Observing Toronto, 2011
I’ve posted some photos to Flickr from my recent trip to Toronto, where, as part of the Unfinished Business lecture series I gave a talk and a led a workshop. Here are some favorites from T.O., my hometown.
I’ve posted some photos to Flickr from my recent trip to Toronto, where, as part of the Unfinished Business lecture series I gave a talk and a led a workshop. Here are some favorites from T.O., my hometown.
Although the principal conceit of Apple’s latest Mac vs. PC ad is, as always, “PCs suck,” the ad does a nice job pointing to the difference between innovative thinking and the mere creation of features.
While the cupholder suit that appears at the ad’s end is presented as a joke, many companies do have an unfortunate habit of burdening their products with clunky, grafted-on features as they try to push their ideas into new territory.
Compare the cupholder suit to Apple’s breakaway MagSafe cord, which the ad references. While there’s some debate over how well the Magsafe cord actually does what it’s supposed to, it at least intends to address a real issue that computer manufacturers had previously ignored (people’s cords get tripped on, yanked out).
Discovering that aspect of the user experience – however Apple may have done this – and recognizing it as one worthy of design intervention is the real innovation here.
To: [steve]
Subject: Give Your Feedback to Sundance ChannelDear Sundance Channel viewer,
We’d like to hear about your opinions and experiences! Sundance Channel is conducting an online survey to collect information about your opinions and attitudes regarding Sundance Channel and its various programs. You must be 21 or older to participate and due to video content within the survey, the link below can only be accessed using Internet Explorer, so we encourage you to use a PC. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.
IE =/= PC, however. PC users can use other browsers (as in my case), and Mac users can run IE. But the survey doesn’t (as they say) work with Firefox. Ah well.
I replaced the hard drive in my Dell laptop yesterday. I knew that most desktop PCs were pretty straightforward for opening up and swapping out components (although my recent foray into replacing a hard drive in my deskop was a bit of a challenge, requiring going to find some archived discussions from others who had the same model computer), but always assumed that laptops were sealed and ready-for-technicians only.
Dell actually includes step-by-step instructions on how to do it. I had to remove the keyboard, the palm rest panel, and then the drive itself. The instructions seemed to miss a step but I figured it out. It was fairly easy and it worked right the first time. Kind of a neat design thing; making it non-trivial but straightforward enough that a non-mechanical and timid (but desperate) type like myself could actually do it.
Now I wonder if I can replace the drive in my old Sony VAIO 505 laptop; and make a backup system for myself?
Here’s the top 10, just to make the point
1. Move and copy files
2. Navigate using keyboard shortcuts
3. Use shortcuts in Word
4. Install and remove new hardware
5. Send image files as attachments
6. Search your hard disk
7. Hard disk maintenance (including disk cleanup and defragmenter)
8. System restore and backup
9. Update software online
10. Create desktop shortcuts
How many can you do? To me, this list suggests how daunting a lot of this stuff is. I know several PC users that don’t understand file systems – where files are stored when you download them or save them. To ask them to attach something, say, by finding it somewhere on the vast structure of files and folders, yikes. They’ve managed to use apps without building that level of knowledge. So doing these tasks, I dunno, it’s pretty challenging without getting a sense of the underlying model of the system that these tasks all require.
I’d opt for things like “cleaning up the desktop” “knowing what the start menu is” “choosing a printer” – some real fundamental stuff that you can build on to get to these skills.
But anyway, the fact that the 30 things they picked are actually pretty hard just confirms my sense that computers are still too hard to understand/use.
Update: A reasonable-looking intro/tutorial on Windows XP can be found here.