[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto - UX Show and Tell Night, Mon Feb 1st, 7-9pm

Our next IxDA Toronto event is going to be a UX Show and Tell night (http://www.uxshowandtell.com/). THE IDEA: You come with interesting deliverables you've worked on (or are actively working on), and share them in a casual setting with others interested in UX. Tell us how you communicated your

Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA Mentorship Program - We Need Mentors!

I would also note my personal experience in Toronto -- where people I knew had TONS to teach to others still felt insecure about what they could bring to the table as a mentor. I had to do a lot of convincing to get people for our mentorship speed dating night. I think people who came to UX later

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Trees & Mixed Value Selections

For anyone who wants a good example of the OS X-style dash option: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/tv_highlight.html . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45857

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Trees & Mixed Value Selections

Unfortunately our testing was incomplete -- we were only able to test 5 people, so clearly not a great sample, but the pattern was still clear (utter cluelessness with respect to the mixed value). It's hard to know what to call the participants, but they keep track of all of the service contracts /

Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA Mentorship Program - We Need Mentors!

I tend to agree with Lisa -- once a week is daunting given my current commitments! What we did in Toronto was say that it's a negotiation between mentor and mentee -- some mentees will want a lot of meetings, others will be content to chat every month or so. As long as everyone states their expect

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Trees & Mixed Value Selections

Scott -- The tree isn't representing traditional files and folders, so the design is wide open. I can do whatever I want (though I'm sure the developers would like it if some components were steal-able from common JS frameworks!). Brandon -- thanks; I think that's what Mac OS does, but given that

[IxDA Discuss] Trees & Mixed Value Selections

Hi all, Has anyone tested "mixed values" in trees in webapps lately? We discussed this four years ago (http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=7380) and I'm wondering if anything has changed. Picture: - A tree with selectable nodes (e.g. http://bit.ly/fEXrR) The issue: - How to indicate that some

Re: [IxDA Discuss] suggestions for "best in class" B2B websites?

Thanks Tiffany, thanks Ethan. I really, really appreciate the help. Tiffany, Basecamp is a great idea -- definitely B2B, and definitely more "current" than other sites. I'll check out the journal too. And Ethan, Fogbugz is great too. Hope you like the product itself. It fell short on a few things

[IxDA Discuss] suggestions for "best in class" B2B websites?

Hi all, Does anyone have any B2B websites that they'd hold up as good examples? I'm doing a competitive review and none of my client's direct competitors have remarkable websites. I'm looking for: - A well-done B2B site - The company preferably sells a service rather than a physical pr

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Greyed background for popups

Brandon, would love to hear why you hate modal popovers... can you elaborate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44487 Welcome to the I

[IxDA Discuss] How To Host an IxDA Speed Mentorship Night!

IxDA Toronto recently had a very successful event centred around creating a culture of mentorship in our local community. Since it went so well, we thought we'd share our experiences with everyone else... so you can host your own! The event was based on the model of a speed dating night, except wi

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto: Creating a Culture of Mentorship in the TO UX community

This month, IxDA and UXIrregulars are co-hosting a talk about how to create a culture of mentorship in our local UX community. Wednesday May 6, 2009 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm 215 Spadina Ave. Centre for Social Innovation, Room 120 FREE The format of the evening will be: 1) Video excerpt of Kim Good

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Joel Spolsky claims the "Program Manager" roledoes UI design... ????

On Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:20 AM, Dave Malouf said: > to even be in conversation with mechanical engineers. You have to > know the material that people are going to be interacting with, how > to forge it to what you need it to be AND to your point about > communication, you need to be able to

Re: [IxDA Discuss] This Thursday: UX Irregulars + IxDA Toronto -Interaction '09 Conference Redux

-- > From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss- > boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Meredith Noble > Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 10:05 AM > To: IXDA list > Subject: [IxDA Discuss] This Thursday: UX Irregulars + IxDA Toronto - > Interacti

[IxDA Discuss] This Thursday: UX Irregulars + IxDA Toronto - Interaction '09 Conference Redux

ng for touch screens and interactive gestures & emergent sustainable design themes - Meredith Noble will review Leisa Reichelt's session on Designing with Community (specifically Drupal.org) - Matt Nish-Lapidus will give an overview of Mark Rettig's keynote on "How to Change I

Re: [IxDA Discuss] What music for interaction designers

myself that I'm going to attempt to get in the zone. So interesting. Meredith From: mark schraad [mailto:mschr...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 1:41 PM To: Meredith Noble Cc: Adrian Howard; IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] What m

Re: [IxDA Discuss] What music for interaction designers

> Anybody out there not listen to anything? > > (coz that's what I do :-) I actually have a 1 minute white noise track that I found via Wikipedia a year or two ago. I loop it and it drowns out the chatter in my open concept office. Other times, when it's completely quiet, I'll go with nothing.

