UX Chat

Erics

02:05

anyone following the discussion from EuroIA? currybet.net/cbet_blog/2011/09/euroia-mags-hanley.php

Roger Attrill

08:08

@Erics It's Instapaper-ed until the weekend (maybe)

JohnGB

10:06

@Erics: nice answer to the language localisation question.

Rahul

11:04

@JohnGB Still up for this evening?

JohnGB

Yup

Where to meet?

Rahul

Hmm, well, we're seeing a movie at Buitenhof so I think we'll probably get something to eat/drink there since there are tons of cafés

How are you planning to come to the Hague?

JohnGB

Train / tram, depending on where

Not going to the Pathé?

Rahul

12:19

Yeah, going to the Pathé at Buitenhof

JohnGB

12:38

I'm off with names

@Rahul: As in the one on Spui?

Rahul

No, the one on Spui is called Pathé Spuimarkt

the one on Buitenhof is called Pathé Buitenhof :)

It's smaller and shows more indie movies, like the one we're going to see

JohnGB

/me uses Google maps

Aaah, next to the Hoofvijver

didn't even know that there was one there

Rahul

Anyway, what you can do is come to our office at, say, 17:30, and I'll show you around, and then we can head up to Buitenhof. Sound good?

Yeah, it's kind of small and hidden away

As opposed to the lumberingly huge, obvious one at Spui

JohnGB

Address?

Rahul

Waldorpstraat 17F, right next to the train tracks at Holland Spoor

JohnGB

12:45

central :)

Rahul

yeah baby!

Hi @RogerAttrill

JohnGB

We should call it a UX.SE meetup, just so that we got the first one down

Rahul

Good call

JohnGB

Thought on only allowing markdown (not on this site) for bold. No italics?

Rahul

?

JohnGB

12:55

Think of small notes. Is it really important to most people to have bold and italics options for formatting?

Rahul

Ask it on UX? :)

JohnGB

I'll save it for another day when I haven't reached my cap again :P

Rahul

crafty!

Roger Attrill

@Rahul Hi

Ben Brocka

Hi everybody!

Roger Attrill

13:01

hi

JohnGB

Hi @BenBrocka

@Rahul: Edit the meta question on UX meetups pls

add the info in case other want to join

Rahul

A bit short notice, don't you think?

JohnGB

That it is

Rahul

It's in 3 hours :)

JohnGB

but short notice is better than not having one at all

Plus, then Roger will organise the first one, and we can't have that :)

Roger Attrill

13:03

err - unlikely :-)

JohnGB

True... no badge for it :P

Roger Attrill

Actually - there's probably are a few people on here around Cambridge (uk)

I think I mentioned/hinted before about trying to geo-locate users and find people nearby

JohnGB

I think they call that stalking where I'm from

Roger Attrill

I'm sure that google analytics live data has some interesting info in there (pic-link off the page above)

JohnGB

Can we access the analytics data for ux.se?

Roger Attrill

13:10

not a chance! :-)

but what do I know? - I'm not a mod

JohnGB

Are mods, mods for life or something?

Some of the mods I've never seen

Patrick McElhaney

We're moderators pro tempore. Once the site comes out of beta, there will be elections for moderators once a year.

I've been a mod for over a year now. That wasn't really the plan. The site was originally supposed to come out of beta after 90 days.

JohnGB

What's held it up?

Patrick McElhaney

3

Q: Coming out of beta

I tried to find the answer to how we come out of beta, and eventually ended up on the Proposal page on Area51. So I saw that some of the stats weren't that great and thought that this was the reason for the site being stuck in beta for so long. But then I saw that it says "This site has finished ...

Ben Brocka

I was wondering why it's still in beta too, on area51 it's got "excellent" ratings for all criteria except for number questions asked

@PatrickMcElhaney That doesn't have any actual grounds for when we're out of Beta...it seems like we've met all criteria for ages

JohnGB

13:24

Except questions

11.4 per day and they want 15 per day

Patrick McElhaney

Yeah, our stats are better than most of the launched sites were at the time of launch.

