lofton.net

Over in the menu area on the right of the standard theme is a drop down that allows you to change the design of the site. I created several designs based on the same html code to show the power and flexibility of using CSS for web design. I got the idea of course from csszengarden.com, which was the inspiration for me to finally get into using CSS back in 2001. Prior to that I was a wizard with table based design. I dabbled with CSS, but the differences between browsers was maddening. Upon finding csszengarden.com and going through several of the linked supporting sites I learned the secrets of browser quirks and standards mode and how to force them to use standards mode. It was awesome to be free of the constraints of tables. I laugh now because there are number of web designers who want to bring back tables or rather refuse to give them up.

Tables are for tabular content. If you have a series of stats, a set of values that need to add up or similar data then a table is perfectly Ok. For layouts however, I remember the frustration of tables not being able to have different vertical dividers. If you had a table with two rows and the first row had 2 columns and the second had 3 columns, then one of the cells in the first row had to span two of the columns in the second. You could get around this by adding more columns or the taboo of table inside of tables, but it was a mess. There were a number of other table snafus that one had to deal with between browsers as well. So when I hear of someone advocating the benefit of table layouts, I just shake my head.

Originally, I set out to write up the differences between user experience and graphic design as there are many web designers who promote themselves as experts in usability. I enlarged it to cover pretty much all other participants in a web project, from marketers to developers. Many of whom speak about the importance of user experience and usability, but do not understand how to actually ensure that it is incorporated into their process. However, I am going in another direction with this post as I find myself somewhat at odds with folks in my own profession, who after years of research have finally come to view users as people. The new buzz is creating interfaces/interactions that connect to a user’s emotions. To which I say nonsense…

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More and more web designers are seeking to dispel the notion of the browser fold. Yet there is still the reality that users can not see all of a page’s content if it is taller than a browser window and they will potentially leave the page before discovering the additional content. There is often an email sent from the CEO or other senior manager stating that they want some graphic or link moved above the fold. This typically ruins the layout or requires major reworking to get things to fit.

I guess I should back up a bit and explain that the fold is an invisible line where the content of the page is not visible below the bottom of your browser window (and/or to the right side if there is also more content than can fit into one screen horizontally). It is borrowed from the print world where certain print formats such as newspapers and brochures are folded. The content that was most important appears on the front page before the fold to be sure that the consumer would notice it.

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As of late I have been looking into what ways that I could record a usability session of an application on a Mac. Windows definitely has an edge here with the Morae application from techsmith. This is a feature rich application that captures a usability session as well as make it easy to produce some nice reports. It captures both the screen and if you have a web cam, the subject. There is nothing equivalent for the Mac. However, there are a number of tools available for Mac OS X that can perform most of the functions of Morae separately.

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Stretchy layouts are not good, yet every über techie who has a 20 inch or larger monitor wants web sites to stretch when they open their browser to the width of the monitor. Well maybe not every über techie wants stretchy layouts, but enough that comment on design related message boards that it really irks me. Why is it bad, because paragraphs that span exceedingly long widths are difficult to read. This is of course assuming they are long enough to still take several lines. A single line of text is not hard to read. And, of course, if the site is only images or video, then it is not as much an issue if at all.

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Amidst all the hoopla of the announcements of the “green” MacBook Pros, the iPhone, and now the new iMac, Apple has quietly been redesigning their site over the last few months. Almost two months ago they unveiled an new look for their computer product section. It is labeled “Mac”, but it includes other things such as accessories and software used with or on a Mac. The nifty interface thing they introduced was a scrolling palette/window in the page that displays all the products. As a new interface element they do something to help users cognitively understand what to do, as the scroll bar goes side ways.

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I completed the MS in HCI at Depaul with my last class being an independent study to build a tool for testing/researching navigation and how people acquire/find information from them. Actually, I have been researching this for the last year on and off so this was in a way more of a culmination of thoughts and reading. The main outcome was the development of a web based tool that could be used to present tasks to a user and collect data as they interact with a menu navigation system. Ultimately, the project was a continuation of Dr. Craig Miller’s research into how users conceptually navigate a hierarchical menu structure. He had developed several prototypes that used java and flat text files to present the data.

