Re: [IxDA Discuss] Using ellipsis in menu, context menus or buttons
Mentally, I have always mapped the presence of an ellipsis to Puts the user in a modal state where he has to do something to get back to what he was doing -- ie, shows a dialog that the user has to interact with (if only to exit), but there could be other modal states to be processed that are not tied to a dialog. That isn't quite how it is usually used, I realize, but as you note, how it is usually used isn't consistent. (Note that the model I used would put an ellipsis on a command which just puts up a status alert. Because to the user, an alert is a dialog, no different than the no-op About dialog in what the user has to do next. Which should encourage use of other status techniques than mode-forcing alerts! -- Jim On 02/15/2010 02:28 AM, sysscore wrote: i have a question about when i should use ellipsis for commands in menus, contextual menus and buttons in desktop applications (in Java). Sadly, the guidelines of microsoft and mac osx are different about this topic. I have found some interesting links in the web but nothing could answer my questions... Microsoft writtes, that ellipsis should be used, when: Proper use of ellipses is important to indicate that users can make further choices before performing the action, or even cancel the action entirely. The visual cue offered by an ellipsis allows users to explore your software without fear. This doesn't mean you should use an ellipsis whenever an action displays another window—only when additional information is required to perform the action. For example, the commands About, Advanced, Help, Options, Properties, and Settings must display another window when clicked, but don't require additional information from the user. Therefore they don't need ellipses. In case of ambiguity (for example, the command label lacks a verb), decide based on the most likely user action. If simply viewing the window is a common action, don't use an ellipsis. *** Macintosh writtes, that ellipsis should be used, when the action: Is performed by the user in a separate window or dialog. For example, Preferences, Customize Toolbar, and Send Feedback all use an ellipsis because they open a window (potentially in another application, such as a browser) or a dialog in which the user sets preferences, customizes the toolbar, or sends feedback. To see why such commands must include an ellipsis, consider that the absence of an ellipsis implies that the application performs the action for the user. If, for example, the Send Feedback command did not include an ellipsis, it would imply that feedback is generated and sent automatically by the application. *** I think, the rules of mac osx are very easy to understand. But the rules of microsoft are not. Furthermore, when i check up some microsoft products, the rules are not respected (e.g. the Options button). In our application we have for example a non modal dialog, in which items can be locked or unlocked. The problem is, the user does not need to be perform the command immediately. But if i named the menu command Lock/unlock items the ellipsis are required, because user could be expected, that the command will be executed immediately. In other dialogs, user can managed diefferent presets of specific settings. Should i don't use ellipsis only if the command name is non-ambiguous e.g. Permission overview or only information will be displayed? Should i use ellipsis, if the user can make some changes (immediately or not immediately)? Or must commands named without the verb of the action? Thanx Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why The Apple iPad Will Disappoint (The Obama Effect)
Um, what the heck are you going on about? Is the iPad any different from the iPhone in this regard Go back to using Linux and let us get back to drooling, okay? grin -- Jim Via my iPhone On Jan 29, 2010, at 7:48 AM, Sachin Ghodke sachyn.gho...@gmail.com wrote: And one of the most important reason why iPad and Apple in general will disappoint - http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad A step backward is disappointing for a brand like Apple. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48772 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] iPad.
And even that is going to depend on what work is. The huge majority of what I do on a daily basis could be accomplished via Safari, Calendar, Mail, and iWork. I bought an Aspire One netbook to supplant my Nokia N800; this will replace that in my travel arsenal. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Jan 28, 2010, at 6:56 AM, Tracy Boyington tracy_boying...@okcareertech.org wrote: I'm not going to do any actual *work* on an iPad. I'd use a laptop for that. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Age vs Date of Birth in sign up form
On Jan 20, 2010, at 11:30 AM, Michelle Rajunov wrote: Hi all, The site we're doing is a contest users enter and submit photos. It requires users to be over 18, or if they are between 14 - 17 they have to go through a consent flow. I got a question from a designer about what would be better in terms of UX for the sign up form - asking the user for: - their age with a text input /or select, OR - their date of birth, with 3 select fields [day, month, year] Just wanted to get some input about your experience with this. Two things come to mind on this: * How inclined to lie are your users going to be? If they perceive a benefit to being older (or younger), or they don't want to reveal their age, or they just want to f-ck with your system stats, they will put in a false value -- typically 21, 69, or 99/100 (read: lowest legal age, a sex reference, and something allowed but ridiculous high and thus obviously false). You see this all the time on social networking sites, especially hook up sites. If they are inclined to lie, you can get better results with the full birth date entry, since it's harder for them to calculate to false answers they want to give the most. (You'll still get lots of lies, of course, but less obvious ones and probably fewer overall.) * Are you going to do anything else with the birth date info, such as providing horoscopes, sending birthday greetings, or unlocking additional functionality when they turn 18? If not, then the simpler Age value is easier to implement and might be the better choice. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Trust and URLs
On Dec 28, 2009, at 4:57 PM, Jared Spool wrote: In My Opinion: most users won't notice. It'll depend far more on the content. Why did people type in pear.com to begin with? It wasn't a random act -- something told them to do that. Whatever content is on the resulting page, that should match their expectation. If it matches, they won't bother to check the URL. Further, why are they typing in the URL in the first place. That will only happen if they are transcribing it from some form of print media (or word of mouth). In which case they are going to be that much more aware of what they are expecting to see, and so pear.com becoming fruit.com/pear won't be an issue if the forwarded URL and the visual display match their expectations. Consider http://iflyswa.com and http://iphone.com for examples of redirects which are not going to be an issue if someone types them in. And in reverse, something like http://outcountrydance.com, which goes to a mirror of http://iaglcwdc.org and has no OutCountryDance text content. (In fact, it may actually be more of an issue if they clicked on a link that was supposed to go to pear.com and then redirected them elsewhere. It's that surprise redirect from a mystery link that is the problem people are trained to watch for, I think.) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Deciding whether to use a Show n items per page control
On Dec 7, 2009, at 6:28 AM, Chris Rink wrote: I agree with 37 Signals that you should just choose the paging size. The page size is really a question of performance. And I don't think you would ask your user what type of performance they want. You already know, they want it fast. I would think that rather than making the user choose one or choosing one that may be fine for most and lousy for some, better would be let the user's environment determine the size. That is, whatever portion of the window isn't occupied by header and footer and overhead, that's determines how many items show. If they change the window size or possibly the text size -- which indicates a desire to change how they view things, you change how much shows to match -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dustin Curtis, UX Design, and American Airlines
On Nov 24, 2009, at 9:45 PM, Weston Thompson wrote: On the web front, I also dislike very much their use of red to indicate the primary button in their booking flow. I have actually abandoned bookings accidentally due to that more than one time. Doesn't red mean avoid?? No, red does not mean avoid. It means stop, and luck, and this is turned on, and tasty, and rare, and wounded, and it's a primary color, and it's a Christmas color, and it's a Valentine's Day color, and you get the picture. And of course in this case, it's a logo color for American Airlines (and for the USA). If you have a this only means one thing definition of a given color, you probably have problems on the web beyond not finishing booking airplane tickets. If you want to tag a single term to the color, I would say it means pay attention to this, and thus may be a fine thing for Hey, here's what you click to finish working on this web page. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should tab order always strictly follow visual order?
