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12:04 AM
It seems like natural to you as a UXD
Everyone else says, "Why can't it just work?"
 
12:16 AM
The magic is in making it just work, and realizing that most people don't care about features...they care about solving problems
I'm surprised it took software companies so long to figure out that second point, since it's pretty standard marketing mumbojumbo to focus on solving problems
Especially in tech where the features (4.3 Ghz dual core AMD 64x proc!) don't necessarily map to problem solving (really smooth video games!)
I'm so glad I'm not an SO mod...
 
Why?
 
you must not be familiar with the "historical post deletion" drama
27
Q: Change the way really old questions are deleted

JaredParAfter the recent reputation recalc I noticed my reputation had dropped about 1K and the vast majority of that came from the deletion of really old questions. And by really old I mean questions that had survived for over 2 years. I hate to use the word unfair but I'm struggling to find a bette...

67
Q: Community-led deletionism: a protocol for sanity

Shog9A couple of events in the past few days have caused me to reflect - yet again - on the direction we're headed with regard to deletion on Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange. First, a moderator on one of our larger Stack Exchange sites resigned. This parting was not acrimonious - he just decided he...

 
12:44 AM
OnStartups did a cleanup recently, too
 
This was a years-long problem on the most popular part of the network by far, so it's a bit more dramatic...
 
I bet
 
I just wish MSO would split into MSE already, tired of seeing SO drama on there
 
I'd like to see more delete votes on UX
So deletions are less moderator things and more community things
I don't think we have enough active users though
What's the rep threshold for delete votes again?
 
How do you vote to delete?
 
12:52 AM
lots
 
There's only vote to close
 
20k
So...Roger
 
10k
 
Oh wait, 10K...kinda?
 
12:54 AM
So Roger and Michael Zuschlag
So community delete votes are still aways off, I'm happy enough to see community close votes for now
I don't like needing to cast "binding" close votes on stuff that's not total spam/garbage
@dnbrv there's a different delete vote permission in 20k
Ohhh, that's for answers and for recently closed posts
 
Kinda off-topic question: I've won a $100 Amazon gift-card. Should I get myself a high-end mouse or a bunch of UX books?
 
@dnbrv Closed!
 
lol
 
1:17 AM
You can vote to delete a closed question once you reach a certain amount of rep
so yeah, 10k
I wish rep thresholds were relative to the size of the community
 
@Rahul That's a good idea
 
it reminds me of RPGs where monsters' levels should be relative to the player character's party's levels, rather than being at a set value
 
They try to be with the priv beta/pub beta/launched tiers of rep
 
Percentile-based privileges...
 
@BenBrocka right, but they still based them on SO
SO was always going to be much bigger than subsequent communities
 
1:19 AM
But when a site is small enough to not have enough 10k users it's also probably small enough that 3 mods can handle the exceptions via flags
SO is a bad choice of target though, 10k is pretty huge anywhere else
 
Right but we shouldn't have to handle deletions and closing
It should be something the community does and we only manage at a high level when things get out of whack
At any size, imo
You also set a bad precedent by having mods manage those things for months or years, which is the case for us
People will associate me with "the guy who closes questions" rather than "the guy who's there to help when something goes wrong"
 
Yeah, but a moving target model is also sorta weird...maybe a straight up lower tier of privileges would be better
 
I think it should be 2 types of privileges: common & advanced. Common are based on the absolute rep & advanced are based on percentiles/community size.
So things like adding images, chat, upvotes, flags, etc should be common.
Things, such as close votes, edits, moderator tools, etc should be tiered based on community size, e.g. top 25%, top 20%, top 10%, top 5%, top 0.5%.
 
that's kinda the way they are now
for beta/launch differences anyway
Close/delete/established user stuff is on a graduated scale
 
@BenBrocka But the scale is too huge. We get about 10 questions a day - it'll take forever to reach 20k unless you're Roger.
 
1:29 AM
it DID take forever for roger to read 20k considering the volume of answers he puts out...
Maybe cut the rep needed for close/delete/tag wiki edits in half for SE2.0 sites?
10k is still a lot but not unobtainable
 
@BenBrocka Though seriously, what should I get?
 
Dunno, depends what you'll get the more value out of
I've never been that excited about mice since I dont' have a nice desktop system
Gotta (try to) work now, ejects
 
 
5 hours later…
6:36 AM
@dnbrv do you know of any methods for determine about where a feature is sitting on its respective Kano response line? Particularly so with regard to the two which have an inflection point.
 
 
3 hours later…
9:16 AM
@JonW Why didn't you just close the usability vs looks question?
 
i think theres a question in there that he can rephrase around, plus I don't really want to close questions from new users so quickly without giving them an opportunity to improve them.
I think we need to explicitly add a reference into the FAQ where we say that doing website reviews isn't suitable for this site.
If it's still open and unchanged in an hour or so then we can close it, I think,
 
10:04 AM
OK
It would be nice if we could tag it that way for other mods
 
Closed it now anyway based on the comments left by the OP in the post.
 
