Electronic Blue Books

Last September, I finished a MSc in HCI, and one of the things I found toughest was hand-writing my responses to the final exam questions. It's not so much that I had trouble writing (though I did end up with a near-crippling case of writers cramp), but that I've gotten so used to composing on the computer. I've become totally addicted to the fact that I no longer have to compose in order and that I can rearrange things at will. Because of this, writing all in one long stream in a blue book was tough for me, and slowed me down. That's why I was so interested to find out about a product called "Electronic Blue Book" from CompuTest, which allows students to use their own laptops to take a test by locking out all other apps and internet access, then securely transmitting their answers to a server. Now, if we could only convince universities to actually USE this product! Check it out at http://electronicbluebook.com/.

Fun with iPhoto (rant)

I've been using Apple's iPhoto for a while now to manage my digital photos. In general, it does this quite well, and recent versions have greatly improved a lot of things (like the incredible slowness that used to occur once you got over 1000 files in your library.)

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I just recently, however, had my first experience with printing a book with iPhoto, and it's clear that it leaves something to be desired My wife and I used it to assemble our wedding album (our one-month anniversary is tomorrow), and there were a bunch of things about it that left us scratching our heads or grumbling in frustration. A few of the better ones:

1) If you have a picture that's not of high-enough resolution, you get a small, yellow warning triangle (with a "!" in it) in the upper right hand corner of the picture. This is generally good, as it's a commonly-used universal symbol for a warning (and has the added benefit of not requiring translations in foreign-language versions of the product). The only problem with it is that there's no easy way for a first-time user (like me) to find out WHY the warning is happening. It does turn out that there's an explanation in the online help, but it would be much better to have the same explanation also appear as a tool tip when you hover over the triangle.

2)The same warning triangle (above) is used to indicate when text might go beyond the edges of a text box in the layout. This has two flaws--first, it's a use of the same icon to warn about two completely different things (again with no easy way to find out what). Second, it gives you the same warning about empty text boxes, if the font size for that text box is set too large (even though there's nothing there)! Again a tool tip or a warning message below the display of the page would go a long way to fixing this. Apple also has some remarkably good icon designers--couldn't they come up with more informative icons than just the universal warning sign?

3) There's no explicit way to save/export your work on a book. According to the help, "Saving changes
iPhoto automatically saves changes to a photo, album, slide show, or book as you work, so there's no Save command." First, things get really annoying when this doesn't work (as it doesn't seem to be on my computer right now--and I have no idea why). I think it's because some file somewhere is corrupted (I had to force-quit iPhoto once while I was working on the book), but because of this auto-save feature I have no idea where this data is. If I did, I might be able to fix it, because of Apple's sensible decision to store most stuff in XML files. Sigh. Second, it gives me no way to back up an earlier version of the book or to transfer it to another computer to work on it elsewhere (like on my laptop as I ride BART to work). A simple Save/Save As mechanism for iPhoto (like what already exists in iMovie, for example) would be the perfect solution to all this.

4) The first time we tried ordering the book, we thought everything was set--we submitted our order, got a confirmation email, and figured that the books would be on their way soon. It was only when I went to check our order 3 days later that I found out that it had been mysteriously "Cancelled" with no explanation. I knew we hadn't violated anything about copyrighted or professional images (it's a book of snapshots that my mother took at the wedding), so I was mystified why it would have been cancelled. After reading several support pages, I found nothing that would talk about reasons why this would happen, so I sent them an email to ask. (Aside: For customers that are spending literally hundreds of dollars on iPhoto books, you'd think that there'd be a phone number to call and ask this sort of thing, but there isn't. Sigh.) It turns out that the upload of our book did not work properly (even though the software said it did). Quite aside from the obvious rant about implementing communications protocols so that they are reliable, why couldn't the web page have told me "Data file not received completely, please re-submit?" In addition, after doing some searching, I discovered that iPhoto actually creates a PDF of the book and uploads that to Apple for printing. Why can't that PDF be linked from the order status page so that I can check that everything went through correctly? After all, they do give you 90 minutes after an order to cancel it, which is more than enough time to log in and look at the PDF as they have it to make sure it is correct.
</rant>

So anyway, the book is finally ordered, and is "printing" according to the order status page. Because of #3 above, I have to leave iPhoto running to preserve the layout of the book until I get confirmation that it has shipped. I'm hopeful that that will happen soon and we'll get a very nice book to remember our wedding day. (After all this trouble, it had better be! )

In summary, I think Apple has set themselves a laudable goal in making photo management, printing, and publishing very simple and easy to use in iPhoto, and they have gotten a good deal of the way there, however, there are a few instances where it's over-simplified, making it harder rather than easier to use. (In HCI terms, there are places where the user does not have enough information to form an accurate mental model of the operation of the program.)

CHI '05: Portland's public transportation system

I recently returned from CHI '05 in Portland, OR (more about the conference later), but wanted to comment a bit about the public transportation system in Portland. While it is far better than most, as with systems of any kind, there are a number of good and bad things about this one:

GOOD: The "free square" in the center of town and out to the convention center is a brilliant idea--it makes it so much easier for those of us in town on a visit.

GOOD: The people in the tourist information office at Pioneer Square are REALLY wonderful and helpful with any questions about visiting the place.

GOOD: The MAX system seems to work very well (clean, reasonably frequent, etc.)

GOOD: It's really easy to catch public transit into town from the Airport (I wish this was true in more cities)

NOT-SO-GOOD: It's essentially impossible to read the route maps posted in the MAX cars while you are sitting down. Portland would do well to take a page out of London's book on this one--in the London Underground, there is a system map posted (showing all the lines), as well as a larger strip that lays all of the stops on the line you are on out in a single row so you can figure out how many more stops it is till you have to get off. (This would be particularly useful coming in from the airport with luggage to wrestle to the door.)

NOT-SO-GOOD: As with many bus systems, there's a real lack of information at the stops for Portland's busses. My wife and I only made it to the Japanese garden on our second attempt, as there was no indication on the stop for the bus leading up there that it only comes once an hour. Again, London does this well, with schedules/frequencies that each route will arrive at a given stop. (Aside: It's worth figuring out the bus schedule to get up to the Japanese gardens--absolutely gorgeous!)

NOT-SO-GOOD: The stops on the MAX are awfully close together (there are 3 stops on the same line within maybe 300 yards outside the convention center), which means that it takes a bit longer to get places than it might. In some places I could come close to keeping up with it while walking. Eliminating a few of the stops would speed things up a good bit (as well as giving everyone a bit more exercise, which is never a bad thing.)

I didn't get a chance to see the results of the pre-conference tutorial on fieldwork/ethnography (where they went out and interviewed users of the system), but I'd be interested to see if the people doing this tutorial came up with any of these same issues (after all, the above is just one user's opinion and therefore isn't a good sample.

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