Swaptree

I have a new online best friend: swaptree. I have been using this gem for several months to trade DVDs, books, video games, and music that we no longer want for items that we do want. It's simple to get started, even simpler to start trading, and swaptree uses an algorithm to figure out that you can send an item to Person A, they send an item to Person B, and Person B sends an item you'd like, to you. You have the option to print a shipping label right from the site once a trade has been accepted by all parties, or you can take care of the shipping on your own. If you ship through the site, they track it and charge your credit card once for all shipments made in a month, making it a simple and seamless experience.

Like most social sites, you can rate other members you have traded with and there are groups you can join if you're looking for specific things or have similar interests. But when recently adding some DVDs and Wii games to our "have" list, I found a couple neat features. Swaptree will note high end items like DVDs and video games so that other members can only initiate the trade with an item of comparable value. You have the option to initiate the trade of your high end item for a low end item, so "mixed value" trades are not off limits, swaptree just tries to keep things fair. You can also add things from your Amazon wish list to your swaptree want list or be notified that you can get something for free by swapping while browsing through the following sites:

• Amazon.com
• BarnesandNoble.com
• Half.com
• Alibris.com
  
• booksamillion.com
• abebooks.com
• buy.com
• Powells.com

They also have the obligatory Facebook hook along with some other cool ways of updating your want list from existing lists or sites en mass. I find the interface cleaner than Craigslist, and I like that I can get rid of media I no longer want and receive things I've been waiting for by using good old fashioned trading to help decrease manufacturing more of the same and landfill waste.

So if you're looking to clear out some media that you don't need or want anymore, but would like something in return, give swaptree a try and enjoy the ease of swapping across the US (other countries to be added soon).

[image from swaptree.com]

Tools for Planning User Interaction Research

I'm over half way done with my HCI class now and I have been trying to come up with solid topics to update you like I promised. The class has been very informative in my opinion, so I was frustrated when I couldn't find the words to express what I have learned so far. I think this is because HCI is part common sense, although not always obvious, part art of presentation, and part analysis, and while I'm learning about each, I don't have enough experience to pull everything together. I'll get there.

What I have finally found is support for determining how to test if a project is on the right track for users. My class spent a significant amount of time learning about task analysis and prototyping, but our readings amounted to details of each tool or process we could use. What I have wanted ever since is a chart or map to tell me which one I should use at what point in the development process and what information I can expect to gain from each, and now I have finally found exactly what I want!

Adaptive Path's blog had a post that linked to a writeup on user experience research methods which gives great descriptions about the categories of methods and when to use each. Most importantly though, there are charts!

The first is a graph that plots methods based on data source, approach, and also shows through which context users will experience the product. I love this because I can easily see what techniques we use now, where they fall on the chart, and what other methods we may want to use to balance the information we get.






The second is a graph based off of the first that tells what questions methods will answer based on their plot point of the first graph. This will make it so easy to figure out which method to use based on our situation or a problem we are trying to solve.






The last chart ties in the "when" factor. Different methods are used at different parts of development and this chart makes it simple to reference throughout the phase.










I have posted the charts in the order they are described in the referenced document, but now that I have read through the explanations, I will probably use them in a different order. Of course each can be used individually, but in most cases I see my self starting with the second one to find a method to answer a question. I imagine I will then reference the first to see what tools we are already using in those categories or get ideas for new methods. I imagine the third chart would be most useful for planning out user testing that will be done for a project. This way we can gather important input at key points in the process as well as plan for them upfront.

I can't say that the user input we get at work will drastically increase, but at least now we have tools to be prepared and back up the need with what information we can gain and how the company will benefit from it. Here's to displaying information in an easy way to digest!

Human Computer Interaction

This week I started my first Human Computer Interaction (HCI) course through Iowa State's distance education programs. The course is actually a psych class called "The Cognitive Psychology of HCI". This is my test to see how working and going to school mesh for me and to see if I'm interested enough in the area to complete a graduate certificate or full degree.

I have decided to post interesting things I learn to spread the news. The class is based around distance collaboration, so we have a wiki with personal information that will also be used for our team project. We also use a discussion board so that off-campus students like me can participate. One of the "open forum" posts by a student included a link to the site of a Mozilla developer about usability deemed the 10 Commandments of Usability. It's all good, but some quotes I particularly enjoyed are

• "Users aren’t dumb. They just have better things to do with their lives than memorizing the internal data model of our screwy software."
• "The job of the UI designer is to provide what the users need, not what the users say they need."
• "The science of design can tell us that interface foo is X% more efficient than interface bar, but bar is Y% more learnable than foo. Choosing between foo and bar — that’s where the science ends and the art begins."
• "When we blame the user, we teach them that technology is perfect and that the errors are their own. Because technology is hard to use, we are teaching a generation to be afraid of technology. We are teaching a generation to believe in their own stupidity. This is a sin, too."

Wall-E

We stopped to visit some friends from college at the start of our vacation and caught the last showing of Wall-E Friday night. I love Pixar movies and haven't been disappointed yet. This one was no exception.

I love how Pixar can personify objects and animals so well. It's amazing how they can evoke feelings about cars and create robots with emotions. I also loved how the Mac start up sound was used when Wall-E rebooted! I wonder how much that cost them.

