FSP 1.1

BART to SFO: no schedules posted

Why passengers shun SFO-BART connection

I have read a number of reports, including
one on the Mercury News (Page 1, 2004 July 04),
expressing concern about the low ridership on the BART extension to
San Francisco International Airport. Based on a few personal
attempts to use it, I find this unsurprising. It reflects on BART
and Caltrain management, but not on the need or demand for public
transportation in the Bay Area.

From what I saw, the actual BART trains work well. But the details
beyond that seem to be designed to discourage ridership.

Arriving airline passengers need to buy a ticket from a machine
which gave me $3.50 in nickels in change, after finally figuring out
how to get change at all. Passengers are then made to wait for a
BART train which, in my experience, is timed to just miss the
Caltrain connection. During some popular arrival times this can be
followed by a lengthy wait for Caltrain, after buying another
ticket. And I couldn't even find the schedule posted at the airport.

I'm happy to see a BART connection to the airport. But the
unpredictable schedule and ticketing system are making the system
unusable.

Hans-J. Boehm
Palo Alto

Published Saturday, July 10, 2004, in the San Jose Mercury News
Letters to the Editor

Ref.: [BATN]

gmail by google

Google knows nothing of its new almost April Fool's joke of an e-mail service.

All mail in one place, easily searchable. That's very desirable.
I expect lot's of Cc: user@gmail.com for a last
resort backup.

Very odd that the launch is on the front page of the New York Times
but not on google.com.

Gmail will be "soft launched," they said, in a manner that Google has followed with other features that it has added to its Web site, with little fanfare and presented initially as a long-running test. --NYT

Click on thumbnail for pop-up enlargement.

Earlier post about

Update 2004 April 02: google finds Gmail, even affording a sponsored link.


Results 1 - 12 of about 17 from google.com for gmail. (0.25 seconds)


Gmail - New From Google
gmail.google.com Introducing a Free Webmail Service: 1000 MB of Storage & Google Search Sponsored Link

Welcome to Gmail


Link: (NYT story 2)

Dynamic Three Layer map of NYC

Dynamap of Manhattan uses three interlaced images to display three different
maps of Manhattan -- a street map, a subway map, and one showing landmarks
and neighborhoods -- all onto the same surface. Tilt it to one side and you see the
street map, tilt it another way and you see the subway map. Easily determine
the exact street intersections of subway stops.

Buy your own for $17 from Dynamap.

Caltrain changes-to-Schedule FAQ

Caltrain's changes-to-schedule FAQ is unusually frank and human-readable.

This FAQ presents actual data and actual reasons for schedule changes and
decisions, in place of the typical bureaucratic marketingese,
'With our world class best of breed enhancements...' nonsense or
self-congratulatory 'why we are so good' dreck of a psueduo-FAQ.

Well done Caltrain.

Actual questions answered honestly:
* Why is my station getting reduced service?
* After the "faster schedule" hype, why is my travel time longer?
* Can't you improve Limited (stops at most stations) and
Local (stops at all stations) transfer possibilities?
* Why are trains scheduled in bunches?
* If I need to use an adjacent station, can I find parking?

LIRR system, fare maps

LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) publishes various maps, some showing routes
and branches, some showing fare zones. I haven't yet found a map combining
fare zones and routes.

LIRR system 'branch' map

Also, I haven't yet found a map showing transfer points for each route.
Sure you might have to transfer at Hicksville, and Hickville is indeed shown
on the map, but Hicksville is not shown as a transfer point, so you cannot
learn from the map that your transfer will be at Hicksville.

Compare to this example map showing explicit transfer point:

Other LIRR maps: Fare zone map.

Combined map: fare zones 1 though 14 (NYC to Montauk)

JFK-AirTrain Part 2 - LIRR Access Information

The entrance to Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) from JFK AirTrain Jamaica --
this station ingress enjoys a number of well executed features.

Wayfinding:
In addition to the colour coded signs, the lighting and geometry
of the antechamber, the large logo and collection of monitors and
ticket vending machine all combine to focus attention on this corner
which leads to the LIRR tracks.

Ergonomic:
The monitors are placed overhead so passengers simply look up
rather than queue to choose a train, and to see the specifics of their
train. These monitors are tilted down to maximize readability and
reduce glare.

Task Oriented:
By positioning the monitors and the ticket vending machine together,
passengers can make an informed decision about where and
when to buy tickets, and whether to rush or dawdle to the train
platform.

