How far you go in life depends on you
being tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged,
sympathetic with the striving and
tolerant of the weak and the strong.
Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
George Washington Carver
Tweet of the Day
Another Point During My Recent Cross-Country Trip#DonaldTrumpTheMovie Hillary's Got Mail— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) August 2, 2016
I have other, less published blogs, including SoftDoc which often deals with usability issues in technology. A theme I've discussed is wrong or misleading documentation. One of my favorite examples was a Commodore 64 disk drive which warned against leaving a diskette in the drive, e.g. past a system bounce, and while the power light was on the drive. I quickly realized this would make the device unusable; clearly the writer meant while the drive was writing data to the diskette--but how could the author have made such a glaring error?
I have run into issues with various street map software vendors. I missed at least 2 job interviews where an agency didn't get directions to the client. This morning I was going to a federal government facility. The directions were exactly backwards. If I was headed east, I take the exit, turn left, and drive 6 blocks. But my boss called last night. What he mentioned was that I should pass a Love's gas/convenience store, go over a bridge, and should see a Jack in the Box and a Chevron station near the entrance. While waiting at the exit, I saw the Love's at my right. How could a government website make such an obvious error?
Keep it Simple, Stupid. Have you ever run a Google Maps or Mapquest and found all sorts of complicated directions. They seem to modestly complicate things, like instead of going between major points of intersections, they try to shave a few miles, here or there. For me, the recent trip was clear; I-26W to I-20W to I-10W to I-8 W. But Google Maps complicated things by suggesting, e.g., shortcuts. If you're driving alone, it's insane: it's hard enough to drive without checking each intersection for street signs.
A B.A. From McDonald's University
Freedom of Speech
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
Michael Jackson, "Will You Be There?"
