Chocolate is not (that) bad for you!!!
The New York Times says: Valentine to Dark Chocolate but Go Easy "....chocolate — that dark, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth treat that, while not exactly a love potion, is almost universally loved and is not the health disaster that many people assume it to be."
(Registration to NY Times is required to view article).
I am one of those people who can live on chocolate if nothing else was provided, but couldnt live if I had everything but chocolate... and so, any news about chocolate is worth posting on my blog... :o)
Your Comments
People who have the cold or the flu should not get on the train!!
I know this sounds harsh and unreasonable and everything, but please if you have the cold or the flu or something, and you have to take public transportation to get to work, either learn how to cover your mouth when you're sneezing and all, or just take a day or two off! Believe me, sitting beside somebody who's going through a sneezing and coughing attack is very frustrating and annoying. Yes, I feel for people who are sick, I know how bad it feels, but I'd never get on the train couging and sneezing like that. I mean just cause one person is sick doesnt mean that the whole train should be sick the next week!
Your Comments
hmmm... that's some story to tell the grandkids! I don't think any comment is necessary... :o)
Possible attacks... again
Why do I say again? Of course we've all been on guard since Sept 11th. But what I don't understand is, why during some days, the FBI all of a sudden decides that the threat is more and also say that they do not have any clues as to who's involved.
Look at this article for instance.
Note how they say that the FBI has gotten information from the Afghan detainees in Cuba and that one man was named as a possible suspect. Then note how they say that they do not know if this man is in the States or even if he's alive. Then again, they say that the attacks might be somewhere around Feb 12th but don't give any information about why they suspect THIS date in particular. Why not Feb 11th or 13th? But, however, they CAN say that the olympics are not the target... This kind of news is driving all of us around here insane! We live with these worries in our heads 24 hours a day, especially when we're in Midtown Manhattan all day long! Who knows? So why make some days worse than others if you can't tell us to take the day off or to do something? Or even pinpoint a certain suspect or location?
And why does CNN or NYTimes not cover this story?
Your Comments
Tuesday, February 12, 2002
Friday, February 08, 2002
The Benefits of OOBE?
I'm not sure if all of you are familiar with OOBE, it's a great usability technique as well as a corporate experience.
Briefly, OOBE is the Out of Box Experience, developed by IBM's Ease of Use Team. Basically, you watch a "user" receive your product and then unpack it. It gives you a sense of how intuitive the unpacking of the product is as well as the opportunity to see how your users react to what's inside the box. This is especially useful if you're sending a product that requires a packaging with multiple components in it. For instance, a product in a box that contains, software CD, documentation, Demos, marketing material etc.
Of course, as always you tell the user to speak out his/her mind when they see each item in the box. You note their suprise, confision, wonder and some (very informative) remarks about the necessity (or unnecessity of that matter) of an item. How long does it take them to unpack the product? How much garbage are they left with? How much of a hassle is it to unpack?
You can do OOBE internally within a company, or externally with customers. My suggestion is that external OOBE is done first so that you get an idea of what actual users think about your company's current packaging practices what reactions they have to it. Then you can raise those issues in internally conducted OOBEs to make sure that nothing is overlooked with the stakeholders. These sessions usually don't take all that long. Of course, since there are many discussions in internal OOBEs it kind of tends to take longer, average 1.5hrs probably. External OOBEs are usually less than an hour, unless if you have a very big product or a big problem!
Internal OOBEs can be more productive sometimes. (If you can keep people from throwing things at eachother and kicking eachother's behinds that is!) But when they are productive, I think internal OOBEs are the best usability sessions you can have. First of all, you gather as many stakeholders of the product as you can. Put them all in a (large) room. Bring in a boxed product, as it would go out to an actual customer, and then have fun. Usually, you get many of these stakeholders asking about the box. They don't know and that's exactly what you want. The less they know about the complete contents of the box the better. Because you want to see their reactions, you want to see how happy they are about what they see in those boxes, and try to get them to say the magic words: "We should make this easier." (If that's the case.) Once you have everybody gathered, the second step is to of course to pick a "user", who absolutely doesn't know what's in the box, an "observer" who will observe the reactions of the user as s/he opens the box and a "recorder" who will record the discussions and questions that arise from the rest of the "watchers." Though, no comments should be made that will influence the expectations of your "user".
Once the "user" touches the box, you have all the people in the room start talking about how hard it is to just rip open that tape that closes the box! A scissor couldn't even do the trick! Then you get to the best part of it all. You don't have to talk at all as the usability specialist who usually gets stepped on... just listen... and keep the discussions with what's at hand. The stakeholders and decision makers discuss and actually resolve some matters among themselves! You don't get burnt in the process either! It's as if you're a fly on the wall! It's great!
I would have to say that the greatest benefit of an internal OOBE (other than not being at risk of being kicked) is that you get to see the reality within your corporation. You find out the truth about your company's policies and the thoughts of the product managers, VPs, Directors. Unlike how you are usually told that "oh, the Product Managers would never go for that..." "The VP thinks that a stupid idea!" that these people are actually on your side and wonder why the changes you've been fighting to do for the last year or so have not been done yet! And the best part is, you're not being asked that question, the person who was telling you that the PMs and VPs didn't want those changes gets asked that question!
So as you can imagine, it's a perfectly productive and extremely useful and happy event!