If a passenger has a few minutes to spare, he can buy more
tickets. If he's about to miss his train, he can rush ahead and
buy a ticket on the train (for a service fee).

The overhead monitors list the next train to DESTINATION at
TIME on TRACK, sorted by direction
(one monitor for westbound, one for eastbound).

Each monitor is then sorted by time of departure, and the various
destinations are represented by a consistent colouring scheme.
eg Huntington is always dark blue.

The monitors also show the correct local time, so there's no asking,
I see there is an 8:44 PM train to huntington, and it's on time;
has it left yet ? Is 8:44 before of after now ?

Eastbound (aka 'Outbound') train info:
(different destinations are represented by different colors)

Note that these colors are consistent with the line/branch colours
used on the system maps.

Westbound (going into the NY City) info:

Previously: JFK AirTrain Opens Part 1: dream vs reality

Audi CPO

Audi Certified Pre-Owned
has a multifaced browsing ability.

Browse
* by model
* by model year
* brows by price

Sure beats going to AutoTrader and requesting a list of 1995 Audi TT from
$40,000 to $55,000 and returning null.

After you find an Audi model/year, you can immediately else what else is
in that price range. Compared to a two year old A6, how old an A8 would I
get in the same price range ? Is a 4 year old A6 wrth more or less than a
two year old A4 ? Answer that with zero clicks right here, right now.

Great use of context customize the showing of truly related information.

Zoom in on the TT or see the whole fleet.

There are some nice cursor tracking and zooming in on what the cursor's over
settings in this Flash, too.

Widgetopia would glean the utility of this pricing matrix.

bad map: 511.org strikes again.

This inane map of the worthy ACERail system from transit.511.org
labels cities, but

* does not indicate which cities have train stations
(According to this map, does Union City have a stop ? Does Newark ?) ; and

* does not indicate how many train stations are in each city [*]; and

* does not indicate where the stations are; and

* does not indicate which roads this rail line is near.
(Yes, those faint red lines are major highways.)

[*] Santa Clara City has two stations: Great America Santa Clara and Santa Clara.

Much better is the official ACERail map:

Compare to the ACERider collection of ACE maps.

Previously on FSP: 511.org botch map of San Francisco transit service.

511 maps

The new 511, the official transportation information website for the SF Bay area
combines
* terrible information arcitecture,
* a user-hostile interface, and
* gruesome cartography. (The Thomas Brothers' printed maps aren't half bad,
I don't know who is to blame for bungling the digital edition shown here.)

Example of the new 511: This blotchy map of SF MUNI bus route 48.
(Note the map itself has no route label)

Could you plan a trip with such a map ?

Muni (San Francisco Municipal Railway) Route: 48 - Quintara-24th Street - Ocean Beach to Potrero Hill.

And the helpful key distinguishes Ocean/Bay from mere water

See also a more vigorous critique.

Compare to

Overview:

Detail:

Better Transit Info sells more trips

17 September 2003
Research suggests that better passenger information may contribute
to a 5%-25% increase in public transport trips.

The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) examines how the sector
can enhance passenger information during its 3rd Conference on Travel
Information, which opens in Gothenburg, Sweden, today.

“In an increasingly information dominated world, intelligent travel choices have
to be marketed just as consumer products are,” stated UITP General Secretary
Hans Rat. “When a consumer buys a new product he or she will find instructions
on how to use it. Public transport products are no different, so our consumers
need to be informed and guided in their use of our product. Choosing the best
itinerary according to personal needs and preferences implies having precise
information about the transport system. It is pointless to provide a service if your
customers are unaware of it.”

Bringing opportune information to passengers can vastly improve the travelling
experience. Time spent waiting for a vehicle or connection, for example, is
perceived as shorter if the waiting time is known. A strong and coherent
communication strategy also greatly increases public transport’s visibility and
profile, which will result in a better positioning of the public transport sector.

Indeed, as privatisation and deregulation spread, the need for good information
becomes ever greater because of the complex interactions between operators
and organising authorities in competitive markets.

“Effectively, the positive aspects of travel information increase public transport
usage,” continued Mr Rat. “Information on its own cannot work miracles, but
research suggests that better information may contribute to a 5%-25% increase
in trips. A well-designed information strategy can really tip the balance between
success and failure.”

UITP is organising this Conference to drive home the message that high quality
travel information must form an integral part of the public transport product, and
to come to a better understanding of users’ perspectives and needs. The main
theme of the conference is how technology can help provide better travel
information for the customer.

