There is one web browser issue that I consistently fall victim to. This is the problem that keyboard focus appears to jump, for no reason, from widget to widget, and sometimes from a widget to the address bar. I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with starting to type before the page-load is complete. For example, I will be typing my user name into the user field, and halfway through typing the cursor jumps to the password field. Then, thinking I am still in the user name filed, I hit tab and type in my password, but it didn’t go into the password field, because I was already there. Instead the tab caused me to go to the address bar, and my password goes there.

Of course this wouldn’t happen except for the fact that I occasionally type while not paying attention to what is happening on screen. That shouldn’t be a problem, though. Once I have stuck the cursor into the user field things should happen predictably, and consistently. Keyboard focus should not jump randomly.

So, what are the possible negative outcomes of this? The most basic, and most harmless, is that I simply have to type in things again. There is a more dangerous security concern, however. When my password is entered in the address bar then anybody watching me as I type can see what it is, and possibly deduce that it is my password. Even worse, maybe, is that if I hit “enter” after typing the password then people peeking at traffic can spot this request. If they see a strange request for “mypassword” go by unencrypted they might be able to use that knowledge maliciously.

That’s it. This is a concern that is both a usability annoyance, and a security risk.

I needed some noise-isolating headphones, so I went down to Yodobashi and picked up a pair of Sennheiser CX400s. When I got them home I was faced with a daunting task: opening one of these horrid glued together plastic clamshell packages with nothing but my fingers and some nail-clippers. Any company who still uses packaging like this must hate itself. Why? Because every customer who is forced to struggle opening one of these things forms a negative opinion towards your product before even having a chance to try it.

Packaging is important, even though it’s something you only deal with once. Or, maybe it’s important because you only deal with it once. Apple figured this out. Opening an iPod or a Mac is a joy, and something you remember for a long time. I will remember the Sennheiser experience as well, mostly because of my sore fingers and a smallish cut.

And how are the headphones? A little bit muddy and bass-heavy compared to my Grados, but of course there isn’t really anything under $100 to compare with a nice set of Grados.

Update Dec. 5, 2008: These headphones are pretty terrible. It really hit home listening to Black Sabbath: Paranoid. It’s like I’m listening to my neighbours’ music through the wall. Boomy, indistinct, and altogether unpleasant.

I recently flew to California on Air Canada to attend CHI 2007, a conference dealing with computer-human interaction. I was overjoyed (or perhaps just joyed) upon entering the plane to see that they had the seatback touchscreen entertainment systems that allow each person to choose their own movie or TV show. The bodings were ominous however, when an announcement (paraphrased) came over the speaker that “once the entertainment system is activated, be careful to not touch the screen too many times in quick succession, or it will crash.” Over the course of the flight I would discover the many other ways in which the seatback entertainment system was deeply inadequate.

So let’s enter rant mode and simply list the many flaws in the system. First the system reacted very slowly to any input. Several seconds would pass after touching the screen and seeing any sort of feedback. Second, the movies and TV shows were categorized in non-intuitive and inappropriate categories. Finding something you wanted required navigating up and down the hierarchy to figure out where Air Canada hid whatever you wanted. This was made more maddening by the slow response. Third, many of the buttons were far too small and jammed together. My fingers are fairly slim, but I only had about a 50% success rate in pressing many of the buttons (particularly for changing volume). Fourth, much of the text was far too small, to a degree that the woman across the aisle from me couldn’t read it at all. She had to get somebody beside her to read it for her.

So is having the entertainment system better than having no entertainment system? Absolutely, however overall the system was about as bad as it could be while still functioning. It seems the people designing it had no sense for how it would be used, and what requirements there might be. If I were Air Canada I would have refused to pay for this. I suspect they are perfectly content though. The management responsible for installing these systems probably doesn’t spend too much time worrying about user/customer satisfaction with the system. They just want to be able to tick the box beside “seatback entertainment system” in their competitive advantage comparison chart.