From: Alan Wexelblat awexelb...@gmail.com What I'd like to do is have TAB move the user from A-B but then from B-F, skipping the defaulted fields. I know this is going to inconvenience that 10% of users who want to change the default, but the alternative seems to be inconveniencing the 90% who have to hit TAB four times to get to the next field they care about. First, remember that (assuming a completely general audience) many people have no concept at all that tab does move between fields. They do all form filling by click-type-click-type. For that fragment that does use tab: * If you use tab to more through all the fields, yes, the 90% who don't need to change those fields save three key presses. * If they did have to tab through those fields, though, they don't have to reacquire the tab key. They just pressed it, so they can just press it again with minimal time/effort cost. * If tab skips those fields, and they are users who expect tab to hit all the fields, are they going to think Cool, they skipped over the fields I didn't want to use? Or will they think Crap, where did the focus go? Oh, down there. If I press tab again, will it go to the next field, or will it jump back up, or maybe go God knows where? (That is, if you violate the standard, people who are used to the standard may not trust you to adhere to it anywhere.) * For that 10% of users who *do* need the fields, if tab skips them, what to they have to do? Click in the field. And thus again, the message you've sent to users who expect standards adherence is that they can't trust that you will anywhere, that they are going to have to expect to manually click potentially at any time in using your app. In the end, in the name of saving three button presses for many users, you have made things far more difficult for a small portion of the users and told every one of your users who care about standards that you don't. (You've also annoyed the spit out of your QA team, because they asked about this and you've told them to their face that they can't plan on tab order anywhere in the product. And if it's broken anywhere else, they have to ask twice to know if it's really broken or if you were just saving a button press or two.) A better solution may be to redesign your form. Put the defaulted fields at the end if possible. Those who want to avoid button presses can just click the end button, or they can tab through the fields even more quickly and reduce their cognitive load. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Rating vs Like
On Nov 11, 2009, at 8:31 AM, R. Tan wrote: Any thoughts on when it is best to use a rating system vs a simple like/don't like voting feature? I currently need to decide which way to go on a restaurant guide project in which the existing rating system is a 1-5 scale star (with no guide, higher stars = better). Unless one has a known and universal explanation on how stars are valued, it seems that the rating system is flawed. What are your thoughts on this? In my experience, a star-based rating system has inherent flaws: * Does 1 star mean passable or very bad? * Does 0 stars mean unrated, neutral, or very bad? * Does 3 stars out of 5 mean fairly good or neutral? Everyone knows more or less what the extreme ends mean, but not the middle. Is one star less than max only a little under tops or quite a bit? Only the rater knows for sure. I think what is generally needed for most cases is a four-option set: * Hate it * Neutral * Love it * Haven't rated it -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] [plug] World Usability Day Special Offers and Other News
Oh, the evil comments that can spring from Freudian typos… -- Jim Via my iPhone On Nov 5, 2009, at 3:31 AM, William Hudson william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk wrote: WORD USABILITY DAY Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX trends for big corporations
Just to ask the question: are you evaluating IE7 as well. Especially with boxed software, it's no surprise that some might fail with the newest browser. IE6 desire is so problematic to me because it is *two* releases back. Not that I personally know details about one IE over another. I only use it when embedded in other apps or with one piece of time management software I have to use which won't run on Chrome or Safari or Firefox. IE is always my last choice. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Nov 2, 2009, at 7:28 AM, Jennifer R Vignone jennifer.r.vign...@jpmorgan.com wrote: I work for a major financial firm. We are currently testing IE8 and I am on the team that is actively testing. It is interesting how difficult it really is to just upgrade. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A minor follow-up on identifying credit cards' types
On Oct 9, 2009, at 8:47 AM, Alan Wexelblat wrote: Recently there was a discussion on the list about whether it was necessary to require users to select what type of credit card they were entering. Someone once tried to tell me that requiring the user to select a credit card type was intended to (or at least served the purpose of) a protection against card number thieves and such. I didn't quite believe them then, and even less so now. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Wheels as user interface mechanisms
On Oct 8, 2009, at 6:59 AM, Russell Wilson wrote: Post on wheels as user interface mechanisms: http://uitrends.com/2009/10/07/wheels-keep-on-turnin/ Curious - are there any examples of graphical wheels in user interfaces? Specifically a graphical wheel that the user would have to rotate? The SoftBook Reader and Gemstar eBook (think Kindle, but almost a decade earlier and more attractive form) from circa 1999 had a feature for waking up to do an automatic download of content (aimed at newspaper feeds). The interface had a clock which you could set by moving the hands (as well as by setting the numbers). Frankly, it was more precious than useful as a feature (says the guy who tested it). A classic case of emulating the physical mechanics (although at least you could set hour and minute hands independently). -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Exploring the Magic of Design
On Sep 27, 2009, at 5:30 PM, Steve Baty wrote: So you're thinking of magic in the Arthur C. Clarke sense of any sufficiently advanced technology (or service)...? But don't forget the corollary: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science! From the massively fantastic (and 2009 Hugo Award-winning) webcomic, Girl Genius: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205 -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Unusable things
From: Stephen Holmes stephenwhol...@me.com 1. Elevator buttons - I agree, however what stops somebody who un-selects YOUR floor so that they go straight past yours to theirs? Scenes of elevator rage - (pictures at 10!) Solve that one and you'll be rich! Is that cause of elevator rage going to be any more prevalent than when someone todays punches several buttons that for floors they don't intend to get off on? But in general, this isn't too difficult to solve. Instead of just pushing the button, cause the push to lock the button, and add a small ridge on the button to allow for a finger grip on it (like on the bottom of a non-optical mouse). To turn the floor off, you push and twist the button. While this wouldn't cure people maliciously un-punching your floor, it would allow fixing of mistakes and would prevent most accidental turning off of the button by requiring a small intentionality. 2. Toilet doors - here in Oz we don't have that issue - public toilets at least have to push in - building regs. As for washing hands, that is what a hand drier is for? Germs on door-handles is a fallacy perpetuated by manufacturers of disinfectant creams and toilet seat cover salespeople. Germs can't live that long outside a host. Not long, no. Anywhere from a few seconds to 48 hours (if the surface is damp, as it might be from a guy piddling in the urinal and then not wiping his hand). Or up for 4 days in the case of Hepatitis C. That said, even if you washed your hands for 30 seconds in hot water with disinfectant soap -- and how many of us do? (three people will pipe up right now) -- you still have a bundle of germs in the ridges of your fingers, under your nails, crawling down your arms, picked up from the air. And most of those are already in you, too. So there's less new stuff you're going to pick up than people are led to fear. 4. Apple Mouse - admit it Steve Jobs - two buttons ARE okay on a mouse. Just move one dude! ;-) TFIC Move on yourself, dude! Please come out of the 1990s with this old chestnut. Apple sells two-button mice these days. So far as I can tell with a couple minutes perusal, they only sell the Mighty Mouse now. (Okay, actually this is technically a no-button mouse, but it is configured as two-button by default, I think, and can be set for one button or up to four. I use one of Apple's with my Acer netbook, in fact.) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] wording on time and speed
On Sep 25, 2009, at 3:35 PM, Jared Spool wrote: On Sep 25, 2009, at 2:17 PM, yunli...@gmail.com wrote: We have a software that allow user to change their preference on how fast they want a certain things to show up. The current UI is a slider with measurement units as milliseconds. e.g. , 500 msec. It's too technically precise to be understood. I'm thinking to change it to some simple texts, such as 0.5 second, immediate, or instant. I wonder if there is some guideline or recommendation of the words that are better understandable for users? Interesting. Why would someone want a setting other than fastest? If you label it that way, no reason to want something else. But if you label it with more detail, maybe there's a tradeoff? Show images low res (faster) / Show images hi res (prettier), for example. Although I would also say that unless there's a major difference -- 3 seconds vs. 1 minute to draw things -- then the right answer here may be for the designer to make a choice that serves most users best and not foist it off onto the user. (It's sort of like being too PC, isn't it: we don't want to offend anyone so we put all the options out there as of equal value and let the user muddle through.) Stepping back a level, of course, is Why the heck should it take long enough to render your UI that you need to think about this choice? There may be a root design or architecture issue here which could be resolved to solve this on a deeper level. Back to the original question, though, unless your audience is exclusively techies, 500 msec either means that's probably a huge number, whatever it means or they have to pause for a couple seconds to decipher and evaluate what it means, and that's really bad for efficiency. 0.5 seconds or 1/2 second would be much better for 99.9% of the population. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] web video content
Few TV shows start with the title and credits. They start with a touch of action or a joke, and then do the opening titles. But for some shows, that would disrupt the narrative or otherwise not work with the style of the show. The style you want to project should dictate the format. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Sep 11, 2009, at 1:03 PM, Sheri Hyman sher...@verizon.net wrote: Working on a project which has a video explaining a new product. The video, as it stands now, is about 5 minutes and has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is a (rather boring and technical) introduction: Hi, I'm so-and-so, I invented this product and this is why. Then it gets into how to use the product. The video editor (who comes from a television background) feels strongly that we need the introduction first, for the flow/narrative. I feel strongly that the intro will lose viewers' interest and we should jump right into how to use the product, with only a title card as introduction, and use the intro later in the piece. My thinking is that web video is not like a TV show: if you don't have your viewer's interest in the first 30 (??) seconds, they aren't going to watch. But I can't find any research to back up my position. Does anyone know of any research or have any thoughts on this? By the way, for budget reasons, we cannot do any reshooting or voice work, we can only edit what we have. Thanks, Sheri Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] iPhone turnover (was Re: We don't make consumer products, hence no need for a User Centered Design development process.)
On Aug 29, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Ali Naqvi a...@amroha.dk wrote: With regards to iPhone I would say that many users are now complaining about the phone. Well, 1/10 of 1% are complaining, and 90% of those due to AppStore approvals rather than the phone. Is thar many? Maybe many who I talk to to see if they want to complain. Your closeness to the interviewed set gives an illusion of numbers, I think. The vast majority of iPhone users have little they complain about. What did the Iphone have apart from its touchscreen and finger moving interaction? That and software that was fully integrated are all it needed. I test software that interacts with a myriad of phones and other devices. Many of these work perfectly okay. Which is to say none of them work beyond adequately. They do the job, but nothing — nothing! — is impressive enough to brag about, or even consider enjoyable to work with. That is the only feature that the iPhone needed: 9 times out of 10, you will say Yes, that worked just like it should.. No other phone's non-phone tools come remotely close to that. You use them because they are there, not because they are good. If it fell to the ground it was done over with. My colleague accidentally dropped it to the ground and the phone was dead. That's why I consider my TV to be substandard, because it breaks if I drop it. And I definitely have no ceramic coffee mugs. If a droppable phone is the important feature, buy one suited for that. (Me, I got a shock resistant iPhone app to help with the issue. People who don't are probably foolish.) Tons of my friends went back to Nokia or other models after trying Iphone for 6 months. The only person I know who did that was someone for whom the prime feature was being able to muck with the OS code, so he went to to an Android. I tend to suspect tons is measured in pounds here, and it was either people with major misconceptions going in or those predisposed to find fault and never expected to hang onto the iPhone. Are there any stats out there for actual turnover if actual users? -- Jim Via my iPhone Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How do you make sure your design gets implemented right?
