UI for Consideration

The device I decided to consider was my portable cd player. Overall, it's a nice player, but it has some features that can be hard to decipher.

The front interface is around a circle in the middle. The volume buttons are on the top, one with a plus sign and one with a minus sign and with the abbreviation 'vol' next to it, so one knows exactly what those buttons do. The next and previous buttons are next going clockwise around the outside circle. These are relatively well labeled, but unless you know what the symbols mean, you might not be able to understand what it wants you to do. This also goes for the play/pause button and the stop button, which are the next ones around that outer circle. One good thing about the play/pause button is that there is a raised dot on it, much like the raised bars on the f and j keys on the keyboard, which helps me know which button it is, and be able to find the other major buttons. The rest of the buttons around that inner circle are the ones that can be more confusing. The radio/band and tuning mode buttons are easy to use. They only have one function. Same goes for the equalizer button, but you need to know what eq stands for to understand that. The last three buttons take some getting used to. These have more than one function. I mainly use the farthest one if going clockwise from the top. This is the play mode button. I don't know what exactly the other function does (-city/nor...???), but when playing a cd, this button allows you to change between repeating a single song, repeat the cd, shuffle once through the songs, or shuffle and repeat all the songs. The third of those is not available for use when an mp3 cd is inserted, much to my dismay, but I've gotten used to it.

One feature that is only really explained in the manual is that the radio uses the headphone cord to find the signal. Unfortunately, the headphones I got with the player broke a year after I got it, and it's been a while since then (and I rarely use the radio function on it anyway) so I don't remember whether the quality changed after that.

Overall, I really like my cd player, but for some of the special functions beyond those that are basic, I would definitely need a manual. This is because some of the buttons have more than one function.

Comments on Design of Everyday Things

This book was interesting to read. Don Norman, the author of the book, talks initially about those things that cause people issues in everyday life. Some examples are the phone system at people's work places, different types of doors (those that cause problems are those that have no visible sign on which way they open, or give mixed signals), and other sorts of things. Later in the book, he describes several different aspects of design, and explains what one must think about when they design objects.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. There were a few things I noticed as I was reading the later chapters of the book. One was that the examples seemed a little bit out of date. Granted, the original version of the book was published in 1988, and this edition doesn't have much changed from the original. I can see the relevance of all the examples, and can relate to them myself. But I can see that many of these examples would have to change for the next generation, as well as some of the text. My younger brothers might know what a typewriter is (barely), and I used one myself, but many of the next generation after mine don't know what a record player is, and might not even know what a typewriter is. Another possibility is that in a couple generations, there might not be land line phones at all. With the way technology has grown exponentially, land line phones could possibly become a thing of the past as the populace turns to cell phones and iPhones and similar devices, especially those which can access the internet as well as being used as phones. There were also many ideas mentioned which have been implemented already. This was the main thing I noticed as I read the book. Despite this, the information he wrote about is still relevant to today. There are still issues with designs of all sorts of things, and I've been noticing those things that are not as well designed ever since I started reading this book.

Commented on Steven's blog.

Explanation of the name, just because

Just because I feel like making a first post before any class ones, and I think some of my friends might be interested (though maybe not those in my class who will be looking at this blog), I decided to explain where I got the name for my blog.

There is an album I've listened to which contains solely Turloch O'Carolan songs. For those who don't know, Turloch O'Carolan is a famous Irish harper who was blind. There is one song on this album called Carolan's Rambles to Teague. It is a solo wooden flute (or at least it sounds like a wooden flute to me), and the way it is recorded it sounds very hallow and echoing. I love the song. I've looked up information about it, and it's variations on a song called 'When she cam ben'.

So, I was here thinking about the name for my blog, and I knew that I'd probably be rambling on about the books and articles I will have to read for class (and possibly other things), I thought of this song. Then I decided to name my blog 'Sarah's Rambles to Teague'.

And on another note, my blogs are signed Brigid. This is the name I have taken for the Society for Creative Anachronism. It's a Medieval and Renaissance reenactment group in which you take a name and pick a place you are from, and pretend you are a person who could possibly live there during a particular time. So you are not being a true historical person; just someone who would have been there at that time. Now you know why I'm signing Brigid instead of Sarah.