Apple founder Steve Wozniak says tablets are PCs for 'normal people', Steve Job's goal from day one

"The tablet is not necessarily for the people in this room," Wozniak told the audience of enterprise storage engineers. "It's for the normal people in the world," Wozniak said.

"I think Steve Jobs had that intention from the day we started Apple, but it was just hard to get there, because we had to go through a lot of steps where you connected to things, and (eventually) computers grew up to where they could do ... normal consumer appliance things," Wozniak said.

via networkworld.com

A "personal computer" can take a lot of forms — the term need not be stuck referencing the Wintel duopoly beige box days. The iPad is arguably the most personal of PCs yet.

Usability week ending March 13th

Saturday, 12th March, 5:14 PM
The exceptional home page is not a bulletin board, it's a demo-showroom: http://j.mp/gNwUj9 #ia

Saturday, 12th March, 12:02 PM
A well-designed #UX is consistent, forgiving, rewarding; #Nokia's user experience was inconsistent, unforgiving, hostile: http://j.mp/fZCygF

Thursday, 10th March, 9:17 PM
@kiwi_app Can I set my own j.mp key yet in a Kiwi app I pay for?

Thursday, 10th March, 9:16 PM
@sugarsock Haven't tried Sword and Soldiers. Liked Fieldrunners, also Spirits, Trainyard, and World of Goo. Angry Birds felt tedious!

Thursday, 10th March, 10:39 AM
Why hover menus are a #usability disaster -- and not just because users can't hover on an iPad: http://j.mp/eWA40n #ux #ui

Thursday, 10th March, 8:59 AM
Reserve your connect.me username: http://cxt.me/am5w3A #connectme

Wednesday, 9th March, 1:46 PM
World's shortest guide to #SEO: http://j.mp/h5JMBj

Wednesday, 9th March, 8:19 AM
FTC puts patent trolls -- sorry, patent assertion entities -- on notice: http://j.mp/f4vUry #patent #patents

Tuesday, 8th March, 3:55 PM
Why is Angry Birds' interface so engaging that users cannot stop interacting with it? A cognitive teardown of #UX: http://j.mp/f68z1Q

Tuesday, 8th March, 10:35 AM
Five key principles to fostering better conversations in your site's #comments section: http://j.mp/fUsBKr #ia #ux

Monday, 7th March, 4:16 PM
Deciding on a tablet by comparing specs? You've missed the point: http://j.mp/dJB8Tf #ipad #xoom #ux #ipad2

Monday, 7th March, 1:34 PM
The first step towards real “unbundling” is to put the viewer at the center of audience building: http://j.mp/eXD4w0 #vod #ux

Monday, 7th March, 1:32 PM
Where are the app experiences befitting the iPad and its hardware capabilities?: http://j.mp/eSC4Dv #ux

via twitter.com/terretta

Sociable machines

“Where once artificial intelligence researchers proposed artefacts that would win us over with their smartness, designers of these latest machines aim to seduce with sociability. Sociable robots press our “Darwinian buttons”: we respond to humanoid objects that make eye contact, track our motion and say our names as “creatures” with intentions, consciousness, even feelings.

Indeed, when an object reaches out and asks us to care for it, we find we not only want to care for it, but want it to care for us in return. Nurturance turns out to be the “killer app” in our relationships with the inanimate. We are vulnerable to new attachments, seduced by machines that ask for our care. They “pretend” to converse, but do not understand what we say. Engrossed by sociable robots, we are alone yet experience a new sense of intimacy.” [...]

“Alone with robots, we feel connected; together with people but not fully relating to them, we feel alone. We are in the still centre of a perfect storm. I call this the “robotic moment”, a technological moment in which we fear our lives with technology are out of control, and we fantasise, paradoxically, that it is technology that will help us re-establish control.”

via 
newscientist.com

Usability week ending January 16th

Friday, 14th January, 7:47 PM
Google handing the keys of web video’s future right back to Flash: http://j.mp/dOMCVE #codec #webm #vp8 #h264 #flash

Friday, 14th January, 6:09 PM
Apple's philosophy, “We’re going to make these decisions for you,” is called "design": http://j.mp/ieW639 #design

Friday, 14th January, 8:42 AM
Apple's #design iterations are simplification steps removing cruft, not adding features: http://j.mp/h3X2KB

Friday, 14th January, 8:26 AM
Traditional pay-per-click is a waste--only 8% of Internet users now account for 85% of all clicks: http://j.mp/g4v2Sa @comscore #stats #ads

Thursday, 13th January, 2:10 PM
The entire #Android device market seems to be made specifically for gadget blogs and early adopters: http://j.mp/enaC5A #ux #wp7 #usability