On the occasion of this Conference - organised in collaboration with
InformNorden (the Scandinavian organisation for IT in public transport),
Västtrafik (the public transport authority of west Sweden) and the City of
Gothenburg – UITP is launching a good practice guide entitled Towards an
Integrated Travel Information System. This handbook examines twelve current
challenges, and provides solutions, proposals and 70 worldwide good practice
cases of how to develop and implement an efficient information strategy.

From UITP.

***
Notes for editors
• Founded in 1885, the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) is the international organisation for public transport authorities and operators, policy decision-makers, scientific institutes and the public transport supply and service industry. It is a platform for worldwide co-operation and the sharing of know-how between its 2,500 members from some 80 countries. For more information about UITP or the Travel Information Conference, contact UITP’s Communications Department: Cara McLaughlin (Tel: +32 2 6636639; Fax: +32 2 6736100; cara.mclaughlin@uitp.com) or Stéphanie Loozen (Tel: +32 2 661 31 99; Fax: +32 2 6601072; stephanie.loozen@uitp.com) or visit www.uitp.com/Events/goteborg/en/.
• The UITP Conference is being held on the occasion of the annual Public Transport 2003 Congress and Exhibition at the Swedish Exhibition Centre, Gothenburg, Sweden (18-20 September). Public Transport 2003 is being organised by the Swedish Exhibition Centre in association with the Bus & Coach Federation Sweden (BR) and the Swedish Public Transport Association (SLTF). Some 130 exhibitors from 10 countries will be showing new products and services, giving a complete and efficient overview of the market offer. For more information about the Public Transport 2003 Exhibition, please contact Lena Kidner (Tel: +46 31 708 80 00; lena.kidner@swefair.se). For more information about the Public Transport 2003 Congress programme, please contact Anita Stenhardt, SLTF (Tel: +46 8 788 08 69; anita.stenhardt@sltf.se) or Anna Grönlund, BR (Tel: +46 8 4620650; anna.gronlund@bussbranschen.se). A press centre is accessible via the entrance on Mässans gata 12. This press centre will be manned by press hostesses, and will be equipped with desks, PCs, telephones, faxes, copier and storage lockers. You will also find press material from exhibitors. It will be open from 07.30 hours, Thursday 18 September (Tel: +46 31 708 85 50). Press information: Tel: +46 31 708 80 00; Fax: +46 31 708 84 60; press@swefair.se; www.persontrafik.info.

Station Vicinity Map

A good transit station map shows pedestrian routes, station ingress and egress,
station in context of its neighbouring streets and buildings, and the location of
amenities, from bus stops to bike lockers to ticket vending machines. And shows
the parking facility, differentiating handicapted, kiss and ride, standing,
short term, long term, and handicapped paces.

Bad: (From ACERail)

Better:
(Click to enlarge; from LIRR)

QuickMaps

QuickMap has some excellent maps.

For example, mouse over the 'full system/frequent/very frequent'
buttons on this London map.

With a good map, you can ask and easily and accurately answer,
Where can I go from here ?
To go there, where can I start from ?

For a complex system such as the London Underground,
Which line should I take ?
Where should I transfer ?

Airtrain SFO: follow the signs

SFO's new AirTrain has a nice sign telling us that one day there
will be a skybridge from the train to the terminal.

Signs for the current train-to-terminal trek via tour of the parking
garage are a little crudely drawn.

Silly CostCo maps

CostCo is a warehouse style big box retailer.

The goal is to find a CostCo near you (assume you are in zip code 63011,
or Clarkson Valley, MO).

Search by town and state, or by zip code.
This finds a reasonable list of CostCos.

The results show the CostCo on a map with detailed context,
and the results list each address. All good so far.

Selecting the South Saint Louis link brings a page exclusively about
that particular location.

Note that
1. The location's street (Rusty Road) in not shown on map

2. An exit route from freewys is not shown.
E.g., From I-270, should I exit from I-270, or change to I-55 then exit ?

3. The street (Rusty Road) is different from street listed on previous search
results page (South Lindberg (Lindbergh?).

Apple is much better:

Also good is the map from Pro-Retail.

Apple Music

My first night with the Apple Music store was a month ago.
This post is mostly about my 1980s-centric taste with a few
usability issues thrown in. I'll highlight my top five pics
for Gothamist.

Looking back, I see I owe my tastes to the CBC's Brave New Waves
from about 1983 to 1988. That nightly show was (and to an
extent, still is) a testament to how much you can do with a
small budget spent wisely on research (beyond a subscription
to _NME_, but that's a starting point beyond most radio producers'
grasp) rather than on C-list celebrities and promotion.
Huge thanks to show co-founder, and first producer and host
Augusta LaPaix.