Ben Brocka

Looks like we're still at the high end of "okay" though for questions asked...

JohnGB

Bicycles – bicycles.stackexchange.com

Launched Q&A site for people who build and repair bicycles, people who train cycling, or commute on bicycles.

Okay, that's just stupid

We're way ahead of some of the launched sites

Ben Brocka

4 questions per day!

Roger Attrill

maybe we should have more questions on user's experience of various bicycles...

JohnGB

13:32

:)

Rahul

I think they're waiting for signs that UX.SE is getting picked up by the UX community at large

So far that is not the case

Roger Attrill

you mean some 'names'

JohnGB

Well there is no way that the bicycle one is picked up by the bicycle community at large

Ben Brocka

@JohnGB I was just going to say...

JohnGB

bicycles is a much larger field (in terms of people interested in it) than UX

Rahul

13:34

I'm not really in a position to judge as I don't know anything about the bicycle community :)

JohnGB

orders of magnitude

Rahul

Really? There are more people interested in expert questions about bikes than UX?

JohnGB

You live in NL. You get automatic membership :P

Rahul

Gee, thanks

JohnGB

How many bikes do you have @Rahul?

Rahul

13:36

2

You?

JohnGB

I rest my case

2

Rahul

Well then!

I only have them because of the bike plan at the office though

JohnGB

I also have automatic membership

Roger Attrill

I'm inclined to say that ux.se answers are more likely to be picked up on as requiring to be expert or authoratitatative (!) in the field, where as with bicycles - then there's more of a level playing field.

what do you think?

(mixing football and cycling metaphors - but hey!)

JohnGB

Possibly, but then who decides what is authoratative

Some things that big names in the UX field push, to me are silly UX

Roger Attrill

13:39

it's just an overall impression

JohnGB

Could be. But I'm not that stressed about being in Beta or not

I still like it, and it's not going to change what I do with it

Roger Attrill

Maybe there is a feeling that ux.se is a representative of se as a whole - where as bicycles obviously is not.

JohnGB

Although being out of Beta would give the site more credibility and make it more likely to be thought of authoratative

Roger Attrill

how many times do we say that it's silly if something on ux.se is not itself good ux

Ben Brocka

@JohnGB Exactly, though we don't look remotely like a beta site anymore

Rahul

13:42

Great user experience: tryruby.org

Ben Brocka

@Rahul That's awesome!

Rahul

I love the copy

It's written like you'd say it when you're explaining programming to your 13 y/o daughter

or in my case, my girlfriend

...who is not 13

...

Anyway

Roger Attrill

lol!

nicely pitched yes!

Patrick McElhaney

Tell her I said happy birthday!

Roger Attrill

I recently had to convert some Ruby to C++ (don't ask!) - it unfolded and unfolded and became 10 times as long - I was impressed by the succintness of Ruby - it was my first dive in.

JohnGB

13:45

@Rahul: Was that a fantasy that you just let slip?

Ben Brocka

@RogerAttrill That surprised you? You HAD used C++ before, right ;p?

Roger Attrill

hah - sure - but I was expecting 2 or 3 *- not 10

Rahul

At least it wasn't Java, I guess

JohnGB

Never played with Ruby

been thinking of giving it a try some time though

Patrick McElhaney

Oh wow, this is brilliant! I know what my 10 year old son is doing this weekend.

Ben Brocka

13:48

I shouldn't talk though, I'm spoiled by PHP and not really doing much low level stuff

JohnGB

PHP is spoiled by default :P

TomvB

Woah, there's people here now

Roger Attrill

squeak!

Patrick McElhaney

Hi Tom!

Ben Brocka

Hello

Roger Attrill

13:50

h-h-h-hi!

TomvB

Hi :)

Rahul

Hi Tom :)

JohnGB

Hey, another Dutchie

Roger Attrill

Someone else from the Netherlands guys!

white rabbit!

