New Advanced User Interface Design and Usability Seminars Help Teams Deliver Usable Software

Grok Headline matches for New Advanced User Interface Design and Usability Seminars Help Teams Deliver Usable Software

Seminars Offered on Embedded Design
with a Voice User Interface

Seminars Offered on Embedded Design
with a Voice User Interface 08/18/2004 03:18 AM
Training targets developers implementing speech I/O through low cost chips [PRWEB Aug 18, 2004]

Common Principles: A Usable Interface
Design Primer

Common Principles: A Usable Interface
Design Primer 10/08/2002 07:10 AM

User interface design for web
applications: It’s a different world
from web site design

User interface design for web
applications: It’s a different world
from web site design 11/13/2003 04:16 AM

User Interface Design for Web
Applications: It's a Different World
from Web Site Design

User Interface Design for Web
Applications: It's a Different World
from Web Site Design 11/15/2003 04:25 AM

digital-web.com/features/feature_2003-11.shtml
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Java’s Advanced User Interface
Components

Java’s Advanced User Interface
Components 11/11/2003 11:39 AM
Last time, we mastered some basic UI components and worked on how to add them to panels, organize their layout, and manage their events. Having covered all the basic techniques that we’ll need to get started with Java interface programming in our first article, Java's Basic User Interface Components, we will move on to some advanced UI components. Today, I’ll be covering scrolling lists, scrollbars, and canvases, and their functionality. It is amazing to see how many of complex tasks are simplified with the help of these advanced user interface components.

User Interface Design

User Interface Design 06/14/2002 12:15 PM
"(...) good design always involves a process of compromise."

User Interface Design for Programmers

User Interface Design for Programmers 05/31/2004 11:33 PM

I read Joel Spolsky's book over the weekend: "User Interface Design for Programmers." This is an excellent guide to usability — for client apps and for Web development.

The strength of the book is that it doesn't start by presenting many hard-and-fast rules, but instead concetrates on general concepts that you really need to understand to develop an effective user interface. People Can't Read. People Can't Remember. People Can't Control the Mouse. Design for Extremes. These principles then naturally lead to more specific guidelines.

For example: you know how when you first learn CSS, you put a textarea rule in your sheet to change the font in text boxes from that ugly monospaced, Courier font to some slick variably-spaced font? Looks nice, sure, but Joel demonstrates how hard it can be to edit for some people. Sure, it's fine for you, but you're young and you have an optical, USB mouse, and you've been using computers since you got out of diapers.

Sadly, however, everyone isn't you. Some users don't have your eyesight, motor skills, or experience, and your tiny little variably-spaced font is now a problem for them. Lower-case L's, for instance, are now just one pixel wide. A lower-case I differs from a lower-case L by only a single pixel. If two lower-cased L's are next to each other ("allegory"), there's only one pixel of "gutter" space between them — ever tried getting the text insert cursor to land exactly between them? You're literally trying to hit a 1-pixel wide target.

Upon reading this, I went back to an app I was writing and changed all text inputs and text areas to Courier New, 12px. It doesn't look as nice, but I'll concede that it's easier and clearer to edit. Sometimes usability comes at the price of how things look, but so it goes.

Joel touches on the user model and system model that I read about earlier this year in Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things." Simply put, a user forms a model in his or her head about how your app works. That model may have nothing to do with how it really works (the system model), but that's your problem, not the user's. Your goal as an interface designer, is to make the implementation model (how the interface represents the system model) match the user model as closely as possible.

The book is full of good ideas and really solid, non-frilly advice. Joel's obvious experience saturates every page (I gather he did the UI for the ISP Juno, and was on the Microsoft Excel team). It's full-color with glossy pages and scads of screen caps.

I'll finish here by hand-typing an excerpt that's so good I'll risk the copyright lawyers. It addresses a point I talked about a while ago when I was struggling with the non-confirmity of the Linux interface.

I've seen companies where management prides themselves on doing things deliberately different from Microsoft. "Just because Microsoft does it, doesn't mean it's right," they brag, and then proceed to create a gratuitouisly different interface from the one that people are used to. Before you start chanting the mantra "just because because Microsoft does it, doesn't mean it's right," please consider two things.