19 years doing it, I can't help but bring it up. Grin. Two more things from you brought up: 1. Cultivate a UX test savvy QA person. They can see the 13 shades of gray and single pixel alignment issues at 10 paces. Let them do that consistency checking, and support them in getting things resolved. 2. Review the test plans. Bugs often live at all parts of the process, and QA will find them in your stuff, too. Fix them there before implementation completes and it costs less. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Aug 25, 2009, at 10:34 AM, Audrey audcr...@gmail.com wrote: I am glad that Jim brought up the QA team. They should have specs, scenarios or prototypes from which to build test plans. If eng knows they'll get a bug filed against them, they're more likely to implement to spec. Designers should also be brought into the QA cycle to catch visual problems that a QA team might not see. After being trained on good bug reporting and process, of course. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designers, Build your iPhone Apps with Corona
On Aug 21, 2009, at 7:22 AM, Brandon E. B. Ward wrote: @Maurice re: You had me up until I came to the form. Way too long and way too much *required information. Too bad. Really? So you'd be willing to learn a new language (Lua), API, methodology etc., but if a form has a few too many fields for your liking, you bail on the whole shebang? On the surface, yes this seems odd. But there are two mindsets involved here: there's the I want to explore, find something new mindset which will rise to the challenge of the new language, etc., and there's the what's the hook, what will it cost me mindset which balks at the upfront overhead and the concerns about privacy and such. The latter is a stopper mindset, and those will slam on the brakes with more power than the explore one will press on the gas. I'm curious, because if there are a ton of users like you, whom when presented w/ the keys to the kingdom as it were would nay-say it and give up because a form had 5 too many fields in it, then I'm just... wow. I don't know what to say. To me, that's like meeting someone for the first time, and after a few minutes saying Excuse me, I'm sorry, but you just talk a little too much - I don't have time for people like you. Goodbye. and walking away. It's like Moses and the serpent. Look and live! Yet they would not look, because the form was too long. Completing the sale has always been one of the big challenges. The more reasons or opportunities you give people to bow out, the more will. If you're getting feedback that a sign-up form is onerous, don't get defensive (because that will prove to people that they were *right* to opt-out). Look at why people are saying such stuff and how to make it better. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] date pickers starting on Sunday
On Aug 6, 2009, at 6:55 AM, USABILITY MEDIC wrote: I considered the Judeo-Christian influence as well but it doesn't make sense. If God rested on the seventh day, why did calendars get produced with Sunday as the first day of the week? Because putting Sunday at the start of the week puts God first in all parts of your life, most likely. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Articel about user experience issues with Light Rail ticket machines
From the August 12 Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009642729_stfares12m.html -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Blogger Conor Friedersdorf disses persona use in car design
From the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/automobiles/19design.html And a blog reply from Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish (but not written by him): http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/ford-targets-imaginary-customer.html (Frankly, a fairly uninspired response: seize on what you think is a wacky thing and blow it way out of proportion, never mind that it's not wacky at all and the blogger has simply never heard of it before.) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] His/Her vs. Their in website copy
Any way to get the gender of the person being targetted (the birthday person) and provide the right pronoun? You still have the issue where they can't/won't tell, but you can be better excused in that case for whatever way you go. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Jul 21, 2009, at 1:46 PM, suze ingram suze.ing...@gmail.com wrote: Definitely their. Did you consider Your partner's birthday or even Partner's birthday? Suze Ingram User Experience Consultant suze [dot] ingram [at] gmail.com @suzeingram http://suzeingram.blogspot.com/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/suzeingram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43910 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Where is the Sign In on Amazon.com?
On Jul 6, 2009, at 6:51 AM, eva kaniasty wrote: I don't buy the idea that users don't look for sign-in. I'd be more inclined to believe that sign-in has become a convention in itself that anyone who has used the web for any length of time is familiar with. Whether or not it conceptually makes sense to sign in first, I think users become trained to do things a certain way without thinking about it, and removing that functionality seems off-base. I am not arguing that sign-in shouldn't be seamlessly integrated into checkout as well, I just think that it doesn't make sense to remove it as a separate function. I completely buy it. I've never looked for a sign in option at Amazon We talk about (gripe about) software coders who create UIs that serve their programmatic model rather than the user? Well, you're doing the same thing here: I know that a user is going to have to sign in to complete the transaction, so I want to know where that control is and how it operates and how to sign out. But what Amazon arguably wants to be is a Wal*Mart (god forgive me for saying so!). At such a store, by walking in the door, you are assumed to be a customer, someone who is going to buy something, even if that's just a candy bar. They don't have a guard at the door saying What's your name? Show me your credit card!, but instead they have someone saying Welcome to the store! Enjoy shopping! By assuming that if you're there, you're going to buy something -- and if not this time, the next one -- they take that Show me your ID gruffness out of the equation, saving it for the time when it is actually needed, at the purchase transaction. And in doing so, they remove/reduce the opportunities for users to get fed up with the questioning and just leave. And in contrast, today I did my monthly visit to the Science Fiction Book Club website to say Nope, don't what this month's offered books, don't send them. This site *doesn't* remember that I've been there before. So I have to go to the upper right corner to sign in -- to a link usually partially off-screen because they assume I'll have a non- portrait shaped browser window (but I do), rather than a username/ password control. And that takes me to a page where I have to choose either to Sign In or create a new account -- again, not to a username/ password control. And that takes me to a username/password control... which have my saved credentials already filled in. Talk about wanting the returning customer to feel like they are annoying you! (Actually, I fib slightly. That's the flow from a couple months ago. they've at least merged the 2nd and 3rd screens, which reduces the annoyance by a factor of 2, but they still don't put it on the front page or sign me in automatically, still making it 4 times as annoying as Amazon's method.) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] In 10 words or less, what is software design to you?
Software Design Making software which both works and which you want to use. Because there's a lot of software out there which technically works but which is a pain to actually use, and when that's the case, we usually fault the design. -- Jim Via my iPhone Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Save and Canvel buttons in popup screen
I say it doesn't matter. Users won't experience massive confusion and be unable to deal with things. Odds are that they have seen buttons in each position before, yet they still live. And if it doesn't matter, it isn't worth fighting over. Just keep the order the same throughout the app, and you're fine. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Jun 3, 2009, at 8:43 PM, Michael ramlal.min...@xs4all.nl wrote: I know there are conventions when using the save and cancel buttons. Windows for example has the save button on the left and cancel on the right. at the moment i have a problem. We use webapplications with pop-up screens at work. here we have a major discussion goeing on wheter the save button should be left or right...pfff. here is an example of a screen. Given that the user works his way from left top to right bottom i say the save button right. our developers disagree http://yfrog.com/0fpopupwindowp Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Feedback on Redesigned BART Ticket Kiosk Interface
I'm someone who uses BART several times in a weekend, but only one or two weekends a year. And I'm a software tester by career. The stops that I routinely use are the two airports, the one near work, the one near the hotel, and the Caltrain stop. Some comments I had: * I don't think of the work stop I use as 24th St. Mission, even if that's the official name. I think of it as Mission and 24th -- that is, I think of the cross street *first*. And thus when I went through the alpha list of stations (or the identify where you are at the start), I had a harder time finding what I wanted. In such lists -- which are a form of index -- have more than just the official name. Have Mission 24th and Oakland Airport. Be helpful, not limiting. * Most zones have more stops than there are buttons, and have a More button. In most of those, the station I wanted was behind the More wall, and thus required more clicks. Some of the stations are going to be more popular or more significant destinations -- the airports, the CalTrain transfers -- and should probably not be hidden a layer deep. * The More button was always close the hidden map sections, but More buttons are (almost) always at the end of a list. I expected it at item G, not E * I had to make an effort to map the station names on the zone map to the large names to the buttons. Maybe adding a button indicator next to the station on the zone map would help? * Some times I know what part of the Bay Area I want to go to, but not which station to use. (I lived in the Bay Area for a decade and can't tell you just where Balboa Park or El Cerrito are, with respect to neighboring stations.) A way to show a real map rather than a stylized route map would help some users. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Two \Delete\ behaviors - one type of label?
