When you spend a lot of time in the world of technology it is easy to get jaded. New features that are promoted (self-promoted, and then echoed by lazy writers) are almost never as useful as they are supposed to be, and half the time, they are not even new. I almost ruined my eyes looking at computer monitors full of accolades for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7′s “new” tabbed browsing feature, especially since I had been a power-user of tabs in web browsing since they came out in Firefox years before.

When new features are both truly useful and actually new, like the Ribbon Interface in Office 2010 (updated from a partial integration in Microsoft Office 2007), they are often met with initial resistance.

As a freelance technology writer I not only spend a lot of time in the tech world, I am actually forced to look at and use new software features regardless of how useful I could possibly find them because a client needs a review of new software utilities or a customized newsletter could benefit from a comparison of program features.

Check out a review of Citibank Thank You network rewards program.

The other thing that happens to us technology types is that we stop reading about what a program does. We most certainly do not watch videos that show us how to use new features. (How many seconds of your life does it waste to watch someone show you how to click File then New on a training video?) Fortunately, most of the time it works out just fine because when you are used to how software works, you know where to look for functions you need. However, from time to time, I miss out on a cool new feature or a great new function that would increase my productivity.

Firefox 3.6 Coolest New Feature

When it comes to software development, there are two kinds of functionality. One type of functionality affects the usefulness of the product. These functions make the software, better, faster, easier to use, and so on. The other type of functionality makes the computer software more fun to use, or just makes it look nicer. These days, it seems like there is a lot of action in the latter category.

Most of the “improvements” in the user interface design realm are actually just ways to make a software product look nicer, or most commonly, to make it so that you can superficially customize the application. Think of it as the equivalent of being able to add bumper stickers to your software.

For the most part, I don’t have much use for these beautification features. A computer is, what a computer is, and while using my own wallpaper is fun, it doesn’t really matter what the wallpaper is when I’m switching between eight full-screen windows in a desperate race to beat an important deadline.

As you can imagine, I haven’t played around much with Firefox’s personas feature.

This morning, however, I was bored (actually, I was procrastinating and rendering my ADD planner worthless) and I ended up on the Firefox Personas page after re-installing the Firefox NoScript Plugin.

While I don’t have much need for a new persona for my web browser, I was clicking around to see what was on the Mozilla website when I noticed something happen to my default Firefox browser.

When you hover over the sample picture graphic of a Firefox persona, it previews what that persona would look like if you installed it on your Firefox 3.6 installation. Tons of applications do previews like this, but the fun part is that Firefox previews the persona on your real installation. That is, the browser you are currently using to browse the available personas actually changes when you hover your mouse over the preview.

Now this is fun.

Normally, would have to download and install the browser extension or browser skin in order to “play around” with what it would look like. Then, when I am finished wasting time, I would switch back, and if I remembered, uninstall all the different personas I downloaded to check out. Hopefully they all uninstalled cleanly and there were no residual effects, although that is never a guarantee.

But, with the Firefox persona preview functionality I can see what my browser would look like with a hundred different personas, all without downloading or installing anything. So, I can see what my Firefox would look like if I installed the Kelly Brook persona (First, calculate the odds of the wife using my computer and Firefox…). Or, for a more whimsical (and socially acceptable at a client site) persona I can check out the Snoopy persona.

Here is my usual Firefox (the default) persona:

Here is the Kelly Brook persona:

In the end, personas are a play thing, like putting up a Go Buffs sign on my home office wall, but sometimes, playing is good. After all, all work and no play make Jack go crazy and try to chop up his family at the Overlook Hotel.

Firefox Personas Preview Feature is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

The vendor that the library chose to deliver its new library website, which includes searching the card catalog, managing your library account, reserving items, and renewing check out materials, is called Aquabrowser.

