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Making Politics Easy To Use

by Paul Sherman on September 7, 2008 · 0 comments

in Web

I have kept politics off the table during my 3+ years of running this blog. I just think it’s a private thing, and not germaine to the topics I cover here. Suffice it to say I’m a something like a rabidly capitalistic social-liberal-fiscal-conservative-with-a-libertarian-streak. Or a Second Amendment-supporting Democrat (befitting my Texas residency) who believes in states’ rights and a limited Federal government. (In other words, there really is *no* real party for me in the US…but that’s another story and another blog…)

But today I thought I’d point to a really top-notch user experience, and in the process reveal that I am a contributor to the Obama-Biden campaign. After reading about how Sarah Palin’s RNC convention speech raised 1M for the Replicans and 10M for the Democrats, I was reminded that I wanted to contribute. Rather than browse to barackobama.com, I decided to go to www.mybarackobama.com, the social networking site run by the campaign.

I was impressed with how easy it was to not only contribute (it darn well better be), but to quickly and easily increase your level of commitment to the cause. Obviously there’s been some research behind this. They hooked me with the drop-dead simple way to register, and the ease with which they asked me to contribute time, money, or my personal network. They also offered registrants the ability to harness network effects by setting up a personal donations page, where you can ping your friends for donations in your name. Check out my page at http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/pjsherman. The page took no time to set up. My only nit with the site? Why oh why did they make the username/login fields the same color as the background?!? Amateurish mistake, that.

Now I’m sure that the McCain campaign has made it easy to contribute as well, but from my forays onto the McCain site I don’t see the same social networking aspect. And I have to say, I don’t like having a video start up automatically when I visit a site. It’d my choice whether I’d like to watch video content, thank you very much.

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H8ing Linux

by Paul Sherman on July 25, 2008 · 0 comments

in Web

Just found a good article at ZDNet that talks about the LinuxHaters site. It’s not really a site for true haters, it’s more a site where people can socialize and discuss particularly egregious usability or functionality issues Linux has…and the community can figure out what to fix.

If it helps drive out usability problems from Linux distros, I’m all for it.

Tough Love: Linux Needs More Haters :: Between The Lines :: ZDNet.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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Ouch, My Eyes

by Paul Sherman on March 6, 2008 · 0 comments

in Design, Web


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I know, it’s not nice to point at somebody’s work and say snarky things. And once you look at this site, it becomes clear that it provides a ton of functionality. But the design seriously detracts from the overall perceived quality of the site. The visual design just doesn’t scan, if you know what I mean. And that hurts discoverability.

If I was ready to put my money where my mouth is, I’d mock up a redesign. It’s easy to point out problems, harder to provide solutions.

Man, it’s a busy week. But I’ll try to put something together this weekend.

Blogged with Flock

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A Mini-Rant About Firefox

by Paul Sherman on March 4, 2008 · 4 comments

in Web

From my old friend Pete, via IM this morning:

Why does Firefox make me hit “Continue” every time it updates a plugin? What other options do I have???

Good point Pete.

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The US Candidates and Accessibility

by Paul Sherman on February 20, 2008 · 0 comments

in Web

Just ran across this article about the accessibility of the US Presidential candidates’ sites. Obama gets the A+, good on him. Sad to hear that Ron Paul failed in this respect. I would’ve thought his organization was capable of more, given it’s strong grass-rootsiness.

Making the Grade: The Candidates and Accessibility

Blogged with Flock

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TomTom Scolds In Advance

by Paul Sherman on February 19, 2008 · 0 comments

in Design, Web


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I bought a TomTom GPS device. The application that comes with it seems pretty usable overall, but there’s a funny interaction design on the “create an account” page. It displays the scolds in advance, before the user enters anything in those fields. I’m not sure what I think of it; I found it jarring when I first saw it. It does make the requirement obvious, but it’s kinda scoldy.

