The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have release a copy of the 2003 Human Development Reports which indicate a series of global statistical trends and indexes in human development.
The reports are surprising and measure comparative global statistics such as income, fertility rates, life expectancy, expenditure on education, technology diffusion and creation and also literacy and gender related trends.
Here is the 2003 Human Development Indicators for Australia.
Column Two is an Australian weblog by James Robertson, Managing Director of Step Two Designs, a consultancy based in Sydney on Content Management (CM) and Knowledge Management (KM).
The blog site has some really useful links to articles and sources on Knowledge Management, Information Artchitecture (IA), Usability, Interface Design and User Centred Design.
For the next five days, Mena, Ben, Anil and the crew from Six Apart (the cool funky company that brought you the blog publishing tool, Movable Type), will be showcasing areas from the forthcoming publishing system, TypePad, which we lucky Beta Testers have had the pleasure of playing around with for a few weeks now.
Without further adoo, here is the first public article which looks at the Template Builder of TypePad.
This is simply awesome! and was the first thing I noticed when I started playing with Typepad a few weeks ago.
From a usability perspective nothing can be more usable that this. Here’s a little animation Enjoy!
Here a small Flash animation that can entertain for hours and relieve stress. Simply pop away in Manic mode :)
Adobe have launched their latest set of products, their new digital video collection which includes a Pro update to Premiere and also a bump-up from 5.5 to After Effects 6.0
The latest add-on for the Sony Playstation2, EyeToy – an interactive camera that captures your movements and reacts to them. The camera plugs into the USB port of your PS2 and displays an image of you on your tv screen.
The first game available which uses the camera has just been released, EyeToy-Play is a series of 12 small games that react to your movements and adds to your score. Some of the games include a Soccer header game, a kung- Fu action game, boxing, dancing and juggling, music Beat-Freak and some puzzles.
The user can track hand and body movements and colour on screen in real-time via the PlayStation2, with no delay or lag allowing users to interact with the gaming environment and characters on screen. The PS2 also enables 3D graphics to be laid over the ‘live’ video feed creating an even greater 3-Dimensional environment.
Here are some screen captures of the interface and a review by the Guardian Unlimited.
EyeToy is one of two new interactive products by Sony taking advantange of video, sound and network capabilities. SOCOM: U.S. NAVY SEALS is the other new PS2 game which uses voice command to control troops in an action strategic adventure.
Here is Flash and Art pioneer Yugop Nakamura’s latest project, “ecotonoha”.
The project is based around the nurturing of virtual tree communities, whilst at the same time contributing to the actual environment to cope with global warming. It is a great interactive project.
Here is a fascinating blog entry by Ottmar Liebert on our human ability to enjoy Music.
His blog entry and also user comments have brought up an interesting discussion suggesting that possibly music is older than language.
The building of better user experiences is possibly one of the most important elements when designing or considering the design of any form of interface or usable product.
Importantly, experience involves the building upon acquired knowledge and the ability to further facilitate learning.
Here is an interesting video clip I came across, whilst revisiting Ole Eichhorn site, which shows a Crow (a type of bird) using its acquired knowledge from past experiences to bend a piece of wire and retrieve some food.
Here is a PDF document based on the research by Shumin Zhai, an IBM Research Staff Member, which extends the law developed by Fitts in 1954.
Fitts Law is a robust model of human behavior which enables the prediction of human movement and human motion based on rapid, aimed movement other than drawing or writing.
In Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Fitt’s law is a useful guideline in interface design.
There is also a great Interface Design blog entry in 37Signals titled, Better PDA Interaction, posted by Ryan Singer which looks at an OSX dock technique used in new PDAs.
Here are some further reading on Fitts Law:
1. A summary and examples of Fitts LawKDE User Interface Guidelines.
2. Usability First Glossary of Fitts law.
3. Ask Togg Quiz on Fitts law.
Jason Kottke has posted an interesting blog entry about recollection of online and offline reading.
He points out that he finds it easier to recollect things if it is in a digital form, as opposed to reading a book, where the experience of reading can be more casual and relaxing in his case.
Funny, I have the same problem – I find myself sometimes digitising things for better access to it eg. scanning, blogging, doodling, etc.
Should we be blogging everything? :) I had a similar discussion about this with my friend CafeDave a few weeks back, where he asked me 2 questions via messenger and I replied with 2 blog posts which answered his questions exactly, word for word as if I was replying him directly (it was funny but weird).
I’ve thought at times about, writing this journal in a more “recollection-centred way” – in a way of perhaps better re-tracing some steps of sites I visited in the past, as a way of recalling places I’ve been, articles I’ve read and also things I’ve experienced.
Further Reading:
Miall D. S. and Dobson T. (2001-08-13) Reading Hypertext and the Experience of Literature [Online] Available: http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v02/i01/Miall/ (Cited: 2003-7-18)
Here’s the useful Design Resource by How Magazine.
It contains great links to Design resources on Illustration, Typography, Print, Graphic Design, Art, Web Design, Design in Business, and also inspirational sites. It is worthwhile visiting.
Don Norman has added to the CHI-Web discussion today by commenting that HumanML is one of the most misguided initiatives he has ever seen (Well, there goes that idea I had! :)
But seriously, HumanML, which first appeared in 2001, is a computer-language which intends to encode human behaviour and non-verbal language to communication.
Here is a great article by Peter Morville, from Semantic Studios, which comments on the importance of recognising Internationalism in Information Architecture in particular, connecting people from diverse disciplines, countries and cultures.
Both the article and user comments are a worthwhile read.
Webword posts a nice link to an article which introduces the differences between Engineering-centered design and User-centered design, by commenting on the remote control of a VCD player.
