Most popular infographics

Pretty good statement about the seemingly endless flood of infographics that have been churned out in the past few years. I would have to agree that the production mentality behind infographics has started to slip from being about displaying informative facts in a visual way to "here's any old facts and figures just because I can and I reckon it looks good".

A large version of this image can be found here

Why some people play with inverted controls

If you've ever played video games then you'll know that there are two different ways to look around. The "classic" setup where pressing up on the control pad makes you look up, and pressing down makes you look down. Then you can also invert these controls and this image neatly explains the logic behind it.

Personally, I play inverted controls.

Why Angry Birds is so successful

Really interesting article on the rise of Angry Birds and just why it's so successful and popular.

Simple yet engaging interaction concept: This seems an obvious point, but few realize that a simple interaction model need not be, and rarely is, procedurally simple. Simplification means once users have a relatively brief period of experience with the software, their mental model of how the interface behaves is well formed and fully embedded. This is known technically as schema formation. In truly great user interfaces, this critical bit of skill acquisition takes place during a specific use cycle known as the First User Experience or FUE. When users are able to construct a robust schema quickly, they routinely rate the user interface as “simple”. However, simple does not equal engaging. It is possible to create a user interface solution that is initially perceived by users as simple. However, the challenge is to create a desire by users to continue interaction with a system over time, what we call user “engagement”.


http://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog/2011/02/why-angry-birds-is-so-successful-a-cognitive-teardown-of-the-user-experience/

Traffic signals for the colorblind

Several people who are attending the 2011 Accessibility Summit pointed out that traffic lights aren't, traditionally, accessible. If you're colourblind, does red, yellow, green tell you as much information as you need, as easily and quickly as you need to know it?

Turns out, some Canadian provinces deal with this by adding shapes to the lights, as well as colours.

Double hacking

This video is pure gold. The description says it all really - "THEY SHOULD HAVE ENHANCED THE MATRIX DATAFRAME AND ZOOMED IN ON THE GUI UNIT BINARY FORM IMO"

Machines

David Mitchell's opinion on machine usability. I particularly like the piece about mobile phone voicemails. Brilliant stuff.

Blind man using a cash machine

World population densities mapped

National Geographic has a look at where and how we live:

The map shows population density; the brightest points are the highest densities. Each country is colored according to its average annual gross national income per capita, using categories established by the World Bank (see key below). Some nations — like economic powerhouses China and India — have an especially wide range of incomes. But as the two most populous countries, both are lower middle class when income is averaged per capita.

via National Geographic

World subway map

Two seniors learn to use a webcam

Cool user interfaces

Some cracking animated gif's of retro user interfaces. Links below because for some reason the gif's won't embed here..

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp3wawIa8e1qzudj4o1_250.gif

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp3wawIa8e1qzudj4o2_250.gif

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp3wawIa8e1qzudj4o3_250.gif

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp3wawIa8e1qzudj4o4_250.gif

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp3wawIa8e1qzudj4o5_250.gif

Taken from the classic Konami cyberpunk detective game Snatcher.

White Blood Cell Chases Bacteria

"A neutrophil chasing Staphylococcus aureus by David Rogers, Vanderbilt University"