tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33454806938165299992024-02-07T04:14:15.363-05:00Otherwise AcceptableThe musings of a software engineer.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-11151039443017939242013-02-21T20:19:00.000-05:002013-02-21T20:19:14.343-05:00He Speaks!I gave a talk entitled "An Introduction to User Experience Design: Or How to Delight Your Users for Fun and Profit". In that talk, I mentioned a few resources and links. And, as I promised the audience, here are those resources.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321344758/">Don't Make Me Think</a> by Steve Krug. This is the book that got me interested in talking to users. It is mostly about getting out of users' way and letting them use your web sites. And then there's the chapters on user testing that really ought to be required reading for all UX designers, software engineers, and people in general.
<br/><br/>
<a href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com">Smashing Magazine</a> is a blog all about user interface design in all aspects, from picking colors to designing your overall user experience. They also publish very pretty books.
<br/><br/>
<a href="http://whitneyhess.com/">Whitney Hess</a> leads an international user experience consultancy called Vicarious Partners and writes great things about it. She responded to one of my tweets once. I may have gone "squee!".
<br/><br/>
<a href="http://mattgemmell.com/">Matt Gemmell</a> - independent iOS designer. Frequently funny, often insightful. Usually at the same time.
<br/><br/>
<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138327n">How to Design Breakthrough Inventions</a>, the 60 Minutes interview with David Kelley, founder and CEO of IDEO.
<br/><br/>
<a href="http://johngreenbooks.com/a-speech-i-wrote-for-the-alan-conference/">A Speech I Wrote for the ALAN Conference</a>, John Green's speech about, among other things, imagining other people complexly.
<br/><br/>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465067107/">The Design of Everyday Things</a> by Donald Norman. Pretty much the gold standard of User Experience design.
<br/><br/>
Thanks to everyone who listened! As always, I'm Matt Sheehe. I blog here, tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/mattsheehe">here</a>, and maintain a bare-minimum "all about me" page <a href="http://mightymatt.com">here</a>.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-33229509976928583202012-11-06T10:31:00.001-05:002012-11-06T10:31:25.266-05:00Four Easy Steps to Making Voting Long and ArduousVoting day is here! When volunteering at your local polling location, you are faced with many tough decisions. There are going to be a lot of people there, and most of them are going to want information from you. And you, of course, will want to do the absolute minimum that is legally required. So here's some tips to keep things as confusing as possible while meeting your legal mandate to assist your fellow citizens.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>At your location, make sure that all signage, information, and volunteers are posted around a corner from the front door. If at all possible, ensure that at least one line of people goes around this corner, so that new arrivals have a default (though likely incorrect) action to take - get in line. This is the first step in making sure that arriving voters remain confused as to the process and general layout of the polls.</li>
<li>You'll probably have multiple local districts voting at your location, with each district having a separate area for voters to check in and cast their ballot. Make sure that the signs denoting these areas list only the cryptic legal name of the districts (example: MA-32; formerly EMA-344). If an overambitious volunteer has prepared signs with arrows (or other visual indicators) directing voters to these areas, remove the signage immediately.</li>
<li>You're legally obligated to have a map of your districts. Make sure there's only one copy, and post it in a high-traffic area for maximum congestion. Print this map on the smallest possible paper. If it's any larger than 8.5" x 11", you're making it too easy for voters to look up important information. Feel free to print the map in color, but only if the map does not actually use color to convey useful information. If this map labels more then one street name per three miles, throw it out and request the minimum legally allowed map from your local government.</li>
<li>Above all else, cooperate with your fellow volunteers. Encourage them to only respond to direct questions, and then only with the barest of answers. Attempting to inform the voters as they arrive should be discouraged.</li>
</ol>
<br />
Follow these basic guidelines, and you too can have a completely unusable experience that the voters will remember for years to come. After all, you're there to make the electoral process <i>happen</i>, not to make it efficient!matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-39072994745097001922011-11-21T14:20:00.012-05:002011-11-21T15:37:23.670-05:00So the combination is... one, two, three, four, five?SplashData recently released a <a href="http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/">list of the most commonly used passwords</a> on the Internet. (Based on published lists of stolen passwords.)<br /><br />(Geek challenge! Name the movie and the TV show that are the source of two of the passwords on the list.)<br /><br />So, in the interests of doing my part to halt the usage of easily hacked passwords, I thought I would share my password system. And some links, if you want to try it, too.