So I attended the Refresh Detroit meeting a few days ago in Ann Arbor, MI. The speaker was Barb Hernandez, User Experience Manager at TechSmith. She talked about refreshing the UI of SnagIt.
SnagIt is a screen capture application for Windows. I am not familiar with too many trialware applications for windows since its not part of my daily routine. But I know there are quite a few programs like this out there since it is not a built in feature.
She went over the previous UI and some initial problems they identified. Then brought everyone through how they do user testing and what methods they found useful to make changes to the UI.
My opinion was they did a good job, I am not use to software being so clunky since I work mainly on the web and on Apple products so the UI changes they made looked pretty good. Hard to relate them to the web tho since Windows has a pretty constricting (boring imo) layout options.
It was interesting how their process worked. They did impression testing where they showed the mockup for 5 seconds then asked the participants to sketch as much as they remember. They also used emotion cards but she did not explain exactly how they conducted it, she just showed a list which seemed to be completely contradictory items, not very much help.
One thing I was disappointed about was how she made a big deal about Ethnographic Testing but could not explain how they conducted it or really explain it in any detail because it would ruin their “next release”. Funny because all the people in the room were pretty much from the web world and they are releasing it in the next few weeks, its not like we would have stole their idea and recreate their software.
Anyways, all in all it was a good meeting. Talking more with the Refresh Detroit leadership really got me excited for the upcoming meetings.
To see if there is a refreshing meeting near you checkout the Refreshing Cities site. It is a great way for web developers, designers and usability professionals to get together and learn from each other.
As a university web worker we constantly are typing in the same pattern of URL for every site. This becomes time consuming and routinely gets misspelled forcing a rapid delete key actions. I also wondered in the back of my mind about a shortcut to typing in URL’s much like IM word shortcuts but never looked too far into it.
Yesterday thanks to a Lifehacker article I realized the URL shortcuts were built into firefox all along! I generally use de.icio.us or ma.gnolia for my bookmarks so frankly I have never opened the firefox bookmark manager. Maybe back in firefox 0.2 but it has ben a while.
Creating shortcuts are easy with Firefox keywords, first create a new bookmark.
Name can be anything.
Location is the base URL for your commonly typed site but instead of having a static URL we are going to replace the changeable part with %s. So, http://admissions.wayne.edu/ becomes http://%s.wayne.edu/.
Keyword is what will distinguish this link from the others, you want to keep it short but still memorable, we will use it in the next step.
Then simply go to the Address Bar and type in “w admissions”
Hit the Enter Key or Go button and…
Magic! You just saved yourself ~3 seconds. Over time though in a day you might save 2 minutes which adds up to about 14 minutes per week and and 728 minutes per year, or 12 hours!
That is a day and a half of work, for any web worker this feature is almost a requirement. For some reason it has fallen through the cracks for me and a few of my colleagues. I hope it helps you.
Long awaited features now implemented. Main highlights include cross database join’s. Functions on DisplayList() fields and a way to change where the required indicator (*) is on forms and the character that is displayed after the label.
A rundown of the complete changes include:
Updated example
Completely rewritten Export class with CVS, JSON, XML and SQL support
Export() function on DbTemplate for seamless exporting
Removed the requirement to have DB_DEFAULT defined
DisplayList() now places a for NULL table values for IE border support
GetList() and Join() now support cross database queries
Added the “required” class to the field items that are required
DisplayList() $options can now take a function name as a value for a field.
Added the DateTimeDiff() function to the global functions to produce a human readable “time ago” output.
Added a type of “settings” for forms to manipulate the Form::Form() function output.
Questions or Comments? Feel free to leave them in the PHPSimpl Group. There is always someone to help available. By the way we love feature requests, keep them coming.
After being a member since opening their online doors I have decided to kick blockbuster online to the curb. The reasons have been building since I joined. I have summarized a few below. If you have your own thoughts about Blockbuster feel free to share them.
Abandoning Early Adopters
The initial pricing was simple and cheap, it got me in the door. After a year the prices went up, I was surprised to see they recognized me as an early adopter and gave a 30% discount plus without changing my current features. Then after the second year they forgot all about me, back to regular pricing and missing features got replaced with non-enticing features. Looks like no more benefits for us early birds.
Not Progressive Enough
Blockbuster still leverages its brick and mortar store by letting you exchange movies on the fly without the shipping. Which is great, don’t get me wrong but they don’t have to rely on it exclusively. A few people at work have Netflix and if they want to watch a movie at lunch it is just two clicks away. Blockbuster has not even mentioned a feature like this.
Clunky Web site
Recently they released a new version of their site. I tested it before they made it public and I commented on a few things, only one of which was fixed. I can now use the site in Safari. The other points have been addressed by their staff but never fixed. Really heavy pages, slow loading times, movies showing up multiple times on the listing pages. It has been almost a year without improvement.
Movies Go Unwatched
I use to check out movies and have plenty of time in the day to watch them, now a days my time has been slipping away. My major time killers are of course the wedding, my last class (graduation in May), Grad School coming up, buying a house, writing a book and my freelance work. Movies are the last think on my list.
Conclusion
I may start my movie renting adventure back up again in a few months but I will definitely be doing some shopping around before I decide to go back to Blockbuster. Their Web 1.0 thinking with a fake 2.0ish look is not fooling me anymore. Don’t take it personal Blockbuster, you should start listening to your customers.
