I'm settling in to get some things done and notice a blurb.
There's going to be a rollout of the next Firefox over the next few weeks. I pay close attention to that because I use Firefox extensively. I'd be lost without it.
I'm so tightly trained to use Firefox that I have to step back and actually "think" how to use any other browser. Since I use Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Mac OSX Mavericks, and Debian Linux on a daily basis as well as Android and an occasional toe dipped into Apple's iOS, I have to remain as flexible as possible and Firefox is on all of those computers.
Except the iPhone but I hardly ever use them.
I will eventually install Firefox on the Windows machines when it tells me that it is available. I'm not in a rush. The last time they changed the way it looks, the User Interface or UI, it borked it for me. I ended up installing things to make it look the way it did before I updated the browser while growling at Firefox in general. Keystrokes and mouse clicks and all that moved. They removed the status bar. The bookmark strip got lost, or rather hid, and that stores some of your bookmarks. They removed the title bar.
Why? Never heard a reason, but I installed Classic Theme Restorer and it brought it all back. Immediately after that I installed Adblock Edge to get rid of the blasted adverts and other nasties that hitch a ride onto your computer as a result. More Privacy means for a faster experience as well as fewer viruses and spyware pushed onto your local computer. Nobody actually "Likes" ads anyway, we accept their presence and usually are annoyed or distracted by them, but "Like"? I doubt it.
Rule Number One of Software User Experience (UX) is if you change the way something looks, you will break the way people work. I learned that back in the days of the Mainframe and College.
Rule Number Two of Software User Experience is that if you do change it there will be unintended consequences.
In My Case:
I have a computer that has what they call a "Clickpad". It's also running Debian Linux. I know Linux in general fairly well, but Debian Linux doesn't manage Clickpads well. Clickpads are those weird trackpads that are flush with the case. You click on the pad instead of having normal buttons like every other Synaptic trackpad.
I do know that is fixed in the next version of Debian, and I do know how to fix it now, but it is an annoyance that I have to deal with. It basically forgets that it has a physical button in Debian Stable/Wheezy, and you're stuck with whatever you touch on the trackpad. I only get a Right Click when I tap. I have since configured a two fingered tap to be a Left Click.
What that all did change did is to break the way Firefox works. You see, on that particular computer, I can't Right Click. I can't get the pop up context menu. They changed the UI right away from it.
Since that machine is Debian Linux, I have to wait for the next version anyway. It isn't even using Firefox, but something rebranded as "IceWeasel". To put it short, and sarcastic, Debian had a spat with Firefox over the branding. Since Firefox/Mozilla doesn't want anything proprietary at all on their default install, someone in the Debian Project grabbed the source code, recompiled it, created the graphics, and renamed everything to IceWeasel. It works like Firefox but is Older. About a version back.
If you're running Stable, or Wheezy, you could be quite a few versions back. Jessie has a more current Firefox, but it also has a lot more annoying bugs in it because it is "Testing".
But Windows? Yeah, you'll get it soon. Just remember Classic Theme Restorer and Adblock Edge, and you'll be fine.
As for the Mac? When it is available, you'll get a blip on the bottom of the screen telling you you're ready for an upgrade. You can also go back to the old theme if you want, but I do recommend Adblock Edge as well.
Why the harping on the ads? It's a much faster browsing experience when you surf a page without the ads. No blinky pictures, crawling things, or text ads. If you don't download them, you use less data. Things pop faster.
Trust me on that one. You can always turn it off later.
An Open Letter To My Sister, or Whatever Pops Into My Head at the Time...
Showing posts with label User Interface. Show all posts
Showing posts with label User Interface. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Monster.com, Are You Kidding? Fancybox? Really?
"Eat Your Own Dog Food."
Monster.com doesn't seem to realize this in their roll out of new "features".
You see, Eat Your Own Dog Food really means that you're going to use your own product to make sure that it suits what you intend it to do, and that you aren't giving the competitors an unfair advantage.
In web development and Project Management, this means finding someone who becomes the "Subject Matter Expert" and "Product Owner" and takes on a very special role. When I worked at the university, and in every position I have held back into the beginning days of my career, I've assumed this role. It means that you are going to step back, listen to what the "Main User" of the system says about it, and champion that role within "Development" so that the Main User's need are best served.
It means that you have to anticipate how any person will use the system and make sure that problems do not occur, and that when they do, problems are dealt with gently and "Gracefully".
It also means that unintended consequences sometimes occur like in this picture above.
It is one of my least favorite features, the "Fancybox" or the "Lightbox".
It is also very very rarely used correctly.
This is an example of how badly monster.com used the fancybox.
I did this under "my signon" and on another browser with no signon and it repeats itself.
Simply put, go onto Monster.com and do a search for any position you like in what ever zipcode you prefer. Monster will return a list of positions. It may even give you more than one page. When you go from page 1 to page 2, it will put a "fancybox" up on your browser asking you "Let These Jobs Come To You".
No, you blistering idiot, that is not what I wanted.
You see it will do that for this page, and any future page I want to look at.
Every Blistering Page.
Ok, so I'm quoting the TV Sliders and Dr. Arturo with his wonderful rants and insults, but the point is still valid - Fancyboxes rarely serve a useful purpose For The User.
I went in immediately to my browser, clicked "Adblock Plus" and found a script. I blocked it, and refreshed the page, and now I'm back to the old Fancybox Free behavior.
If I wanted an RSS Feed of the search parameters, it would not work because since I live in a major metropolitan area, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, there are thousands of jobs. I have given up on RSS Feeds for this because they "max out" at 50. I typically would need around 500 to be able to see the last two days worth of positions on this given search.
