Pee on the Bee: Urinals Get a Touch of Usability
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
If you’re a guy, you’re probably aware of “splash-back”, which is just an unfortunate by-product of peeing in a urinal. If you’ve never heard of splash-back, then let me assure you, it’s exactly what it sounds like. But leave it to human factors psychologists to devise a solution.
What do you think men do when they stand there and pee? What do you think they think about? Well, if you think world problems are solved at those wall-mounted, porcelain receptacles, think again. Most men seem to focus on aiming their streams. Yes ladies, it’s true. Whether we admit it or not, we aren’t doing much more than playing “First One to Erode the Urinal Cake” or pretending we are Chief Fireman Baker, a gruff loaner with a heart of gold who also happens to be Urinal Town’s only hope to quell a fire that threatens to decimate the local orphanage.
So what do human factors have to do with splash-back? Well plenty actually. Some scientists got together and found the optimal area to pee on. An area that saw the least amount of splash-back. Once they found that area, they would need to mark it. Basically, they would need to get all the men to aim their stream at that one spot. How to do that ? Stick something there. By conducting some simple experiments, they found that men would aim their stream at specific “targets.” They chose a bee, but it could have been anything, really (others have used flies, bulls-eyes, and an assortment of quirky little targets). You can click on the thumbnail above to enlarge the image (sorry for the low quality shots, all I had was my iPhone).
So the next time you see a little bee on a urinal, and can’t help but a) wonder what it’s doing there, and b) why you have to aim for it, well, now you know (and it’s not there to reduce “spillage” as falsely reported by BoingBoing). Personally, I think it’s actually pretty cool to see something I read about in class, applied to the real world. These were taken on campus, and when I saw them, I was secretly proud of my academic institution for being so progressive.
reCaptcha Hell: The Nuisance of Being Human
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
reCAPTCHA is a free service that adds a magnanimous twist to the whole, “prove to me you’re human” paradigm of anti-spam technology. It was a novel idea back in the day, I’m sure, almost taking a page from the Turing Test. I can remember the first time I used one. I thought it was a great idea—very neat way of identifying humans from spambots. Then, new ones came out. More advanced ones. Some more difficult to use than others. Some downright annoying. Some did a better job than others. And for a time, things were good.
I have alway wondered whether some of the more difficult ones were made that way because spammers figured out ways to circumvent them, or if it was just overzealousness on the programmers part—trying to make an anti-spam system that could never be beat. In any case, it looks like reCAPTCHA has really gone into overdrive.
The Mag+ Project: One Tablet to Rule Them All
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
The only thing remotely ridiculous about this project is the name, unless you count how ridiculously good the concept, presentation, and underlying thought behind this revolutionary way of viewing your articles and magazines, um, is.
The project, an amalgamate of Berg and Bonnier (who publishes Popular Science), is truly awe-inspiring and aims to take the current paradigm of hyperlinks and images to a whole new level. So much so that I had to blog it, being the techno-freak that I am. I would love to see a world that payed this much attention to detail. The Mag+ is downright elegant and just flat out beautiful. Gorgeous even—in both the design and delivery. It is a concept derived from people that no doubt have spent countless hours thinking about a thoroughbred way of bringing magazines into the 21st century. Hopefully companies that care about their readers will organize some elaborate meeting with the possibility of Thai food and drink.
Enough with the praise, I’ll let the video speak for itself. There is a drool warning attached to the clip, so slide those keyboards away from under your chin.
Read more about the Mag+ Project over at the Berg Blog.
Taking MacRabbit’s Espresso Web Development Program for a Spin
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
MacRabbit (of CSSEdit fame) has loosed another version of their “vapourware turned legitimate program,” Espresso, unto the suspecting public. Version 1.1 expands on the “skeleton-like shell” of former iterations by adding several new features, a lot of polish, and some general refinements to the interface and operational program behaviour. Admittedly, I have given little time to this program in the past (yet I’ve always strangely wanted to like it, despite its many failings), as it proved to be quite buggy, and just too eclectic for my taste. However, this new iteration seems to tie a lot of loose ends together and is getting to be an attractive alternative to the already popular Coda. It generally feels a lot snappier and much more refined than previous versions. There are still some rough spots, but it’s certainly starting to come into its own. So I decided to give it a good, solid evening of testing.
So without further ado, let’s run through some of the most prolific components that grabbed my attention, for better or for worse.
Understanding Heuristics and How They Drive Design [Revised]
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
Lukas Mathis recently wrote an article on realism in UI design. Will Shipley (of Delicious Software fame) also wrote an article on interaction design and heuristics. But both fail to cover the underpinnings of heuristics and the human mechanism—to truly get at the source of how the mind works and why design needs to be shaped in a different direction.
Understanding Heuristics
Firstly, the definition of heuristics taken from Wikipedia is less than satisfying. (A heuristic is “an adjective for experience-based techniques that help in problem solving, learning and discovery.” Is it me or is WP getting more and more difficult to read and digest? Do they even have editors?) Let us take to my second year cognition textbook (written by the most boring and lacklustre authors alive. I begrudgingly had to read this book from cover to cover, and it was nothing short of sheer agony let me tell you): “A heuristics is a strategy that is often, but not always, helpful in solving problems” (Reed., S. K. 2004. Cognition: Theory and applications, 6th Ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.)
I think this definition will better serve our purposes, and is much clearer than the one provided on Wikipedia. But let me put it in simpler terms. A heuristic is analogous to being late for work. You wake up in a rush, deciding to forgo a shower, and choosing to grab a cereal bar instead of your traditional toast and coffee before running out the door. You make it to work on time, but you realize that you forgot your phone, and to lock your front door. You succeeded, but you did it cutting corners. Provided nothing detrimental happened, and all your stuff was still there when you got home, it would have proved a success. That is essentially what a heuristic allows you to do: Achieve your goal using tried and true shortcuts. They don’t always workout, but for the most part, the time and effort they save makes up for their less than pristine track record. It’s a trade-off. A process that tries to reach an outcome with the lowest possible denominator.
