31–40 of 41 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you, I've just looked it up and messaged the author now!
Thanks for the article, its superb! Could you share some literature as a follow-up?
I wish this article actually ditched Legos and used actual examples from existing UIs. There is something to be said about fighter jet cockpits, avionics controls, understanding of haptics in older cars, power plant control boards and subway control rooms, crane operator interface, bulldozer UI, CNC machine HMI and a whole bunch of UI systems that exist out side of consumer space. For some reason (I blame sci-fi auth…
My vision is good, but I imagine diabetics with poor eyesight (which is a common effect of diabetes) basically get unusable devices.
My previous pump and my first meters all had dedicated buttons. A button "on", a button for "give insulin" then two buttons to "crank up or down the amount to give" and so on. All these buttons had braille on them and were tactile and often form-coded. Up, was an triangular up-arrow, etc. I could blindly operate it in my pocket with one hand.
Now my pump requires me to go through dialogs, menu's and workflows for which the state and the options are only on the screen. And my meter looks like a cheap chinese android phone (and has about the same battery time) with only touchscreen interfacing. I often miss my doses because some warning dialog breaks muscle-memory or because -somehow- the pump decides that today we need an extra step in the wizard.
It's good when medical equipment "goes with the time", but touch-screens and color-lcd screens are really not suited for medical devices in their "mass consumer" form.
Nice article with an interesting approach. Assuming the poster is the author, the word ‘irradiate’ in the caption in the B17 photo confused me, although it did lead to some interesting speculation. Did you mean ‘eradicate’ and your spellchecker went rogue?
Nice article with an interesting approach. Assuming the poster is the author, the word ‘irradiate’ in the caption in the B17 photo confused me, although it did lead to some interesting speculation. Did you mean ‘eradicate’ and your spellchecker went rogue?
Perfectly fine meaning #2: To shed light on; illuminate. irradiate ir·ra·di·ate (ĭ-rādē-āt) v. ir·ra·di·at·ed, ir·ra·di·at·ing, ir·ra·di·ates v. tr. To expose to radiation. To treat with radiation: irradiate farm produce so as to destroy bacteria. To shed light on; illuminate. To manifest in a manner suggesting the emission of light; radiate: irradiate goodness. v. intr. Archaic To send forth rays; radiate. To become…
In my day (80s space Lego) we just had the one that looks like a screen of text with 3 buttons on the right. And the one that just had coloured rectangular buttons. And that was enough to run our space stations and LL928s. We didn't need any of that fancy stuff they've got now.
(sorry, couldn't help it)
But yes, I recall that very same brick - I had a bunch of them, always thought we needed more variety.
In my day (80s space Lego) we just had the one that looks like a screen of text with 3 buttons on the right. And the one that just had coloured rectangular buttons. And that was enough to run our space stations and LL928s. We didn't need any of that fancy stuff they've got now.
SPACESHIP! (sorry, couldn't help it) But yes, I recall that very same brick - I had a bunch of them, always thought we needed more variety.
There were also button panels on flat 2x1s. This article seems to have forgotten those.
Too bad mobile phones don't have such requirements, so there you have to guess all the time whether in this week's version of an app you'll have to swipe left/right/up/down for unmarked features, long press or short press, use the three dots or the hamburger? Will tapping this phone number allow to see info or will it immediately start calling the person? Do the icons designed for flat looks rather than distinguishable and informative even tell?
Are you a LEGO collector? Or how did you acquire all these panels?
I bought them all through BrickLink.com, you can search for and select individual bricks you want to buy. I think it took about 5 or 6 separate orders to different suppliers to get a good range.
Now do a Fitts' Law analysis! :)
Seriously though, your collection is pretty neat. My mind wanders at the thought of putting a synthesiser-generator around the collection of 'fake' panels, such that they end up actually doing something .. if there were a way to use colors as layers, could maybe even use that as a hinter for an automatic signal flow, hmm...
I wish this article actually ditched Legos and used actual examples from existing UIs. There is something to be said about fighter jet cockpits, avionics controls, understanding of haptics in older cars, power plant control boards and subway control rooms, crane operator interface, bulldozer UI, CNC machine HMI and a whole bunch of UI systems that exist out side of consumer space. For some reason (I blame sci-fi auth…
I disagree. There are already plenty of articles discussing UX that way. Using Lego is an interesting change of perspective that lets us look at this in a different way.
I may still do a series based on the real-world tech that these were modeled after in their time periods. Some of them are super-fun retro.