Thursday, May 22, 2008

Ultrasaurus Blog - Extreme Programming (Agile) versus Interaction Design

Extreme Programming vs. Interaction Design? is an interesting read on the subject of Agile Usability. It relates back to the original Beck and Cooper ding dong interview (a link to which she's pulled out of the web archive.

Ultrasaurus, Sarah Allen's blog, is a nice to have a look at too.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Where to find jobs in User Experience Design

Some of my friends have been laid off recently. I told them I would do all I can to help them find jobs so here is my list of the best places to look for jobs in User Experience Design. Feel free to add to my list!

Job Boards


UPA (Usability Professionals Association) Job Bank - international jobs listed by the UPA
Usability News - Jobs (British HCI Group) - UK/European feel but also has international jobs on it
SIG-CHI Job Board Browsable Web archive - looks GREAT, thanks Susan
The Inoformantion Architecture (IA) Institute Job Board - pretty active (thanks Peter)
The Human-Computer Interaction Resource Network (HCIRN) Job Board (thanks Avram)
The Internet Technical Group (ITG) Job Board
(thanks Avram & Scott)
Boxes and Arrows Jobs - quite a lot of jobs on here (thanks Peter)
Mark Hurst's Good Experiencejob board primarily for US jobs.
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Job Board (Members Only Unfortunately) - thanks Ronald
The Society for Technical Communicators (STC) Job Board - mainly for jobs in technical communication but related enough to include here I think

Career/Job Site Aggregators


indeed.com job site aggregatore (thanks Dan & Susan)
Simply Hired (thanks Susan)

Specialist Agents


Bo Cheng mailto:bo@evolveconsultinguk.com, Evolve Consulting UK - mainly jobs in London and the UK. Bo handles a lot of UX and IA jobs.
Recruit Media - an agency with a team dedicated to usability, IA jobs etc.

Networking Tools


Linked In - my profile but you get the idea.

Discussion Groups and Newsletters


Check out the UPA list of Email Lists and Communities

[IxDA] discussion group
- an active and vibrant group. Lots of jobs come up too
Mark Hurst's Good Experience Newsletter - has regular job postings and there is also a job board (see Job Boards above).
SIG-CHI discussion lists and the SIG CHI Job List - thanks Susan
[Agile-Usability] - has occasional jobs
[London-ia] yahoo group - great for jobs in London
[London Usability] yahoo group - great for jobs in London
[Experience Design] Yahoo Group - has occasional jobs

Other Resources


UPA Resource Directory

You may also like to check out your local UPA Chapters to look for local jobs (thanks for that thought Whitney) and you could also look up local chapters of STC, SIGCHI, and HFES (thanks Avram).

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Virgin Media Voicemail Number

If you cannot figure out how to get your Voicemail without dialling 222 every time and being chastized by the automated system, try this. Type *#67# and it will send you your voicemail number!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Tufte Analyses iPhone

Ask E.T.: Interface design and the iPhone - An interesting analysis of the iPhone by Edward Tufte explaining why the high resolution device is pretty nifty and some ways in which the resolution is under-utilised.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

McAfee - user out of control

When I bought a new Dell I was forced to accept the Vista operating system. I was quite positive about it. With XP the computer, too often, rips control away from the user. This was such an obvious flaw that I was sure, if they had done one thing with Vista, they would have put the user back in control. How could I have been more wrong? Vista rips control away from the user more than any system I have ever come across in more than 25 years of messing around with computers. It is appalling.

Today, McAfee Anti-virus decided to upgrade itself. After doing so it asked me whether I wanted to restart the system now, or, do it later. I was working so I selected the 'do it later' option and got on with my work. I was asked the same question about every hour throughout the day. At one point I started Task Manager and killed the process but it came back. I was making my dinner later and scanning some documents at the same time and the message popped up again. This time, finger trouble caused me to select the wrong option and everything shutdown without further ado - I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING!

My Apple Mac does not have such bad manners. Vista causes me stress on a routine basis with little bells dinging telling me it needs to do something. My Mac does not do this, it just lets me get on with my work, or messing around with photos or whatever. My Mac makes me smile. I'm not religous about this. I've used PCs since the 1990s and switched to a Mac in 2004. The transition was not always smooth and I still can't remember how to print screen but it has such good manners it's cute.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

EBay Item "promotion" Removes your item for up to 8 hours

I'm selling my car on ebay. I only have the time for a 3 day auction so tonight I was wooed by their "promote your car for $29" option and I went for it. The result? The listing completely disappeared. Trying to follow this up with ebay support chat wasn't very effective as you can see below. Apparently when you "promote" an item it can disappear from the listings for as much as 8 hours. I sure didnt see that in the small print.

