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08:43
@colmcq @BenBrocka @JohnGB Remember that crazy guy who replied to my blog post about UX design? He's back: blog.handcraft.com/2011/08/…
09:03
Ah, you know you've got a successful blog when you start getting trolled.
i posted a reply
which says UX=no absolute definition, blah blah, consensus may drive a less subjective definition. which I think is logical
09:37
I notice that the video doesn't actually show you how you type the code. I assume that an external keyboard of some sort is being used. I don't think that writing code on the onscreen iPad keyboard would be particularly enjoyable.
guys I'm about to post a really tough problem I'm having at work. would be great to have your input.
we're here for you man. Bye.
haha
10:06
:)
@Rahul: The dude is on something
Best example of an incoherent rant I've seen in a while
yeah, teh fu...?
that reminds me, where is Ch Bo these days?
CB - is always one ahead = DC ( C->D & B -> C, gettit)
@colmcq fire away =)
he did
1
Q: behaviour of save function on modal window

colmcqI have a modal window in which are three tabbed forms: [caveat This began life as a sliding div a la twitter, but for whatever reason I have been asked to consider a modal window] The user uses this form set to maintain information about courses. The user does not have to fill everything out ...

10:22
@RogerAttrill haha! its like the Davinci Code
DC!!
D avinci C ode
@colmcq nice question
I've submitted wires but the prototype build by the third party has mashed them up
so i have to review them again and propose new layouts
hmm ... reminiscent of [Cancel] [Apply] [OK]
Yeah - I was thinking that: see also
3
Q: Should a 'Cancel' button be used as a 'Close' button on a Windows Form?

Three buttons, Save, Cancel, Close looks messy, yet after the user has saved the data should they really click a Cancel button? I need the 'Save' button to leave the form open. What is best practice? Thanks

10:27
would be interesting to see which fares better when tested.
(assuming you have a "Save and close" function) do you need the "Save (but don't close)" functionality? Is there going to be a lot of editing effort occurring in this modal window such that a user might want to save as they go?
I'd be interested to know if users already assume that 'Close' will act as a cancel+close functionality combined, or if they think the Close buttobn doesn't actually cancel the entry (so if they go back to that dialog their previously entered data is retained).
yes, save as they go very likely...they will be using this form a lot
(and where's my "save and keep writing" button in this chat interface ... or should I just not write massively long comments) =P
its really hard to know what will float without testing.
10:29
@colmcq so ... click to edit, data entry, save, data entry, data entry, save, data entry, data entry, data entry, data entry, save, data entry, save and close ?
@colmcq that's what these guys say too : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
Update to Chrome 15 and check out the new tab page
something like that. although users may hate the save and continue button
i would just prefer stateless window a-la Reason's preferences window (there is no save button at all). discuss
grrr .. encountered major buffoonery today
we were reviewing design patterns, and there's on in the lot which is butt-ugly but solves a particularly knotty problem ... "him: do we even use this? me: yes, in feature X. him: ok, lets make a ruling that this is only to be used in feature X. Me: huh? "
Analogy: there was a chemical fire in the office last Tuesday, we used the Chemical Fire Fire-Extinguisher to fix the problem. It stank up the place. New rule: the Chemical Fire Fire-Extinguisher is only to be used on Tuesdays.
10:47
Here's a quick question not worthy of a full Q&A. Does anyone know how a webpage Tab order is effected when there's an iframe in the page? Can you tab into the iframe from outside?
probably
easy to test =)
Yeah, if I could find a page with one on. Honestly, whenever you need to find an example of something so ubiquitous you can never find one!
Ah thanks! And in answer to my question: Yes, tab order does flow from the page and into the iframe.
oh w3schools....
i wouldnt trust much on that site at all
11:00
that page has an iframe actually demonstrated on it .. so even if all the text was in Swahili you would still get your answer by (a) loading the url, and (b) pressing the TAB key several times
=P
but yes, point taken. I don't trust what's written, I prefer to test a spike instead.
Several hundred times in that example
You could use jsfiddle and just write <iframe/> in the HTML :)
11:29
question: in a table, do you right-align or left-align a column of dates?
Well, Excel right-aligns dates/times.
my preference is to right-align ... in a column of dates the month and year across successive rows is likely to be be stable, and so by right-aligning you can visually ignore that part of the column, concentrating only on the part which matters .. the day.
11:57
Did you guys see Chris Coyier's candy bar rating challenge? css-tricks.com/…
wow, folks don't like snickers so much huh?
@JonW If you can't find an answer with a quick Google search, it's worth asking. That way you're leaving an artifact for everyone thereafter who searches for the same answer.
Well yes, obviously the best candy bar is Twix. The second best candy bar is the other Twix.
4
twix is good with coffee too. Snickers is just rubbish.
it melts all over your hand
12:20
@colmcq aww,, but snickers is the most healthy of popular chocolate bars
bleaaagaa
@PatrickMcElhaney heh. +1
its the peanuts in snickers that bumps it to the top of the "most healthy" list .. but who eats choccy bars for health reasons, eh?
12:35
It doesn't have Lion bars on there. I'm on a bit of a lion bar phase at the moment.
I used to have about 6 bars a day
nom nom
13:08
@PatrickMcElhaney I love the section on drag and drop. I was wondering how to help people notice that elements could be dragged, and more generally I was thinking of using CSS cursors to help guide people around our intranet...not much use for either yet unfortunately
And Twix is clearly superior.
I don't get all the "click to rate" ones, seems like an odd way to assign value to more than one thing
nom nom
@Rahul I have no idea what this DC guy on your blog is smoking, but I want some
Unless it also turns me into a massive pedant
no, you do not want what he is smoking. he has a certain mindset, a certain absolutists mindset; not rational at all.
Hence the pedant comment
There's no definition for Ben Brocka in the dictionary...does that mean I don't exist?
I'm scared guys.
I don't understand it so it doesn't exist
13:26
Quotes like: 'they were building bridges before Newton and they didn't fall down, so maybe we don't need science at all'
Geocities was building websites before UX, why do we need them now?
its a total denialists mindset
No it isn't.
haha
13:39
I haven't answered jack on this site lately
13:57
whos jack>
Slang for anything
duh
you could help me speed review a website
14:12
I could take a peek
7
Q: Most intuitive way to offer manual sorting?