I have many searches, and have saved each individual page to save me a LOT of time that would be otherwise wasted clicking on "Next Page" buttons. If I were not able to do the search the way I do, then I probably would have stopped using Monster.com a long time ago.
So all you need to do is go into your adblock plus and block the script called:
http://media.newjobs.com/nmy/usen/iperceptions506.js
It is badly written code, your QA, Development Department, and Project Managers have made a mistake.
It simply does not belong in a professional product like we have come to expect in Monster.com. It only can have come from someone who has sat in too many Marketing Meetings and thought they could get more "buy-in" from their users.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Dealing with Facebook Annoyances Using Adblock Plus
Audience is either Firefox Users or Chrome Users.
Facebook is the website you love to hate.
Teens are leaving it, adults can be addicted as a time sink, marketers think they can buy the world's information at a song.
You can tame the beast some.
Lately Facebook has made some changes to the way they present information. It's all about getting you to opt into more things - you know, to "Like" them. That helps them build a profile about you. Since you tend to give up that information freely, it's pretty valuable.
But lately it got to be a bit much. Since I manage a number of websites, and a number of social media presences online, I have to be on Facebook - all day.
First thing is you really need a good ad blocker. The reason is that those ad services may be entertaining but they are watching what you do everywhere. You may not have a problem with it, but I do.
I went to Firefox years ago and installed an adblocker. The latest iteration of it is called "Adblock Edge". It will block both intrusive and non-intrusive advertising. The distinction between that and "Adblock Plus" is that Adblock Plus has been paid by Google and perhaps others to not block their text ads. That raises the question of what else are they not telling you. Supposedly Adblock Plus is making the decision as to whether something is acceptable, and I'm not comfortable with that.
I'll let you look into that whole learning process. It's best that you look into it yourself, but the default settings on Adblock Edge are pretty good to begin with. The simplest explanation is that you can right click on an ad, Select "Adblock Plus: Block Image" and tailor what you see.
The next step is to import something into Adblock Edge that works with Facebook itself. There's a big long list of things that they added that annoy me, as well as clutter their interface. Frankly I don't have time for most of it, but a long list of that stuff can be found in this article.
Those annoyances are the "You May Like" or the "You May Know" genre of items. They got to the point where they were more than half of what I would see on Facebook. So when I saw the article, I followed the simple instructions:
You're done. Facebook will be less cluttered - until they break that by changing things.
You can always hide those people or businesses by unfriending or unliking them, but that is a bit of a Nuclear Option. This keeps the friends but loses the "chaff".
It just got too hectic, so thankfully Technology came to the rescue.
Facebook is the website you love to hate.
Teens are leaving it, adults can be addicted as a time sink, marketers think they can buy the world's information at a song.
You can tame the beast some.
Lately Facebook has made some changes to the way they present information. It's all about getting you to opt into more things - you know, to "Like" them. That helps them build a profile about you. Since you tend to give up that information freely, it's pretty valuable.
But lately it got to be a bit much. Since I manage a number of websites, and a number of social media presences online, I have to be on Facebook - all day.
First thing is you really need a good ad blocker. The reason is that those ad services may be entertaining but they are watching what you do everywhere. You may not have a problem with it, but I do.
I went to Firefox years ago and installed an adblocker. The latest iteration of it is called "Adblock Edge". It will block both intrusive and non-intrusive advertising. The distinction between that and "Adblock Plus" is that Adblock Plus has been paid by Google and perhaps others to not block their text ads. That raises the question of what else are they not telling you. Supposedly Adblock Plus is making the decision as to whether something is acceptable, and I'm not comfortable with that.
- Simple, get Adblock Edge instead. Adblock Edge will allow you, once you learn how to use the thing, to block any advert as well as things like frames and those reprehensible "Fancybox" and "Lightbox" things that seem to float over a web page.
I'll let you look into that whole learning process. It's best that you look into it yourself, but the default settings on Adblock Edge are pretty good to begin with. The simplest explanation is that you can right click on an ad, Select "Adblock Plus: Block Image" and tailor what you see.
The next step is to import something into Adblock Edge that works with Facebook itself. There's a big long list of things that they added that annoy me, as well as clutter their interface. Frankly I don't have time for most of it, but a long list of that stuff can be found in this article.
Those annoyances are the "You May Like" or the "You May Know" genre of items. They got to the point where they were more than half of what I would see on Facebook. So when I saw the article, I followed the simple instructions:
- First Surf this page. It gives you a graphical representation of things you don't want to see.
- Second, select the link you want. I selected the Block All in the first column but that may be a bit too much. You can see the graphic and select the one you want by clicking on the green "+ add" button.
- Third, add the rules to your Adblocker. When you click on the "+ add" button, it will pop up the Adblock dialogue box for "Add Adblock Plus Filter Subscription". Click on the button to "Add Subscription".
You're done. Facebook will be less cluttered - until they break that by changing things.
You can always hide those people or businesses by unfriending or unliking them, but that is a bit of a Nuclear Option. This keeps the friends but loses the "chaff".
It just got too hectic, so thankfully Technology came to the rescue.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Web Annoyances - Websites Where Keyboards Don't Work
This one gets me a lot.
It's so basic that I have to wonder who on earth is making these web pages?
Worse, who on earth is approving and testing them?
Oh, that's right, you can't do Proper QA any more since everything is written overseas on the cheap.
You get what you pay for.
Rant aside...
For the most part, even now, the place most people are doing their "heavy duty" web surfing is on a browser. I'm basing that on this blog's statistics, and I feel confident that that feeling is backed up by most web services.
The proportion is roughly evenly split between Internet Explorer, Firefox (and its variants), and Chrome.
I personally have noticed this on Firefox and on Internet Explorer, on Windows, Linux, and on Mac OSX.
