Tags: Human cells, usability matters, World Usability Day
Our human body consists of about 10 000 billions of cells. Everyone of these cells knows exactly what to do to be at your service. It takes care of you, feeds you and performs all other functions that you need throughout your life, in every small detail. Usability matters on its highest level. You cannot keep any secrets for your cells, they know more about you than yourself. Every little cell has a specimen of your entire genetic code – the great manual for your body! It knows exactly how to do its job and, amazingly, all of your others cell jobs! Your will never need to remind it of its levels of adenotrifosfates or any other usable substances. It will do the job for you.
Brooding about these miracles that work every single second, how can we have such a hard job to develop good, usable things and solutions, on a conscious level?
Read more about Usability and the activities at World Usability Day on 12 November 2009, www.wud.com.
Cheers from Tone
Tags: antenna, cliff effect, digital TV, frozen image, set top box
Staying at our holiday home in the Stockholm archipelago and getting ready to watch my favorite TV program, Midsummer Murders, a bad or frozen picture is annoying. When Sweden switched to digital TV we purchased a set top box for our of CRT TV. Even during the analogue era the TV signal was poor but switching to digital transmission hasn´t fixed the problem fully. So now we need to figure out how to solve it and we started with a new rabbit style antenna, trying to find the best placement for a good signal strength - not always most preferable for other activities. In order to get a high quality connection we need to continue finding a solution in a systematic way. We have identified that a change to an employ a directional antenna outdoors, aligned with the transmitting location might solve the problem –hope it will work. I found easy to understand and useful information on digital TV and what equipment to use at:
Canada´s office of consumer affairs
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/oca-bc.nsf/eng/h_ca02404.html#SetTopBoxes
Which
http://www.which.co.uk/advice/digital-tv-options/equipment-for-tv/index.jsp
http://www.dtv.gov/
Posted by Annika Overodder
Tags: aspect ratio, Character, contrast, display, pixels, resolution
A common problem with LCD displays is that the character contrast might suffer form scaling problems or bad cables. When buying a new display for your home or office it is therefore very important to analyze the need of aspect ratios before choosing a display.
Some software are designed for a certain aspect ratio and as soon as they are started they force the display into this resolution. If this resolution is not supported by the display vertical or horizontal bands of bad character contrast can occur.
How to avoid this:
- Check the supported resolutions in the specifications of the display.
- Chose a resolution that is evenly scalable to the native resolution if the display.
- Use digital interface between computer and display.
- If using analogue interface use short cable < 3m with good shielding.
- Check the connector of the graphic card to see that it’s not damaged
The native resolution is the one that corresponds to the amount of fixed pixels in the display. Every other resolution forces the display to scale the picture by merging pixels. Displays manage this with different success. The native resolution is the maximum resolution accepted by LCD displays. It is therefore recommended to use as high resolution as possible on LCD displays. If the text becomes too small to read this can be solved by adjusting the DPI settings in Windows.
Tags: sea canoes; arcipelago; TCO Certified Netbooks;
Usability at sea
Hello everyone.
Summer is in full bloom an in sunny splendidness. We are planning for a 4 days canoeing trip in the midst of the sea archipelago. So we pack our 2 sea canoes with well selected and adapted things: a tent, sleeping bags, sea clothes, binoculars and of course our life wests. we also need hats and sun glasses to protect us from the sun and from the glistening reflections of from the sea surface. with care we measure the amount of drinking water, food, kitchen utensils and what else? All these things are well developed, well selected and adapted for it’s purpose which in this case mean fitting to the limited space of 2 sea canoes.
Usability matters!
Some years ago this was about all. Today we also have the great possibility to be free from civilization by bringing wireless communication equipment. This does not only mean a cell phones with camera, SMS, MMS and other functions but also a notebook. Weather you choose such a sea life for relaxation or for mobile work purpose, the possibilities for wireless adaptation in different environments will be without borders.
The mobile life will no more be limited ot the traditional office. TCO Development has recently certified the first netbook. Great!
Will this mean that a netbook int eh close future can be used also for my purpose at sea?
Tags: Green Wash, Terra Choice
If you haven´t yet read the report from the Canadian organisation Terra Choice about Green Wash I strongly recommend to spend some time on it. If you are involved in Green marketing of products or services or operate an eco-label there are a lot of interesting facts and conclusions about Green marketing. Terra Choice concludes that as much as 98% of all Green claims comit at least on of the seven sins of Green Wash! http://www.sinsofgreenwash.com.
Tags: display, gaming, gamma curve, greyscale, performance, response time, viritual
Display for computer gaming
So, what are the most important aspects of a display used for computer gaming? Well, it comes down to the question on which games you are going to play. The performance of the display can make a huge difference on your computer gaming experience as it seriously affects your awareness in the virtual world.
