Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

We have 5 diggers for the diggable posts.
I know I’m a digger, and Danny is a digger too.
Who are the mysterious three?
Are digging phantoms of the net?
For you I write this haiku post.

Might be interesting to some of you: Third International Conference on Design Principles and Practices
Berlin, Germany 15-17 February 2009
See@: http://www.Design-Conference.com

P.S. Don’t digg me

Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit version 1.0 is available for OmniGraffle, Visio (XML), Adobe Illustrator (PDF and SVG), and Adobe Photoshop (PNG), Been checking it out, looks great for any UI designer.
Get it here!

Google friend connect is all about making the user life easy, you can join any web site with your Google account, and any web site can have ready made social elements, like friends (subscribers) and comments.

The basic flow of the service is:
I want to accomplish a goal-> I see I can on a site-> I choose to register -> I am redirected to Google accounts-> I login (one click action) -> I share with friends -> I set settings -> I get back to the site to complete my task.

Google engineers have forgot some basic rules of web usability:

1. Most people have a goal in mind when entering a web site, Help people perform that goal as fast and as easy as possible.
Instead of one click registration to the site users are asked to take a long road to complete their goals with sharing, entering details and getting settings organized. If a user just wants to add a comment, this can be way to much for him.

2. Keep users within the context of their goal environment.
In order to register to a site, users are redirected to Google accounts. The originating site design is not kept as the interaction. Users can get easily confused and irritated by the sadden change of context. This problem can go away with time if usage of Google connect becomes frequent and users expect it to happen, but until then…
On the other hand, how hard was it to accomplish login within the original site environment, something like a widget box that they have there anyway.

Waiting to see facebook connect…

User interface and user experience practitioners have a new blogs aggregator in town:

UI.altop.com

Altop.com (by Guy Kawasaki) is a "by topic" aggregator and they just opened the UI/UX topic page for the messes. The page follows most of the leading UI/UX blogs and in a clean and simple design.
What I miss in this page is the podcasts and videos follow up, but I believe it will follow shortly.

I follow my RSS feeds on Google reader. I like it for the basic simplicity of it and for the complicated options it enables me to follow.

Today I got a first look of what a “share item with note” looks like:

As you can see - the Image is very small and not really clear.

So, I thought it’s me…

I tried going for the extended view (I use the list view):

What did Google do wrong?

Google enabled users to share an item (was able before) and add a personal aspect to it (note).
Google transferred a social element - Identity (a picture that represent me), that is very common on social websites and implemented it poorly.
A common method for creating user interfaces is copy the familiar.
In order to create a feel of familiarity UI practitioners copy from real life, or from digital elements that most users known before or still using.

So Google wants to become a social network, but why represent it with a 10 pixels on 10 pixels picture?

Several interesting entries, I didn’t want to post separately:

1. This post is written using Drivel Journal Editor running on Ubuntu 7.10. It is not polished as the MS Windows live writer. I was happy to find it includes a build in speller, though in a brief look it seems as if it is only capable of highlighting miss spelled word, later I found an option in the context menu called Spelling Suggestions. This is not the common way, but a nice solution for crowded context menus.
The meaning of Drivel is To slaver; to let spittle drop or flow from the mouth, like a child, idiot, or dotard. The software delivers basic operations (e.g. writing a post), it is straightforward and seems nice and friendly. Next …

2. Season of Usability 2008 is open and offers some interesting and challenging UI/UX practical experience. More details here: http://season.openusability.org/index.php/projects.

3. Do you have a wish list? From time to time I make a wish regarding new functionality in programs or services I use. For example, I wish I could stream my desktop using IM or at list send a screen capture easily. This can be a powerful tool for collaborative work, teaching and supporting. If this exists somewhere, let me know, if you decide to develop this feature… well this was my idea. If you have other wishes, write to us.

While installing the new MS (Microsoft) live messenger I encountered the platform I am trying right now - Windows live writer.  

The over all feel is nice, MS feel but still, familiar and smooth.

Installation was also easy and configuring my blog and user was also easy.

Downfalls: They just don’t learn… MS got a great new product out there - office 2007 with a complete new user interface method, this is based on the old UI and that is taking a step back, entering an  Image and manipulating it was easy, but not consistent with the new method - on the right of the interface.

Can’t see code? what a shame…
A lot of bloggers like their code, and manipulate it, it is part of the task flow:
I write -> embed code -> write some more…

The carryover from other blog editing (especially web based) tools is apparent by the text editing tool, and the non friendly text behavior (can’t move the pic around with the arrows?) but when writing on a pc client I would expect more.

Took me some searching to be able to play with font size.

Good stuff - MS style, there is 3 ways (or more) to do every action and the options compared to other tools out there are far greater.

One thing that is not apparent at first are the plug-ins. this is a very broad.

Bottom line - A lot of "MS going for free code" is going around… This all platform is that, the addons are suppose to be by "users/ free developers. A lot of marketing and features, again experience is lacking.

Surprisingly it was easier than I thought, if someone can tell me how I can remove my profile from Jdate it will be grate. Well this is a user experience blog, so some words on the meter are a must. In general Facebook felt to me as controlled chaos. Information or data on my friends (very interesting) leaks from every corner of the screen, do I really care? All this great plug ins, add ons, mini applications, all very nice very useful some even life saving. Well I haven’t tested them all, but the few I have tried delivered a reasonable user experience. Never the less the mesh up results in the opposite of synergy. Confusion will be my epitaph…
One thing that I found difficult was to send a good bye email to all my friends. The basic interface delivered by the site allow very easy and nice way to add or remove one friend, but I could not find a way to ad all of them at once.
Well now I have a free password I still remember maybe a try to find friends in another social networking site.

To all you users, happy new year
!

from adaptive path

Tags: video