It just doesn't happen on a tablet or a phone since the way you use a webpage is different there. You only have a mouse (touchscreen), you rarely have a keyboard.
I notice this on a daily basis on Monster.com, but it also shows up with many other oddball sites.
Here's how to find the problem on Monster:
They don't work.
You actually have to click inside the body of the page to get the page to move. You can tab around, cursor around, whatever you choose, but it just doesn't work until you click inside the page.
If you are a web developer and call this done, you are bad and you should feel bad.
Zoidberg doesn't like you and neither do I.
This also works with the Windows or Linux alternate page down, the space bar.
Navigation is simply locked down until you click inside the page.
My best guess is that it's a function of working with the software behind the scenes (Ajax) and having reworked your browser so that all the keys are forced to do a certain special task. Don't know but it's still wrong.
Now go back and fix your web page. That's a rookie mistake. If you're good, Robot Santa may leave you a gift.
It's so basic that I have to wonder who on earth is making these web pages?
Worse, who on earth is approving and testing them?
Oh, that's right, you can't do Proper QA any more since everything is written overseas on the cheap.
You get what you pay for.
Rant aside...
For the most part, even now, the place most people are doing their "heavy duty" web surfing is on a browser. I'm basing that on this blog's statistics, and I feel confident that that feeling is backed up by most web services.
The proportion is roughly evenly split between Internet Explorer, Firefox (and its variants), and Chrome.
I personally have noticed this on Firefox and on Internet Explorer, on Windows, Linux, and on Mac OSX.
It just doesn't happen on a tablet or a phone since the way you use a webpage is different there. You only have a mouse (touchscreen), you rarely have a keyboard.
I notice this on a daily basis on Monster.com, but it also shows up with many other oddball sites.
Here's how to find the problem on Monster:
- Surf Monster and do a search. Doesn't really matter what kind of job you search for, your own zip code will be fine.
- You will be presented with a list. Pick one from the list. It doesn't really matter which.
- Now that you are looking at a page, a job really, use your Page Up or Page Down keys.
They don't work.
You actually have to click inside the body of the page to get the page to move. You can tab around, cursor around, whatever you choose, but it just doesn't work until you click inside the page.
If you are a web developer and call this done, you are bad and you should feel bad.
Zoidberg doesn't like you and neither do I.
This also works with the Windows or Linux alternate page down, the space bar.
Navigation is simply locked down until you click inside the page.
My best guess is that it's a function of working with the software behind the scenes (Ajax) and having reworked your browser so that all the keys are forced to do a certain special task. Don't know but it's still wrong.
Now go back and fix your web page. That's a rookie mistake. If you're good, Robot Santa may leave you a gift.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Web Annoyance - The Fancybox or Lightbox rant
Welcome to my own personal rant... er annoyance.
Since this is my own personal blog, I'll keep it "constructive". You see, I don't like it either when people get shouty. However, whenever I encounter this sort of thing, I want to find the person or people responsible, grasp them by the shirt collars and start screaming at them.
Usually from six inches away from their nose.
Loudly and repeatedly.
What is this thing? It's a "Fancybox". It's also called a "Lightbox".
Yes, seriously, that is what they're called. I'm not making this up.
It looks like this picture below.
Don't think I'm "Hating On" yugster.com, they aren't the only ones out there with this kind of laziness. The idea in this case, and many others is to get the person to sign in to their website.
Ok, sure, for a couple pennies off the inflated price of whatever you're hawking, I'll sign in.
In the specific case of Yugster, their marketing is a "Deal A Day" site that grew a bit to include a few limited items. Great! They're usually at a good price, and I do check them out every day.
BUT...
I do it VERY quickly. It doesn't take long to scan a page and see that "nope, not today" and close and move on ...
What this site, and very many others, are doing is getting you to log in. They then leave a cookie on your machine saying Hey! Here's Bill again, lets change what's going on just for him and then present the page without the fancybox next time.
In one word: Nope.
Why? Cookies are a security problem. One of the first things I do when I set up a computer for myself or others is to explain this, then go into custom settings. Turn off third party cookies. Immediately. Then I set the browser up to delete all cookies when I close the browser.
The second one is important. Sure, it's convenient to have your browser remember you and your signon, but what about your banks for example. Most banks do not do this, although Chase does seem to depend on cookies for some strange reason.
Here's the deal. You sign on to their website, it places a cookie on your laptop. You go on about your business blissful in knowing that These People Remember Me! Yay, I'm warm and loved in happy cyber land!
Now I go out to The Mall. I want my laptop since my partner intends to go shoe shopping and I already bought all the shoes I need on deep discount via the web months ago and they're taking up space in my closet behind the dog crate.
Go, Me!
I'm sitting in the food court with my shiny laptop and get hungry. Getting up, I walk over to the Chinese place and decide that I need some Gung Po Chicken and a large diet iced tea. Turn around and a shadow passes through my peripheral vision.
Going back to the table, I notice my laptop is gone.
*Poof*
Now, some people don't have a laptop with a password, or are so dumb that they made the password "1234" or "qwerty" or some such simple crap.
That nefarious character has your laptop, got in, and is now snooping around your favorites. Finds your bank and bang, he's in.
All because of a fancybox.
Yes, It's a flight of fancy, but it illustrates a point. The idea that you can expect to keep those cookies intact is a truly bad one. It doesn't have to be a laptop, your big beefy dinosaur of a desktop machine will be one of the first things to go when your house gets broken into.
Still feeling good about that warm plate of cookies and your fancyboxes?
It isn't so much that these websites believe that everyone must stop and log into their sites, its that once you do that, they expect you to want instant access to their site, always.
Bad idea folks.
