Hi, Bit of an odd question but I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Basically I have two scenarios and I'd like to know which one is the best for my situation (a user checking a scoreboard on a high traffic site). Top 10 is regenerated every time a user hits the page - increase in load on the server, especially in h...
I realize this type of question may have been asked before but I feel mine is more specific. Can you make some suggestions on user experience books that focus on web development and less so (if at all) on design? Edit: The only book I have so far is Steve Krug's "Don't make me think" ...
I have seen the following snippet of UI code to use icons with labels <a href=""> <img alt src="img/save.gif" class="icon"> <span>Save</span> </a> OR would it make sense to make combine this into a single entity (i.e. image icon plus the label). My concern is if we choose a different theme (color scheme), then I will not be ...
Source control is great. One of the nice features is that I know that I can go back to previous revisions in case something messes up. However, I still find myself loathe to delete a large batch of code that is no longer necessary, but that I might want to use parts of in the future. It really has no business in the current code base. ...
Is it possible to avoid JavaScript these days for small business websites, blogs etc ? and is it wise idea? What are things which cannot be done via server side language and only possible with JavaScript? Or is everything possible except animation with server side languages which is possible with JavaScript? What are reasons in favor o...
I'm creating a web crawling application that I want the 'average' user to be able to use. I'm concerned that a web crawling application is probably just too complex for most users though because users need to: Understand URL structure (domain, path, etc...). Understand crawling 'depth'. Understand file extensions and be able to setup ...
We're working on a project that requires us to have really easy to use documentation. There is a multitude of posts on Stack Overflow that talk about what makes good documentation, but few about the way it's actually displayed and usability issues. What projects have good examples of typography and design in their documentation? What is...
I have volunteered to give a one hour lunchtime briefing at my workplace to our user experience team. I have a passion and love for human factors and user interface design and have had my hand in it for entire (albeit short) career. The problem I am having is it has been very difficult for me to decide how to focus this discussion so t...
Demo link: http://elevation-inc.com/dev/test/ieform/ In IE 6/7/8 - if you enter a term into a simple input field, submit the form and then hit the back button - the input field retains the previously submitted term. If you then refresh the page, the value is also retained. How, via HTML, can this pre-population be disabled? We want no...
Does ensuring software usability always result in a decrease in efficiency? ...
Hi Everyone, I wanted to know what the different Usability tips/tricks and best practices followed with WinForm based application ? or which are followed as a Standard. Can be anything like font styles/sizes/color,number of controls on form,showing processing, error checking ,themes,layout of controls etc etc. Any resources/links ...
Hi, I have an entity that can be modified, saved and deleted and so it would be fitting that it would have a toolbar at the top of the window that you can press one of those action buttons. The parent entity can be submitted. However, this entity also has child entities that can be modified, saved and deleted. Is it usability best prac...
Can you suggest good practices for information related to validation messages in the user interface. Assuming you have a the following tables (User, Address, Email) and we use JPA to model our entities and the underlying validation provider is Hibernate. The default messages which are throws when a value is empty or incorrect is either ...
So I have to design a class that works on a collection of paired objects. There is a one-to-one mapping between objects. I expect the client of the class to have established this mapping before using my class. My question is what is the best way to allow the user of my class to give me that information? Is it to ask for a collection of...
Hi, I am creating a social networking ( yet another ) website targeting specific non-technical audience. How do I make it look/feel more professional ? How do you prepare a website so it feel authentic ? I am looking answer in terms of usability, font selection, colors, navigation, level of ajax, form design, link position, how to...
Hi, Is there a painless way to convert unix timestamps, MySQL timestamps, MySQL datetimes (or any other standard date and time format) into strings in the following form: Today, 6:00pm Tomorrow, 12:30pm Wednesday, 4:00pm Next friday, 11:00am I'm not sure what to call these - I guess conversational-style, current time sensitive date ...
Hello, I need an advice on how to add "Go to top" link on the bottom of the page, but only when the page is longer than the browser window size. The algorithm would be: check the page height calculate the footer and header height compare the sizes find last element before footer (e.g. by id) insert link to #top-menu (Assuming pure ...
AT the moment, the site I look over sends an activation email to new members which have a link they must click to activate their account. While this seems like a good idea, it has many faults such as occasionally the email lands in their spam/junk folder and its yet another step the user has to do. I was try to make it easier for users ...
Some websites (I have seen quite a few bank websites do it) will have a user log in from their main website and then when the user clicks on log in, a pop window will open with the user session. This session will usually not contain any of the their typical browser menus or url address bar. I have read from a user experience perspective...
Given a scenario in a web application where the User has to do X before they can proceed to Y, but where the link for Y is always available, we are currently discussing two ways of redirecting the user if they try to navigate to page Y: Display page Y with a message and a link back to X. Redirect to X automatically but display a an err...