April 2009 – Home of the Bridgers

Father vs. Dad

Calling someone a father seems to have a very different meaning or tone than when calling them a Dad. Perhaps this has been obvious to everyone else, but recently I’m really seeing a difference. Maybe it is the recent Wendy’s ad where the baby’s first words to its mom are “Mama burger for $1.50” or something like that, to which the Mom says “You’ve been spending too much time with your Father.”

Calling someone a Father seems to include a negative connotation that calling them a Dad doesn’t seem to have.

I’d like to rename Father’s Day to Dad’s Day going forward at Goggs Avenue. Make it so.

Colours Have Meaning

Classic usability issue with interface design – what colours to choose? Here’s a little reference that shows what meaning some common colours have in different cultures.

XEROX has also posted a much more thorough examination of the subject.

Open Source as a Requirement, You Say?

Love to hear how the idea of Open Source software is starting to trickle down into politics. Asking a private company to create a proprietary product that is used to collect health information is like asking a private company to create a proprietary product that collects votes – and we all know how well that went (and continues to go).

When are people going to wise up? Just because the code is available doesn’t mean it is inherently worthless.

Of course I understand that there are many other factors to take into consider, including pockets to be lined, palsm to be greased, jobs to be saved 9and lost), etc. Ain’t capitalism grand?!

Happy Earth Day!

What better way to spend Earth Day than by grinding my tax return?

Hope you kissed a tree today, or thanked your local root system. Heck even just recycling your pop bottle helps. Personal responsibility and all that.

Moths Beware!

Commercial moth remedies often contain harmful chemicals. Moth-proof your clothes the green way by using a mixture of lavender and cedarwood oils, which are natural moth repellents.

50 Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory

Looks like a great collection of free lessons on the theories behind graphic design. Not to be read all at once obviously, but a good place to start if you’re interested in a topic. Also might be worth checking out the site itself.

Windows 7 Desktop Usability Process Overview

A nice presentation at MIX09 that lets us peek into the usability process that was undertaken in introducing new features in WIndows 7, such as Aero Peek.

I’d like to appropriate some of their ideas and use it for looking at the GNOME shell project and how they’re trying to rework the desktop. It would be interesting to write a little script that people could run that would take a screenshot of their taskbars so data could be gathered as to what exactly people put on their taskbars – much like the Windows 7 team did (at least according to this presentation). Other ideas include checking some gconf settings to see how many workspaces a person has setup, how many panels, what applets, how many windows open typically, maximally, etc.

Next step – write up a little email to the GNOME usability mail list, see if they have any other ideas. There has recently been a new screenshot app making press – Shutter – that perhaps could grab a screenshot of just the panels, rather than the entire desktop, just to reduce noise.