JohnGB

Delft actually

Ben Brocka

13:52

I feel like the only American here around you guys

JohnGB

At least some people have good places to be from

Rahul

@TomvB We're meeting up at 6 at Buitenhof, if you want to join

TomvB

Oh I would, but I have a bbq tonight :(

Rahul

Next time!

Roger Attrill

happy anniversary Tom

JohnGB

13:54

Strange I had one in Delft tonight as well.

Patrick McElhaney

I'm jealous. I want to go to the pub and catch a movie.

JohnGB

@TomvB: YES!Delft?

Roger Attrill

me too!

Rahul

@PatrickMcElhaney You're invited too!

@RogerAttrill And you!

TomvB

No, at a student flat

JVB

Patrick McElhaney

13:54

Do you think Stack Exchange would sponsor us?

JohnGB

aaah... one of THOSE BBQ's

:)

JVB is always fun

Rahul

@PatrickMcElhaney I don't know if SE can sponsor time travel

Roger Attrill

catch a neutrino - you'll be there before you know it!

JohnGB

Only if you measure like an Italian :P

Patrick McElhaney

LOL. That would be a good name for a sports car. :)

JohnGB

13:58

@TomvB: Side question, but do you know of any decent design students looking for an internship?

Or have advice on how to find them

TomvB

@JohnGB Not rasight now

*not as of right now.

JohnGB

If you think of any, please let me know

Guys, I have to run to get some stuff done before this evening

TomvB

You could try messaging twitter.com/#!/cmdgroup and ask for a retweet

JohnGB

@Rahul: See you later

Thanks @TomvB

TomvB

np, later john

Roger Attrill

14:01

Gotta go too - lunch didn't happen. Need to fix that!

TomvB

have a good lunch :)

Roger Attrill

thanks! bye :-)

Feeds

Patrick McElhaney has added an event to this room's schedule.

Ben Brocka

Setting up command line php is proving harder than I thought..still better than VB

TomvB

14:22

Is it? Don't think I've ever tried it before

Ben Brocka

It's not loading the extension I need for some reason. And I'm also trying to find out to run it best with my cakephp setup. The actual php stuff executes fine

Oh, it was Wampserver's fault, wasn't using the right php.ini. I hate that file

TomvB

:)

Matt Rockwell

-1

Q: Improve my crud user interface

I have added labels for translation. I decided to go that way in order not to switch screens... I could have the listbox at the left only and when double clicking or pressing and edit button show the form... The problems that i have now are What should i do when the form is first opened? Sho...

master-details

this question needs all kinds of help

asks too many quesitons and is a critique

Roger Attrill

not to mention rephrasing the question title

I mean it's just asking for trouble!

Rahul

Closed it

Ben Brocka

14:40

@RogerAttrill I've always found CRUD to be an odd acronym...then again I guess we have the GIMP as well

Roger Attrill

and WIMP

Ben Brocka

So I was using my WIMP to get to GIMP and then things got GUI

Rahul

ew

Ben Brocka

It's a perfectly normal interaction model

TomvB

dont forget WAMP

Ben Brocka

14:45

Oh don't WINE about it

TomvB

haha

I think that the GIMP on macos might actually be the most unusable application I've ever used

It is horrible on so many levels

Ben Brocka

I never got the hang of GIMP but I've barely used it or Photoshop at all

Roger Attrill

MACINTOSH - Most Applications Crash. If Not, The Operating System Hangs.

Matt Rockwell

ha

maybe 10 years ago

not anymore

Roger Attrill

[It wasn't a personal criticism :-) ]

TomvB

14:55

It uses X11 as a wrapper-ish solution or something. So it just puts every panel in a different window. So in the end you have to click on the toolbar window to activate it and then click on the tool you want to use. Then you have to click on your artboard and then click again to actually procede with using the tool.

