Friday, December 23, 2005

"The name is not the terrain" Andrew Dillon has some sensible things to say in his final column for the ASIS&T Bulletin: The End is Nigh. "IA is real, it's here and it has a history. Everything else is just hair-splitting. While deriving a definition might be really important to the academics among us, I no longer see it as essential to success of the field." (Andrew Dillon - ASIS&T Bulletin) [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] Andrew's point #7 says that "Usability is a design value, not a field." With which I think I agree; that is, usability is a necessary but not unique feature of interactive systems. But usability can be studied, just like HCI or information science. Maybe usability is logically part of HCI. But I suspect that the Usability Professionals Association might have selected a different name for what they do if there was one. One day we'll come up with better terminology, right after we stop calling the humans who use our products "users." 3:00:44 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

The good old days Ah, GUI nostalgia-- GUI Gallery. Take a stroll down memory lane without getting out of your seat: Graphical User Interface Gallery. . . I remember when AOL required GEOS. Or maybe AOL was GEOS. . . [The J-Walk Blog] I not only remember when AOL used GEOS, I rather liked it. Perhaps if AOL was still using GEOS I would still be a customer. 1:21:08 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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