Snow!
Plenty of snow outside…and I was nice and warm inside! lol!!
Archive for November, 2005
PSP Power Switch
I find the power switch on the PSP pretty confusing. When it is off I have no idea as to whether it is in standby mode or if it has been fully turned off. You see, the designers made the switch do both depending on how long you hold the switch up for. So a quick push up means it gets put into standby…eating up battery but giving quicker playback…and holding it for 2 secs puts the whole machine off.
Why they couldn’t have a small switch at the back to make sure the user knows its switched off I do not know. With a different button the user would be able to understand exactly what is going on when they switch off the system. Actually to tell you the truth when I first got the PSP…I assumed that switching it off just involved switching the power switch up once. I didn’t know how to switch it off properly…till I read it in the manual.
Oh yeh…they have no hibernate feature on the PSP as far as I am aware. I’m guessing they don’t want to support something which involves writing huge files to the Memory Stick…they would probably have to copy over the whole RAM and CPU stacks…too much of a risk I guess for a handheld console. Plus if the battery happens to die while it is in standby then tough luck…you lose your game position. I think they should update the firmware to allow hibernate for people with 1gb mem sticks…It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to implement..and on top of that the mem sticks are pretty fast.
Back to the PSP
Couple of things that I wanted to mention in the last post on the PSP I did…but it got too long and so I decided to save it for a rainy day. One exception…with the rain came snow…yup…been snowing like mad here…I will post a couple of pics later on.
So first things first. I’ve mentioned the onscreen keyboard numerous times but I had an idea flash into my mind the other day.
Above is the PSP keyboard if you haven’t seen it. Its a strange beast in many ways. It is useful in some ways but since no other interface has ever designed a keyboard like this it is very difficult to use. I am assured by my PSP buddies that you get used to it. So anyway the idea…it goes like this. Imagine an elastic band…If you were to break the band and put it in a single line and then you were to fix one end…then no matter how or where you pulled the unfixed end…it would always come back towards the fixed position.
That is the principle behind my idea. Rather than having to press the right, left, up and down buttons to navigate the interface they should fix the buttons in such a way that clicking to any direction AND HOLDING takes the user to that key…they can then do the necessary keypresses to get to the correct letter. No sooner do they let go…it should spring back to the middle key.
The R and L keys should of course be back and forth…with the rest of the keys remaining the same. I have no idea how it would work in practice…or whether something like this already exists. The drawbacks to this concept would of course be that there are no diagonal keys on the PSP and so it might prove to be slightly difficult to key in an upper right for example without extra effort.
Woohoo!
Dear Usman,
Thank you for recently completing the IBM online aptitude test.
We are pleased to inform you that you have met or exceeded the minimum score required on the IBM Information Processing Aptitude Test Online (IPATO) and as such we will shortly be inviting you to the next stage in our process.
So…maybe I did better than I thought….or their boundary is pretty low! :)) Now comes the harder part I guess…interviews…etc
Comments (1) · Posted by Utills
Google is getting more relevant
It seems that Google is getting more and more relevant for information searches. I’m guessing that they use the data that people enter into Google to refine their queries. For example, I searched for Poseidon UML (a UML drawing tool) and it came up with the correct page. But more importantly it had direct links to things which most users may want for such a query. Downloads, Screenshots, Support…are all things that would most probably be entered next into Google in the past when such a feature was not available.
IBM Aptitude Test
As part of some interview process I had to take an aptitude test for IBM. Needless to say….but it was HARD! The questions themselves I don’t think were difficult…but the time given to answer all the questions was so minimal that you have no time to double check an answer or go back at the end. In fact you have to work through them very fast…trying to do the easy questions first to make sure that you have more time to do the harder Qs on the page.
