Nathan's Possibly Interesting web site
Commonsense design blog
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of everyday product design
Photoshop rules, and gets more powerful and more useful with every new release… but it will never recreate the joy of using Deluxe Paint. Now, Electronic Arts’ Deluxe Paint was a raster graphics paint program released for the Commodore Amiga in 1985, which fast became the standard on that venerable 16-bit platform. It would typically … Read more
The first mass-produced toothbrush was made in England by William Addis in England, around 1780. His idea was to attach bristles to a stick, and make a little brush with a long handle, to allow one to brush one’s teeth. You’d think that’s all it takes; you’d think the toothbrush would remain just that, a … Read more
Electric car windows have become the norm these days; and one feature on them is “Auto”, where you can open or close a window all the way with only a momentary push on the actuator button. A useful feature, too. What I find strange is the stinginess with which this feature is applied. In most … Read more
Here is a box containing some medicine. As the law requires, it has the lot number and expiration date clearly marked. Well, OK, not clearly… in fact, the information is barely visible at all. The law, one can guess, says nothing about the information having to be Legible. It’s not like making the text visible … Read more
Speciation, in evolutionary biology, is the splitting of a species into two different sub-species that cannot interbreed; it is one of the engines powering evolution. One mechanism responsible for this is the appearance of a physical barrier that cuts part of the species off from the rest, as when tectonic activity creates an insurmountable rift … Read more
Remember those gloves with utterly superfluous instructions? Here is a new contender for “most unnecessary instructions”. This package of sunflower seeds, from the USA, bears the directive: Eating instructions: crack open shells, discard shells, enjoy the seeds! Nice try, Frito-Lay, but – Uh-oh! – you might still get sued by someone: you forgot to tell … Read more
I was in Berlin, where they have a subway system that, though it dates back to 1902, is as effective as it is pleasant (part of this last may have to do with the fact that the tunnels are close to the surface, so there is less of the “going down to the bowels of … Read more
The day I left New York to fly back to Israel I bought, on an impulse, a CardScan business card scanner at Best Buy. I’d received all these cards from colleagues at the IORG conference, and the thought of typing all the details into my computer was depressing… Anyway, I got home, installed the software, … Read more
We rented a Ford Galaxy minivan for a day. Nice car, if you need the space. And such sophisticated controls… way too sophisticated for its own good, or for its users’, if you ask me. Ford is very proud of its latest Human Machine Interface: Human Machine Interface (HMI) -An upgraded instrument cluster plus a … Read more
I already shared my animosity towards car alarms. Since these are not going away anytime soon, the question becomes, how can we improve them to reduce the pain they cause the general populace? Same thing for house burglar alarms, that have the tendency to trigger – rigthly or wrongly – when the owner is on … Read more