Daniel Hardy

I decided to take a minute and update my Wordpress install to the new and improved Wordpress 2.5.  I must say I really like the new look and feel.  It is light, clean and appears to run a bit faster.  It is clear that they had input from a usability expert as it utilizes many techniques I employ daily.

The only change that I am not sold on is the idea of having the categories located below the post.  To me this just makes it easier to forget to adjust/add the proper categories for each post.  For many users this information will be below the fold making it difficult to find.

One area major advancements where made in is the handling of pictures and other media types.  There is a new multi-file uploader that is simple and easy to use.  It even gives you a preview after the upload allowing you to verify that the proper files where uploaded.

If you are a current Wordpress user or are considering starting a blog, I highly recommend upgrading to the newest version.

Just stumbled across this site.  It is great way to view all the happenings of the Ubuntu world.

Check it out at www.ubuntustats.com

There are two concepts that everyone in the usability field should learn early. First, some things by their very nature are not simple and straight forward and no matter what you do they will be difficult to understand. Second, you can never make all of the users happy all of the time.

The first concept is one that I continually struggle with as it begs the question of, “when is enough, enough?” For every product and designer this point is different. Sometimes you may have the resources to continue to refine it over and over. Other times you may need to make the decision to stop grinding the wheels and move forward with the application.

For my self I find that doing a complete design of something more than three or four times becomes counter productive. Typically somewhere in those first designs is the core of what the interface should be. From there it can be shaped into the best solution possible. But this shaping can only happen with a clear and detailed direction. Once that disappears all design work should cease. If the stake holders still have concerns they should provide a detailed direction for the project and refinement can then resume. If they cannot provide a detailed direction then the product should be reviewed by users (assuming time allows) or released to the public with the understanding that some fast fixes will need to follow.

While the second concept seems obvious it requires you to ask a few questions. The fist one that is often asked is, “is it better to make all of the people happy some of the time or some of the people happy all of the time?”  I would argue you cannot do either of these. The best you can hope for is to make most of the people happy most of the time.

The tricky part then becomes defining what “most” and “happy” means. I believe “most” is as close to 95% as economically possible. “Happy” is really a measure of contentedness with the product in question. Again the issue becomes relaying this information to stake holders who would like to see all customers happy all of the time.

Similar to the first concept, refinement work should cease when detailed direction stops flowing from the stakeholders, even if there are still members who feel the product isn’t “ready”.  This is because it is not productive to simply say something is wrong and not provide any explanation of why it is wrong or more importantly how to fix it.

Finally the hardest part about both of these concepts is that they feel like an admission of failure.  You have to stop work when you may feel like it could be better.   If you are anything like me this is a hard pill to swallow.

The upcoming Ubuntu release, Hardy Heron had its first beta release today and I decided to take it for a spin.  Overall there is a lot of improvements to the user experience and the product continues to grow at great rates.  As with any beta software try it at your own risk.   Here are some more thoughts form the first hour of use.

The good

• Smoother boot… the screens blend together with out the jarring resolution changes
• Love the new background used on the GDM and desktop.  I think this is the best one yet
• Theme in general is a lot more polished
• Love the package manager icon in the task bar that lets you know when it is being used.
• Firefox 3 is fantastic
• System Monitor looks 100x better
• Avant Window Navigator is in the Repository
• “Add to Panel” redesign is great

The bad

• A change in the Intel 3945 wireless driver prevented me from connecting to a hidden SSID network.  I had to set the SSID to visible to connect.  After the first connection I was able to turn it off again.
• 3D doesn’t seem to work as smooth on my 945 graphics
• The initial install had a large increase in idle memory footprint.  This is mostly because of several new features that are probably pretty handy for most users.  Idle was about 325Mbs. (I have eliminated several items I don’t use and it is down to 285Mb)

The ugly

•  Firefox 3 is blends with the operating system… I miss the old look and when a theme is available, I will be adding it.
• I would have liked to see more advancements in the general theme for this release but it just did not make it in time.

Love it or hate it, Apple’s Safari web browser has started making gains in market share. These gains have been small by many accounts but I believe Safari has a couple things going for it that currently Firefox and IE can’t compete with. Its ability to be easily embedded into and modified.

This ability does not come directly from Safari but rather its open source rendering engine, Webkit. This engine has proven to be extremely competent and lightweight. It also has one of the fastest rendering times available.

Because it is easy to work with and free(as in speech and beer) it is now being used not only by Safari, but Adobe’s AIR environment and you can even run Epiphany with a Webkit engine.

The mobile environment is where this browser will really get its wings from. Currently there is nothing that can compete with it in this area. It is extremely fast and allows users to view websites as they where intended.

Perhaps more importantly it creates an easy to use interface for navigating pages that where clearly designed for much larger monitors. This is the piece that really makes the difference. It renders the page in its entirety in a zoomed out view. From there the user can simply double click on an area to zoom in. Once zoomed in you can simply move around the page, or zoom out as necessary.

This combination, if unopposed may help vault Safari into a prominent position.

Love it or hate it, Apple’s Safari web browser has started making gains in market share. These gains have been small by many accounts but I believe Safari has a couple things going for it that currently Firefox and IE can’t compete with. Its ability to be easily embedded into and modified.

This ability does not come directly from Safari but rather its open source rendering engine, Webkit. This engine has proven to be extremely competent and lightweight. It also has one of the fastest rendering times available.

Because it is easy to work with and free(as in speech and beer) it is now being used not only by Safari, but Adobe’s AIR environment and you can even run Epiphany with a Webkit engine.

The mobile environment is where this browser will really get its wings from. Currently there is nothing that can compete with it in this area. It is extremely fast and allows users to view websites as they where intended.

Perhaps more importantly it creates an easy to use interface for navigating pages that where clearly designed for much larger monitors. This is the piece that really makes the difference. It renders the page in its entirety in a zoomed out view. From there the user can simply double click on an area to zoom in. Once zoomed in you can simply move around the page, or zoom out as necessary.

This combination, if unopposed may help vault Safari into a prominent position.

So today I was out and about on the internet looking at the release schedule for the upcoming Ubuntu Hardy Heron release when I stumbled across the full Ubuntu release schedule .ics file. It dawned on me that I could simply add the URL to my new Google calendar and receive all the important dates of my favorite operating system. If you are a tried and true Ubuntu fanboy this should certainly not be missed, so go a head an join ultimate geek-dom.

Well I finally bit the bullet and purchased an Apple product. I know it is hard to believe that someone who is such a technology geek and an interaction designer is just now getting around to purchasing an iPod.

In the short time I have owned the Apple iPod Touch I must admit that the user experience is unrivaled in its market. This isn’t to say that it is perfect, far from it. Apple does an extraordinary job of hand shaping the user experience from end to end. They seem to think of almost everything.

This extreme molding of the experience comes at a cost that most people never discuss. Apple controls every detail of every product they offer and they are not afraid of limiting the user’s ability to edit or modify the product to their taste.

In my opinion this is an ugly mark against against an exemplary user experience. As a user’s knowledge grows, so does their desire to “own” the product. By this I mean, that when a user becomes comfortable with how something works they often want to customize it to their taste. This can be something small like a theme or something larger like configuring obscure features or setting default behavior through out an application.

By limiting the user’s ability to personalize the product, Apple limits the user’s ability to grow to their fullest potential. It also limits their products ability to reach it’s maximum potential as user’s may not find the resolution to the problem their are seeking answers for.

Perhaps my view is a little biased because I like Linux’s Kool-Aid a little more than Apple’s. What do you think?