Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with userinterface

Online banking screenshots

simplesharps — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:26:32 -0800

What is a good domain name for a site showcasing online banking screenshots? While searching for a new bank I couldn't find one single repository of online banking screenshots, so I'm making one.

I need a great domain name - help me decide! If I can get the .com and .com.au equivalents that'd be great. Site will focus on each banks online banking features and user interface. You'll be able to rate each one, leave comments and upload your own screenshots [personal info removed of course]. That's it.

Thanks!

Are there needles in this haystack?

Other — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:24:20 -0800

I'm looking for user interface shops or departments within companies that do a particular kind of work, and that hire a particular kind of role (even if they have no jobs open right now). Do you know if they exist, and whether they're common or rare? Or, do you know how I can find out? What I'm looking for is defined by two things -- the kinds of interfaces the company creates and the kind of role I would have.

For the kinds of interfaces, examples of what I'd like would be the screen that a nurse uses to run a machine, or the pda application that a sales person uses to manage their road-trips. I like working on interfaces where:
-- The users have a goal to accomplish besides exploring the interface itself. So, not brand websites or information databases.
--The users really need or want to do the task; it's not something the company has to convince them to want to do. So, not most retail sites or marketing-related work.
--The goal is focused and concrete. So, not sprawling system or multi-purpose application work.
I think that embedded systems are more often good examples of this kind of interface than websites or PC applications, though I wouldn't rule those out if they satisfy the description.

For the kind of role
--I love gathering requirements and defining offerings through qualitative ethnographic research and analysis of the functions of comparable products.
--I love figuring out the logic and architecture.
--I don't mind qualitative usability testing.
--I don't mind some specification/documentation.
--I don't do any visual design.
--I don't do any quantitative testing, market testing, or ergonomic stuff like eye-tracking.
--I don't do any coding, not even in something like Flash or html.
So, I'd need a user experience role on a team where others are responsible for both the visual design and the techie parts.

Is defining the work and the role as above so narrow that I eliminate just about every position I might ever find? Or are there lots of potential matches? Do you know of any in particular? Or, do you know how I could find out, including for companies that aren't currently hiring?

My wife and I live in northern California now, but we're open to some other parts of the US. I can stay in my current, good job and out-wait the economy indefinitely.

CERN GUIs in Angels & Demons

Emera Gratia — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:56:37 -0800

I just watched the Angels & Demons movie starring Tom Hanks. The first part takes place at the CERN collider, and shows many very cool and stylish computer graphics on the screens of the operators. Where can I find more about these GUIs? Are they real, or just movie glitz?

beta beta beta

sio42 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:02:44 -0800

I'd like to be a beta tester for devices, specifically cell phones and smartphones. Is it possible to do this? I don't care about getting paid or actually getting to keep said device. I just really like playing around with them and would like to aid in their development as a real user. I tried googling, but I'm not having much luck except finding things about software beta testing.

I manage the cell phone stuff at my company and really enjoy getting different devices, figuring out how they work, and what apps I can get on them etc. I'm not the person trying to put linux on everything, but I'm more of a power user, I guess. I like finding out how to do everything possible on something.

Is it possible to do this where my tinkering would benefit others? This benefits my friends and family when they need to get new phones or have problems with theirs, but I'd like to help with how companies design the user interface. I'm assuming they need "real" people apart from their R&D folks to test things out.

Or I could be completely wrong.

Print too small, coworkers go blind.

sweetkid — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:26:43 -0800

Urgent UI Help with OmniGraffle please...can't get it to print correctly. I am using this template for OmniGraffle (http://konigi.com/tools/omnigraffle-ux-template) and cannot figure out how to print it correctly. It's either too small or too large. I need to fix this asap help please!! The template is designed for exactly the work I am doing (diagramming a new site), so I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

An MP3 Player for my Cold Dead Robot Hands

Greg Nog — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:40:51 -0800

I'd like to buy a nice MP3 player that doesn't involve capacitive sensing. So: controls that only have moving mechanical parts like buttons or wheels, and aren't dependent on me having to generate a bioelectrical field conducted through my fingers. I'd also like it to have a large memory, and video playback if possible. Essentially, a wholly-mechanically-controlled version of the 160 GB iPod would be ideal. Does such an MP3 player exist for those of us who have trouble with our conductive capabilities?

Apple Mail.app list selections (and deletes!)

zpousman — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:17:21 -0800

Apple Mail.app question: I'm setting up a friend with Apple's Mail (mail.app 3.5 on Leopard 10.5.5). Everything is great -- it works like a charm. Except for something that is different than his old client (AOL for Mac -- ack!): When a message is selected, and you delete it, the selection moves "UP" the list, selecting the *prior* message, not "DOWN" to the *next* message. This is exactly the opposite of AOL and Outlook and other mail clients. Anybody know of a terminal hack on defaults write or another way to swap this behavior? I have seen the tip to use option+delete, which kinda works, but it gives up the selection entirely, which requires the user to now select again in the list. This is, um, sub-optimal in the extreme since it requires the user to pick back up the mouse.

