A map of the universe by René Descartes from Principia philosophiae, 1644, one of many fascinating depictions in the visual history of mapping the cosmos.
Read more over on Brain Pickings.
A map of the universe
A map of the universe by René Descartes from Principia philosophiae, 1644, one of many fascinating depictions in the visual history of mapping the cosmos.
Read more over on Brain Pickings.
In politics, the era of big data has arrived
This is a really interesting article from Time about the quantitative data analysis that was carried out to ensure that Obama won the 2012 election.
It explores a previously secret department of Obama's campaign team that was tasked with number crunching on a phenomenal scale. By first merging all the data sets the campaign team had on Obama's voters (a task which took 18 months) they were then able to create models of Obama's potential voters, see what type of person was likely to donate to the campaign, assess when was the best time to screen campaign ads on the television, and even simulate the election night to see where they had to spend their budget to increase their chances.
On Nov. 4, a group of senior campaign advisers agreed to describe their cutting-edge efforts with TIME on the condition that they not be named and that the information not be published until after the winner was declared. What they revealed as they pulled back the curtain was a massive data effort that helped Obama raise $1 billion, remade the process of targeting TV ads and created detailed models of swing-state voters that could be used to increase the effectiveness of everything from phone calls and door knocks to direct mailings and social media.
Read the whole article here: http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/
It explores a previously secret department of Obama's campaign team that was tasked with number crunching on a phenomenal scale. By first merging all the data sets the campaign team had on Obama's voters (a task which took 18 months) they were then able to create models of Obama's potential voters, see what type of person was likely to donate to the campaign, assess when was the best time to screen campaign ads on the television, and even simulate the election night to see where they had to spend their budget to increase their chances.
On Nov. 4, a group of senior campaign advisers agreed to describe their cutting-edge efforts with TIME on the condition that they not be named and that the information not be published until after the winner was declared. What they revealed as they pulled back the curtain was a massive data effort that helped Obama raise $1 billion, remade the process of targeting TV ads and created detailed models of swing-state voters that could be used to increase the effectiveness of everything from phone calls and door knocks to direct mailings and social media.
Read the whole article here: http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/
Maps before maps
Awesome collection of medieval maps from the 11th to the 14th centuries. Some of them are geographic, but most of them are more like rough sketches of how the individual saw the area the image represents.
Check out more here.
Getting to know Windows 8
With the launch of Windows 8 also comes two very interesting "usability testing" videos.
The first is from the New York Times and features some very heavy handed facilitation of the testing sessions (check it out at 22 seconds in where the facilitator is clearly telling the participant what to click on. Obviously, lurking behind the participant, pointing at things to click on, and generally leading the user is not a good way of gathering useful insights about a new interface. As a promotional piece, the video is great but some of the techniques used in the sessions made me laugh.
The New York Times invited five computer users to try their hands at navigating Microsoft’s new tablet-friendly redesign.
Next up is a bizarre piece of video from Three Sheets Research which looks at how users handle new interfaces when drunk.
This video is part of a set of web usability tests, focused on drinking customers, conducted by Three Sheets Market Research. Following the release of Windows 8, we wasted no time in trying out Microsoft's new operating system on a drunken subject. Jennifer, a 40-year-old mother of 2, is an active consumer of PCs, software and alcohol. She agreed to sit down with us the afternoon following the product's launch to share her thoughts on Windows 8, all while imbibing several rounds of her favorite tequila.
The first impressions of a new interface are crucial and the subtle hints provided by the user experience are designed to ease the user in by introducing the fundamental interactions and then building the experience up around them. Providing users with prompts should only be done if the task they are carrying out has been totally failed and there are no new insights being captured. Also, introducing a user to a new interface when they're drunk is totally useless as they might as well start again when sober.
Any new operating system will be difficult for a first time user, whether drunk, sober or just a bit slow. It is possible Jennifer will eventually learn how to use the software. But it is doubtful that, even the morning after, she'll ever fully recover from her initial impression of Windows 8 as confusing and unwelcoming.
Think about a time when you might have been drunk and first turned on a new mobile phone, played a new video game, or tried to buy a ticket from a ticket machine that you'd not used before. Unless you were incredibly persistant the experience will have been written off and you would have mentally started afresh the next day. The initial experience is considered null and any negative impressions should be considered alongside the fact that you weren't in "learning mode". Unless of course, the interface was designed to be used whilst drunk as is the case with SingStar which was usability tested on groups of drunk people before launch to see if it was simple enough to use after an night out - which was the exact scenario that Sony Computer Entertainment wanted their users to be in..
The first is from the New York Times and features some very heavy handed facilitation of the testing sessions (check it out at 22 seconds in where the facilitator is clearly telling the participant what to click on. Obviously, lurking behind the participant, pointing at things to click on, and generally leading the user is not a good way of gathering useful insights about a new interface. As a promotional piece, the video is great but some of the techniques used in the sessions made me laugh.
The New York Times invited five computer users to try their hands at navigating Microsoft’s new tablet-friendly redesign.
Next up is a bizarre piece of video from Three Sheets Research which looks at how users handle new interfaces when drunk.
This video is part of a set of web usability tests, focused on drinking customers, conducted by Three Sheets Market Research. Following the release of Windows 8, we wasted no time in trying out Microsoft's new operating system on a drunken subject. Jennifer, a 40-year-old mother of 2, is an active consumer of PCs, software and alcohol. She agreed to sit down with us the afternoon following the product's launch to share her thoughts on Windows 8, all while imbibing several rounds of her favorite tequila.
The first impressions of a new interface are crucial and the subtle hints provided by the user experience are designed to ease the user in by introducing the fundamental interactions and then building the experience up around them. Providing users with prompts should only be done if the task they are carrying out has been totally failed and there are no new insights being captured. Also, introducing a user to a new interface when they're drunk is totally useless as they might as well start again when sober.
Any new operating system will be difficult for a first time user, whether drunk, sober or just a bit slow. It is possible Jennifer will eventually learn how to use the software. But it is doubtful that, even the morning after, she'll ever fully recover from her initial impression of Windows 8 as confusing and unwelcoming.
Think about a time when you might have been drunk and first turned on a new mobile phone, played a new video game, or tried to buy a ticket from a ticket machine that you'd not used before. Unless you were incredibly persistant the experience will have been written off and you would have mentally started afresh the next day. The initial experience is considered null and any negative impressions should be considered alongside the fact that you weren't in "learning mode". Unless of course, the interface was designed to be used whilst drunk as is the case with SingStar which was usability tested on groups of drunk people before launch to see if it was simple enough to use after an night out - which was the exact scenario that Sony Computer Entertainment wanted their users to be in..
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