Developing Usable Experiences

The “Great Space Debate”

December 22nd, 2006 8:28 am —  179 views

Not sure why, but this subject is interesting to me. It shows how people hold onto conventions and resist change. Even in light of new information.

For years now I’ve been putting one space at the end of my sentences. Sure, like most people, I learned to type on one of those big clunky electric typewriters. We were all taught to put two spaces at the end of every sentence. After getting out of college and entering the world of marketing writing, my wife learned that there is good reason to NOT put two spaces at the end of every sentence. I thought she was crazy at first. But after giving it some thought, and looking at virtually everything written or printed in the media. Nobody was using two spaces.

This came up because recent collaborative writing projects had me reviewing text written by fellow students. It seemed everybody was still using two spaces at the end of their sentences. It just looked weird. This came up again at work yesterday and I started reviewing emails that I receive throughout the day. While a lot of emails I get are one-liners, nearly all the others have two or more spaces at the end of their sentences. I had long been dismissing it as sloppy or unreviewed emails, but yesterday I realized that those white gaps in paragraphs is because of the two spaces.

While there isn’t any “authority” on the matter, there is good reason to abandon the use of two spaces at the end of your sentences. It looks odd and there is no reason to do it. This is so habitual for most people that they don’t even realize it. Look through some of the emails or letters you’ve typed recently. See what you do.

Some links if you are curious what the rest of the world thinks:

http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typespacing/a/onetwospaces.htm
http://www.westminster.edu/staff/nak/courses/spaces.htm
http://www.webword.com/reports/period.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Carnegie Mellon University, Punctuation Primer
http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/t3/wsr/csc120/wp1spa97.htm
A blog debate on the subject

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Dream cling and short stories

December 21st, 2006 8:28 am —  134 views

I’ve been reading the short stories of Orson Scott Card lately. Seeing how I don’t have to read about information theory, ethics, or other such academic subjects. While he won’t admit to being a violent person, his stories have an eerie and somber quality to them. They stay in my head for awhile.

To call him a science fiction writer isn’t too far from the truth. But like good sci-fi writers, he doesn’t explain his future as much as he just drops you into it. Its your job to make sense of things. I suppose that’s part of what makes it “good” science fiction…at least in my opinion. Other writers that are good at this are Asimov, Bradbury, Huxley. Reading Card you are reminded of the scary and freakish power the government wields. Like Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, some of Card’s stories are rooted in this eutopian future that everybody wants but never can really get. Unless you fool yourself and give up certain freedoms.

I have the next week off work and school. I hope to spend my time preparing for the new year. Cleaning up my office and such. I also hope to get some quality reading time in. Who knows though. Plans can be taunting and imaginary. We’ll just see what happens.

And what was up with that crazy dream I had last night? Maybe I shouldn’t be reading Card before I go to sleep. Not that it was anything like his short stories. But it was disturbing. Disturbing like when something you are involved in is wrong but you let it keep happening, doing nothing to stop it. Enjoying it because its rare and transitory.

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Holidays travels done, one more paper to write

December 18th, 2006 8:13 am —  217 views

This past weekend we traveled north to visit my family and my wife’s family. We had some sunshine during our travels, which was nice. It could have been snowing and slushy like past years. Friday we went to visit my brother and headed over to a local brew house (pole building) that had an intimate “tasting room” where they served the beer they brewed. The beer was fantastic. We raved about it all weekend. At my parents we hung out with my oldest nephew (who is living there at the moment). He is a riot, growing up so fast. Hard to believe he just turned 18. My parents like their Michigan sweatshirts, especially my Mother. Hers has the Michigan “M” and underneath that it says “Mom”. Michigan Mom. Yes she is.

This final paper that I need to write. Its the last paper for the group project, “Reflection on Project Planing.” It is to focus on how closely we followed our plan, where we deviated, and why. I have two nights to write it. Should be enough seeing how its only 3-5 pages (single-spaced). This group project was challenging. Not the work so much but the working with other people, their schedules and their work ethics. A good learning experience.

Time to get cleaned up and go to work. Sometimes work is a nice distraction from everything. Weird how that is.

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Quality and Compromise

December 13th, 2006 7:52 am —  127 views

Today is the last day of classes for this semester for me. I’ll sit through some student presentations then sit with my group as we give ours. I’m not one of the presenters but will be participating by fielding questions at the end. The presentation slides prepared are good and effectively tell the story of our project. At this point I feel pretty good about it.

The final report, due in a couple days, is quite good but we are still working on some parts of it. I’ve been reading and making minor revisions every day, working toward a smooth flowing, easily read report. I think I may have offended one of my group members during the revision process. A section was added that I felt didn’t fit in the overall flow of the paper or the objective of the project and I didn’t react very well to its introduction. We went round and round with emails, debating our positions. Then they just stopped. The conversation just ended. My passion and comittment may have come off as aggression and possibly burned a bridge. Time will tell.

Sometimes its hard to find that line between quality and compromise. Sometimes I wonder how Baldrick is doing.

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Almost there

December 7th, 2006 8:02 am —  146 views

Next week is the last week of classes. Well, actually, for one of my classes this is the last week. Either way, only a couple more writing assignments and the first semester out of eight that I expect to be taking to complete my masters degree will be under my belt. Then I wait for my grades, submit my paperwork, and hope for that reimbursement check.

Its 21 F out this morning. Super cold but not much snow yet. The holidays are just around the corner and frankly, they sort of suck. Oh well, like every year, I’ll make the best of them. I’ve often thought that my expectations of the holidays were formed when I was little kid. All the excitement, Santa, the gifts etc. That can’t be sustained…seems the focus on gifts skewed things for me. Hard to say.

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