Please people take this stuff with a large grain of salt. These are the kinds of people who find differences in "spatial nuance" between different brands of $600 RCA cable and buy things like the >a href="http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdet ail.asp?sku=VPIBRICK">Magic Brick.
I like how surprised he sounded that he couldn't tell the difference between a CD and a full-bitrate AIFF file. Who'da think it?
Spolsky encourages showing the in-progress software to users and watching them use it. I think one of his best points about usability testing is that if the programmers and designers cannot bother to watch the users during the testing, they're unlikely to gain much from a thick report by a testing lab. He encourages simple, quick, and casual usability testing, something even the smallest firm could afford and from which they would could draw useful improvements.
This is probably one if the most important things, especially in corporate/commercial software development where you don't have a feedback system to see what users like and don't like. At several places I have worked the engineers would ignore or just give lip service to the results or ignore them completely. Frequently developers get defensive when presented with recommendations or changed requirements because they view them as a subjective attack on their work. It's not. Although really inventive UI design will always require novel thinking it's important to understand that there is a lot of existing best practices and knowledge out there and it will make your products better.
While I do I make my living at this stuff I'm all for as many people learning the best practices of UI design as possible. It means that my work is less teaching and more designing. I love engineers, without them I'd have to write my own code and nobody wants that [my old Data Structures classmates can attest to that].
One other important thing mentioned is that despite some astronomically-priced pundits' opinions to the contrary, testing doesn't need to be a monolithic process that costs tens of thousands of dollars.
For a very casual overview of usability I recommend Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think!". It's mostly focused on web usability but it's extremely readable and covers all the basic topics. It's also very short which makes it easier to talk your coworkers into reading.
I know most of the/. crew thinks of web design as a frivolity [the people who manage/. certainly do] but adopting CSS [yes, even for layouts] is important for a number of reasons. It introduces structure to the content that makes it easier to generate, maintain and manipulate. It means that people using old/weird clients [yes, even line-mode browsers] can still use your site. It means that search crawlers have a better chance of getting good info from your site. It means that engineers won't have to support wonky javascript for rollovers or browser sniffing. It also means that programmers never get that Friday at 4:30 pm phone call from angry marketroids who are upset that something is a pixel off. Isn't that worth it?
For designers this is important as well, as it can make your job easier in some ways. It can also make it more difficult, explaining to your client/marketing person/product manager that it's not going to look identical in every browser is a tough sell at this point. Also, web design is finally becoming its own discipline. As designers we are now responsible for helping our clients and coworkers structure their information in ways that is more flexible and useful. We're not painters anymore, we're part of the construction team.
Is support perfect across all clients? Nope. Will it ever be? Hell no. Is it good enough? YES.
Here's some links that show off the potential of CSS:
It has a built-in MP3/AAC player* but no removable memory. It says it holds "up to 50 minutes" of music which by most companies' gauges means that it can hold 45 minutes of mono 64kpbs files.
*obligitory "waaaaah no OGG support!" comment included here at no extra cost.
I will share with you a tidbit of wisdom from those of us in design: keep track of how you're spending your time. Keep a detailed record of what you are spending your time doing and who is asking you to do it. Show this document to your manager and have them prioritize your time so that there are some rules in place. Managers are there to make sure you can do your job, make them work for a change.
No, you can write your own CMYK to RGB routines all you want, the problem is that you don't want to. It's a whole lot of really, really messy 3D and 4D vector math that was only figured out through a LOT of research into color perception and reproduction. To rip off the algorithms that these companies came up with is not OK.
This is not the one-click patent. This is a lot of of very smart people spending a lot of time working with spectrophotometers and linear algebra text books.
I've had a couple experiences where I've contacted open-source projects about helping them with UI design but most of the programmers I've talked to just want slick icons and a splash screen and refuse to accept real feedback that their brilliant ideas might benefit from some changes.
I know this isn't true for all programmers but as it stands now OSS is seems like a fairly hostile environment for UI designers.
One place I worked at had 'root' as a honeytoken on all their production servers, there was a separate administrator account [they never would tell me what its name was...] and if anyone logged in as root it set off all sorts of alarms. I thought that was cool.
their new font management system in Jaguar, which someone said "companies made a living off of", and now that business is gone, integrated into the macos
as much as I liked C&G, I am not a fan of Extensis. Their updates were continuously late, often buggy and their support was spotty at best. Entire companies used to have to wait months for OS upgrades because they were waiting for new versons of Suitcase. They've gotten their act more together recently but their acquisition of Diamondsoft just seems anticompetitive to me. Besides, Apple hasn't improved their font management at all since they added the font folder back in OS 8 (or was it 9?), it was due for an overhaul.
