June 2013
Experiments with voice control for a browser →
jordanm.co.uk
Cool experiment, using voice commands in the browser. Definitely keen to see where this goes, but it’s Chrome only at the moment (and just a quick experiment to get people thinking). I’m especially interested in the natural language aspect of it. This would take out the technical requirements around understanding _what_ you want. Sometimes, people using a device don’t know what they want exactly, but know what they don’t like about their current experience:
- “The text is too small” -> browser increases text size
- “I can’t see the text” -> browser adjusts the brightness settings. This would be nice to pair with some context, so the browser can ask, “is it better now?” and the user can respond “yes/no” until they get to something they’re happy with.
uxWhisperer: Encourage the cats to herd themselves. →
uxwhisperer.tumblr.com
Managing design and designers: tips for agile project managers
“If you’re an agile project manager, or even a lead designer on a team of multiple designers, you’ll need to help the designers and other team members understand the collaborative design approach, collocation,…
UX is not UI
“UI design is a huge part of UX. I would say that in a good majority of cases the UX designer does in fact design the interface. But UX is not UI.”
One Size Fits None
“Who doesn’t love to talk about process? Every week, it seems, someone has discovered ‘the new way to work that everyone should be doing.’ While I love a healthy process debate, I find discussions that promote a one-size-fits-all design approach problematic.”
NYC Meet-up's
"The New Site Will Be Great!" →
smashingmagazine.com
Billing for the Agile minded designer.
The trouble with mobile segregation.
With the advent of smartphone computers, content providers have been drawing rather clear lines in the sand with what constitutes a ‘mobile’ experience, the current ideology being that if it runs a ‘mobile’ OS (Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7, etc) then it is a ‘mobile’ device. This has since been extended to the point where a computer is defined by running a desktop OS, usually limited to Windows proper or OSX (linux distros often get ignored outright as far as compatibility is concerned).
The problem for content creators who segregate content by device type is that the lines between devices have become blurred, and will become even more blurred when Windows 8 and Windows RT launch this october. As far as user agent pinning, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8 and Windows RT don’t feature varying user agents, so you can’t stop users that way. Presumably, because Windows RT’s internet explorer has a walled version of Adobe Flash, sites like Hulu will simply not register themselves as a flash enabled metro site. Still, what would happen if say Chrome for Metro retains access to Chrome desktop’s pepper API without including a special metro version user agent or Microsoft changes their mind and makes Flash available to all sites by default with Internet Explorer? Then you cannot segregate between paid hulu and free hulu on what may constitute a ‘mobile’ device.
The problem with geolocation based social networks
On my way to work the other day, I overheard a conversation between a young woman and her male mentor, during which she warned her mentor of the possibility that the government could start putting chips in people’s heads to track their location. I was tempted to blurt out in response that she more than likely already carries such a chip, not in her head, but in her purse via way of a smartphone, and it was not government agencies that were interested in her activities, as opposed to tech companies.