The other thing I loved is how Pixar throws up mirrors (not literally) so that we can take a nice long look at ourselves during the movie. If you have seen the previews then you know that the story is based on humans ruining Earth with garbage and pollution. The the real kicker for me is how they show our race over 700 years after they left. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it yet, but I do applaud Pixar for making a statement in their entertaining way. Unfortunately, the people who most need to see it probably won't or they won't understand the relevance outside of the theater.

I guess this is my official plug for Wall-E. See it to be entertained, see it to think, see it to love Pixar and their awesome productions.

Chance to Start Again

Cedar Rapids, IA, where I live, has currently been hit hard with unprecedented flooding. Fortunately, my house has not been affected. My company's office building, however, has had an estimated 5' of water on the ground floor in its downtown location. Our local and national news has been showing many pictures of the downtown Cedar Rapids area and it is an understatement to say that the downtown has a massive clean up ahead.

With this tragedy is the opportunity for a glorious rebirth. Our city officials have been making plans to improve the downtown area anyway, and now we have been offered the option to show how we can come back and improve upon what the downtown once was. Starting July 1st I will be a member of the Corridor MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization), and I hope to post some ideas I have that are more specific to that, but right now I wanted to highlight the importance of the Cedar Rapids Downtown Rebirth, CRDR, I just made that up, but it kind of has a nice ring to it.

1. The city should continue with plans for revitalizing the downtown, with the one addition of protecting the area so individuals and businesses will stay and more will come. Dubuque built a wall along the Mississippi and it definitely saved them this time (and it's gorgeous). We may never know how high is high enough, but I would vote that using this year as a reference point would be a safe bet.
   
2. Encourage businesses to stay downtown. I have several selfish reasons for this, but a lot of them are reasons that the others in the city have too. I love riding the bus or biking to work. I love that restaurants are starting to succeed and stay downtown so I can walk to lunch. I love that the YMCA is right down the street. If my company moves to a non-downtown location, I see that as losing a huge benefit of working there.
3. The location makes the city cohesive. If we lose our downtown, then the center of the city dies and we lose the connections between the sides of town.
4. The downtown is home to people and many businesses. If they leave then it could be hard to retain them in the community in general. This may be a reason for some to move out and start fresh somewhere else like several of the Katrina victims tried to do when they moved to CR.

These are only some of the reasons that I have thought of and discussed while watching the news. Many of these stem from my personal stake in the issue, so other views are welcome. I don't have the high power to make everything happen, but that hasn't stopped me from trying before. Our downtown does affect our city as a whole and I want to see our city improve its status to become the best that it really can be.

Google Docs and Blogger Work Together

I noticed a while ago that Google Docs had new features. They have several more announcements now, but I'm talking about way back when they added the ability to publish to your blog. They currently support Blogger, BlogHarbor, BlogWare, LiveJournal, SquareSpace, WordPress, and any site that uses the Blogger, MetaWeblog, or MovaleType API. I use Blogger and have been fine with typing in the text area they provide, but this could be helpful if you publish with several other people on a blog and don't want them to see your work in progress. In my case this would be more useful to hide how long it can take me to finish a post that I start. So I finally tested this feature out on a recent post to a green blog that I contribute to. It's nothing fantastic, but it worked. I do have two complaints. The first is that the settings ask if you would like to include the document title when posting (if possible). I selected this option and expected that since I use Blogger, this would be possible. Apparently not. Hopefully this will change, but it is annoying for now. The second gripe I have is adding tags to your post. This was also mentioned during the publishing process, but there wasn't a way to add them without going in to Blogger and editing the post. I'm trying this method once more with this post, but I think I'll stick with Blogger until they make a more compelling reason to switch.

Power Hour

The joy of living in a four season location means that I always have variety. The weather even varies within a season which can be interesting, but also dangerous and annoying for some. Recently the Midwest has been hit with several winter storms including ice and what they call a "winter mix" which consists of ice, rain, sleet, and snow. The great part about this is that it is our first winter in a house (that we own) so we get to shovel, chop, and scrape. I'm not sick of it yet, but I will mention that we had ice an inch and a half thick on our driveway. We finally got it all off after three weeks thanks to some warm days.

So getting to the point of this post is the hazards of storms like the ones we have seen this year. Not only are the streets and sidewalks dangerous to drive and walk on, but the heavy ice and rain that freezes can cause power outages. We have been quite lucky and haven't lost power yet (knock on wood), but several of my relatives and co-workers have not been so fortunate. A few weeks ago we had a particularly crappy day weather-wise and very few people actually made it in to my work. I was able to make it in safely thanks to the awesome bus drivers here, but I kept an eye on the weather the whole time I was in. The tools that I used to keep up on the latest status included the following:

1) weather.com - the radar is pretty awesome and accurate. That day in particular was pretty scary seeing the long path of white (snow) and pink (mix/ice). The thing I really like about this map is that it moves with time so you can see where the storm is heading.

2) KCRG - This is our local news channel, not extremely helpful, but I can count on them listing announcements if things get really bad (read: "news worthy").

and finally,
3) Alliant's electrical outage summary - this doesn't say exactly where or which customers in each county are out of power, but if the count is particularly high in your area, it can alert you to the possibility of your house or business place being affected.

Also note that Ryan pointed out the "Report your outage" link at the bottom of the page. If you don't have electricity, how in the world are you going to have the ability to use that link? Just call it in yo!

So what other sites are useful in these situations?