago.

On animals and tools (OUP)

Try this experiment: Ask someone to name three tools, without thinking hard about it. This is a parlor game, not a scientific study, so your results may vary, but I've done this dozens of times and heard surprisingly consistent answers. The most common is hammer, screwdriver, and saw, in that order.

We seem to share a basic understanding of what tools are and how they're used. This may be only natural; tools fill our lives. It's hard to imagine going through your daily routine without them. You can't brush your teeth or comb your hair; locked doors stay locked; meal times, in the preparation and the eating, are messy affairs. As Thomas Carlyle said, "Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all."

Read the rest on the OUPblog, "Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World."

Fairly old memories

My wife and I used to travel a good deal, and I took a fair number of photos on our trips. Here are a few of my favorites, which I keep rotating in the background on my computer. There's no lesson here; just whimsy. I'm terrible at keeping records, but I've added captions that indicate something about where the pictures were taken. Most of these were taken with an SLR and scanned into digital form.

Tanzania. An acacia tree, if I'm not mistaken.

Orca and usability (HuffPo)

Imagine that it's a few months before the Presidential election. You've just received a call, asking if you'd be willing to offer your services as a usability consultant on a political software project. You're curious; what would something called "Orca" be for? You decide to do it. You're shown a few screen shots, along with brief written instructions for using the system.

Here's how your conversation with the development team might go.

Read the rest on the Huffington Post.

Software building blocks

I've changed the background image on the blog; it shows the street pavement outside a small hotel in Milan, where my wife and I stayed some years ago. The rectangular blocks are arranged to form overlapping arcs, a nice contrast between the view close-up and from a short distance.

One highlight of our trip was a visit to the Milan cathedral. It was under construction and most of the exterior was covered for protection, but we were able to wander across the lower rooftops and admire the stonework and detailed carvings, high above the street level.

Book review at Technology and Society

There's a new book review from Curtis Frye, who writes, "Robert St. Amant wrote Computing for Ordinary Mortals to describe the ideas behind computer technology for the non-technical reader. He succeeds admirably."

Read the full review at Technology and Society Book Reviews.

CSTA talk

I'll be giving a short talk at the local chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association this evening. Here's what I plan to present.

UNC CRADLE talk

This isn't strictly related to Computing for Ordinary Mortals, but in case any readers are interested in what a college professor does...

These slides were for a presentation to the Center for Research and Development of Digital Libraries at the University of North Carolina. The talk was about Physical information spaces, in context, which is probably a bit too general, but I was covering a good deal of ground.

Ordinary Mortals and CS education

This post can also be read as a public Google doc.

I’ve written Computing for Ordinary Mortals for readers without a technical background or even much experience in computing. My thought was this: If you wanted to explain what computing is all about, starting from scratch, what what would you say? You have a tremendous number of decisions to make, about which topics are critical and which can be left out, about the ordering and detail of topics you include, and about how the topics fit together into a comprehensive whole. For what it’s worth, some computer scientists will make decisions different from mine. Most popular science books and textbooks go into greater detail about representing and managing data; I delay a discussion of programming concepts until after algorithms and abstract data types; I punt on the question of whether computer science is a branch of applied mathematics (see Dijkstra’s “How do we tell truths that might hurt?” [PDF], though he was talking about programming), or a branch of science (Newell, Perlis, and Simon’s “What is computer science?”), or a branch of engineering (Eden’s “Three Paradigms of Computer Science” [PDF]), or perhaps something different (Rosenbloom’s On Computing, or Graham’s “Hackers and painters”).

Writing a popular science book on computing means taking a stand on such issues, but the constraints of the genre didn’t make it easy for me to say, “Here’s what I’m doing...” That’s in part what this document is for, to identify the connections between Ordinary Mortals and the field of computer science, at least as it’s currently taught at the university and secondary school levels.

Industry talk

This isn't strictly related to Computing for Ordinary Mortals, but in case any readers are interested in what a college professor does...

These slides were for a presentation to an industry partner, about the work that goes on in my research lab.

How to avoid programming (OUP)

What does a computer scientist do? You might expect that we spend a lot of our time programming, and this sometimes happens, for some of us. When I spend a few weeks or even months building a software system, the effort can be enormously fun and satisfying. But most of the time, what I actually do is a bit different. Here’s an example from my past work, related to the idea of computational thinking.

Imagine you have a new robot in your home. You haven’t yet figured out all of its capabilities, so you mainly use it for sentry duty; it rolls from room to room while you’re not at home, turning lights and appliances on and off, perhaps checking for fires or burglaries.

Read the rest on the OUPblog, "Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World."