Ruth Stalker-Firth

Steve Mann, inventor of wearable computing, came to the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in the 1990s when I was PhD student there. He had some difficulty getting on the metro as his head-mounted aerial added several inches to his height.

Watching him struggle to get through the door, I was inspired and excited by a researcher who wore and lived his work. Related MIT websites, where Mann was based, showed me how I could augment my reality by turning a gameboy into a wearable computer. The instructions came with a warning that it would affect my vision, though I would soon adapt to the constant red line. After all, the wearable was a lot smaller than Mann’s. (more…)

The Fresenius Kabi Applix Smart food pump is a masterclass in bad design. There is nothing smart about this food pump and its accessories. It has been designed without taking into consideration the context in which it is to be used. Consequently, some of its accessories are not just safe enough to used around patients and the home and could lead to the compromise of patient safety.

When designing any form of interface, a usability consultant will push for the interface to be: effective and efficient; easy to learn and remember; useful and safe.

After usability comes user experience (in this medical context perceived user satisfaction is enough, as it is never going to be fun to use a food pump on a chronically ill person) which encourages users to feel supported and motivated by a helpful interface.

Fresenius Kabi has failed the user of the Applix Smart food pump on usability and user experience. (more…)

Last summer I found myself exploring an early Iron Age home at The Crannog Centre on Loch Tay. The Crannog was cosy, as its focal point was the Iron Age hearth - a large open fire. During the day the inhabitants would peel back wicker shutters to let in fresh air whilst they tended to their animals, making food and clothing and ground spelt for bread.

Today, wearing a woolly jumper and eating spelt pasta, with my back to the radiator, it seems to me that our needs and motivations have changed little since the Iron Age. (more…)

Like many usability consultants I have spent hours locked in rooms with strangers saying: “What do you think about this web page?” It is boring way to earn a living especially as you often know the answers and could tell clients without asking the questions.

Alas, most clients only believe opinions about their websites when it comes from random users - not you, the expert. Luckily the industry takes Jakob Nielson’s advice on testing: five users only to establish a pattern of responses (and because it’s cheap). Although, if we were really serious, we would need 30 users to talk about the statistical significance of our results.

Some of this boredom could be avoided (and client money saved) if everyone employed the patterns which already exist in users’ heads to create more intuitive webpages and GUIs. Cognitive science, the study of mind and intelligence, enables us to understand what makes our users tick. (more…)

After my first year at university I spent the summer working in a delicatessen in Putney. One morning during my first week, whilst in the middle of carefully carving six slices of Parma ham for some lady’s dinner party, we were told to evacuate the building as security had been warned that there was a bomb. I dropped everything and ran for my life. We stood around in the car park until we got the all clear and I arrived back at the counter to find the same woman ready to berate me for abandoning her dinner party plans. (more…)