Affordances The concept of an affordance was coined by the perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson in his seminal book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. The concept was introduced to the HCI community by Donald Norman in his book The Psychology of Everyday Things from 1988. There has however been ambiguity in Norman's use of the concept, and the concept thus requires a more elaborate explanation. Norman's use of the term According to Norman (1988) an affordance is the design aspect of an object which suggest how the object should be used; a visual clue to its function and use. "...the term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. [...] Norman thus defines an affordance as something of both actual and perceived properties. Gibson's use of the term An affordance according to Gibson exists relative to the action capabilities of particular actors. Open Access License
Felix's Node.js Guide Data collection for usability research Taking notes in usability tests Anyone who has ever conducted a usability evaluation of a web site, software application, or consumer product, knows that human behaviour research often produces reams of data that can take significant time to analyse. To be productive, researchers must organize and reduce these data so that they can quickly perform their analysis and proceed with improving the product. People who are new to the field tend to take notes on paper or on a computer. How to define behaviours and collect data in usability tests Before entering into a discussion on logging the data that arises from usability research, let's review some terminology associated with usability research. The ISO Definition of usability: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Satisfaction According to the International Standards Organization (ISO 9241-11) there are three primary attributes that comprise usability: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Presenting Your Data with Confidence Problem Coding Pros
Welcome to ICA - All About Colored Gemstones 5 Signs of a Great User Experience If you’ve used the mobile social network Path recently, it’s likely that you enjoyed the experience. Path has a sophisticated design, yet it’s easy to use. It sports an attractive red color scheme and the navigation is smooth as silk. It’s a social app and finding friends is easy thanks to Path’s suggestions and its connection to Facebook. In short, Path has a great user experience. That isn’t the deciding factor on whether a tech product takes off. 1. A great user experience isn’t just about the user interface, but it helps a lot. 2. A nice design is one thing, but you also need to see value in it. 3. The Kindle Fire as a product is not as aesthetically pleasing as the iPad 2. Note that the rest of the Kindle Fire’s user experience is not always pleasurable. 4. With so many Internet-connected devices and screens nowadays, it’s important to have a consistent experience. 5. Arguably the most outstanding tech products are ones that revolutionize the way we do things.
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide This book has delivered exactly what I was hoping for, an in-depth look into modern day JavaScript. I rarely use JavaScript nowadays in my day to day job. I have been lucky to avoid the messy browser applications it is usually a part of the past few years. That was my primary reason for buying the book. The book is broken into 4 parts. The book has chapters on Lexical Structure, Expressions and Operators, Statements, Objects, Arrays, Functions, Classes and Modules, Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions, JavaScript Subsets and Extensions, Server-Side JavaScript, JavaScript in Web Browsers, The Window Object, Scripting Documents, Scripting CSS, Handling Events, Scripted HTTP, The jQuery Library, Client-Side Storage, Scripted Media and Graphics, HTML5 APIs, and then continues on with the Core JavaScript Reference and the Client-Side JavaScript Reference. The downloadable code is very well organized and usable. All in all I think this a great book.
Ergonomie informatique La clé de la réussite d'un projet informatique n'est pas seulement technique. La démarche ergonomique vise à intégrer la composante humaine, le "point de vue utilisateur", dans le processus de conception d'un produit informatique. L'ergonomie informatique permet de réduire les coûts de développement en simulant dés le début du projet la façon dont le logiciel sera réellement utilisé. Les principales méthodes L'approche ergonomique s'appuie sur un processus itératif, c'est à dire des phases d'évaluation et d'amélioration du produit. L'audit ergonomique consiste à vérifier si le logiciel respecte un ensemble de critères d'utilisabilité. Ces outils permettent d'identifier les problèmes d'utilisabilité d'un logiciel ou d'un site web et ainsi d'en améliorer la qualité ergonomique. D'autres méthodes sont employées lors du développement afin de garantir l'adéquation avec l'activité de l'utilisateur : Enjeux de l'ergonomie en informatique Bien entendu, la démarche ergonomique a également un coût.
JAAS The steps required in order to implement and test a LoginModule are the following: The steps required to implement and test a new LoginModule follow. Please reference the SampleLoginModule and other files described in the JAAS Reference Guide for examples of what may be done for the various steps. The first thing you need to do is understand the authentication technology to be implemented by your new LoginModule provider, and determine its requirements. The LoginModule interface specifies five abstract methods that require implementations: See below and the LoginModule API for more information on each method above. The initialize method is called to initialize the LoginModule with the relevant authentication and state information.This method is called by a LoginContext immediately after this LoginModule has been instantiated, and prior to any calls to its other public methods. boolean login() throws LoginException; The login method is called to authenticate a Subject.
Widgets “You are Here” indicator a way of indicating the current location (or view area) when looking at an overview map, site map, navigation bar, etc. The indicator can be as simple as a dot, a bounding rectangle, an arrow, or a hilited item. “You… Read more » about box A dialog box that describes the software product as a whole and the company that created it. Read more » accumulating attribute group a set of items or properties that are related and whose effect is cumulative, as with a group of checkboxes. Read more » adaptive menu a menu where the most recently-selected item(s) are shown at the top so as to help the user repeat common commands quickly without searching for them in long menus. Read more » adaptive palette a tool palette or toolbar that allows tools to be selected from a pop-up menu, and then shows the chosen tool as the default tool for that menu (can be selected again just by clicking, without the menu appearing). Read more » adornment Read more » alert box Read more » assistant / wizard
Tutorial Links Holistic Lighting Concepts Sun Tzu and the Art of Lighting This was a new take on answering the question, "I just bought some lights, now what?" in one of the lighting forums. It received many favorable comments from readers so I've added it here at the beginning as an introductory overview. Strategic Thinking Everything is learned by trial and error but there is less error and wasted effort if every new lighting problem you encounter starts with defining the fundamental goals of the exercise, which for a photo is what is most important and how you want to viewer to react to it. The Holistic Approach What's different about my approach is that it starts with the question of what makes a viewer react to a photo, then tries to answer it based on a understanding of human perception and the optical illusion which causes the brain to accept a pattern of contrasting tone and color on a 2D screen or print as being real. Seeing Photographically Basic photographic concepts for beginners.