Thanks for being patient everyone… the time has finally arrived. The new blog design is done, and is ready for the unveiling. Without further ado, I’m pleased to present Zaissian Logic. Check out the first post on the new blog today and let me know what you think. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed!
The other day, this article got sent around Microsoft. Then I saw it on Digg. And then again on Ajaxian. And I couldn’t let this article have such a surge of popularity without a response, because the conclusion is flawed.
I encourage you to read the article for yourself. Basically it discusses the “Submit” and “Cancel” buttons at the end of web forms. Wroblewski classifies “Submit” as the primary action and “Cancel” as the secondary action, and argues that the secondary action should be absent from forms all together, or at least differentiated so that the secondary action receives less prominence on the page. He claims this makes the user experience “better,” which, according to the article, is measured by fewer errors (i.e., hitting “Cancel” when you mean to hit “Submit”).
So let’s look at the study. He looked at 6 submit/cancel varieties. If you want to see visuals of the 6 choices, check his article or the Ajaxian article, but I’ve whipped up basic examples of what he tested below:
Ultimately, it’s Wroblewski’s goal to prove to you that Choice A and Choice C were “better” than Choice B, which is apparent in his summary: “When choosing between primary and secondary actions, visual distinctions are a useful method for helping people make good choices.” But look at what his study actually said:
Yes, it’s true that people said they felt more comfortable with being forced to stop and think about which selection they made, since they could “quite easily have selected the wrong one,” but remember: Humans are inherently bad at introspection. So asking, “Hey, can you go back and tell me about why you took longer?” won’t result in meaningful data.
And for that matter, what does that quote even mean? Of course you could have easily selected the wrong one, it’s a button right next to the other one! It’s true for all menus and buttons in the world of UI Design!!
But did you select the wrong button? According to the research, it wasn’t even an issue.
So even if, upon being forced to think about submitting the information on a form, users feel better about pausing, the pause is simply unnecessary. In the grand scheme of things, Option B was the better choice according to the study, which undermines Wroblewski’s conclusion (and in my mind, his upcoming book).
The designer side of me dislikes this conclusion, to be honest. I really like the color distinction model in Option C quite a bit. I think it’s stylish, and it reflects the underlying actions quite well. In fact, I may still use it in future designs despite these usability findings, because I’m willing to trade off the speed that comes with similarity in button design.
But Wroblewski has focused on the inaccurate, subjective accounts of the participants and ignored his own data in coming to his conclusion. Take it to heart as an important lesson: Despite usability’s recent upswing in popularity in the public sphere, not all usability is accurate. Read with critical eyes.
Just over a month ago, there was an article on Digg saying that the PerplexCity cube had been found. It sounded intriguing (especially the part about winning $200,000) so I checked it out. Apparently, there’s a puzzle site called PerplexCity which involves a series of collectible trading cards, each with a puzzle. You log in, solve the puzzles, and get clues to the location of the final artifact.
Season 2 recently launched, and while I do enjoy solving puzzles, I seem to recall from childhood that collectible cards are a good way to sink a lot of time and money.
However, I’m very impressed by PerplexCity’s new Japanese Channel. Aside from having Sudoku puzzles (who doesn’t these days), it has a variety of other puzzles, some I haven’t seen before, and some that I have, including Kakuro. I haven’t seen many online implementations of Kakuro, but I think PerplexCity does a good job.
If you’re looking for a challenge, be sure to try a Ponturu puzzle. It takes me back to the good ol’ Graph Theory days of building connected bridge systems. Fun times!
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the guy who lost 9 pounds playing Wii. Quite interesting – and anyone who has played Wii Sports can attest to the fact that boxing is the most active sport out of the bundle (that is, if you actually dodge and punch instead of just flicking the remote and turning it from side to side). So a full on boxing game would be sure to burn the calories, right?
That’s why I got so excited when I saw what some guy at Microsoft did with his DDR pad and a punching bag.
Do that for 30 minutes a day, and that’s guaranteed to be a good workout. I have 2 DDR pads… I wonder how much a punching bag like that costs?
Another interesting thing that Jason pointed out to me the other day is this online app that calculates what your name means. The descriptions are extremely specific, which probably increases the odds that they don’t apply to most people. But for me, they were eerily accurate (right down to describing artistic / design talent that starts off latent). You might give it a try. I tried it for a few friends whose full names I knew, and for some it was accurate, others… not so much. But give it a try and let me know what it says for you.
With the vast number of tubes making up our current Internet these days, you may find it difficult to know exactly where to go to find your information. (Besides here, of course. Your one stop shop for everything that springs from my mind. You’ll not find it anywhere else!)
Despite the sarcasm, the point is actually one that I’ve struggled with for quite a while – since back when I lived with Vince, actually, and he would spend an hour each night on the computer reading before going to bed. I would always think that was interesting. Surely there’s enough content on the Internet to keep you up for an hour (or more) every night, but where do you go to make sure it’s actually worthwhile content?
Well yesterday, Valleywag had the answer. Perfect! Exactly what I was looking for.
See, it may seem obvious to you if you already have your 20 trusted sites for news and current information, but what sites would you recommend to someone who’s seeking to be in the know? My current strategy is to just wait for someone to tell me (it usually happens, if only a month late). But my desire to be the first to know is growing. Post your favorite sites in the comments! What do you read every day? (Again, I’ll take this blog for granted – conceited as I am, I don’t need links to my own blog in the comments. Although feel free to email me all the links to my blog that you want.)
