Personally I think this idea is a bad idea:Ubuntu renaming filesystem directories

I’m getting pretty annoyed with “Slow Keys” in Gnome. I often hold down the shift key along with the function key when thinking. Unfortunately when using the terminal, the slow keys alert window pops up behind the terminal window - and no keys work at all. I’ve tried researching how to turn this off - but so far no luck - only other complainers like me! :-)

I’ll tell you why: control.In linux, the user can change anything they want, and is the ultimate in customization. For example, a simple user interface component like keybindings, while pretty much hard coded into every other platform’s applications, can be updated and changed on linux without much fuss. I thought about this because I’m now using fluxbox, which allows me to change workplaces with ALT-function key combinations. This melds well with how Iceweasel allows me to switch tabs with ALT-# keys. If those didn’t match up by default, I could always change them on my own. :-)

This is an interesting idea. When you move your mouse certain ways, like around in a circle, up and down just so, it is the equivalent of issuing a specific command - like “go back”, or “reload”. I’ve only used mouse gestures in the simplest context, where focus follows the mouse. I use it on my XFCE4 desktop, and while I first thought it was intrusive, I now find it convenient. I’m now trying out mouse gestures via this Firefox (I use Swiftweasel): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/39Took me a minute to figure out that to find out what gestures I could use, as the default setting requires holding down the right mouse button while expressing the mouse gesture.

As a natural follow-up to my last post - a balance between notice and expert systems - I just had to post this link I found to CLIPS: http://www.ghg.net/clips/CLIPS.html

User friendly software is a good goal, but a difficult challenge. Users can be difficult to predict in their behavior, and their behavior always changes. You don’t want to make the software so basic that advanced users are frustrated, and you don’t want to make the software too advanced to scare off new users. The solution is a dynamic interface. A dynamic interface can be as simple as a configurable interface, which allows the user to select which control panels and dashboards to display, or as advanced as an interface which automatically adapts to users skill levels.

XUL is an XML based user interface markup language, sort of like HTML, but more interactive and stateful. As I understand it, it is only available within some Mozilla browsers. http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/The_Joy_of_XUL

This morning I read an article about Opera’s complaints against Microsoft and their lack of support for generally accepted web standards. It got me thinking about how unique websites are when it comes to usability. There are many factors involved with web usability, some which aren’t so obvious. You might not think that privacy and security affect usability that much, but they really do. Think about banking websites and all the security measures that are required to use them. While they make the information secure, they make accessing it highly inconvenient, and thus not very user-friendly.In addition to security, web users also have to deal with the simple fact that the web is stateless, meaning that most functions are implemented one at a time, in a disconnected manner. In other words, there is no continuity between one page and the next. Sure, sessions and “ajax” are making web applications more fluid, but it will be some time before web apps can compete with their desktop counterparts. There are most definitely some serious barriers to web usability evolution, including bandwidth and latency constraints. Also, due to the stark black and white nature of website openness and private security, the balance between promotion and control is very difficult to manage. Most content and application providers are forced to either promote with no control, or drastically limit exposure to maintain control.One thing I’m getting more and more interested in is how web advertising is changing the way web applications and software in general is monetized. With open source licenses like the Affero GPL allowing web developers to openly and effectively compete with collaborators / competitors, there may be hope for low-cost web applications which require high security, such as bookkeeping services.

Believe it or not, I actually went to college for software usability. Tufts University has a great “human factors engineering” program, which encompasses “engineering psychology”. After I graduated, I wanted to put my skills to use, but I had to learn how to create software. What did I do? I turned to open source! Unfortunately, open source software isn’t always the most user friendly, even if it is very developer friendly. My company is embracing open source more and more, so as we work on the usability aspects of the projects we create and user here, I’ll blog about them. One example comes to mind: Wordpress and the Kubrick and K2 themes. These are featured on most of our blogs and I think that they are top notch. What do you think?

Brand new blog… gratuitous post.