As with most academic endeavors of this kind I, the student, started with a fairly broad goal and needed to narrow it down. However, my goal was not exactly the same as Dr. Miller’s as I wanted and still want a general purpose tool that could be used for a variety of research activities related to testing website navigation and usability. Where as he and another researcher are seeking to better understand the conceptual model of users as they learn a menu and find information organized in that menu. For me, my practical work experience has lead me to see the need for an easy to use tool to help better organize/prepare complex menus for websites, especially after a site has launched. So I am first assisting Dr. Miller and the other researchers in developing a tool that will work for their testing, but also I am trying to develop it in a way that I can use to do basic testing of web usability in general.

I have produced a prototype tool and released it as an open source project. It can be found at the address below. It is in alpha (or even pre-alpha) phase so any recommendations, thoughts, or contributions will be welcomed.

UI Nav Test Tool

The project was written in PHP and uses a MySQL back-end. There is a demo and you can download the source plus the setup files from the site. If you have questions you can contact me via the project site. Essentially, the UI Nav Test tool is a very stripped down CMS with features for presenting tasks to a research participant and it also has a basic reporting page and allows the researcher to download the raw data for further analysis. While the appearance is very basic, this is intentional. As the purpose is to identify problems with labels and organization, not whether something looks pretty or not. The demo is set to use one of Dr. Miller’s content domains which is focused on understanding how people conceptualize the navigation steps they will take to find items.

I finally upgraded my personal system. I had been wanting to get a new Intel based Mac for quite a while now. My previous system was a powerbook g4 which has been a rock solid machine for the past 3 years. Yet since the announcement of the Intel switch I have been drooling over each new system release. As a web developer being able to run Windows and test pages in IE and yet still use a mac for developing has been managed by having two systems sit on my desk. Which is a pain in the buttox and takes up room I could use for… for what I don’t know. I was going to say laying out notes, but I rarely print things out anymore. Well I will have room to put whatever I want instead of a PC.

So I went with the white MacBook. I love everything about it… the keyboard is just fine for me a semi-touch typist. I really do not touch type but every now and then I get going and actually don’t look at the keys. I also like the built in iSight. The remote is cool, but I haven’t really needed it yet. I was originally thinking of getting the black, but after seeing them in the store, I felt the black was too much like the old powerbooks from g3 days or even like many black PC laptops. The white is actually the unique one, glossy case with a grey handrest and screen trim. It is clearly not a PC. If the black had been glossy then I would have been interested. I know it would show smudges and finger prints, but nearly everyone wraps their laptop in a case anyways.

The user interface is of course the same. I am pretty much transferred over to the new system. Just a few minor tweaks to go. I have also installed XP in a virtual space and can pop in and put of Windows when ever needed. Very nice… I tried to install Vista, and actually succeeded, but for some reason it would not connect to the internet. I will try it one more time then give it up… let me say that from what I saw initially… Vista is a disaster. From a usability perspective it is so different from previous Microsoft OSs that it will cause problems. Case in point, I could not get it to connect to the internet. I am very good with computers… I have run, used and configured most OSs including linux. But this was nuts… I could not determine if I was missing the driver or that it wasn’t configured correctly. It just kept telling me how to go about setting up wireless, which I did not want. Oh well I’ll wipe it and install it again and we will see how it turns out…

Well after going over all the possibilities, I could see that the driver was not installed. Since this is a virtual machine (vm) I was going to need special drivers from the vm system. Probably had I actually read the instructions for the vm I would have known I needed to run the tools installer to make that happen. It was just confusing because I did a XP install and it did not need the special drivers. So now I am playing around with Vista a little more and it does look nice to some extent.

I just finished the capstone course. Normally the last class to be taken, but due to it only being offered one time a year, I have one remaining course to complete my masters degree in HCI. It was a tough quarter in part due to a family problem, but also the from amount of work that was needed. I had to go to Japan for a week about midway through, but I was able to finish all the work required. We had to write 3 papers reviewing published research/articles by well known HCI practitioners as well as conduct our own research project and do a write up.