<br /><br />The tools you'll need:<ul><li><a href="http://keepass.info/">KeePass</a><br /></li><li><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/">Dropbox</a><br /></li><li>Optional: <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Google Chrome</a><br /></li></ul>KeePass is the key (ahem) of the whole system. This open source password manager fits my needs perfectly, as it works in Windows, Linux, and Android. (Also Mac and iOS.)<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMO2EgaFyy5jqkjCYbi7FvqXRzwF1CT3GTF47_sCgOVt-XAYA1TYQ5LW2jQU6h8hUIw5wEHW0cMeJzc_upp4I7lqK234ZFlGWySXVqWO4oUpDWT8rJ53XsfeQamHRhb6Cyuahpdk_tlpc/s1600/KeePass.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 167px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMO2EgaFyy5jqkjCYbi7FvqXRzwF1CT3GTF47_sCgOVt-XAYA1TYQ5LW2jQU6h8hUIw5wEHW0cMeJzc_upp4I7lqK234ZFlGWySXVqWO4oUpDWT8rJ53XsfeQamHRhb6Cyuahpdk_tlpc/s320/KeePass.png" border="0" alt="KeePass" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677535948481431970" /></a><center><i><span class="Apple-style-span">KeePass in action.</span></i></center><br />KeePass will generate random passwords, includes keyboard shortcuts to copy passwords (and then clear the clipboard after a set amount of time), and stores everything in an encrypted file using one- or two- factor authentication. Whenever I create an account on a website, I fire up KeePass and generate a random password for it. (Sample password: Egz0B2GC4pZf2u5VBVYi)<br /><br />So now I've got an encrypted file, accessible only via the KeePass application using my master password (and/or a keyfile). But I want to access that file from anywhere! Enter ... the Dropbox.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/static/20376/images/logo.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 231px; height: 60px;" src="https://www.dropbox.com/static/20376/images/logo.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">It's a box. For dropping</span></i>.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Dropbox has added some policy updates of late that have made me a little nervous, but I'm still OK using their service to store encrypted data. Simply place your encrypted file in your free Dropbox folder, and now you can access it from any computer, phone, tablet, or computerized llama you use. (Note: Dropbox may not yet be compatible with computerized llamas.)<br /><br />Finally, for the lazy (like myself), Google Chrome can help with your all new fully random and completely nonsensical passwords. (You know, the ones you'll never, ever remember.) Chrome will remember passwords just like most modern browsers, but, in a twist, will also let you sync that data across all your Chrome installations.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2LAA8qheWaB3NGfECqjVIbvIjbAxrHcXw1dMhxJEht-mqsD8Z3_5wS2birfuY24P9zTu3O-r5tYnbeVwUXgIHZB53GSfG4rQQsj5hOgqJ_JODE7aHceOdlIm76wJ5UM9W8jj99VLqFU/s1600/chrome.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2LAA8qheWaB3NGfECqjVIbvIjbAxrHcXw1dMhxJEht-mqsD8Z3_5wS2birfuY24P9zTu3O-r5tYnbeVwUXgIHZB53GSfG4rQQsj5hOgqJ_JODE7aHceOdlIm76wJ5UM9W8jj99VLqFU/s320/chrome.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677547862188926322" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Score! Your information is encrypted on Google's servers, too!</span></i></div><br />Before and after time! Before, I was using one or two passwords on every site. And frequently the same username. These passwords, while not dictionary words, were also not the most secure. I did this primarily because 1) I needed passwords I could remember because 2) writing them down is a Pretty Bad Idea<sup>TM</sup>.<br /><br />Now, every account I have has a different password (though usually still the same username), but I only have to remember two - my KeePass file's master password and my Dropbox password. The second is not <em>strictly</em> necessary, unless you ever want to access your password file from a computer that is not your own. (Bonus protip: throw the KeePass installer in there, too. It's small.)<br /><br />Yes, using a password store takes just a little more time and effort, but, with the number of security leaks in the news, and the lists of accounts available in the seedier parts of the Internet, it may well be worth it to keep your accounts secure. Added comedy trope bonus: tell people your password is so secure, <i>you</i> don't even know it.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-5813571676627037412011-09-21T13:07:00.005-04:002011-09-21T13:41:31.091-04:00Usability Testing in the WildWhen you test your product (software or otherwise), you should perform a usability test with people who share some characteristics with your user base. For example, when testing your new website, this characteristic can be "people who use computers". But you may have a particular feature that is very specific. In this case, you should probably test with a more representative group.<br /><br />For example, your ATM design may include aids for the visually impaired. Your test group, then, should probably include at least one person who is, in fact, blind. This will help to avoid situations where it takes an actual user almost five minutes just to find a headphone jack. And posting a video of it on Youtube.<br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6dQuAGJakHM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-91209454528997620372010-08-26T10:17:00.004-04:002010-08-26T10:42:20.796-04:00Ferret What Now!?<p>There are a thousand million different ways to make your website mockable. The very least you can do is make sure that your domain name isn't one of them. Remember that URLs are case <em>in</em>sensitive. Also remember that while parsing words with no spaces, people mentally insert spaces between easily recognized words first. Try it yourself. Here are two examples.</p><ul><li>kidsexchange</li><li>ferrethandjobs</li></ul><p>If you're snickering right now, the very nice people at <a href="http://www.kidsexchange.net/">Kids Exchange</a> and <a href="http://ferrethandjobs.com/">Ferreth & Jobs</a> may take issue. I humbly request that you add the following Rule Zero to your website deployment checklist.