Sunday, January 25, 2004
Slip-up
One day this week I got back from fieldwork and as I walked up the garden path, drew my travelcard out of my pocket...to open the front door. Yes, I had been travelling all day, but even so, quite a seriously inappropriate slip.
I suppose this would be categorised as an associative action slip: I was going into the house, not getting onto a bus or train. Does this get worse as you get older, I wonder, or perhaps is there a relation to tiredness?
9:13 AM|
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Saturday, January 24, 2004
Blogging MPs
On today's The Week in Westminster (BBC Radio 4), blogging MP Tom Watson discussed with Tony Benn the ways technology may help MPs and their constituents communicate and take action. Both emphasied the importance of bottom-up or grass-roots activism in the democratic process. Tom also referred to e-voting, saying he had first learned of the problems with US e-voting systems from fellow bloggers.
This Tuesday, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for e-Democracy will be hosting a public meeting on MPs and blogging at the House of Commons, organised by The Hansard Society. The meeting is open to all.
1:56 PM|
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Criticism of US military Internet voting
I've been run off my feet doing fieldwork, with ne'er a computer in sight, hence lack of posts.
CNN reported this week that the Internet-based voting system being introduced for the US army posted overseas has come in for criticism. The system is due to be released in a few weeks, but a group of US computer scientists (David Wagner, Avi Rubin, David Jefferson and Barbara Simons) have described the system as flawed, principally owing to weak security.
Also in CNN this week is an introduction to the issues surrounding security of electronic voting.
1:25 PM|
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Friday, January 23, 2004
User experience thoughts for 2004
Nice post from Mark over at Good Experience.
6:52 PM|
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Saturday, January 10, 2004
Are car controls becoming too complex?
Chris McEvoy poses the question on his blog.
3:24 PM|
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Wednesday, January 07, 2004
Don't throw that old mobile in the bin
Like many others (3.75m in the UK), I acquired a new mobile over the Christmas break and was wondering what to do with the old one. Here's an article from the BBC site about schemes to recycle old mobile handsets.
10:24 PM|
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News for me, news for you
The BBC's end-of-year round up of top news stories on the website over 2003 makes for interesting reading. While hard news, in the shape of Iraq, was firmly top of the news pops, the kinds of stories that visitors emailed to their friends were altogether different: talking apes, talking fish, pregnant boys and a range of out-of-this-world events. Maybe this indicates that while we have in no sense been 'dumbed down' when it comes to worldy concerns, we'd rather avoid the hard stuff when communicating with friends.
10:00 AM|
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Monday, January 05, 2004
Pot shots from Spiked
In 2002, Martyn Perks of Spiked was describing himself as a 'designer' and laying into usability as a force for conservatism (but he seemingly did not understand the difference between market research and usability). Now he's describing himself as a 'user experience consultant' and laying into ethnography. His 'reasoning' seems much the same. Who knows, maybe by next year he'll be describing himself as an 'ethnographer' and critiquing business process re-engineering. But that would be a little too sensible, methinks.
I discern some common patterns here. Perks appears loath to speak to users of technology in any shape or form, though he seems a little mixed up about whether people who do so are merely patronising or aiming to "control us". He continues to believe that a range of disciplines including usability and ethnography are merely different terms for market research. And his lines of 'reasoning' continue to perplex: what on earth has Blair's Big Conversation (one of his examples) got to do with ethnography? (the article is entitled 'Ethnography' exposed)
9:12 AM|
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