There are also two flavors of Deletion: true delete and move to trash (from which the user can retrieve it later). A third flavor as well, for some products: Hide. Remove from library (other other view) but don't do anything with the file on disk. (And I think Adobe Bride has a flag variant which may collapse into the Hide version.) Any action which is not recoverable should have an are you sure option, even if the user is allowed to then say yes, I'm sure forever, never ask me again Actions which are recoverable but through curious means -- dig the file out of the trash, or find the original file on disk and add it back to the view -- deserve some user education at delete time. Actions which have standard recovery method (Undo), those are probably fine with no interruption (although even then, does the user realize that he can Undo?). -- Jim On Apr 15, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Daniel wrote: There are two Delete patterns I have noticed out there: 1. - Immediate Deletion: As the name implies, the delete action takes place immediately. There are no confirmation steps of any kind. 2. - Mediated Deletion: This type usually includes an intermediate page or dialogue box that asks the user to confirm that they indeed do want to delete the item along with very important pertinent information associated with the delete action. The problem for me arises when we use the same label for both of these different types of behaviors. In other words, nothing differentiates the different delete actions. Both of them may simply say Delete this XYZ Has anyone here seen a label that provides the users some sort of clue as to which action will take place? DISCLAIMER: (In the interest of clarity and saving time...I don't want this question to be confused with the closely related topic of whether Confirmation dialogs or confirmation pages are necessary. That's another question. For now I'd like to ask you to suspend your preference on whether you think confirmation is needed or not and assume that the system you are working on will have a confirmation step for some of the delete actions. To complicate things, the system will ALSO use Immediate Deletion. This way the problem is clear. Once again, this is not a question of whether you think the choice to allow both types of deletion is right or wrong. It's a question about labeling and differentiating two different delete processes.) Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The Save Icon rut
On Mar 20, 2009, at 5:37 PM, Todd Diemer wrote: Jeff G. and Jerome R. have a good point here about a continuous save, snapshot save, or checkpoints. Could we remove the save button completely if these checkpoints were constantly saved ala Gmail or other apps that save drafts on a regular basis. The user would then only be required to set a period between which they want saves to occur. Except checkpoint versions are wanted after significant actions, or at the end of work periods, which don't have any direct connection with set time periods. And in fact, people should generally want a finite, controllable number of checkpoint versions, rather than (say) six new ones per work day, which could get out of hand on a lengthy project. And checkpoint versions aren't of much use unless they are annotated so the user knows what he's rolling back to. The user still needs to control the big stage points manually. These would work as intermediate generic checkpoints, though -- super autosaves, as it were -- to free users from the need to make checkpoint versions at less important stages. You'd presumably erase them at the next manual checkpoint. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The Save Icon rut
On Mar 19, 2009, at 9:09 AM, Jake Trimble wrote: Has anyone seen any attempts to replace the standard floppy disk Save icon? Seeing as most people haven't touched a 3.5 floppy in a decade, is anyone addressing this archaic icon and how we can replace the current mental model associated with it? I noticed this exact problem a few days ago, too. There are two problems here: (1) You're describing an action with a object. (Save = Diskette) And since the object in common use for the action has significantly changed, it no longer logically works to use the old one. (2) You're dealing with a slowly obsoleting action. Save is an artifact of when we couldn't reliably autosave each action. What you really need, then, is (a) a modern action to reflect what is really being done (such as Save Version), and (b) iconography to reflect *that* action. A decade ago, I tested an app that compiled HTML code into a binary format, and it had a Run command (which didn't actually run anything, note a problem right there). The button icon? A bright red/ orange phoon. In an app aimed at Enterprise and Military customers. The marketing manager was a bit miffed when I complained about the icon and how it looked like a Dr. Seuss character -- We paid a lot of money for those icons You should have paid more -- but she came around when I walked her through it: you had to deduce that the icon was supposed to be a person, then that it was a person running, then that the command was Run, and then what the Run command would do; you effectively had to decipher a pun in the process. I think they changed it to an arrow or even just the word Run (since the app wasn't localized). (Phoon? http://www.phoons.com/) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] The Save Icon rut
The need to do an explicit save remains, to create checkpoint versions. There us mental training to do with that, but not as much as with no saving needed. Something other than the current imagery is needed for that though. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Mar 20, 2009, at 12:48 PM, Jerome Ryckborst j3r...@gmail.com wrote: One way to handle this would be to remove the icon along with the need to save. If that could be done, I bet that would unnerve many users, though. -- Jerome Ryckborst, CUA | UPA member | AIA member | http://FiveSketches.com -- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What music for interaction designers
On Feb 28, 2009, at 12:31 AM, Pietro Desiato wrote: What kind of music do you listen (when you can) while brainstorming, analysing, designing interactions? Are there any songs that would make our design flow better? Blue Man Group Patsy Cline What more do you need? -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] List ordering: alphabetical vs. logical?
On Feb 4, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Elizabeth Buie wrote: Alphabetical order is no better than random order if the user does not know what to look for. Alpha order aids in scanning through a list of things with known names, to find the one sought. I disagree that alphabetical is random; it is quite well-ordered by a long-set of standing rules. It is also a means of ordering that people learn, in Western culture, from the day they begin to learn to read. As Chauncey says, it is the way to order when no other order makes sense. Hmm, I would have to disagree with this. Alphabetical *is* better than random order, because human beings don't believe in random order. We always believe that there is a design of some sort (and thus we invented god, thank you Voltaire). And thus if your list of items were random, users would try to make sense of the randomness, to impart a design behind it, to figure out what the heck is going on. To pattern match, if nothing else. Alphabetic order indicates design intent of some sort, and while some users might wish for better design (like their country at the top of the list), at least they won't spend cycles trying to make sense out of what is supposed to have none. And thus they can move forward without worrying that they didn't get it. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] To use a colon or not to use a colon after field labels
Possibly missed in this thread is the origin question. Rather than Should I use a colon or not?, ask instead Why did we used to always use colons? My thought is that it tied in with Labels Use Title Case. The label plus the field or control content made a Title: Subtitle comb. The colon wasn't there just by chance; it was there to signal the end of the Title part, or the division between the two. Today, much software no long uses Title Case. Labels tend to be more sentence like in their structure, with the field or control content being the predicate or object of the sentence: Choice for President: [John McCain] ... has become My choice for President is [Barack Obama] A colon is incorrect grammar in the new style of label; if anything, there should be a trailing period, but that would truly be visual noise (and would usually not sit just after the sentence predicate). So I would say to use a colon if your labels are in Title Case, and not to use one if they are not. (And if they are in Title Case, ask the question why your label design seems stuck in the 1990s. There may be a deeper issue to examine.) (Discussion of why Title Case was used -- and when it might still be best -- is another thread.) -- Jim Drew UI/UX Software Tester Seattle, WA Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] List ordering: alphabetical vs. logical?
At the same time, lack of alpha order is a greatsign that you need to take a look at what the order actually is. As much as half the time (18 years of software QA), no intentional has been applied at all. You're right that the #1 priority should be first, but only if such can be determined. And the real problem isn't that #1 isn't first but that the order after that isn't clear. If #4-6 aren't clearly orderable (by the user!), then having #1 followed by a jumble likely doesn't give value. They find what they want quickly 25% of the time but have to struggle for the rest -- bad experience. The advantage of alpha order us that is that while nothing is easier to find, nothing is harder, either. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Feb 4, 2009, at 10:19 AM, Rob Pearson robotper...@gmail.com wrote: As I understand it, the context of the question is site nav. Alphabetically arranged site nav is one of the things I look for in an expert review as a sign that someone hasn't put enough thought into users' priorities. I like to see harmony between users' priorities, the order of links in the nav, and the positioning of elements in the visual hierarchy of the page: Your #1 user priority should be the first link in the nav and be supported by the prime element page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38149 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Ux Trends to watch out for in 2009
Why single out *online* as needing improvement? -- Jim Via my iPhone On Jan 13, 2009, at 9:54 AM, Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com wrote: Jet Packs! Flying cars! Online Banking that doesn't frustrate! On Jan 13, 2009, at 9:47 AM, Chauncey Wilson wrote: How about Explicit persuasive design comes of age The repertory grid method becomes a primary tool for understanding user experience Brain wave user interfaces make a big leap Moral user interface design makes headway (e.g., systems that remind us of carbon footprints) The field argues much about what Sustainable design means for UX The current generation finally discovers that not everything should be discussed or illustrated on social networking tools. Metaphor brainstorming becomes a common tool in the UX practitioner's toolbox Chauncey On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 9:30 AM, j...@smorgasbord-design.co.uk wrote: Anyone got any ideas? I tried looking amongst the mailing lists and boards but all I really discovered was noise (Again) about the mobile interaction tipping-point, semantic will/web and gestural interfaces. Has anyone seen a good article or blog post prophesising about the year ahead? John. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] RE : Re: Ux Trends to watch out for in 2009
Magnus was a comic published by Gold Key in the 70s, and then Valiant/ Acclaim in the 90s. No movie, no relation to Ultraman. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Jan 13, 2009, at 2:28 PM, Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com wrote: was magnus from utlra man? did he become ultra magnus? i just watched a chinese film called zebraman. very interesting. i also just watched the chinese film the eye. pretty scary. On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 1:51 PM, Chauncey Wilson chauncey.wil...@gmail.comwrote: It has been a long time since I have heard a reference to Magnus, robot fighter (I have the 1st issue from 1963 I think. I still have a few issues of the Magnus comic books in my attic and he was a hero of mine :-). I always thought that the ability to destroy metal with one's hands was a useful skill. There have been advances in robot technology and a recent TV show that focused on the ethical issues around the use of robotic technology. So, perhaps there is a serious issue about the user experience associated with robotic technology. Chauncey On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Alain ndgmt...@yahoo.com wrote: Sorry, the flying cars, along with Online Banking that doesn't frustrate will not be around untill 4,000 AD. Magnus, robot fighter will also be there in case of general robot nastiness. Alain Vaillancourt --- Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com a écrit : Flying cars! Online Banking that doesn't frustrate! Découvrez les styles qui font sensation sur Yahoo! Québec Av atars. http://cf.avatars.yahoo.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Forms - selecting a country
Please take it one step further than just putting it in both places. When there are multiple localized names for the country, put them all in. I can't tell you his many times I've tried to use keypresses to navigate a country popup, only to fond it has USA but not United States, or vice versa. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Dec 31, 2008, at 4:18 AM, Joshua Porter por...@bokardo.com wrote: So for example if the person was from the Netherlands, the Netherlands was placed on the top. Every user still looked all the way down the list and then spent time in puzzlement in why their country was not listed under N. It took a long time for them to find the Netherlands at the top of the list... When we were designing the UIE checkout billing page, where you select your country, we ended up putting the country name in both places. Some folks would grab it from the top, saving them time, while other folks would grab it from the alpha listing. There is no reason why the country can't be listed twice, and we found it helpful to do so. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36720 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Mobile (Cellphone) Activated Streetlamps
Maybe they did it smart (or have it easy) and the six digits come naturally from the village grid, so you need to one where you are and the system, not a magic number. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Dec 23, 2008, at 4:19 AM, j...@smorgasbord-design.co.uk wrote: This piece from BBC News [1] demonstrates how the residents of Doerentrup can activate the street lighting via mobile phone. This requires them to call a specific number and then use an access code to switch a specific lighting array for the street they want lit-up. Given that this is targeted at older people who may well have memory issues, it seems peculiar to force them to remember a (series of) 6-digit access code(s). A case where voice recognition seems a better option? [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7795492.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7795492.stm Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Email to friend a valid feature?