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto Meeting: Wed Nov 26, 7pm

We're excited to announce that Matthew Milan, principal at Normative, will be presenting at the next IxDA Toronto meeting, exactly two weeks from today. --- Saab Owners Never Forget: The Role of Novelty in Interaction Design Affordance and consistency are nice: nobody complains when

Re: [IxDA Discuss] In the Event of My Death

Andy, you might be interested in this segment from CBC's great digital culture show, Spark: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/blog/2008/04/full_interview_derek_k_miller_1.html (CBC = Canadian Broadcasting Corporation... Canada's BBC or NPR) It's an interview with a man who has cancer and is thinking about

Re: [IxDA Discuss] incentive models for longitudinal studies

Thanks Ricardo. I think that sort of breakdown would be good for a small number of repeating sessions but when you get to eight, I think I lean towards Jeff's feeling: it might be too complicated for people. Still a good idea though; I will keep it in my back pocket for a shorter study. Jeff, all

[IxDA Discuss] incentive models for longitudinal studies

es to encourage long-term participation? Thanks, Meredith - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416.598.7770 x16 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.usabilitymatters.com <htt

Re: [IxDA Discuss] password strength usability studies?

> system for "enhanced security" purposes): you enter your account > number, press login, and you're taken to a page that has your > password embedded in a graphic (a pretty background picture that you > get to choose) as a graphic...in case that's hard for you to read, it > appears in text below t

Re: [IxDA Discuss] password strength usability studies?

Brett brings up another possibility - has anyone ever implemented passphrases or graphical passwords on their websites? I've never seen them on the web (only in non-web applications, like passphrases for WEP keys). I'm curious if there are any downsides to passphrases in particular. I don't think

Re: [IxDA Discuss] password strength usability studies?

> > I am EXTREMELY worried about forcing high entropy on people though... so > > that's where I start sighing. Sigh. > Well, the reality of the stringent password policy issue is that > people will find lazy workarounds unless they are invested in the > liability. Meaning... if it is their credit

Re: [IxDA Discuss] password strength usability studies?

> When I worked in this field, we used to explain that usability and > security, at the extremes were two opposite ends of a continuum. > Adding to one nearly always compromised the other. I know it is a bit > simplistic, but it works as a quick explaination. Thanks, Mark. I am quite familiar with

[IxDA Discuss] password strength usability studies?

r were you pleased that they were tightening up? Meredith - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416.598.7770 x16 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.usabilitymatters.com <http://www.usabili

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Alternate design for check box table

> > I had the exact same issue and sadly decided to go with the > > standard checkbox approach, because my client's customers were already > > used to that style of interaction, and because I couldn't come up with > > anything else that worked well with the number of batch actions I had. > Couldn

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Alternate design for check box table

> Check box table design is widely used for selecting multiple rows in a > table > and performing batch actions (example- delete, apply, assign). > Alternatively, Shift click can be used to enable multi selection. Hotmail > is doing this in a slightly different way. Are there any other thoughts, >

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto Meeting: Thursday Sept 18, 7pm

Hot on the heels of our very successful August meeting, Toronto's got another great session for September. Paul Eisen of TandemSeven has offered to tell us about his experiences developing an enterprise portal for Campbell's Soup Company. The details: Centre for Social Innovation 215 Spadina Ave,

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto Meeting: Tuesday August 26, 7pm

e 120 Tuesday August 26, 7pm The topics will be as follows: - Introduction to HTML & Javascript Prototyping (Matt Nish-Lapidus) - Input Technologies - Pros and Cons (Ian Hooper) - The Best Firefox Add-Ons for Interaction Designers (Meredith Noble) - Introduction to Prototyping with

Re: [IxDA Discuss] best practices for login security?

