Seth Godin of Squidoo fame posted this yesterday in his blog – the iPad app of my dreams-the digital talking pad -
He calls it a ‘digital talking pad’ but the write up seems to suggest that(or at least thats how I understood it) what he has in mind is a presentation app. I think what he wants is available in “Slide Sorter” view in Powerpoint but that view can be used only when editing the slideshow or presentation. He says, “Instead of it being linear (like Powerpoint or Keynote), the pages are arranged in a grid or checkerboard.” I think his idea is that, you should be able to randomly jump to any slide from any other slide from the speaker’s point of view. So the slides are to be arranged like window tiles. This will be the presenter’s view. The actual output view would show one slide at a time (as seen by the participants).
The reason for the success of English as a widely used business/communication language
In English, whenever someone comes across something new, they immediately give a name to the concept or phenomenon. With the advances in civilization, almost everything you could possibly come across, has a name referring to or denoting/documenting the concept or phenomenon and it can be found if you spend some time searching for it. Whatever you can think of, if you google it, you will see someone has already given a name to the concept you just thought of, even though further research may not have happened on it. English is very accepting of foreign transliterations (like the word ‘catamaran’), this is one of the reasons English is rich in expressive meaning when the appropriate words are used (getting exposed to ‘vocabulary’ and diction as a measure of learning is one the facets of learning English for competitive tests). For example, just the other day, I came across a post in Friendfeed about ’samutrika lakshanam’ even though it originally is an Indian/Sanskrit concept, English has a parallel word for it that means the same thing – and the word is ‘physiognomy’ (I didnt know of this before).
Commented on “5 super useful notebooks”
Eventually we should be able to ‘beam’ or ‘transmit’ what we want to remember (”things to remember”) using commands directed to a computing device we are carrying on our personae (like Microsoft Sensecam), that we would otherwise need a notebook to write. But we are going to need ‘thought’ commands and computing devices that operate from a wireless frequency range if we are to take notes during such activities as sleeping, jogging and bathing lest the computing device which we are supposed to carry in our personae will become wet and the lack of probability of carrying a computing device with us all the time. (especially during activities like trying to sleep and when suddenly an idea strikes your fancy and you want to note it down somewhere)
Remembered that I had come across the word ’syllogism’ somewhere and realized that I didnt know or couldnt recall the meaning of it, so went to Ninjawords and looked it up. Here is the definition of syllogism:
(logic) An inference in which one proposition (the conclusion) follows necessarily from two other propositions, known as the premises.
I did some more searching of good examples of syllogism, and these I came across in a Yahoo answers page that have more ‘mental stickiness’ factor as I try to commit to memory what this word means.
Example A
If all syllogisms are stupid,
and this is a syllogism,
then this is all stupid.
Example B
If Jesus loves Stephen Fry
and Stephen Fry would love to have a Big Screen TV
then Jesus would love for Stephen Fry to have a Big Screen TV.
How would you like your name to be linked to on the web?
This is a self-interview question that occurred to me today. I am thinking about the concept of “name/email/website” fields to be filled, found on most blog commenting systems. My thoughts: Most people without websites of their own would probably want their name to be linked to their twitter account page, if they have one. If they have websites of their own, they would put their website URL to link to, from their name.
Added “Nixo-facto” to my vocabulary
As I was browsing the link for syllogism found on the Yahoo answers page, referred to above, I eventually ended up learning another phrase. This word is “Nixo-facto”. The word has been defined by Wikia quite nicely. Basically it means, “if the President does it, then it is not illegal”. From the word it also seems that, it must have had its origins around President Nixon’s time. I then checked UrbanDictionary to see if they have more funny usages for this word, but seems at the moment they dont have any.
Commented on “Steampunk: A Mobile Device Concept for Rural India” as follows
Summary of my comment: “People have to go through a learning curve in order to interact with advancements in technology. It is expected and normal.”
First, I like the style behind the piece and the topic it has covered. But, as much as I like the concept of making technology more user-friendly, and while I dont want to be seen as a snob or as someone looking down upon rural populace in India (Most of us city dwellers have rural origins and have migrated to the cities anyway), I would say that there are some concepts which need to be learnt and adjusted to. You mean to say ‘many of these people havent seen an envelope to be able to understand the iconography behind an envelope symbolizing Mail/SMS on the mobile.’ What I am saying is that people once they get used to the idea of western iconography go through a (often delightful) learning experience and they immediately begin to associate an envelope symbol appearing on the mobile interface/UI to that of SMS/email on mobile. I see a drawing in this piece showing a mobile with traditional dials for measuring battery power left etc. Why make the mobile more of an electro-mechanical device? It is more of an electronic instrument and its UI should reflect its intended design philosophy. I just coincidentally read this article here – http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-an-idiot/ which addresses the topic of designing for the ‘lowest common denominator’ or ‘assuming users are stupid’. After this I read this piece and I found fundamentally they strike the same chord – I think you should read this link which I have given here.
I can see one of the flaws in my own argument – that, technology needs to adapt to the needs and usage of the existing people, not the other way around, but we are talking about designing for a lowest common denominator factor here – I am looking at history and evolution about ‘the age of arrival of machinery’ here – TVs, DVD players, music systems were designed their own characteristic iconography/functional symbolisms and people had to learn them in order to operate them. Going a little way back, car dashboards and controls were not made to look like instruments that a farmer would use and interface with, daily, when we evolved from an agrarian society towards a knowledge oriented one. In short, conclusively, I am saying that, learning new interface concepts, symbolisms, iconography, are but an inexorable way of evolution in this knowledge economy. Rural populace should not expect electronics, information and communication designers to change their user interfaces into steampunk concepts.
That said, I can further add that, I always dread the thought of buying a new mobile phone/iPhone for I have to go through its instruction manual to understand its concepts and how it operates. One of the problematic concept in mobile phone design (from the point of view of a rural, non-literate person) is how to look up and call someone in contacts/address book, given only the name. There are some things that HAVE to be learnt.
Commented on “Stop Being an Idiot” as follows
I agree with some points – users arent that stupid. There must be an ‘attempt’ on the user’s side to understand something. If you think of it, when graphical user interface was first introduced in the computing scenario, people had to learn something new of a way of interacting with a personal computer. They had to learn the concept of applications, files, file systems, drives, icons, how a double click opens applications from the ‘desktop’ etc. Similarly when learning internet browsing, users need to have learnt the concept of what is a web URL, where to type it in and what to expect. So we need to change the definition of “designing for the lowest common denominator” or “keep it simple stupid because users are stupid” design paradigm to something of a design mantra/guide like “make it powerful BUT easy to learn and intuitive, that is, the step of learning something new (like an interface of a web application) should be able to completed within a short period of time. The ‘learning’ should also be able to be completed in as intuitive and fun a manner as possible.
Links
100 ways to develop your mind – Link.
10 ways to improve memory – Link.
What makes women happy? Time article – Link.
