iOS 7 design critique

September 20th, 2013

When I saw iOS 7 revealed during the keynote event I knew there was something wrong with the design. My immediate takes were that it was too bright with not enough contrast for a mobile device, and secondarily that it seemed to be focused too much on a certain market that wasn’t me (or anyone I know). Beyond that I couldn’t really identify what specifically was wrong with the design.

Now that the changes have been spread to both the iCloud web service and I’ve seen it running locally on my iPad (I’m not willing to commit my iPhone to this quite yet), I can tell you exactly what is wrong… and also what they’ve improved.

Gone wrong:

  • Lost affordances – most have vanished completely, likely causing current users slight confusion and new users getting utterly lost
    • Menu or button or slider or? – can’t tell until you’ve tapped or slid, depends entirely on user memories
    • Lost affordances not replaced with better design – so Newsstand is still organized in a shelf-like display WHY exactly?
    • Icon to indicator mismatch – orange dot/circle for Mail “flag” saves space at the expense of clarity and meaning
    • Blue dot beside new/updated apps – carries no meaning
  • Lost features – no more Facetime video through cellular data?
  • Missing gestures – can’t pinch to close a folder? etc.
  • Looks awful – enough so to cause eye strain
    • Color scheme – murky contrast obscures details, too bright and/or pale
    • In-app icons – spindly thinness looks cheap and amateur, too abstract to understand
    • Slow transitions – gratuitous animation at the expense of user urgency
    • Gray backgrounds – look cheap and boring
    • Red offset color – looks like my calendar was attacked by Sally Jessy Raphael

Doing better:

  • Extra library zoom out features in Photos – good for finding old photos and walking memory lane
  • App switcher shortcut – nice to see app previews
  • Transparency – layers context and looks cool
  • Slowly moving bubbles in wallpaper and Game Center – looks cool
  • Parallax – a good beginning, hope it’s not just a gimmick

Posted in software, usability | Comments Off on iOS 7 design critique

Smartphone Games vs Me

June 25th, 2013

With the plethora of games out there for smart phones and particularly iPhones, I used to think that there would be plenty of every genre for me to find and play at any time. The problem is though, most of the games out there are centered around mechanics that make them unplayable for the settings I’m able to play them.

What settings are those? Here’s a basic list:

  • Waiting for a bus
  • Riding on a bus
  • Waiting in a place of business
  • Holding my daughter so she’ll sleep

So with that set of contexts, a lot of common game elements don’t work for me, like:

  • Sound Effects / Music / Dialogue (either can’t hear or can’t have enabled)
  • Timed levels / Countdowns (if I focus that long I’ll miss my bus)
  • Non-interruptible portions (all four situations are going to be interrupting me at least once)
  • Two handed controls (holding my child or standing on a bus, can’t do it)
  •  Motion / Orientation controls (I can’t be waving my arm around any of these places, and on a bus will constantly be registering the “shake” motion)
  • Multiple continuity decisions (I’m not going to remember where I was before I paused.. that could be one or more days ago)
  • Lots of intense action (raised heart rate and perspiration? not the best times for these. quick tapping/swiping will wake up my daughter)
  • Intense action with lots of swiping (in warm weather my fingers will sweat, making me unable to swipe)

This list of elements probably describes most of the games currently out there. Not good. I look now at the games that have stayed on my phone, that I’ve been able to keep playing in my various settings, and I find less common elements that enable me to play them:

  • Gameplay I can ignore when I look away from the screen
  • Single finger/thumb operation
  • Tapping vs swiping for difficult portions

I think this is where more games need to go in order to capture me as an audience—and likely others who are in similar circumstances.

Posted in games, software, usability | Comments Off on Smartphone Games vs Me

Response to a ZDnet post to hobble Google Glass

April 21st, 2013

[The post’s author is] basically saying [they] want to be able to say and do stupid things without getting embarrassed by them later.. well regardless of recording technology, good luck with that.

You accept cameras installed in your environment but not those held by people. On the one hand I could say you’re being paranoid about people-mounted cameras and on the other that you’re not paranoid enough about building-mounted cameras. Your perception of current surveillance is that it’s justified to protect our safety but multiple studies have found that not to be true (look up “aclu surveillance crime rates” in google).

I think the issue a few people have with cameras in glasses is almost entirely psychological: if they’re attached to people you simply notice them more and realize that a real person is actually watching you. Unmanned cameras are easily ignored or dismissed with thoughts like, ‘Oh, no one actually watches those tapes unless they have a warrant.’ so they SEEM innocuous in comparison.

To put it in the form of an analogy: Would you be uncomfortable waiting 5 minutes, 5 feet away from a mattress advertisement poster? I’d bet you wouldn’t and might not even notice it. How about waiting the same time and distance from a man waving the same ad board at you and all passers by? I think you’d definitely notice the mattress ad and probably start feeling uncomfortable. You’d probably eventually try to address your discomfort by maybe trying to talk to the guy or get further away.