Roger Attrill

of Macs

TomvB

It's so confusing

Ben Brocka

Yeah, the windows everywhere thing has always been annoying

Roger Attrill

I think an older Windows version used to do something similar - windows everywhere...

Ben Brocka

I just minimize everything before working with GIMP

Roger Attrill

14:56

Not used it for ages actually

Ben Brocka

Did it ever not use windows everywhere?

Roger Attrill

I don't know - I didn't use it for ages before I used it either!

TomvB

Yeah, I've put it on a dedicated spaces screen

JohnGB

@Rahul: May be about 10 minutes late

Now I go o/

Rahul

@JohnGB Sure, I'm just sitting here

o/

Roger Attrill

14:58

new smiley!

?

Rahul

You've never seen o/ before?

Roger Attrill

no!

Ben Brocka

I'm not familiar with it, I assume it's a hand waving?

or a half note

TomvB

hand waving yes

Roger Attrill

oh - hi 5

goodbye

List of emoticons

This is a list of notable and commonly used emoticons or textual portrayals of a writer's mood or facial expression in the form of icons. The Western use of emoticons is quite different from Eastern usage, and Internet forums, such as 2channel, typically, show expressions in their own ways. In recent times, graphic representations, both static and animated, have taken the place of traditional emoticons in the form of icons. Western The emoticon in Western style is written most often from left to right. Thus, most commonly, one will see the eyes on the left, followed by the nose and mout...

Rahul

15:04

You guys need to use IRC more :)

Roger Attrill

I'm not sure about that :-)

Ben Brocka

Can't stand IRC

TomvB

I'm off, later guys

Ben Brocka

Bye

Roger Attrill

bye - see you later

Jin

15:51

@Rahul helloooo

Roger Attrill

@Jin - he's supposed to be gone - meeting someone about 20 mins ago

Jin

@RogerAttrill okie. how are you?

Roger Attrill

good thanks - Friday afternoons always good!

Jin

I see our UX site is growing nicely

Roger Attrill

+ weather is fan-tastic

yes - there was talk earlier of why it was still in beta - still

Jin

15:56

it won't be in beta any longer

4

the stats are very good. but we're still monitoring the growth trend

so we'll make it a full site pretty soon.

Roger Attrill

hoho! this is 'news'!

is there hard/fast criteria for beta->full - some sites seem to be taking the plunge that have less...well...'complete' credentials

bicycles was one mentioned

so are there different considerations ('special') ?

Jin

well, some sites are pretty niche by nature. so they probably will never get super high traffic

Bicycles site stats are pretty seasonal too

Ben Brocka

@Jin Sweet!

Jin

we have a set of rules we use to graduate a site, but it's not concrete. there are other factors too.

Ben Brocka

Does that mean we'll show up in the list of SE sites at the bottom of SO and other non-beta sites?

Jin

16:02

@BenBrocka yep.

Ben Brocka

Awesome =)

Roger Attrill

I wondered if ux.se might be seen as a reflection on se itself in some small way

Jin

once graduated, the "beta" will be gone from the logo. the privilege rights will be adjusted.

Roger Attrill

more pertinent than bicycles, let's say

Ben Brocka

@RogerAttrill I for one always judge a parent company by it's bicycles

Jin

16:03

@RogerAttrill hm I don't know.

Roger Attrill

@Ben haha!

Jin

whoa we just moved up in Quancast ranking. quantcast.com/p-c1rF4kxgLUzNc

SE network is now #217 in the US.

it was #240+ last time I checked

Ben Brocka

@Jin Awesome

Jin

I need to participate on ux.se and graphicdesign.se more...

Roger Attrill

Those stats are fascinating!

Ben Brocka

16:14

I'm surprised we're only 40% business users really

Roger Attrill

I was surprised by the heavy Indian bias - Bangalore outweighs any other city by a good margin

Jin

@BenBrocka I'm not certain how accurate those stats really are. I've found that Quantcast stats are closer to our internal stats than say, Alexa

Ben Brocka

@Jin Did I hear that you guys started using Google Analytics?

