Sami Wagiaalla's Blog

I was worried about fumbling with oddly shaped box on the subway. The cashier asked me which way I would like to carry it and stuck those handles on for me. Loved it.

I can’t prove this but I think this would work much better if the sign was on the other door saying: “Pleas use this door”

I am not a big fan of the twist switch. I actually took the shade of this lap to take the picture which improved the user interface a little bit.

The old saying goes “the customer is always right”. This saying, in a nice sound bight, summarizes the idea of good customer service. That you should always make your customer happy, because, in the end, it is her money that you seek.

I think this is far truer for users though. I believe that every mistake a user makes, their first attempt at something, and the questions they ask give the developer valuable insight into how they can improve the usability of their software. Always.

I started reading this book about preparing and giving presentations. I definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in become awesome at presentations

Checkout this video for a taste:

Today I received an interesting piece of spam. The subject of, and body of the email were text from a random page of some random novel.

I knew it was a spam email but when I first glanced at the header I thought it was an interesting story. The thought occurred to me that maybe spammers are beginning to become more like traditional spammers (advertisers). Give you an interesting story (like a TV show) then the usual piece about discount drugs (or cleaning products). Turns out it was random, but less random than the usual gibberish

Sometime I wonder if posting my block on fedoraplanet is spam

Here is an excerpt from the email:

TTC is the Toronto Transit Commission. They have a gum problem. Sometimes there is gum stuck on the seats and I guess under the seats of the subway cars. So, they introduced this new add:

Do you think this is an effective user interface ? If not what could be better ?

Since I became a Canadian Citizen I have never voted out of interest in voting. One time a friend dragged me to a voting station to participate in the vote for the nominee for the leadership of the conservative party in Alberta. I had very little interest in that, mainly because it was getting in the way of precious sleep, but also because I didn’t know the candidates and it seemed to me that this had no effect on my day to day life.

In the interest of of influencing my vote my friend kept on waxing lyrical about his candidate. By the time I got to the voting both I had forgotten his candidates name and picked something that sounded like it (btw they should randomize the order of the names on the ballots. Each batch should have a different order. Do they do that ?… I don’t know)

While discussing all of this with a friend of mine I came up with an idea, but never implemented it. So, since it has been over a year, I thought I would share it with you in the hopes of inspiring someone else to do it, or tell me that it has already been done.

The idea is to have an RSS feed, twitter feed, maybe even a Facebook fan page, that tells me how my Member of Parliament is voting everyday. Some very short -clutter free- blurb with maybe a wikipedia link about the particular motion or bill. I can comment on this, share it with my friends, etc. Come election time I know exactly who my MP is and how they have been voting their entire term. My friend pointed out TheyWorkForYou.com. I like it, but it seems too clutersome to me. (is clutersome a word ?.. firefox does not think so)

Things are okay in Canada. It is a great place to live. For these reasons Canadian politics are boring. The things that interest us are grand and riddled with externalities; you know, things like the environment and world hunger… but maybe these will become more achievable if we keep close watch on our politicians.