Jack M.all. I'm designing an online form builder (think Forms in Google Docs / Spreadsheets). The functionality is complete, but I'm not happy with the sorting capabilities. Everyone that I have done usability tests with (five or so, including myself) didn't realize that the items could be sorted. T...

0
A: Suggestions to display large amounts of flight prices?

RahulHipmunk does 4 of the 5 things you want. Unfortunately, asking for a world-class UI like this and for it to be something you can just hang into your project is a bit far-fetched. But here it is: Note the following: Incredibly easy to scan for prices, as they're shown in the left column and y...

+1 for the disclaimer
didnt i post that before you? @Rahul
Yeah, so did someone else whose answer was converted into a comment
14:28
The difference is Rahul explained why Hipmunk is so great.
I think it would be cool if we had a blog to profile some of the UX companies our members work for
Sometimes I click around a few of them and they're actually quite interesting
@PatrickMcElhaney yeah, I was going to elaborate but I got called into something so good job
@Rahul
@Rahul Yeah, it would be cool. We just need someone to step up and take ownership of the blog.
I think the SE crew were saying they need a group of people so they know it's not going to be something that one person ends up doing by themselves
How do the blogs work exactly?
14:40
Yeah, but someone needs to stand up and say, "Let's do this blog thing. Who's with me? Who can contribute?"
Let's do this blog thing, who's with me? Who can contribute?
LOL
I might be able to do a post every now and then. I can commit to writing an ode to my alarm clock. :)
We also need to define what the blog is about
Otherwise it'll be very haphazard
I think we need more than 6 regulars in the chat first
Posted by Rebecca Chernoff on June 23rd, 2011

Every Stack Exchange site starts with a Q&A site, made up of three pieces that help bring the whole community together:

bicycles.stackexchange.com, the main Q&A site

meta.bicycles.stackexchange.com, questions about community and administrative matters

chat.bicycles.stackexchange.com, the third place for real-time collaborations

But wait, there’s more?

A couple months ago, the Super User community took it upon themselves to create a blog run by the community. This effort has been so successful that a couple other communities floated the idea amongst themselves. Internally, we recognize …

6
Q: Should ux.se have its own blog

Roger AttrillAt the time of writing, about 15 or so StackExchange network sites have their own blogs Every now and then a comment comes up: It would 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 t...