The biggest problem with selecting a good, quality, vendor to work with is figuring out before you buy their software offerings and sign a multi-year service contract whether or not their system is a good one. Typically, vendors provide what the industry calls, "dog and pony shows," in which the vendor demos their software. These demonstrations are obviously crafted to show off the strength of the vendor’s offering and to downplay any short comings. Unfortunately, a great many software services purchases are made on the basis of these carefully scripted and artificial demos and big design flaws only become known after installation.

In the case of Aquabrowser and the Denver Public Library the flaws stem from what must be a one-size-fits-all library management system that the company markets as widely as possible to maximize sales and support revenues. In order to limit the resources necessary to install and maintain its library computer system, they resort to any number of cheap programming tricks that degrade the usability of the system in order to maximize its standardization.

The main issue with the new Denver Library website system is that anything beyond superficial interaction with the website requires a pop-up window to open. This requires accessing a new domain name (aquabrowser). Advanced users have blocking software that prevent new websites from randomly opening for no reason, and in this case, aquabrowser will be rightly blocked. This is, of course, a cheap web development hack that keeps the vendor from actually having to support the library’s own website infrastructure. Instead, users are redirected off to the generic systems run by the vendor.

In order to prevent supporting multiple browsers or window sized, the vendor makes the pop-up window static preventing the user from re-sizing the window. This is amateur design at best. With a fixed window, users with bigger monitors cannot take advantage of their larger size by viewing more rows at a time. The number of rows supported for something like viewing your checked out materials is only a dozen or so, far less than the number of items library patrons have checked out on average. Furthermore, the list cannot be sorted by the user’s choosing. Only a due date sort is possible leaving users to scroll individually through a small, unsortable, list to find a specific item.

Making windows that cannot be resized is the hallmark of design decisions made with the software in mind above the user’s needs. By making the windows unresizable, the vendor need not do any coding to dynamically resize columns nor to add additional rows (or vice versa) to larger or smaller windows. The fact that the library card account holder might need something different is of no importance.

The icing on the cake in this instance is that the vendor cynically places their own company information ahead of the library’s information. The windows opened whenever the user hits the vendor’s systems have titles that say, "AquaBrowser Library – Discover Denver Library". That way, the vendor can point to its "successful" installation at the Denver Public Library with easy, proof that it is their system "behind the scenes." As an added bonus, title tags are the key to search engine optimization, so the company has ensured that it will be present in as many web searches as possible.

Time will tell if the Denver Library bought into a bill of goods based on a dog and pony show that leaves the beloved Denver attraction with an uncustomizable user experience that people will just have to "get used to" or if this was only the default installation and that the library will be able to once again deliver a high-quality experience to library patrons.

Factors For Choosing Vendors

Whenever viewing a vendor presentation, look for things that never change, or that are not indicative of a typical experience. Software that looks great with 5 records displayed at a time may be worthless with 20 records shown. Ask to see more.

Also, ask to see less. What happens if there are only 50 records as opposed to the 5,000 in the demo? Is the system too bloated and cumbersome then?

Contact the vendor’s references BEFORE the presentation. In addition to asking what they think, ask what the main complaints were when the system was first installed and how they were dealt with. Then, ask about those same things in the demo. If the vendor starts hemming and hawing, you have a system in front of you that may not be all that it is cracked up to be.

If, on the other hand, the vendor has ready, acceptable answers, then you have a fully workable system.

There is more to vendor selection than just money. Choosing the low cost vendor may prove to be a high cost decision if too many workarounds are required or too many customers disenfranchised.

Tips For Choosing A Quality Vendor is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

A lot of people use Photoshop to mock-up an layout of their web site design and then use that layout to create the actual website layout, usually via some sort of grid.

There are a growing number of WordPress Theme frameworks than can be used as a starting point for WordPress blog design.

There aren’t really any WordPress-based PSD frameworks available for free. Not true.

The guys over at Area381, who I have never run across before today offer a WordPress PSD Framework file for free download.

Now, no matter how you start your website design, you have a solid jumping off point.

