He cites many reasons for making the switch including the ability to work much faster and in a more comfortable fashion. Additionally, Scott finds that not having to worry about art supplies is quite the liberating experience.
And speaking of a liberating experience, Scott speaks to Wacom's recent introduction of the Cintiq Companion and how its mobile capabilities are allowing him to create while traveling. For most of his career, nationally syndicated cartoonist Scott Adams has needed just two hours to produce a three-panel episode of "Dilbert," his celebrated comic strip satirizing cubicle life and misguided management.
Those two hours take him from initial pencil sketch to the final inking of such beloved miscreants as Dogbert, the evil management consultant, who emerges from the pen in "one unbroken smooth line" that extends from his nose to his tail, Adams said. But one morning last November, working in his home office in Dublin, Calif.
It goes stiff; it goes straight out. That was a cue that his focal dystonia was flaring up to threaten his career once again. Adams was diagnosed with the condition -- a neurological movement disorder, marked by involuntary muscle spasms--back in , around the time he launched "Dilbert. The first time around, he'd foiled the condition by drawing left-handed. Meantime, he was doing a conditioning exercise he devised: During the meetings that filled his old day job, he'd hold down a pen tip to paper until he felt a twinge, then pick it up quickly and rest his hand before a spasm would set in.
He did this repeatedly, extending his pen-gripping time bit by bit. Eventually, he said, the problem "just went away. But it was an arduous process he wasn't eager to repeat. This time Adams approached the problem like the computer nerd he says he is, and found an answer online. The fact that his comics have continued uninterrupted since he began using a new drawing tool in January speaks to his success. Only his very closest followers may have noticed subtle differences in recent strips -- like Dilbert's too-skinny arm and oversized nose -- while the cartoonist was mastering the new technique.
The first line of treatment for dystonia, she said, is "changing techniques. The only problem, she said, is that often the approach doesn't work. Focal dystonia, which can affect the hand where it's commonly called "writer's cramp" when it affects writing , the neck the most common site , eyelids or vocal chords, is something of a mystery. First reported in people who do fine finger work, including writers, seamstresses and musicians, it affects an estimated Let's examine your two examples, however.
Vis-a-vis the automatic transmission, first, the automobile industry spent 35 years developing an automatic transmission just because they realized that people were having problems with manual transmission operation.
It was one of the two most important innovations in automotive history, the other, even more important, being the electric starter. Second, the person driving km in 1st receives km-worth of high-quality feedback.
The can-o'-stain example is different: The designers cannot predict the outcome of use of the product on differing surfaces. One half of the marriage of stain to surface is completely beyond their control. No amount of testing will help because the potential surfaces number in the millions, and nothing short of applying the product will reveal its effect.
Everything about the blog task is well within the control of the blog designers. They know everything about the "stain" and everything about the "surface.
Users cannot and should not be expected to "practice a couple of posts" or do an equivalent stain test when encountering a new piece of software. Nor do I think that would have worked in this case. I suspect whether he published one or all comments that had flowed in from readers since he'd last checked, deleting the one-and-only database would have taken them all out.
Finally, I agree with your assessment of the direction American law has taken. When I was young, the standard for liability was based on the "prudent man. Would a prudent man have poured hot coffee in his lap through inattention? Now, the standard is the "least abled. Again, however, in this case, Scott remains blameless even by the old standard. Scott was and is a prudent man. He did read the screen instructions carefully. Then, he equally carefully destroyed what he believed to be a temporary database.
This was not only an egregious example of bad design and flawed methodology, it would have been easily fixed, as suggested by the next letter. To convey that "publish" means "set a little flag", the blog programmers could instead call it "make [comments] visible", which suggests that you are changing an aspect of this comment, not making a copy.
