Almost five years ago Chauncey Wilson and Len Conte wrote about eight new technologies for usability and user interface design. Which of these became tools of the trade? Here's a quick review:
- Miniature Scan Converters: Practically all usability labs now have scan converting technology as standard equipment. More recent software tools, such as Morae have eliminated the need for hardware scan converts by capturing all video in the digital domain.
- Digital Tape Recorders: For audio recording, these have taken sometime to take route, but have become commonplace now with the proliferation of portable mp3 players.
- Wireless TV Transmitters: Broadband (and soon wireless broadband) has supplanted the need for TV transmission.
- Seiko Smart Pad/Virtual Ink Mimio/Printable Post-It Notes: These three approaches to capture written data had temporary popularity, but were too cumbersome or gimmicky to catch-on.
- Apple Macintosh iMac DV/Lotus Screen Cam and Read-Write CDs: Both of these technologies were the predecessors of digital software and capture tools that became useful when data storage, networking, and processing speed made them practical.
So Wilson and Conte were on track in terms of video and audio capture and editing. But when it comes to note-taking, simple pen and paper are still the tools of choice.
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