One, even if it's not right, if Microsoft is doing it in a popular program like Word, Excel, Windows, or Internet Explorer, millions of people are going to think that it's right, or at least fairly standard. [...and] if you refuse to do it on some general religious principle that Bill Gates is the evil Smurf arch-nemesis Gargamel then you are just gratuitiously ruining your program so that you can feel smug and self-satisifed [...]

Two, don't be so sure it's not right. Microsoft spends more money on usability testing than you do; they keep detailed statistics based on millions of tech support phone calls; and there's a darn good chance that they did it that way because more people can figure out how to use it that way.

As much as I hate to admit Microsoft is right, amen to that.

Click here to comment on this entry

Mac User Interface Design for New
Developers

Mac User Interface Design for New
Developers 10/10/2002 09:55 AM

Onyx Software Teams With Microsoft and
Unisys To Deliver CRM Solutions

Onyx Software Teams With Microsoft and
Unisys To Deliver CRM Solutions 06/08/2004 08:53 AM
ContactCenterWorld.com Jun 8 2004 1:25PM GMT

Notes and Tips: User Interface Design

Notes and Tips: User Interface Design 06/05/2005 11:12 PM
Good Mac user-interface design isn't always easy....

Mapping User-Interface Design to
Cultural Dimensions

Mapping User-Interface Design to
Cultural Dimensions 09/16/2002 06:39 AM

Electrophysics® PV-320™ Series of
Infrared Imagers Deliver Advanced
Imaging Technologies Fine Tuned to
Enhance Operability and the End User
Experience

Electrophysics® PV-320™ Series of
Infrared Imagers Deliver Advanced
Imaging Technologies Fine Tuned to
Enhance Operability and the End User
Experience 03/14/2005 04:08 PM
Remaining at the forefront of technological innovation, Electrophysics is proud to offer its PV-320 series of infrared imagers. Underscored by a host of state-of-the-art features, the PV-320 is one of the most technically advanced line imaging solutions available and is suitable for a variety of applications including temperature analysis, laser beam profiling, NDT, medical imaging and metrology. [PRWEB Mar 14, 2005]

Software Engineer - User Interface,
Enterprise Services Team

Software Engineer - User Interface,
Enterprise Services Team 04/09/2004 06:46 PM
Amazon.com - United States, Washington, Seattle (2004-04-09)

Yet Another Advanced Log Analyzer 0.7.2
(Usable)

Yet Another Advanced Log Analyzer 0.7.2
(Usable) 12/07/2003 04:12 PM
General log analyzer with a very detailed report.

Voxeo and Voice Architects Announce
Voice User Interface Design, Analysis
and Tuning Services

Voxeo and Voice Architects Announce
Voice User Interface Design, Analysis
and Tuning Services 09/16/2004 03:12 AM
Voxeo Corporation, the leading standards-based VoiceXML and CCXML IVR platform provider, and Voice Architects, the leading provider of speech interface design, development, and optimization services, announced at the SpeechTEK 2004 conference today a partnership to deliver a suite of valuable Voice User Interface (VUI) services to Voxeo's enterprise IVR customers and Evolution IVR developers. [PRWEB Sep 16, 2004]

Group As User: Flaming and the Design of
Social Software

Group As User: Flaming and the Design of
Social Software 12/19/2004 03:53 PM
When we hear the word "software," most of us think of things like Word, Powerpoint, or Photoshop, tools for individual users. These tools treat the computer as a box, a self-contained environment in which the user does things. Much of the current literature and practice of software design -- feature requirements, UI design, usability testing -- targets the individual user, functioning in isolation. And yet, when we poll users about what they actually do with their computers, some form of social interaction always tops the list -- conversation, collaboration, playing games, and so on. The practice of software design is shot through with computer-as-box assumptions, while our actual behavior is closer to computer-as-door, treating the device as an entrance to a social space. We have grown quite adept at designing interfaces and interactions between computers and machines, but our social tools -- the software the users actually use most often -- remain badly misfit to their task. Social interactions are far more complex and unpredictable than human/computer interaction, and that unpredictability defeats classic user-centric design. As a result, tools used daily by tens of millions are either ignored as design challenges, or treated as if the only possible site of improvement is the user-to-tool interface. The design gap between computer-as-box and computer-as-door persists because of a diminished conception of the user. The user of a piece of social software is not just a collection of individuals, but a group. Individual users take on roles that only make sense in groups: leader, follower, peacemaker, process nazi, and so on. There are also behaviors that can only occur in groups, from consensus building to social climbing. And yet, despite these obvious differences between personal and social behaviors, we have very little design practice that treats the group as an entity to be designed for. There is enormous value to be gotten in closing that gap, and it doesn't require complicated new tools. It just requires new ways of looking at old problems. Indeed, much of the most important work in social software has been technically simple but socially complex. - More at http://shirky.com/writings/group_user.html

