BlobFisk.com

Hi there,

Just a quick note to apologise for the site being down for a bit. WordPress lost its connection to the SQL database.

I was on the road and didn’t notice for a day or so. Thanks to Halmat for letting me know about it.

Thanks,

Alex

I was flying back to London from Cork Airport yesterday and I spotted this advert:

When I looked at it in more detail I noticed the text on the top right if the hoarding:

The original picture that I saw presented me with the (not very) tantalising picture of 2 sausages, 2 eggs, 3 rashers, 2 pieces of succulent black pudding, a tomato and a generous portion of baked beans. However, if that hasn’t got you sprinting to the Sports Bar (located at Gate 6) and you stop to read the “what you actually get” text, you realise that all you really get is:

• 1 sausage
• 1 rasher
• 1 fried egg
• 1 hash brown
• an unspecified amount of toast

Where’s my other sausage, my other 2 rashers, my other egg? Where’s the tomato, beans and black pudding? I’m sorry but a hash brown and some toast doesn’t make up for this!

This reminds me of a Judge Judy case about an eBay scammer that advertised some mobile phones for sale, sold them and sent the buyers pictures of the phones (trying to argue that the buyers got what they paid for):

I know that it’s caveat emptor, but both eBay scammer and breakfast at the Sports Bar in Cork Airport are taking this a bit far!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

Here is a selection of bookmarks for May 12th:

• The TED Commandments – rules every speaker needs to know
  I discovered one of the reasons the speeches are so good… TED’s organisers send upcoming speakers a stone tablet, engraved with the ‘TED Commandments”. Amy Tan in her TED Talk described the arrival of the TED Commandments as “something that creates a near-death experience; but near-death is good for creativity…”.
• The History of Eating Utensils
  The Department of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences houses the Rietz Collection of Food Technology. Containing nearly 1,400 items, this collection was assembled by Carl Austin Rietz, an inventor and businessman in the food industry. His interest in the industry led him on travels around the world to collect objects used in the production, processing, storage, presentation, preparation, and serving of food.
• 10 Transition Effects: The art of Showing/Hiding Content | DevSnippets
• Nick’s Top User Experience Books | Blog | Nick Finck | UX/IA Pro, Speaker, and Community Cultivator.
  So today there have been a few mentions of the The UX Book Club‘s Top UX Books list (Most notably: Louis Rosenfeld and Paul Seys). I believe this list suppose to be based on the recommendations from all of the UX Book Clubs around the world… tho the Seattle UX Book Club was never informed of this list, or at least it’s members weren’t. A good list none the less.
• Analysis, Plus Synthesis: Turning Data into Insights :: UXmatters
  Conducting primary user research such as in-depth interviews or field studies can be fairly straightforward, when compared with what you face upon returning to the office with piles of notes, sketches, user journals, and audio and video recordings. You may ask, What should I do with all this data? and How do I turn it into something meaningful?
• Putting people first » Bringing the everyday life of people into design
  Products play a role in our everyday lives. Insight into the experiences of people in their everyday lives is of great use for designing products. For example, the contexts in which products are used (physical, social, culture etc.) and the state (excited, tired, concentrated etc.) of the users influence how they experience using products. However, in design practice using this type of diverse, subjective and multi-layered information, as inspirational input for the design process, is a recent development.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!