So if you don't want to be lined up against a wall and told how nasty your website is, leave the fancyboxes and lightboxes off. They're a bad idea.
Since this is my own personal blog, I'll keep it "constructive". You see, I don't like it either when people get shouty. However, whenever I encounter this sort of thing, I want to find the person or people responsible, grasp them by the shirt collars and start screaming at them.
Usually from six inches away from their nose.
Loudly and repeatedly.
What is this thing? It's a "Fancybox". It's also called a "Lightbox".
Yes, seriously, that is what they're called. I'm not making this up.
It looks like this picture below.
Don't think I'm "Hating On" yugster.com, they aren't the only ones out there with this kind of laziness. The idea in this case, and many others is to get the person to sign in to their website.
Ok, sure, for a couple pennies off the inflated price of whatever you're hawking, I'll sign in.
In the specific case of Yugster, their marketing is a "Deal A Day" site that grew a bit to include a few limited items. Great! They're usually at a good price, and I do check them out every day.
BUT...
I do it VERY quickly. It doesn't take long to scan a page and see that "nope, not today" and close and move on ...
What this site, and very many others, are doing is getting you to log in. They then leave a cookie on your machine saying Hey! Here's Bill again, lets change what's going on just for him and then present the page without the fancybox next time.
In one word: Nope.
Why? Cookies are a security problem. One of the first things I do when I set up a computer for myself or others is to explain this, then go into custom settings. Turn off third party cookies. Immediately. Then I set the browser up to delete all cookies when I close the browser.
The second one is important. Sure, it's convenient to have your browser remember you and your signon, but what about your banks for example. Most banks do not do this, although Chase does seem to depend on cookies for some strange reason.
Here's the deal. You sign on to their website, it places a cookie on your laptop. You go on about your business blissful in knowing that These People Remember Me! Yay, I'm warm and loved in happy cyber land!
Now I go out to The Mall. I want my laptop since my partner intends to go shoe shopping and I already bought all the shoes I need on deep discount via the web months ago and they're taking up space in my closet behind the dog crate.
Go, Me!
I'm sitting in the food court with my shiny laptop and get hungry. Getting up, I walk over to the Chinese place and decide that I need some Gung Po Chicken and a large diet iced tea. Turn around and a shadow passes through my peripheral vision.
Going back to the table, I notice my laptop is gone.
*Poof*
Now, some people don't have a laptop with a password, or are so dumb that they made the password "1234" or "qwerty" or some such simple crap.
That nefarious character has your laptop, got in, and is now snooping around your favorites. Finds your bank and bang, he's in.
All because of a fancybox.
Yes, It's a flight of fancy, but it illustrates a point. The idea that you can expect to keep those cookies intact is a truly bad one. It doesn't have to be a laptop, your big beefy dinosaur of a desktop machine will be one of the first things to go when your house gets broken into.
Still feeling good about that warm plate of cookies and your fancyboxes?
It isn't so much that these websites believe that everyone must stop and log into their sites, its that once you do that, they expect you to want instant access to their site, always.
Bad idea folks.
So if you don't want to be lined up against a wall and told how nasty your website is, leave the fancyboxes and lightboxes off. They're a bad idea.
Friday, May 4, 2012
UI and UX - Get Out Of My Facebook!
And that's about as technical as this article gets today, you can relax.
You are looking at what really gets me these days. If I see a banner here asking me to like them on Facebook, I'm thinking of the socially awkward kid in elementary school who tagged along whining at you to take them with you when you do some cool stuff. How about the "Extra Needy Girlfriend or Boyfriend" who is begging for you to come over and spend some time when you're out fighting fires or some such?
This is the modern web equivalent of me saying "Stuff it" I don't need you.
Yes, I meant "STFU" and since I keep my blog G Rated, I will allow you to define that acronym however you like.
You see, if I like this page and every page that I stumble across in the course of doing my daily research/entertainment/job hunting/shopping/ and so on, my Facebook page becomes a mire of inconsequential crap. I depend on my Facebook News Feed to be pertinent. It saves me from having to go to some of those websites and surf every single article to stay informed. I know I'm not alone here, many folks have started to use Facebook the same way. So why add all this junk?
My first impression of the page is now "Oh for crying out loud, not again". Or something stronger if it is the 43rd time I've been greeted by this kind of needy uselessness.
A Web Page, just like a blog, is what the owner wants it to be, and not the reader. You are the product, you are not the customer. You are typically being sold for your information. So being slapped in the face by a Facebook "Like me" whine is their way of roping you in for a little extra advertising face time on Facebook.
That's how it works.
My Second impression is to click on Adblock Plus and see if I can find the script to defeat it. Sometimes I can, other times I can't.
Usually I hit about 50 of these useless needy girlfriends (I'm A Guy, Ladies, Don't Get TOO Bent Out Of Shape, Just Mentally Remap it to Boyfriends or Lost Puppies, MmmKay?) in the course of a morning. I do a LOT of research on technology and software/web development in the course of a day. Getting slapped by www.pleaselikemeorIwillwhine.crap doesn't make me like you any more than finding another flaming bag of web garbage sitting on my virtual doorstep would.
A Facebook Like button is fine, completely repainting your page with a "lightbox" like you see above is a great way to get people to move on like I did. It's the modern equivalent of a web pop-under window now that everyone has that little box clicked in their setting of their favorite browser to stop pop-up and pop-under windows as a default. This one will be the next default, give it time.
So if you want to experience this stupidity for yourself, it was at this link on www.upworthy.com. I closed the page, I don't even know what viral information was there. Maybe after I switch to decaf... Nah, I just closed the window and I won't bother watching this supposedly important video as a result.
I Know I Am Not The Only One Out There Annoyed By This Garbage.
