tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6876042024-03-07T11:36:16.863+00:00in praise of dreamsBecause the strangest dreams may be the truest.Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.comBlogger123125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-6509080479100674492018-02-06T13:23:00.003+00:002018-02-06T13:23:45.040+00:00Intent and execution in Go's dep toolI'm starting to understand how the golang dep tool works, especially in terms of adding constraints to a dependency.
Taking the sample case from https://engineering.pivotal.io/post/go-dep-intro/, if we wanted to specify that we were using the dep-changes branch of github.com/fatih/color, we have two choices:
manually add a line with branch = "dep-changes" to the entry in Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-38692571052792534982018-02-06T12:29:00.000+00:002018-02-06T12:29:03.692+00:00Notes from UKUPA talk on UX and ROIAn excellent evening at Sapient Nitro, herewith some notes and a few thoughts. There was also a good Twitter stream for #UXROI, and @yahnyInLondon did beautiful sketchnotes.
There were four speakers. First up was Joe Leech (@MrJoe) of CxPartners in Bristol (slides here), who pre-emptively trumped all the numbers to follow with a figure of $3.6 billion, the money that flows through the systems Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-21580897798087385372012-09-12T06:55:00.000+01:002012-09-12T06:55:11.855+01:00The Day I Learned to Chill the F*ck OutOne of my friends from last week's Keith In London workshop wrote the following reflection on her experience:
The Day I Learned to Chill the F*ck Out
Keith Johnstone in London 2012
The last six days have been life changing. I came on the 'Keith in London' workshop to learn about improvisation. There are certain times in life where you go to learn something; you go to be told and to be Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-88095143246088229772011-08-17T16:03:00.001+01:002011-08-17T17:56:37.068+01:00My free ride on a Heathrow Terminal 5 ULTRa PodI've been following PRT and the ULTRA project at Heathrow in particular since 2005, so I've been getting rather excited by the prospect of trying it out.
Eventually I got tired of waiting for an opportunity to use the Terminal 5 business car park where the first loop seems to be in a Google-like extended beta, so I just took a bus from work to Heathrow, followed signs to the business car park Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-48145676403282484152011-08-03T05:58:00.002+01:002011-08-03T06:05:30.633+01:00Reflecting on Central St. Martin's Service Design Short Course - day 2This morning Vincenzo asked if there were any product designers on the course - I'm not one, but as I mentioned in my introductory video, always wanted to be an inventor, so stood by with interest and was invited to knock up a door wedge to keep the doors open, which I did with creativity and enthusiasm. But when I finished my wedge made from coffee-cup holders, not only was it too big to fit, Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-29107410463241845312011-07-21T23:49:00.000+01:002011-07-21T23:49:36.373+01:00Don Norman's Living with Complexity - notes for #uxbcldnI'm reading Don Norman's Living with Complexity for a UX Book Club London meetup, but I am also trying to prepare for the Service Design short course at Central St Martins that I will be taking next month, so I'm going to focus on his comments on Service Design - especially since this is the first Don Norman book I've read where he discusses this topic.
In many ways the book is something old, Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-29860287671914186842011-07-02T09:16:00.000+01:002011-07-02T09:16:32.143+01:00The uses of magicBeing a dad can be frustrating sometimes. Johnny now watches CITV more than the BBC children's channels, and I've been getting polite but continuous requests for the much advertised Bey Blades. And he brings back reading books as homework from school every day - plus two for the weekend - and that's been turning into a mutually dreaded ordeal.
So I was thinking I needed to take a step back and Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-4856683297932130942011-06-23T10:34:00.004+01:002011-06-23T11:47:45.427+01:00#AgileUX Agile Safari to MindCandy.comAgileUX Agile Safari to MindCandyYesterday MindCandy were kind enough to host the Agile UX Meetup group for an Agile Safari where they showed us round their offices and discussed how they have combined User Experience Design with Agile development as part of their current success story.
