Media: Headshift reviews HCI 2006

Susanne at Headshift attended a tutorial at HCI 2006 and has blogged it on the company website. She identifies a trend I've been picking up from other consultants I've talked to, that the HCI conference has become 'too academically-oriented and time-consuming' to be good value to practitioners.

However, she writes entertainingly and appreciatively on the "Principles of Interaction Design Masterclass". She describes how everyone had to draw their favourite interface which was not a computer interface. 'Because I'm a simple person who loves functional minimalism (see, I paid attention), primary colours and was run over by a car at the age of 4, I drew a traffic light and because boys will be boys they drew a games console (I actually used to think that was a computer but never mind, I reckon the traffic light is chipped too - which now makes me think I should have drawn a dinner table instead).'

Associated Link: Headshift: HCI 2006

Online poker company uses Science to assess Player Preferences
Source: Recentpoker.com, 8 January 2009
 
Working with customer experience consultancy Foviance, PKR is exploiting the benefits of electroencephalography (EEG) technology to gather information on poker players' emotional relationship with a brand or service.

Do Users really love Laptops?
Source: channelinsider, 7 January 2009
 
More than one-fifth of all laptop computers will break down over the course of their life, and other limitations frustrate their users. From this list of user complaints come laptop opportunities.

User Interviews - Analysis Simplified
Source: Webcredible, 6 January 2009
 
You’ve conducted your user interviews, but now you need to make sense of all that information you’ve gathered.

Why Products Fail
Source: ComputerWorld, 5 January 2009
 
Most gadget and software makers don't understand what users want most: control.

How to Design Websites for Mobile Phones
Source: stemkoski.com, 3 January 2009
 
Tips from Ryan Stemkoski's web design blog.

Pioneer of Cyberspace honoured
Source: BBC, 2 January 2009
 
A professor who invented a forerunner of the world wide web has been made a dame in the New Year Honours.

2008 in Review: Developments that rocked the world of User Experience
Source: Catalyst Resources, 1 January 2009
 
A look back at 2008 highlights some of the key developments that rocked the world of user experience.

2008: The Year Online
Source: MIT Technology Review, 31 December 2008
 
The business of social networking, cloud computing, and a flaw in the fabric of the Internet top the most notable stories of 2008.

Shoveling through the Spamalanche
Source: UN, 30 December 2008
 
A ‘Spamalanche’ of 3,000 emails will be waiting in your inbox by the time you get back to work. What can you do besides 'delete all'?

New guidelines boost Web Access
Source: BBC, 29 December 2008
 
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced a new standard to make sites more accessible to older and disabled people.