So folks, its a terrible idea to annoy your customers. It doesn't work in the real world. If that grocery store changed their piped in music to, say, Death Metal, a small percentage would love it and their sales would generally drop from all the sweet grannies who can't understand why they're playing growling in the frozen food aisle.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Dice.com did it right. I need more light.
I promise you this won't be technical.
Much.
More "functional" - or the Way things work instead of What You Do To Get them to work.
A while back, I posted a detailed series of articles about the website www.dice.com when they made some changes to their website. Many of them were picked up by Dice and used, some were not. My observations were a little flawed since I aggressively block advertisements on websites. When I'm working to find a Project Management Job, I don't want some blinky or otherwise distracting piece of "graphics" slowing me down. I've been online long enough to remember what the web was like before they started putting ads in web pages, and for the most part, that is my experience when I surf - I simply do not have time for that when I spend three hours a day looking for work.
Yes, three hours a day, every day, average, every SINGLE day of the year. Add to that the actual time that I spend applying to jobs and it is well over a full time job of more than 40 hours a week.
I use Dice heavily, and it probably is the first one I hit every morning.
When you go to a page that you use frequently you have times where you have to change your information. There are ways to protect that sign on, but the most widely known and used ones are called a "Captcha". They're supposed to captcha the computers and let the humans do their thing. It usually is text but it's in weird fonts or colors and it makes it hard for a computer to scan.
It also makes life tough for people. The ones on Google Sites are the worst. I have a lot of trouble guessing if "this" blob is a "cl" or a "d" because they're so twisted around. A quick jump to this link will show you what I'm talking about. Just look at the picture and I'll wait for you to groan "Oh God Those Things".
Welcome back...
Dice had a system of around six different number strings in pictures so they couldn't be scanned and it was stable - which is to say repetitious. "MrVies" was one of them. I have a theory that he was a farmer down the road from the folks out in Iowa that produce this website but I can't really be sure.
I'm assuming they, Dice, knew this and realized something had to be done because it changed.
For the better.
You see instead of putting up an almost unintelligeable blue blob next to another, they went to something simple.
Well crafted questions in ... GASP!... Clear Text. You know, like you're reading now! The same size as any other text on your screen that you can make larger or smaller, copy and paste and so forth.
Oooo Text.
Repeat after me... "Oooo Text!"!
Ok so where's the rub?
It isn't with the website this time. The problem is in what I heard described recently as the "Organic Biological Computing Interface". Yes, you guessed it, it's that 224 pound slab of semi conscious meat that sits under the computer.
Me.
Yours truly.
Yes, I'm a bit stubborn. At 645 in the morning when I start, I'm also not completely awake.
Sure, I'm a morning person but even I have my limits. The breakfast hasn't boosted my blood sugar levels to "awake" nor has the little weak computing chip that I call my brain warmed up enough with some prime home roasted coffee and its subsequent jolt of caffeine induced energy.
In other words, yeah I'm half asleep when I start.
It's also not quite sunrise yet and these homes in Florida are built to shade you from direct sunlight. At that time of day, you frequently need to turn on the brass Orient Express lamp that you gave Mom back in the 1980s as a present and shed some light on the deal.
So as you are looking at a Clear! Text! question like "Enter the number twenty three thousand five hundred and thirty in digits" you are also running into a problem. Where the heck is that number five on the darkened keyboard???
It also exposed a little problem, I got a little "ferhuddled" as they say in Lancaster County, PA. I'd swap digits back and forth while I am going through my morning dyslexia and get it wrong.
Three or four times.
That is until I get off my duff and semi-close the lid to the laptop to shed enough light on the matter.
Score: Dice.Com 1, Moose 0
Yep, I'm satisfied, and laughing at myself yet again. I do a lot of that.
So if you're listening Dice.com here's a little Technical thought for you (You see I lied, but only a little bit, about that functional stuff!).
If the website was done correctly, you should have all these captchas stored in a database. You should have an internal web page to add new questions as you think them up and delete out old ones that are stale, or just leave them in the database to cycle through. All in all it's a good solution that you came up with.
And no, I don't really need access to that database. Although... hmmmm think of the power! WOO HOO!
Much.
More "functional" - or the Way things work instead of What You Do To Get them to work.
A while back, I posted a detailed series of articles about the website www.dice.com when they made some changes to their website. Many of them were picked up by Dice and used, some were not. My observations were a little flawed since I aggressively block advertisements on websites. When I'm working to find a Project Management Job, I don't want some blinky or otherwise distracting piece of "graphics" slowing me down. I've been online long enough to remember what the web was like before they started putting ads in web pages, and for the most part, that is my experience when I surf - I simply do not have time for that when I spend three hours a day looking for work.
Yes, three hours a day, every day, average, every SINGLE day of the year. Add to that the actual time that I spend applying to jobs and it is well over a full time job of more than 40 hours a week.
I use Dice heavily, and it probably is the first one I hit every morning.
When you go to a page that you use frequently you have times where you have to change your information. There are ways to protect that sign on, but the most widely known and used ones are called a "Captcha". They're supposed to captcha the computers and let the humans do their thing. It usually is text but it's in weird fonts or colors and it makes it hard for a computer to scan.
It also makes life tough for people. The ones on Google Sites are the worst. I have a lot of trouble guessing if "this" blob is a "cl" or a "d" because they're so twisted around. A quick jump to this link will show you what I'm talking about. Just look at the picture and I'll wait for you to groan "Oh God Those Things".
Welcome back...
Dice had a system of around six different number strings in pictures so they couldn't be scanned and it was stable - which is to say repetitious. "MrVies" was one of them. I have a theory that he was a farmer down the road from the folks out in Iowa that produce this website but I can't really be sure.