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Huh?!?

by Paul Sherman on November 15, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

Huh?!?
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WTF is my webmail client asking me to agree to (or not agree to)?!?I swear, that’s the only thing it shows. There’s no popup message, no other information on the screen other than what you see.And while I’m ranting, what does “Click to Continue” do? Will it perform maintenance operations, skip maintenance, or do something else entirely?Somebody better answer quick, because I’m paralyzed from fear and indecision, unable to do anything, my fingers trembling over the keyboard.

Just playing.

I don’t remember what I clicked; probably “Skip Maintenance”.

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Android’s UI @ Engadget

by Paul Sherman on November 12, 2007 · 1 comment

in Web

Drop what you’re doing right now and go look at the screenshots of Android, Google’s open-source smartphone OS.

It’s…it’s…beautiful.

I want one. Now. Not now. Yesterday.

I know it’s not even a real phone yet, it’s just a reference design. But I want my next phone to run this platform. That’s how neat it looks.

A Visual Tour of Android’s UI – Engadget

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Flock’s Gone G.A.

by Paul Sherman on November 5, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

Or general availability as we called it in the telecom software world.

Again, go get yourself a copy. It’s the most enjoyable, highly functional web browser out there.

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Flock’s Gone Beta

by Paul Sherman on October 31, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

Flock is no longer in pre-release, it’s 1.0bn-ware now.

You really ought to try Flock. It’s that good. Remember that feeling you had when you first loaded Netscape Navigator 1.x? Or Firefox? You’ll get that feeling, a little bit of it anyway, if you give Flock a shot. It’s really usable and very enjoyable.

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Emory’s Inaccessible WiFi Terms of Use

by Paul Sherman on August 6, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web


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I’m in downtown Atlanta in the waiting room at Emory Hospital, waiting for my wife to come out of Lasik surgery. Happy to discover they’ve got wifi here, not happy to discover that the Terms of Use page is a big image of the legalese. Not only is it inaccessible with screen readers and simple assistive tech like text resizing…it’s also damn hard to read for someone like me who’s 20/20.

What a shame. You’d think that hospitals and universities, two organizations used to accommodating people with disabilities, would know enough to make their site accessible.

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Dell Expects Me To Know Its “Twin” Model Numbers

by Paul Sherman on July 30, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web


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I own a Dell Inspiron 640m laptop. Today I decided to check for driver or application updates for this machine. Once I got to the correct page (which was fairly quick and easy), I used the list-narrowing controls to get down to the individual model numbers…and was confused when I saw that the 640m was nowhere to be found.I thought I had made a mistake, so I took it from the top, then dove back down to the Inspiron model numbers. Still couldn’t find it.

Finally, in frustration I scrolled to the bottom of the list. I still didn’t see it. Then I scrolled back up to the top, and looked carefully at each batch of model numbers. I finally found the 640m…it was appended to model E1405 with a slash. At this point, I had spent about 3 or 4 minutes on a task that should take 5 or 10 seconds.

In other words, Dell expected me to know that my model laptop was released with another model number, and that I should look for “E1405″ when I wanted to access support for my 640m.

Give me a break. That’s just laziness. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to just put “640m” in the product model list, and have it lead to the same page as the E1405′s. Sigh.

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Mars Story Is… Not Down, Exactly…

by Paul Sherman on July 27, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

A reader (omg I have those?) just pointed out that the Space.com story I critiqued is down. I checked; it’s not down, exactly…it just leads to a blank white page. No 404, no “the page you are trying to find doesn’t exist”, just…blankness.

OK, I guess that qualifies as “down”.

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Top Three Martian Usability Problems

by Paul Sherman on July 25, 2007 · 1 comment

in Web

One my regular reads – I think it was /. – pointed to a story on Space.com about the awe-inspiring discoveries made by the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The story is in the ever-popular “top 10″ format.

I’ll read anything about the space program, so I clicked on over to the story. And was bummed out to find some usability whoppers that seriously impaired my enjoyment of the story.

Here’s my “top three” list of usability issues I found. Follow this link or the one at bottom and see if you agree (or can find more).