On Dec 3, 2008, at 7:48 PM, Juan Ruiz wrote: I've been seeing the popularity of the Email to a friend, Email Article, Email page (and many other names) feature on the internet. Personally, I never use this feature because I think that the company behind the website will store my email and my friend's email address, plus the email will contain advertising elements as well, so instead, I personally email the URL to my friend. But of course, I'm talking here on my own experience. Does anybody have statistics that validate the inclusion of this feature? Do people really use this feature? If so, do they use it a lot? I basically never use it from a given website, because (a) I don't know what they are going to do with the address I send to, and (b) I prefer to craft the message being sent with the link such that it reflects me, not their template. I do use the iPhone Safari version of the feature, though, to send myself copies of website links for later reading on other systems. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Clock Burn-In
Eeww. Use case failure: swing shift worker Use case failure: busy mom, up before dawn Use case failure: set time after the power comes back on late at night, zap, display goes dead (this could be worked around, assuming someone thought about it) There are also non-use cases surrounding these clocks. I often use them to guide me in the house without turning on lights (to not wake up other people, or just because I can), for example. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Nov 11, 2008, at 10:12 AM, Thomas Davies [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Why don't you actually use the clock information to reduce burn-in? Surely not many people will be cooking late at night and early in the morning. So just do a rough estimate and say not many people will be using the cooker between 10pm and 6am, thats an 8 hour period where the digital display could be turned off. Obviously if people started to use it during this period, the clock would reappear! I am sure this could be used for different appliances as well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=35445 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA and QA
In this thinking, turn things around: while you might have a QA engineer or two who provide great input on design ideas, would you put QA in charge of the design process? Probably not: their expertise may sometimes approach or overlap those needed for design, but there will be holes, gaps, and so forth. Unless you are truly cross-training, you're going to end up with ultimately inferior results. Which isn't to say that having QA involved in the design process, or Design in the QA process, isn't a great idea. It most certainly is. Watch out as well for asking designers to do QA work on the items they designed. They can easily be way too picky and/or unable to look at the pieces they designed with a fresh eye, to see interactions and different angles. Better to use their designer eye to look at other aspects of the product. -- Jim Drew Seattle, WA Software QA for 18 years On Oct 27, 2008, at 7:36 AM, Damon Dimmick wrote: The company I work for is a very lean, fast moving company, and we're constantly looking for ways to tighten our product life cycle timelines. One thing we've noticed in the last few months is that IxDA (and general design practitioners) have been extremely valuable not just during the design phase of a product, but also during the ongoing Quality Assurance / Quality Control phases as well as the final Quality Acceptance phases of the product lifecycle. This being the case, we're experimenting with the idea of putting IxDA people in charge (or in review positions within) the QA process. I've been playing around with this model myself on a couple of projects with very strong results. The net benefit seems to derive from the fact that there is really no one better to certify that a product meets QA requirements than the very people that identified the necessary interactions, UI results, and full design elements to begin with. So far, this also seems to fit in nicely with the fact that our design team tends to be very busy at the start of the project (front loading interaction design and then visual design) and then gets much less busy as the development cycle begins and ends. It seems a really good use of our time to swoop back in after the design phase and act as part of the QA process, making sure that developers are conforming to our specifications via a formal testing structure. I was wondering if anyone else has had experience with this kind of structure, and if so, what challenges, results, and tips can you share? We're sort of excited about the idea on our end, as our initial forays into this model have really helped projects move along faster and with better results. Being a small/midsized team, we don't have a large QA department, so this allocation of resources seems to fill a lot of gaps. Any thoughts out there among my colleagues? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Good examples of Help Tooltips
I agree that ?s all over is very busy. But how about *space* for them which only gets filled with focus in or hover over a given control? That would perhaps give nearly the same value with minimal added clutter. (Perhaps = user test it.) The first magically appearing ? might be odd, but it would be learnable by the third or so. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Nov 7, 2008, at 9:31 AM, Mark Pawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have been asked to come up with an intuitive help method for tooltips on a very complex dialog. I immediately thought of a question mark which the customer clicks on and then drags over the interface, but that idea has been nixed. Our competitors tend to put question marks next to every main control which I have argued makes an already complex dialog look far too busy and also sends a message that says look out this is confusing. That is my own personal opinion backed up by only common sense, so if I am wrong please someone correct me. Our challenge is a standard one line tooltip will not be enough to describe the intent of the control(s). At the same time they do not want to fall back on separate context sensitive help windows opening. They want the customer to stay in the interface where they are working and get helpful information as required. Any good examples out there on the web that I can look at. Thanks Mark Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Error messages for edit-in-place forms
I have seen cases where a space is allotted for where an error message will go if it occurs. Designed well, users with no error never notice that the space is there, it just integrates into the design. (I've also seen this done poorly, of course where there's a big obvious blank space.) -- Jim Via my iPhone On Nov 6, 2008, at 7:53 AM, Rachel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm working on an Ajax app that will have edit-in-place forms (a.k.a. inline editing). Page has read-only data; parts of the data are editable. User chooses to edit a part; that part turns into an editable form. When user saves changes, the form converts back to read-only data (this happens without a page reload). The fields in the forms are required. So if user leaves any blank, they need to be challenged, and we need to let them know which fields are in question. What's the best way to handle this? We are reluctant to show an error message right above the form, because it will push the form other content on the page downward, creating a visual jumping effect. (unless we overlay the error message over top of other content on the page) What are best practices for this? Good examples? Thanks, Rachel Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Office 2007 in 2006, two years later
A couple thoughts come to mind here: * Is it true that there's an 8-to-1 ratio of existing users to (potential) new users. That is, there will never be more than about 10% of the existing base having to learn it in the future? If so, it may not be worth trying to institute change, because you've got a super-mature, effectively dead (stagnant) product. If there's no one new coming in, there's little value in forcing new paradigms on the users. (On the other hand, if that added 10% is just the immediate new user base, and it will grow from there such that new users will eventually exceed current numbers, you can make a better business case.) * Have you done research as to what the breadth of feature usage is? If the current UI is regressive, or if there are a lot of features which are seldom accessed, then the ribbon-type UI might either have low impact on the majority of existing users (because they don't use many of the feature to start with) and could serve to open up some of the otherwise ignored features to a new audience. * Have you done research about what annoys current users -- especially the intermediate and above users? You may find that they feel limited or inhibited by the current UI and would actually welcome a new paradigm, even with a learning ramp. (I can think of a few apps that are like that, even some that I actively avoid using and do things the hard way to avoid them.) -- Jim, Seattle -Original Message- From: Lois Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] What I find most interesting about this question is how interface changes/enhancements affect an entrenched user base. It's the balance between old users and new users and an existing mental model vs. a new one. I'm all for a better interface - but I find myself still stalled using things I used to be totally comfortable with in Word like Table tools and Drawing tools. I'm currently working on a new and improved EAP product suite for my company. We are making radical changes including adding in a ribbon. As the lone User Experience person I keep voicing my concerns that we'll have low adoption from existing users simply BECAUSE the new UI is so different. It's sort of conundrum. The original UI was designed by the inmates in the asylum so its horrible - I want to radically improve it - but users have learned it. The ratio of existing users to new users is approximately 8 to 1 so there are many more who already know the product. What do you all think? How do you balance making it better with what users already know? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How long should you run each instance in an introductory Flash piece
I recommend zero seconds. grin More seriously, what are you trying to introduce, is an introduction necessary, and is Flash the right tool for the task. Once you can answer those questions, you'll see that the recommended length is what the introduction requires, no more and no less. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Oct 28, 2008, at 11:05 AM, Anthony Zeoli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What’s the recommended time to run a Flash movie introducing a site, its content and available tools to a new user on arrival. Example, see http://www.smilebooks.com/ I think this one runs for 8-9 seconds end to end. Thanks! -- Anthony Zeoli | ZAAH.COM VP Product Business Development e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 631.873.2007 | Direct +1 631.873.2007 | Main +1 917.705.4700 | Mobile +1 631.873.2050 | Fax AIM: djtonyz | Yahoo: anthonyzeoli | MSN: djtonyz | Skype: tonyzeoli | Twitter: djtonyz 6 Dubon Court Farmingdale, NY 11735 This document contains proprietary and confidential information, which are the exclusive property of Zaah Technologies, Inc. Unauthorized use of this or any document, marked confidential is strictly prohibited. Copyright© 2008 Zaah Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Country from or to in Travel
Country of Origin is ambiguous. Does it mean where you were born, where you live, or where you are travelling from? (I get that confusion when some asks where I am from. What does that mean? Where were you born, they ask. We moved cross-country two weeks later, and back two years after that. Where's your hometown? What's that? I've never lived in the same city for more than 8 years, and that's where I am now.) -- Jim Via my iPhone On Oct 23, 2008, at 2:45 AM, AJKock [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am in the Travel industry and we have found that people completing an online form has problems understanding when a field means their country of origin or the country they want to travel too. We have the country field under the personal details section, but some people still tend to complete it with their country of destination. Does anybody here have a suggestion on how to solve this? Should we change the wording for country to something like Home Country, Your Country or Country of Origin or is there another way? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] 7 habits of highly effective...