Wednesday, 12th January, 3:36 PM
The primary failure of MySpace was usability -- what happens when users make decisions on design: http://j.mp/f9AKkA #ux #usability

Tuesday, 11th January, 10:03 AM
Easy to read -- standard font size, active white space, reader friendly line height, clear contrast, no text images: http://j.mp/gEVFIq #ux

Monday, 10th January, 4:50 PM
Usability's dark side -- the paradox of the guided user: http://j.mp/hPhovz #ux #usability #ia

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending December 19th

Thursday, 16th December, 12:17 PM
Web developers must add #mobile web development to their skill set or risk losing clients. Here's the landscape: http://j.mp/fsZMkT

Thursday, 16th December, 10:43 AM
Why the studios will lose the “war” with Netflix: http://j.mp/hWrvsD #netflix #streaming #ux #vod #ott

Wednesday, 15th December, 8:22 AM
Making user and customer experience a business competency (videos and transcript): http://j.mp/fmTWJW #ux #cx

Tuesday, 14th December, 8:20 AM
RIM BlackBerry -- when product development teams kill #usability, how to recognize it, and what to do about it: http://j.mp/e7GS4x

Monday, 13th December, 12:59 PM
Average U.S. consumer now spends as much time online as watching TV, according to Forrester research: http://j.mp/i73E87

Monday, 13th December, 9:51 AM
Making an iPhone app? Use great iPhone apps every day--designing with conventions in mind will eventually come naturally: http://j.mp/fDPzgd

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending November 21st

Thursday, 18th November, 5:21 PM
20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web: http://j.mp/aWwEE7 #html5 #google #tutorial

Thursday, 18th November, 11:00 AM
@sugarsock kudos on launch

Wednesday, 17th November, 6:26 PM
The hardest part of software isn’t the process of creating it, it’s changing culture and influencing organizations: http://j.mp/aQyesF

Monday, 15th November, 11:26 AM
#Usability finally showing up in web design tips lists: http://j.mp/aQ9dCF #webdesign

via twitter.com/terretta

This is how to do consumer-friendly DRM

These books are DRM protected, but people are buying them.  As a consumer with money to spend, you have several devices, but instead of fragmenting your ebook collection, you're free to use the device you prefer.  So far so good.

Aside from the devices, people want to be able to loan or share ebooks they way they can hardbacks.  Amazon is addressing that use case too:

Later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. 

Kindle is approaching frictionlessness.  If your product's DRM doesn't take away hundreds of years of comfortable use cases, but in fact adds something to the value proposition ("fit all my books in my pocket"), consumers are more than happy to adopt it.

Hollywood, paying attention?

Usability week ending November 14th

Thursday, 11th November, 8:12 AM
Samsung Tab a grab bag of neglect, good intentions, and poor execution, merging worst of a tablet and worst of a phone: http://j.mp/9JY6y6

Thursday, 11th November, 7:47 AM
Make sure you use the right #breadcrumbs ( e.g., » > › / • – ) to have hierarchy shown in #Google SERPs: http://j.mp/btRAdk #ia

Wednesday, 10th November, 8:47 AM
“The Main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” -- a great principle for UX and IA too: http://j.mp/bAwEj6

Wednesday, 10th November, 7:49 AM
Usage is like oxygen for ideas: http://j.mp/90GWaC

Tuesday, 9th November, 10:02 AM
A game design perspective can contribute #usability and functionality even in a non gaming context: http://j.mp/cJB4b0

Monday, 8th November, 12:46 PM
It is the UX and IA architect's business to know things. Train yourself to see detail others overlook: http://j.mp/bl1bco

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending October 31st

Friday, 29th October, 12:22 PM
The weakest link in #security has been, and always will be, the user's judgement. Can you MAKE users care? http://j.mp/9xRJ5a #ux #ia

Thursday, 28th October, 4:43 PM
Service design—make interfaces useful, usable, desirable to users; effective, efficient, distinctive for suppliers: http://j.mp/9io7Lm #ux

Wednesday, 27th October, 12:16 PM
Chances are, your users don’t have a clue what you are talking about. Keep it simple, test test test: http://j.mp/cw2zXx #usability #ux

Tuesday, 26th October, 11:37 AM
Data usage and app downloads skyrocketing among today's teens, tomorrow's consumers: http://j.mp/bbvLl2 #nielsen #stats

Monday, 25th October, 11:16 PM
Don’t assume you are the default, you are the exception: http://j.mp/cw2zXx #usability #users

via twitter.com/terretta