PhantomJS is a program that gives you headless interactions with a browser. Essentially it’s a fully scriptable web browser. I’ve found it to be a valuable tool and have thus far used it four different ways.

• Unit Testing my JavaScript. This way my unit tests run in an actual browser.
• Automated looking at an actual browser DOM to find out plugin configuration.
• Generating screenshots of thousands of infographics that were built as HTML pages to take advantage of code already in place.
• As a part of a build tool for generating a sprite and a map based off of canvas and SVG.

There are many tools that use PhantomJS these days. Have you found any new or interesting ways to do so?

If the user is rather more ‘experienced’ in life and on the other side of middle age, it’s quite easy for us to attribute an error to their age rather than say their actual cognitive ability. But is there actually any science here? Or is it all ageist garbage?

via 4 ways to support an older website user – Humanising Technology Blog.

A look at some academic articles about designing and supporting an application with older users in mind. The research finds that for older users, it is especially important to avoid putting to much cognitive strain on the users. Therefore it is especially important to strive for simplicity.

The author also points out the important fact that you should not blame the user for the problems they are having with your application. This reminds me of something that Andrew Spittle pointed out, “if a feature or product were legitimately easy the user would not be writing in to support about how stuck they are”.

The moral is that when it comes to older users, the same mantra applies: Strive for simplicity. After all, a design is done not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.