The first review was of a writing by Bruce Tognizzini. Tognazinni is part of the Neilsen, Norman group and a former Apple employee. Several years ago he put out an article called “A Quiz designed to give you Fitts”. In the article he goes over questions that every HCI expert should be able to answer. Well you also have to be a Mac user and being an engineer would probably help (note having a degree in HCI does not necessarily make you an engineer). He uses the article to basically lament the passing of the old Mac OS and how superior it was to the new Mac OS X (and of course Windows). To which I have to say, he is full of carp (sic). While I love Macs and started out in System 5, Mac OS X is light-years beyond the previous OS. He is also on the record as hating the dock (but that is another article), which I also love. So while I respect him for his contributions to the GUI world, I think his emphasis on Fitts is a throw back to mechanical engineering and is not entirely applicable to the web today.

Here is the full review of Tog: Tog: Week 1 [pdf 103k]

The second review was of Chapter 3 from Jeff Raskin’s “The Humane Interface”. Raskin another Apple alum, outlines the need to for modeless interfaces and that he believes there is no such thing as an expert user. Again I can respect the man and his great contributions, but we are given utopian HCI platitudes, that haven’t gained traction despite being known for a decade or more (which is a long time in tech). I completely disagree with not differentiating users and providing different ways to do things. To me this is akin to the idea that all learners learn the same way, which has been shown untrue. While certainly nobody probably knows every feature of a program (except the developers), they can be experts in the use of specific features. Which is in my opinion enough to warrant accommodation different from beginners. Learnability is a key principle of usability and should take into account that people learn in different ways.

Here is the full review of Raskin: Raskin: Week 2 [pdf 106k]

I will wrap up in another post on my final project later….

This was a very good class, as I learned a lot more than I expected and took away some experiences that will significantly help me and those I work for in the future. The interest in applications that allow groups to work together has been growing, with technology being a limitation on what can be done. However, with advanced web developments, tools, infrastructure and abilities that lower the barrier for implementing this kind of application, this sector is now veritably exploding.

It was a tough quarter on a another level as I changed jobs after being in the same company for over 10 years. So I had to deal with interviewing and departure details, as well as, adjust to a new work place. Interestingly, the class had an immediate effect on my transition. In future interviews, I will be sure to enquire about a companies use of groupware and ways of collaborating virtually. As my new job has required me to work with team members who are located in different buildings and my new boss is in another state. Other valuable learning included a good overview of the current crop of groupware and the actual use of two groupware applications. This class also required a team project, which went really well, in part because of the groupware that we used.

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I am on the look out for another editor or hoping an update to jEdit will come soon. I had been really happy with jEdit for a while except some really annoying patterns have emerged in my use of it. The first problem is there seems to be a problem connecting via ftp. When I go to save a file it will fail giving a nondescript error. If I try several times it will eventually save the file. This can take 10 or more attempts at times.

The other problem I am having is it seems to add a character to the beginning of a file when you have certain options set. This character is used as a flag or indicator of the setting. Unfortunately, on Unix systems this causes script files to have problems. You will see an odd character display on a web page at the very top. This would not be a problem so much if you opened the file and could see that character and delete it… but when you open the file, there is no indication that this character exists. I think it adds this when you set the UTF-16 option, which is sometimes needed for foreign language character display. Or when you set the save location… or something. I am just guessing as I have no clue, if anyone knows what is going on with that, let me know. The only way to see the character is to telnet and use vi. Then you can delete the character.

Really the first problem is what is bothering me most. As I changed the settings for the characters and save pointer location or some such, and that seemed to go away. But I am going back to DreamWeaver for my code editor, at least part of the time, until I can find a solution for the FTP problem. I really like jEdit, but the FTP problem is too annoying to continue to deal with. However, I will also look at some other editors and see if there is anything new out there.

Recently, I’ve had conversations with a few of my developer friends who are all a twitter about AJAX. Saying how great it is and all the cool things Google is doing with it. Honestly, after taking a real close look at it, I find it to be hardly more than another buzzword. It simply does not offer anything of real value for web development. Yes, it can make interfacing with certain web applications smoother, and it solves some problems inherent in web applications. However, it introduces a whole set of other problems, that in my opinion, make it widely unsuitable for most work.
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