Accessible Usable Web Design

Accessible Usable Web Design 05/26/2004 03:05 PM
Now that my exams are over, I can finally start to focus on my thesis project, which I think many... (223 words)

Apple, Adobe join photography, design
seminars

Apple, Adobe join photography, design
seminars 06/09/2004 12:02 PM
Rapid Group Plc are holding a series of free photography and design workshops in London, Bracknell and Birminigham during July, at which Apple and Adobe will participate, reports MacUser...

IBM Teams with InstallShield to Deliver
Customization Flexibility

IBM Teams with InstallShield to Deliver
Customization Flexibility 06/22/2004 07:49 AM

Pooch Adds New Brains and Beauty - Plug
and Play Cluster Software Adds Queuing,
Scheduling, and Sports Updated Graphical
User Interface

Pooch Adds New Brains and Beauty - Plug
and Play Cluster Software Adds Queuing,
Scheduling, and Sports Updated Graphical
User Interface 01/22/2004 03:26 AM
Version 1.4 is the latest in a series of updates that utilize the latest technology. Pooch was the first to use Rendezvous to discover nodes for computation. Pooch takes advantage of AppleScript and multiprocessing in Mac OS X, utilizes logged out Mac OS X machines for parallel computing, and supports automated grid behavior and cluster access for other desktop applications. Pooch is the easiest way to build and use a parallel computer.

Microsoft teams with MCI to deliver
Office Live Meeting

Microsoft teams with MCI to deliver
Office Live Meeting 05/11/2004 09:26 AM
Microsoft Corp. is teaming with communications giant MCI Inc. to deliver Web conferencing and collaboration services featuring its Microsoft Office Live Meeting, the companies said Tuesday.

Creative Manager Pro, Agency Management
Software for the Creative and Design
industries, announced new interface
enhancements and over 400 functional
improvements in its forthcoming version
7.0.

Creative Manager Pro, Agency Management
Software for the Creative and Design
industries, announced new interface
enhancements and over 400 functional
improvements in its forthcoming version
7.0. 06/09/2004 02:31 AM
Creative Manager Pro, Agency Management Software for the Creative and Design industries, announced new interface enhancements and over 400 functional improvements in its forthcoming version 7.0. [PRWEB Jun 9, 2004]

Design by Fire: Design Eye for the
Usability Guy

Design by Fire: Design Eye for the
Usability Guy 05/20/2004 04:16 AM
Design Eye for the Usability Guy .. give it a read and a look-see .. Useit Makeover .. Jakob Nielsen

designbyfire.com/000094.html
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What I Learned as a Writer from Doing
Usability and Interface Testing

What I Learned as a Writer from Doing
Usability and Interface Testing 06/05/2002 05:52 AM

Review - The Elements of User
Experience: User-Centered Design for the
Web

Review - The Elements of User
Experience: User-Centered Design for the
Web 12/08/2002 10:04 PM
WebmasterBase Dec 8 2002 8:41PM ET

On Beyond Help: User Assistance and the
User Interface

On Beyond Help: User Assistance and the
User Interface 09/09/2002 06:29 AM

CyberLink Teams with CinemaNow and
WildTangent to Deliver Online Contents
to PowerCinema Users World

CyberLink Teams with CinemaNow and
WildTangent to Deliver Online Contents
to PowerCinema Users World 06/03/2004 05:10 AM
Biz.yahoo.com - Thu Jun 3, 07:37 am GMT

"Design Eye for the Usability Guy"

