Weezer’s newest album which does have the same feel as their older songs but has a new attitude. My favorite song is “Can’t Stop Partying”
Currently Reading: Eating Animals (Jonathan Safran Foer)
I’m not a vegetarian but do eat more vegetables than meat. A friend recommended this book and I have been addicted to it. In this book Jonathan experiences and details how the meat we eat gets on our plates, the myths and truths about our eating habits and traditions.
A few days ago I did something I’ve never done before, get take out from Applebees Restaurant. (I am in no way endorsing Applebees, just merely writing about an experience I had with them) Upon visiting their site something sparked my attention. Highlighted on the image above is the closest Applebees location to me. I have never been to this site before or set any type of settings previously.
This was great since I came with a purpose, to look at the menu and call the closest location. By them taking that initial step for me I was able to complete my task quicker. Not to mention if I were deciding between two restaurants of equal quality the one that provided me the most information the fastest would probably get my sale.
Location by IP is not anything new, geotargeted ads are everywhere but using it to help users with primary tasks make them feel a greater sense of customer service and increase your sales and ROI. The retail industry is in the best position to take advantage of this since all brick and mortar sales are driven by location. Other industries may have to get a little more creative.
Like I mentioned above location based targeting is not anything new but its use in new ways can really have an impact on your end users. I know I came away happier.
Yesterday I attended the MSU World Usability Day which focused on usability and accessibility not only for the web but for the physical world. The theme of this years World Usability Day was sustainability. One of the main themes throughout the day was there is a large difference between things appearing to be usable and their actual use.
Below is a run through of the day with a few things I wanted to highlight.
In the morning
There were two break out sections, I attended the WCAG 2.0, ARIA and AJAX presentation. It combined low level introductions of the current and future standards and how they are applied. I was surprised to see how little the browsers are taking advantage of these accessibility standards. Firefox 3.6 implements the most, 47 of the 59 total ARIA roles. They also did a recorded session using Jaws (this was my favorite part of the day) with a regular HTML page, regular AJAX and ARIA enabled AJAX. They were nice enough to put the examples and videos online for everyone to see. It made an amazing difference watching the video and see just how easy it was to add ARIA into AJAX applications and actually make your site usable to users on a screen reader.
After lunch
A panel presented the Contemporary Issues of IT in the Sustainable Global Knowledge Economy. This was very interesting because it went beyond the typical accessibility and talked about access. Starting with delivering broadband to rural areas, currently 500,000 Michigan homes are in rural areas where no broadband service is offered. Using the governments stimulus incentives this could all be changed.
Then more locally they talked about how ITEC Lansing is transforming the technology skills for Lansing’s youth. Sharron Rush from Knowbility then talked about how IT is changing the game for people with disabilities, given them the ability to access the outside world like no other time in history. She really put it in perspective when she did an exercise that explained by the time you are 80, a large majority of people (around 90%) will develop a some type of disability.
During the break
We did a usability study with household alarm clocks. We had four different clocks and had people estimate how easy/hard it would be to change the time/alarm. We then timed them changing the clock’s time and if they were successful or not. We then had them give an actual score to how easy/hard it was and comments to why it was that way. Only one clock turned out to be easier than expected. The final results should be up soon.
After the break
An interesting presentation by Shane Schulze from Ford about hybrid cars, batteries and where it is going. During the Q&A a very good point was brought up by a participant who was blind. She asked what Ford was planning to do about how silent electric cars are. She walks everywhere as do people without disabilities and silent cars are a big hazard. This was a great question, unfortunately Shane didn’t have a concrete answer at the time. I really hope this topic stays on Ford’s and the other car manufacturers radar.
Lastly
I wanted to thank everyone from the MSU Usability & Accessibility Center who put this conference on. The MIUPAand all the vendors who made this happen. It was a great experience and I encourage anyone to attend a World Usability Day event near you next year.
Remember, it is us, the every day workers who can make the largest impact in usability, accessibility and access. Don’t accept the status quo, be a leader and demand access for all. Just because you have a disability doesn’t mean you should be locked out of information.
Today I received a LinkedIn invitation from someone I did not know in person. So I checked out her profile and got down to a reference to Wayne State University. I simply scrolled my mouse over the title and this pop-up appeared:
The pop-up is a normal action of LinkedIn but the content is completely wrong. They mixed up Washington State and Wayne State!
I cannot tell which university is correct, my guess is Wayne State since their other positions have been in Michigan. Being a programmer at heart I try to analyze how this could possibly happen in my head but the only reason I continue to come up with is lazy programming.
I wonder how many other LinkedIn blunders are out there.
