My co-worker, Steve, sent me this link. (Thanks, Steve!)
Interesting, isn’t it? It would have been cool to compare an old DOS or early Windows machine and a modern Mac OS X machine as well.
The author makes an interesting point about productivity. But I wonder what he used to write the article and to make the pretty charts. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the Mac Plus. 
“It would be hard to predict now what kinds of libraries might be needed in a hundred years. Presumably many libraries will be for domains that don’t even exist yet. If SETI@home works, for example, we’ll need libraries for communicating with aliens. Unless of course they are sufficiently advanced that they already communicate in XML.”
- page 167 of Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham
Will aliens use XML to communicate with us? Such an important question! I’m reassured to know that there are people out there thinking about these questions that may some day prove vital to our survival.
A good friend of mine pointed out this amazing presentation to me:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
It makes static graphs and charts seem old and stale, doesn’t it?
“When good tools support creative activities, the activities can induce a state of ‘flow’ in the user. This is a state of full absorption in the activity, during which time distorts, other distractions fall away, and the person can remain engaged for hours—the enjoyment of the activity is its own reward. Artists, athletes, and programmers all know this state.” (page 14)
I recently finished reading Jenifer Tidwell’s excellent book: Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design. I think this is the first user interface book I’ve read that uses the concept of patterns to describe principles of user interface and human computer interaction.
The first chapter of the book deals with human behavior, or patterns of what users do. I found that chapter particularly interesting. They are as follows:
“Safe Exploration: ‘Let me explore without getting lost or getting into trouble.’
Instant Gratification: ‘I want to accomplish something now, not later.’
Satisficing: ‘This is good enough. I don’t want to spend more time learning to do it better.’
Changes in Midstream: ‘I changed my mind about what I was doing.’
Deferred Choices: ‘I don’t want to answer that now; just let me finish!’
Incremental Construction: ‘Let me change this. That doesn’t look right; let me change it again. That’s better.’
Habituation: ‘That gesture works everywhere else; why doesn’t it work here, too?’
Spatial Memory: ‘I swear that button was here a minute ago. Where did it go?’
Prospective Memory: ‘I’m putting this here to remind myself to deal with it later.’
Streamlined Repetition: ‘I have to repeat this how many times?’
Keyboard Only: ‘Please don’t make me use the mouse.’
Other People’s Advice: ‘What did everyone else say about this?’”
The rest of the book is user interface patterns. There is a lot of good advice in the book, and it is well illustrated. Some of it seems pretty obvious, but nonetheless it can be helpful having it in this well organized format.
I have just finished reading Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug. Here are some quotes from the book:
“‘Don’t make me think!’ I’ve been telling people for years that this is my first law of usability. And the more Web pages I look at, the more convinced I became. It’s the overriding principle—the ultimate tie breaker when deciding whether something works or doesn’t in a Web design.” (page 11)
“Faced with the fact that your users are whizzing by, there are five important things you can do to make sure they see—and understand—as much of your site as possible:
- Create a clear visual hierarchy on each page
- Take advantage of conventions
- Break pages up into clearly defined areas
- Make it obvious what’s clickable
- Minimize noise.” (page 31)
“I’ve come to think that what really counts is not the number of clicks it takes me to get to what I want (although there are limits), but rather how hard each click is—the amount of thought required, and the amount of uncertainty about whether I’m making the right choice.” (page 41)
“Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left. –Krug’s Third Law of Usability” (page 45)
“The problem is there are no simple ‘right’ answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need—carefully thought out, well executed and tested.” (page 128)
“Where debates about what people like waste time and drain the team’s energy, testing tends to defuse arguments and break impasses by moving the discussion away from the realm of what’s right or wrong and into the realm of what works or doesn’t work.” (page 129)
There’s a lot of really simple, but helpful advice in this book. I’d highly recommend it to anyone involved in building web sites.