Smartphone Searching

I downloaded Mobile LiveSearch to my Palm Treo yesterday. I'm interested in voice recognition on the phone and particular if this can be done on a website and not a program on the phone, more on that later this month. Anyway, the application was slick and the features it has are impressive, including the voice recognition. The mapping function was nice and yes you can drag the map around just like Google maps etc. One issue that was frustrating was the scrolling menu bar at the bottom to select. The problem being was that I wanted to scroll through and kept hitting a button and launching gas prices or the map but not the feature when I wanted the movies. As boring as it sounds, a single text list would be better rather then the "hip" scrolling feature. I qualify this complaint that I did not use the stylus and I have not reviewed all the features, maybe I could change over to text. I'll try to get some screen shots and post them here as soon as possible

Homework leads to film viewing

I've spent the last month+ working on homework for my IAKM program. Nothing like spending time in front of the computer from dusk to dawn, especially when it has been a gorgeous fall outside here in Ohio. While I've been putting in late nights I did have the pleasure of viewing a few good movies lately, granted a little in the background, but still paying a attention a little bit. TCM and IFC are tremendous to have running. A few weeks ago, while conducting a content inventory on TeaSource.com, long project, I watched two Louis Malle films. Zazie dans le métro was incredible and had absolutely stunning filmwork and sets. I didn't stay up late enough but did record Black Moon and still need to view that film.
For another project and late night IFC kept me awake with Coffin Joe: At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, Coffin Joe: This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse,and Coffin Joe: Awakening of the Beast.

So here's to more homework and more movies

Reading social site

I was wondeering if there are any good social networking sites centered around "What I'm Reading." I know that many blogs and site authors tend to post what they are reading. And of course Amazon has numerous outlets to let the world know what you're eyes are checking out. Is there a decent site that is strictly devoted to what people are reading and incorporating other items like rating the book and even discussing topics. Could this be an interesting topic to continue to build upon?

Individual Brown Sugar Containers

Brown Sugar Containers

Reason
Brown sugar in bags continues to solidify and doesn’t last. Waste of money.

Idea
Sell Brown Sugar in smaller packets (1/4 cup to ½ cup increments). These tubes will be individually sealed, similar to travel apple sauce packets. These can be stored in 1 to 2 cup Tubes (similar to a Tennis Ball tube)

Manufacturing process
Sugar is placed into containers, sealed and then placed in containers.

Cognitive Walkthrough for the Web

I'm still laying the groundwork for the Mobile Website Usability study. Reading in the SIGCHI 2005 conference proceedings, I came across "Tool for Accurately Predicting Website Navigation Problems, Non-Problems, Problem Severity, and Effectiveness of Repairs." Written by Marilyn Hughes Blackmon, Muneo Kitajima and Peter G. Polson, the abstract states; "We conclude that CWW has high psychological validity, because CWW gives us (a) accurate measures of problem severity, (b) high success rates for repairs of identified problems (c)high hit rates and low false alarms for identifying problems, and (d) high rates fo correct rejections and low rates of misses for identifying non-problems." Reading through the first few pages of the paper, this may be a good way to weed out non-issues on the Mobile Website Usability Study. As we dig into the sites, our perception on issues may interfere with the true numbers and I'd like to keep them as "clean" as possible. Much of the data at first glance looks to cover headings and links. Will this work for actual navigation? We'll have to try it out and see.

Hip title sequence

Came across these two sites tonight. http://www.magnetbox.com/ is brilliant. The design alone makes this stand out from everyone else. But the content is just as strong. There are a lot of hip links including http://www.submarinechannel.com/ Check out Forget the Film Watch the Titles. It breaks out Title Sequences into categories. Since it starts out with a Fistful of Dollars, you're in good company.

Smartphone Decision and updates

Ok, it's now down to the Palm Treo running Windows Mobile and the iPhone. It's doubtful that I can get my hands on the iPhone so let's face it, it's the Palm. I've read through some more posts on usability on Mobile sites and still feel we'll be in a nice spot. I should conduct a couple of task analysis plans and then mock up some actual tasks. I'm looking to have that completed by mid-July and maybe then run a few tests to see who they go. No eye capturing equipment yet for the phone unless anyone wants to float 30k or so my way! This is the one we're looking for, Eye tracker but will need a grant to get it... which is on the list of tasks.