Roger Attrill

[the live beta that is]

Ben Brocka

@RogerAttrill was that it? I wasn't sure if it was SE in general or what.

Jin

16:16

@BenBrocka we've always used GA

Ben Brocka

@Jin Not surprising, That's your "internal stats" then?

Roger Attrill

Jin

@BenBrocka yeah. i think our sys admins use something else i have no access to

btw, have you guys seen this? slideshare.net/jasonmesut/truth-and-dare-04

i wish ux.se had a blog..

i'd totally contribute

there are a lot of interesting UX related things that's not fitted for the Q&A format, but perfect for a blog

Roger Attrill

ha - yeah - I saw that - and Mike Athertons response to it

reduxd.com/archives/73

@Jin - re ux,se blog yeah - totally agreed

Jin

@RogerAttrill a dozen of our SE sites have their blogs set up already. if the community wants one, we'll set it up.

blogoverflow.com

Roger Attrill

16:26

cool - I know quite a number of people on here already have their own blogs - some quite popular, and some like mine that no-one reads :-) I'm sure 'the community' is up for it - but that's just me talking :-)

a meta question

required

Jin

yeah if you guys post a meta question about the blog, i'm sure Rebecca will follow up on it

she's our community manager and she's in charge of the blogs

Roger Attrill

yay - I'll get on the case.

Roger Attrill

16:42

0

Q: Should ux.se have it's own blog

At the time of writing, about 15 or so StackExchange network sites have their own blogs Every now and then a comment comes up: It'd be good if ux.se had its own blog! It would be a good place to cover some of the news, events and topics of the day that don't make it into the Q/A format of the c...

discussion feature-request

Jin

@RogerAttrill "its" :)

@RogerAttrill i'll let Rebecca know

Roger Attrill

thanks - edited :o)

Rebecca Chernoff

blog blog blog blog blog (:

Jin

oh btw, @RebeccaChernoff does the reversed ascii smiley face. she's not sad

Roger Attrill

haha!

Rebecca Chernoff

16:52

heh

@Jin damn, it really is a dozen isn't it?

my how we've grown!

Roger Attrill

Hi Rebecca - but also goodbye - sorry gotta go! Have a great weekend everyone

Jin

@RogerAttrill cya

Rebecca Chernoff

Oh sure, I see. As soon as I join... q:

hi/bye! (:

Ben Brocka

18:17

@Jin "Don't tweet soundbites" slideshow full of other people's soundbites

Interesting presentation to be sure, not that I agree with all of it

Jin

18:37

@BenBrocka I don't agree all of it either. but I agree that most UX celebs don't deserve the attention

Ben Brocka

@Jin I find his statements regarding keeping designers in-house most concerning...companies tend to treat in-house people in those positions like crap and there's no upward mobility, of course people are going to freelance

Regarding celebs I guess I'm too new to the area to be familiar enough with that situation

Jin

@BenBrocka a lot of companies don't treat freelancers that much better either

it all depends on the company. if the leadership is good, then it doesn't matter

Ben Brocka

@Jin If you freelance at a bad company it's not a big deal, if you work there then you have to break a commitment and tick some people off to be able to do anything

Charles Boyung

20:13

@Jin You don't want to say that here. Certain people will have a hissy fit.

Jin

@CharlesBoyung :)

after working in this field for 16 years, i only judge a designer by what he/she has shipped

the actual work. i don't care about conference talks, blog posts, books etc

of course, many good designers ship and talk at the same time.

Charles Boyung

@Jin That's the best way to do things

Too many times people get all excited about getting "experts" on UX.SE like the one time that Jared Spool posted an answer (only to never visit the site again) and the one time Whitney Hess (whoever she is) did the same thing.

The funny thing was that in that second case, she posted a really poor answer and people were trying to defend her to get people to not downvote the bad answer just because she's "famous" to them.

