Welcome!
Check out the presentation I gave at QITL-3 over in Helsinki (June 2, 2008). I've included my nearly infinite appendices. You can also read the paper its based on, "Measuring compositionality in phrasal verbs". Its appendix is meant to help show how to build and critique statistical models in R. Questions? Reach me by e-mail (tylers at stanford).Interface design
My other site, Linguistic Design, assembles more thoughts on user interface design than this one does.
While I don't think the world needs another design philosophy, I do think that a linguistic orientation helps to improve the questions we ask and the designs we create.
People interact with an interface through language (the button labels, the taxonomies, the instructions, the errors, the confirmations, etc), and linguistics is well-suited to tell us how language choices affect intelligibility and desirability.
- Linguistic design
- WordNet, a super-thesaurus
- Bullfighter (to avoid "leverage" and "synergy")
- Good thoughts on readability
- Some basics about language testing
If you're looking for the presentation I gave at Microsoft at the end of July, check here.
For those looking for references and resources for the presentation I gave at the UAWriters conference in Long Beach, check here.
About me
My chief interests are the role of language in human-technology interactions and in documenting endangered African languages. Theoretically, I'm interested in experimental methodology, probabilistic models of grammar, models of field work, and multilingualism.
Books for everyone
These are some books that have helped inform my own ideas of how people understand software and web services through the language in those interfaces. None of these require any specialized knowledge, just interest.
- Winograd, T. and Flores, F. (1987). Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986. Paperback issued by Addison-Wesley, 1987.
- Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Bowker, G. & S. Star (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.