Chromium/SRWare Iron Niceties
16-Feb, 2010
I’ve been playing around with SRWare Iron as a possible Firefox replacement and I must say, I’m pretty impressed. SRWare Iron is based upon the Chromium browser and sets itself apart from Google Chrome by implementing privacy options built right into the browser. One feature that I particularly like is how the Chromium browser shows the relative location of search terms found throughout a given web page. Although the search terms are highlighted in the actual page (“hacker” in this example), this clever feature provides useful information in existing, normally unused space.
I Think You’re in My Seat
29-Oct, 2009
My lady friend and I went on a trip down to the “lower-48.” FYI, the lower-48 is what we Alaskans call the contiguous United States. When you travel from Alaska to anywhere, you tend to ride on a few planes. Being a fan of accessibility, usability and good design I started to notice how the seat numbers were presented to the passenger of each flight. Here’s four examples, from horribly crappy to excellent, of airplane seat number signs.
This is just god awful. The font is OK. The row number is the biggest, visible character, although it would help if the letters and numbers WERE ENTIRELY VISIBLE! This silliness prompted me to ask the flight attendant if there was, in fact, a row 9 and 3/4. Her response was nothing more than a purse-lipped smile. This row was not the only row with missing information. Grade: D.
The letters and numbers were actually legible here, but some moron (or team of morons) didn’t realize that the seat information would not be visible if the overhead compartment was closed shut; brilliant. Even more of the information is obscured if you’re standing straight up, walking down the aisle. Grade: C-.
This information is presented fairly well—the row number is nice and big and it’s fairly obvious (at a quick glance) where each seat is relative to the person walking down the aisle. The lack of letters and words actually makes this more effective. The only thing that might make this better is the angle of the sign. Notice that the sign is angled downward, towards the floor…useful if you’re sitting down or a horse jockey, but Yao Ming may have to hunch down to confirm his seat. Grade B+.
We have a winner! This example has a nice big, white number with a dark, contrasting background and the only sign that used perspective to subtly inform the passenger of the seat location relative to the passerby. The information is clearly visible when walking down the aisle and when sitting. The only thing that would have made this an “A+” would be a larger window icon (right image). Grade: A.
