“It was included as part of a press kit at an event in Europe recently, and apparently the “disposable” camera might go on sale sometime soon in IKEA stores. It uses two AA batteries and stores up to 40 photographs in the built-in memory.” via PetaPixel
IKEA doesn’t seem to have a problem with needless waste, do they? Endless resources and all.The fact that you can, doesn’t mean you should.
My bookmarks are overflowing with online tools for just about anything, so it is not surprising that I have managed somehow to delete my link to Stixy — a fine, pinboard type of tool that one can use for about all sorts of things.
It is exactly this freedom that is empowering, but also, as I came to learn recently through observation, quite demanding. Once users are given a flexible basis they have to decide on the structure themselves, organize it, and this makes use more difficult for some. A similar case is Trello which may be way too unrestricted.
It’s an interesting thing to consider. Similar to an empty sheet of paper, an open space can be daunting. Once you channel use into a concrete case, it leads users from A to B; it makes it easier. And along with that, restricted.
Since I changed my DSL provider from Vodafone to O2, but still hanging in the old contract, I have the chance these days to use both of their German websites. I have had a lot to say about Vodafone’s web in the past when their site was painfully slow. This has now somewhat improved.
O2’s, on the other hand, is fast and looks clean and easy at first, but then I could not find my login page without having the papers they sent me, because the page is not linked from anywhere on their site! They sell DSL (formerly by Alice) but don’t let you log in with those credentials from their regular login form and don’t even point to the right place.
Once you find it, the login form is a disaster of its own. The drop-down opens on roll-over of the “Anmelden” link and disappears the second you move the mouse a millimeter outside the drop-down area. It also disappears if you try to select a login value the auto-fill offers you. It is ‘orrible!
To be fair, Vodafone are not doing much better, but their form does not offer auto-fill so your mouse, at least with some care, remains in the drop-down area long enough for you to log in.
What is wrong with a regular, ubiquitous, firmly-put login form is beyond me. For two fields and a button there is no chance one would waste much space. The options to send you to this page or another (as seen on O2’s “regular” login) make also little sense for those should be clear on the main navigation — that is too much input for one click.
Fresh Impressions on Brandmarks (from my 5-year-old) (by AdamLaddVideos)
I would have never thought that the McDonalds “M” is made of fries.
I’d post that one but they want me to send and e-mail for an invitation and they already have my email with a registration, so I see no reason to repeat.
My gripe here is with the dark text with insufficient contrast. The white glow making it look inset doesn’t make it more readable. And that on a site called Usabila.
P.S. Although I didn’t need a helping tool for this example (my eyes were sufficient) I would like to note Chrometric — a very useful little tool for giving you an idea how your site looks through they eyes of people with some visual impairment.
Here’s the technical stack we’ve used to build responsive news.
Nb. BBC is a large(ish) organisation so we’ve already got a fully operational platform upon which to write applications, so I’ve not listed every last thing, just the tools and technology that we’ve selected to create our project.
via responsivenews
The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On (by BarterBooksLtd) via nixonixo
Those are a few states from a fine little Air Twitter client called Saezuri. I discovered it accidentally through a blog post and don’t think that it’s known much outside the Japanse-speaking world as even to download it one needs to translate the website first. Once you’ve done this, though, the installation and application speak English and display (as far as I can judge) all alphabets. The latter is important to me as I read in two.
What I like about Saezuri is that it keeps it simple, but has the key features an average user would need. It allows you to pick an image posting service, can be set to notify or not to, drag-and-drop image posting, shifts posts and response position (alike some Apple apps) and can be used for more than one account. And, on top of that, sports a very soothing, clean interface (the above is one of the skins).
This will be the second made in Japan Twitter client that I use — the other one is Twicca for Android — and I like both very much.
P.S. Saezuri’s logo/icon is a whale tail.. Just a friendly wink, I hope.
Our brand new shiny txpmag.com is online with issue numero uno. If you are interested in CMSs of all sizes and shapes, and/or know and like Textpattern, you might like reading it. Yours truly has contributed a bit of something, too. Let’s hope I will have something more for issue #2.
My name is Ralitza and I'm a freelance UI Designer. This here is my place of rants and finds about design, usability, social issues, history and the occasional burst of cookery. You can also follow me on Twitter. But you don't have to.
