The epic adventures of Martin and thoughts on HCI, Usability, Sofware, being an Expat and stuff.
2009/06/28
Steely Dan Left Bank Holiday tour and "Heinken Music Hall fun bills"
Batavia and Bataviawerf
This weekend my dad came to visit and we went to Bataviawerf outside Lelystad in Flevoland to look at the boat Batavia; or rather a reconstruction since the original grounded near Western Australia.
I've read Batavia's Graveyard by Mike Dash about a year ago and really liked it and since then I wanted to go see the replica. So now I have one more Dutch cultural site that I can tick of my todo list.
It's pretty cool to see a big sailing ship especially one that has been the centre for a bloody mutiny. It's probably not as big as the ship Vasa but it was well worth the trip. Especially since it is pretty cool to travel across fake land imagining that you are five meters under water.
The ever diminishing refresh/reload button in browsers, part II
Most people don't use the refresh button. They might visit the site once and later go back at a later point. Since I am doing development and prototyping work I frequently reload the site many times to check the changes. I thought that users would use the refresh the site if it got stalled during load. That is probably to advanced for many of them.
However I stand by my first blog entry, what harm could that button possibly have done when it was big and accessible. Why hide it?
But bottom line, know your users and you are not a user.
2009/06/22
The ever diminishing refresh/reload button in browsers
Since I use Mac OS X for my daily work and only use Windows for testing I shrugged and got on. But now Apple has made the same design flaw in Safari 4.
Is it just me who finds it annoying and what ever happened to Fitts's law?
I am well aware that there are keyboard combinations available but I wonder what user testing and thinking might lay behind this change. Funnily instead of Microsoft borrowing good ideas from Apple, Apple is suddenly borrowing bad ideas from Microsoft. Luckily, Firefox has kept it's refresh/reload button same size and accessible.
2009/06/17
UI specification template
Öresundstågen, never ever ever on time
I am really fed up with Öresundstågen.