Oh look, there's only one answer
:(
14:52
But six up votes. There's a lot of interest in a blog. But there's not yet anyone willing to take responsibility for it and push through the four steps outlined in your answer.
Well, I am, I just don't think there's anyone else stepping up other than that given that no one else bothered to comment or add their ideas
An upvote is a passive show of support, not a pro-active sign that there will be involvement
I'm sure people will read a blog, but will they write it?
I'm kind of hoping that someone who's not a diamond mod and not at the top of leader board will be the one to get the blog going. :)
UX.SE blog is a good idea. I just voted that question up. I'd certainly read it and post the odd comment against the posts if I had anything to actually respond, ofcourse. Probably wouldn't have time to be a regular contributor of articles though, I barely update my own personal (non-UX blog) as it is.
@PatrickMcElhaney Yeah, agreed. /eyes @RogerAttrill
15:09
0
Q: quantitative methods for anlaysing vast Intranet IA

colmcqI have been asked to analyse and better group pages under a section of a large government website. The number of pages runs into the thousands. The problems I have is that metadata rules have not been followed by staff so its very hard to make sense of what's going on. I have no idea if the curr...

@colmcq This is database/source driven right? Only way I can think of is to run some queries and find out what data associated with a "page" or model can be used to determine the metadata, if any
and kick everyone in their butts for not applying any metadata that humans need to supply
@PatrickMcElhaney I would have assumed only the diamond mods would be the ones able to write/use the blog
15:25
Kick the devs for creating a CMS that required staff to use metadata "according to rules", knowing full well they wouldn't
@BenBrocka Anyone should be able to contribute to the blog as long as they're a member of the community
If you show up with 1 rep and write an amazing post, why would we refuse to publish it?
Don't know the situation behind it, but if metadata is required it should be...required. If it can be automated then automate it, it's hard to tell what the requirements are though
@Rahul I just don't know how the interace for it works at all, would there just be a blog section where one could submit a post for approval or what?
None of the sites I use seem to have blogs except SO which is obv a special case
..actually now that I look I don't know where to find the SO blog either
@Rahul I'm wondering how you can co-erce users to enter metadata. In this case the metadata is just cloned copy, as if they're not putting any in
Well what IS the metadata?
page description and keywords in this case
hey! check out this fun new game, its called hit the link! terracehill.co.uk/projects_list.php?category=4
Well description has to be manual, can't that be a required field if it is in fact always necessary? Keywords you could try and auto-pull once/at all times but it seems like it should be manual depending on use case
15:30
hi - someone mention me
@RogerAttrill
oh - I forgot the ? didn't I?
quick response though - like it :-)
Good lord this guy NEVER removed code! We have production products referencing non-existent databases on a SQL platform we don't use!
"someone who's not a diamond mod and not at the top of leader board"...
@BenBrocka well, whatever the argument for improving the metadata won't solve my problem which is analysing what I've got sans metadata and that has got to come from robot analysis of the page contents to spot patterns.
awesome grammar right there
15:33
You could populate metadata keywords by getting a list of approved keywords and catching them out of the page...text? IF I'm understanding the situation right
Assuming manually inspecting pages isn't an option, which it doesn't sound like it is
Not that I would recommend it
that was the WCS
Worst Case Scenario
Well it seems automated assumption of keywords is your only feasible option from what I know of the system, is that sufficient metadata to at least do something?
@colmcq Don't coerce users to enter metadata
In fact, users shouldn't have to think about your database schema requirements in the first place
If you've surfaced that, you've made a mistake somewhere
At that point the question becomes "How do I obtain semantic content from non-technical users?"
15:39
@Rahul hey, I'm just the guy analysing what's there
I know, I'm not accusing you personally :)
Well it depends on what this is for, SE coerces users to enter metadata too, someone has to tag things
We're technical users though
if it's absolutely necessary and absolutely impossible to automate you have to get it from users
"Technical" meaning that we're already aware of and invested in the schema
15:40
shouldn't intranet users be aware of this?
@Rahul Something else I like about hipmonk is they give you some tips while you wait, and in a good / interesting way - with pics
Should they?
It's a UX problem
I say they shouldn't
I wouldn't want someone here putting in production numbers at our plants if they didn't know what products they were producing
@RogerAttrill Yeah, I love that too
It reminds me of Blizzard loading screens
15:41
Except those were funny
If they know enough to input data in a business system generally I would hope they know what you need from them, if they don't it's a company policy issue
#12: don't run with scissors
#85: never spit into the wind
15:55
more questions, this is for a colleague, I'm not happy about the question structure so feel free to edit:
0
Q: user research methodology approaches and techniques for intranet as opposed to website design

colmcqthis refers to a Sharepoint intranet contract. Has anyone worked on intranet usability studies? Did you experience any differences between, say, website usability research? Did you encounter any peculiar idiosyncrasies designing the UI for the intranet that you didn't for websites? Were there is...

