Communications of the ACM articles from May 1999

Communications of the ACM archives from May 1999

News Track.(News Briefs)
May 1, 1999... HIGH-TECH THIEVERY Direct losses technology companies attribute to theft are now $250 million a year, and the industry spends another $750,000 a year on insurance and security measures, according to a study by the Rand Corp. The survey...

Y2K COUNTDOWN.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Chemical Reaction The good news is the major chemical companies in the U.S. are in an excellent state of Y2K preparedness; the bad news is the smaller chemical companies are not. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board...

How Xday Figures in the Y2K Countdown.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Here we are, eight months out and counting. We've already seen glimpses of things to come. Stories like that of Lynn Electric, Bluefield, WV. When the company tried to close its 1998 payroll "all documents reverted to 1944." (Washington Post,...

How Often Should A Firm Buy New PCs?(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Anyone who has purchased a PC in the last 10 years knows the two basic results: the day after you buy a computer the price will drop, and as soon as you choose a computer a faster model will be released. While these factors may seem painful at...

Saving Our Sacred Honor.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... I get several Y2K-related queries from nontechnical folks almost daily. People genuinely confused and truly afraid because for the first time in their lives they are not sure they can trust the technologies they place great faith in, and yet,...

PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGIES.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Now is your chance to decide what they will persuade us to do--and how they'll do it. PERSUASION HAS ALWAYS been part of the human experience. From ballads to bible stories, parents to personal trainers, people have always sought to...

THE LANDSCAPE OF PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGIES.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Aimed largely at children today, persuasion is already part of many technologies, but many more are on the way for everyone else. FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, PERSUASIVE technologies are already part of the everyday technological landscape we...

CREDIBILITY AND COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Users want to trust, and generally do. But that trust is undermined, often forever, when the system delivers erroneous information. FOR MOST OF COMPUTING'S BRIEF HISTORY, PEOPLE have held computers in high regard. A quick review of the...

UNDERSTANDING THE SEDUCTIVE EXPERIENCE.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Extraordinary products seduce the casual user, as well as the paying customer. Software is no exception, as long as it fulfills its promises. SEDUCTION IS AN ASPECT OF THE growing field of captology, the study of how technologies persuade....

TOWARD AN ETHICS OF PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGY.(Technology Information)
May 1, 1999... Ask yourself whether your technology persuades users to do something you wouldn't want to be persuaded to do yourself. Technologies have always influenced our lives and how we lead them, but for the most part, their effects on our attitudes...

THE DIVERSITY OF USABILITY PRACTICES.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... To: Jacob Buur and Kirsten Bagger (Danfoss) From: Mary Czerwinski and Michael Muller (Microsoft) We very much liked the idea of moving the traditional style of usability engineering away from the sterile laboratory environment and...

Replacing Usability, Testing with USER DIALOGUE.(Danfoss, Denmark's largest manufacturing company)(Company Operations)
May 1, 1999... How a Danish manufacturing company enhanced its product design process by supporting user participation. USABILITY TESTING HAS NOW BECOME A well-known method in product development for examining new products before they are put in the hands...

INCREASING EASE OF USE.(includes related article on DB2 Universal Database case study)(Company Business and Marketing)
May 1, 1999... Emphasizing organizational transformation, process integration, and method optimization. To: Karel Vredenburg (IBM) From: Jacob Buur and Kirsten Bagger (Danfoss) Challenges in a large and mature UCD organization like IBM are...

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DESIGN PROCESS.(Bang & Olufsen)(Company Business and Marketing)
May 1, 1999... Achieving essential strengths in design, sound, picture, user interaction, and system integration. To: Klaus B. Baerentsen and Henning Slavensky (B&O) From: Karel Vredenburg (IBM) Baerentsen and Slavensky present a refreshing...

Strengthening the Focus on USERS' WORKING PRACTICES.(Kommunedata)(Company Business and Marketing)
May 1, 1999... Getting beyond traditional usability testing. To: Julie Gardner (KMD) From: William R. Dolan, Jr. and Joseph S. Dumas (AIR) Overall, KMD's testing methods are similar to those we experience in the U.S. The idea of the workshop...

A Flexible Approach To Third-Party Usability.(American Institutes for Research)(Company Business and Marketing)
May 1, 1999... As the nature of usability testing changes, so too have the techniques of third-party vendors. For the past 15 years, American Institutes for Research (AIR) has been providing usability services as a third-party vendor to industry and...

ORGANIZING USABILITY WORK To FIT THE FULL PRODUCT RANGE.(Microsoft)(Company Business and Marketing)
May 1, 1999... As broad and varied as it may be, design influence still must maintain a user-centered perspective. To: Michael J. Muller and Mary Czerwinski (Microsoft) From: Julie Gardner (KMD) Most usability organizations expect early...

Cooperative Usability Practices.(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Detailed studies illustrate the diversity of ways to improve product quality by nurturing usability issues. Usability engineering and testing blossomed in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. At the time, testing was viewed as another variation of...

Reuse: Been There, Done That.(reusable software)(Industry Trend or Event)
May 1, 1999... Every regular reader of software engineering literature has surely seen articles proclaiming benefits of software reuse. While sometimes portrayed as one of the elusive software silver bullets, reuse has also received a fair amount of negative...

Ten Myths about Y2K Inspections.(Industry Trend or Event)(Column)
May 1, 1999... As I write this, the alarmist reports about Y2K are being replaced with more comforting statements. Repeatedly, I hear, "We have met the enemy and fixed the bugs." I would find such statements comforting if I had not heard them before when they...