WordPress PSD Framework is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Obviously, websites with different purposes or audiences require different page designs, but I thought I could find an overall template for webpage designs that would be usable for multiple websites in the same category that performed the same function.  However, even similar websites can’t be shoehorned into a single design.

This morning I was doing what I always do for my morning break which is browsing through the handful of online deals websites that I like.  I know there are hundreds of other deals sites out there or coupon sites or sites with free shipping codes, but the four sites I scroll through every day have turned out to the best deal websites on the Internet for the types of things that I buy and shop for.

In no particular order, my favorite deals websites are:

• Woot
• Slickdeals
• Dealnews
• GottaDeal

All four sites are in the same category of online shopping or Internet-based shopping tips.  All four sites offer daily updates of the best deals they can offer.  But, each one has a completely different design and layout to serve its readers best.  The difference in designs and what that design offers, is very likely one of the main reasons I continue to use all four sites despite the fact that I just don’t buy stuff all that often.

Woot is the most well known.  They offer a single great deal each day.  If the deal happens to hit you with something you want or need, then you win.  If not, then you wait another day. Either way, the site displays a single product including its picture and a tongue-in-cheek review of the product that doesn’t generally contain any real facts until the end.  It is just accepted by users of the site that whatever the product and price is, that it is a good deal.  The site makes no mention of how good of a deal, nor whether it is a better or worse deal than might be sniffed out elsewhere.

SlickDeals.net offers many features to its users including forums where visitors can discuss potentially good deals, coupons, discount codes, and even the quality and specifications of the products in question.  However, the main landing page of SlickDeals is simply a list of text links.  Each product is listed along with its price.  No other information, pictures, or graphics are provided unless you click one of the links.  Only the best of the best make the SlickDeals front page, no matter how many or how few deals that means the site has on any particular day.  If only one item rises to the level demanded by the SlickDeals front page, then only one deal gets posted.  There is no filler.

DealNews and GottaDeal, by contrast, both have more extensive listings including a picture of the sale item as well as notes such as when, if ever, the item was offered for less and whether or not it takes a rebate or coupon to get the low discount price.

While both DealNews and GottaDeal look similar at a glance, a closer look reveals that DealNews groups their big deals by type with computers and computer related deals at the top and other deals at the bottom.  This layout promotes the ability to seek specific sale items. 

GottaDeal on the other hand lists their items chronologically as they appeared on the site.  The upside is that a regular user can stop looking once they encounter the deals they have already seen which can save time.  The downside is that if someone is looking for a deal on a hard drive, for example, they would have to scroll through the whole listing to ensure that they didn’t miss something.

In the in, four sites all offering very similar functionality are laid out and designed completely differently based upon their needs and the needs of their readers. I guess the best a professional writer and web designer can do is build a collection of tools for their design and development toolbox and then pull each individual piece out as it is needed.  It isn’t as sleek as a re-usable template, but if used properly can still save plenty of time and effort while still providing top quality websites.

Time to change the quest.  No longer do I seek the one great website design.  Now, I seek the great design elements and tools that build them.

Top Online Deals Websites Demonstrate Concept of Tradeoffs in Web Design is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

I prefer Windows Live Sync to the Live Desktop because Windows Live Sync shuts down completely when I close it, like after I know there are no more files to sync, whereas Live Desktop keeps a process and a service open, both of which have bigger resource usage than Live Sync, so I’m basically a Live Sync guy for right now.

But, last year I started using Windows Live Writer which is the best offline blogging software out there right now (though there is room for improvement), and I would really love to use Live Photo Gallery, if only it didn’t take an hour and a half to startup.  I’d really, really, like the Live Suite more if I didn’t get junk like the Seaport Service (see how to remove seaport.exe) with the Windows Live Software.

(Note to other photo management and photo collection or photo gallery software, why don’t you have a date view like Microsoft where I can start in February of 2008 and then scroll through to March 2008, then to April 2008, and so on.  It doesn’t seem like rocket science, and it is the best possible way to find family photos when you don’t know exactly where they are.)