Having just re-watched Moulin Rouge a few days ago... Quest for the Bohemian Ideals Which are Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and above all else, Love. I can see design pertinence in each of those terms. -- Jim Drew Seattle, WA Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Need user data on iPhone adoption by age
So less than one in four even want an iPhone? Sounds pretty unpopular among teens to me! Until you actually read the article and see that the headline is bogus. It's really more than one in five who expect to buy a phone soon expect to get an iPhone. So rather than less then 25% want one, it's more than 20% of new phones will be iPhones. -- Jim Via my iPhone On Oct 8, 2008, at 2:36 PM, Kontra [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An assertion was made to me that teens (specifically both genders age 12-18) are not adopting iPhones Fortune/CNN: Survey: 8% of U.S. teens own an iPhone; 22% want one http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/10/08/survey-8-of-us-teens-own-an-iphone-22-want-one/ -- Kontra http://counternotions.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A New Browser: Google Chrome
On Sep 30, 2008, at 1:28 AM, Kontra wrote: Do they have to completely dismantle Internet Explorer in order to be successful..? Absolutely. IE has been a cancerous blot on the web for about half a decade, impeding standardization and innovation in browsers. Once enjoying 95% dominance, it's lost nearly a quarter of its user base But by that logic, even though Firefox and Opera and Safari have obtained significant pieces of the market, they are not successful either, because IE is still around and prominent. I would agree that Chrome can't be the dominant browser without IE becoming mostly defunct, and probably not without having to go through (destroy) Firefox and Opera and Safari in the process, but defining success only in terms of being the Last Browser Standing doesn't seem to match either reality or how Google works. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A New Browser: Google Chrome
On Sep 2, 2008, at 4:54 PM, Josh Viney wrote: 3. They've got some serious catching up to do, so they better have a killer app - or at least a killer reason for people to switch. Even then most IE users won't be switching because the Internet is the E icon. FF and Apple haven't gotten the core IE audience to switch, so what can Google offer that will? I know this old now, but… Does everything have to be a killer app? Do they have to completely dismantle Internet Explorer in order to be successful, or can they succeed by just having 1, 2, 5% of the market? (Now, how much of that would come from IE and how much from Firefox and Safari and Opera, that's a good question. I know for myself, I've got Chrome installed on the work Windows machine, and I use it now and then, but it's not going to replace Safari. Which did replace Firefox 2; Firefox 3 wouldn't let me have it installed unless it was the default browser, so it went bye bye. I imagine the only way it will really eat into the IE share is to get it as the default browser on some new systems. And that's unlikely to happen until it's out of beta, and that could be years.) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] right hand vertical menus
How many of you are Mac users? Where do you have your Dock -- left, bottom, right? (I don't ask this of Windows users because I pretty much never see the Taskbar on the sides, probably due to the vastly different appearance when it is there rather than at the bottom.) Why is there a difference (if there is) is how you think website navigation setup should be and how you personally have your desktop navigation set up? Me, I have my Dock on the right. Content -- the docs I'm working on at the time -- are the important stuff, and navigation to other apps and the like are secondary, the stuff my vision passes to last. (For the same reason, my Dock isn't n the bottom. Eats up too much of the content area!) In parallel, for web sites and such where the user is going to be dealing with content for an extended period of time, I prefer navigation to the right; on sites where moving around and through the site is the chief activity rather than immersing in content, navigation on the left tends to work better, to my thinking. Of course, ultimately, it only takes a couple seconds to evaluate where the navigation is on any decent site and adapt to it. The practical gain in efficiency of one location over the other isn't that significant except where the user is going to be immersed for a really long time -- in an app, not a site -- and in those cases, the user can usually control some of the location details.. -- JIm Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA iPhone users straw poll
On Aug 13, 2008, at 1:06 PM, Petroff, Greg wrote: What are the top 3 things you find yourself doing now with your iPhone that you did not do before and why? 1. E-mail anywhen. (Not just anywhere, but when I walk from my office to the bathroom or to get coffee or in the morning for a couple minutes just after breakfast, I pull up my e-mail and read as I walk. Even if I only get through 3-4 messages at a shot that way, it's time spent on something, and it lessens the email load later.) 2. Staying up to date and participative on the IxDA list. Ever since being gone to Ireland for 7 work days in Feb/Mar, I've not been able to deal with current posts on the list, wanting to go through my backlog first (hah! I delete anything in that more than a certain age, and I still have 500 items!). I'm now trimming the backlog from the front instead of the back. 3. Dance choreography. Just having the speakers has made it somehow okay to start a song playing, put the phone in my pocket or on the desk, and work on the choreography; I could have done this before with earbuds and an iPod, but I didn't, for whatever reason. (4. I've only had mine for a week now. I'll begin to make more PDA-type uses of it in the coming weeks, I'm sure.) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] best practices for login security?
From: Meredith Noble [EMAIL PROTECTED] Personally I hate it when I'm forced to include at minimum 8 characters, one uppercase character, one lowercase character, a symbol, etc. You forgot that neither the first or last character can be a non-letter (to avoid the use of password!1, which is easier to break), and that the password has to be changed quarterly, and to something sharing no two-character sequences with the previous one (so no pass!1word and pass!2word usage). (I've had two of those three, and they threatened the other. They should have just assigned us new random ones; it would have been less trouble.) -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] can we make it to easy?
I think it's much simpler than that: With products as big and powerful as many of the Adobe products, the complexity and richness of the features leads inexorably to a certain amount of complexity in the user experience. In order to simplify it, you have to remove/restrict/dumb down the feature set. Or streamline parts to be really good and you end up with inconsistency throughout the product, with users no longer able to leverage knowledge of one piece of the interface to another. Airplane consoles are hideously complex. Would simplifying them make it easier for more people to become commercial pilots? Would it serve the passengers and cargo well if some of the gauges were removed and the more powerful switches made harder to get at in order to have a friendlier interface? Or are they just kept complex to ensure that existing pilots keep their job seniority? (God, I hope not!) -- Jim -Original Message- From: mark schraad [EMAIL PROTECTED] I was reading about Microsoft having recruited Adobe's (think photoshop UI and more) Mark Hamburg to work on user experience. I don't find Adobe product o be particularly user friendly, but I do find them to be consistent and remarkably efficient once you get over a learning curve. I appreciate that approach a lot. I found my self wondering if, for professional tools, there is greater adoption, product loyalty and stickiness in leaving a certain amount of difficulty in the UI? The thinking goes... if the process is to easy, then everyone can do it and it erodes my (the professional user's) value in the marketplace. I know most people don't think much about economics and supply and demand on purpose, but self preservation is certainly prevalent at all levels. Thoughts? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Recruiters
On Mar 27, 2008, at 10:55 AM, W Evans wrote: I know I have had a resume posted on Monster since about 2003, and I do update it every 6 months or so even though I have never gotten a job from monster - but what really burns my goat is that I very clearly say: 1. I have done IA and IxD work for a really long time 2. I have no interest in relocating for short term contracts 3. how much I cost About once a year, I get an e-mail query from someone who found my resume online. One that I posted to my first personal website. Last update: March 21, 2000. I leave it up just for giggles these days, and to give me an excuse to be rude to anyone who sends me a response from it. -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] At what point does a mailing list become counter-productive?
From: David Malouf [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alex, the gmail solution is so 2006. In 2007 the hip people are doing RSS. It's now 2008. We've all gone retro, back to rnews and plain text e-mail. You've gotta keep up, man! -- Jim Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Power icon
Gee, that's helpful. Standby — even if a user knew that's what it meant — is only marginally more useful than closed circuit (again, if the user even knows that's what if symbol means, and then what the term itself means). And thus, what it means isn't of any use here. To the majority of users, it is just a nonsense icon that means power. (It shows on the glare reduction button on the mirror in our current rental car, in fact.) But it has become widespread enough -- I've seen it on computer switches for a decade now -- that it is the de facto standard that users now expect (if they expect anything). The only generic user-created deciphering of the icon that I've heard created which makes sense is it's a toggle switch — a circle with a flip switch in the middle. Since pressing the button typically toggles the power on and off, that's at least a meaning that generic users can often grasp. -- Jim Drew Seattle, WA (but currently in Ireland) On Feb 27, 2008, at 11:09 PM, Bruce Esrig wrote: According to the standards, the two components are a vertical stroke and a circle. When the vertical stroke goes through the top of the circle, the meaning is standby. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Log out functionality
On Feb 4, 2008, at 9:02 AM, Kim Bieler wrote: Question on standards: When users log out of an application, is it better to: 1. Give them an exit message, like You have successfully logged out? (i.e., a positive indication that they are logged out) or, what I would prefer: 2. Just send them back to the original log in screen? (i.e., log out is implied) Is there a standard rule of thumb? Do the purposes or projected users of the app give you any direction? Many apps may have either multiple sequential users or user's with multiple distinct accounts, where the next desired action after logging out is going to be to log in again, likely with a different account. In this case, you want to present them with the login screen again. In other cases, one login is likely to be all they are expected to need -- or in some cases, the (fake) security of knowing they are logged out may be important -- and a confirmation screen is good. (But it would still have a clear link back to the login screen for those who log out by accident.) I can think of very few apps which don't take you to the log in screen when you log out. -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Arial vs Vernada?
On Jan 14, 2008, at 11:38 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: On Jan 14, 2008, at 9:44 PM, Jim Drew wrote: But if I had seen even one hint of that technology showing its face into the mainstream in the past nearly two decades that I've dealt with DTP apps, I would consider amending my habits now. But it always seems to stay just over that mythical horizon. So I continue to overdo in order to not underdo, having no faith that a magical fix will every arrive. Is that kind of like waiting to buy a hybrid until all cars work on hydrogen? It might be like waiting to buy a hybrid until they are cost effective. At first, and for a long time, they are way more expensive to buy than traditional vehicles and the advantage is mythical feel- good stuff -- It's the right thing to do -- rather than anything concrete or monetary. Nah, that's no good. It's like being Vegan: Tofu tastes *way* better than meat! (Apologies to vegans out there. I've been reading Anthony Bourdain's The Cook's Tour lately.) Further, the mainstream cases are plenty fine with single spacing. And if you need proof of the rule showing its face then the fact web browsers already force single spacing regardless (because extra spacing is ignored in HTML markup) means it's a pointless habit to continue to propagate if you do any work in the mainstream of technology these days. Do browsers compress multiple spaces into one because they are trying to do the right thing, typographically, between sentences? Or do they do it because of algorithmic reasons, the assumption that multiple spaces of any number should compress to one. Don't try to convince me that browsers are being wise when they are being dumb, taking the simplest path to a solution that works right for the broadest number of cases. Sorry... I'm not buying your particular line of logic. When you're solidly bought into to opposite camp, I wouldn't expect you to. -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
On Jan 22, 2008, at 11:23 AM, Bruno Figueiredo wrote: My question is: why do people keep buying products with crappy interfaces? I guess that since most products ship with poor interfaces, people have very low expectations. But these kind of products have been around for what? 15 years? They should know better by now. Why do people keep giving incentives to companies who deliver poor products? How quickly can you identify a crappy interface? More to the point, how quickly can *they* identify one? Barring the *really* bad ones (think consumer art programs circa 1997, where your stomach would turn just by looking at the screenshots), they can't tell from a brochure. They can't tell from a live demo. They may not be able to tell from a 5 minute test drive. Only after a few days of working with it do the bad parts really show themselves as such. And by then, the money is spent, the learning curve has started, and the brakes have already given out on the runaway truck/ People continue to buy products with crappy interfaces because (a) they don't know how to tell the quality quickly, and (b) they assume/ hope that the interface won't actually be crappy. -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How long a delay?