Wow, an Axure HTML export shared in a question: share.axure.com/2S3G3J
that's terrible... What the hell am I supposed to conclude from that?
 
Is it possible to tag posts like that? Other than leaving comments in the post itself
 
I don't think so
@JonW that question you closed may be a good candidate for deletion since it has no worth to future visitors
 
Fair point. Nobody would lose any rep either as neither the q or any of the answers had any upvotes.
 
11:12 AM
@NaoiseGolden I think @dnbrv posted that link yesterday. My comment was that it was equal parts depressing and funny!
 
haha "UX is the feng shui of the IT world"
 
@rahul I would have thought the author should have included comments? Is there a facility for that?
 
No idea
I don't use Axure
 
Axure is pretty decent but this must be a new function
 
@Rahul Yes there is, you can annotate any element with as much detail as you like.
 
11:24 AM
@Rahul ah yes, just seen page notes tab
 
\You can see the tabs on the left of the wireframe, there's one for Notes.
You can also add in specific annotations for elements as well as the page as a whole
we can leave comments on shared axure pages too, I believe.
get whole collaborative discussions going on each wireframe. That's the idea of it anyway, I think.
 
@JonW its decent imho
 
That's fine
 
yeah, i love Axure
 
But the quality of the wireframe is terrible
 
11:28 AM
oh yeah, they've used Axure for a quick sketch and it's not really appropriate for that. Sledgehammer/Nut really
 
If this is what the tool generates in HTML, I say just use an image
Yeah
Best to just grab a marker and a napkin :)
 
Or use the funky new Balsamiq tool ;)
 
@Rahul I blame the artist!!!!!!
I like the colour of the save icon. It looks orangey...mmm orange....
 
The current Beta of Axure that this was done in is free to try out. If you've ever had an Axure license you can use that to get the full version when it comes out for free too.
 
Would love to but at company that doesn't have a license :(
 
11:34 AM
You can still try out the beta though
 
@Rahul yes, the best part are the comments
I am actually following feng shui in my new apartment... so that makes me double nothing
 
@NaoiseGolden From years of visiting youtube I've learnt never to read the bottom of the internet.
 
is there any interest in salvaging: stackoverflow.com/questions/340923/… - it's the "is there any science?" bit that makes me think there's a good Q in there somewhere
 
@awoodland No, the answers suck
It's just a popularity contest/list question
 
@awoodland That looks like the type of question that'll get bounced around between GD and UX without ever getting proper answers.
If it were 'are Serif fonts readable as paragraph fonts for mobile applications' or something more tightly-defined then maybe it'll fit here.
 
12:07 PM
I've offered up a bounty (100) on my question regarding underlining of text on pages. Shouldn't doing this have pushed the question to the top of the page? Considering you can't offer bounties for a few days after asking it now that lots of other questions have been asked since that it would push it to the top of teh current list.
/Edit - oh, it has. My bad, guess the front page is a bit slower to update than I gave it credit for.
 
12:33 PM
@JonW Did you ever look at Xopus when I linked it to you the other day?
 
nope, that must've passed me by.
 
It was re: CKeditor and the U button
Here's how I think editors should work: xopus.com/demo/rich-text
 
Interesting. I like how it automatically detects that you're about to add in a heading when typing
and i like the breadcrumb-like control too, useful.
 
if you click the SDL Xopus logo in the nav bar and then select Document View -> XML you can see what it's generating
Anyway, the point is that the semantics are customised - if I click the U button it generates a notation in the XML that allows the end user to continue to work with familiar MS Word like paradigms like a U button but the resulting XML can be transformed into anything you want
As opposed to CKEditor where clicking U actually makes <span style="text-decoration:underline"> which directly affects the presentation
 
 
1 hour later…
1:48 PM
@JonW hah. I could spend hours amused. There was even a TED talk about Youtube comments and sociology...
 
2:24 PM
Morning @BenBrocka
 
morning
 
morning!
 
@JonW From my videos alone I've had some stupid comments, but most poeple on my channel are pretty cool. A narrow interest community helps
 
you could be @angryuxman ben
and make loads of annoyed screenr videos
 
Ben isn't angry enough...
...yet
 
2:28 PM
That could be fun, though Screenr vids are a bit too short
I usually do that for video games though :P
 
short and sweet! 5 mins is fine...
afternoon @Rahul too!
 
Perfect example of stupid youtube comments though; I did a review of a little game and like 10 random people were like "BLARG how dare you insult this game it doesn't have to be perfect" and the actual developer commented "Thanks for pointing out those issues, I've released a new version that fixes most of them!"
 
