A peek under my doctor’s desk reveals two computers: two power-hungry, heavy metal-bearing, non-intuitive-to-swap-between goliaths. Why? Because the HMOs whose patients he services each demand that he run a dedicated computer with their proprietary (and impossible to use — but don’t get me started) software. Have they never heard of partitioning a hard drive?

We have had more than our fair share of medicines in our home (and with nine people, even our fair share is substantial). In all these years, this is the first time I’ve seen a box include a Braille label.

I know, from my years in publishing, that embossing adds substantially to the cost of printing, so I can understand that adding Braille is not an obvious decision for a manufacturer. Nonetheless, in the quantities that pharmaceutical companies must be printing, the embossing should amortize nicely.

I assume that accessibility laws do not demand Braille labeling of drugs… but it sure seems to me that they should. Kudos to Merck for providing equal-access safety to their product, and here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a long-overdue trend.

Also recommended: Deborah Adler’s ClearRx design, implemented by the far-sighted management of Target.

Thanks to David Eisen for the tip.

“It was Disability Awareness day and the folks at Fenway did a lot of great things for kids with challenges. Here is one who sang and when he got nervous the Fenway Faithful helped him out.”

I guess some crowds have some wisdom, sometimes.

Somehow, I just had the opportunity of trying the new Google Alerts service today. Stupendous, whether by email or on your iGoogle homepage! From the site:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

• • monitoring a developing news story

  • keeping current on a competitor or industry

  • getting the latest on a celebrity or event
  • keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

This is not to say that I don’t find Google’s ability to convince me to give them information about myself creepy…

Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein provides a link on Cross-Currents to “Are Our Children Too Worldly?”, a paper by Rabbi Dr. Aharon Hersh Fried (the download link is here).

This is a very important paper. I don’t wish to quote from it, because I see how easy it could be for his ideas to be taken out of context. On such a sensitive topic as judging the appropriateness of our educational methods, it’s only natural that we will tend to instinctively respond from the gut. We are liable to approach an essay like this one from our own bias: whether it be overprotective (”He calls that religious?! How dare he quote gedolim on this!”) or liberal (”You see! This proves those ultra-Orthodox people are narrow-minded/uneducated/kept in the dark by their rabbis.”)

Nonetheless, if you can read this paper with a wide open mind to really hear what Rabbi Fried is saying (that an intellectually and religiously honest educational path in Torah is the means to further cultivate a love of Torah life), then you should read it. If you can’t, don’t. Rabbi Fried’s objections to indiscriminate blanket “protection” of children from the “outside world” call to mind the attempt to defend France with the Maginot Line: For as long as it keeps the enemy at bay, it works, but as soon as it is circumvented or breached, the situation is worse than ever, with the “protective” wall itself working against you.

My experience (as a teacher, mother, and interested observer of other people’s children) is that most American (non-Orthodox) kids are not over-protected from society, but rather are under-protected. Still, if you aren’t Jewish, or aren’t religious, but are very involved in your children’s education, you may also find the case made here to be of interest.

Another great post from Shmula, inspired by a mis-calibrated (or mis-located or environmentally handicapped) hospital room faucet. Hey, at least you probably had soap, Shmula. I was once with a child on a hospital ward (4 kids per room, plus their attending parents [required by hospital policy]) with no soap and no towels. Confidence inspiring.

I love the idea of a graphical window into a hidden world. In this case, it’s a view into a computer, and elegantly done.

When we say, “the eyes are the window to the soul,” aren’t we poetically expressing something similar? The eyes, the nuances of facial expression, body language, speech content and tone of voice all serve as our interface between the minds and hearts of people. We take for granted that we can communicate thoughts from one person to another, from one locked cranium to another. Not everyone can.

When it comes to electronic device development, we speak loftily of pervasive computing and “interaction” but our communication with our devices is about as limited as that of an unborn fetus with the outside world. We hear some noises, we see some flashing lights.

On the cutting edge, I’ve seen experiments (and patent applications) incorporating smell into mobile phones. We’re seeing the first market-viable applications of haptic feedback and more subtle, almost peripheral, GUI alerts. It’s encouraging. It gets us to the point of, say, someone with Asperger’s-type autism. We study the messages (warnings, alerts, error, menus), we think about what they might indicate, and we attempt a response hoping to achieve the desired outcome. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Ultimately, we have a long, long way to go before we can say that we are really “communicating” with our computers.

[via information aesthetics]

An informed post on Google Phone’s Android Community blog, summarizing my MEX article, published earlier this week. (Android is Google’s recently announced new open-source platform).

[Note that Power2B is a technology company, not an interface design company. We study interface needs and future trends, and then innovate to enable those dreams to become reality.]

“As the many thousands of people who have Google as their homepage already know, search can be as simple as a box on a page.  Mobile search, however, requires something of a paradigm shift; no matter how glossy the UI, tactile the interface or clever the design, emulating desktop search on a cellphone is a frustrating, scroll-heavy experience.  Sarah…, of interface design company Power2B, discusses the demands for a semantically-linked, three-dimensional mobile search environment in an article for MEX today, resolving in what she calls “mesh connectivity vs. linearity” — where search navigation is guided one step at a time through a series of clarifying options.”

I participated in the very exciting MobileMonday Global Summit* in Helsinki this September.

Arriving fairly early, I went to take a drink of water in the main hall.

Hm. I’d say this warning label pretty well killed my interest in having anything to do with this water dispenser. The caution has destroyed the utility of the whole, in this case. (I can say that because this was, after all, Helsinki. In Israel in September it is still hot enough that thirst will overcome squeamishness.)

Still, it’s interesting that the warning label was invisible from the front.

*Did you spot my brief appearance as an extra near the beginning of the video?

[via Aisle One]

A great ad campaign concept. Of course, in Israel, everyone thinks they’re tough enough to park that way (a side effect of mandatory draft). So much so that it is actually formally sanctioned (pictures taken just up the street from my home):