Another legacy of my listening to BNW is that its airtime of
11:30 PM - 5:30 AM forever conditioned me to be a non-morning
person.

In the Apple Music Store I first searched for and didn't find:

Cabaret Voltaire
Radiohead
The Fall
The The / Matt Johnson Update: now found
Nina Hagen. I want her _New York_ or _Smack Jack_ at karaoke.
Aphix Twin
Dead Can Dance
Prodigy -- from _Smack My Bitch Up_ and before
Housemartins
Beautiful South
Wise Guys
MC 900 Foot Jesus
Einsturzende Neubauten top 5 nominee: YÜ-GUNG (FÜTTER MEIN EGO)
Coil
Wire
Chemlab
23 Skidoo
Rita Mitsouko
Nurse With Wound
Portion Control
Mitsou (but searched for _chinois_ and was recommended Vanessa Mae)
Up Bustle and Out
Modernettes
Corsage
Princess Superstar
Genesis P-Orridge / Psychic TV / Throbbing Gristle / Chris & Cosey

I did find:
Carole Pope's _High School Confidential_ is there, but on a _Queer as Folk_ soundtrack.

Joy Division and New Order top 5 nominees: Transmission (JD and NO, but the garbled JD edition was better), Crystal (NO)

People who bought Crystal Waters's _100% Pure Love_ (round and round and again) also
bought Traci Lords, who sounds like Tangerene Dream.

LL Cool J's _Bristol Hotel_, *clean* version only

Usability Issues: the web of nested and overlapping music genres
are underutilized. In addition to a
people who bought/like THIS also bought THAT
there could also be a THIS sounds like THAT.
For example, there's no listing for crunk or gangsta genres.

I miss Net Radio 365's (circa Nov. 1999) genres:
jungle acid house trance drum and base downtempo big beat big break
24 types of Ibiza mix club music

The Streets's _Original Pirate Material_ says every track is 30 seconds long.
top 5 nominee: Let’s Push Thing‘s Forward

I search for
Offspring (who really should win a Grammy)
Chemical Brothers
Madonna

I find no spell correction of elton jon to elton john

I do find at least _The Beautiful South_ and _The Pet Shop Boys_.
I can sort results by time and find the longest re-mix.

The search by song tiltle feature uncovers some interesting
cover versions.
David Bowie's _See Emily Play_ (original by pink Floyd) was good.

Bauhaus
The Crystal Method top 5 nominee: High Roller as an example of found sound vocals/narration.
Dr. Dre insrumentals (I thought this was a joke)
lots of Rush
a good collection of _Blur_ top 5 nominee (too many songs to specify)
Velvet underground was a staff recommendation
a great _Who_ collection
MC Lyte (a guilty pleasure)

The store needs a power search:
by year actually released,
by track length (search for tracks longer than 7 minutes)

If I can get extended mixes for $1 I will buy.

Ministry's _Twitch_ I may buy. top 5 nominee: Everyday is Halloween

Need to bookmark, and sort bookmarks of songs, artists, ablums, and tracks.
A wish list, and also a way to compare, is the track on, eg
the _Modulations_ soundtrack the same as on my album ?

I's a way to highlight and select text before copying it out of
the main iTunes window.

Better phone synch

.	Apple announces more iSync for mobile phones. Oh, how I wanted this ten years ago. Why program in (type, sort, edit, merge and purge) names and numbers on your phone when I can do it more easily on a computer ? I hope to read reviews soon on PhoneScoop.

Fury Index

Update 2003 May 14: complete index.

What will google do to this index ? (My gift to Kevin.)

Why ? Because mousovering to see where an url leads in uninstructive for a
javascript:void(0); link, and clicking on such a link often hijacks
an existing browser window. And because most crawlers don't follow
Javascript new window poping links.

Exercise: To compare two sets of comments, open two comment windows
on fury.com at once.

Blinking find tool in text tools

Which is easier to notice:

I wish this choice of colour was a choosable preference for the Edit/Find command.

Good Web: StrapHangers.org

straphangers.org is a great website for NYC Subway fans.

Clean, everything above the fold, no cascading DHTML springing out at
you, no broken Javascript navigation, no images as text. A site map
up front with understandable topic labels, and several ways to drill
down and get involved, all on the front page. Much better
than most transit agency sites. Well done.