> > I meant more of "email a reset password link" to users. Then again, your > > approach might be better because people can navigate to the site on > > their own rather than trusting a link in an email (which could be > > phishing them, technically). Would you agree? > > Well, it's not phishing t

Re: [IxDA Discuss] best practices for login security?

> > - Emailing lost passwords to users > > Never, ever, ever store passwords in the clear, anywhere. If a user > forgets their password, generate a temporary one and ask them to create > a new password. Thanks, Eric. I hate it when people send me a "congrats, you're signed up, and your password

Re: [IxDA Discuss] best practices for login security?

Chauncey wrote: > There is an edited book that covers many topics related to security and > usability that might have some useful information. Here is the title from > Amazon. > > *Security and Usability: Designing Secure Systems that People Can > Use*

Re: [IxDA Discuss] best practices for login security?

> I'm looking at a similar issue. I found this on passwords, but haven't > looked in depth yet. > > http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/jun04.asp One of my questions right now is whether or not to enforce the password complexity rule. It is enough to inform the user that their password is weak,

[IxDA Discuss] best practices for login security?

Hi folks, Does anyone know where I could find a list of best practices around login security? I'm looking for an overview of the most common techniques and how they relate to both security and user experience -- pros and cons. For instance, I'd like information on: - CAPTCHAs - Site Keys (photog

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] Reminder: IxDA Toronto event tonight at 7pm!

s start at 7pm! Everyone is welcome. If there's interest, we'll head over to The Rivoli afterward. Full details on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/863232/ Meredith - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Meredith Noble Information

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Is Google trying to use human intelligence toimprove search results?

> Aiding my wife in playing around with a dream, I searched for "france > immigration" in Google. I got the following result set: > > http://tinyurl.com/6pzdd7 Fred, thanks for pointing this out! You don't happen to have a screenshot of what you see when you click "Know of a better..." do you? I'

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto Meeting: Thursday July 17, 7pm

Announcing the next IxDA Toronto event! Nick Farnell, a recent grad from Humber's Industrial Design program, has kindly offered to present at our upcoming July meeting. Details: Centre for Social Innovation 215 Spadina Ave, Suite 120 Thursday July 17th, 7pm Topic: The Industrial Design Process,

Re: [IxDA Discuss] examples of "HUDs" on the web?

Just another nod to Katy -- it turns out the guys at Humanized have described what I was envisioning in great detail. (I found this via the UIPatternLibrary.) In case anyone else is looking for this kind of thing in the future, instead of HUDs they call them simply "transparent messages". The full

Re: [IxDA Discuss] examples of "HUDs" on the web?

> Have you considered the "Self Healing Transition" from the Yahoo pattern > library?( > http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?pattern=selfhealing) Thanks for the suggestion, Michael. It's a fantastic pattern for removing/deleting, but I need something that will work for any type of act

Re: [IxDA Discuss] examples of "HUDs" on the web?

> There's a couple of examples at UIPatternFactory under Same-Page > Feedback Messages. (Look at the screen shots toward the bottom > because they also include screen shots of examples of what I'm > imagining you already have.) > > http://uipatternfactory.com/p=same-page-feedback-messages/ Wow, t

Re: [IxDA Discuss] examples of "HUDs" on the web?

> Google Maps. > > http://maps.google.com Kev, could you explain where in Google Maps I could see such a thing? I can't find anything. Meredith Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMA

Re: [IxDA Discuss] examples of "HUDs" on the web?

> I'm not sure they can be classified as a HUD - my understanding of > the function (certain aircraft, cars, games, etc...) is that HUDS > provide a persistent but presumably non-intrusive display of > information in a location that provides some sort of context to the > user's activity. Thanks Ma

Re: [IxDA Discuss] examples of "HUDs" on the web?

> The first thing that comes to mind is the 37 Signals "Yellow Fade > Technique" that is used as a visual device to create a temporary > focal point: > http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives/000558.php Thanks Geoff. That's pretty much what I'm thinking of, except I was thinking of a box come up tha

[IxDA Discuss] examples of "HUDs" on the web?