I keep getting emails from Microsoft about Windows Live and frankly, I keep writing and reading articles about the various online offerings, so I finally figured I would poke around a little bit.  Frankly, it is a bit underwhelming, basically duplicating what I already have in a dozen other places, which I suppose on one hand is the brilliance of the whole thing.  If Microsoft could ever convince a critical mass of users to migrate, they would be a tough contender because who wants to have 18 services spread across 12 different accounts and 21 different websites.  But, until that critical mass is achieved, who wants to put pictures up on Windows Live when everyone uses Flickr or MySpace, or FaceBook, or whatever.

User Interface Deliberately Backwards?

Which brings us to today’s issue.

On the blogging platform (WordPress is what I use, but again separate service, blah, blah, blah) there is modules tab that allows you to add and subtract things from your blog, or rather SHOW and HIDE them.  That already is a strike.  Users know there is a difference between SHOW and HIDE and they want the option to DELETE or REMOVE, but that isn’t there.  So, strike one, but I would get over that if I had to.

What is truly bizarre, however, is the SHOW / HIDE part of the interface. 

Now, before we go any further, understand that I am not an infrequent computer user.  I was an MCSE when most of today’s computer guys were watching Barney on TV, I program a bit, I build my own websites, including raw code, and I’m picking up some of the more advanced stuff as well, all the while working as a freelancer which means I do all my own tech support too.  I also write professionally a lot about Tech as well, which you probably can guess.  So, we aren’t talking about Aunt Maude and her first computer.

As I looked through the list, I noticed some things that I don’t use, such as an Xbox Live Card, or whatever.  I saw that it was marked SHOW, so I clicked on SHOW to turn it to HIDE and did likewise through the rest of the list.

Imagine my surprise when all of those things actually appeared on my blog.  At first, I thought that I had caused that by clicking on them, thinking that maybe they were on a “none” or “N/A” setting at first because I had never used the blog and by clicking something I had gotten them installed.  So I went back into the modules section to turn them back to HIDE.  They were already set to HIDE, so I clicked SAVE and went back.

They were still there.

I ended up getting rid of them individually from within their own SETTINGS icons.  When I went back to modules they were all marked SHOW again!  Oh, no, I figured, here we go again.  But, I left them alone hoping that if I didn’t click SAVE it wouldn’t put those modules back on the blog.  It seemed to work, but then I went back in again.

When I saw them all lined up as SHOW again, I really started to wonder what was going on.  A little experimentation showed me that what the interface is setup like a toggle button.  If you currently have something set to HIDE, then you click on SHOW to show it.

You can see how someone could try and argue that this makes sense, but the truth is that it is the opposite of what a computer user will expect.  This is because of long used, unofficial standards about the way interfaces behave.  Computer users will use the toggle function just fine, but IF AND ONLY IF the interface makes it clear that it is such a button.  This is NOT what users assume by default.

If the interface in question looked like a button, and clicking it made it a different color, or if the button looked like it was pressed in, users would quickly understand the toggle nature of the button.  You know, something like in Microsoft’s own Silverlight documentation.  But, in this case, it is nothing more than a list.  And when users see a list, they expect it to show them the current status, not the status that could be.  A clear signal or instruction is required to get users to think the other way.

Microsoft is not new to computers, and one would think that their engineers and programmers have used one or two programs or services in the past and would know this, if not conscientiously, at least unconscientiously, the design should have seemed off when they used it.

I can’t believe that the people in house who were asked to try it out didn’t notice.

Is the Microsoft culture such that people just will not speak up?

Is Microsoft deliberately being obtuse in hopes of having its carbon-copy service recognized as unique?

Are the design and usability guys really that incompetent?

If Microsoft hopes to get that critical mass using their offerings, they are going to have to have a lot better setup than this.

Maybe it’s still beta.  Everything is these days.

Microsoft and User Interface Usability – A Match Made in Hell? is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC