Usability Notes - by Chris Baker

Thrashing numbers and the thirteenth task

2013-05-10T17:00:07+01:00

Some tasks fit into an awkward sort of "squeezed middle". If something is quick and simple to do and doesn't disrupt the rest of life too much, you might as well get on and do it. Urgent tasks are usually...

SEO and SEM vendors and consultants appreciate me too much

2012-12-04T13:04:01+00:00

I like getting comments. I don't always get around to moderating them quickly, but do like to see things that contribute to the discussion. I quickly learned that I did have to moderate the comments, because so many of them...

Introduce new software testers, reveal Goldovsky errors

2012-11-30T17:49:48+00:00

Its amazing how often new software bugs are reported when you introduce new testers to the testing process. Its quite likely that some of these are not new breakages in the latest software release. What is happening is usually that...

How to print a list of files from a Windows Directory (without needing to buy software)

2012-11-08T14:14:13+00:00

Sometimes I have a batch of files in a Windows Directory and I want to either print a list of what I've got to a file, or copy data into Excel or similar to do some more complex analysis. If...

Memories of the dotcom bubble

2012-10-16T17:38:38+01:00

I've recently been reading the excellent Totally Wired - on the trail of the great dotcom swindle by Andrew Smith (Bloomsbury 2012). The dotcom bubble ran (arguably) from the IPO of Netscape in 1995 to the stock market collapse of...

How Annals of Botany has made use of social media

2012-07-04T16:25:21+01:00

Social tools and academic publishing - How Annals of Botany has made use of social media

Many social media services (Ethnority's lovely taxonomy)

2012-06-28T16:58:32+01:00

The good people at ethnority have made this lovely diagram showing a classification of the many social media services available. This is the "German" version (with nearly all services recognisable to soemone in, say, the UK or US). - they...

Don't be a Hiro

2012-06-21T14:55:01+01:00

The TV show Heroes had a character, Hiro Nakamura, who could teleport in time and space. To do so he had to concentrate awsomely. Actor Masi Oka portrayed this with wonderful physicality (part of a superb performance, which made the...

van Gogh stops the Machine -- a paradox of virtual experience

2012-06-08T11:21:26+01:00

Over 100 years after EM Forster's science fiction story The Machine Sops, it is increasingly possible to live as a cyber-hermit. But I think there is a paradox a bit like the "paradox of automation" - the more experiences can become virtual, the more important or valuable become those experiences we choose to have directly.

web usage statistics, and Dr Seuss

2012-05-28T14:21:38+01:00

Analysis of web site usage can seem to offer almost magical insights. But, as in the case of website "visits" what can actually be measured can be subtly different from the common-sense ideas we start with. This post describes the issues in non-technical terms.