Plant-Watering Umbrella Stand - Casual water reuse...

We've already shown a few ways to reuse water on this blog - check out the toilet-top faucet, the brush & rinse toothbrush, heck, even the umbrella water gun. But this one's most similar to the plant-top dish drainer - in fact, it's practically the same thing. The strangely named "Take Care - Umbrella Stand" from What Else Design lets your wet umbrellas drip into a teeny tiny garden, so you're sustaining life instead of dealing with wet spots on the entryway floor. As a bonus, you get a tad more oxygen in the room - and I recall numerous studies showing that plantlife indoors increases morale, energy, mood, intelligence, sex appeal, and, I think, super-hero powers! Not a bad deal.
[via BigChief and Gizmodo]

"Are You Sure" versus "Undo"

From Aza Raskin at A List Apart comes a very insightful look at user interface element which is very common, but very commonly poorly designed: “Are You Sure?” dialog boxes in software. Take the example of deleting a file. When we humans get used to routines and then blaze through the things we’re familiar with – so when we delete that file and the dialog box comes up saying “are you sure?”, we know to expect it, we don’t really think about it, and we click “OK.” Only then does the realization hit us that, oh damn, I didn’t want to delete that file! But I already clicked OK! It’s done, it’s gone, nooooo! Ahem, dramatics aside, everyone’s probably experienced this kind of thing. What’s needed instead is an “undo” function – something that never bugs us in everyday usage, but is there the few times that we actually need it. Besides being more effective, this method is more efficient – the user isn’t bugged with dialog boxes and extra clicks that become a useless routine. It’s really a win-win in interface design, and yet it hasn’t even been universally adopted in a company known for excellent interface – as Raskin points out, Google’s Gmail makes wonderful use of “undo,” but Google Calendar still hits you with “are you sure?” every time. This is one of those little things that makes a real difference in usability – if only it can find its way into the stuff we use!
[via the product usability weblog]

Designing a Usable Work Day

I’ve long been an advocate that the principles of good usability design apply not only to products, but to processes and techniques that can be learned and applied in life. (See closet tricks one and two for some examples.) Here’s something in that vein that may help anyone who has a tough time starting work – whether that work is your job, a project, a paper, whatever. Matthew Moore, on his own blog, suggests leaving something simple, easy, or even enjoyable undone at the end of every work session, so that you can start with that thing the next time you begin working. Easing yourself into a working groove is much better than tackling a daunting challenge right from the start – and if you don’t leave something easy undone, you’re likely to do those easy things and leave the big scary stuff for “next time!” If you’re the kind of person who procrastinates in order to even begin working (for me, the sign was always that I’d clean my room instead of starting a paper) this could be just the thing to get you jump-started and, eventually, on to the big stuff.
[via LifeHacker]

Chairs and Tables Everywhere, but Not a Spot to Work...

From Iris Bell and through Mark Hurst’s Good Experience Blog comes this oh-so-depressing image of hotel guests trying to make the best of a bad situation. The situation: the fact that hotel lobbies don’t accommodate the traveling laptop worker (perhaps their most common kind of guest!), offering the choice of either table or a chair but almost never both. Why the poor usability design? There are a few possible culprits: I’d expect that the architectural/aesthetic “space” was the driving factor in choosing those big useless tables and comfy deskless side chairs, rather than any attention to the users’ activities. However, it’s also just possible that the lobby was designed more than 10 years ago, when working on a laptop wasn’t the modus operandi of the business traveler; instead, they just wanted comfy chairs without tables in which to read a paper or magazine. And finally, there’s the possibility that the hotel designed its lobby this way on purpose, to discourage people from doing work there and therefore destroying the ambiance for newly arriving guests. In the comments on Good Experience, several people note that at many hotels the wireless is free in the lobby, but costs extra in the guest rooms – so it turns out the no-desk design may just be to keep the masses paying for their room connections while being able to say “Free Wireless Internet!*”

"Cozy Suite" Airline Seats - Friendlier skies for everyone!

It's fun to ooh and ahh at the luxurious accommodations that the top 1% can enjoy ("First Class Cabin," anyone?) but more can be done for the goodness of humanity by making coach seats a little comfier. Thankfully, Thompson Solutions is on the right track with their "Cozy Suite," in which staggered seats offer both increased privacy and a place to rest your head other than the shoulder of the dude next to ya. It just makes sense, not to have peoples' squared shoulders taking up all the width of a narrow plane! This is just one of many cases where moving past the easy-to-engineer rectilinear default layout can open designers' eyes to what's really best for the user. I hope to see myself in one of these seats soon!
[via DVICE, CrunchGear, and Gizmodo]

Toothpaste Squeezers: Good 'til the last drop...

All right all you "green" people out there, it's time to put your money where your mouth is - or at least, where the stuff you use to clean your mouth is. Core77 Design Blog has a roundup of gadgets, gizmos, and techniques designed to help you squeeze every laste bit of toothpaste out of the tube before you toss it. They range from boring to tacky, and mostly use the same few mechanisms to get the job done - and none, to me, seems any more or less usable than the others. The exception may be the lone technique, as opposed to all the other physical products, in the bunch. If you're trying to be less wasteful in the first place, why buy one of these products that you don't really need? As for my "green" comment at the beginning of this post, surely I jest! It's unlikely that any of these products would be used enough before hitting the landfill themselves to make a net gain.
[via Make]

Cat Desk Bed - If you can't shoo'em, pamper'em...

Cats are mischievous, bold, independent creatures - they'll be wherever they damn well please, thank you, so deal with it. And having had a cat back at Mom & Dad's house in my adolescent years, I can vouch for this: cats, for some reasons, love computer keyboards. If you're working on a computer, that feline would love nothing better than to put a big furry stop to everything by plopping down on the keys - "what are you doing, and why aren't you petting me instead?" The usual response is to shoo him away, but it's often only a temporary solution that puts any exposed skin at risk of bites or scratches. So here we have a way to accommodate the cat's behavior instead of correcting it: the Kitt-In Box (ugh, that name) from The Refined Feline. It provides an even more comfortable surface than a keyboard - imagine that! - while allowing you to type, and allowing the cat to bask in your productive presence. Good design needs to know when to change users' (humans or pets) natural behaviors, and when to just accommodate them - and of course, when to know the difference. I think this one got it right.
[via Geekologie and Make]