Here's the chat...


System
Initial Question/Comment: Selling
21:58:32

System
Ana F. has joined this session!
21:58:32

System
Connected with Ana F.
21:58:37

Ana F.
Hello and welcome to eBay Motors Live Chat! My name is Ana. If you're a registered member, may I please start by having you confirm your User ID and first name?
21:58:44

carl.myhill ID: carl.myhill
21:58:46

carl.myhill name: carl
21:58:53

carl.myhill
item: 250126280587
21:59:01

Ana F.
One moment please while I look into this for you.
21:59:21

Ana F.
Is this regarding the 2001 Chevrolet : Tracker?
21:59:26

carl.myhill
i hit the 'promote' button tonigth and spent $29 to "promote" my item
21:59:29

carl.myhill
yes a tracker
21:59:33

carl.myhill
the end result
21:59:38

carl.myhill
the listing has disappeared
21:59:45

carl.myhill
how is this promoting an item?
22:00:00

carl.myhill
it's only listed for 3 days and now it has been unviewable for one of those evenings
22:00:47
carl.myhill

hello?
22:00:52

Ana F.
It’s also important to note that revising a listing may start the clock over on a listing that is not immediately indexed. This can add to the time the item is not visible via Search.
22:01:05

carl.myhill
yes i was told before that it might take an hour
22:01:11

carl.myhill
that was over an hour ago
22:01:14

carl.myhill
so what is happening
22:01:15

carl.myhill
?
22:01:22

Ana F.
Please wait for your item to be searchable on the site. This usually takes a few hours only up to a maximum of 8 hours before your listing will be searchable in the category you chose.
22:01:35

carl.myhill
how is that "promoting" something?!
22:01:46

carl.myhill
that is demoting it
22:02:00

carl.myhill
it has cost me $29 to REMOVE my listing
22:02:02

carl.myhill
great
22:02:17

Ana F.
I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. The site ensures that your vehicle will index properly on the site.
22:02:38

carl.myhill
i'm not talking about whether it indexes properly
22:02:55

carl.myhill
it has disappeared for a critical evening within a 3 day selling window
22:03:20

carl.myhill
if i knew it would disappear for hours i would not have spent $29 on a "promotion" opportunity
22:03:31

Ana F.
I understand. We run updates on the site every day. But sometimes there is a slight delay between the time the information is entered and its appearance, especially at peak listing times.
22:03:53

carl.myhill
yes thanks for the standard paragraph, i am getting the idea
22:04:00

carl.myhill
not impressed
22:04:53

Ana F.
It will undergo indexing in our system. Don't you worry, I'll personally monitor your listing so that it will post the soonest possible time.
22:05:01

carl.myhill
in internet time i would think "slight delay" means a few minutes not 8 hours
22:05:27

carl.myhill
can you give me an idea of how long it will take?
22:05:53

Ana F.
These listings may not be viewable for several hours. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for us to give a number of hours, because this will depend on the specific criteria for each effected listing.
22:06:03

Ana F.
Please wait up to maximum of 8 hours.
22:06:36

carl.myhill
did it explain that in some of the "promotion" smallprint?
22:07:08
carl.myhill
you do see that with a 3 day listing this is very bad news indeed and very poor customer service (just pick a standard paragraph)

22:08:13 Ana F.
It needs to update on the site. That could explain why you haven't seen your listing in your search results.
22:08:32

carl.myhill
you do see that with a 3 day listing this is very bad news indeed and very poor customer service (just pick a standard paragraph)
22:08:59

Ana F.
I do understand your frustrations. Given the same concern, I would felt the same way if I’m on your shoes.
22:09:03

Ana F.
Just wait a bit more.
22:09:25

carl.myhill
Thanks
22:09:38

Ana F.
You're more than welcome. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
22:09:38

Ana F.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
22:09:43

carl.myhill
I could probably get this chat on the internet faster than the listing appears
22:09:48

carl.myhill
Let me try that

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Biodiversity Wiki? The Encyclopedia of Life

www.eol.org - an electronic page for every species or organism on Earth availalble everywhere by single access on command.

An excellent effort by many, not least TED. Design from Avenue A-Razorfish in just 3 weeks of pro bono work.

I really can't imagine having the confidence to contribute anything to this but I hope it grows very well. There are so many millions of species we don't know that it would be a great effort to get to know a few more!