I was reading through Valleywag the other day and saw a brief article on Geni: The family tree meets social networking (yes, Geni owner, you can use that for your slogan, but I want 10%).
My dad has had a long standing interest in genealogy, and while the interest has always been a passive one of mine, of course the social networking aspect has drawn me in. But now that I’ve started thinking about it, what does value does genealogy really add to social networking? I talk to my immediate family (and either you do too, or you choose not to - social networking won’t change that). The family members that my dad could fill in for me (up the tree) can’t network with me (because they’re not alive), and if I start finding distant relatives… does that mean we should start talking? Admittedly, it’s more common ground than most people who try to add me as a friend on myspace, but I’m not sure it’s enough common ground to really start networking. Am I missing a benefit?
I think there might be a more fundamental issue at work here, however. As you start to build your tree, you enter your email address - which instantly creates your account. Now how do you get back to your family tree? Just enter your email address and your password. Didn’t enter a password? I didn’t either. But you better know it if you want to access all that information you just entered. Enjoy…
I heard through the grapevine about the announcement of the Adobe CS3 icons, and it’s getting quite a bit of criticism.
Now, I’m not really an icon designer, but I can definitely understand the criticism offered up from those who are. Especially the skepticism at choosing the Periodic Table of Elements to emulate. Seriously, of all the visualizations and symbols in our world to copy, they come up with the Periodic Table of Elements? Quick - what’s Fe? How about K? And Na? They are three commonly-known elements (Iron, Potassium and Sodium) with random abbreviations. Turning to Adobe, can you tell me what Di, Jr, and Sb might be? Personally, I have no idea.
But my main complaint is how they used color in this color wheel. What does any of it mean? Is it just whatever they felt inspired with? (Yes… ColdFusion… that’s cold, we’ll make it blue!) Surely it has nothing to do with what you can accomplish with that product, since ColdFusion (CF), Macromedia’s server communication language, and Photoshop (Ps) are both in the blue space, whereas Dreamweaver (Dw), Macromedia’s web development tool, and GoLive (Gl), Adobe’s web development tool, are at opposite ends of the wheel.
First of all, I always thought that CS3 would be Adobe’s big chance to release a suite of products that really integrated Macromedia and Adobe into one, solid company. Why does one, solid company need two offerings for web development? I would have wanted to see one product that GoLive users and Dreamweaver users could target for upgrading. It seems a better move for Adobe than having two teams developing the same product in different ways.
Secondly, what’s the story on the colors? It seems to me that Adobe had an opportunity to associate colors with different actions. Web development tools could be one color group, image manipulation tools another, and sketching / prototyping tools still another. Instead, it seems like they used color to divide former Macromedia products and traditional Adobe products, which seems to not be very meaningful at all.
But I do think the color wheel is pretty.
I’ve known about these bands for quite a while now, but Splashdown’s recent reappearance brought them to the fore again. Two months later, I figure I should check them out.
Let me back up a bit. If you’ve been to Splashdown’s MySpace page (have you yet?), you’ll notice that they’re a bit exclusive with their “top” friends. Basically, each one of the original band members went on to start their own project(s), and those are the four bands shown on their page.
While I will always go for more of Melissa Kaplan’s unique vocal stylings, I’m actually digging one of Kasson Crooker’s side projects, Symbion Project.
I’m also a big fan of the cover artwork for SP’s Immortal Game album… it takes me back to the keyform exercise in CDF. Who remembers it? The keyform exercise? Yeah…? Our first dive into the world of design? I do.
Here’s me being creative with keyforms. Good times.
Anyway, right, the Symbion Project cover art. I like the way they use positive and negative space to spell out SP with the shapes. Check it out:
I wish there were a job that would let me design funky typographical cover art like that all day. The inspiration is a bit random at times, but it’s quite fun!
Vince is at it again, recently releasing Game III over at xiigames.com. It’s an interesting approach for split screen gaming, creating a similar game concept in each screen with a similar interaction style but a different story entirely. I think it’s a cool new way to think about gaming - definitely an interesting new puzzle.
The shot below is an example of the interaction between the two games. It’s an interesting challenge to keep two stories in your head simultaneously; the benefit is that you probably know the story that’s in your language by the time you unlock the tranlsations for the other story (unless you speak English and Japanese… then kudoz to you).
You should definitely check it out. Once you do, look for my name on the credits screen, and be sure to enter your finishing code on the game page. As a beta tester, I was one of the first to finish, even though Vince didn’t tell me the page was ready or post my code -cough- so I’m listed as 8th. That’s probably not accurate. And I probably finished fastest. 
From days long ago in another life when I used to be a Flash junkie (that’s still true, isn’t it?) I signed up to receive the Macromedia Edge newsletter, which is full of interesting articles and the like. Occasionally I also get an email about a seminar, or a new product release. Since Adobe took over, it seems like the new thing is sending out best practices.
I received my second “Best Practices” email from Adobe today, and I can tell that they ran out of best practices pretty damn quickly (or else just stopped trying):
Upgrade. Yes, I suppose that would be a best practice in Adobe’s book – upgrading is the best way for them to be making more money. But this “best practice” belies the fact that there are plenty of tips and tricks in Flash that can be done without upgrading. And even if one does happen to upgrade, what best practices will he or she be able to take advantage of that weren’t there in earlier versions?
As for people like me, who do have the latest version of Flash, I’m starting to wonder if I will ever actually get anything remotely resembling a “best practice” tip in the near future.
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