The commoditisation of user testing is finally here.
I've been expecting user testing as a service for a while. By which I mean user testing on line and on demand ( demand by the programmer)
UserTesting.com - Low Cost Usability Testing
As a developer I would have loved something like this.
The idea of users on tap makes and given you can set up tasked for them to do means you could do this as part of the agile development process - build a part and get it user tested. Then move on.
The people on the demos sound all very familiar with speak aloud so your going to get something between a real user test and heuristic evaluation, which is OK. These people spend all day testing stuff so I guess your going to get high end users who know a lot about other web sites. But hay this is quite cool and the loss of fuss and bother is good. It sounds like Americans so I like the notion of finishing something and getting it tested 'overnight' with examples next morning.
They do websites - a guess I like the same thing for iPhone apps.
file under cool and useful.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
The Science of Risk - Lloyd’s Research Prize - Tools & Resources - Lloyd's
The Science of Risk - Lloyd’s Research Prize - Tools & Resources - Lloyd's
Strange world - Lloyds are doing a best paper prize for the paper which most illuminates the world of risk.
file under strange and curious.
Strange world - Lloyds are doing a best paper prize for the paper which most illuminates the world of risk.
file under strange and curious.
History lesson
I have always been a big geek about how we shape and are shaped by our technology. This was one of my huge influences as a kid. Wonderful they are all on line. now.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Interaction methods of the day Borda count
Borda count - Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
One paper used this when they want to evaluate to a number of alternatives and you get people to rank them in order.
file under useful techniques and buzzwords
One paper used this when they want to evaluate to a number of alternatives and you get people to rank them in order.
file under useful techniques and buzzwords
Energy consumption at DIS
Interesting work from Goldsmitths group.
Apparently switching off doesn't necessary mean less carbon is consumed as less electricity is generated. They suggested on Earth day when people switched things off that the grid just had a surplus.
To get energy reduced you need to balance energy consumption against generation. Global co-ordination issue.
They came up with device which shows your energy consumption against mix of generation (wind,nuclear,coal,gas).
Also showed video of Jon/Yvonne/OU's Tidy street project.
Apparently switching off doesn't necessary mean less carbon is consumed as less electricity is generated. They suggested on Earth day when people switched things off that the grid just had a surplus.
To get energy reduced you need to balance energy consumption against generation. Global co-ordination issue.
They came up with device which shows your energy consumption against mix of generation (wind,nuclear,coal,gas).
Also showed video of Jon/Yvonne/OU's Tidy street project.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Urban Informatics
Urban Informatics
Urban computing and urban informatics seems to be the buzzword at DIS2012. And I came across this link.
Urban computing seems to be about people who put digital stuff ( like big displays) into the urban environment.
Urban computing and urban informatics seems to be the buzzword at DIS2012. And I came across this link.
Urban computing seems to be about people who put digital stuff ( like big displays) into the urban environment.
If I was doing a GPS for dementia system
I would develop a thing which had the form factor of a walking stick not a walkman.
This way the person with dementia would not have to remember it, they would need it to leave the building.
A walking stick is not a large badge saying 'I'm useless or mug me I'm frail'
The recharger would be the umbrella stand - so you don't have to remember to recharge and you get a signal when someone is at home.
It would have a 'I'm lost' button and it would vibrate when pointing the way home.
It would have a 'HELP'/Alarm button to set off in case to call panic
It would use GPS ring fence to warn careers if the person was outside a 'known' area.
You could give it to someone pre-demientia so you could get used to it as 'familiar' before they lost time.
It might have a 'twist' switch which would switch off GPS tracking for privacy.
The display would show a fuzzy boundary showing the certainty of the fix.
This way the person with dementia would not have to remember it, they would need it to leave the building.
A walking stick is not a large badge saying 'I'm useless or mug me I'm frail'
The recharger would be the umbrella stand - so you don't have to remember to recharge and you get a signal when someone is at home.
It would have a 'I'm lost' button and it would vibrate when pointing the way home.
It would have a 'HELP'/Alarm button to set off in case to call panic
It would use GPS ring fence to warn careers if the person was outside a 'known' area.
You could give it to someone pre-demientia so you could get used to it as 'familiar' before they lost time.
It might have a 'twist' switch which would switch off GPS tracking for privacy.
The display would show a fuzzy boundary showing the certainty of the fix.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Innovation | The TAT Blog
Innovation | The TAT Blog
I am a big lover of these videos showing future interfaces, this is definitely a nice one.
I am a big lover of these videos showing future interfaces, this is definitely a nice one.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Monitor: Prophets of zoom | The Economist
Looks like the Economist is finally catching on to zoomable interfaces.
Monitor: Prophets of zoom | The Economist: The zoom-based approach can transform multi-page websites into a single broad surface that simultaneously displays all content. Instead of clicking and waiting for a new page to appear, a visitor can zoom directly to areas of interest. On the Hard Rock Caf�website, a page built using Microsoft’s Silverlight software shows 1,610 memorabilia items. By using the scroll wheel to zoom, details of each one can be expanded to fill the entire screen.
Software that zooms deep into moving imagery may be next. America’s Department of Energy is developing software to drill into scientific animations of particle behaviour in nuclear reactions. Called VisIt, its zooming range is equivalent to zipping from a view of the Milky Way to a grain of sand, says Becky Springmeyer, who is working on the project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Will deep zooming catch on? Mark Changizi, an evolutionary neurobiologist and author of “The Vision Revolution”, notes that the human visual system has to cope with zooming when moving, say, through a dense grove of trees. Today’s zooming software operates on a different scale, but as touch-screen devices proliferate, zooming has become a popular way to manipulate maps and photos—so perhaps it will catch on in other areas, too.
Monitor: Prophets of zoom | The Economist: The zoom-based approach can transform multi-page websites into a single broad surface that simultaneously displays all content. Instead of clicking and waiting for a new page to appear, a visitor can zoom directly to areas of interest. On the Hard Rock Caf�website, a page built using Microsoft’s Silverlight software shows 1,610 memorabilia items. By using the scroll wheel to zoom, details of each one can be expanded to fill the entire screen.
Software that zooms deep into moving imagery may be next. America’s Department of Energy is developing software to drill into scientific animations of particle behaviour in nuclear reactions. Called VisIt, its zooming range is equivalent to zipping from a view of the Milky Way to a grain of sand, says Becky Springmeyer, who is working on the project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Will deep zooming catch on? Mark Changizi, an evolutionary neurobiologist and author of “The Vision Revolution”, notes that the human visual system has to cope with zooming when moving, say, through a dense grove of trees. Today’s zooming software operates on a different scale, but as touch-screen devices proliferate, zooming has become a popular way to manipulate maps and photos—so perhaps it will catch on in other areas, too.
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