You might even write a blog post about it later, saying how something must be done about these awful walking advertisements.

Posted in privacy | Comments Off on Response to a ZDnet post to hobble Google Glass

Authentication Types

January 24th, 2013

Here is my grid for keeping track of how authentication methods compare to one another. Apologies if you’re color blind, since I’m using green for good, yellow for okay, and red for bad. The “hoby netid” method is a protocol of my own design that has yet to be implemented.

computer-auths

Posted in authentication, hacker myth, internet, software, technology, usability | Comments Off on Authentication Types

A Tale of Lesser Evils – Choosing a new ISP

July 21st, 2012


I recently moved… and because my internet connection was DSL, I had to change it, either to move the service or start a new one of some kind.

It had been a while since I’d looked around, so I thought over my options:

  1. Stay with my current ISP
    DSL from Launchnet (based in California) and connected by Covad
    6mbit down, 2mbit up, and 5 IPs for a not cheap price per month
  2. Some local, cheaper DSL provider
  3. Fiber optic: super fast for cheap
  4. Cable: faster and cheaper
  5. WiMax: portable
First I checked in with Launchnet and Covad separately and found out some bad news: my new house would cut my download speed in half. 3mbit is the fastest I could get from them or any other DSL provider. Hm. Also I’d have to buy a new modem and be locked in for a full year (or was it 2 years?). The other DSL providers could indeed be cheaper but they wouldn’t be better or faster. Next I checked to see if Verizon has gotten fiber into the area. Nope. Has the city done anything with all the fiber they strung up and down the city limits? No. Okay so cable internet. I had high hopes that cable companies other than Comcast had begun providing in the area but they all turned out to be ones that sold ONLY to tenants of the giant sky-rise appts/condos downtown. For WiMax all there is, is Clear, who used to be called Clearwire.
So now from 5 potential options I’m down to 3 actual options:
  1. 3 mbit DSL
  2. 20 mbit Comcast for about the same price
  3. 3-8 mbit Clear for slightly less
I had a thought then about the companies themselves, about their evil factor, so I looked up their history:
  • Launchnet is small and ambiguous but Covad is now owned by Megapath, who has a history of buying providers and ruining their good service at the expense of consolidation profits. Megapath in turn is now owned by Best Buy. What are they like? Well the most I could find is some financial crimes.Evil Factor: minor.
  • Clear has the most sordid origin, which was started by seed money from such evil forces as Goldman Sachs and the Texas Rangers. Later it had some semi-shady deals to get it’s wireless spectrum and gain more investment and shareholders like Intel, TimeWarner, and oddly enough Comcast. Currently it’s mainly owned by Sprint though. Evil Factor: not good.
  • Comcast is just as evil as they’ve ever been. They spend millions of dollars lobbying legislators to push internet and media policies that are diametrically opposed to my world view. They have the worst customer satisfaction rating of any U.S. company or organization (including the IRS). They block service, they discriminate, they cap, and they attempt to buy every sports team and media company in the country. They even had the gall to try buying Disney. They’ve been caught multiple times for filling federal hearings with randomly hired people off the street, just to keep opposing citizens from testifying before Congress or the FCC. Evil Factor: absurdly evil.
The info on these companies can be found in many places but most of it is already summarized well on Wikipedia.

Faced with this information I was twisted in a dilemma: Should I choose the least evil for the highest cost, slowest service, and most inflexible contract? Or the middle evil for questionably better service? Or the cheapest, fastest service who will use all the money I give them to undermine every internet/media policy I stand for?

In the end, I ended up trying out Clear since it seemed the easiest to back out of if it didn’t work well. It certainly wasn’t a clear winner (bad pun) but it seemed like the only balance between evil and connectivity in North Seattle. It shouldn’t have to be this difficult.

Posted in fcc, internet, media consolidation, net neutrality, regulation, technology | Comments Off on A Tale of Lesser Evils – Choosing a new ISP

Security vs Usability

February 27th, 2012

Ahh the age old battle between Security and Usability.

I hope in the future that we arrive at these conclusions:

  • Obscurity is not security
  • Security problems most popular in the news (and in Congress) are the least common in reality
  • Current forms of security don’t work for people and the data proves that
  • Most implementations widely used only provide the perception of security
  • Nothing is uncrackable or unhackable
  • Usability is usually more important than security
  • Security need only be sufficient to demoralize malice, while usability must succeed in actually enticing interest in an unappealing activity (luring is more difficult than impeding)
  • When we make more usable functionality quicker to implement (one line of code) then developers will welcome it
  • When we prove with data that many threats are not reality and security is often overkill then employers can feel good about tipping their investment in favor of usability

Currently we have a lot of fearful perception and “what if” corner cases polluting the landscape. Getting consensus on this topic doesn’t easily happen right now. Security is entrenched in technology and that point of view is what wins most often, especially in the States.