Just to give an idea of exactly what is asked I will describe the type of Qs that are asked. I’m not quoting from the test…OK IBM…so don’t come and sue me! Anyway, you have 3 separate tests that you need to complete. The first is on a subject called Data Matrices…where they give you a table with 5 columns and 5 rows of data…each column has like one character in it…from a total selection of 5 chars. Then they ask you some weirdly worded Qs….like “Going Anti-clockwise across the grid starting from the intersection between row 2 and column 5, what is the second character after the third B that occurs?” (made up Q).
You have to think pretty fast…tracing by hand exactly what occurs where…how many chars have passed…etc. You get three different matrices with five questions each and you have exactly 13 minutes to do the test in. So you can see that getting less than a minute per question means that you can hardly afford to waste time on checking answers.
This part of the test was fine for me…I just rushed the final Q for this one. The next test was a killer! Again the questions were pretty easy. Even easier than the first test I thought. You have something like 6-7 questions per page…with 3 pages in total..making about 20+ questions. Now before I tell you the amount of time given let me describe the nature of the questions. They were all number questions where you have to give the next number in the series (something I am very good at usually) like “1,0,1,2,1,5,1″ and you have to give the next number in the series…thats something I made up…but as you can see its pretty easy. (btw…the answer is 9).
Here’s the killer…to do 20+ Qs you are given a mere 4 minutes to the do the whole test in. I managed to do about 15-16…before I had about 10 secs left…so I guessed the rest with random answers. This is probably the only test I’ve ever done where they dont expect you to answer all the questions…and so that itself was a major challenge in addition to answering each Q. Luckily I didn’t get any sort of mental block that some people get when they are under pressure and so was able to do each question in a pretty calm manner.
The third test was the hardest for me anyway…and it was the longest at 15 minutes for about 15 questions. It was to do with percentages/fractions that you need to derive using deduction etc….Example Q : “If a firm buys two photocopiers A and B. If A costs 1/4 more than 4/5 of B and the total comes to $125,500 then wot is the cost of A”…(made up Q). When you have only a minute per Q….then even questions like that can spin you out.
All in all…I think that I probably didn’t do too well on this test…but I blame the time constraints. In general though…I found it enjoyable. Just will have to wait and see what IBM say.
First Thoughts on PSP
Ok…my first thought since getting GTA yesterday are quite positive. I think the PSP is a wonderfully powerful device capable of pulling off what no other handheld has managed to do thus far. A little like the PS1 did to the other consoles of its time (Mega Drive/Dreamcast, N64). The technical achievement that GTA has pulled off on the PSP is absolutely amazing…the whole city from GTA 3 is contained with no load up problems at all. Sure, the graphics are not as sharp as they could be but its a handheld and so should be examined in that light.
Anywayz…getting back to the PSP. I first thought that the analog stick was some sort of speaker. I was like woah…the speaker on here is dodgy…it moves about. Then when I couldn’t move the car in GTA…I tried it and was surprised that it allowed me to make moves using it. I think it would have been better if they had designed the analog stick in such a way that it hides inside the hole that it is currently in. Then when someone wants to play a game with the analog stick they would press it down…and out would pop up a small joystick. Something like a miniature version of the PS2 analog stick…but with a bigger sized head would be more useful than what they currently offer. At least with something like that…the user would get feedback on exactly how far across they have pushed the analog stick.
The screen is of a very high quality…the colour of the games really comes out well. I found that the graphics at the start of GTA…the cartoon style graphics…show up really well. I’d love to see a cell shader game like XIII from the PC. Although I doubt very much if something like that can be rendered…or even pre-rendered for the PSP. As with most people I absolutely love the 16:9 widescreen…It adds to the game in a very positive way….you have the feeling like you are in some sort of interactive movie.
The control I think sux for a handheld. The direction buttons are too far apart from each other to get any proper direction. What I mean by that is that if I want to go in the up-right direction you find that you can’t do it easily. The up and right buttons are too far apart from each other to do it. Perhaps its just that I have smaller hands than most people…but since Sony often design consoles for japs (who have small hands) they usually make these things work for people like me. A better design would have been to had a 8 way directional pad where the entire circle is a big connected group of buttons. That would make turning in GTA much easier. I’m not sure if there is any controller feedback in the PSP…like the PS2 where pressing it harder is different from just tapping it. Would be a useful addition.
