Tuesday, January 15, 2002
Gartner predicts another tough year for IT. Hoping 2002 would usher in a brighter forecast for the information-technology industry? Sorry, but Gartner's predicting more job cuts and business failures. [CNET News.com]
Better design through examples of bad design.
Talking about some simple usability issues over lunch prompted me to think about the following analogy regarding intuitive reporting systems. The required steps are obvious, hardly any training would be necessary, and the user is even given the choice of making more advanced queries.
Buuuut: if you have to answer a question, first, before you're able to view any results, you'll end up with a system that nobody uses.
I'd love to have a watch that behaved like this, so I could show people how quickly a tool becomes unusable, even if you're only one step away from getting the desired results.
Got some good laughs out of the following analysis of the Implausibility of the Death Star's Trash Compactor, reminiscent of the debate in Clerks about all of the innocent construction workers sent to their death in Return of the Jedi (the new Death Star was still being built, remember, and so the Rebels probably ended up killing thousands of innocent workers).
Also reminds me not to get so worked up every time I watch Scooby Doo with Esmé and Jasmine, and get steamed that, for example, there's an old Scottish castle somewhere in America, or that the gang has enough money to afford a speed boat to tool around on, and the only thing anybody has to say when Fred crashes into an island (where the ghost is haunting said castle), is "oh, well, guess we better go look for a phone."
I think this is what they call "suspension of disbelief."
From Rob Demopolous, last Friday, on How To Run a Microsoft-Free Shop. Nice.
(time for some retro-blogging)
Dave Fladebo sent this to me last Thursday:
BTW - Speaking of worthwhile improvements, if you haven't seen it, the link below is pretty long and filled with MS hype, but it explains why I think some of the things in .NET are an improvement over some of the competing technologies: http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/
Copyright 2002 © Robert K. Brown