I just came up with a killer feature for browsers (or an extension): create a "post-it" note saying why you opened the tab & where you were before you opened it
 
 
1 hour later…
3:36 PM
Kickstarter project to redesign voters' ballots in the US: kickstarter.com/projects/civicdesigning/…
 
3:51 PM
Finally got an announcer badge...just a couple thousand more twitter followers and I could get publicist!
 
I just realized that Electorate badge is for 600 votes on questions. Wow...
 
@BenBrocka That's why YouTube annoys the hell out of me
0
A: Features that a "basic" Torrent client should use

James WilkinsonGood on you taken on a project like this only in eighth grade! Anyways have a look at Transmission for Mac it as a few really usefull features that most torrent users would find quite handy: Name of Torrent Progress Bar of Download, with Progress of Upload Download and Upload Speed Seeders and ...

Why do people have no sense of what's off-topic?
 
Because they get votes anyway if they answer before the post is closed?
 
@BenBrocka I am also one of those 4 people for sure.
@BenBrocka Do you want to do the honours, or shall I?
 
3:58 PM
Another 4 out of 5 will run like hell from your site if you autoplay video ads on your news article...I hope. I know I do..
already closed
 
I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing that people would rather answer an off-topic question than downvote or flag for closure.
 
@JonW It's an abusive thing in a way, you can often get an upvote or two for answering something obvious
I've even seen "answers" that are little or nothing more than "this isn't a question for this site" get upvotes in those situations...
If you see someone post that feel free to delete it though
 
Maybe it's new visitors who aren't confident enough yet to answer one of the biggies so they're trying out the site by answering a simple question.
 
Annnd the answer already got an upvote, see?
 
To be fair it's not a bad answer, it's just an answer to a question that doesn't belong on UX.SE
If the question is actually deleted I think you lose any rep from votes associated with it, yes?
But not for just a closure.
 
4:02 PM
Still, if I made a great off topic post I shouldn't get rep for it because rep is supposed to be related to my expertise in the field and my proper use of the site.
If the question or answer is deleted you lose the rep, you keep it for closed posts
 
That's what I thought.
That answer has had another upvote and been accepted since it was closed.
 
What's the going rate for usability testing?
Locality doesn't matter - I can adjust
 
4:29 PM
@dnbrv Don't ask me :P I'm not in the best market...
 
5:26 PM
@dnbrv - 400GBP/day would be my rate...PLUS cost of tools - like say 200GBP / project if you were using loop11; 30 GBP for Usabilla; 0.5GBP if using a pencil and paper :-)
 
@RogerAttrill £400/day?
 
yeah
that's what my time is worth
 
kk
I thought you'd charge more. US agencies charge over $100/hr...
 
so that's about $15 more than me / hr
I have very little in the way of overheads
maybe agencies don't add cost of tools on top?
 
Maybe
 
5:32 PM
I mean it would be easier and more professional (more established) to be able to provide a service at a flat rate and not have to factor tools into the costs, but I don't have the luxury of subscriptions to things like loop11 that an agency might have.
oh - in the UK, clients would normally have to add 20% VAT onto that...
 
 
bacon?
 
Looks like it
 
very very thick bacon
 
Argh. I really need to start paying attention when talking to Europeans. My Yankee habit of saluting people by their first name is biting me in the arse too much
 
5:43 PM
@dnbrv - Actually when I was working for my previous employer - their rate was between £550 and £800 / day depending on length of project - but they had a larger company face - and loads of overheads...
 
6:01 PM
i am constantly fascinated by the obsession with bacon
it's like no other food
its a symbol of delicious and manliness
its just interesting to see strongly people feel about bacon, I would even say that it goes far beyond the love for any other food
i feel like it must be marketed/brainwashed that way to gain such a critcal accalim
at least in the U.S.
 
There's much love for Bacon in the UK too. My sister is getting married this year and for the evening food: bacon butties exclusively.
 
lol
Uhm. Balsamic doesn't have mouse pointers...
 
can you paste images into the diagrams?
 
Oh, it's under Icon control
 
6:17 PM
AHHH why does w3schools show up as the first result for almost every google search regarding html or css!
 
Because they have shit loads of incoming links I guess.
And one unique URL for each HTML / CSS tag in existance.
 
it's annoying
not to mention the disguised credibility they must receive from it
 
I use them for tag references - much better than W3C itself
 
anyone here css buffs?
 