On Jan 24, 2008, at 5:04 PM, John Daynes wrote: I'm working on a medical device that provides critical therapy to a patient. We have a keypad that is used to control the device, and on the keypad is a power button. We are sensitive to accidental actuations of the power button, which would turn the device off, potentially terminating therapy. We implemented a three-second delay on the button to avoid accidentally turning the device off, but the delay is seen as a real annoyance by users. I'm looking for suggestions (hopefully research-based) on how long the delay should be to prevent accidental actuation without causing undue operator annoyance. 1. Why does the power button have to be on the keypad where it can easily be hit by accident? 2. If the delay is seen as an annoyance by the users, what do *they* say it should be? (Not that they will be correct, but maybe they can guide to no delay, 1/2 second, 2 seconds, etc.) 3. Users are used to a press-and-hold mechanism for powering on/off a cell phone. What is the standard delay there, and why not use it? 4. Can the key be locked or protected to avoid accidental hits? Make it a slider, add a flip-down cover on it, place it in the least likely place to be accidentally hit. 5. Make powering down be a secret move, something less likely to happen by accident. Not that it has to be up up up right B left B B down A, but just two presses in 1/2 second might suffice. (If the button is labelled so that doesn't have to be memorized, of course.) -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Arial vs Vernada?
On Jan 10, 2008, at 12:59 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: Adding extra spaces after periods is really a very bad habit formed when the large majority of corporate communication was ruled by technology that could only use monospaced fonts -- that is of course the typewriter, and the typewriter lasted a few generations, so it had plenty of time to entrench itself. Further, it's a habit that will wind up hurting you once the technology gets even better and renders type with even more sophistication, which is not that far off on the horizon quite frankly. I don't disagree that it's a habit that will be bad once the technology works right, and that it will be hard to break. But if I had seen even one hint of that technology showing its face into the mainstream in the past nearly two decades that I've dealt with DTP apps, I would consider amending my habits now. But it always seems to stay just over that mythical horizon. So I continue to overdo in order to not underdo, having no faith that a magical fix will every arrive. -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best tool for word processing on a Mac?
On Jan 10, 2008, at 9:45 AM, Russell Wilson wrote: From reading the Arial vs. Verdana thread, I wonder what designers' favorite tool for word processing on a Mac is. Framemaker has been mine in the past, but is no longer available for the Mac... and Word just doesn't cut it. And Leopard won't even launch Classic, so FrameMaker is really completely dead to me now. (I worked on FrameMaker at Frame Technology and Adobe Systems for almost 10 years. Damn shame!) I have to keep an old Mac available just to retrieve content from the hundreds of old Frame docs I have around. Pages is the thing for me now. I even did an event program (5.5x8.5 booklet, BW) in it recently. Probably not as good as it would have been in Frame -- I definitely felt a lack of the level of control I was used to -- and this being my first, not as good as future ones will be, but adequate and a sight easier than the same thing with Word would have been. I've never managed to jump into InDesign yet. I should, I know... -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Arial vs Vernada?
On Jan 7, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: It's similar to the problem that happened with typewriters. The lack or true typesetting and kerning between letterforms created the need to add multiple spaces behind periods to breakup the copy to make it more readable, to the degree that now breaking people of that technological habit has been difficult for those in certain age ranges that learned the rule. The rule is now no longer needed given typewriters have been replaced with devices that allow for more accurate typesetting. I'd buy into this if I saw any indication that applications tended to put anything but the same size space at the end of a sentence as between words. But they don't seem to. But maybe InDesign does. I know many DTP apps have the ability to dynamically shift the width of spaces in justified text -- and the spacing between letters, too -- to improve letter packing or other mechanisms, so assuming that the end of a sentence can actually be detected with reasonable fidelity, it wouldn't be hard to provide extra width between sentences. But until I see a whole lot more apps doing it automatically, including browsers, the only way to ensure that sentences make themselves visually separated for improved chunking and readability seems to be to do it manually. (Or to stop caring. Nope, can't manage that.) -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] the appearance of change
Except that it may tell you no such thing. All it tells you is that the process filling the meter hasn't locked; there may be zero connection to reality behind the scenes. The project I work on has two faked progress meters. One occurs in a login scenario and appears to be a marker of how much is done, but once it fills all the way, it empties and starts to refill. (Which tells the user: Ha! Psyche! This could take forever, and you'll never know if we're actually doing anything!) Another one downloads as update and counts by %... or rather, shows % but counts time, so once if it gets to 100% (because of a server connection issue), it just continues to spin. (And then there was the one meter I saw a few years back that would count up to like 120%. Either it was also actually counting time spent, and reflected a bad estimate on someone's part, or they later added more stuff for it to do and didn't recalibrate. Really freaky.) -- Jim -Original Message- From: Tracy Boyington [EMAIL PROTECTED] As long as its animated, even a fudged progress bar tells me that my computer has not locked up. That's really all I ask for. Michael Tuminello [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1/1/2008 6:48 PM A good general example of this in software design would be progress bars. Some are in fact accurate but many are fudged to some degree or other, and in that case they are just a design element that has been produced to elicit the desired response (patience) from the user. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] 'Select Country' dropdown
In some cases, I would recommend not going strictly alphabetical, because it biases away from the majority of your users. Our product's sign up page includes a popup for State, which includes US protectorates like Guam. Unfortunately, alphabetically, Federated States of Micronesia precedes Florid, and Palau comes before Pennsylvania. So users who alphakey to their state end up with a big What The F---? Do we have *any* users from Palau in our system? Heck if I know, but I'll bet it's way fewer than from Wilkes-Barre. So by including this oddity alphabetically in our list -- rather than somewhere else -- we serve the one user from there and abuse the thousands from somewhere more common. The same thing applies on a global basis. If 90% of your projected users are from English speaking countries, move them to the start of their letters of the alphabet. Make things easy for the huge bulk of users, maybe confusing for a small number of them, and slightly worse for the tiny portion who don't get true logical alphakeying (like the huge contingent from Uganda who are going to be s angry that United States came up on the first U! [*]). A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Consistency is great, but if there's a good reason to be inconsistent, go for it. -- Jim Drew Seattle, WA [*] - Apologies to anyone from Uganda. Only an example, recommending for a case where Ugandans are not anticipated to be a meaningful fraction of site traffic. Where you draw the line of what is significant enough to jog out of consistency, I don't know. Should Arizona come before Alaska, purely on population grounds dictating likelihood of users? -Original Message- From: Bryan Minihan [EMAIL PROTECTED] I can't tell you how many times I've had to build a country drop-down, and I've come to prefer most likely selection first, with alphabetical following. For a truly global company/site where people are likely to be from everywhere (and/or you don't want to show bias toward a particular country), I'd probably go with pure alphabetical. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] 'Select Country' dropdown
From: Billy Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 -- Most likely selection(s) at the top of the list, with remainder of list alphabetical. If you choose the latter, make sure that the pulled-out items are also listed again in the full alpha listing. I've been caught a couple times trying to find United States in the U's after alphakeying to there, and then having to scroll all the way back to the top of the list to get to my desired location. Put it in twice and same somebody some grief. -- Jim *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Your favorite rating interface
On Dec 14, 2007, at 2:00 PM, Jeffrey D. Gimzek wrote: A number of systems have gone to a 7-star system: […] Even then, it may do a good job of capturing levels of dislike which may be valuable in some settings -- movies, for example. For that, an 8- star system is probably better: -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 (and unrated). […] OK, but is that instantly understandable ? that is the deal with the stars - ubiquitous = understandable Ubiquitous != understandable. Just because something is everywhere, doesn't mean everyone understands it in the same way. As stated, that's the exact problem with a 5-star system. Everyone probably understands what 5 stars means, but all the rest are up for grabs. many many people dont really understand negative numbers to see an example of a rating that is almost totally useless, see jobvent.com what's a 1303? what's a - 43? i dont know. i have to figure it out, and by then i dont care. I can't disagree with you; a (presumably) rolled-up value which doesn't obviously relate to the original rating spread is obscure at best, maybe unuseful. One which does relate -- average 3.4 rating (19 ratings) on a scale of -4 to +4 -- is better. If negative numbers are deemed too confusing -- where're your personas, huh?! grin -- maybe a letter grade of A through F with + and - in the mix. Americans at least should have a decent grasp that if the grade relates to percentages, then an F is covering roughly the entire bottom half of the spectrum, everything from completely unacceptable down to putrid and beyond. -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soundskinky.com/blog/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Your favorite rating interface
On Dec 13, 2007, at 11:03 PM, Jeffrey D. Gimzek ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I am working on a rating site now and let me tell you this is a tough nut to crack ! 1 - 5 stars are ubiquitous for a reason. The only reason 1-5 stars is ubiquitous is because it's ubiquitous. Anyone remember when hotels and such only went to 4 stars? And now I've seen ones touted as 7 stars. Sounds like starflation to me: when everyone is a 4-star, you have to go to a 5-star system just to differentiate yourself from the crowd. But why is everyone a 4-star? Answer: not because they are all top of the line, but because no one wants to be below the top. (And doubly so when Motel 6 and its peers show up as 2-star, leaving the question of what fleabag is only a 1- star? Eew? The problem of a 1-5 star system is that there is typically no definition of what the various ratings mean. Is 3-star average? (What is average?) Is 1-star avoid even if they pay you to stay there and it's the middle of a blizzard and there is no other place at all within 100 miles? Does no stars mean hasn't been rated or less than 1 star; does it mean both? A number of systems have gone to a 7-star system: 5 stars, no stars, and don't like. (Adobe Bridge, Rhapsody, many others.) Even then, it may do a good job of capturing levels of dislike which may be valuable in some settings -- movies, for example. For that, an 8-star system is probably better: -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 (and unrated). Then you could decide that (picking two movies I saw from the Rotten Tomatoes worst list from last year) than while DaVinci Code and Eragon were both bad, that Eragon was a -2 (Tivo it and maybe remember to watch it later, or not) but DaVinci was only a -1 (might be worth Netflixing some day), while Dreamgirls was a +2 (might be worth buying a copy for your personal library). (Such a positive/negative balance also makes rolling up group averages more accurate.) -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soundskinky.com/blog/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Uh, who designed that?