Good: fastmail, technorati, strip door

In praise of clean cut fast web sites with useful content and services.

Today's praise goes to technorati.com's web-watch services, url watching,
link watching, blogdex-like and more.

fastmail.fm is a web based e-mail service with more features and no
obtrusive adverts. Once again, Yahoo! is toast.

And in meatspace, Source Equipment's strip door is praised for being
safe: can see oncoming traffic; and
efficient: keeps heated air or chilled air inside.

Train, Bus: unsigned

Update 2003 March 29: Palo Alto Daily News

Caltrain spokeswoman Rita Haskin sent a
handwritten apology note to Bowman.
No signs have yet been posted at the station, however.

----
Published Sunday, 2003 March 23
Letters to the Editor

Caltrain mystery

I want to complain about the treatment Caltrain metes out to
passengers on weekends. (Editor's note: Train service on the
weekends has been suspended for two years so Caltrain can repair and
improve its tracks. Buses are being used on weekends instead).

There is no information whatsoever at the Palo Alto University
Avenue depot regarding the bus that runs in place of the train.
There is no agent to ask. All is locked down. People are going
around asking each other if they know where the bus leaves from.

Once they have discovered the location, they find out they should
have bought a ticket from the machines back at the depot. One sign
with the correct information near the ticket vending machines would
have helped many of us on Sunday, March 16, during a heavy rain
shower from getting drenched, running back and forth before we
finally succeeded in boarding our bus.

Trudy Bowman
Kipling Street
Palo Alto
[Palo Alto Daily News See also: caltrain.com/news_ctx_fact_sheet ]

More data for the APTA paper.

SJC maps transit last

Public agencies should show transit lines on their maps.

Don't just show the station, show the line.
Where it comes from, where it goes to.

From SJC/Norman Mineta Silicon Valley's airport

See also SVMG's transitless maps.

Caltrain Fares

New Caltrain Fares: Caltrain has proposed a fair adjustment. See also comments on fare proposal.

Caltrain's presentation of the new fares:

The zones and fares are changed. Does this table show which fares
go up and which go down ? No.

A better presentation would also show which fares go up
and which go down. For example, the below ficticious
matrix shows some fares going up and others going down.

It would also be better for Caltrain to link together their
various pages about the fares.

Also, the top table was presented by Caltrain as only a .PDF file.
It would help if Caltrain would learn to publish web materials as
simple as a one page tables in HTML, instead of only in .PDF format.

pdf mixes landscape, portrait: good

Adobe Acrobat/PDF has a great feature:
it shows both portrait and landscape oriented pages right side
up. Other programs will show text sideways, or scroll off
the screen when you mix landscape and portrait, if they
let you mix them at all, but PDF gets it right.

inane graphical sitemaps

Inane site maps:
from www.fta.dot.gov/index/library.html

contextual maps

Maps should show context.

For a transit station, context means what paths and streets would
be used to approach or depart from the station. Showing the
location of other, related facilities in the vicinity is important, too.
For example bus stops. And showing not just the bus stop, but
showing which busses stop is even better.

Here's a preview of the project introduced earlier: APTA 2003- IA plus wayfinding.

An example of a job well done from Vancouver, B.C.'s Skytrain
system.

[from translink.bc.ca]

Compare to this example of a terrible, useless map is from the under
construction Cross-County Metro line in Saint Louis County, MO.

Click for full size map.

[From Cross County Metro, Saint Louis, MO.]

Wireless Vision

The new days of unlabeled buttons, inaccessible scrollers,
wasted margin and unused graphics. Sprint Vision.

Phone: Sanyo 4900, the phone of autumn 2002.

.

The simple old days of Sprint Wireless Web:

Phone: Samsung 8500, the phone of autumn 1999.

This example is from the ACERail silicon valley commuter train system [more info.]

Sanyo 4700: speaker is on

My new Sanyo 4700 PCS phone has a speakerphone function.
The display says Speaker On.
That means the speaker is off.

If I move the cursor so as to highlight Speaker On and press OK,
then the speaker will go on. And the display will then show
Speaker Off.

See also Speakerphones and mute buttons.

Coming soon: my Sanyo 4900:
Picture from PhoneScoop.

Staged Pictures

When I upload images in MT, I choose between

* immediately creating a new entry using that image; and

* having MT show me the HTML for the image I just uploaded,
and copying that HTML to the clipboard. Then, I hope I don't
get distracted and copy and paste something else before I
need to retieve the HTML code.

There's no way to re-generate the HTML for an already uploaded
image.

