Agner`s CPU blog

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thread New Wikibook on Usability - Agner - 2014-07-03
replythread New Wikibook on Usability - Nathan Kurz - 2014-07-24
last reply New Wikibook on Usability - Agner - 2014-08-08
last replythread New Wikibook on Usability - Just_Coder - 2014-10-26
last replythread New Wikibook on Usability - Agner - 2014-10-27
last replythread New Wikibook on Usability - Bogdan Barbu - 2014-11-04
last reply New Wikibook on Usability - Agner - 2014-11-05
 
New Wikibook on Usability
Author: Agner Date: 2014-07-03 05:07
I have published a free E-book: "Usability for Nerds" on Wikibooks. The book gives advice on how to make hardware, software and other technical things more user-friendly.
en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Usability_for_Nerds
   
New Wikibook on Usability
Author:  Date: 2014-07-24 13:15
Hi Agner --

The contents looks good. Could you also make this available as a simple link to an HTML or PDF page with a readable URL, preferably hosted on your site? I'd like to share it with others, but I don't they they will find the current format convenient. There is a "generate PDF on demand" option, but I don't know whether the link to the generated PDF is stable. I do find it ironic that I'm having usability problems with your ebook on Usability for Nerds. With complete respect, only a complete nerd would publish this book in such a theoretically advantageous but real-world unwieldy format!

   
New Wikibook on Usability
Author: Agner Date: 2014-08-08 04:41
I like the concept of wikibooks. It is dynamic and it is collective. It can be modified and updated at any time - by me or by anybody else. A paper book is static and the publication process takes so long time that some of the information in the book may be outdated even before the book is published.

My optimization manuals are also dynamic. Many people have asked me why I don't publish my manuals as books or journal articles, and people have offered to translate them to other languages. But that would spoil the idea of dynamic contents. I keep updating my manuals, and people send me corrections and additional information. Even the smallest error in my manuals is likely to be found by somebody who sends me an Email so that the error can be corrected in the next update. Paper books are not like that. They may contain obsolete information and errors that never get corrected.

The concept of Wikibooks includes the necessary feature that you can track changes and undo changes. This makes the format a little clumsy, but that is a price I am willing to pay for a Web 2.0 concept.

I have an idea that some day all of the resources on my website should go into a collective project, but I haven't found a suitable platform yet.

   
New Wikibook on Usability
Author: Just_Coder Date: 2014-10-26 14:43
Regarding your online book - to what level do you accept heavy criticism ? Along with many bright ideas I saw many conceptually wrong things there, so, you reply would be helpful to other readers as well (well, that is if you bother finding the truth instead of just publishing something, like many people do).
   
New Wikibook on Usability
Author: Agner Date: 2014-10-27 08:32
Just_Coder wrote:
to what level do you accept heavy criticism ?
I don't like anonymous criticism. Usability is a soft topic with much subjectivity. Why don't you send me an email. Is it you that has made anonymous changes in my wikibook?
   
New Wikibook on Usability
Author:  Date: 2014-11-04 23:45
Do you happen to also have it in a format suited for offline reading? I often read stuff on my e-book reader, when I don't have Internet access.
   
New Wikibook on Usability
Author: Agner Date: 2014-11-05 01:13
Bogdan Barbu wrote:
Do you happen to also have it in a format suited for offline reading?
Yes. Please click on "PDF version" in the lower right corner of the "Usability for Nerds" page.