"Design Eye for the Usability Guy" 05/23/2004 09:31 AM

A Usability Test of Web-based User
Assistance

A Usability Test of Web-based User
Assistance 08/15/2002 09:40 AM

Web design and usability guidelines

Web design and usability guidelines 11/02/2003 01:03 AM

Usability.gov's Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines lose instant credibility for being available only as a 39.2 MB PDF file, with all of the usability and accessibility problems that brings with it. I'm on a fast connection here so I downloaded them anyway to have a look. There's actually a lot of good things I can say about them - the document is attractively laid out, the guidelines clear and easy to follow and each is backed up by references to academic research (hence the title). There are however some guidelines with which I completely disagree, in particular the ones in chapter 4, entitled "Hardware and Software":

4:1 Design for Common Browsers

Guideline: Design, develop and test for the most common browsers.

Comments: Designers should attempt to accommodate ninety-five percent of all users. Ensure that all testing of a website is done using the most popular browsers.

Rubbish. Designers should attempt to accommodate 100% of all users (in as much as content should be accessible to them), which really isn't difficult if you stick to the standards rather than designing with a particular browser in mind. The 95% statistic is particularly worrying as they link to The Counter.com as a source of browser statistics, which currently shows Internet Explorer as holding 93% of the market.

4:2 Account for Browser Differences

Guideline: Do not assume that all users will have the same browser features, and will have set the same defaults.

Comments: Visually impaired users tend to select larger fonts, and some users may turn off backgrounds, use fewer colors, or use font overrides. The designer should find out what settings most users are using, and specify on the website exactly what assumptions were made about the browser settings.

Great guideline, lousy comment. How does specifying on a site what assumptions were made about the browser settings help anyone? It's almost like having "best viewed in Internet Explorer at 1024x768 with 32 bit colour" plastered on to the front page. No one is going to change their settings for your site, so telling them what is assumed isn't going to help them one iota.

Tellingly, the guidelines make no mention of using web standards or validating pages anywhere in the document. While there's lots of useful stuff in there, this omission (and the clangers highlighted above) mean the overall package should be examined with a critical eye.

user instinct: KDE 3.3 Usability Study
and Review (page 1)

user instinct: KDE 3.3 Usability Study
and Review (page 1) 09/27/2004 12:42 AM
neuen Usability-Studie

userinstinct.com/viewpost.php?postid=kde33review
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Universal Design: Usability for your
home

Universal Design: Usability for your
home 10/29/2003 01:15 AM
I've heard of ergonomics, but I hadn't heard of Universal Design, created at the Center for Universal Design. Its original goal was homes that are accessible to disabled people, but its benefits extend to the rest of us. Putting power plugs higher may benefit wheelchair users the most, but higher power plugs would mean I wouldn't have to crawl or bend way over to unplug things. Universal design's affinity with usability is clear from a sampling of its seven principles: Principle Two is Flexibility in Use, Principle Four is Perceptible Information, and Principle Five is Tolerance for Error. This idea resonated with me, because my former apartment had locks installed upside down, a bathroom door that was stuck enough to require force to open, and my current apartment has vertical blinds that constantly jam up, and a dryer dial I found irritating. All these little annoyances add up to make daily life more irritating than it has to be. This approach was named by the late Ron Mace. I ran across it on (via Realty Times) which mentioned it as a new trend in home design I find most encouraging....

New Online Advertising Network Uses
Advanced Technology to Deliver Better
Results for Advertisers

New Online Advertising Network Uses
Advanced Technology to Deliver Better
Results for Advertisers 08/07/2004 03:12 AM
WordLinx.com is the complete solution for any online advertiser looking to get real results from their next advertising campaign. [PRWEB Aug 7, 2004]

Are you providing for your product
design teams success?

Are you providing for your product
design teams success? 04/14/2005 02:26 AM
Do you believe that since your design team has all the tools they need and you have formal program management in place they have what they need to be successful? Designers are dreamers and creators by nature and that must be fostered. They key to getting the most from your team is funneling the creativity into specific deliverables to meet your business needs. Design tools will not provide this focus and program management is far too removed from the design details. You must create processes within design for managing the details of design execution to augment what your formal design tools provide. [PRWEB Apr 14, 2005]

Personas Used as Means of Motivating
Design Teams

Personas Used as Means of Motivating
Design Teams 12/13/2002 11:02 AM

The Cranky User: Electronic publishing,
Usability, and a Free Lunch

The Cranky User: Electronic publishing,
Usability, and a Free Lunch 09/13/2002 03:25 AM