Did you spot that guy?
First person shooters, simulators, racing, action
- Fast response time (low motion blur)
- Correct gamma curve (otherwise your opponent melt in with the background)
- Neutral grayscales (This also makes it difficult to spot things in dark settings)
Real time strategy, RPG, Massively Multiplayer, strategy
- High resolution (more detailed view of small characters and items)
- Large screen size (See a greater part of the battlefield)
- Correct colors (Is that magic potion read or purple?)
For an action game the gamma curve and greyscale performance of your display greatly affects how easy you could spot other players in the virtual world. When it comes strategy games screen size and resolution makes you see a greater portion of the game area and in this way you can see more of the things happening around you before other players.
The impact of the display on your performance at the computer is well known by the military, the medical area and several other professions where misinterpretations of the information on the display can be fatal. This is why some displays are tested and verified to have high performance. Take advantage of this!
TCO Certified displays have passed impartial testing on all these aspects and shown great performance. Look for the “TCO Certified” label on the back of the display to get a validated tool and win the game!
Tags: Green IT, ICT products, laptop, Netbook, Notebook, TCO Certified, usability
– mercury free, ultra energy-efficient and ergonomically designed
The Samsung N120 ultralight netbook is today announced as the first in the world to achieve the leading environmental and usability standard, TCO Certified. Free from mercury and other hazardous materials, offering outstanding energy efficiency and ergonomically designed keyboard and display – the N120 now adds the worlds toughest environmental and usability certifications – TCO Certified – to its list of features. See http://www.tcodevelopment.com to visit our press room for full info. 
Tags: public procurement, social responsibility
As you might be aware, we have added a criterion on social responsibility to TCO certified. To qualify for TCO certified the producer (brand owner) of the product must work actively with improving the working conditions throughout the production chain of the product. This is, as we see it, an important first step for us to try to influence the industry towards more sustainable products.
Another way to influence the industry is by asking for sustainable products when buying new ones. As a consumer this might be quite a difficult task (although it will become easier as more and more displays, projectors and computers are TCO certified). But for example public procurers can, just by thinking about what they buy, have great influence. Why should our tax money go towards buying non-environmental products possibly produced by underpaid workers in poor working conditions?
Last week I was at a round table meeting in Prague organized by the project ProcureITfair (www.procureitfair.org). They try, by information, campaigns and good examples, to influence public procurers in Europe to use their buying power and ask for IT-products that have been produced under fair conditions. We’re happy to be able to say that one step in the right direction is by asking for TCO certified products.
Tags:
The screen communicates with flashing backlight
It’s Friday and time for part 2 of our report on exciting new displays on show at the Society for Information Displays expo.
Transmissive/reflective panels readable in sunlight to the left in comparison with normal panels without reflective layer to the right.
Reflective displays
Some panels are designed with a reflective layer behind the liquid crystal. This increase readability in strong ambient light as the ambient light enters the display and bounces back out in the same direction as the backlight towards the user. The stronger ambient light the stronger the extra light that bounces back is which make the display readable in almost any ambient light condition. A normal panel only has the light from the lamps to create the picture and when the ambient light is stronger it is not possible to read the display.
Smart displays
Samsung also presented a new display technology which can communicate with for example a mobile phone by flashing backlight. The backlight flashes with such a high frequency that it is not visible but it can carry information. This may be used for digital signage to send information about the advertised product directly to the observer’s phone.
Tags: usability, World Usability Day
I am sitting on my summer cottage porch, with a fabulous ocean view. a fabulous sea side scenery. The sun is shining and I have now temporarily switched from being a usability professional at TCO Development to a private user of a coffee machine (usable and easy to handle), and user of an ancient rowing boat (very stable and easy to handle).
Though there are things in this environment that are supposed to be easy to use – that not at all!!! As a grandmother of three small children I am expected to easily and quickly switch between one remote control for the TV, a second remote control for the Digital TV box, a third remote control for the not so new VHS-video and again a fourth remote control for the DVD. This means four different sets of control buttons and other kind of complex key buttons. This means also a growing bunch of cables behind the TV ! Navigating all these controls, cables and operating systems just to get Winnie the Pooh to screen is a monumental challenge !
A strong feeling of being not such a smart grandma emerged the grandkids grew increasingly impatient. After having at last succeeded, although with the wrong video, I sought comfort in another cup of coffee, easily, smart end quickly brewed in my good old coffee brewer. Something to contribute to World Usability Day this year? Definitely! Read more about World Usability Day on 12th November,
http://www.worldusabilityday.org/
Cheers!
Hope you like...