I'd like a third option, to add picture to library where MT would
build an index of all uploaded images (whether uploaded via MT,
or otherwise placed in the image-archive director).

This new feature would display the list of images and beside each would be:

* a link to the HTML to copy and paste into an entry to use that image

* a list of and links to entries using that image (think of this as a categories
feature where each image is automatically its own category).

This feature would also generate a list of images not used
in any entry. Orphan images.

Since MT already has a thumbnail generator, this feature could optionally
include thumbnails in the lists of images it generates.

Note: I've refered to images here because that's how I've been
using MT: upload an image, and let Mt generate a thumbnail and the HTML code
with correct width, etc, for the image. The current MT feature is actually
UPLOAD FILE, but I haven't explored what it does if I upload a sound or
movie file.

Meaningful messages

Considering the sample schedule below and the message below,
would you conclude:

a) Ticket sales after train #06 will continue.

b) Since trains #02 and #04 are before train #06, there are
no ticket salesbefore trains #02 or #04 either.

c) None of the above

FREMONT TICKET SALES

Due to an amended contract with our ticket vendor in Fremont, ticket sales
before #06's arrival have been suspended at that station. The change went
into effect on September 01, but we wanted to make one more announcement to
avoid any confusion. For further information, please contact the ACE
Ticketing Department at (209) 468-5660.

It's better to tell your customers how you can help them than
how you can't:

You can buy a ticket any time between 5:30 AM and 6:00 PM,
before or after any of trains #01, #02, #03, #04, or #05.

Refs: message and actual schedule.

Bugs, trade magazines.

Posted a bug in slashcode.

If enduser selects too many 'Customize Slashboxes' entries, they get an error
message saying too many entries selected. The max number of options is not
presented to the user.

Trade magazines are running rather light fluffy pieces on information
architecture. IA is typically more about finding organizing concepts
than about finding Ten hot tips and tricks for better PowerPoint Flash,
so dumbing down the content when writing for a general audience is common.

Progress Paralysis: Eight steps to get your Web site moving again

by Peter Merholz in New Architect.
The Culture of Usability: How to spend less and get more from your usability-testing program

by Janice Fraser in New Architect.
Information architecture: carrying out a classification situation analysis by Gerry McGovern.

Classification Workshops by Gerry McGovern.

Pickle Jar Theory, by [IMG] (sic) at alistapart.

Better articles were the more substantive Taking A Content Inventory
by Janice Crotty Frase, also in New Architect; and the pithy and on target

Web classification is essential by Gerry McGovern.

Continental e-mail

I was searching the 1000 messages in my inbox for the confirmation
e-mail which should show the details of my recent booking on Continental.

I searched for Continental, for booked, for flight, and for confirm[ation].

No luck.

Finally, I found a message from eTicketonline@coair.com.

This message turns out to be from Continental, though as a Continental
message it doesn't tell me the flight numbers. It doesn't tell me the
ticket cost. It doesn't tell me the date and time of travel.

It doesn't give me the desination or origin. It doesn't give me the
connecting airports. This e-mail offers only a confirmation number
and an phone number and URL for a personalized travel web page
for this trip.

In the next two months I have 16 flights to 5 cities. To match
these flights to e-mails, to figure out which one I need to print
Aiiieeeee.

Final Score: Expedia 10, Continental 1.

Here is what my e-mail program, elm, shows me:

contingency design

Robust software design means designing for when things
go wrong. Testing and validating inputs, conditional
operations depending on how things got messed up all
make software more reliable and enjoyable.

In usability analysis and interaction design, contingency design
means planning for when the user could make a mistake:
catching the mistake, and providing contextual information
to avoid or repair the mistake.

37signals have a good exposition on contingency design.

For instance, isn't the second screen below better than the first:

TextEdit broken filenames in Mac OS X

The TextEditor in Mac OS X has a stupid way of saving files.

It suggests a default filename of Untitled.rtf, but when a file is
saved with an .rtf extension, it rejects the extension.
Unlink Textpad for Win32, users can't fix
this problem by editing Preferences.

A: Do you want fries with that ?
B: Yes
A: You can't handle fries.
A: Well, you can't have fries with that.

Click on thumbnail to enlarge.

maps without trains

The Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group produce important
s such as Projections 2002 which plan needed
transit and other infrastructure improvements.

But their map shows all freeways and no transit.

Compare SVMG's map

to the BayRail Alliance's:

Also see the MTC's regional_transit_diagram.pdf [2 mb].

error messages

Error messages should point the user at the most likely source of
trouble, not the place where the trouble was discovered.