</p><blockquote>Print your domain name in all lowercase using a console font. Show it to five random people. (When using surnames as domain names, these people should not be relatives.) If three laugh, consider changing it.</blockquote>matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-47346249320366206652010-04-26T10:46:00.003-04:002010-04-26T10:49:06.266-04:00The $300 Million ButtonSomeone asked me recently how to justify the expense of a usability test to those people who would need convincing. Stories like <a href="http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/">this one</a> should help with that.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-35040845092013775082010-03-09T09:35:00.004-05:002010-03-09T12:45:00.664-05:00In Which Someone Else Makes a Really Good Point<a href="http://mattgemmell.com/2010/03/09/engineer-thinking">Engineer Thinking</a>, by Matt Legend Gemmell, is so full of good things that I really want to re-quote the whole thing. But I won't. Here's the penultimate paragraph that makes the broad point:<br /><blockquote>If you’ve exposed underling complexity or unnecessary choice in your software because you see those things as inevitable, it’s because your job isn’t finished. If you’re going to write GUI software for other people to use, do it properly, and treat those people like human beings instead of software engineers. If you want to expose complexity to the user and wash your hands of it, write command-line tools – or utilities that are used exclusively by other machine processes.</blockquote>matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-45242148489637431972009-07-16T10:53:00.000-04:002009-07-16T13:17:53.069-04:00Push the button, Frank!One thing that some interface designers sometimes overlook is button text. In a lot of contexts, buttons are given default values that seem "good enough". But consider your button text carefully. I'll give you the negative example that spawned this very thought process.<br /><br />I'm installing a program with the standard Windows installer dialogs. There is some setup to do, and when it is finished, I'm presented with a screen that informs that everything is kosher and the install can commence. The default button that will kick everything off reads "Finish". Erroneous! I'm <em>finishing</em> nothing! Adding to surreal nature of the dialog is the descriptive sentence above the button: "Click Finish to begin installation."<br /><br />"Click finish to begin" is going to be my new "get up to get down".<br /><br />Verbs are good words for buttons. Buttons <em>do</em> things, and the word should describe what's going to happen. "Submit" is a popular, though vague, button word. "Cancel" is another popular one. In my example, the answer was staring the programmer right in the face when he wrote the description: the word should have been "Install", since that's exactly what's going to happen when the user clicks the button.<br /><br />Give some thought to your button labels and make their purpose clear. If whatever IDE you're using provides defaults ... well, try to make it not to. Forcing yourself to fill in that text won't be a bad thing.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-3672474211419304702009-03-30T15:08:00.000-04:002009-03-30T15:16:24.889-04:00Order Up!A quick note on form elements and tab ordering: if you are going to include links inside the form to provide more information on what a field is doing, you <em>MUST</em> unequivocally and without question, absolutely with no exceptions, posi<em>tive</em>ly set the tab ordering on your form so that those links are not included in the ever-popular keyboard shortcut of tabbing to the next item in the form.<br /><br />Breaking the flow of "enter data - tab - enter data - tab" by highlighting help text interrupts the user's expectations, possibly to such an extent that said user will stop mid-form to write about it on his blog!matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-87344573629031488132009-03-10T14:44:00.000-04:002009-03-10T14:47:48.170-04:00On Public SpeakingFor my own future reference, and because it may interest others, here's an interesting post I found via <a href="http://boingboing.net">Boing Boing</a> today. Duncan Davidson's "<a href="http://duncandavidson.com/2009/03/dear-speakers.html">Dear Speakers</a>" - a few notes on public speaking from a man tasked with photographing talks and round tables and the like.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-74673084622538827282008-12-15T15:24:00.000-05:002008-12-15T15:35:47.056-05:00Usability Testing in the Wild<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/13/meetups-dead-simple.html">This post</a> over at BoingBoing describes how <a href="http://www.meetup.com/">Meetup</a> does usability testing: quick, dirty, and often. This is my ideal approach, too.<br /><br />You see, I recently did a usability test here at SEP for an internal project. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of spare time to compile my results (either from the test itself or my upcoming report, "Why Usabilty Testing Is the Best Thing Ever, I Mean, Really"). But, because the test took on a similar form to Meetup's, my lack of "finished report" isn't that big a deal - the tool's developers observed the whole test and were taking notes the whole time. That, coupled with a few ten-minute "here's something you might not have noticed" discussions, gave the team enough feedback to fix (hopefully - I haven't seen the latest revision yet) a lot of the usability problems.<br /><br />P.S. Because I haven't mentioned it before, if you're interested in the whys and wherefores of usability testing, you can do worse than to start with Steve Krug's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229373150&sr=8-1">Don't Make Me Think</a>, which covers usability testing in brief, including instructions (which I took to heart) on how to do it for cheap.