Hi all, Does anyone have any examples of web apps that use "HUDs" or "Heads-Up Displays" to give the user feedback? I'm talking a really light HUD here - basically a little rectangle that comes up in the middle of the screen after the user completes an action, says something like "Your widg

Re: [IxDA Discuss] [PLUG] glassdoor.com goes live

> > I was put off becoming a member because I work for a fairly small > > company. I figure that it would be pretty easy to identify me by > > definitely an issue - but if you employer is too small, basically, not > indexed by Hoovers, we are giving you access but holding your review > from displa

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto Meeting: Tues June 10, 7pm

Announcing our second IxDA Toronto Meet-up! Details: IxDA Toronto Social, at The Rhino http://therhino.ca/ 1249 Queen St. W. (just west of Dufferin) Tuesday June 10, 7pm Informal Discussion Topic: "process" Come out and share what your design process is like, and pick up some good tips

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Thoughts on Tourfilter

Jeff said: > Also, the city scoping doesn't seem to work consistently. Seems like > if I'm in San Francisco and I search for shows, the results should be > limited to San Francisco. And most of the subscribe features seem to > be hardcoded to Boston for some reason... Yeah, I must say that I'm th

Re: [IxDA Discuss] how to position a new "beta" feature -- examples?

/B testing, but thanks to everyone who wrote back. And Martin, I think I'll try to track down that podcast, it sounds quite interesting! Thanks! Meredith From: Martin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 3:01 AM To: Meredith Noble Cc:

[IxDA Discuss] how to position a new "beta" feature -- examples?

I imagine this might be a tough one, but you IxDAers never fail me, so here goes. Can anyone think of any sites that are currently offering two versions of a particular *feature*, classic and beta? To be clear, I'm NOT looking for: - brand new sites that are still in beta testing mode - existing

Re: [IxDA Discuss] teaching young people about usability

Thanks for this, Chauncey. I am probably one of those people who would struggle when asked the question you mention, but I've been trying to keep it front of mind for the past little while. (I believe you wrote on the subject in another thread not long ago and it hit home.) It's particularly relev

Re: [IxDA Discuss] teaching young people about usability

Thanks so much for this, Elizabeth! It is indeed very encouraging :) Thanks to everyone else for their notes of interest and pointers to resources as well. It's clear that a lot of people are passionate about teaching the young about technology. I promise to get back to people individually (it mig

[IxDA Discuss] teaching young people about usability

Has anyone ever run a program that teaches young people (say, grades 6-9 range, or older teens even) about usability? I'm thinking about starting up a program that promotes technology careers to girls. I want to help correct the common belief that "people who work in technology sit alone all day i

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] Reminder: IxDA Toronto Meeting: This Thursday at LinuxCaffe

d to meeting everyone! Matt Nish-Lapidus and Meredith Noble IxDA Toronto Local Chapter Leaders *** Interested in joining the IxDA Toronto event announcement list? Go to http://g

Re: [IxDA Discuss] 2 part button - industry standard?

> The intended interaction is that the user checks off > one or several line items and then clicks anywhere on the two part > "select a task" button and sees menu options (delete, assign a tag, > etc). Elisabeth, can you clarify -- how is it a two-part button if you can click anywhere on it and ge

[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Toronto Meeting: Thurs April 3rd at LinuxCaffe

ve seen lately, and bring its URL if possible Thanks! We look forward to meeting everyone! Matt Nish-Lapidus and Meredith Noble IxDA Toronto Local Chapter Leaders *** Interested in joining the IxDA Toronto event announcement list? Go to http://groups.google.com/gro

Re: [IxDA Discuss] advice on usability testing for complex sites

ks! Meredith > -Original Message- > From: Melvin Jay Kumar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 10:45 PM > To: Meredith Noble > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] advice on usability testing for complex sites > > Hi Meredi

[IxDA Discuss] advice on usability testing for complex sites

Can anyone recommend methods for performing usability tests on large, complex applications with lots of conceptual dependencies? We're running into issues in our design of a test. We want to test "Section B" of our application, but "Section B" doesn't make a lot of sense unless you've already b

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Table Row Interactions and .ico files

lanation makes any sense -- hope so :) Anyway, we're about to test this in a few weeks and I'm quite worried about it. We dismissed your proposed solution in favour of this, so I was just curious how your solution tests. Would love to hear your results after you're done! Thanks, Meredi

