Science is to see what everyone else has seen but think what no one else has thought.
by Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

I really care about user experience..

I care about it in my job; I care about in my life; I care about when I am exposed to bad and good user experience. User experience drives behaviour; it drives efficiency and productivity; it drives satisfaction (happiness/misery); it drives performance and cost...

That's why businesses should care about user experience.

That's why I'm so agitated by the "time recording" system that has been thrust upon me that I am moved to at least say something online and stop boring twitter with my ongoing one-liners - in the hope that if the designers of this system don't spot this, at least some other designers will.

Here are some traits of the current system, based on a large well known ERP system, that fail the user to the point of wanting to jump out of the window:

• A notes column with only 40 characters. No indication of how many you've used. If you submit and exceed the limit you are told the "field is incorrectly formatted" and all the notes fields for the entire week are wiped.
• If you enter more than 8 hours on any single activity per day - it is reset to 8. (Not good for bean counters tracking all that extra time)
• being told that the "platform" column isn't used, so use that for "notes". (Assuming you can remember and it always remains true).
• calling the "project code" the "network" field - huh?
• having a special 4 digit alphanumberic code (you know, like EJ17 ) to remeber and type in to mark something as travel time - everything else is selected from a list
• having every project denoted by a 7 digit number, unique to the system, with the description of said number being generic and identical for each project (e.g. 8006483 Billable Client Work) - so you go and have to look up every number and see which project it is in a spreadsheet. Which of course, you rapidly forget by the time you look up the next project because the human brain only memorises about 7 things at once.
• the fact that even if you manage to get some meaningful notes for 40 or more hours per week into 40 characters, your approver never sees them anyway
• the fact that there is a meaningless link for "release time" on the page that you have to remember not to use
• the fact that you have to select your indecipherable projects from a list that you can only scroll by clicking up/down arrows. If you type the project data into the form, it doesn't get recognised
• the fact that you only get to see about 9 lines at once before having to click up/down to scroll through your daily entries (and the fact that the system generates a new line every time you vary the notes). 2 actitivies x 5 days a week in itself generates 10 lines.
• Oh  yeah, the secret hidden customisation button: right click (huh??) the secret grey square at the top left of the table...

I could go on, but it's such a depressing example of a compete absence of any thought to usability and user experience, I need to stop now before jumping out the window. This is absolutely the worst example of user interface and implemenation I have ever had to endure.

Designers and Programmers of the World: Please, do not make these mistakes in your software.

 

 

 

 

I feel sorry for Visual.ly - who have announced what seems like an awesome visualisation service and consequently been swamped by interest. Their website has been up, down and in-between most of  the day... I'd love to try the service but have been able to.

The thing that struck me - and it's still pretty much common practice - is the errors spewing out from their pages, for example:

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$picture in include() (line 10 of /var/www/html/sites/all/themes/infographics/page.tpl.php).

Notice: Undefined index: size in get_all_infographics() (line 364 of /var/www/html/sites/all/modules/ig_frontend/ig_frontend.helper.php).

Notice: Undefined index: size in get_all_infographics() (line 375 of /var/www/html/sites/all/modules/ig_frontend/ig_frontend.helper.php).

PDOException: SQLSTATE[08S01]: Communication link failure: 1053 Server shutdown in progress: SELECT MAX ( intermediate.Total ) as cat_max, MIN ( intermediate.Total) as cat_min FROM ( SELECT SUM (IFNULL(nr.likes, 0)) as Total FROM {node} n LEFT JOIN node_rates nr ON nr.nid = n.nid LEFT JOIN field_data_field_category ON entity_id = n.nid WHERE field_category_tid = '46' and n.status=1 GROUP BY n.nid ) as intermediate; Array ( ) in get_infographic_statistics() (line 241 of /var/www/html/sites/all/modules/ig_frontend/ig_frontend.helper.php).

This is bad stuff, because it starts to reveal some of the internal structure of their databases. Personally I feel it is incumbent upon providers of online services, where users create and store data, to be really fixated on security and avoid easily-avoidable vulnerabilities such as this which is a result of lazy developers not turning off errors and sending them to log files instead of the browser. It's fine in a test environment, but not for a production environment.