Criteria for optimal web design
(designing for usability)

Criteria for optimal web design
(designing for usability) 10/08/2002 07:08 AM
Some of the questions that Michael Bernard tries to answer:

- How should information be positioned in a typical website?
- How can I make my website's structure more navigable?
- How should text be presented within a website?
- How can I effectively use images on my website?
- Are frames ever appropriate?
- How can I design a visually pleasing interface that follows usability principles?
- How can I reduce the major user annoyances on my site?
- How can I make my site more accessible to children?
- How can I make my site more accessible to older adults?
- How can I make sure my site follows general Web conventions?
- How can my website promote customer sales and loyalty?
- How can I make my site more appealing to international users?

Thanks to Pablo Costa for the link.

"zeldman.nubet"

Research Based Web Design & Usability
Guidelines

Research Based Web Design & Usability
Guidelines 11/01/2003 04:16 PM

"Research-Based Web Design and Usability
Guidelines"

"Research-Based Web Design and Usability
Guidelines" 11/03/2003 03:37 PM

Grok Description matches for New Advanced User Interface Design and Usability Seminars Help Teams Deliver Usable Software
GrokA matches for New Advanced User Interface Design and Usability Seminars Help Teams Deliver Usable Software

Stop, hey, what's that sound?

Stop, hey, what's that sound? 07/07/2004 07:23 PM
People are just beginning, it seems, to wake up to the fact that most digital music today doesn't sound as good as it could. That's because the most popular compression formats -- including both the lingua franca MP3 standard and the standard Apple uses for its ITunes store -- are "lossy": To make the file size smaller, they trade off some loss of information (and therefore sound quality).

This latest round in the discussion seems to have kicked off with a Randall Stross column in the Sunday New York Times, but it dates back at least as far as Andrew Leonard's early, groundbreaking coverage of the MP3 phenomenon in Salon. Stross points out that Apple's choice of a good but still "lossy" compression standard for its music store means that -- surprise! -- you're really not getting CD quality audio when you pay for your $9.99 album.

Continuing the thread, Tim Bray writes: "I used to think that if you were listening to music on headphones on a bus or train or plane or in a crowd, the MP3 lossage really didn’t matter much. But recently I’ve been listening to the Shure 3C phones, and it’s obvious that we really shouldn’t be ignoring these compression issues; in particular since lossless compression is available right here, right now."

Well, yes. We have the technology! The problem here is not technical, it's political, legal, financial.

The odd thing to me is that Stross's column -- which appeared in the Business section, after all -- failed to mention the obvious: that the record labels are selling lossy versions of songs online because they still distrust the new medium, even when it is being used legally and when people are paying for their product. They're more interested in propping up their sagging CD business than in quickly exploiting a new marketplace. So after years of dithering they figure, OK, we'll sell our wares on the Net -- but let's only provide crippled versions. The crippling applies not only to Apple's DRM schemes (lord knows whether you'll still have access to that music, 10 years and three computers from now) but to the 128 kbps bit rate of the songs you buy. It was one thing to accept that tradeoff in 1998 when MP3s were underground, hard disks were smaller and most of the world was on dialup connections. Today, it makes no sense.

I don't doubt that the DRM and bit-rate compromises were part of the horsetrading Steve Jobs had to engage in to get the record labels in the door in the first place. But it doesn't make me want to sink my cash into purchases on iTunes. (At EMusic, by contrast -- which I still subscribe to despite my hissy fit when they stopped offering unlimited downloads -- I pay for music and receive it uncrippled by DRM and in a higher quality, though still not perfect, format.)

The prevalence of cruddy 128 kbps music in the online marketplace demonstrates that the music industry still don't believe in online distribution: It still don't trust us, even when we're paying for the music.

The real issue for the recording industry has never been loss of profits due to piracy, because no one has ever proven that there is a direct connection between piracy and declining CD sales (in fact, quite the contrary). What the industry fears is loss of control. Individual consumers -- like Andrew, who wrote a column about this last week -- want to buy their music and then do whatever they want with it: Put it on an iPod, put it in the car, burn new CD mixes, share with friends. It's what we've always done with our music, after all; we just have better tools today.

