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So, I'm pretty excited about my new Ipad. In honor of it's first day with me, I gave up my treasured paper Sunday Crossword to do the crossword on its screen.
Nice features: it automatically loads the puzzle, strikes out the clues you've answered, gives you easy access to past puzzles.
Reasons why I am still a luddite, of sorts: you can't see the whole puzzle at once without making it too small to type, it tries to make you answer the clues in a certain order and forces you to scroll around a lot when you won't, it's hard to see both across and down clues together, hard to toggle back and forth between across and down.
Ok. So some of these will improve with time. But I still think it was telling that, on a Tuesday puzzle, which I tried after Sunday's, it took me almost 10 and a half minutes. That's way longer than my normal time! And, at least in part, I think it was because I couldn't work it the way that I wanted to.
Right, Sarah. Blame the puzzle.......
Really! I went back to my favorite form of non-paper puzzle today - the ancient AcrossLite2 - and had a grand old time filling out the crossword. I can work it just the way that I want to and can see the whole puzzle at once.
No truly inspired clues today, although 'still mooing' for rare was kind of funny. I always do like it when words like 'calibrate' are in the puzzle. The theme - sign on the dotted line - was too easy to figure out, however.
On the ancient technology: 6:58
In lieu of running, as I seem to be interested more in expanding in other ways, I will vicariously live through the soccer players in the World Cup.
I will stretch today, too. Must do this and push-ups as soon as I get off the computer. I'm still worried about my leg. Every time I try to work on it, that quad gets sore. Really sore. Something still just doesn't feel quite right about it. Hopefully, all of this additional rest will help it. Knock on wood for me, please! I've got to start training for NY or equivalent sometime next week! The race this weekend is pretty much a total bust but at least I'll have good scenery for it.
I'll post a 'travelogue', if you will, about it after the race.
Words matter
1 week ago
Hey, you are totally right in blaming the puzzle. A UI should help not hinder.
ReplyDeleteWhat is especially cool here, though, is the fact that you have quantitative data to back up your conclusions: a puzzle that would have taken n minutes to complete on paper took n2 seconds to complete through a digital UI. Substitute "task" for "puzzle" and you have a classic UX analysis.
NYT stores your past times. correct? It would be cool to chart how your time-to-task-completion on the iPad improves relative to your history with the web UI.