A decade ago, I was writing about how you should test your user interface on drunk people. It was a semi-serious idea. Some of your users will be drunk when using your app or website. If it is easy for them to use, then it should be easy for sober people to use. Of course, necking a few shots every time you update your website isn't great for your health - so is there another way? Click the "🥴 …
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What does the humble ⋮ symbol mean to you? To geeks, it is a compelling attraction. Something cool and esoteric lives in there! All sorts of goodies to explore and configure. To normal people, it is invisible. Normal people don't go pushing random icons on their apps because computers are fragile and may break if you do the wrong thing. To me, it is a sign that product managers are a menace a…
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I have an ancient Roomba. A non-sentient robot vacuum cleaner which only speaks in monophonic beeps. At least, that's what I thought. A few days ago my little cybernetic helper suddenly started speaking! 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. Not exactly a Shakespearean soliloquy, but a hell of a lot better than trying to decipher BIOS beep codes. All of my electronics beep at me. My dishw…
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This has to be the most infuriating bug report I've ever submitted. I went to type in my 2FA code on a website - but no numbers appeared on screen. Obviously, I was an idiot and had forgotten to press the NumLock button. D'oh! I toggled it on and typed again. No numbers appeared. I switched to another tab, my numbers appeared when I typed them. So I was reasonably confident that my keyboard was…
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Some of my best friends are designers. But I think we can all agree that - however well-meaning - they can be a little obsessive. Whether it is fretting over tiny details, or trying to align to a grid which doesn't exist, or spending time removing useful affordances in the name of æsthetics - they always find a way to make something prettier at the expense of usability. Google used to have some …
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I'm not thick. I know it doesn't sound like much of a boast, but I'm pretty competent at this whole adulting lark. But it appeared that I had forgotten a 4 digit number I'd set up less than a minute ago! The security guard smiled wearily at me, "It happens to everyone!" She said. Which, I'll admit was of small comfort. Work had taken the (sensible) decision that our entry cards weren't secure…
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The QWERTY layout is, I grant you, an illogical mess. I'm happy to hear your arguments that Dvorak is the one true way. Or that Colemak is several percent faster. But QWERTY is a standard now. Everyone uses it on their laptops and phones. It is used everywhere. Except, it turns out, streaming services. They use alphabetic keyboards. Worse, each one has a unique layout! Want to search for that…
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The best gadget I got in lockdown was a set of motion activated lights. They have no user interface. I walk by them in the dark and they turn on. Midnight piss? No fumbling for a light switch, no shouting to a digital assistant, no logging in to an app. Simple. I love it. It got me thinking about other things which have "zero interfaces". Once they're set up, they just keep quietly working. …
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I am grumpy. As my very clever wife summarised, I hate when designers prioritise their æsthetic preferences over my usability needs. I tried sharing a website using Google Chrome for Android. I hit the share button, and a panel popped-up from the bottom of the screen. Hmmm. It didn't have the share destination that I wanted. It was early in the morning - when I'm not at my cognitive best - …
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One of the frustrating things about computers is their limited input options. A "standard" PC keyboard only has about 100 keys. Sure, some have some bonus buttons for controlling the machine, but it is becoming clear that there simply aren't enough buttons to efficiently program computers. Most programming languages have the concept of relational operators. How does variable X compare to…
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Remember schlocky 1990s splatter film "Event Horizon"? No, me neither. But lockdown has us exhausting our supply of Sci-Fi movies, so we rewatched it. Anyway, I found some bugs! I'm a big fan of the Sci Fi Interfaces blog. It details the Human Computer Interaction design of the imagined future. It has primed me to pay attention to the interfaces in films. Look, you have your hobbies and I have…
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I walked into an unfamiliar toilet recently. You've probably done the same, looking around to find the stalls, work out whether the driers are near the sinks, if there's soap available. I was completely taken aback when I saw this monstrosity of a sink. It's well known that we Brits love our separate hot and cold taps - but I'd never seen anything like this before! Why are the taps so far away …
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