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-58292704992555525322008-05-20T13:20:00.000-04:002008-05-20T14:02:19.718-04:00Security vs. Usability, SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY<span style="font-size:85%;">Forewarned: I talk about the issue of non-usable web security, but this is one of those cases where I don't really have an opinion about how things could change for the better. But I do think it's something to think about.</span><br /><br />Web security is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Big Deal</span>. One of the biggest, in fact. No major website today can get away without paying very special consideration to security. Unfortunately, security and usability are pretty much the oil and vinegar of the web application world. After all, from a usability standpoint, we want to get out of the user's way and present the information as quickly and cleanly as possible. On the other hand, security-wise, we want to take every precaution and ensure that the person viewing the information is, in fact, the person they claim to be. And, because most users will agree that it's more important to keep their information secure that it is for them to have easy access to that data, security usually takes precedent.<br /><br />Unfortunately, a lot of modern security methods don't just get in the way of usability, they outright prevent it. Consider the modern-day gatekeeper to all data financial - the security question. Most online banking, financial planning, and portfolio management sites use security questions to verify who you are. Some of these sites ask these questions randomly during your visit, others only use them to verify identity when changing passwords. And, for the most part, they're pretty secure. After all, who but me is going to remember that my first pet was a collie named *REDACTED*, or that I grew up in *REDACTED*.<br /><br />Of course, my life is a fairly simple one, and I remember the answers to these "simple" questions. Except that my first pet was actually a cat named "Mama Cat", and I actually grew up in a tiny town named Francisco, which is just outside the town I tell everyone I grew up in. Depending on the day, I answer these questions differently. So it's less a game of "This is Your Life" and more "What's My Line?".<br /><br />In <span id="contributor" class="c cs">Lore Sjöberg's "</span><a href="http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/alttext/2008/02/alttext_0220">Test Your Brain with Trivial Security Questions</a>", this very phenomenon is addressed, with the winner of Lore's fictional game show being the person who circumvented the security altogether. In short, this person made the page more usable by sacrificing some of that well-thought-out security. And this happens a lot. Passwords get written down on sticky notes and "hidden" under keyboards or behind monitors. (Or, worse, in one case I've seen, sticky noted to the <span style="font-style: italic;">front</span> of a monitor. For everyone to see. In a public area. At a hospital.) Maybe all the answers to your security questions get jotted down in a text file six directories deep and named "Completely Uninteresting Innocuous File.txt".<br /><br />This is not to say that security is bad. It's not, not at all. But I think that usability is actually more important that most users let on. So if anyone out there is working on a usable security method, the world may soon be beating a path to your door. Just so you know.<br /><br />P.S. My personal favorite security circumvention: my bank uses biometric typing data to identify whether or not it is actually me typing in my password. How I type varies dramatically from day to day (I don't touch type. At all.), so this method <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> fails. My new way to check my balances is to skip the password box altogether, hit the "Forgot my password" link, answer the security questions and just change my password every time. Bonus side effect though: I now know the answers to those security questions without even thinking. So that's nice.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-75514297109990414472008-04-14T13:56:00.000-04:002008-04-14T14:05:36.945-04:00Standards and QuirksIn the olden days, every browser rendered things differently. Complicating matters, most of these browsers paid only the slightest attention to the standards set forth by the W3C, so web designers either spent a whole lot of time and money figuring out how to render their pages correctly in all browsers, or just wrote their pages for one browser only. Now that the most popular browsers have come around to following the standards, a whole lot of established web sites are having to make some changes to keep up.<br /><br />Eric Meyer has a <a href="http://www.ericmeyeroncss.com/bonus/render-mode.html">good write-up</a> on this topic, wherein he covers the differences in the older browsers, how to keep some modern browsers in "quirks" mode (which causes the browser to render pages just as their non-standard compliant predecessors did), and lists some additional resources for the tragically interested.<br /><br />For anyone updating old web code, this is essential reading.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345480693816529999.post-90036189224857743652008-04-14T13:48:00.001-04:002008-04-14T13:49:47.207-04:00Welcome, humans!Howdy, all, and welcome to the technical blog of one Matt Sheehe. It is here I intend to post insightful and meaningful words on the topics of web design, software engineering, and technical matters in general.matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03758888952020804789noreply@blogger.com0