I'm assuming they, Dice, knew this and realized something had to be done because it changed.
For the better.
You see instead of putting up an almost unintelligeable blue blob next to another, they went to something simple.
Well crafted questions in ... GASP!... Clear Text. You know, like you're reading now! The same size as any other text on your screen that you can make larger or smaller, copy and paste and so forth.
Oooo Text.
Repeat after me... "Oooo Text!"!
Ok so where's the rub?
It isn't with the website this time. The problem is in what I heard described recently as the "Organic Biological Computing Interface". Yes, you guessed it, it's that 224 pound slab of semi conscious meat that sits under the computer.
Me.
Yours truly.
Yes, I'm a bit stubborn. At 645 in the morning when I start, I'm also not completely awake.
Sure, I'm a morning person but even I have my limits. The breakfast hasn't boosted my blood sugar levels to "awake" nor has the little weak computing chip that I call my brain warmed up enough with some prime home roasted coffee and its subsequent jolt of caffeine induced energy.
In other words, yeah I'm half asleep when I start.
It's also not quite sunrise yet and these homes in Florida are built to shade you from direct sunlight. At that time of day, you frequently need to turn on the brass Orient Express lamp that you gave Mom back in the 1980s as a present and shed some light on the deal.
So as you are looking at a Clear! Text! question like "Enter the number twenty three thousand five hundred and thirty in digits" you are also running into a problem. Where the heck is that number five on the darkened keyboard???
It also exposed a little problem, I got a little "ferhuddled" as they say in Lancaster County, PA. I'd swap digits back and forth while I am going through my morning dyslexia and get it wrong.
Three or four times.
That is until I get off my duff and semi-close the lid to the laptop to shed enough light on the matter.
Score: Dice.Com 1, Moose 0
Yep, I'm satisfied, and laughing at myself yet again. I do a lot of that.
So if you're listening Dice.com here's a little Technical thought for you (You see I lied, but only a little bit, about that functional stuff!).
If the website was done correctly, you should have all these captchas stored in a database. You should have an internal web page to add new questions as you think them up and delete out old ones that are stale, or just leave them in the database to cycle through. All in all it's a good solution that you came up with.
And no, I don't really need access to that database. Although... hmmmm think of the power! WOO HOO!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
User Experience or Why Websites Fail
Facebook is a study of User Experience.
There are many people who are paid strictly to improve the User Experience of a website. So many that they're just abbreviated to UX and UI. UI stands for User Interface. Both are quite tightly coupled.
Every time you change something, you will annoy someone. The idea is that if you don't change your system/website/front garden you will find that the world will have passed you by.
Just as a garden is never a static thing, especially in South Florida where if you blink you have weird exotics overtaking your prized Podocarpus, a Static Website will get overtaken quickly.
There is a balance toward adding new flowers to a garden so that it will be appealing to the eye, or just add new plants to make it fill out better, and doing too much and making it overgrown.
The corollary is that software problem you find in things like Microsoft Word where 95% of the people use just 5% of the features.
So why add the complexity? You just may use it some time, but you can always ignore it.
Another corollary is the Automobile. If they didn't improve things, we'd still be driving the Model T. Beautiful machine that evolved over its years to be faster and more efficiently built but would not work on the roads of this day.
After all, you really do want a stereo and automatic delay wipers and cushy seats and the ability to be comfortable in 90 Degree Heat as well as 9 Degree Cold.
Applying all this blather to a website such as Facebook you find yourself asking why did they do this? Part of the problem is that changes just "happen" and you're left confused. Get off my lawn, young'un I want my grass to grow! Sometimes the changes do work, but usually those changes are only after people make many complaints. Simplification of Privacy Options on Facebook are a good example.
Today I was presented with this new and shiny feature in the news feed on Facebook. Sure, it's their right to use things the way they like and develop new features so we all don't move back to My Space (yeah, right) or some other site. After all they make their money by being the biggest thing on the block. If we didn't change, we'd all be using dial up modems on AOL.
This New! and! Shiny! Feature! was that of the Top Stories. For me it's not an improvement, in fact it causes problems with the way I personally use the site.
I use Facebook as a scrolling surf board. I've liked tech blogs, news sites, and other sites that I tend to hit frequently and it may be the first time I read about something important. I read about Fukushima's Tsunami on Facebook first after I caught a BBC article slip past. Things like the Top Stories interfere with that by merging articles in because they were voted more important by your friends. Now instead of having the most recent articles at the top and merely refreshing from time to time to see if I missed anything important, I'm afflicted with the Facebook Obsessive Compulsive Refresh Disease - FOCR. Yes, they've turned me into a real FOCR as I hit F5 because there's something in the way that I can't suppress.
The only benefit I see of this new layout is that everyone else will have the same pain as the flying bird of Facebook lets fly with some new top story only to splat itself on the windshield of your browser. Spraying Bug Juice over it won't get rid of this new "feature" at least yet. Hopefully it can be turned off. Briefly it was only for US users, but it has been spread over the pond to UK English users as well.
Sorry I haven't found the fix for this one.
Their User Experience Folks need to go back to the drawing board.
There are many people who are paid strictly to improve the User Experience of a website. So many that they're just abbreviated to UX and UI. UI stands for User Interface. Both are quite tightly coupled.
Every time you change something, you will annoy someone. The idea is that if you don't change your system/website/front garden you will find that the world will have passed you by.
Just as a garden is never a static thing, especially in South Florida where if you blink you have weird exotics overtaking your prized Podocarpus, a Static Website will get overtaken quickly.
There is a balance toward adding new flowers to a garden so that it will be appealing to the eye, or just add new plants to make it fill out better, and doing too much and making it overgrown.