There are audiophiles out there, of course, who turn up their noses at "CD quality" -- which is itself "lossy" compared with higher-quality audio formats. But meanwhile, the vast majority of music lovers who are reasonably content with their CDs aren't getting their money's worth when they buy online.

So remember: when you rip your own CDs to MP3, use at least a 160 kbps rate, or higher if you've got a big disk, or a "Variable Bit Rate" if your ripper supports that. The added file size is negligible given how cheap storage is today, but your ears will thank you. And the next time you think of buying music from an online store, tell them you won't settle for anything less.

Stop. What's That Sound?

Stop. What's That Sound? 08/03/2004 02:21 PM
"When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war ... with no end in sight, when the richest nation in the world cannot manage its economy ... when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad, or to any major city at home, then it's time for new leadership for the United States." The ellipses are to keep you from guessing too soon. Give up? That was Dick Nixon in 1968. Nowadays Kennedy and Johnson are heroes who made a "mistake" in Vietnam while Nixon twirls a handlebar mustache in Hell. But to look back at what we thought at the time is to see parallels to today.

df|Media Group And The Hollywood Edge
Announce At NAB, The Exclusive Release
Of The AFX™ – Advanced Audio Effects
Sound Effect Series

df|Media Group And The Hollywood Edge
Announce At NAB, The Exclusive Release
Of The AFX™ – Advanced Audio Effects
Sound Effect Series 04/19/2005 03:41 AM
NAB Show Las Vegas: The multi-award winning teams at Soundelux’s The Hollywood Edge and df|Media Group announce the release of AFX – Advanced Audio Effects sound effect series at the 2005 NAB Show. This leading edge library was designed specifically for interactive, entertainment and game development producers and is exclusively available through the Hollywood Edge. [PRWEB Apr 19, 2005]

"Instinctually I am listening for the
sound of her breathing or to the sound
of her swallowing, and if those noises
sound okay then I’m listening to the
sounds of the house to make sure
monsters don’t come out of the walls to
hurt her"

"Instinctually I am listening for the
sound of her breathing or to the sound
of her swallowing, and if those noises
sound okay then I’m listening to the
sounds of the house to make sure
monsters don’t come out of the walls to
hurt her" 08/27/2004 03:50 PM

In clapping both hands a sound is heard:
what is the sound of the one hand?

In clapping both hands a sound is heard:
what is the sound of the one hand? 12/03/2003 04:54 PM
What is the sound of one hand clapping? An interesting excerpt from The Sound of the One Hand: 281 Zen Koans With Answers that involves a dialogue between the master and the student that answers this koan. (I suppose this could technically be considered a spoiler.)

L.A., Houston top list of worst
stop-go-stop-go traffic (USATODAY.com)

L.A., Houston top list of worst
stop-go-stop-go traffic (USATODAY.com) 02/19/2004 08:10 AM
USATODAY.com - Traffic bottlenecks across the nation have increased by 40% since 1999, a new report shows. Despite that, delays are being reduced at some of the nation's most infamous chokepoints such as Albuquerque's "Big I" and Chicago's "Hillside Strangler."

Ad-Blocker Agrees To Stop Storming Popup
Ads D Squared Solutions has agreed to
stop smothering computer users

Ad-Blocker Agrees To Stop Storming Popup
Ads D Squared Solutions has agreed to
stop smothering computer users 07/30/2004 07:13 PM
AVN Online Jul 30 2004 10:51PM GMT

Keeping Sound Out to Keep Sound In

Keeping Sound Out to Keep Sound In 06/05/2005 10:45 PM
Sony's new MDR-NC50 noise-canceling headphones try to block background sounds like rumbles from jet engines and subway trains that can overwhelm your chosen soundtrack.

Stop SQL Injection Attacks Before They
Stop You

Stop SQL Injection Attacks Before They
Stop You 09/12/2004 11:33 PM
Armed with advanced server-side technologies like ASP.NET and powerful database servers such as Microsoft® SQL Server™, developers are able to create dynamic, data-driven Web sites with incredible ease. But the power of ASP.NET and SQL can easily be used against you by hackers mounting an all-too-common class of attack—the SQL injection attack. The basic idea behind a SQL injection attack is this: you create a Web page that allows the user to enter text into a textbox that will be used to execute a query against a database. A hacker enters a malformed SQL statement into the textbox that changes the nature of the query so that it can be used to break into, alter, or damage the back-end database. How is this possible? Let me illustrate with an example.

