Good job Everyone!

Just wanted to say that everyone did a great job on their projects and I enjoyed seeing the progress you made with them. I hope everyone has a great summer!!

Bad Stereo

I found this picture (http://www.baddesigns.com/boombox.html) and thought that it was insane!! I can't imagine that someone would actually design a stereo like this. Even if I owned this type of musicbox, I don't think that I would ever truly "get used to it". I have a feeling that I would always get the two mixed up when it came to playing music! Have any of you guys ever encountered a player like this??

Hancock Building Elevators

I went to the John Hancock Building when my parents came to visit over Memorial Day weekend... I was quite intrigued by the elevator design to get up to the observatory. (I have provided a picture) It provides absolutely NO user feedback. When you press the button you would expect something to happen, to let you know that the button has been pushed successfully. Most elevators do this by providing a simple light that will become lit upon pressing the button. This elevator DID NOT have that! You pressed it and nothing happend. There was no light built in to let you know; so the people were just hoping that the press worked. I wonder why this design choice was made for such a famous building!

Browser War

I had a discussion the other day with a tech guy about browsers... specifically Mozilla Firefox versus Internet Explorer. Personally, I like Mozilla better than IE and he didn't understand why I liked it so much better! I told him that I liked the tab feature, etc., etc. He told me that you could do all of that in IE, but it wasn't "idiot" proof... I was just wondering what everybody browses in and why they like it.

Thanks!

Design Eye

I found this site that I thought was rather interesting...
It's called "Design Eye for the ____ Guy". One of their latest endeavours was Design Eye for the List Guy... They took craigslist and did a redesign. You can look at what they did under "The Reveal" section of the site below:
http://www.designeye.org/listguy/

What do you guys think about their redesign?

You can also be introducted to the "Fab Five".

Dining-In.com

I have ordered many times from diningin.com and since I have a login, they have all of my information (address, phone, etc). You would think that if a company had the customer's information already, then they wouldn't make them type it in! Well, dining-in does something almost worse! My address is 525 S State St.... they know this... but the picture is the screen that I get when I login. It always has this address.... which IS NOT mine! I go into my account, and there's my correct address. Why do they make me have to change the address everytime? How insane is that?

Showers can be so Confusing...

Funny story... the other week, I get a message on my phone (it's my mom) saying that she is really confused about my shower and to please call her back. (I am still checking my messages...) The next message is Mom again, now a little more frantic and frustrated!! She is explaining how she has a guest over (and she is staying in my bedroom/bathroom, since it's the guest room) and she can't figure out how to turn on the shower!!

At this point, I am laughing a lot because I am envisioning my mother and her friend trying for hours to figure out how to turn the shower on. Therefore, I call her back to "give her the secret" and she says that she eventually figured it out after calling three more people and having her friend just take a shower in HER shower.

I have included a picture of the shower facuet... the secret is that you have to pull down on the bottom of the facuet (where water is coming out)... there is no warning, no instruction, and the control is HIDDEN! My mom was pretty frustrated and it took up a couple of hours in her day! Have you guys ever encountered this type of shower?

Machine Versus User: The Ultimate SmackDown

Wow! I found this article and thought that it was rather interesting! Talk about technology really making a user mad and taking a hit for it!

The article is entitled: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Consumer Chipped Off

Read it, you might find it quite shocking... or pretty much typical!

The Ergonomic Toothbrush

I came across this picture of an ergonomic toothbrush which seems quite interesting. (I have provided a picture - - compliments of http://www.baddesigns.com/toothbr3.html ) There are two types of the toothbrush (one for right-handed people and one for left-handed people). I was amazed at how this design doesn't take into account that we rotate our toothbrushes depending on what side of our mouths we are brushing! Therefore, if you are left-handed it feels natural to brush the right side of our mouth, but NOT the left... and vice versa for the right-handed person.

I can't imagine owning this toothbrush (it certainly wouldn't fit in a toothbrush holder!). Thoughts??

Char-grill Order Menu

This is a picture of the ordering menu for Char-grill (a fast food type of place in NC). When ordering (whether in or out) a customer must fill out this form and slip it into the slot. Their number will be called and then they pay and pick up their food. There are several things that make this menu confusing and not "user-friendly". The three main ones for me are as follows:

1. Each item that is listed (Hamburger Steak, Grilled Chicken Sandwich, Char-burgers, etc) has different condiments listed under it. Therefore, if someone came in to order a Char-burger, they may not realize that the restaurant even has lettuce, tomato, or mayonaise! These are only listed for the Hamburger Steak options...
2. If someone comes in with a big family (or even two people) that all want a char-burger but prefer different condiments on their burgers, they would have to fill out seperate forms for each burger! There isn't a way to indicate between different burgers.
3. Lastly (this amuses me), at the top of the order form, it says to the customer "Remember this number"... It expects the customer to remember the number instead of offering them a tear-off portion to keep!

What do you guys think about this order menu?

The TV Remote

This is a picture of an actual tv remote... can you guess which way the volume is going to go?! The design has the right idea, but the up and down arrows have a V on them (standing for volume). This could be awfully confusing to a user, especially when the V is raised (so that is what they "feel"). Imagine how frustrated you would get if you were trying to turn the volume down and it kept getting louder and LOUDER! I think that it may have been more effective to leave off the V altogether (instead of trying to reinforce and tell the user that it is the volume control).

Picture-compliments of http://www.baddesigns.com/remote.html

Usability Boot Camp

"Usability in Practice" is a 3 day intensive camp run by Jacok Neilsen (held in four different locations including: New York, London, San Francisco, and Sydney). Do you think these sessions can transform someone into an expert?? Cramming all of the information for interaction design in 11 weeks is really fast... but all the principles of usability into THREE days, wow!

Here is the information on the camp (http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/camp.html)
Look at all of the topics on the agenda... massive amounts of information will be covered in the short span of three days. What are everyone's thoughts on how this could be helpful... or do you think its a waste of time? I also wonder just exactly how "hands-on" this event can be as opposed to lecture, lecture, lecture.

There is also a three-day immersion on Interaction Design!
Here's the link:http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/interaction.html