That’s all for now…I will write more…must rush off…must…play….GTA…. 
What a good idea needs to succeed
In my view a good functional idea needs two additional people to succeed (in addition to the obvious implementation issues) : -
- A very good UI designer
- A HCI expert
Those two can be the same person…but what I am trying to get across is that people can only use functionality if it is “usable”. You only need to look at some of the most successful companies out there…and you see that they did not succeed because of a unique idea..but usually because they made it usable for the masses.
Flickr was not the first photo sharing app on the net….skype was not the first PC-Phone or PC-PC talking app on the net. All of these recent startups need to get that one idea in their heads. If you can get a really good designer to draw your site and logo…and you can get someone to make sure your software is usable then you can hope to get end users to like your software. The more comfortable someone feels with your site the more they are likely to find it useful.
One of the keys is presenting your functionality in such a way that users can use at least 80% of the functionality without any help. If there is a steep learning curve…then people will give up. That means utilising technology for the sake of usability NOT for the cool factor. (Who can remember all those scrolling ticker tapes and java applets…spinning logos etc - those were NOT cool!).
One of the key successes of brands like Yahoo!, Google, and Firefox have been their youthful perception. Someone was mentioning (Scoble or Zawodny - can’t remember) about how important it is to have a happy feeling to using your site. I’ve noticed that Yahoo! have started replacing dull logins with all sorts of smiling faces and general pictures to make it feel like a community. Google on the other hand go for the more boyish cheeky approach with cool looking doodles which try to give off the same sort of happy vibe.
Something that I’ve noticed most is that the majority of the good looking start-ups, are from people who use Macs to design and publish their site. These guys are I suppose the creative element of the geek society and so this usability and design advantage seems to bring the functional aspect of the idea right to the surface. 37 Signals create the same sort of simple design but it brings out the functionality very clearly, which I think illustrates my point exactly.
So…If u have an idea….hire a web artist/designer to create some cool looking stuff for you. Since most of us programming type can get the idea working functionally…it only needs a design minded person to take your idea to the next level. Remember…most people did not use Google initially cos it was the best…but because it was the fastest search engine on the net. (At least thats how I came to start using Google…i used to use AllTheWeb.com)
Thanksgiving Doodles
Weinberg has some doodles that feature in the various search engines. I dont see any of them as I’m in the UK but even the Google.com site doesn’t show them for me.
Google Space
Google may already be dominant on the web but now it is stretching its wings to the physical world as well. Google Space, at Terminal One of London’s Heathrow airport, will allow people to log onto the net and check e-mail while they wait for flights. For Google, the space will be used to test its myriad product launches on the public.
“We see it as a huge focus group,” said Lorraine Twohill, Google’s European director of marketing. “For many of our users, we have always been something in their computers and they have never actually met us,” she said. [via bbc]
Google will also have staff on hand to actually monitor the guinea pigs..err..the users to see how they use Google’s products. I think this is a pretty good idea not cos of what it is but where it is! If you think about it…people who browse the web at airports or quickly check their mail usually have other stuff on their minds meaning that interfaces that are even slightly difficult to use cause annoyance. Think about it from a pressure point of view. The more pressure a person is put under (time, resource, etc) the more they tend to start using their natural instinct.
Now that is what the whole experiment will be about. By analysing (most probably by some AI…the human helpers are just for show) they can get exact figures for people on the move of how many words per line for example should be shown to a busy user…the amount of time spent per page…how many emails they read in 5 mins, etc. I think this is all to do with the mobile space…the way it links is the time and busy factor. By getting good data on how people respond when in a hurry they can tailor their next mobile solution (mail, maps, google local) to a much better degree giving users exactly what they want.
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