When should changes take effect

When should changes take effect 01/22/2004 02:10 AM
Another question about Info/Inspector windows on OS X: when should changes take effect?

Some info windows (like NetNewsWire’s) have an OK or Apply button. Others update the object as you make changes in the Info window.

I think having a button is somewhat old-school: it’s very much like the days when non-document windows tended to be modal. You’d click OK to make the changes or Cancel to not make the changes.

But yet a button in a modeless window gives the user the chance to be explicit about making the changes. You can back out halfway through, and just not click the OK or Apply button.

Such a button becomes a problem, though, if you have multiple panes of info. To what does the button apply? All the panes where you made changes, or just the current pane?

(In case it’s not obvious, I’m adding some per-feed prefs—such as for feed validation—to NetNewsWire, and I’m looking at prior art in thinking about how to add extra info to the Info window. And I’m finding that prior art is a jumble: there is no clear consensus as there is with preferences windows. Ideas are of course welcome.)

The Butterfly Guy Effect

The Butterfly Guy Effect 08/27/2004 07:38 PM
Swimming Suits, Motor Boats, Sheet Music, Auto Parts, Movies and Music, Online Maps. Looks like the Butterfly Guy has a plan.

Act II: The iPod Effect

Act II: The iPod Effect 04/09/2005 12:20 AM

By Danielle Sacks, Danielle Sacks

U.S. Spam Law to Take Effect Jan. 1

U.S. Spam Law to Take Effect Jan. 1 12/16/2003 04:03 PM

CAN-SPAM in Effect?

CAN-SPAM in Effect? 01/03/2005 07:56 PM
Internet News Jan 3 2005 11:25PM GMT

The Webl0g Effect

The Webl0g Effect 07/08/2004 04:00 AM
A summary of things I've recently noticed happening to me, as the direct result of having a weblog. Coworkers say things to me like "you can't blog this, but..." and "No way. If I tell you, it'll probably show up on your blog!" After introducing myself to a group of people (say, before giving a 1.5 hour "introduction to MySQL" type of talk), one of the folks in the audience also chimes in "and he has a popular weblog." Random...

U.K. copyright law goes into effect

U.K. copyright law goes into effect 10/31/2003 11:41 AM
ZDNet Oct 31 2003 11:05AM ET

Round Up: Cause and effect

Round Up: Cause and effect 04/13/2004 03:35 PM
newmediazero Apr 13 2004 8:18PM GMT

- Projecting the right effect

- Projecting the right effect 06/01/2004 09:47 PM
Computer Times Asia Jun 2 2004 2:26AM GMT

The whiplash effect

The whiplash effect 12/15/2003 10:31 AM
Computerworld Singapore Dec 15 2003 9:21AM ET

The evo devo effect

The evo devo effect 04/05/2005 05:22 PM
USA Today Apr 5 2005 9:47PM GMT

No "Halo" Effect? Look Again

No "Halo" Effect? Look Again 08/03/2004 10:32 AM
The success of iPods and Apple stores stopped Macs' market share from sinking lower. And signs indicate even more future converts. By Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek (via MyAppleMenu)

McGurk-effect

McGurk-effect 04/17/2004 10:06 AM
The “McGurk Effect” .. Secret Mind Control Video .. I'm gaga for McGurck .. play tricks on us .. Watch this video .. really keen .. vocabulary

media.uio.no/personer/arntm/McGurk_english.html
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Matthew effect

Matthew effect 05/15/2004 02:39 AM
The Matthew effect "It was Merton who identified and named the tendency always to assign exclusive scientific credit to the most eminent among all the plausible candidates. At least I hope it was he, though I'm sure Merton, who invented many wonderful jokes himself, would have been delighted if the credit for it turned out to be misattributed to him." Or is this called the flypap er effect? The question remains: Who popularized the phrase 'Shut up and Calculate!'

The Tivo Effect

The Tivo Effect 03/22/2005 04:32 PM

How big is something when it gets an "effect"? And what about when no one can decide what that "effect" is?