I have googled to no avail. Anybody care to help me with search terms is welcome (I found the same complaint from Mac os 10.0 from 2000, but...)

Paper prototyping tools?

SamuelF — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:13:56 -0800

I'm interested in doing paper prototyping for interface design. Learn me on the best tools for the job. These images by Cultured Code were particularly inspiring. That's pretty much exactly what I want to do, but I'm a little fuzzy on the details. For example, in the first image there appears to be some sort of thick cardboard cut down to the shape of specific UI elements - what is that, and where can I get it? Can anyone recommend a particular type of pencil that might be better for sketching than a good ol' #2, or will any pencil do? What's up with those markers? Help me fill in the gaps!

Help me get our developers excited about mobile devices.

genial — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:59:58 -0800

How to create iPhone demonstration videos (and what software works best)? I'm interested in creating some short interface demonstrations for how my work (higher education IT) could utilize the iPhone and develop for it. I'm a former graphic design and studio art grad but I've never attempted anything like this. Can anyone recommend specific programs? I have Flash CS3 if that is doable. Probably don't have a budget for more expensive timeline type stuff like Premier, but I'm interested.

Also is there a place to download the interface elements that are used in order to create the mockup? Any guides or resources that talk about putting it all together?

MY EYES MY EYES - help me avoid the WordPress interface and still post to my blog.

jessamyn — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:48:15 -0800

I don't like the WordPress 2.5 look and feel. I am not interested in switching CMSes. What are my options for basic postings to my blog with minimal interaction with the WordPress interface? The suboptimal things include having to scroll to choose categories and add tags, the "3D" look to the buttons, all the extra headings and colors, the small "publish" button and all the nagging (I know 2.5.1 is available, I'd like to dismiss that message). I'd like to not have to scroll to write and publish a short post with tags and categories. I think this must be possible.

I am fairly tech-savvy. I want to post a blog entry with maybe a category and some tags, nothing else fancy (this is for my "work" blog, not my personal blog). I can write my own HTML, don't need WYSIWIG. I'm okay using the admin interface for more complicated things or for editing. I like what WP does, just not how it looks.

I had a nice custom admin section before I upgraded; my fallback plan is just to hack away at the CSS like I did last time. I have tried a few things that have not worked so well.

- ScribeFire and Deepest Sender addons for Firefox both kick back errors that I don't quite understand. (I get through installing/configuring them and see my categories but can't post. DS returns "TypeError: node is null" SF returns "The server returned a malformed response. Please check that your blog and API URLs are correct." If this is a chmod problem, I can chmod). If I could get either of those to work my problem would be solved. I have command line access to my account and a medium level of comfort with command line Unixy stuff.
- I have installed a few plugins that claim to make WP easier on the eyes including Retro-Dashboard Admin Theme, Admin Menus, Dashboard Lite and a few more that I may have already deleted. They are fine but don't solve these specific problems.
- I do not want to install an older version of WP just to fix this.
- I have searched the WP plugins admin section and Google for something that seems to do this and tried many things and didn't find anything that looked good.

I'd be happy to hear if you've found something that works but please don't direct me to the WP site (unless there's really something you think I've missed) or to a Google search. Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks!

Adobe and the inflexible acrobat

johnofjack — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:30:05 -0800

I have a few pdfs of tabular data that I would like to use in a spreadsheet and/or database. Acrobat Reader is not cooperating; it converts obvious tabs into spaces. Is there some way to get this data, properly formatted? I have 3 pdfs of 8 columns of data, roughly 100+ pages apiece. The data is clearly in a column format, but copy + paste converts the tabs into spaces, regardless of whether it comes from a browser plugin or from Acrobat Reader itself, and regardless of whichever program it goes into.

Exporting as txt also converts the tabs into spaces, in addition to getting the column order wrong on any row of text with line breaks in it. (something like "1 / 2, 2, 2 / 3" comes out as "2 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 2")

If I copy and paste, I can not do a global replace to convert spaces to tabs (and then a series of them to convert double-tabs back into single tabs) because many of the columns have spaces in the data inside.

I've looked online and found a number of shareware tools claiming to convert .pdfs to .xls, but I don't know how successful or trustworthy they are, and I'm hesitant to install anything unknown/untrusted onto workspace computers.

Tech Services here at work could not figure out how it's done.

I'm not convinced there isn't a workable solution. Do any of you have experience with this problem? Is it possible without buying new software?

What was the site that mirrored allmusic.com's content but didn't suck?

Tuwa — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:35:15 -0800

What was the site that mirrored allmusic.com's content but didn't suck? I've read this question and visited mp3.com; that site doesn't seem to license allmusic's content anymore and I remember a site with a different interface.

Allmusic's user interface sucks enough to be the definition of a user interface that sucks, and it also hasn't loaded for me over the last two weeks.

Was there a second site that licensed its content? What was it?

