The UX of Right Angles
http://mike.teczno.com/img/right-triangles/RightTriangles.swf Grab the fingers with your mouse and walk the image across the page. No real world usefulness, but it’s sure fun.
Tag: UX
WordPress 2.3
WordPress 2.3 is out. I downloaded it and upgraded. Bam! I was going to wait for the fantastico upgrade, but decided to just push the envelope. The upgrade process is so smooth and pain free. I really have to hand it to those guys, this is a great product. I admit I haven’t used all…
Here’s to the Crazy Ones
Ethan’s teacher, Mr. Fidner has this posted on the classroom wall. He also has pictures of inspirational people like John Lennon and Ghandi. I like Mr. Fidner. I consider myself a crazy one. Here’s to the crazy ones.The misfits.The rebels.The troublemakers.The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.They’re not fond…
PHP Learnings
I recently have been working on a new API Browser for jQuery. It’s been a pet project in the back of my mind for some time. I thought I could create a better mousetrap, if only I could get over the programming hump. So finally, last week, I took a few tentative steps forward. First,…
The UX of Required Fields
I was recently asked: I was wondering if you could tell me if there is a “proper” or generally acceptable way to denote required fields on a form. Label* Field *Label Field Label *Field I don’t think the Form Police will arrest you if you do #2 or #3. However, they will arrest you for…
jQuery UI and the UX of Demos
jQuery has announced a new user interface components package called jQuery UI. It is a pretty impressive set of widgets and components to make a rich user interface. It also consolidates alot of various plugins for a consistent development effort. I think it’s an awesome start and will continue to get better. Looking at the…
The UX of Podcast Players
I have been frustrated with maintaining the podcast player on Marketo.com. See example on this page. (Click Podcast on the left). The UX was good, in that it zoomed up gracefully and played. However, the pain was on the backend. I had to encode each mp3 as a SWF file for it to work. I…
The UX of Google Reader
I am seeing a trend. It seems all the new good software is from Google. Recently, I realized that I read alot of blogs. I was getting annoyed that I had to go to so many different sites to read them, so I finally decided I need a “Feed Aggregator“. I took a quick look…
Google Office (Online)
The technology is getting better and better. Google is announcing a version of PowerPoint and Wiki software in the next few weeks/months. I think this is a turning point for the industry. I have already started using Google Spreadsheets and have been a paying customer of Picasa. We just switched our entire family calendar to…
The UX of AutoComplete
Autocomplete is one of those UI widgets that can revolutionize an application. Jörn Zaefferer has developed a beautiful lightweight version of autocomplete for jQuery. In my Marketo app, I am heavily using Jack Slocum’s EXT autocomplete. Once I introduced it, it really eliminated alot of complexity, not to mention modal dialogs. As a UI tool,…
Horizontal Menus
This is a great effect for a menu, with lots of easy customization. It’s called LavaLamp. (jQuery Plugin) I wonder if it could be made into a vertical menu. I would use it on the top left of this page. Sometimes, I marvel at the creativeness of some people. This effect isn’t something I could…
The UX of Google Calendars
Katie is the master of our domain. She maintains the family finances and schedules. She is the COO, CFO and CEO of the house. (I am the CTO) Recently, we have had the need to share our family calendar in a distributed way. She had been using Outlook Calendars on her laptop, but that didn’t…
Urge
The last few days I have been using Microsoft Media Player to listen to music while I work. Specifically, I have been trying their iTunes competitor called Urge. I signed up, but went for the “free” plan. I don’t want to buy music, I just want to listen to the radio for free. Two channels…
Uptime Stats – Consumers Unite!
I really have come to enjoy and appreciate the service SiteUptime. They will ping a site and keep track of whether it displays in a browser. The first site is free with 15 minute checks. For 5 bucks a month you get 3 sites at 5 minute intervals plus other checks. That is an AWESOME…