On Dec 13, 2007, at 3:37 PM, D E wrote: I'm working on an important redesign project for my company and found out recently that a project manager (not a designer and not directly involved in the project) spent some of his/her own time coming up with a functioning wireframe prototype for this project. In fact, this same person has been shopping it around to our development folks and hasn't involved the core project team in these discussions. Sounds to me like there may be a teaching opportunity here for the team, if you can broach it so that it doesn't become a public smackdown of this person. If the Dev team is vested in the methods of the current team approach, then every last one of them he approached should have known This isn't the way things should be done, and they should have told him and (gracefully) brought you into discussions. If they didn't do that: * Maybe they aren't being kept in the loop on how things are done * Maybe they don't agree with how things are done and were willing to go along with an alternative * Maybe they don't care and will just take whatever is fed to them by someone in power * Maybe they don't feel that they have the right/ability to say This is wrong * Maybe how you think things are done isn't how he thinks they are * Or worse, maybe how you think they are done is just something they let you think while they go and keep doing things their own way (Of course, you did find out what was happening, so someone must have spoken up somewhere.) Can you tell I've hit each of those situations at some point in the past? The problem here isn't so much that he put together a flawed design, or that he put together a design at all, but that he felt that it was okay for him to do so. There's some root failure here; perhaps on the individual level, but likely quite a bit more pervasive. -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soundskinky.com/blog/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Progress bar best practices
On Nov 26, 2007, at 12:34 PM, Julie Stanford wrote: After that, I am wondering which of the following should be displayed -- here's a list of options on the table and there could be more: Visual info: - Animation showing things being copied Make sure that any animation is appropriate to the project. The old Windows animation of crumpled paper being tossed to the trash can, for example: great for a home audience, maybe less so for an office. (And myself, I found it cute the first three times, annoying after that. Always a risk with something that draws the eye a lot and is seen a lot.) - Progress bar showing visually how much is done Be sure that if there is non-specific progress -- We're working on this, but we have no way to tell when we may be done -- that an appropriate progress meter is used. The project I'm on has legacy progress bars that fill to the full point, then start over; bait-and- switch, but there are too many more significant issues to deal with to fix that. Text info: - X min remaining - X of Y KB - X% complete - X of Y min complete Make sure that the size chunks and the text update rate are reasonable. Time should be like 4:42, not 4.7 minutes. If content chunks are on the order of MB, then don't show at the KB level, since anything under 100 KB is junk info. If viable, use both time and some other factor: Transferring 87 of 203 files, about 4:30 minutes remaining. Different people find different value representations to be more informative, so why limit to just one. - Other stuff I missed? Appropriate use of color? We had a disk fullness meter at one point which went from green through yellow to red. Great idea on the surface, lousy in practice because it was nearly red (which implies dangerously full) at about the 80% mark. So with a 40 GB disk, it was saying don't transfer any more when there was still 8 GB remaining (and content chunks tended to be 500KB to 5 MB, so there was still room for, oh, 3 *thousand* pieces of content). -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soundskinky.com/blog/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OK/Cancel
This doesn't surprise me. Enter (and other keyboard actions to activate form/dialog controls) are a power user activity. (So I'll bet no one exited with Esc or tabbed through controls, either.) There's a level of trust (for lack of a better word) that has to be established before users are only going to engage in power activities. The first time in a given form or in a given app, they are going to act cautious and conservative and will not use such shortcuts, because they aren't sure that the app will behave like it should in non-power scenarios. (Exception: if they are testing the form rather than using it, if they are looking for problems, then you may get power behavior right out of the gate.) -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soundskinky.com/blog/ On Nov 21, 2007, at 8:58 AM, Luke Wroblewski wrote: All of the participants (23) used the buttons on all of the options (6). So 138 times out of 138 tested, no on used hit Enter to complete a form. On Nov 21, 2007, at 8:04 AM, Todd Zaki Warfel wrote: Excellent question. Luke, any insights into this? I don't think this was mentioned in the article. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Kindle
I would love to see a full-on comparison between this and the Sony device, in comparison to the Gemster eBook/SoftBook Reader and the NuvoMedia RocketBook. (I'm biased, having worked at SoftBook/Gemstar for a couple years. The market wasn't quite there yet -- and the bubble would have collapsed it anyway, even if Gemstar hadn't wrecked the momentum -- but it remains to me a superior device and I wish it had lived to be in its 3rd or 4th generation hardware today.) -- Jim -Original Message- From: Jack Moffett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Amazon has released the Kindle, their electronic book device. This is a very interesting product. My initial reactions: *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Jaiku
In the end, it probably doesn't matter. Users will find the button, regardless of whether it is button #1 or button #2. However: * Be consistent throughout your app * Be consistent with other apps on your OS; if on multiple OSes with different standards, have multiple versions rather than ticking off users of one OS * Have appropriate markers and behaviors for default buttons, tabbing order, etc. -- Jim Drew Seattle, WA -Original Message- From: Prasad Perera [EMAIL PROTECTED] Has anyone done extensive user testing for placement of OK, CANCEL buttons? Should OK be on left and CANCEL on right? I have seen many theories to how it should be but didn’t come across any results of an actual user testing on this subject. If anyone has information about this, please let me know. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Kindle
From: Onur Orhon [EMAIL PROTECTED] And not so positive: - Low resolution - No color - No touch screen (I'm guessing it's a limitation of e-ink technology) I think these are all limitations of the current level for the tech. - Cannot connect to just any blog, only the ones available in the store. So forget about posting to your own blog, or responding to comments (I hope I'm wrong about this one) Is there a lot of utility in the hardware keyboard without this? (Oh, and is the blog access interactive -- can you leave comments -- or is it just a limited web clipping service?) Of course, the eInk technology may preclude a software keyboard at this point. One of the big requests that they are going to be pushed for is PIM abilities. And even though I got it when working at SoftBook that it's just a book, that it need to be a really good book and not a mediocre everything else, the utility of even just some simple PIM facilities is massive. Notes, calendar, contacts -- an eDayRunner, if you will. I don't buy the argument that the initial price point is too high, even for early adopters. The SoftBook Reader was $700, or $300 plus $20 a month for 2 years. The iPhone was $500 plus service. The iPod was $300 or so. $400 is completely in line with every other device in its initial entry. -- Jim *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Ethics: Business vs. User
Bryan Minihan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I lump myself in the above group, so I'm not making fun of anyone. I just think we are convinced by all manner of surreptitious means, to NEED to use cell phones[...] Amen. How did our parents manage to go to the movies or out to dinner without the kids? How did the kids manage to get through the school day away from their friends? How could we possibly leave the bedside of a sick friend, even just to go change our clothes so as to not drive the hospital staff insane from body odor? What if something happened?! And yet somehow they did, and we all lived through it. Somehow the ability to do something has transformed into the need to do it. -- Jim *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Green and not: ON and off
I've had that problem recently with alarm clocks. My old one with the red LEDs died, so I had to go shopping for a new one. I couldn't get one like the previous one, and I went through *three* that were too bright to sleep facing the clock (which is the only side I can regularly fall asleep on), because they had glowing screens even when put on dim. The first one got returned, the second became a new clock for the bathroom, and I finally gave up and lost an hour or more of sleep a night for a couple weeks until I managed to get used to it. Technological progress positively sucks some times. I'm sure the glowing screens are touted as a feature, too. Rrrr. On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:36 AM, Ty Hatch wrote: --Lights on the monitor: My wife and I usually have one on all night, and those little volume and power lights are so bright we have had to cover them up, even then they were still almost too bright. It would be better to make it very clear what the channel is and use some sort of hardware indicator other than light to indicate volume that is easily understandable from a distance. That or put a dimmer or off switch on the lights for nighttime use. (It's also the case on the one in my son's room, the light's woken him a couple of times--it's the brightest thing in the room. A glowing green something. Who's gonna want to sleep when they can examine that?) -- Jim Drew [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soundskinky.com/blog/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