MindCandy’s original hit product was PerplexCity, but they are now best known for MoshiMonsters, a games, Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-4613833481287801022010-12-04T23:04:00.000+00:002010-12-04T23:04:53.514+00:00What's wrong with: garlic presses?The garlic press is a classic of redundant-from-birth gadgetry. What's wrong with it?
It's pointless. I use the flat of a knife to crush cloves of garlic, followed by a quick bit of chop-chop, to produce more ready-to-cook garlic in less time than finding and fiddling with a press.
It's inelegant. I loved being a French neighbour's kitchen while he cooked some supper. He happened to be a Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-49837616685057574162010-10-10T11:08:00.000+01:002010-10-10T11:08:13.074+01:00Conflicts in quality for a London Man-and-Van Company websiteThis afternoon I moved half a garage full of books from Hampstead (in North London) to Earlsfield (in South-West London), a process that was made much simpler and less painful by using a prompt and helpful Man and Van company specialising in small moves.
Naturally I got them off the web, and since my work clients are typically rather large banks or building societies and my entrepreneurial Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-40673843130686926612010-06-29T11:03:00.001+01:002010-06-29T11:10:12.367+01:00Narrative considered dangerousAn Australian report on responsible reporting of suicides summarises two key findings as
• Reports of suicide deaths can influence copycat acts in some cases;• The risk of copycat behaviour is increased where the story is prominent, is about a celebrity, details method and/or location or glorifies the death in some way.Leaving aside for the moment the human implications of all this (and if you Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-57338955013435909172010-06-13T19:21:00.001+01:002011-11-17T13:49:02.921+00:00Some Reflections on the Mirror Problem
[retrieved from a long-lost backup of a 1998 proto-blog - I think it still makes sense]
Introduction: Reader, meet Problem
If you are human, there is a pretty good chance that you will at some point have looked at people or writing in a mirror and wondered why they are reversed from left to right but not from top to bottom. If you've ever discussed it with friends, you may have come up withFrancishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-43099210899578259962010-03-16T14:43:00.000+00:002010-03-16T14:43:20.950+00:00Appealing to my MP to oppose the DE bill Tuesday 16 March 2010
Dear Sadiq Khan,
I am a published technical author, software developer and interaction
designer with a family - my wife, a freelance accountant, and a four
year old son, Johnny.
I am deeply concerned by the disconnection Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-68762546751641132582010-03-13T10:18:00.003+00:002015-08-17T18:34:35.656+01:00Deeply shallow - why Intelligent Design fails the test of Abraham (and Evolution passes)I was listening to a discussion on the train last week, involving someone talking to his friends about some kind of alternatives to evolution event he'd been to. The people talking obviously had some feel, some care, for truth; and they were clearly inclining towards a view that while Creationism wasn't very convincing, Intelligent Design was at least interesting and maybe it should be given moreFrancishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-43627659774343852922010-02-27T10:23:00.001+00:002010-02-27T10:26:05.104+00:00Notes on using WebSort.netI recently had to design a top-level topic structure for a company-internal wiki. This wiki is intended to replace a predecessor which by now has a poor signal-to-ratio, being cluttered with obsolete articles and hindered by the absence of any kind of lifecycle-management, tagging or rating features. (The new wiki is being implemented using KwizCom's Wiki Plus, but that's not what I'm reviewing Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-83199046182413263202010-02-26T14:23:00.001+00:002010-02-27T10:26:52.338+00:00Learning, understanding and storytellingAn interesting post in Zen Habits on how to ace exams without studying explains and illustrates the difference between learning by rote and learning by "making connections".
While Scott Young includes "storytelling to remember facts and numbers" as one of five connection-making techniques for non-rote learning, I'm interested in a deeper connection, partly in the hope of understanding Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-64490453303137794762009-12-09T21:51:00.000+00:002009-12-09T21:51:13.356+00:00Open Letter in Support of WIPO treaty for People who are Blind or have other DisabilitiesDear Judit,
I would like to support the open letter in support of the WIPO treaty, without hesitation.
