Wrap-rage!

http://tinyurl.com/5vawe7 Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Internet Explorer 8 Beta: Are these people for real?

An e-mail from MSDN says:

Consistent with our efforts to promote further interoperability across the Web, Microsoft will be releasing Internet Explorer 8 to render content in its most standards-compliant way by default. Giving top priority to Web standards interoperability allows us to help web developers and designers drive toward the ideal of "write once, run anywhere", freeing up more time to innovate rather than modify content for different browsers. However, browsing with this default setting may cause content written for previous versions of Internet Explorer to display differently than intended. This creates a call to action for site owners to ensure their content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8. As such, we’ve provided a meta-tag which can be added on a per-page or per-site level which will instructs Internet Explorer 8 to render content like it did in Internet Explorer 7, without requiring any additional changes. We are encouraging site administrators to get their sites ready now for broad adoption of Internet Explorer 8, as there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers. To learn more and get started, please follow the step-by-step instructions located at the following link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=120024.

So I followed the link and ended up reading this rubbish:

Some Web sites may not be displayed correctly or work correctly in Windows Internet Explorer 8. This problem does not occur in earlier versions of Internet Explorer, and the affected Web sites continue to be displayed correctly and to work correctly in Windows Internet Explorer 7. For example, you may experience any of the following symptoms in Internet Explorer 8:

• Menus, images, or text are in the wrong positions on some Web sites.
• Some Web site features do not work.
• You receive script error messages on some Web sites.
• Internet Explorer stops responding or stops working on some Web sites.

Ha ha ha! Ladies and gentlemen, so *that's* how you win the browser war! Jesus!
Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Finnish e-voting fiasco

The good old 'human error or bad design' debate resurfaces.

Today, the Ministry of Justice revealed that due to a usability issue, voting was prematurely aborted for 232 voters. The pilot system was in use in three municipalities; this amounts to about 2 per cent of the electoral roll. Seats in the municipal assemblies are often determined by margins of only a couple of votes. It seems that the system required the voter to insert a smart card to identify the voter, type in their selected candidate number, then press "ok", check the candidate details on the screen, and then press "ok" again. Some voters did not press "ok" for the second time, but instead removed their smart card from the voting terminal prematurely, causing their ballots not to be cast. [Link1] [Link2]

The argument here is not 'it worked for 98% of the people'. The deal here is that seats in Finnish municipal assemblies are determined by margins of only a couple of votes. So 2% is huge and whoever designed the system should have taken that into account.
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Canon India's Website is an Attack Site?

First, Google said:

So I went to http://www.canon.com/ and selected the Canon India site from the Worldwide Site list: Now, my Firefox said:
Webmaster of Canon, could you please wake up and smell the coffee?
Recommended Books on Usability
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Chrome Issues and Defects

You must have read enough about Google Chrome so I am not going to humor you with the basics.

I noticed some defects with my Chrome installation (on Windows XP) and I am logging them here:

Blogger Backlink does not work, when your post has a backlink.

Upload Images feature does not work in Blogger. I tried twice but failed. I use a custom domain and not blogspot (that is obvious, I know).

Are the above really issues or is it just me? Let me know. P.S. No RSS auto-detection? I thought this was 2008!

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Dear Adobe

Product/Program managers come up with a million reasons why they could not go to users while building the product. I have heard some really stupid reasons from Project Managers: "We don't have the time. We want to ship on the so-and-so date!" is the classic refrain. Most product managers are still stuck in the stone age of software design: the 90s. They refuse to budge and the result is, well, predictable. Products that irritate users. Stupid products. And, and, and, your competition gets amazing publicity: One of the users of Dear Adobe site wrote:

Try to beat FoxIt Reader for size and load time. Go ahead and try.

Dear Adobe lists gripes against Adobe products. It makes for some fun reading but it also sends an ominous signal to Adobe. Listen to users or perish. Excerpts from Dear Adobe's Top 50 gripes:

• 1) Why does the Acrobat Reader take two minutes to launch, and require updates twice a month, just to display PDF pages?
• 6) Please create an installer that puts your software on my computer in less time than it takes to install an operating system.
• 15) Please update your Updater so that it won't take 110% of my CPU just to download some files.
• 20) I really don't want a 'My eBooks' folder. Please ask first.
• 21) Could you make Adobe Reader start up slower? I'd like to have enough time to go get a sandwich before I read a one page document.
• 22) Please stop forcing your PDF plug-ins into every orifice of OS X. Apple designed Preview for a reason. Fucking deal with it.
• 45) Why oh why is Updater.app such garbage? It's 2008 already - why do I need to close Safari so you can update InDesign, exactly?

You know the positive thing is that, Adobe Product Managers don't have invest time or effort to figure our what's wrong with their products. The users have spoken. The least they could do is listen to them. Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Which version is the latest?

Hey, maybe their versioning/numbering sequence is in an inverse sequence. But it is confusing to me Jack. Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

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Status Messages on Facebook

How often do you find two friends talking about usability (or about the lack of it thereof) on Facebook! Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank+usability [at] gmail [dot] com

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Gmail Usability Issues

I had written about it sometime back but the issues still remain. Let's give it another deko: 1) I want my 'Go' button. It is too easy to click the wrong choice in the drop-down.

And, what does the Refresh link do? Refresh my mail or...? You know? The link needs a new place. Next to the 'More Actions' menu, it makes you think. Doesn't it?

You wanted to delete only one mail from the conversation... you clicked Delete.

...Gmail deletes all the mails in a conversation. Gmail should pop a message asking you 'This will delete all the mails in the conversation. Are you sure? And, shouldn't Delete be renamed to Delete Conversation por favor? And, and and... provide the Delete Message control in a prominent place where you can find it without thinking too much? Right now, you have to click that small drop-down button next to Reply.

Your thoughts?

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank+usability [at] gmail [dot] com

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Deccan Herald Does a Kingfisher

While trying to navigate to a page on DH via Google, I was told this. Recommended Books on Usability
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