Posted in authentication, hacker myth, internet, software, technology, usability | Comments Off on Security vs Usability

Glenn Beck has no legitimacy

September 23rd, 2009

Written to the Seattle Times and Los Angeles Times:

Having never heard of Glenn Beck until a month ago, suddenly I find this hateful racist being listened to by some of the most publicly influential people in US politics. Why on earth is his idiotic vitriol reaching our leaders and causing them to react?

Why does anyone care what this liar, fear monger, conspiracy theorist, obnoxious pea-brain has to say?

I assume whatever tv ratings he gets are the same reason why people can’t help looking at a car crash. That doesn’t make his opinions valid and it certainly doesn’t make his show, news. His words are poison. But since all he has is words, he should simply be ignored. There is no legitimate reason why anyone should pay attention to this Glenn Beck, because he offers none.

Posted in media consolidation | Comments Off on Glenn Beck has no legitimacy

Pet Peeve – East coast-centric naming of state locality

August 14th, 2009

So I have this pet peeve.. I get annoyed whenever people call places like Chicago and St. Louis “mid-west”. It bugs the hell out of me.

I mean.. look, here’s a map of the U.S.. If we measure out the regions in equal parts we can clearly see that these places are not even close to being mid-west.. they’re in the mid-EASTern United States.

So whenever you refer to one of these states or cities as mid-west, now you can know precisely how very wrong you are.

I know where it comes from through – it’s a obviously remnant of the westward land rush, an east-coast centric way of seeing North America.. back when basically all there WAS in white peoples’ reality, was the east coast.

But that doesn’t excuse the fact that over 200 years have passed since that kind of talk was relevant.

Posted in mid-west, midwest | Comments Off on Pet Peeve – East coast-centric naming of state locality

How profitable is overworking and underpaying workers?

July 19th, 2009

I was just thinking about why there’s such a constant process of employees being overworked and underpaid.. and so I thought I should run a what-if scenario with numbers – see just HOW profitable being cruel to your workers is and how you can pull it off without being lynched. Here’s the results of that:

__________________________
Say you have a job that should require 10 people at $40,000 per year costing a total of $400,000 per year to do correctly with happy workers. You want to reduce that cost and not have to deal with so many employees. You could plan for each person to do two people’s jobs, employing only 5 people – and you can pay them less, say $30,000 per year. Doing that could result in mutiny though and what’s more, you don’t want to interact with their newfound animosity.

So to solve both problems you insert a middle manager at twice the reduced workers’ pay ($60,000). This overpaid manager is there to obscure you and ride your 5 overworked & underpaid workers so they don’t mutiny. This person will be willing to do that because you’re paying him or her bank and they have this false sense of authority. Your cost equaling what would be 7 employees, is a new total of $210,000 per year, nearly half of your original operating budget.

If you had 7 underpaid workers with no manager (same operating cost), you still might have a mutiny and you still have to interact with all of them. If you cut 5 jobs but kept their salaries the same (within $10,000 of the same operating cost) then there’s still a risk of mutiny and you have to deal with their woes of being overworked.

But with the original cuts and manager method you get your $190,000 (almost $200k) in savings without serious risk of mutiny or needing to interact with anyone besides your toady manager.
__________________________

That’s why it’s so profitable for CEOs to make your life hell, even in this one scenario they can nearly double their profits if they ride the fine line between mutiny and obedience.

Posted in economy, employees, worker | Comments Off on How profitable is overworking and underpaying workers?

Letter to USA Today – Healthcare Reform

June 17th, 2009

The healthcare industry has no use for the greed and heartlessness of the for-profit insurance companies. Since the Nixon administration put these HMOs in place in 1973, they’ve been working hard to deny care and drive America into bankruptcy. While it took them a few years to get a stranglehold on our hospitals and private practices, their influence has most certainly hit the fan these days… and they still don’t care. What are they doing with all of our money? Pampering and promising the world to our Congress and our President – spending billions of dollars to keep laws favoring their needless and inhumane role in our great nation’s medical field.

Aetna, Cigna, Anthem.. patients despise them and doctors abhor them. Our politicians need to cut their financial ties with these corporations and do what is right for the American people – declare for-profit health insurance illegal, liquidate their assets, and put these billions (trillions?) of dollars into a for-care healthcare system that works for patients and doctors.

Medicare is such a system here in the US, use that model to extend cost coverage to the rest of us. The answer is staring us right in the face – as long as our elected officials are willing to look past the dollar bills being fanned in their faces by insurance corporation lobbyists. Most people call it single-payer, because as with Medicare, the government is the only entity that pays doctors on our behalf.

These health insurance scoundrels have had their run and it has turned out very badly. They were created by law and they should be removed by law, now.

Posted in economy, healthcare | Comments Off on Letter to USA Today – Healthcare Reform

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