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Table Row Interactions and .ico files

ondering if someone has come up with some elegant feedback mechanism -- like a button greys out and next to it is something saying "some actions can only be performed on one item at a time" -- but ugh, this seems so ugly! Meredith - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Re: [IxDA Discuss] First Set of Interaction08 Videos

Not to be impatient :) but is there any news on the Chris Conley video yet? It's one that I'm really eager to share with my colleagues. Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss an announcement about it! Thanks! Meredith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted fr

Re: [IxDA Discuss] interaction design groups for women?

g answer! Meredith - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416.598.7770 x6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.u

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Continuous Scroll

x27;ve "read" it and its state should therefore be changed, so I won't see that article again. This isn't always necessarily a safe assumption, and it can be quite irksome at times. Meredith ------- Meredith Noble Inf

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why has micro-blogging become so popular

nd page of a blog. If the primary means of access of this content was by topic, perhaps we'd serendipitously find content we're interested in more readily. Am I way out in left field with this? Meredith --- Meredi

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Forward/reverse in a mobile phone's music player

from different shows, and if I don't like the first one, it's a struggle to find the start of the second!) Meredith ------- Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416-598-7770, ext. 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] _

Re: [IxDA Discuss] Screen Capture Software of Interest

stuck there...) Meredith ------- Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416-598-7770, ext. 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:discuss- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Faith Peterson > Sent: Wedn

Re: [IxDA Discuss] nested, multi-step progress bars

> Meredith, I would not use a progress bar to solve this design problem > (of the widgets). I would instead state the completion status or > rather the "not complete" status of the widget definition [B]. > Basically you can't continue with [A] without having completed [B]. > Simple instructions or

Re: [IxDA Discuss] nested, multi-step progress bars

n't change the indicator into an active navigation item, so I am probably stuck with a variation of what I have right now. I appreciate all your thoughts though -- they've definitely made me think! Meredith > -Original Message- > From: pauric [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Se

Re: [IxDA Discuss] nested, multi-step progress bars

sign only allows for completing Task B once and only once. Am I right? Sorry for leaving that important detail out! Meredith From: Oleh Kovalchuke [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 1:15 PM To: Meredith Noble Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED

Re: [IxDA Discuss] nested, multi-step progress bars

Pauric, I'm not sure I understand your point about the labels. It's hard to get the message across with generic steps! I do think you have slightly misunderstood my general problem though. I'm trying to say that people can do Task B at any time, and without having to do Task A. They might do Task

Re: [IxDA Discuss] nested, multi-step progress bars

Hey Pauric, Love the filename ;) It's an interesting idea, though it does seem like it could get confusing. As you say, maybe with some more refinement it could go somewhere. I'm leaning towards my description of option (a) at the moment. I've sketched it out here: http://www.usabilitymatters.c

[IxDA Discuss] nested, multi-step progress bars

ve a suggestion for something else elegant that I've missed... Thanks all, Meredith --- Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416-598-7770, ext. 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: [IxDA Discuss] comments to the "Doro's ridiculously simplephones in the wild"

ere ("An Empirical Study of Seniors' Perceptions of Mobile Phones as Memory Aids"): http://www.kmdi.toronto.edu/rmb/papers/B16.pdf. Meredith ------- Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416-598-7770,

Re: [IxDA Discuss] comments to the "Doro's ridiculously simplephones in the wild"

Lis, even though some of today's boomers will already have cell phone experience by the time they become elderly, I think we overestimate just how many people in the older generation are truly comfortable with the tools. More importantly, don't forget about reduced cognitive abilities over time. I

Re: [IxDA Discuss] [Event F2F Correction] Toronto hosted by UsabilityMatters

Hey all, I'm sorry to throw another wrench in the works here, but Parth, I think we originally discussed Monday the 26th! We hope you'll all still be able to join us! Meredith ---- - Meredith Noble Information

Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA Toronto

I think there is room for different kinds of groups in Toronto, and other cities like it. At one time, Toronto Interacts (UPA), TorCHI (ACM SIGCHI) and the Toronto UXIrregulars all co-existed I believe. I've been to events here where 30-40 people in the industry showed up -- it's all about finding