iterativelearning

Despite Twitter, I’m still a frequent user of RSS, and when it comes to readers, I’m a big fan of NetNewsWire (both the desktop and iPhone versions). It’s got that Mac look-and-feel and the 3-pane capability (folders, titles, posts) that saves me the hassle of launching full posts in a separate browser.

But recently the desktop version has been giving me troubles with what should be a very routine function: deleting folders. For some strange reason, every time I delete one, it magically reappears.

Apparently, there are others who had the same problem and they had good luck with a clean reinstall, so I tried that. But as a likely omen of things to come, quick and easy success was not to be had.

So, on to other options … Because I sync it with Google Reader, I thought that might be the culprit, so I turned off the syncing. But no luck there either. Then I tried unsubscribing on the odd chance that the problem was one of semantics (especially since the current version of the NetNewsWire UI no longer included a simple drop-down menu option for deleting folders). But still, no dice. So that left with me checking out some CTRL-Click options. The Show Info option kind of surprised me with its depth; it displayed five layers: Name, Refreshing, Persistence, Exporting, and Enclosures & Podcasts. Refreshing seemed to be the most relevant to my problem, so I ticked the Don’t Refresh option thinking that maybe the reason the folder kept reappearing was that the system kept wanting to refresh it as long as it had a connection to the Net. But I struck out there as well.

The Columbo-like detail in this puzzle is why they removed the Delete Folder option from their previous UI. It seems like a pretty standard option to me and one that wouldn’t really add much bloat.

Technorati Tags:
Apple, NetNewsWire

I’m probably missing something, but when I’m scrolling a long web page on my iPhone (like a news article), it would seem that there should be a quick and easy way to jump back to the top (e.g., double-tap). As it is right now, I have to manually scroll, which is kind of a pain when it’s a long news article. But maybe instead of having to tweak the code for double-tapping, there needs to be more commitment to coding for the mobile experience. I was reminded of this when reading a recent post from Six Revisions:

If you’re working on an existing site’s mobile web interface, only the essential elements should be brought over to the mobile web. Mobile users don’t want to have to look for information or scroll through multiple pages to find what they are looking; they want their needs to be met quickly.

TechCrunch has a post post on a company called Time-to-Know that's moving to push school systems in alignment with 21st century learning demands. Of course, the EdTech market has lots of players working on this front, and Time-to-Know looks like they're aiming to do some pretty interesting things, but the part that caught my eye (for writing this post anyway) was the section on infrastructure requirements:

Schools committing to Time To Know's curriculum must be able to provide on-premises technical support. This means that if a student’s netbook experiences technical problems, it will dealt with immediately, rather than having to wait for an IT support professional to make a call days after

With the iPad hubbub still fresh in my mind, I couldn't help but substitute the word netbook with iPad. Given Apple's solid track record on platform stability (e.g, no viruses) and ease-of-use, this could be a pretty good scenario for a test run.

I was using netLibrary a couple of days ago in preparation for one of my instructional design classes and thought about how nice it would be if there were more robust annotation tools (e.g., text highlighting). It appears that there might be a version that allows for this, but I’m guessing that this option comes with a pretty hefty price tag. There’s also no date on this press release so it’s not clear how current (i.e., applicable) this information is. Along these same lines, it would be even better if the ebooks could be published in the open ePub standard so students could read it on all different kinds of mobile devices.

Technorati Tags:
netLibrary, ePub, Kindle

A couple of days ago, I was skimming the headlines in Fast Company, and read about a new search engine called Duck Duck Go. So I gave it a try and after a few successful preliminary searches was impressed enough to try it out as my default engine for a couple of days.

Here are just a few, initial impressions …

• Clean, simple interface
• Easy one-click step for adding it to your favorite browser (e.g., Firefox, Flock)
• A Zero-click Info box that gives you a concise description of your search term at the top of your search results. For example, if you entered the search term Bioinformatics, you would see a concise, one-sentence description set off at the top of the page inside a red border.
• A clever and very simple way to filter your search results (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Twitter) by clustering all your options as tight box of more than 25 icons in the upper-right of the page.

So after two solid days of Duck Duck Go as my default, I’m leaning towards Fast Company’s conclusion. Okay, maybe it’s got a bit of a silly name, but maybe that’s what people thought when they first heard the name Google way back in the 90s.

Technorati Tags:
Flock, Duck Duck Go, Fast Company

In my technical writing class, my students recently finished a Documentation module by writing instructions for a video creation software (Animoto). In reviewing and testing their instructions, I was reminded of how easy this tool is to use. In a few short steps, you can create a video, add text, and even a soundtrack. It’s also easy to distribute and share across platforms like YouTube.