The corollary is that software problem you find in things like Microsoft Word where 95% of the people use just 5% of the features.
So why add the complexity? You just may use it some time, but you can always ignore it.
Another corollary is the Automobile. If they didn't improve things, we'd still be driving the Model T. Beautiful machine that evolved over its years to be faster and more efficiently built but would not work on the roads of this day.
After all, you really do want a stereo and automatic delay wipers and cushy seats and the ability to be comfortable in 90 Degree Heat as well as 9 Degree Cold.
Applying all this blather to a website such as Facebook you find yourself asking why did they do this? Part of the problem is that changes just "happen" and you're left confused. Get off my lawn, young'un I want my grass to grow! Sometimes the changes do work, but usually those changes are only after people make many complaints. Simplification of Privacy Options on Facebook are a good example.
Today I was presented with this new and shiny feature in the news feed on Facebook. Sure, it's their right to use things the way they like and develop new features so we all don't move back to My Space (yeah, right) or some other site. After all they make their money by being the biggest thing on the block. If we didn't change, we'd all be using dial up modems on AOL.
This New! and! Shiny! Feature! was that of the Top Stories. For me it's not an improvement, in fact it causes problems with the way I personally use the site.
I use Facebook as a scrolling surf board. I've liked tech blogs, news sites, and other sites that I tend to hit frequently and it may be the first time I read about something important. I read about Fukushima's Tsunami on Facebook first after I caught a BBC article slip past. Things like the Top Stories interfere with that by merging articles in because they were voted more important by your friends. Now instead of having the most recent articles at the top and merely refreshing from time to time to see if I missed anything important, I'm afflicted with the Facebook Obsessive Compulsive Refresh Disease - FOCR. Yes, they've turned me into a real FOCR as I hit F5 because there's something in the way that I can't suppress.
The only benefit I see of this new layout is that everyone else will have the same pain as the flying bird of Facebook lets fly with some new top story only to splat itself on the windshield of your browser. Spraying Bug Juice over it won't get rid of this new "feature" at least yet. Hopefully it can be turned off. Briefly it was only for US users, but it has been spread over the pond to UK English users as well.
Sorry I haven't found the fix for this one.
Their User Experience Folks need to go back to the drawing board.
Monday, August 15, 2011
SimplyHired.com and User Experience
Wait, this isn't going to be as technical as it sounds, trust me!
Oh well, now that I have scared most folks off...
I've mentioned before that I am looking for a Permanent Position in Project Management in South Florida. I also have mentioned how I go through 170 web pages a day in order to apply to likely positions. Mostly I do that through www.dice.com, www.monster.com, and www.careerbuilder.com, but there are others.
I also have a weekly sweep of specific cities, counties, and companies that I do on the weekend that is another 170 pages.
Roughly.
Anything that slows down the way I use the browser effects how efficiently I can do this.
I've noticed a nasty habit creeping in the way many web pages are doing things.
First some really basic instruction on what happens when you click on a link - VERY basic.
See a link. Click on a link. The link will take you to the next web page.
Simple, right? That is how it is supposed to work. If it happens that way, success. Happy user and the "User Experience" is enhanced so that you are more likely to come back. That "User Experience" is a very important field, many people are working on that sort of thing so that you really do come back. After all they have ads and that is how you pay the web page - by your clicks.
Next Helpful Hint. Control Click. Also known as "Ctrl Click".
See a link. Hold Ctrl and Click on that link. The link will open in a new tab on modern browsers. The old page stays there so you can refer to it.
Shift and Click work the same way except that it opens that page in a new browser window.
Go ahead and try either, I should still be here waiting for you.
See? Wasn't that helpful?
I think so because that is the basis for my opening 170 web pages in 6 browser windows. My little Core 2 Duo 12 inch convertible tablet is not going to open them all at once. Too much for Firefox to do, so I broke it all up into roughly 30 tabs per browser window.
For example, I have a set of tabs that open up automatically. That set goes to Dice.com and says "give me the first 10 pages that show any 'project manager' position within 25 miles of my current zip, and exclude the following companies". It will happily do that and more.
The result is one browser window with those 10 dice searches, one page after another, loading in background for me. Next I can go through those tabs, one at a time and look at the links.
Remember that "ctrl-click"?
The next step is Ctrl-Clicking the links so they all happily open up in the next tabs. All the other web pages stay there, it just creates a new one for the next click.
This works well for any list of links like the ones you find on a search engine like www.google.com or www.bing.com for example. Find a recipe site with 10 recipes all of which include your favorite food? Just Ctrl-Click and they will all open in tabs as you click them. It's really handy and it's built in to the browsers.
Ok, so now you say what's the problem?
Simply put, there is a nasty habit many web pages are doing that work fine if all you are doing is one thing at a time. Who has time for that any more?
Click on a link on some web sites, and they will put up an overlay on top of your web page that obscures what you had, and presents new information. This is usually called a Light Box. Here is why that can be a nasty problem.
www.simplyhired.com does this when you click on a link. They're so anxious to get you to log into their site that they put up a light box asking for login information when you click. Then you have to stop what you were doing and click on the close "X" up at the top right corner of the light box so it will process your link. Completely in conflict with opening up a bunch of links in tabs and working with these at your own time.
The way around that is to right click on that link and select "Open Link In New Tab". Yes, it is another step, and it is usually done after the second or third try.
www.simplyhired.com is an aggregator of other people's content. They try to be a search engine of other job boards and achieve enough success that I have been coming back. Major annoyance to go through that click-and-shock every time you find a link for this one site that is so different from normal.
A Better Solution is to use www.indeed.com as an aggregator for job postings. They work "normally" when you click or ctrl-click on them, they don't get in your way with weird light boxes and unnecessary web clicks. I have even tricked the website to give me my 50 links in one tab which I do with Dice and Monster. They're completely configurable that way if you choose to monkey around with searches.
