Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Twist in the tale of Robin Hood
Robin Hood as a baddy and the Sheriff of Nottingham as the goody? Only in Hollywood!
Whatever next?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7460634.stm
There are some conventions that it just doesn't work to play with, something that designers of every kind - and including elearning developers - need to remember.
A recent newsletter from usability guru Jakob Nielsen talked about do you put the OK button first and then Cancel? Or Cancel and then OK? The answer is that you follow the convention, which happens to be different for Macs and PCs. Unless you really do want to make things difficult for users and stop them in their tracks, conventions should be flouted at your peril.
How annoying is it that when you save a Microsoft Word document in some other format it asks you do you really want to do that? and the default is No! Microsoft of course wants you to keep files in their format, but it's highly irritating.Labels: elearning, film, learning design, media, usuability
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:46 AM
Monday, 11 February 2008
Digital Radio - am I onto a losing thing?
The BBC reports today on the closure of two digital radio stations, The Jazz and Planet Rock from GCap Media. They state that "DAB Digital radio is being portrayed in some quarters as the 21st century's version of Betamax, the video format that lost out to VHS in the 1970s." Consumers seem to be turning more to the Internet for radio. However, you can't connect to the internet from your car ... but "only a minuscule number of cars in the UK have a DAB radio installed."
My car is one of those with a DAB radio installed - it's a SEAT Ibiza and it came with a DAB radio as its special feature. However, we can't get digital radio inside our house (because we're behind a ridge). So I have mixed feelings about whether DAB radio is worth it. But I certainly don't want to be stuck with the radio equivalent of a Betamax video!Labels: digital radio, media, technology
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:21 PM
Friday, 14 September 2007
The wiki way
Here's an interesting article on "the wiki way" from the Guardian.
"Don Tapscott, the author of an eye-opening new book called Wikinomics, says that we have barely begun to imagine how the internet will change the way we live and work. He tells Oliver Burkeman how everything from gold mining to motorcycle manufacturing is being transformed - and why huge companies as we know them may simply cease to exist."
Hmm. I suppose if you're selling a book you have to make big claims. But having seen how many wiki projects fail, I am more cynical...Labels: collaborative working, learning futures, media, Web 2.0, wiki, wikis
posted by Helen Whitehead 11:27 AM