As for methodology, I would have first done some basic user testing. That would have revealed the problem. Subsequently, I would have made these sorts of wording changes, then tested again. However, this time, I would have explained to people that the program worked exactly as Scott assumed it worked, then seen if they turned around to me and said, "this seems to be saying it works a different way. Finally, I must mention that there is always a second option when design model and user model clash: You can change the design model.
In this case, that would mean maintaining, in fact, two different databases. That, in my opinion, would not be a good option in this case, but, in other cases, a change in the design model to conform to what users expect can be very effective. For example, if users expect a word processor to at least have the functionality of paper and pencil, one could add Continuous Save.
Have a comment about this article? Send a message to Tog. Don't miss the next action-packed column! Receive a brief notice when new columns are posted by sending a blank email to asktoglist-subscribe yahoogroups. Interaction Design Section. Dear Tog: Scott Adams moderated comments to his blog and then deleted them permanently despite prominent warnings about permanent deletion. In my case, three events would have led up to that crash: The mechanical breakdown of a completely different aircraft The willingness of a pilot to reduce his safety margin by taking on an unexpected passenger A sudden, unpredictable downdraft Numbers one and three were unavoidable.
What were the cascading errors? Norman Conceptual Model, Illustrated by Laurie Vertelney The communication failed in this case, as evidenced by Scott's dangerously wrong User Model, but why didn't he realize his mistake? Users can fail in two different ways in their attempts to accurately recreate the Design Model: The user ends up with a fragmented model.
The user ends up with a complete model, but it is wrong. Hold your hands over your head Begin leaning forward while bending at your knees Push off the edge for maximum lift and ensure that your head points straight down for proper entry Now, consider what would happen if you thought these instructions were, instead, for descending into the crater of a volcano.
Error Two: Misleading metaphor Designers, knowing users depend on previous experience, attempt to invoke specific experiences by using metaphors. Error Three: Confirmation Dialogs Ambiguous A confirmation warning dialog must use wording that ensures a prudent person will not be able to misinterpret the meaning. Error Four: Confirmation Substituted for Undo Often, developers wanting to avoid undo will throw in a confirmation dialog instead.
Solution: Creating the Illusion of Deletion For some bizarre reason, we seem to have settled on always, always, always giving users undo for such critical operations as deleting a single character.
In the case of a deletion, We throw up a confirmation dialog The user confirms We delete the file We tell the user we deleted it. Error Five: No Usability Evaluation The first four errors, in this case, are pretty fundamental, and no human-computer interaction designer should have made any of them. Join my intensive and fun! Sign up now! Hey Tog, The Scott Adams Meltdown might be a great example of a failed design process but it might also be a significant failure on the part of the user. Best regards, Jacob K.
It is never, ever useful in the design of software to blame the user. We know that almost all users are not going to even start a tutorial, let alone finish it. We know that no one but users new to computers RTFM. If they did RTFM, we wouldn't even have such an initialism. In fact, the more experienced the user, the less likely they are to read the manual.
Power users don't even read the instructions on the screen, let alone seek on-line help or a manual. Experienced users only seek help when they become aware of a problem, and, in this case, a highly-experienced user did not become aware of the problem until it was already too late.
Dear Tog, To convey that "publish" means "set a little flag", the blog programmers could instead call it "make [comments] visible", which suggests that you are changing an aspect of this comment, not making a copy. It has spawned dozens of books, an animated television series, a video game, and hundreds of themed merchandise items. Dilbert Future and The Joy of Work are among the most read books in the series. Dilbert Website dilbert. The cartoonist, no stranger to controversy, had found another.
It is based on the comic strips of the same name created by Scott Adams. It also symbolizes how much his life is at the mercy of random things that he can not control. He probably has only one tie, and it developed a crease from hanging over a somewhat sharp clothes hanger, or something like that. Scott Raymond Adams born June 8, is an American artist and cartoonist. He is the creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business.
Dilbert came to national prominence during the downsizing period in s America and reached a worldwide audience. Elbonia is an impoverished western European country in the Dilbert universe.
0コメント