Not to mention the fact that it looks like some hefty table joins going on there each time the page is hit - no wonder the database feels like having a rest!

 

 

[Nik Sargent] I have an 18 month old THREE MIFI that doesn't work properly. Can I get a replacement?
[Vivian] Hi Nik,. Welcome to Three.
[Vivian] How are you doing today?
[Nik Sargent] great thanks..my mifi is doing less well..
[Vivian] I’d love to help you with your query, but I don’t have access to your current account details. The best way forward would be to contact our customer service team by dialing 500 (free) from your Three phone or on any other phone by dialing 0843 373 0500. They are open from 8am to 10pm on all days.
[Nik Sargent] errr. right... thanks.
[Vivian]   Thanks for contacting us. Please do not hesitate to contact us again if we can be of further assistance. Good bye.

WHY DO ORGANISATIONS LIKE THIS BOTHER??

That interaction has wasted both our times (although, it's very bot-like at their end) and achieved nothing, despite the fact they offer "further assistance" - doesn't that imply you provided some to begin with??

 

Here's a reply from squarespace support. This is not a complaint - they replied within minutes to my question and solved my problem. Besides, Squarespace is an awesome hosting platform. I'm just bemused by this. But i had to put my fingers in my ears and shut out the world for a few minutes to make sense of this. Can you?

Yes, it does make some sense. When you are using the Section Display per page feature, you can see the list of pages available to configure it on by clicking the "Edit" button next to the section you would like to configure. The pages within the section you are editing will *never* appear on the list for your to choose from. Thus, if you would like to have your "Sites and Sounds" section appear when your "Music and Ringtones" page is active, you will need to choose the option "Display only when specific pages are NOT Active":

This will allow you to check all the pages you don't want the section to appear on. Since the pages within the section you are editing never appear on the list, you will not be able to check them to tell the section not to appear on those pages. Thus, your section will be set to appear on those pages within that particular section.

Please note that changing this option means you will need to change where you place your check marks from the configuration you had before.

Such high praise for the Skoda Yeti - very glad to see this, especially as Dad has just ordered one! Which, as it happens, completes our family Skoda set!

I have nothing but praise for Skoda and I'm on my second. "Manufacture of Happy Drivers" could not be more true. Dad has made a really good decision. 

Also pleased to see them finally recommending some decent braking technique - using acceleration sense (or more correctly I suppose, deceleration sense) to save fuel. This is a well-established technique, especially in modern cars, where fuel to the engine is completely cut during "over-run" (slowing down with the foot off the gas). 

One of the bits of advice I had from my Police driving trainer was to imagine driving a full fish-tank on the back seat - and to avoid spilling the water. If you can do that, I guarantee you will save an incredible amount of fuel. 

I can use the redundant USB port on the BT Vision box to charge the rechargeable Wii hand controllers. Brilliant :-) 

The real quote reads: "…the drink drive campaign. And reassurance that police take drink and drug driving seriously over the festive period."

Just shows you - you need understand where what you're reading has come from... 

I'm not a big astronomer but I like to do my fair share of stargazing on a summer's night - pondering the size and wonder of the universe. I can just about pick out the plough and the north star (Polaris), Sirius and occasionally Mars and Venus. I can usually guess the Sun too, but that's about it.

Star Walk changes all that. It's a stupendous app for iPhone (works best on 3GS and 4) that's a bit like an augmented reality app for the sky. Point it heavenward and it maps out the stars and constellations for you, giving you the option to pick any star and find out more, track the planets, get daily information (such as rise and set times for the sun and planets), elevations and so on. 

Its graphics are beautiful, it has a soundtrack too, and bottom line is: it brings the night sky alive. 

Don't miss it.

Here's what it takes to get me a replacement car while mine is off the road:   IAM Surety (insurance affiliate) -> Adelaide Insurance (broker?) -> KGM (underwriter) -> Plantec (claims management) -> Britannia Accident Assist (vehicle management) -> Enterprise/Hertz etc. (local car provider)...   I mean just HOW MUCH MIDDLE MAN MARGIN is in that chain? No wonder insurance costs are so high - there are at least 5 parties there adding costs or taking a cut...   Bonkers...