Your Comments
Related Sites
Here's Microsoft's OOBE for Windows ME customers. I wonder if they have the same thing for Windows XP and the rest of their products?
Macintosh Out-Of-Box Experience
Ok now THIS is a different look at OOBE, by COMPAQ! (Don't miss the BACK and NEXT buttons on the upper right corner of the screen.)
I'll add on more when I find some interesting things. In the meantime let me know if you have more information, and/or related links about OOBE.
Your Comments
This is GREAT!
This
article was sent to me by a colleague, who's very familiar with my dispute over getting a RAM upgrade to my computer so I can actually WORK! It keeps crashing all day long.. I open a new browser window, crash! I check my email: crash! I launch Flash: Crash! I launch a browser while Flash is open: DEAD! hah!
Couldn't explain this to my "approvers" so it took them awhile to be convinced of my dire need of an upgrade. (It's a 64MB by the way...) So they decided they will, I don't know to what, but they'll upgrade they said. I've been waiting for about 2 weeks since that word came, and I'm wondering when it's going to go onto action now. Let's see how long it takes.. I'll let you know...
Your Comments
I'm not sure if all of you are familiar with OOBE, it's a great usability technique as well as a corporate experience.
Briefly, OOBE is the Out of Box Experience, developed by IBM's Ease of Use Team. Basically, you watch a "user" receive your product and then unpack it. It gives you a sense of how intuitive the unpacking of the product is as well as the opportunity to see how your users react to what's inside the box. This is especially useful if you're sending a product that requires a packaging with multiple components in it. For instance, a product in a box that contains, software CD, documentation, Demos, marketing material etc.
Of course, as always you tell the user to speak out his/her mind when they see each item in the box. You note their suprise, confision, wonder and some (very informative) remarks about the necessity (or unnecessity of that matter) of an item. How long does it take them to unpack the product? How much garbage are they left with? How much of a hassle is it to unpack?
You can do OOBE internally within a company, or externally with customers. My suggestion is that external OOBE is done first so that you get an idea of what actual users think about your company's current packaging practices what reactions they have to it. Then you can raise those issues in internally conducted OOBEs to make sure that nothing is overlooked with the stakeholders. These sessions usually don't take all that long. Of course, since there are many discussions in internal OOBEs it kind of tends to take longer, average 1.5hrs probably. External OOBEs are usually less than an hour, unless if you have a very big product or a big problem!
Internal OOBEs can be more productive sometimes. (If you can keep people from throwing things at eachother and kicking eachother's behinds that is!) But when they are productive, I think internal OOBEs are the best usability sessions you can have. First of all, you gather as many stakeholders of the product as you can. Put them all in a (large) room. Bring in a boxed product, as it would go out to an actual customer, and then have fun. Usually, you get many of these stakeholders asking about the box. They don't know and that's exactly what you want. The less they know about the complete contents of the box the better. Because you want to see their reactions, you want to see how happy they are about what they see in those boxes, and try to get them to say the magic words: "We should make this easier." (If that's the case.) Once you have everybody gathered, the second step is to of course to pick a "user", who absolutely doesn't know what's in the box, an "observer" who will observe the reactions of the user as s/he opens the box and a "recorder" who will record the discussions and questions that arise from the rest of the "watchers." Though, no comments should be made that will influence the expectations of your "user".
Once the "user" touches the box, you have all the people in the room start talking about how hard it is to just rip open that tape that closes the box! A scissor couldn't even do the trick! Then you get to the best part of it all. You don't have to talk at all as the usability specialist who usually gets stepped on... just listen... and keep the discussions with what's at hand. The stakeholders and decision makers discuss and actually resolve some matters among themselves! You don't get burnt in the process either! It's as if you're a fly on the wall! It's great!
I would have to say that the greatest benefit of an internal OOBE (other than not being at risk of being kicked) is that you get to see the reality within your corporation. You find out the truth about your company's policies and the thoughts of the product managers, VPs, Directors. Unlike how you are usually told that "oh, the Product Managers would never go for that..." "The VP thinks that a stupid idea!" that these people are actually on your side and wonder why the changes you've been fighting to do for the last year or so have not been done yet! And the best part is, you're not being asked that question, the person who was telling you that the PMs and VPs didn't want those changes gets asked that question!
So as you can imagine, it's a perfectly productive and extremely useful and happy event!
Your Comments
Related Sites
Here's Microsoft's OOBE for Windows ME customers. I wonder if they have the same thing for Windows XP and the rest of their products?
Macintosh Out-Of-Box Experience
Ok now THIS is a different look at OOBE, by COMPAQ! (Don't miss the BACK and NEXT buttons on the upper right corner of the screen.)
I'll add on more when I find some interesting things. In the meantime let me know if you have more information, and/or related links about OOBE.
Your Comments
This is GREAT!
This
article was sent to me by a colleague, who's very familiar with my dispute over getting a RAM upgrade to my computer so I can actually WORK! It keeps crashing all day long.. I open a new browser window, crash! I check my email: crash! I launch Flash: Crash! I launch a browser while Flash is open: DEAD! hah!
Couldn't explain this to my "approvers" so it took them awhile to be convinced of my dire need of an upgrade. (It's a 64MB by the way...) So they decided they will, I don't know to what, but they'll upgrade they said. I've been waiting for about 2 weeks since that word came, and I'm wondering when it's going to go onto action now. Let's see how long it takes.. I'll let you know...
Your Comments
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