Say it with me now…chromatic aberration and low contrast
The text in the story is rife with term-related hyperlinks. Nice of Space.com to define unfamiliar words, yes. But, the link color is blue and the background is (presumably a Mars-like) brick red. It’s nearly impossible to read the text links because there’s not enough foreground-background contrast.

Plus, the juxtaposition of blue and red causes your eye to attempt to simultaneously focus on short wavelengths (whose focus point falls short of your retina) and long wavelengths (which are most in focus at a point beyond your retina). This fatigues your eye because it’s trying to simultaneously accommodate to two disparate signals. As a result, the blue text appears jumpy or shimmery. Look at those links for a few minutes if you want to give yourself a headache.

Tiny aperture for reading the text
Why oh why did the designer choose to put the text of the story in a (yes I measured it) 440-by-100 pixel scrolling box? Well, I can guess; they were probably slavishly adhering the now-mostly-discredited “below the fold” decree. I wish they hadn’t done this. It’s like trying to read by looking through a keyhole.

Designers, I’m talking to you: it’s MUCH better to give the text room to breathe instead of stuffing it inside a tiny little box. If the content is interesting, people WILL scroll below the fold. Really, they will.

Small pix
This issue is not just about *strict* usability, it’s about enjoyability: the pictures accompanying this story are just too damn small! If we’re being asked to read a story about exciting findings from the Mars Rover missions, a key part of the story is showing us the wonderful pictures snapped by those intrepid little anthropomorphized vehicles. But the pictures are dinky little 240-by-170 thumbnails. Yes, I tried to click on them. It’s a no-op.

Sorry, Space.com, but poor design has put a big hurt on the user experience of this story. But please publish more articles…I just love ‘em.

Mars Rovers’ Top 10 Most Amazing Discoveries

Blogged with Flock

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This Can Only Result In Failure

by Paul Sherman on July 5, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

This Can Only Result In Failure

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more depressing error message. Makes you kinda want to just give up and kill yourself, doesn’t it?

Can you say inappropriate verbiage?

And then there’s the little usability booboo’s, like the red/grey stereopsis, and the not showing me the field where I can correct my error. (Lazy coder, why should I have to press Back?)

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This Is Why I’m Leery of Online Apps…

by Paul Sherman on June 19, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web


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I was happily working in Google Docs n’ Spreadsheets, when all of a sudden, I get whacked over the head with this doozy of a message.When your data isn’t safe, it makes you think twice about putting it exclusively online.

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Yahoo! Widgets Install – A Great Experience

by Paul Sherman on May 24, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

Yahoo Widgets Install

I think this install was one of the best user experiences I’ve had in a while. Extremely well done, and made me feel good to boot. Props to the ex-Konfabulites.

Someday I’ll tell y’all about my feelings toward the Yahoo! Messenger install, which is sneaky AND ugly.

Make sure to follow the link to Flickr so you can see screens 2 and 3.

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Orgoo

by Paul Sherman on May 24, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

Fans of web-based productivity apps might want to check out this Techcrunch article about Orgoo, a new tool that smushes together your email and IM accounts.

I tried to sign up for the beta but all I got was a “we’ll let you know” email. Still, I do want to try this out. Check out it yourself:

Orgoo – The Web Email/IM Replacement

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It Really *IS* Made of Cheese!

by Paul Sherman on May 17, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web

Google Maps recently added the moon and Mars to its mapping service.

If you go to the moon version and zoom down to the highest magnification, it displays…swiss cheese. How great is that?

I am not making this up.

Damn you, Google! You make it so hard to dislike you.

http://moon.google.com/

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Zen and the Art of Inbox Management

by Paul Sherman on May 17, 2007 · 0 comments

in Web


Zen and the Art of Inbox Management

No, this isn’t a “Getting Things Done” tip (GTD to the cool kids). I just liked the utter simplicity of this one email I got.

It’s completely clear and understandable! I know exactly what is expected of me from this email.

If only all my emails were this simple and soothing.

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