Sage advice.

Wanted: write your own help

I'd like an environment where users write their own help system from
within the software their using.

Form each element a help button with no content or minimal content
in it (asking programmers to create the help button is easy, geting
them to create the content isn't). Clicking on help would popup a
window withthe help text for that form field editable right there.

Then, when testing the system internally, have someone go through
the entire system and write nice help messages. Even better, leave
the editing messages in, and the users themselves may add help
messages. Basically, add-a-note functionality.

My worked well too when dealing with error and other messages.

OS X, Realaudio

How to play a 'radio' RealMedia in OS X:
Close Quit ie 5.1 (Native OS X interface).

Open RealMedia from the applications menu.
Select a station inside RealMedia.
RealMedia will launch ie 5.0 in MacOS 9 interface.
Select listen or somesuch button in the ie 5.0 window.
RealMedia will activate a player window in MacOS 9.
Listen, quit ie 5.0, re-launch ie 5.1, re-open windows in ie 5.1.

If you do get RealMedia working, watch this:

Search rules

You don't just make every combination of words in the search string a
potential phrase. Instead you explicitly define relevant phrases for your
domain, and then test the user's search for those specific phrases. In this
example "drug addicted" might be in a phrase dictionary, but "addicted
teens" would not. Therefore it would translate "drug addicted teens" to
["drug addicted" AND "teens"].

An excellent example of this at work within my industry is a request for
"latex free exam gloves." In this case, I can say with very high certainty
that the system should query for ["latex free" AND "exam gloves"] and that a
search for ["latex" AND "free" AND "exam" AND "glove"] will return products
the searcher does not want - specifically "Latex Powder-Free Exam Gloves."
BIG difference!! I also don't have "free exam" as a relevant phrase
anywhere. Therefore my phrase dictionary will include "latex free" and "exam
glove" - and other word combinations will be ignored.

Another excellent example is a search for "chemical retardant hazmat suit" -
I explicitily want to recognize "chemical retardant" as a single concept and
as a phrase. I do not want to return "chemical resistant, fire retardant"
suits for this search, which a simple AND search would do.

And if you break down how you think about a concept like "latex free exam
gloves" - this approach mimics your though somewhat. You actually think
of "latex free" as one concept (it just happens to be expressed as 2 words)
and "exam gloves" as another. Depending on your context, you may also have a
concept of "free exam" - but that concept isn't rel to any of the
products or content my users are searching, therefore I never test for this
combination of words. -- Mario Sanchez

tiny url, vBulleting (hall of shame)

Tiny URL makes urls longer .

vB mails user to tell user her mail is full .

egroups gets yahooed

The innovative www.egroups.com is stagnating under
Yahoo ownership. The least Y! could do is let
a user's search apply to headers (author or subject),
message body, or all.

And why can't you choose between seeing indexes of
messages, 10, 20, 30, 50 or 100 messages at a time,
as with google seach results ?

The days of interaction design optimizing for maximizing the
page views by new-to-web viewers should be long gone.

Greymatter ESC

Never hit ESC after typing in a long post in Greymatter

It clears the text entry window, without offering any undo possibility.
Makes me wish for an incremental save utility.

Greymatter ESC

Never hit ESC after typing in a long post in Greymatter

It clears the text entry window, without offering any undo possibility.
Makes me wish for an incremental save utility.

Sprint PCS texting

Why I can't manage my mobile phone contacts from the web ?

And look at SprintPCS's website. Tell me how many ways
there are to receive text messages on my mobile phone.

It's still a mystery to me whether I'm dealing with wireless or
wireless-web or messaging or SMS or something else.

Spam King

When signing up for Expedia, there is a tickbox
to opt out of receiving spam.

I unckeck this box to avoid spam and submit my form,
and my for is rejected because I specified my data in
incorrect format, Expedia takes me back to my form
with my previously entered data intact (thanks!) so i
don't re-enter all my data, just change one item.

But, Expedia automatically re-sets the spam option to yes.

Mute

When you hit the mute button on your office
speakerphone, do you expect the speaker
or the microphone to be muted ?

Survey says

Filling out a web-based survey on a single page is good.
Too many surveys have multiple pages and one page in
sequence fails to load, and the whole survey is lost.

I can't be bothered to re-type my comments if lost due to
a web page not loading, or lost when i go back.

blockblockblock

657891587586

or

657 891 587 586

Which is easier to read ?

my.omor.com

Personalized web sites should also customize their layout:

Once a user has established an account, remove the
join, sign up, here's how.

