28 Feb 07 A List of Rich Internet Application Technologies for the Digg Crowd
Aparently in response to this comment thread on Digg Ryan Stewart posted a concise short piece on RIA technologies.
While you’re there check out his post about Adobe’s plans for an online version of Photoshop. I can imagine the s-p-e-e-d now!
27 Feb 07 Survey Tools, Tutorials and Guides
I recently stumbled across a handy set of survey tools, tutorials and guides provided free by Creative Research Systems.
Among other things they provide a sample size calculator, a tutorial on statistical significance, a section on the do’s and don’ts of survey design, a page on correlation, and some sample survey questions.
Worth a bookmark especially for folks just getting into survey and questionnaire design.
Tags: Research
26 Feb 07 Ambiguating the Terminology: Quantitative Ethnographics
Interesting writeup by Mike Kuniavsky over at Orange Cone.
Continuing my project of observing how terminology shifts to describe the process of researching and designing the user experience of ubiquitous computing, I noticed a blurb in the latest issue of the IDSA’s “design perspectives” newsletter. In it, they note a new service launched by RAHN, Inc., which RAHN calls “Quantitative Ethnographics (QE).” They claim this “integrates performance metrics into the analysis and illustrates innovation’s positive impact on a prospective client’s customer.”
Apart from the error of assuming a “positive impact” before starting research, it’s interesting to me how RAHN seems to be using the current vogue for the use of “ethnographics” as a term to describe user research, but modifying it by using the language of measurement (presumably because numbers and figures look better in client reports). Measurement–and the “finding of an average” that it implies–is kind of the opposite of the goal of traditional ethnography, which aims to describe culture in its complexity. That doesn’t actually seem to be the point anymore. “Ethnographics” has come to mean “we go onsite and look at people.” It has ceased to have the meaning it once had as an anthropological practice, and has been repurposed by the design community.
We in the design business have bastardized the term ethnography (though I doubt there is much sleep being lost in the academic communities). Still, Quantitative Ethnography is–practically speaking–an oxymoron. I’m comfortable with phrases like ethnographic approach or technique as the furthest stretch of usage. On the other hand, comparing design research to an ethnography is silly. Throw in quantitative and your clients ought to be wondering!
Tags: Ethnography, Research
13 Feb 07 The Bit Car
Sometimes an idea just feels right. Maybe I’ve spent too much time in airports!?
Imagine bringing your own shopping cart to the supermarket every time you needed groceries. According to Franco Vairani, driving your own car in the city is just as inconvenient, which is why he, along with MIT’s Smart Cities think tank, developed the Bit Car concept. Ideal for short distances, the compact two-seater features an outer shell that collapses like the legs of a baby carriage and enables the cars to fold into one another when parked. Stored in parking lots or other high-density spots, the vehicles would be available for borrowing, like airport luggage trolleys. Williams pointed out that the option would be especially attractive to drivers who are averse to public transportation. “People love their cars, but this way they can keep a private enclosure without having to own it,” he offered. “It’s proposing a radical new set of behaviors, but it could definitely work.”
Tags: Automotive, Design, Innovation, Product Design
11 Feb 07 Design Within Reach Champagne Chair Results
Check out the winners and the all of the contenders.
Tags: Design, Product Design
08 Feb 07 Ensuring Accessibility for People With Color-Deficient Vision
Very nice article on UXmatters by Pabini Gabriel-Petit. Part IV in her series on “Color Theory for Digital Displays” she describes how color can be used to ensure web sites and applications are accessible to people with color-deficient vision.
If you do not consider the needs of people with color-deficient vision when choosing color schemes for applications and Web pages, those you create may be difficult to use or even indecipherable for about one in twelve users.
Tags: Accessibility, Color Theory
07 Feb 07 Mutant Ninja Pigs
Scientists in Taiwan have bred the first fluorescent pigs–at least the first green through and through. The transgenetic pigs are possible thanks to the genetic material from jellyfish. These pigs are green from skin right to organs. Shine a blue light on them and they glow like, well, like a jellyfish. Who new?
Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before; but the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better.
They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, the researchers say.
Scientists intend to use the green pigs to study human disease. Because the pig’s genetic material encodes a protein that shows up as green, it is easy to see.
So if, for instance, some of its stem cells are injected into another animal, scientists can track how they develop without the need for a biopsy or invasive test.
