http://alstevens.co.uk Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:39:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en One third to a half of all people fall on the Introversion scale - and one of them is Susan Cain. In this brave–and wonderful speech to TED 'The power of Introverts' she talks of how the educational system and society systematically undermined her true nature and how she reflexively ... http://alstevens.co.uk/the-benefits-of-working-alone/ The Romans were late comers when it came to waging war at sea, and the rival Carthaginian dominion of the Mediterranean trade routes was based on their naval power which was clearly superior to that of Rome. As luck would have it, a Carthaginian quinquireme ran aground as it tried to ... http://alstevens.co.uk/iterative-innovation/ Summary Fluency studies demonstrate how we have the potential to make big improvements in the performance of our communications It has been found that students remembered and retained information better when it was presented in a disfluent (ugly) font. You may be able to increase users memory retention of detailed product information by ... http://alstevens.co.uk/benefits-of-ugly-fonts/ The benefits of pagination According to a Smashing Magazine article on pagination "In most cases pagination is better than traditional “previous – next” navigation as it offers visitors a more quick and convenient navigation through the site. It’s not a must, but a useful nice-to-have-feature." And there are plenty of examples and ... http://alstevens.co.uk/pagination-design-pattern/ Being a father and husband I can completely relate to the notion of distraction when it comes to using the web. In the real world its a rare moment when I get to sit at a computer and provide it with 100% of my undivided attention. And in a world ... http://alstevens.co.uk/users-in-the-wild/ I saw this tweet from Dustin Curtis over the weekend and thought it would be useful to give the design of the JetBlue 'flight booking' pages a quick review to try and uncover how they merited this positive response from an established user experience professional. First impressions, clean, simple and smart. ... http://alstevens.co.uk/jetblue-com-a-design-review/ I love, love, love this track and there's something oh so early nineties about the intro – the almost haunting chime which beckons in the vocals, and sound which I can't put my finger on, but a sound which nevertheless takes me back to a particular track which formed part ... http://alstevens.co.uk/fever-ray-when-i-grow-up/ Filmed in Sydney, using the docks, the fabulous harbour and Mardi Gras celebrations as his canvas Kieth Loutit explores tilt shift in full motion giving both a child like and possibly God like perspective to the world we live in. All good stuff, particularly the carnival, although it works wonderfully ... http://alstevens.co.uk/tilt-shift-in-motion/ I came across a particularly bizarre bug when working on the new Fluke website. It seemed to appear from nowhere mid-project and manifested itself in a rather odd animation glitch. I had set up a couple of jCarousel arrays and found that one one page (which had it's won unique styling) ... http://alstevens.co.uk/glitchy-and-jumpy-jqueryjcarousel-animation/ Problem: Wireless USB  adapter doesn't work on Ubuntu. Belkin and Dynamode wireless adapters Background: Since I can neither afford the luxury of an Apple OS or stand any longer the bloated and slow Windows I thought it was about time to try out Linux on a computer at home. Since the ... http://alstevens.co.uk/how-to-install-wireless-usb-drivers-for-ubuntu/