This kind of tool-simplicity allows students to focus on what they want to do with it, rather than worrying about the intricacies of how to use it. When I think about the future look of learning systems, I’d like to see more attention paid to ease of use and cross-platform sharing. Ideally, learning systems should be able to incorporate an Animoto-like tool where, in the case of my tech writing class, it would be easy for them to create instructional videos. In Alan Cooper’s well-known work on Interaction Design, he mentions that the best interface is none at all, meaning, of course, that the interface is so helpful that the user isn’t even conscious of its presence. Now there’s an ideal worth remembering.

Technorati Tags:
Alan Cooper, Animoto

Jakob Nielsen has some thoughts on the most recent Amazon Kindle. Part of his review discusses the Kindle app for the iPhone; he finds the Help a little wanting. Specifically, he mentions that it doesn’t include an embedded help file, but simply directs people to the general Amazon help site, which is optimized for PC display rather than for a mobile viewing context. Not surprisingly, the W3C’s Mobile Web Best Practices extensive guidelines helps designers and writers better meet the challenges of mobile contexts.

Technorati Tags:
Amazon, iPhone, Kindle, Nielsen

A recent trip to the copy room got me thinking about Donald Norman’s usability classic The Design of Everyday Things (DOET). As one of the larger departments on campus, we’ve got an industrial-sized copier that sees pretty heavy use. Like most copiers at this level, they have all kinds of features and functions. One of these many functions is email (e.g., emailing copied documents to yourself or another person).

A couple of days ago, I happened to be in the copy room when a colleague asked if I could help him with this email feature. I was glad to help, but at the same time, mentioned to him that I rarely use this copier and have never used the email feature. Still, the interface was reasonably intuitive and as far as I could tell, it looked like he had correctly input all the necessary information. The only interface detail that seemed to be causing confusion was that the system hadn’t given him any visible confirmation of these correct inputs. More specifically, it hadn’t given him a confirmation message and so he didn’t know if the email had been sent. There was no signifier. So together we carefully searched the touch-screen interface for any hint that the email had been successfully sent, but to no avail. Pressed for time, he shrugged and moved on to more important things. As Norman illustrates in DOET, this type of user frustration is all too common.

So why didn’t the designers include a confirmation message? Did they look to Cooper and design for intermediates? Did they see this user scenario as equivalent to email? Obviously for heavily used interfaces, such as email, confirmation messages are redundant and unnecessary (and it’s got a “Sent” box if the user feels the slightest bit uncertain). But what about situations such as this, where a tool is used only sporadically at best? Does the novice muddle through or hope to find someone nearby who can tell him? Is there or should there be a quasi-decisive metric for including a confirmation message? 50% usage? 60%? Or should it be something simpler (e.g., if it has a Sent box, then no, but if it doesn’t, then yes)? Perhaps some help with this confirmation conundrum can be found with academic research databases in which there are definitely some that still include confirmation messages (i.e., for those instances in which a researcher wants to email article to him or herself). How do the designers of these research databases decide whether or not to include a confirmation message? Do they lean more towards Cooper or Norman?

Technorati Tags:
Cooper, Norman

In case Drupal fans missed it, last month, the modules page enjoyed a UI upgrade so that they’re now much easier to find. The Finder now appears prominently at the top-center of the main page. You can also restrict your searches by version. As a quick experiment, I ran a few sample searches for Version 6 modules (e.g., blog, calendar, wiki) and got a list of good, solid results.

Credit: Reintroducing Module Finder

Technorati Tags:
Drupal

I was placing a textbook order a while back and one of the drop-down menus seemed to present more confusion than necessary.

At first glance, the drop-down seemed to display the common alphabetical order (Astronomy … English … Philosophy); however, looking at it more closely, I noticed something rather curious. It used a kind of two-tiered alphabetical order where the word, Department functioned as a kind of prefix that was then followed by the specific department name (e.g., Dept of Economics, Dept of English, Dept of Linguistics).

In an ordinary alphabetical order, Engineering, of course, would precede English, however, in this drop-down, it appears before Engineering. In this configuration, English is linked to the Department prefix, while Engineering appears later because it’s devoid of that prefix.

While I’m guessing the rationale for this configuration is because most university org charts position English as a Department (e.g., inside the School of Arts & Sciences) and Engineering as a School, it still seems that a simple straightforward, alpha order would make it easier and more efficient. In terms of interface design and usability, this gets at the issue of a user’s expectations. Does the faculty placing the textbook order expect the drop-down to emulate their university’s org chart (assuming it does), or does she expect an ordinary alpha-sorted list?