16:11
@colmcq I think you should make your question more specific, it's very broad
yeah, I wrote in a rush, and colleague asked very general question. I'll have to second guess the specifics. I shall edit...
@colmcq I posted an answer based on my experiences here. I've learned a lot. All stuff I wish wasn't true, mind you, but it's vital that I know it and am able to adapt the system to the user's expectations
@Rahul tried an extended edit, but still could promote extended discussion so feel free to vote to close if you don't think its appropriate. I might offer a bounty if nothing comes of it too...
No, it's better now - just keep in mind that you should try to write a concise, clear title and make sure the question you're asking is evident in the body of the question itself
@Rahul and I always do, save when I'm asked very 'outside' questions by colleagues!
where's my new avatar?
16:33
Shouldn't Iconography be synonymized to Icons? Hint ux.stackexchange.com/tags/icons/synonyms
Also usability-testing seems to be a synonym of usability-study right? ux.stackexchange.com/tags/usability-study/synonyms I can't suggest a synonym there though
And no one votes on them here =)
 
2 hours later…
18:12
@BenBrocka By the definitions of the terms, I would say no. Icon is a specific term with a specific meaning in user interfaces (especially screen-based user interfaces). Iconography encompasses icons, but is really much more broad. A logo would be considered part of iconography, but would not really be covered under "Icon". I think the questions we have tagged as iconography are mostly mis-tagged, and the better tag would be icon, but it isn't technically incorrect.
I wouldn't be opposed to the synonym, but I would go the reverse - have icon be a synonym for iconography, since it is the more broad term.
In a UX context people using "iconography" are talking about icons, much more rarely the meaning of images or paintings
q: is there a limit as to how much you can offer on a bounty?
yes - 500 I think
hey! where you spring from?
like nowhere
18:24
dude
I wonder if @melee has any review of talks from the conference
probably, but its quite a bit of work to review the talks imho
or summarize I guess
or key points/things learned
Oh wow, I never realized the youtube ratings were THAT stilted: youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/…
No wonder they killed the star rating thing, I always thought it was stupid to give star ratings in a non-review context
like ^^^
18:39
As a secondary note I found it interesting but not unexpected that 1 star ratings were like less than 1/10th the volume of 5 stars
Downvote is usually used as a method of trolling. And on facebook people seem to want to use a "dislike button" as a "dude, that sucks" button (someone here called it that and I forgot who)
5 star rating is a bit useless in most cases. and if you have a dual rating (like or dislike) it will encourage trolling.
That's why I generally prefer an unary voting system, only upvotes
I do like how SE handles downvotes, trolling with downvotes hurts YOU 50% as much as anyone you want to troll, so it's restricted for actually bad posts
had a long discussion in my previous workplace about using a star rating for rating what people were designing in the store... but the problem is that the less used products would automatically become less sold product.
and if you downvote too much you lose your ability to do so to boot
Star ratings work for actual in depth reviews, but I would never use a star rating without asking for a written review
which we discovered after the proof of concept, scrapped the idea before it went into production. but we did the unary voting system instead.
18:43
and subjective scales are notoriously flawed ref....
if you don't care enough to write a review you don't care enough to decide if this is REALLY 5 star or if it's more like 4.5 stars
that's the other thing, stars introduce a lot mroe subjectivity AND complexity
the problem with arbitrary voting systems is that average doesn't tell you much more than a up/down vote.
No one knows what 2 or 4 stars means to another person. YOu just know 1 star sucks and 5 stars is at least good
people only want to up or downvote... only constructive critics want to do a 3/5 or a 4/5 thing, a persona which there arent so many of.
I'm surprised Amazon still has the 5 star rating system
they were first with it... totally misleading all other web developers with it as well.
"hey amazon is doing it. maybe we should too"
But it is helpful on Amazon
it allows a distinction bewteen a perfect product - (say 10 people give it 5 stars)
18:47
@Spoike But they are the LOUDEST. People flipped crap on the youtube change and I bet 95% of them always rated 5 stars too
@BenBrocka I like the system of downvoting in SE as well. as it discourages trolling
and a good product - 10 people give it a mix of 3 4 or 5 stars
it is helpful in amazon...
Yeah, meaningful reviews are different, but most rating systems are used as "I like this" or "this sucks, change it"
looking at both of those i would def go for the 5 star
18:48
... but as I said, any arbitrary rating system is as good as a dual rating system
o sorry i meant to say the 5 star had 2 1 stars
The Beavis and Butthead scale
