Thomas Otter

A member of the Gartner Blog Network

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Entries Tagged as 'usability'

Visualization and HR data.

July 2nd, 2009 · No Comments

I’m convinced that too many user interfaces are trapped by tyrannies of table and text. I while ago about blogged about many enterprise software UIs being like Donuts. Via Steve Clayton this arrived in my feedreader this morning. It is goodness. Someone give this fellow some HR system UIs to work on.
 
 

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Tags: UI · usability · visualization

All screens bright and beautiful

January 21st, 2009 · 2 Comments

There has been some discussion here in Gartner about monitors and productivity for developers and knowledge workers.
Many of us work from home, and several have multi-monitor set ups. This is Mark’s set up.

Here is mine. I’m feeling a tad inadequate. A mere 22"wide screen monitor and my T61 notebook screen.

Depending on [...]

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Tags: UI · cost optimization · software industry · usability

Continuing on the GT-R and GUIs theme.

December 30th, 2008 · 1 Comment

A few weeks ago I posted about GUIs and steering wheels, and before that on the designer of the Nissan GT-R’s relentless focus on detail. Another thing struck me about the GT-R – the dashboard design.

At the Tokyo Auto Show, Nissan honcho Carlos Ghosn unveiled the GT-R. The car, which hits the US next [...]

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Tags: UI · software industry · usability · visualization

Learning from Ubuntu and Canonical

December 23rd, 2008 · 5 Comments

Warning I’m definitely not an expert in open source operating systems. (George is)
Readers of this blog will have noted that I have an interest in design thinking. A good portion of my Christmas wish list is made up of books on design, and I will continue to inflict more of my design inspired ramblings [...]

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Tags: UI · software industry · usability

Steering wheels and application UIs.

December 13th, 2008 · 3 Comments

The Benz museum in Ladenburg is a regular haunt of mine. In walking distance of my house I can see one the of the first cars ever made.

It is one of the finest collection of vintage and significant cars as you will find anywhere, other than at the other Benz  museum in Stuttgart. It [...]

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Tags: UI · usability

Polishing cars and software

December 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

From the excellent cc flickrstream of stevelyon Thanks.
I live in Ladenburg, Karl Benz’s home town, so there is probably something slightly sacrilegious posting about the fabulously awesomely brilliant new Nissan GT-R.
I read the metacool blog regularly,  he is one of the leading thinkers on design, and his blog is full of interesting thoughts on [...]

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Tags: software industry · usability

Donuts and enterprise UI innovation?

November 26th, 2008 · 5 Comments

In my job I get to see a lot of enterprise applications. From all sorts of vendors. At least 95% of them suffer from what I call the donut syndrome.

(from the cc flickrstream of tinymeme. thankyou)
They have all sorts of funky controls around the edges of the screen, but middle bit, where you [...]

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Tags: UI · software industry · usability