Between 8:00pm and 9:00pm today, I had received four emails from people about my Alphanum algorithm for sorting mixed strings and numbers in a natural order (i.e., not ASCII). Weird, I usually get Alphanum emails every season or so, not four times in one hour! Something seemed to be afoot.
Turns out that someone [...]
Archive for the 'Usability' Category
Alphanum algorithm posted to Reddit
December 11, 2007
Star Trek Legacy: Waiting for Disappointment
December 23, 2006
2006 marks the 40th Anniversary of the first airing of Star Trek. To honor this occasion, Bethesda Software has released three Star Trek games; this year. The one I was most eagerly anticipating was Star Trek: Legacy.
Months ago, I made a note to myself: Check this game out when it’s released on November 7! But [...]
Usability and the Power-Up! 1GB MP3 Player
December 1, 2006
I just received a Power-Up! 1GB MP3 Player at the low, low price of (once I complete the rebates) $9.99 from TigerDirect. Hooray! I figured that even if the MP3 capabilities were poor, I’d still have a 1GB USB drive at a killer price. But I didn’t expect the user manual to be so… unusable.
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Paul Graham: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
November 15, 2006
Paul Graham has posted an essay on The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups. Graham hits a bullseye when he claims that a big mistake that startups make is that they don’t make something that users want (After all of my usability posts this week, I feel like I want to leap into a Steve [...]
Usability strikes twice in one day
November 15, 2006
In today’s episode of On Point on WBUR, “Simplicity in Technology“, host Tom Ashbrook interviews John Maeda, whose latest book, “The Laws of Simplicity“, deals with creating simpler products and electronic gadgetry. (I’ll post more about this once I listen to the episode!)
To my surprise, I see that WordPress thinks I wrote this [...]
Today is World Usability Day
November 14, 2006
Today is World Usability Day, as declared by the Usability Professionals’ Association. Various events are planned all around the world in an effort to raise awareness about usability – and there are YouTube casts (many from the Boston Museum of Science) and webcasts in case you missed any of the events. Maybe you’ll [...]
