Find, Understand, Share, Extend By Nic Price on 11 November 2010 — 1 min read Today is World Usability Day. The theme this year is communication. I’ve chosen to write about something which I find helps teams I work with communicate and explore what we design and put on the web. Back in 2005, Yahoo! Search announced a “vision statement”. Enable people to find, use, share and expand all human knowledge. Somewhat ambitious, sure. A little... More
Mark all as read: momentary headspace By Nic Price on 20 December 2007 — 1 min read A week offline (well just about anyway) and google reader is telling me I have over 3000 unread items… So I have just hit the “Mark all as read” button. For a brief moment, my google reader is empty. I can’t remember the last time it was empty. I wonder what I’ve missed. Using a... More
Twitter free By Nic Price on 17 December 2007 — 1 min read I’m back online after a week of photosynthesis and I find Twitter is down for quite a while for maintenance. I wonder if this means people are actually having to talk to each other. In very short sentences. More
What would your txt msg templates be? By Nic Price on 2 November 2007 — 1 min read These are the text message (SMS) templates that came with my phone: I am late. I will be there at I’m at home. Please call I’m at work. Please call I’m in a meeting, call me later at I will be arriving at Meeting is cancelled. Please call See you at See you in Sorry,... More
So… going forward By Nic Price on 2 November 2007 — 1 min read I’ve noticed two expressions being used more and more these days, mostly in a work context. First, the use of the word “So” to begin an answer to a question. This seems particularly rife amongst presenters on the conference circuit. Often it seems to be used to acknowledge a question and the questioner as if... More
Never can say goodbye By Nic Price on 26 October 2007 — 1 min read Have you noticed that on the radio very few, if any, presenters and guests say “goodbye” at the end of an interview or phone call? More often than not they say “thank you” instead. I was just wondering if this is conscious and deliberate. More
To have this conversation in Welsh please press 7 By Nic Price on 19 October 2007 — 1 min read I’m on the phone to a well-known supplier of outsourced services… “Please listen carefully to the following options…” There are 7 options, but they don’t tell you how many there are going to be. I’m not quite sure if what I’m calling about matches any of them. And there’s no “For all other enquiries please... More
Help! I’m starting to think in status updates By Nic Price on 1 October 2007 — 1 min read On my Sunday run yesterday morning I suddenly caught myself turning everything I was doing in to Facebook status updates. If you haven’t been on Facebook, status updates let you tell people in your group of friends or networks whatever you want in little SMS type messages which then appear on their Facebook pages next... More
Automatic accents By Nic Price on 24 September 2007 — 1 min read Do you have a lift at work? Does it have a male or female voice? Who decided that? Does a lift in Belfast have a different accent to a lift in Manchester, Falmouth or Glasgow? Should the automated announcements on trains change accent depending on which part of the country you’re in? More
Moving house, virtually By Nic Price on 17 September 2007 — 1 min read When you move house and send your change of address cards out, you probably only put your new address on the cards and not your old one. And if people want to send you a “Happy New Home” card they’ll need to copy down your new address on to an envelope. But when people change... More