people only want to see who recommends it versus who doesn't recommend it... and why.
The rare exception to this I've seen is the Playstation Store ratings
I sorta... don't look at the ratings in Playstation
18:49
items rated 4+ stars are usually stellar, and it would be harder to determine things like this just by counting thumbs up/down
I'm not entirely sure why it works well though
I use trusted gaming site/metacritic rating instead.
they're pretty effective really
actually... you can do an average on counting thumbs
At a glance it's pretty neat, I usually use it to see how games I like faired in popular opinion, I was very glad to see Parasite Eve has like 4.9 stars
upvotes/total votes
18:51
but the average still doesnt give the detail that 5 stars can
get a percentage... if it's slanted above 50%, people like it
Averages on binary voting systems get weird, I guess a 90% liked this isn't too bad though
it still lacks the distinct, if arbitrary, boundries of the stars
that's their appeal, even if it rarely works out to good effect
I don't really think it matters as the majority would choose 1 star or 5 stars.
and you get an average anyway
which is pretty much the same as if you used up and down votes
in the case of like an Amazon I disagree
Still, everyone notices 3 stars vs 4 stars. It's harder for a normal person to see 60% vs 80% and give a darn about the difference
Big numbers are scary
18:52
if something is real good, most people give it 4
also... you don't want to show the average until enough people have voted.
like more than 10
if it is basically flawless perfect awesome they might give 5
big dif
Interesting set of binary voting widgets: codecanyon.net/item/thumbsup/full_screen_preview/50411
@MattRockwell Only in some communities though, which seems to be the case in amazon at least
right I agree
like youtube is much better with like/dislike
wow! I go away to play my guitar for 5 mins and all breaks loose in chat!
18:55
sorry, my fault
;)
On a related note, I really like the like/dislike bar on youtube, it solves the "average" problem pretty well
yes it does
Due to typical trolling/ect I usually expect ~5% to 10% negatives for fairly uncontroversial things, in that case I just look at the # of upvotes
if I see ~50% downvotes off the bat I start to assume this video is a fake, screamer or very poor quality
But generally the # of downvotes almost never matters to me except on SE, where more than one downvote means like "woah, that post must be crap"
Also, an interesting read on restricting communication to "child proof" online interaction: habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/…
As a side note Nintendo has taken the stance that online interaction is evil and you will be punished for wanting to play with your friends. Now memorize these 10 digits:
19:53
Has anyone used a jquery plugin to make a date field sort of like a combobox, but with a calendar icon instead of a dropdown box arrow?
20:08
no
soz
Nintendo is really hurting with it's user-unfriendly friend code system.
at least they have something they can improve
Do the WiiU and 3DS still use the friend code system?
3DS does... I think... I don't play multiplay on 3DS
It's part of the reason I never got any internet based games on the wii
I play tetris, does that help?
do you like my avatar? heh.
20:14
WiiU isn't released yet
I hear it helps your spacial skills
Didn't think it was, you'd think they'd announce their online system for it
..actually with nintendo maybe not
AFAIK they haven't announced anything about their online system
Sony, Microsoft: Online connectivity is a selling point. Nintendo: We don't like to talk about the internet. Bad things happen there...like fun.
but if anything, it'd be totally japanese
like... hey, walk past this stranger with your WiiU
Is the WiiU getting released in Japan first?
20:16
;P
I must show U my Wii!
No release dates AFAIK.
"I must show U my Wii!" aye, that's pure perverted big yin!
man... WiiU now sounds a lot like an allegory for F U.
Wii Off!
Well, WiiU2
It's an onomatopoeia
Ever hear a police siren? WiiU WiiU WiiU WiiU WiiU
20:19
From a branding perspective, Wii is still an excellent name. It makes everyone discuss about it. I still think the japanese are playing a joke on us with that name.
"Hur hur hur... it means penis in their language... hur hur hur..."
And Nintendo of America is all like... "So how are we supposed to work with this name without resorting to the male reproductive organ? ... Uh... it sounds a lot like 'we', sir? Excellent!"
I hear 4chan is getting their own version of the new console called NoU
@spoike penis in japanese is peepee - close I suppose. I had a japanese GF
21:15
complete with moving clouds and rocking seat on the ferris wheel
On Halloween will there be a little child dangling from the rocking seat on the ferris wheel?
1
Q: Vote to close options should include GD.SE and SO

Ben BrockaYou know, this thing: The most common sites we migrate to are easily Graphic Design.stackexchange and Stack Overflow; could we get these included in the Off Topic options? Usually this is a result of asking implementation questions in code or design, or asking a purely stylistic question. If an...

21:56
@RogerAttrillI feel cold now
morning all
ning

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