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 ultimate objective which is to obtain their highly regarded Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) certification, which I figured is a great kick-start for me in this path. The certification exam will be done online on September 13 this year, so I’ll have plenty of time to prepare and read more resources.
I had the option of doing this training in Washington, DC but the total cost of travel and training was more than double what I’m paying now, so I chose to go with Bangalore. Besides, it’s the same certificate from the same institute here and there.
Truth be told, the hardest part about this endeavor is having to explain to people and friends what software usability is and why it’s a relevant skill to have and an awesome field of science. Without formal training though, it’s really hard form me to concisely present a case-in-point for of how sofware usability is very important consideration for software vendors. However, if I had to quote a line that best says it all, it would be this:
Software usability today is what hardware was for the 80s and software was for the 90s.
There is a lot more to be said here but this is not the subject of this post. The bottom line is that I’m very excited and looking forward to attending this training series. The arrangements for the travel are almost final and I even ordered a relevant book to read on the plane.
Wish me luck :)
Believe it or not, there came a period when I kept thinking "the web sucks, there’s nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to watch!". I would launch the browser, and stare for a while in the blank white canvas, thinking: "so now what?". I had no good use of the web except for emails and chatting.
That was between 2004 and early 2006. Sometime mid 2006, I discovered something that would make a bigger impact in my life than anything I’ve ever tried before!
That thing was Netvibes; a wonderful online service that puts everything you’d ever want to do on the web in a single customizable page. The odd thing is, nowadays, I don’t use Netvibes (for some reason). However, credit goes to Netvibes for introducing me to the wonderful world of really simple sex syndication, otherwise known as RSS feeds (click here if you don’t already know what that is).
So I went ahead and gave it a shot. I added some preset feeds for popular sites and later discovered some more on my own, such as LifeHacker.
Fast forward to this day: I am one hell of an RSS addict who realized so many benefits from using RSS that I can’t even count. However, it occurred to me yesterday why not think of the top 5 things you achieved by using RSS?
So here they are. While reading this, try to think of things you achieved by using RSS and share them in the comments section.
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So I wanted to give my last post a practical sense and apply it to myself to show you a good example of how you might plan to focus your attention on the skills that matter.
As a recap, last time we came out with a conclusion that it’s neither practical nor possible to be a “jack of all trades”. We talked about the “T” model and then I showed you my version of that model where the skills are divided into 4 broad categories in order to better reflect the required depth of knowledge you need to have in each category of skills. Here’s that diagram again for reference:
Now let’s see how we can use this as a point of reference to brainstorm our relevant skills and put them all in perspective. As a bonus, I’ll be doing this exercise on myself and everybody will get to know, for the first time on this blog, what is my true passion!
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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 mouse, what improvements can be made to make it more usable, and concluded by suggesting that mouse gestures can greatly aid in both making this device more usable and closer to our hearts and minds, that is, more natural!
In this part, we’ll turn our attention to the computer keyboard. This mildly sophisticated device has received the least amount of innovation in the brief history of the computing era. This is understandable, given the simple purpose of this device which is either typing or sending commands. In the typing department, one of the most notable innovations, in my opinion, was the introduction of the natural keyboard layout in 1992 by Apple and then later in 1994 by Microsoft. The latter has gained wide popularity and adoption which proved that overall people were concerned about the ergonomics and fitness of their computer usage experience. For me, I never really bought into this layout, I guess because it kind of broke my natural typing orientation.
But what I really want to bring to your attention today is a key innovation regarding the second purpose which is sending commands. Historically, most of the improvements in this area have been on fitting bunch of extra keys around the keyboard to act as shortcuts for commonly used commands. This is great! But the genius guys at Humanized have gone a step ahead and crafted a wonderful and versatile software that is way ahead of its league. What this software can do is something I’ve never seen before, and I’ve seen a lot on similar grounds. So read on to find out how this software promises to revamp your whole computing experience for good!
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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 keyboard while beginners and computer naives learn to operate the mouse first and they stick to it.
Still, other people, especially in the publishing industry, use voice, or spoken words, as a means to dictate text as well as to tell the computer what to do. Voice recognition, as a technology, has evolved rapidly in the last decade that it’s now considered a very productive and feasible way for interacting and typing text given the right circumstances. Obviously, using voice is the most natural way for us to interact.
But what about the other popular mechanisms, namely the mouse and the keyboard? The question that inspired this post is: has these two mechanisms reached a point where it seems “natural” for us, as humans, to use them to interact with our computers? If no, then can we add a “human” touch to these devices to make them easier and more natural to use?
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