Andrew Wirtanen is a usability specialist in Cary, NC More »

iPhone Tip: Enable Caps Lock

Here’s a quick tip for all of you iPhone users:

Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable Caps Lock

Now, when you quickly tap the Shift key twice on the keyboard, it will turn blue and become a Caps Lock!
Why wasn’t this enabled by default? I have tried, on numerous occasions, to figure out how to enable [...]

Usability Emergency: Japan Needs Better Phones

Usability specialists take note: Japan is in dire need of an easy-to-use phone with features they are accustomed to (mobile TV, credit card payment, GPS). It’s an interesting problem, since cellphones are radically different between the US and Japan. Japan is on the cutting edge, and mobile phones in the US are relatively outdated before [...]

MacWorld Keynote in 60 Seconds

Out of all the video podcasts that I watch, Mahalo Daily is quickly becoming one of my favorites. The podcast is hosted by Veronica Belmont, formerly of CNET’s Buzz Out Loud. When people ask me about what happened at MacWorld this week, I’ve been pointing them to this short and sweet summary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz1-cPx0cIk

Apple TV Take 2 Gets it Right

It’s taken a year and a half, but Apple has finally made the Apple TV (40GB $230; 160GB $320) worthwhile. Most of my original complaints are no longer valid, though I was correct in the device’s initial failure to grasp only but a niche market. With version 2 of the device, Apple has changed very [...]

Usability Hits Mainstream

Usability has come a long way since 1983 (the year I was born and the year this photo of Bill Gates was taken). The first Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conference was held in 1982 and some of the major contributions to the field were published a decade later (e.g. Nielsen’s Usability Engineering and Dumas’s A Practical [...]