Depends. I've done my share of pixel pushing
 
6:25 PM
I am trying to horizontally stack some content, like text then an icon and some more text all in one line
I was trying using <ul> but its being kind of quirky
is there a better solution?
and in another case I have about 6 notification icons grouped in a horizontal row
the html looks like: <li>Text here</li>
<li><img class="icon" src="images/targetIcon.png" alt="target date"/></li>
the icon is up at the top, but it appears like there is some sort of top margin on the text and I can't seem to change it
i've tried various alignments, margins, padding, you name it
 
display:inline
 
using that too
 
Screenshot? :)
 
sure
im tyring to get all content inside the bordered div there
i want "CenCom blah blah blah to appear inline with the "T" icon and it won't
whereas when i have all icons (the bottom) I have no alignment issues
 
The top icon (T) needs vertical-align
and set that to baseline
 
6:35 PM
the main issue is i want the text to be up that high where the T is
if I dont use a <li> item, and just put a <div> in there, it sits right at the top
 
In what tag is the text wrapped?
Text & icon must be wrapped into the same tag.
 
text was in <li> text</li> and then image was <li><img>image stuff</img></li>
 
It should be <li>text <img /></li>
 
i just tried that and it looks the same
still appearing to be on different lines
 
Now do a CSS rule for li>img and declare there vertical-align: baseline;. Also, it could be that your image has empty space on the bottom.
 
6:43 PM
still nothing, and no there is no extra space
i tried even trashing the <li> idea and just using a <div>text<img> same result
 
Check the image.
 
did, nothing
its cropped right down
 
In Chrome Dev Tools or Firebug, see what rules are in effect
vertical-align sets images where they should be with regards to the text
 
the thing is, if its just the text, the text sits right up at the top. when I add the image after the text, it bumps the text down by about 10px, even though the text alignment is set to top
 
@MattRockwell You might have some positioning declared there... :-/
 
6:57 PM
no posititoning
haha this is frustrating, i am a bit new to laying out intricate little controls with css
i am used to xaml for the WPF apps we write
 
7:10 PM
2
A: How to design identical UI for cross platform Mobile app?

dnbrv Yes, you can create nearly identical GUI across multiple platforms. Most operating systems mandate only the status bar to be visible at all times (some, like Symbian and Blackberry, even allow 100% full-screen mode). The only differences would be in the look of controls, which are often under th...

@dnbrv great answer
 
@MattRockwell Thanks
 
although your answer was essentially paraphrased 10 minutes ago and chosen as the answer with 0 votes
and no links to back it up
 
wtf?!
GRRRRRr
 
and yours has +4 with his being -1
 
Well, he posted pictures & made the analogy with languages
 
7:22 PM
i guess...
 
7:49 PM
He now has +2/-2. Thanks, guys. =)
 
9:07 PM
Ha - this site is run by the National Institute... aaah that explains it!
@JonW how is life as a mod treating you?
 
@RogerAttrill we beat him every day
 
on the soles of the feet with an ostrich feather I hope
 
9:28 PM
@RogerAttrill well it might just be a coincidence, but after being a mod for only a few days I managed to knock myself out and break my nose simply from getting out of bed to go to the loo. Being a mod should come with danger money!
 
He walked into a door.
 
oh no!!
the husband came back...
 
@JonW You actually broke your nose?
 
you actually knocked yourself out!
how long for!
tell us about the user experience!
 
Mama said knock you(rself) out!
 
9:30 PM
Wow 400 a day that's pretty cheap Roger ;)
 
aww - is it!?
 
Well, we charge more
So maybe we're just expensive
 
It buys me pasta and bread to feed the kids...
 
Yup, broken nose getting up Sunday morning. Out cold (snoring too) for 10 minutes apparently! The other half couldn't wake me, I woke her up by crashing face-first onto the hall floor.
 
I'm kind of disturbed, Jon
Do you do these sorts of things regularly
 
9:33 PM
Not especially, no.
 
The other half must have been pretty worried
 
I'm just keeping her excited.
 
Apparently, I got upvote/unupvote and downvote/undownvote on one answer today...
People are such flakes
 
I do it just to bug you
@JonW maybe the last bit satisfies your use case requirement?
9
A: Is there ever a requirement to allow text to be underlined when it's not a link or a header

Ben BrockaUnderlining non-link text is a sort of usability crime. Underline is a standard way of visualizing links, especially when the default blue isn't use for links, so underline can confuse web users as to what's a link. Even in desktop applications, underlined text often means "I'm clickable". Ev...

(style guides can be such ugly beasts)
 
10:05 PM
Ooh, your bounty-hunting eh?
 
10:40 PM
It's a good answer
 
@JonW Maybe. It IS A valid use case, after all if you're required to use underline, it's helpful to be able to underline
 
11:01 PM
Dahghghgh the setup/set up problem again shoplocket.com/pricing /cc @RogerAttrill
did I just format a chat message like a tweet
what's wrong with me
 
Yup
 
@BenBrocka well you're in the running for the sweet sweet 100 rep. God knows you could do with a few extra.
 
11:25 PM
I know, I'm so impoverished :(
 

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