I passed the CUA exam!

Despite my doubts and anxiety about the exam, I proved once again that I’m up for anything I set my mind to: I have successfully passed the Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) exam yesterday! I waited till today to write about it because it took a little while to sink in. I mean, it’s over! The ambitious plan that started early this year with my attempt to get into the field of...

Beginning countdown for my CUA exam on Thursday 13 Sept

This week is going to be a silent one at Alaeddin’s Blog as the countdown begins for my long-awaited Certified Usability Analyst exam. If you guys remember, the whole point of my trip to India in July was to take a bunch of courses to prepare me for this exam. I’ve already been through the courses’ material twice. I read countless articles and white papers, and...

Back from India: Mission debrief

I’m back from India! I’ve been on a 2-week trip to India attending a 10-day course series offered by the renowned usability consulting firm called Human Factors International (HFI) (read more in my original post). So I’m now in Dubai airport with 8 hours of waiting time till my connecting flight back home. That’s plenty of time to reflect on the whole trip and that’s...

Leaving on a jet plane to India

It’s official: I’m taking my first step towards building my career in human-computer interaction (HCI) by attending a 4-part 10-day course series offered by the internationally renowned usability consulting firm called Human Factors International (HFI). The courses will take place in Bangalore, India and will span 10 days from July 16-26. Taking these courses will prepare me for my...

How can we make our computer interaction more natural? (Part 2)

This is the second post in a series that aims to explore the potential for making our computer interactions a little less “digital” and a little more “humanized”. Specifically, I’m discussing ways to improve upon our usage of the mouse and keyboard to make them truly “human interface devices“. The first part explored our everyday usage of the computer...

How can we make our computer interaction more natural? (Part 1)

Let’s think for a moment about the ways in which we interact with our computers in our present time. Without a doubt, the most dominating input devices are the mouse and the keyboard, right? People primarily rely on these input mechanisms as formal means to issue commands and type text. However, people vary according to their preference: geeks and IT professionals rely more heavily on the...