Now I just need to save up for OpenType fonts to replace my old Type 1s.
Until OpenOffice is 100% file compatible with current versions of Office and it works exactly the same that's a moot point. Retraining the hundreds of thousands of people who use it, a fair number of whom are currently deployed is impractical. Every single product the military uses needs to be 100% documented and training programs need to be developed for both users and the support staff. That stuff isn't cheap. I'm not jumping for joy at this contract it's just that the usual slashdot 'should've used Linux' argument is irrelevant.
I know that a GED is all that's required to enlist but if you have a college degree you can join as an E3 [AF & Navy] or E4 [Army], you can get a guaranteed MOS/job or you can apply directly to officer training. I'm not really the military type but repeated layoffs and 2 years of freelancing makes 4 years of guaranteed employment pretty darn attractive. Plus I'd rather wear a full uniform than have to go 'business casual'. Khakis are the yoke of yuppie oppression!
The armed forces can afford to code up something? Can't afford? Are you joking?
The armed forces [especially the Army] are very hard up for geeks right now, I've been talking to a couple recruiters over the last few weeks and they've all been extremely excited to speak with someone who has a college degree and good computer skills.
Given that they don't have enough people to fill the existing technical positions that they have open, how could they possibly expect to take on something like an OS switch without spending a lot more than half a billion dollars? They'd have to hire an outside contractor to help implement it. At least by buying Office they can havfe their existing techs support it.
Somehow this shifty Apple exec ignored the boldest claim of the bunch:
Misleading Prices
Both Apple and Dell are guilty of using misleading prices. For example, Apple gives the price of the low-end G5 as "$1999", and the high-end G5 as "$2999". In other words, they have subtracted $1 from a $3000 computer to make it seem cheaper, which is absolutely ridiculous. This demonstrates that both Apple and Dell are willing to mislead people when stating their prices.
What do you have to say now mister Joswiak if that is in fact your real name?
Please give an example. Any EA or Sega Sports game? No. Any action sports game [tony hawk, ssx]? No. Need For Speed HP2? No. Crappy licensed movie games? No. Sega Soccer Slam? Maybe.
I like the Gamecube and all but I honestly don't think there's a single game that was released on the PS2, XBox and Gamecube that has sold best on the cube.
I worked for a company that was a mTropolis beta site and I really miss that program. At the time [1996] it was leaps and bouds ahead of Director. They were mired by both an absurd retail price [$5000 when it was released] and the fact that everyone was used to the Director timeline-based model for interactive media. Object oriented logic is tough for a lot of programmers.
Anyway, it's s shame Quark ran it into the ground, it had a lot of promise.
Um, there's a "radio" selection that has several hundred shoutcast stations directly above the music store in the playlist pane like so. It's not tied into the music store or sponsored by labels or anything and it has some great stuff. It's had this feature since version 1 IIRC.
While a wireless notebook is a very fun and useful thing to have, be wary about using them in class. There are a lot of people who can't seem to keep themselves from IMing their frieds, reading/. or playing Warcraft when they should be listening to the professor. Plus there's theft to worry about.
For me personally I stuck to paper for note-taking but my computer was invaluable for scheduling/calendaring. If you''re living in a dorm you're really not going to want a 7000RPM Delta fan screaming 5 feet from your head. Also think about the fact that you might not want a system that can play a lot of games to distract you from studying or, uh, extracirricular activities.
I've been listening to Radio 1 Xtra for a while. I find it kind of lame that I have to turn to the British government of all places to hear good hip-hop on the radio when I live in the San Francisco Bay area, #4 radio market in the US. At least we have goodcollegeradio.
At this point the only commercial radio I listen to is classical, I can't really see it making radio that much less diverse. At a point advertisers don't want to have to buy time on 5 similar stations.
I'm using Safari to post this, but IE Mac had some very interesting features and before Safari was the speed and compatibility king on OS X. Actually, I'm mostly wondering what the hell has the Mac BU been up to since the last Office X patch? It can't take that many people to make MSN.
It sounds like they're not doing true transparent PNG support and there's no mention of them fixing the longstanding HTML and CSS bugs.