Another website that is guilty of this nonsense is www.facebook.com in the way they handle pictures. Their User Interface at this moment is putting up a lightbox that covers up everything you look at with the picture that you were clicking on. It also puts you back up at the top of the page you were looking at to begin with when you clicked on that picture. At least links are being opened the correct way - the way you want them.
Again, this sort of thing seems kind of small and inconsequential but there are many people working on this sort of detail. When you change the way someone else's browser works, there has to be a concrete reason for the change and it has to be done so that there is a concrete benefit.
Rarely if ever does that happen.
After clicking on one too many friend's links in Facebook, and one too many links on Simply Hired, I noticed a review box in lime green with white text. Lime Green? White Text? What were they thinking? At any rate, I gave them my opinion above, in a condensed format. I may as well give them feedback. After all, I told them I would under no circumstances recommend them since there were too many sites that do it right. I'll probably keep using the site because I have some searches that once in a blue moon show what I am looking for that are not shown on the big boards, but I really wouldn't miss them if I could get to the rest.
Oh well, now that I have scared most folks off...
I've mentioned before that I am looking for a Permanent Position in Project Management in South Florida. I also have mentioned how I go through 170 web pages a day in order to apply to likely positions. Mostly I do that through www.dice.com, www.monster.com, and www.careerbuilder.com, but there are others.
I also have a weekly sweep of specific cities, counties, and companies that I do on the weekend that is another 170 pages.
Roughly.
Anything that slows down the way I use the browser effects how efficiently I can do this.
I've noticed a nasty habit creeping in the way many web pages are doing things.
First some really basic instruction on what happens when you click on a link - VERY basic.
See a link. Click on a link. The link will take you to the next web page.
Simple, right? That is how it is supposed to work. If it happens that way, success. Happy user and the "User Experience" is enhanced so that you are more likely to come back. That "User Experience" is a very important field, many people are working on that sort of thing so that you really do come back. After all they have ads and that is how you pay the web page - by your clicks.
Next Helpful Hint. Control Click. Also known as "Ctrl Click".
See a link. Hold Ctrl and Click on that link. The link will open in a new tab on modern browsers. The old page stays there so you can refer to it.
Shift and Click work the same way except that it opens that page in a new browser window.
Go ahead and try either, I should still be here waiting for you.
See? Wasn't that helpful?
I think so because that is the basis for my opening 170 web pages in 6 browser windows. My little Core 2 Duo 12 inch convertible tablet is not going to open them all at once. Too much for Firefox to do, so I broke it all up into roughly 30 tabs per browser window.
For example, I have a set of tabs that open up automatically. That set goes to Dice.com and says "give me the first 10 pages that show any 'project manager' position within 25 miles of my current zip, and exclude the following companies". It will happily do that and more.
The result is one browser window with those 10 dice searches, one page after another, loading in background for me. Next I can go through those tabs, one at a time and look at the links.
Remember that "ctrl-click"?
The next step is Ctrl-Clicking the links so they all happily open up in the next tabs. All the other web pages stay there, it just creates a new one for the next click.
This works well for any list of links like the ones you find on a search engine like www.google.com or www.bing.com for example. Find a recipe site with 10 recipes all of which include your favorite food? Just Ctrl-Click and they will all open in tabs as you click them. It's really handy and it's built in to the browsers.
Ok, so now you say what's the problem?
Simply put, there is a nasty habit many web pages are doing that work fine if all you are doing is one thing at a time. Who has time for that any more?
Click on a link on some web sites, and they will put up an overlay on top of your web page that obscures what you had, and presents new information. This is usually called a Light Box. Here is why that can be a nasty problem.
www.simplyhired.com does this when you click on a link. They're so anxious to get you to log into their site that they put up a light box asking for login information when you click. Then you have to stop what you were doing and click on the close "X" up at the top right corner of the light box so it will process your link. Completely in conflict with opening up a bunch of links in tabs and working with these at your own time.
The way around that is to right click on that link and select "Open Link In New Tab". Yes, it is another step, and it is usually done after the second or third try.
www.simplyhired.com is an aggregator of other people's content. They try to be a search engine of other job boards and achieve enough success that I have been coming back. Major annoyance to go through that click-and-shock every time you find a link for this one site that is so different from normal.
A Better Solution is to use www.indeed.com as an aggregator for job postings. They work "normally" when you click or ctrl-click on them, they don't get in your way with weird light boxes and unnecessary web clicks. I have even tricked the website to give me my 50 links in one tab which I do with Dice and Monster. They're completely configurable that way if you choose to monkey around with searches.
Another website that is guilty of this nonsense is www.facebook.com in the way they handle pictures. Their User Interface at this moment is putting up a lightbox that covers up everything you look at with the picture that you were clicking on. It also puts you back up at the top of the page you were looking at to begin with when you clicked on that picture. At least links are being opened the correct way - the way you want them.
Again, this sort of thing seems kind of small and inconsequential but there are many people working on this sort of detail. When you change the way someone else's browser works, there has to be a concrete reason for the change and it has to be done so that there is a concrete benefit.
Rarely if ever does that happen.
After clicking on one too many friend's links in Facebook, and one too many links on Simply Hired, I noticed a review box in lime green with white text. Lime Green? White Text? What were they thinking? At any rate, I gave them my opinion above, in a condensed format. I may as well give them feedback. After all, I told them I would under no circumstances recommend them since there were too many sites that do it right. I'll probably keep using the site because I have some searches that once in a blue moon show what I am looking for that are not shown on the big boards, but I really wouldn't miss them if I could get to the rest.
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