Less than half the population of the world has the manual dexterity to wiggle their fingers at the speed of 50 words per minute or better.
–Dr. Alan Lloyd, seminal typing instructor.
Computer professionals often seem to have unrealistically high expectations of what the “average” typist can do. For example, according to this Wikipedia article (as of [...]
I do not put much faith in Hick’s Law. I’ve seen it misapplied and drastically misinterpreted. Its limits, and edge-cases, are not widely known. I am convinced that it is generally not a dominant factor, even when it is relevant. I don’t agree with many design choices it is used to justify. In [...]
Interesting, and useful tidbit:
Just a curiosity, but it happens that in a yes-no binary response test, the reaction time to select “no” is longer than for “yes.”
Source
This is worth investigating further, but tonight I’m bushed. If anyone has any more information, especially quantitative data, I’d love to hear it.
This is a bit of the design process behind one line of one settings panel inside IMLocation.
The “Locations” panel controls everything having to do with to locations. The pane’s “headline”, outlined in red, shows what is assumed to be the current location.
It reads like “Your current location is home”. It does not say [...]
I was watching BBC News on EyeTV this morning, and caught the tail end of a horrific story about hundreds of French patients who received crippling, and sometimes fatal, overdoses of radiation.
Earlier this year, a major scandal erupted in France when it was discovered that between 1989 and 2006, two radiotherapy units had accidentally given [...]
To prevent particularly bad slips (errors while performing the physical actions required to achieve a goal), Apple makes certain keys hold keys. That means you have to hold them down for a while before they do their thing, unlike any other button that you just tap to use. This prevents accidentally engaging the [...]
This article has been updated and moved here.
From fraudwatchonline.com:
Research initially aimed at helping partially sighted customers use chip and PIN keypads has led to the creation of a device which can protect customers from “shoulder surfing”.
This is the term used for the practice whereby a “criminally motivated” bystander casually observes the PIN when paying for goods or services or getting money from [...]
Accessibility is mostly good design. Good design is generally accessible with minimal extra work, while bad design creates new inaccessibilities. I witnessed a vivid example of this not 30 minutes ago when I saw a blind man struggle to get inside the building where I’m working. If the doors had been designed [...]