I'd been hearing about "The Tivo Effect" for a while, and I figured it'd make a good post, so I went looking for a definition. I found this article, this one, this one, this one, and dozens of others, all claiming something different about "The Tivo Effect."

As near as I can tell, it could mean:

• the tendency for advertisers to increase product placement within TV shows (since actual ads can now be skipped)
• the echo created by two TVs in the house watching the same show while one of them is "time-shifted" because of Tivo's ability to pause live TV.
• the inability to go back to life before Tivo
• the increased spare time you have now that you can reduce your TV watching into concentrated blocks of time
• the decreased spare time you have now that you record and watch shows you might never have recorded before

So I still have no idea what The Tivo Effect is, but what's important is that Tivo has affected television viewing to the point where it has a "named effect." And evidently so many of these effects that no one can agree what the most important one is. Do you have a definition for "The Tivo Effect?"

Someday there will be a "Gadgetopia Effect." When that day comes, someone please tell me what it is.

The Slashdot Effect

The Slashdot Effect 12/17/2004 06:43 PM

Slashdot effect: Interesting comments and links about the Slashdot effect.

Few definitive numbers exist regarding the precise magnitude of the Slashdot effect, but estimates put the peak of the mass influx of page requests at anywhere from several hundred to several thousand hits per minute. The flood usually peaks when the article is at the top of Slashdot's front page and gradually subsides as the story is superseded by newer items. Traffic usually remains at elevated levels until the article is pushed off the front page, which can take from 12 to 18 hours after its initial posting.

Someday people will live in fear of "The Gadgetopia Effect."

The Google Effect

The Google Effect 10/31/2002 03:30 PM
CNet has an interesting article about the effect of Google on business. I'm sure there are many examples of this, but this article talks about a company called Data Recovery Group, which saw a 30 percent drop in business after their website was suddenly dropped from Google's listings - without...

The Taligent Effect

The Taligent Effect 06/21/2004 01:20 AM

The Taligent Effect
By Don Box

Several times this week, I found my self using the term "the Taligent effect."

The Taligent effect is what happens when a group of people put adherence to a software trend first and lose sight of the value of shipping software that people will actually use.

Taligent was Apple's (and later IBM's) attempt to rewrite an existing product using the trends of the day. The product was an operating system (first called "Pink" when it was at Apple). The technology trend was objects, but because the project hung around so long without shipping, the trend at the end of the project was frameworks.

What was the net artifact of Taligent? Three beautifullyproducedbooks from Addison Wesley. That's it. No DLLs or EXEs that I can see.

Apple apparently learned their lesson from the Taligent experience and ultimately bet on the software stack from NeXT that was an amalgam of the BSD UNIX kernel, a message-passing layer from CMU, and an objective C compiler and library.

It took IBM a bit longer to learn from Taligent. IBM opted to double-down and refocus their Taligent investment on the San Francisco project. San Francisco was a set of Java-based "Business Frameworks" that by the time the project was end-of-lifed" had jumped on the design patterns trend.

What was the net artifact of IBM's San Francisco? More beautifully produced books From Addison Wesley. Not being an IBM insider, it's hard to tell how much of the SF code made it into this IBM EJB-based offering, but my guess is that IBM didn't get a great return on their investment.

Given the amount of excitement over SOA, I'm confident that there are several projects that are repeating the exercise as you read this.

As always, the book will likely be better than the movie.

[Don Box]

I was there - participating in a similar excercise called Kaleida Labs. Same story - different technology. This time it was o-o multimedia.

My god - what a cluster fuck! The VP of Engineering made sure that none of the engineers would let any of the marketing people know what was going on. Lovely, just lovely. God Bless Dave Kaiser.

The Wilder Effect

The Wilder Effect 11/18/2003 03:20 PM

The BitTorrent Effect

The BitTorrent Effect 12/28/2004 11:11 PM
Wired News Dec 29 2004 2:44AM GMT

The Bush effect

The Bush effect 03/17/2005 03:50 AM
Developments in the Mideast may have the global community warming up to Bush -- but he's lost support for the war at home.

New Advanced User Interface Design and Usability Seminars Help Teams Deliver Usable Software

The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: "jet stop" "sound effect"