Those of us who make websites for a living don't care what it's tied to as long as Microsoft can follow standards. If the browser is truly XHTML/CSS/Javascript compliant I don't care if it requires a blood sample to boot, it means that I won't have to do any browser detection or special cases to deliver a site to my clients, saving them money and me some grey hairs.
How about a new version of IE for OS X, eh? We've been stuck with this one for 2 years.
Slashdot Mirror
OS X 10.1 was a free upgrade. The most anyone paid for it was $20 shipping and handling for a CD.
Please people take this stuff with a large grain of salt. These are the kinds of people who find differences in "spatial nuance" between different brands of $600 RCA cable and buy things like the >a href="http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdet ail.asp?sku=VPIBRICK">Magic Brick.
I like how surprised he sounded that he couldn't tell the difference between a CD and a full-bitrate AIFF file. Who'da think it?
Let's not forget the following:
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/c
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeff
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeff
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeff
This is probably one if the most important things, especially in corporate/commercial software development where you don't have a feedback system to see what users like and don't like. At several places I have worked the engineers would ignore or just give lip service to the results or ignore them completely. Frequently developers get defensive when presented with recommendations or changed requirements because they view them as a subjective attack on their work. It's not. Although really inventive UI design will always require novel thinking it's important to understand that there is a lot of existing best practices and knowledge out there and it will make your products better.
While I do I make my living at this stuff I'm all for as many people learning the best practices of UI design as possible. It means that my work is less teaching and more designing. I love engineers, without them I'd have to write my own code and nobody wants that [my old Data Structures classmates can attest to that].
One other important thing mentioned is that despite some astronomically-priced pundits' opinions to the contrary, testing doesn't need to be a monolithic process that costs tens of thousands of dollars.
For a very casual overview of usability I recommend Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think!". It's mostly focused on web usability but it's extremely readable and covers all the basic topics. It's also very short which makes it easier to talk your coworkers into reading.
I know most of the /. crew thinks of web design as a frivolity [the people who manage /. certainly do] but adopting CSS [yes, even for layouts] is important for a number of reasons. It introduces structure to the content that makes it easier to generate, maintain and manipulate. It means that people using old/weird clients [yes, even line-mode browsers] can still use your site. It means that search crawlers have a better chance of getting good info from your site. It means that engineers won't have to support wonky javascript for rollovers or browser sniffing. It also means that programmers never get that Friday at 4:30 pm phone call from angry marketroids who are upset that something is a pixel off. Isn't that worth it?
For designers this is important as well, as it can make your job easier in some ways. It can also make it more difficult, explaining to your client/marketing person/product manager that it's not going to look identical in every browser is a tough sell at this point. Also, web design is finally becoming its own discipline. As designers we are now responsible for helping our clients and coworkers structure their information in ways that is more flexible and useful. We're not painters anymore, we're part of the construction team.
Is support perfect across all clients? Nope. Will it ever be? Hell no. Is it good enough? YES.
Here's some links that show off the potential of CSS:Hey, I don't really care if it has OGG support or not, I just figured I'd get it out of the way.
It has a built-in MP3/AAC player* but no removable memory. It says it holds "up to 50 minutes" of music which by most companies' gauges means that it can hold 45 minutes of mono 64kpbs files.
*obligitory "waaaaah no OGG support!" comment included here at no extra cost.
I will share with you a tidbit of wisdom from those of us in design: keep track of how you're spending your time. Keep a detailed record of what you are spending your time doing and who is asking you to do it. Show this document to your manager and have them prioritize your time so that there are some rules in place. Managers are there to make sure you can do your job, make them work for a change.
I'm reminded why I bill hourly now.
Welcome to the media ghetto that Mac users have enjoyed for so many years. At least they didn't call Nintendo 'beleagured'.
No, you can write your own CMYK to RGB routines all you want, the problem is that you don't want to. It's a whole lot of really, really messy 3D and 4D vector math that was only figured out through a LOT of research into color perception and reproduction. To rip off the algorithms that these companies came up with is not OK.
This is not the one-click patent. This is a lot of of very smart people spending a lot of time working with spectrophotometers and linear algebra text books.
I've had a couple experiences where I've contacted open-source projects about helping them with UI design but most of the programmers I've talked to just want slick icons and a splash screen and refuse to accept real feedback that their brilliant ideas might benefit from some changes.
I know this isn't true for all programmers but as it stands now OSS is seems like a fairly hostile environment for UI designers.
Um, the torrentse.cx link has a fairly nasty redirect.
