Face Time

Here We Go Again Ballot woes redux...and once again, it's the user losing out to technology.

Ansolabehere of the Voting Technology Project said studies have shown that while arrows create more confusion among voters, scanners can better process those that have been filled out correctly than ballots that have been bubbled in.
"Those two things cancel each other out," said Ansolabehere, a political science professor at MIT.

In other words, we made the ballot easier for the computer and harder for the user. Sound familiar?

The Only Two Things That Mean Anything at All... ...are loving you and leaving Tennessee. Now more than ever.

Why I Love Christina Choose to be right instead of being consistent. I wish John Kerry were here so I could say it to him as well.

Design Matters... ...but shouldn't take itself too seriously. "If you put a fork in your mouth and you are conscious of it rather than the food it carries, it is a bad design."

Lost My job is the type of job people hate, not just professionally, but also because they know they HAVE to do it...at least people who have a sense of duty & obligation. Today's a date I wish I could jump on the bike & just ride...but then again, of course, I didn't ride today. This stupid, unpredictable weather sure doesn't help.

I'm doing mind-numbing formatting trivial work. My worth, skill, and value will be measured not by how well people can use the documents, not by how appropriate the docs are to their tasks, but whether the version numbers are the same on all docs...whether they're lined up perfectly...

On the Road for Big Bikes Getting ready to go to the mountains for the annual Virginia Moto Guzzi rally. I went last year at this time, and it was my first long trip on the Jackal. I loved it. I rode up by myself...taking Route 60 west from Richmond, through Amherst, then down the Blue Ridge Parkway to 501 north.

This year, I'm meeting Matt and a friend at the Ashland Coffee and Tea right by the railroad tracks in, of course, Ashland. We're going to E&E to Route 522 south, then 6 west through Scottsville, and then either 29 south to 60 west or take 6 all the way up Afton Mountain (great road!) and down the Parkway. It depends, of course, on the weather—if t-storms are coming in, we'll hoof it down 29.

Hard to Write Lately I've been working on many things...maybe a new job, maybe a painting, maybe music. So not much these days gets blogged.

When Things Fly Glad I didn't own a car in Hamburg.

So True Sometimes help isn't helpful. Mike has a reat comment. Thanks to Jenny.

You say theory, I say practice Christina points out that two-thirds of the companies cited in "In Search of Excellence" have folded. Tom Peters' retort is "My principles have survived intact, it's just that the companies haven't."
Uh. Yeah. Like the golf pro's quote who said, "I did everything right, but the putt didn't drop." Good attitude for consultants to bring to their clients...not.

Ebb and Flow While negotiating for the past several months for a possible consulting job in UXD, I've just today been confronted with two other possibilities—both involving user experience work, not tech writing. So perhaps I'll have an interview next week, perhaps I'll have several offers...or perhaps they'll all come to naught.
The thing is, it's maddening. Feast or famine.

IDEO (mostly) Gets It In a Business Week article. The Power Of Design (thanks to Beth for the link), IDEO touts its processless process. Though it's survived the dot-com bust of the beginning of this century, IDEO has shifted away from digital to physical interaction product design. Too, they're interested in changing processes, not just products.

Good on 'em. Still, they seem to fall into the trap of designing products for the people on the project team, not necessarily for the person who actually uses the product. "Often, IDEO will have top executives play the roles of their own customers. Execs from food and clothing companies shop for their own stuff in different retail stores and on the Web. Health-care managers get care in different hospitals. Wireless providers use their own -- and competing -- services." The problem with this approach is the same problem with living history reenacting: the persons doing the role-playing might not have the skills to abstract their experience. I've seen this sort of approach devolve into the "I wouldn't do it this way!" Too little learning can be a destructive thing.


Still, it's good to see user-centered design get mainstream press.

Back to the Mine After a good week in Baltimore at the STC Conference, and after some motorcycling with Bogo, I'm now back at the office. Ugh.

Back from NOLA Well, we made it back last night from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. A lot of fun, even though we missed two days because of rain. But the music was fabulous. You can now even buy some shows thanks to the modern miracle of digitized music. I highly recommend Anders Osborne's set. What a smokin', funky slide guitarist. Who knew a Swede could rock like that?

Second Lining Hanging out at JazzFest in New Orleans. Actually, I haven't been to JazzFest yet—we arrived Saturday afternoon, it poured rain on Sunday, and of course the Fest doesn't open again till Thursday. But though it threatens rain today & tomorrow, we're psyched about going to the Fairgrounds in a few minutes. Alons, dancez!

Personal Ads of the Starlets Heiko sent this: Supermodel personal ads. What a hoot[er]!

Poof! So Enetation just disappeared. Poof. Like that. No word, no warning, no note, just gone...and with it all the comments that people wrote to my posts (granted, not a huuuuuge amount, but still...). I'd probably get Movable Type going, if I had better access to & understanding of my ISP. At any rate, I'm going to try another hosting service. Bother.

Tool for Collecting Links Maggy writes ravingly about Onfolio. Basically, it's a PC-only IE add-on that allows you to collect links and documents you might relate to a specific subject. I'm not sure how this approach differs from using Favorites wisely, but they seem to be honked into the UX world: See their scenarios. Interesting to see this sort of usually design work exposed to everyone.

A Fun Timewaster As Caterina suggests:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Great Trip Christina's trip to Languedoc features some great photos. It's a great place to be, if you can get there. And the Corbieres and Minervois and other wines beat a Bordeaux any day in my book.