My credentials for signing this petition are as the co-author of three Wrox booksProfessional XML Schemas (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-XML-Schemas-Programmer/dp/1861005474)
Professional XML Web Services (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-XML-Services-Programmer-programmer/dp/Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-73287389897632944172009-10-17T07:35:00.005+01:002009-10-19T10:34:25.181+01:00M364 - lessons learntSo, I did my M364 Fundamentals of Interaction Design exam yesterday. I've got to the end of the course, and it's a good moment to look back and take stock.
First, I discovered that I can actually study something properly. I remember my academic career as process of scrabbling through tests and exams despite having dreamed my way through classes and prep, until coming a cropper at uni. For this Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-54047193040662651392009-08-18T23:45:00.004+01:002009-08-19T00:22:31.326+01:00A thin line between triumph and tribulationJohnny needed a bath yesterday morning - but he wasn't in the mood. At all. So I (ready to catch my train) got called in, and found him sitting on the sofa, uninterested in either persuasion or authority. My efforts simply make him whine and wave his fists, but he holds off from hitting me (good start). I resist the probably futile and counterproductive temptation to drag him upstairs and offer Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-42188484857359725292009-04-15T17:17:00.005+01:002009-04-19T15:16:57.549+01:00M364 Block 1, Unit 4, Activity 1[Please complete the assignment on page 337 of the Set Book]Reconsider the HutchWorld design and evaluation case study and note what was evaluated, why and when, and what was learned at each stage?How was the design advanced after each round of evaluation?What were the main constraints that influenced the evaluation?How did the stages and choice of techniques build on and complement each other (Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-72773911759464220802009-04-15T14:53:00.006+01:002009-04-15T16:58:06.572+01:00M364 Block 1, Unit 3, Activity 9How user-centred was the approach taken by Tokairo? Start by listing the main stakeholders - beneficiaries, decision makers, gatekeepers and workers - and discussing their roles in the development process.Then analyse Tokairo's approach against each of the five principles of user-centered development given on page 286 of the Set BookThe main stakeholders in the project were, at a corporate level,Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-24496890411194837812009-04-15T11:43:00.006+01:002009-04-15T14:48:27.712+01:00M364 Block 1, Unit 3, Activity 8Describe the approaches taken to user involvement in the Tokairo case study and discuss these using the issues you identified in Review Question 5 [List the (eight) issues you need to consider when deciding on the appropriate level of user involvement]. What alternative approaches might they have taken? You should refer to the case studies in Section 9.2.1 of the Set Book as examples.What Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-13950399500880313252009-04-13T15:38:00.003+01:002009-04-13T16:51:33.979+01:00M364 Block 1, Unit 3, activity 7Look back through the previous sections. Describe Tokairo's approach to design. How these map onto the ID activities and characteristics of the ID process?Having established the user requirements, Tokairo bought their own experience into the design process. Some of the major decisions - such as the choice of touch-screen input and the choice of a "big lottery ticket" form - were made rapidly, Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-62664483191132634692009-04-11T10:42:00.003+01:002009-04-13T15:22:19.804+01:00M364 Block 1, Unit 3, Activity 6Look back through the previous section and list the characteristics of the approach that Tokairo took to the requirement activity. How do these map onto the ID activities and the characteristics of the ID process (as discussed in Section 6.2.1 starting on page 168 of the Set Book)? What is their attitude to stakeholders?Tokairo have a methodology with a first stage being the Site and System AuditFrancishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-37352795134786660892009-04-10T08:40:00.003+01:002009-04-11T14:08:23.658+01:00M364 Block 1, Unit 3, Activity 5This activity builds upon Activity 6.4 on page 182 of the Set Book. Compare the two electronic calendar designs using the following usability and user experience goals:Efficiency: In particular, which design enables the user to find a given date most quickly?Learnability: which design will be easiest to learn?Aesthetically pleasing.Enjoyable.Which design do you prefer, and why?Efficiency: The Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0