Once a user has signed in, change
login to Welcome, dc : logout

I can read

Another e-mail I received today:

My prescription was labeled with Avoid prolonged exposure to sunlight.

It was a year -- and several skin rashes -- before I realized that these instructions applied to me, not to the medication.

e-mail interruptus

From an e-mail I received today:

Sorry, hit [TAB] to start a new paragraph and instead it moved my cursor to the [Send] button in Hotmail and when I hit [SPACE] it friggin sent the message.


Cel phone review

What do I want in a review of a mobile phone ? Can it be used with one hand ? Most flip phones require two hands to open. Does the keyboare lock ? Brick phones are to easy to dial by buping into things or by just squeezing the phone in a bag or while sitting in a bucket seat with the phone on my belt. How many keys do I press to dial the 77th number I've stored ? Phone have memory to store > 100 numbers. So tell me how I could browse available stored numbers. How loud is it ? I'd like to use it as a speaker phone. Can I feel that I've pressed a button ? I'd like to feel a click to tell me I've pressed a button firmly enough that the phone recognized my action. More to come, no doubt.

bad Murky News

Once again the San Jose Mercury News shows us how not to put a newspaper on the web. They cannot publish a single edition that does not break URLs by column-wrapping them.

Half baked

the train ! the train ! the train !

The NYT has a nice picture showing the relative popularity of various train stations.

From It's All Aboard, if They'll Fit, as Sept. 11 Jolts Mass Transit,
NYT, RANDY KENNEDY, 2002 January 03.

Around the way

If you walk clockwise around a lake, which way do you go ? It depends on where your clock is. If your clock is in the sky and you look up and chase the minute hand around, you go one way. But if your clock is under the lakewater, chasing the minute hand leads you the other way. Assuming that both clocks move clockwise, of course.

exit topica

Select Cancel to Continue continues to annoyingly grace too many installers.
This example is from topica's mailing list manager.

NYT out of context

When the New York Times cites itself, it would be far more
useful to link to the cited articles rather than to the company's
generic investor information.



Pre-configured related search options save users
from knowing the exact words needed to retrieve
articles like this.

Detail:

bandwidth gone

This error message would be some much better if it said,
Back in 20 minutes or
Enter e-mail address to be notified when site is available again.

wrapping

What I want is a setting on my viewer to:

• wrap text to 72 columns per inch
  
• don't wrap URLS

index

In her book on indexing, Nancy Mulvaney suggests that an indexer
is a sort of query translator, mapping between the categories and
vocabularies employed by the author and those used by a variety
of different readers. What's a "drive" to me might be a "disk" to
you, so let's point at the discussion on disk drives from two entries.
Or, there may be multiple ways of coming to the same issue, and
this can affect how topic hierarchies are constructed. If I'm trying
to solve problems capturing audio to a digital file, will I look up

"Audio: capture" or "Capture: audio"?

Indexers are quite savvy about these things.

all you credit card numbers are belong to Google

Google has indexed and cached credit card numbers.

Naive webmasters make 'hidden' pages, those that are only accessible
to users who click on a very tiny area of an image map, or perhaps
find that 'secret' link at the bottom of the page}}. Visually, these
elements seem 'hidden' to a user who doesn't really understand web
pages and source code, and who uses a graphical browser with image
display enabled. However, these 'hidden' pages look like giant Click
Here buttons to search engines.

site of the week

Sitepoint has a nice newsletter from Moreover of pointers
to what's new in web development, and their own list of tips.

From this week's edition:

The rule of five (plus or minus two) does apply on the web.
Too many choices and users become confused. Want proof? Check out
Overstock.com, a perfect example of what not to do. It tries to
offer everything and because of it users will be hard-pressed to
find anything.


An information architecture with several layers would have suited
Overstock.com much better. Just imagine, Amazon.com listing all
book or music categories on their frontpage.

A combination of both task and goal oriented navigation may work
well for some sites. A goal is when you want to get to a specific
page (the portfolio, for example), while task oriented navigation

Just remember to visually separate the two types of navigation,
either visually on each page or via a hierarchy. Offering both

Both types can co-exist on the same site, or even the same page,
but not in the same navigation menu.

got that right

By SAUL HANSELL, November 5, 2001

OK, name some names.

vicious circle of ia

credits:
Louis Rosenfeld at
http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/images/bloug/011014model.gif

vicious circle

loopy
[Explanatory text to be supplied by vendor]