Friday, December 23, 2005
No Sony, we don't want to carry bricks in our bags
I've just bought another Sony Vaio laptop, to replace one purchased a couple of years ago. And was stunned to find, on opening the box, that the mains power adapter is significantly larger and heavier than the one for my previous Vaio. In fact, it's larger than any other mains adapter I own. It most closely resembles one of those 1980s brick-style mobile phones that needed an attache case all of its own.
Luckily, the output on my old Vaio adapter is the same - they so rarely are - so I'll be continuing to use it.
It's all very well selling laptops on the basis of minimal device dimensions and weight, but people invariably need also to take the mains power unit wherever they go. What's the point in going to all the trouble of designing a light and slim laptop, and not bothering to think about the inevitable mains power unit too?
1:17 PM|
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London Olympics and voting interfaces
Interesting story - for interaction designers - in much of the UK media about voting for the Olympics venue in 2012. IOC members voted by pressing numeric keys to represent candidate cities. A Greek member claimed - at the time - that he didn't have time to vote. But votes were registered for all members present. And now there's a claim that someone voted for a city he hadn't intended to vote for.
The Times story points out that London and Paris used adjacent numbers, though doesn't specify the Madrid number (it was confusion over Madrid and Paris that is at the heart of the dispute).
1:09 PM|
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Thursday, December 15, 2005
Today I receeived an email from Amazon:
"As someone who's purchased Electronics from Amazon.co.uk you may be interested to know you can now purchase the Philips Streamium Wireless Music Centre -- Store your entire CD collection on a 40 GB hard disk and listen in every room for only..."
Only one problem. My current music storage amounts to some 115 GB, and it's growing, as only part of the collection is digitalised. So The Philips Streamium will not do what Amazon claims.
This reminds me of the recent Vodafone claim to me that I'd only have to housekeep my Blackberry - on the website - every three months or so. I fact, I had to perform the first housekeeping after five days. But then the Vodafone store manager only received "one or two emails a week".
Which in turn reminded me of when I got my new mobile phone this autumn: the allocated memory for texting ran out after four days.
Do these people ever do any user research - or even review their own customer data - to see how users really behave, what their requirements really are? I doubt it.
2:51 PM|
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005
The secret life of the self-employed
There was yet another article last week in the press about people who work from home working in pyjamas. In fact, I reckon the most F-FAQ for the self-employed is 'Do you work in your pyjamas?' (when in the office).
The answer is, of course, 'No!', and 'Never!' with a suggestion of 'are you out of your mind?'
But...
Many years ago, I had a good friend in Barcelona who worked - works - as a translator, and she favoured a sort of dressing gown affair, that kept her warm during long hours at the desk-face. And I can assure you, that flats in Barcelona can be very cold in the winter (most people in Spain have no central heating, most homes suffer from damp, and Spanish winters can be fairly icy). And I - at the time - suggested that the ideal garb might be some sort of one-piece romper suit. We laughed at the very idea.
And lo, I recently went into Gap in Oxford Street, and they seemed to have an entire department devoted to non-street wear, including something they call Gap Body, which seems to be an adult romper suit in two parts (top and bottom). Ideal for keeping warm during the winter months. In fact, the assistant even suggested that you could get away with wandering down to the newsagents in this stuff.
I may yet convert to the other side...
1:27 PM|
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