Great Online Media Search Interfaces

pessoa — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 09:32:31 -0800

What are some examples of newspaper, magazine, or content archive sites that you think have really good search interfaces? I'm interested in your criteria--what's 'good' to me would include: ability to modify query from the results page by date, section, and subject filters; clear distinction of ads from organic results; at least five organic results above the fold; sort by date and relevance; ability to view results by media type. To my mind, The New York Times comes closest, but I'm hoping there's a great search interface out there that I haven't found yet.

Help Menu Quality: Sub-Optimal?

lisaj32 — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:00:31 -0800

Is it just me, or do Help menus typically suck? Why do they suck so badly? It seems to me that developing a good Help system is as important a part of software development as coding. If the user can't figure it out, what good is it?

Example: Put on your naive user hat, go into Excel, and use the Help system to find out how to subtract.

If others agree that they suck, is this a Microsoft-specific problem? Do Apple Help menus suck?

Do others get as ANGRY and ENRAGED as I do when they're trying to figure something out and the Help menus suck?

Up is down?

schoolgirl report — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:52:51 -0800

User interface question: When I'm simply watching TV, pushing up on the remote's channel changer button moves me to a higher-numbered station. Yet when I'm viewing the channel guide, pushing up brings me to a lower-numbered station. Why the discrepancy? This happens with my Comcast service, and I've experienced it on DirecTV as well. Is it that people generally prefer a visual representation of numbers to run low to high from the top down, and yet prefer the opposite where there's no visual?

Art Museum Web Redesign

warhol — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:36:46 -0800

Redesigning an art museum website (content / design / strategy / the whole shebang). What would you expect to see? What would you like to see that they're not doing? What would totally blow your mind? What do you know they'll include that you just don't care about? And, on a slight tangent, best web examples for art museums? Not the content that resonates for you, but rather kind of information and how it was executed. Thanks!

Need ideas: designing UI for Q & A with audio/video content

camworld — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:26:53 -0800

Posting this for a friend whose MeFi account is not active yet. I have a UI issue I'm trying to solve. How to create a casual but efficient interface to a series of audio and video clips of an author, talking about themselves and their book. It's a "conversation with the author" feature for a book site, and I'd like to avoid making the feature just look like a "clip browser". It should have a conversational feel to it. The content will be something long the lines of "The Wisdom Of Crowds" Q & A [1] except that the "answers" will be in the form of an audio or video clip, with a couple of bullet points to anchor the content in the user's minds.

I've put together some wireframes showing some of the ideas I've had so far [2].

I'm looking for pointers to sites that may have done a good job implementing something like this, or for tips from anyone who may have done something like this in the past.

[1] http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/Q&A.html
[2] http://bookdev.com/tmp/conversation/conversationWireframes.pdf

De-aquify Safari form elements

rhyax — Wed, 04 May 2005 20:14:38 -0800

Is there any app or modification I can make to safari to have the form elements render in the way the page designer intended rather than with aqua UI elements? I tried to look around but couldn't find a hack for it.

DHTML advice sought.

Pericles — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 02:24:44 -0800

Can this be done with snazzy DOM scripting, or do I Flash or (shudder) Iframes? On this mock-up I'm loading in two multi-paragraph records, one is a section of law, the second is guidance. All the info is loaded at the start.

What I want is a way for the user to click on the paragraph of their choice in the left "rule" window, and the relevant paragraph of guidance automatically scroll to its proper place at the top of the right-hand "guidance" window. I don't want to have to go back to the server and thus refresh the page.

I don't want to use Flash, and Iframes have accessibility problems. Can anyone tell me if it's possible using "DHTML" and give me a pointers about where I can look. I've had my fill of generic "what is dhtml" tutorials.

JavaScript scrollbar width detection?

yerfatma — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 10:36:58 -0800

JavaScript: is it possible to detect a Windows XP user's chrome settings? For some perverse reason, chromed-out Windows XP scrollbars are a pixel wider than their "Classic" counterparts and it's breaking an interface.

Seeking books about human-computer interaction or user interface design

jeb — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 11:10:47 -0800

Has anyone ever read any books, etc. about human-computer interaction or user interface design that were particularly worthwhile? I'm working on a fairly complex windows app and obviously, I want the UI to be 'good'. In the past, things I've read about UI design and HCI I've found to be...not that helpful. Even Tufte's chapters on computers I thought were weak (active window should definitely always be yellow?). I'm looking for insight that is beyond the 'obvious thing we decided to fancify with a name' realm (Fitt's Law). IDEO says, 'prototype early, prototype often', which is fine and I intend to follow that advice, but is there any sort of reference work out there worth reading that will help prune the space of possible prototypes?

Map this paper to the Web

Pericles — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 03:50:06 -0800

A friend of mine has a philosophy PhD paper that takes the form of 100s of short aphorisms. There are several different narrative "paths" through these. He wants to put them on the web and allow people to choose their paths through. What's the best way to do it? each aphorism as an xml record, each with a "tag" for "next aphorism in path A", "next for path B.." etc? Bonus Guinness for suggestions on how web users can set up and save their own "paths" thru for others to follow.