Ben Brocka

@Jin And here I am with no work I'm allowed to use in a portfolio =p. Oh well, I'm just starting my career/life anyway

Jin

20:29

@BenBrocka you have to start somewhere :)

Ben Brocka

@Jin and unfortunately it's as a programmer...but it's just a start, looking to move on once finances are a bit more comfortable

Jin

@CharlesBoyung I don't see her on the site

Ben Brocka

@Jin ditto from a quick search, link?

Patrick McElhaney

I don't want the rock stars. I want their fans. :)

Ben Brocka

Heh

Don't we all =p

Jin

20:31

@PatrickMcElhaney i want their pay

Charles Boyung

@Jin Not sure where she went then. I can't find her either.

Here's the answer she posted: ux.stackexchange.com/questions/10121/…

Absolutely no idea why her name doesn't come up in the user search. Seems like a bug to me...

Patrick McElhaney

Not me, personally. I want rock stars to talk draw attention to UX.SE.

Jin

oh not a registered user

Charles Boyung

Didn't realize you could fill out all that info (picture and link specifically) without being a registered user.

Ben Brocka

I didn't either

Jin

20:39

it's a not verified account.

Patrick McElhaney

Matt's comment was great. This is how we should treat all new users.

Ben Brocka

It was quite nice

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney I don't disagree with that sentiment. But as I said to him, would he have done the same thing with any new user? His answer then was no, he probably wouldn't. He did it because he felt she was a "famous UX person".

Ben Brocka

20:58

@CharlesBoyung Well that's less nice of course

Ben Brocka

21:08

Woohoo, first silver badge

Charles Boyung

@BenBrocka Yeah, I'm not saying that someone needs to sit there and watch for new user answers that get downvoted, but if you are going to respond to one that you see, you should do it for others (again, if you see them)

Ben Brocka

@CharlesBoyung Other first users are a lot less noticeable of course. I'm kind of surprised there wasn't more attention

Jin

i normally upvote a new user's questions/answers, assuming they're good quality.

Charles Boyung

@Jin I will too, but the key there is "good quality"

Ben Brocka

Same here

Charles Boyung

21:13

I do, however, dislike it when things are upvoted just because someone downvoted it.

Poor answers/questions should be downvoted. Doesn't matter who posted it.

If it can be salvaged, sure help them figure out how to edit it, but it can stay downvoted until then. Once an answer is decent via edits, the downvote can be removed.

Patrick McElhaney

@CharlesBoyung I agree. Not a fan of sympathy upvotes.

Ben Brocka

@CharlesBoyung I've noticed a sort of balancing act, I rarely see a post with lower than -1

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney And we've got quite a bit of that.

I've downvoted things that were borderline to me just because someone upvoted just to offset a downvote (if that makes any sense)

Patrick McElhaney

@CharlesBoyung Not a fan of arms races either. ;-)

I gotta run guys. Have a good weekend!

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney Sure, but poor answers should get pushed to the bottom. That's all I'm trying to accomplish

Ben Brocka

21:16

Bye

Patrick McElhaney

ttyl

Rahul

22:20

@Jin Sorry I was out socialising with @JohnGB

@Jin I was here all day though, you just weren't

Jin

@Rahul i was here!

Rahul

You were not, I left work at 6 and no Jin in sight

Jin

maybe i was sleeping

I got here as soon as I got your tweet. and waited 'n waited... like that lil dog in the Jurassic Bark episode of Futurama

Rahul

I'm sorry bro

I'm back now

Let's hang

Jin

actually. i'm off to dinner. :)

Rahul

22:31

:(

Rahul

22:45

@Jin Let's talk about this when you get back

1

A: Write an Elevator Pitch / Tagline

New attempt: I think we should try to capture why we do this stuff rather than just describing what we do. It's too hard to summarise user experience design but we can probably get an idea of what it is that makes us UX designers tick. So here's an attempt. Bear in mind that it's a little tongue...

JohnGB

@Rahul: Addict!!!

Rahul

@JohnGB What can I say

Transcript for