The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Usability’ Category

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Which “Posting categories” overview do you like most?

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/04/14

I’m experimenting with the Posting categories overview page as a prequel to a proper tag cloud (and a series of posts on how to get there).

Please let me know in the comments which of the below ones you like most:

  1. Left:
    HTML tree with post count per category
  2. Middle:
    HTML tree with font size indicating post count
  3. Right:
    HTML tree with post count per category and font size indicating post count

(For comparison, you need a big screen; the most popular choice will survive on the Posting categories page).

–jeroen

via: Posting categories « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of Wiert stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in CSS, Development, HTML, Power User, SocialMedia, Software Development, Usability, User Experience (ux), Web Development, WordPress, WordPress | Leave a Comment »

Download: Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2.1.1 (via Microsoft Office for Mac Downloads and Updates | Office For Mac)

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/09/30

If you use Mac and Windows machines, then – despite the Mac keyboards – it sometimes is handy to use Mac to remote login to a Windows machine.

For that, the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2.1.1 (especially the download <g>) comes in handy.

–jeroen

via: Microsoft Office for Mac Downloads and Updates | Office For Mac.

Posted in Apple, LifeHacker, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Power User, Usability, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Visual Studio 2010 Ux #fail: finding the Macro Recorder and Context Menus toolbars #VS2010 #Ux

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/03/16

When you want to enable (or disable) a toolbar in Visual Studio 2010, there are three options to go, of which the last two are equivalent:

  1. Right click in the toolbar area to get a Context Menu, then check/unckeck the toolbar
  2. Right click in the toolbar area to get a Context Menu, choose Customize and check/uncheck the toolbar(s) in the dialog.
  3. In the Tools Menu, choose Customize and check/uncheck the toolbar(s) in the dialog.

The first one is the easiest; you can see the resulting Context Menu in the left picture (click on it to enlarge).
The last two require an extra step; you can see the resulting dialog in the right most picture (click on it to enlarge).

Given the size of those lists, you’d think all toolbars are in both.

Wrong!

These are missing from the Context Menu:

  • Context Menus
  • Recorder

I consider this a serious Ux problem; if the Context Menu was much shorter (like 10 entries or so), it would be pretty obvious they are not.

It took me more than 10 minutes to find the Recorder toolbar which would have been vastly shorter if both lists were the same.

(Another Ux failure that caused my search to be this long is that I was looking for ‘Macro Recorder’ since all entries in the menu contain the word ‘Macro’; Recorder could as well point to a Toolbar for screen, video or audio recording).

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, Development, Software Development, Usability, User Experience (ux), Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio and tools | Leave a Comment »

routes.tomtom.com UI suggestion #fail

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/07/26

There is an address that I have been traveling from lately quite a bit: “Weena 505, Rotterdam, NL”.

So: routes.tomtom.com has put it in my history.

So why is it then that every time I select that address from my history, and I start planning my route, I get an additional choice of addresses to choose from this selection:

From:

  • Weena 505, Rotterdam, NL
  • Weena, Rotterdam, NL
  • Weena, Rotterdam, NL
  • The Westin Rotterdam, Rotterdam, NL

Or review your input:

  • Weena 505, Rotterdam, NL

They do this for all kinds of addresses.
It drives me nuts for two reasons:

  1. It takes an extra action from my side
  2. You cannot perform that action by keyboard (you have to use a pointing device)

Are interaction designers and UI builders ever going to learn?

–jeroen

Posted in Usability, User Experience (ux) | 1 Comment »

Let me google that for you

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/04/27

Brilliant: Let me google that for you.

–jeroen

Posted in History, Usability | Leave a Comment »

Welcome to Classic Shell: Classic Start Menu and Classic Explorer functions for Windows 7

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/12/31

One of the things in usability is to enable old skoop people that have been using.

Windows 7 went even further than Windows Vista into changing start menu functionality and explorer functionality that had been there since Windows 95.
So things that have been working for over a decade, suddenly stopped to work, or worse: work differently.

Would you imagine what happened when someone reordered the pedals in a car (from left to right are clutch, brake and throttle) or reassign their functionality?

So some people gathered and wrote Classic Shell.

Now someone please restrore the “backspace” keyboard behaviour back to “go one level up in the folder tree” as it had been for more than a decade…

–jeroen

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Usability, User Experience (ux) | 4 Comments »

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