Well played Hello.jpg, well played.
One place I worked at had 'root' as a honeytoken on all their production servers, there was a separate administrator account [they never would tell me what its name was...] and if anyone logged in as root it set off all sorts of alarms. I thought that was cool.
If you really value job stability there's a few groups out there that will take you.
as much as I liked C&G, I am not a fan of Extensis. Their updates were continuously late, often buggy and their support was spotty at best. Entire companies used to have to wait months for OS upgrades because they were waiting for new versons of Suitcase. They've gotten their act more together recently but their acquisition of Diamondsoft just seems anticompetitive to me. Besides, Apple hasn't improved their font management at all since they added the font folder back in OS 8 (or was it 9?), it was due for an overhaul.
Now I just need to save up for OpenType fonts to replace my old Type 1s.
Until OpenOffice is 100% file compatible with current versions of Office and it works exactly the same that's a moot point. Retraining the hundreds of thousands of people who use it, a fair number of whom are currently deployed is impractical. Every single product the military uses needs to be 100% documented and training programs need to be developed for both users and the support staff. That stuff isn't cheap. I'm not jumping for joy at this contract it's just that the usual slashdot 'should've used Linux' argument is irrelevant.
I know that a GED is all that's required to enlist but if you have a college degree you can join as an E3 [AF & Navy] or E4 [Army], you can get a guaranteed MOS/job or you can apply directly to officer training. I'm not really the military type but repeated layoffs and 2 years of freelancing makes 4 years of guaranteed employment pretty darn attractive. Plus I'd rather wear a full uniform than have to go 'business casual'. Khakis are the yoke of yuppie oppression!
Given that they don't have enough people to fill the existing technical positions that they have open, how could they possibly expect to take on something like an OS switch without spending a lot more than half a billion dollars? They'd have to hire an outside contractor to help implement it. At least by buying Office they can havfe their existing techs support it.
Please give an example. Any EA or Sega Sports game? No. Any action sports game [tony hawk, ssx]? No. Need For Speed HP2? No. Crappy licensed movie games? No. Sega Soccer Slam? Maybe.
I like the Gamecube and all but I honestly don't think there's a single game that was released on the PS2, XBox and Gamecube that has sold best on the cube.
I worked for a company that was a mTropolis beta site and I really miss that program. At the time [1996] it was leaps and bouds ahead of Director. They were mired by both an absurd retail price [$5000 when it was released] and the fact that everyone was used to the Director timeline-based model for interactive media. Object oriented logic is tough for a lot of programmers.
Anyway, it's s shame Quark ran it into the ground, it had a lot of promise.
Um, there's a "radio" selection that has several hundred shoutcast stations directly above the music store in the playlist pane like so. It's not tied into the music store or sponsored by labels or anything and it has some great stuff. It's had this feature since version 1 IIRC.
While a wireless notebook is a very fun and useful thing to have, be wary about using them in class. There are a lot of people who can't seem to keep themselves from IMing their frieds, reading /. or playing Warcraft when they should be listening to the professor. Plus there's theft to worry about.
For me personally I stuck to paper for note-taking but my computer was invaluable for scheduling/calendaring. If you''re living in a dorm you're really not going to want a 7000RPM Delta fan screaming 5 feet from your head. Also think about the fact that you might not want a system that can play a lot of games to distract you from studying or, uh, extracirricular activities.
I've been listening to Radio 1 Xtra for a while. I find it kind of lame that I have to turn to the British government of all places to hear good hip-hop on the radio when I live in the San Francisco Bay area, #4 radio market in the US. At least we have good college radio.
At this point the only commercial radio I listen to is classical, I can't really see it making radio that much less diverse. At a point advertisers don't want to have to buy time on 5 similar stations.
I'm using Safari to post this, but IE Mac had some very interesting features and before Safari was the speed and compatibility king on OS X. Actually, I'm mostly wondering what the hell has the Mac BU been up to since the last Office X patch? It can't take that many people to make MSN.
It sounds like they're not doing true transparent PNG support and there's no mention of them fixing the longstanding HTML and CSS bugs.
Those of us who make websites for a living don't care what it's tied to as long as Microsoft can follow standards. If the browser is truly XHTML/CSS/Javascript compliant I don't care if it requires a blood sample to boot, it means that I won't have to do any browser detection or special cases to deliver a site to my clients, saving them money and me some grey hairs.
How about a new version of IE for OS X, eh? We've been stuck with this one for 2 years.