weblog June 28, 2002   Warchalking is Matt Jones' latest brainchild. the idea is to use a hobo-like iconic language to signal WI-FI access points. the idea itself is fascinating. even more fascinating is the fact that it has caught like wildfire. Posted by fabio sergio | 3:31 PM | permalink ............ June 27, 2002   here's Dasher, an alternative "text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures". T9 meets the amazing exploding alphabet. it seems to make sense for handheld/wearable devices, and you can definitely imagine the benefit for disabled users. the concept looks more than a bit strange at first, but hey, so it's the whole "graffiti" thing if you think about it. at least in this case you don't have to re-learn how to write. Posted by fabio sergio | 3:02 PM | permalink ............ June 20, 2002   thanks to the always-informing Christina Wodtke i have discovered TaskZ, a site that delivers interesting, opinionated information about User-Centered Design (UCD) practices. it has been a while since I've read something about usability that hasn't left a stale aftertaste and a feeling of deja-read. i have particularly enjoyed Charles Mauro's "High-priced Usability" article on the dubious usefulness (pun intended) of a "guru" consulting approach to solve a company's products usability issues. it reminded me of the old "brand manual" approach to drive brand values deep into a company's culture. dusty folders forgotten on somebody's table and outdated the day after they were published. truth is it takes time and buy-in from each and every member of a community to achieve a pervasive change in any social environment. the same can be said of usability and UCD practices. only finding the way to embed UCD in the processes and culture of an organization designers can hope to see their role and contributions better valued by their colleagues and partners. how to do that? evangelize, do not patronize. work with your teammates to help them understand what you mean and why. help drive the change bottom-up and top-down. a few days ago i had the luck to share a few thought with Nathan Shedroff who was in Milano for a couple of days on his way to Ivrea's Interaction Design Institute. among other things we talked about how sometimes the design community has been guilty of somewhat mystifying its practices behind words such as creativity and intuition and in the end getting trapped by them and what they stand for. i think the same can be said of usability and information architecture practices and how they tend to relate to the design, marketing and product engineering communities. we have been talking about "understanding target audiences" and "user needs" and "speaking users' language" for a long time, but have we ever done that with the users of our deliverables? how about a study on their conceptual models? Posted by fabio sergio | 3:56 PM | permalink ............ June 10, 2002   i have no idea how old the concept is (and was not able to find it on the website either) but here's the story: - go to the BookCrossing site; - subscribe; - register as many books as you want and for each book get a specific ID; - print out a downloaded/home-made "tag" with instructions/ID; - stick the tag on the book; - leave the book somewhere, where people can pick it up (and read it); - people can then visit the website, see who left the book, who read it etc; - leave the book somewhere else for other people to read it. what you get is some kind of virtual library, with books scattered along people's paths and tastes. it just feels right, doesn't it? well, this is precisely the kind of concept that can only work in a connected community. something similar? Geocashing and, to some extent, GPS Drawing. ok now, if the tag had some kind of GPS tech attached to it...people could actually see where each book is in real time and then... Posted by fabio sergio | 5:22 PM | permalink ............ June 07, 2002   i remember reading an article recently on an italian newspaper about the "thumb generation", referring to the amazing speed at which teen-agers seem to able to SMS their friends using cell phones. now Wirelessnewsfactor has published a very similar article. it is fascinating to think about how much people are willing to adapt when there's a need involved and an answer to it, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. i've seen that happen time and time again during usability tests, and it's even more evident when you are observing people in their context, at home, at work. it is precisely at that point in time that a brave new world of opportunities opens up for designers. Posted by fabio sergio | 3:30 PM | permalink ............ June 03, 2002   Scott Weiss has written "Handheld Usability", a soon-to-be-published book that looks really interesting. side note of the week: the URL sports one of the new cool ".info" domains. [via InfoDesign] Posted by fabio sergio | 5:23 PM | permalink ............ Not bored yet? Visit freegorifero's weblog archives for more useless words.

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