08 Apr 2003 | Tim said...

Another pet peve of mine (and maybe mine alone) is the non-standardization of form button placement. In a simple example, there are two buttons, "SUBMIT" and "CLEAR." I'm not sure which order is standard (if any)...but i've certainly gotten used to "SUBMIT" being to the left of "CLEAR." When I access a form that switches those around on me, instinctively I go to the left to hit "SUBMIT," and I end up hitting "CLEAR." Message/order/comment/profile updates gone. Ugh.

08 Apr 2003 | Tim said...

All those bright blue buttons on UPS' tracking site look pretty awful within their brown and gold and beige interface.

08 Apr 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Usability? More like ...

"Oh ... these two blue buttons look cool like this!".

08 Apr 2003 | nathan said...

My favorite part is that all site copy is 10 pixels (and poorly leaded), and nope, its not resizeable in IE/Win.

08 Apr 2003 | Neil said...

Not to mention that in the old UPS button layout, the cancel button is on the right hand side, where I would normally expect the "send" button to be.

08 Apr 2003 | Chris said...

At least you can track a shipment from the main page now. In the old layout, you had to select your country, then select tracking to get to a page where you could actually track. I would guess 90% of us are going there to track a package, the entie site slhould be built around that function.

08 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

Do people still use clear buttons?

08 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

Stupid lawyers. Why the hell do you need terms and conditions for package tracking?

08 Apr 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...

Yeah, really p8. Clear buttons are so 1998. In my experience, they usually cause more harm than good.

08 Apr 2003 | Darrel said...

> Do people still use clear buttons?

Did any users ever really use them?

08 Apr 2003 | pb said...

There is practically no reason to *ever* have a clear button. In the past 5 years I've been on the web, I've hit the clear button maybe 50 times and it has *always* been an accident and I was pissed.

At least UPS *finally* put tracking right on the front page.

08 Apr 2003 | fajalar said...

I don't see a problem with a Clear button for clearing multiple entries in a form. In the UPS example, a Clear button would be helpful.

I do agree the proximity of the buttons are too near, and I don't understand why it reloads the page as opposed to clearing the form.

A Clear button may be very 1998, but used properly it speaks to one of the highest tenets in UCD: user in control.

On another note, what's with the 735x600 design? While 46% of Web users are at 800x600, 1024x768 is catching up at 41%. And I wonder who uses UPS.com the most, people at home (business or personal) or corporate users. My guess is corporate users who are more likely to be using 1024x768.

And... I clicked on the UPS Corporate link expecting to see the interface for corporate accounts. And... country choice should allow the user to set it and keep it set. Naw, they didn't redesign, they reshuffled.

08 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Clear buttons are an example of a javascript trick that got out of hand. Never in all of the years I've used a computer have I ever thought:

"Oh no! I've filled out the entire form incorrectly. If only there was some kind of magic button that could remove every single character I've just keyed in."

Never.

A way to clear individual fields might be more useful, but I doubt I'd ever use that too.

*******************************

Another thing that annoys me is having to fill a form in. As I tend to bin cookies on a regular basis, every single time I follow a link to anything on the Washington Post, I get their stupid demographic survey.

Man, the number of 111-year-old Afghani women who visit that site . . .

08 Apr 2003 | Mark said...

What's up with the "three-dimensional logo" trend anyways?

From their rebranding page: ( http://pressroom.ups.com/brand/eng/brand/backgrounder.html)

"Colors have been filled in for more impact and the UPS name increased in size. For even greater visual impact, the shield gained a three-dimensional appearance".

Sound just like the excuses my class peers give at college "I made it big/bold/beveled so it holds the user's attention".

International (the truck company) also did it very recently, we where making a website for a distribuitor when this happened, and we where wondering if the focus groups where composed of truck drivers.

08 Apr 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...

A Clear button may be very 1998, but used properly it speaks to one of the highest tenets in UCD: user in control.

Yes, giving the user control is very important, but it can be a bad thing if you give the user too much control. Unless its use is justified, which is rare, one button that wipes out an entire form sounds like a little too much control to me.

08 Apr 2003 | fajalar said...

I think for clearing multiple lines of tracking numbers, it is a good use.

Might be used by people who move a lot. Clearing our profile information to replace it with new stuff.

I can think of many uses from a Web app perspective. Clearing Search Criteria fields. Clearing the contents of an MCLB.

But I agree, I don't see it's value to most information sites, or ecommerce sites (with few situational exceptions).

As usual, in this design business, it depends. :)

09 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

not everyone has razor sharp mouse dexterity
---
or razor sharp eyes.
---
While 46% of Web users are at 800x600
---
huh? my stats show:
1024 x 768 62.8%
1280 x 1024 13.9%
800 x 600 12.6%
- i think that might be germany only though.
---
For even greater visual impact, the shield gained a three-dimensional appearance".
---
maybe the agency was just fullfilling thier jobs based on the brief, but can you imagine having to live with being the ones who killed Paul Rands classic UPS logo? To make it worse, its not even a "polishing" of the old logo, but a very bland, life-insurance-looking shield. Will someone explain to me what the point of the shield is, without the box & bow? i dont get it.

09 Apr 2003 | fajalar said...

alisha, got my stats from www.thecounter.com. Should have said that, sorry.

09 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

Hey Alisha,

I was reading about similar figures for Germany a while back. For some reason Germany appears to be something of an aberration on the 1024 x 768 front. As far as I remember though 800 x 600 is pretty popular in North America though. Can't remember where I read the article or I'd post a link.

09 Apr 2003 | barry said...

Worst. Color Combination. Ever.

09 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

alisha, got my stats from www.thecounter.com. Should have said that, sorry.
---
dont be sorry - its important to know.
Heres where I get my stats:
http://www.webhits.de/english/friends.html

Ive had only one potential client (headquarters in DE) specify in thier RFP that they wanted 1024 x 768 to be thier standard - just last month. I had a really weird feeling about it, as if it was going to bite me in the ass again later.

09 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

Worst. Color Combination. Ever.
---
heehee. I was trying to digest those colors (the whole website) and decide if they jive. Aside of that fanastic disco button, my gut says that 1-2 colors are very out of place.

09 Apr 2003 | fajalar said...

I haven't worked on our .com presence in a while, and all the in-house stuff runs at 1024x768. .com is still at 800x600.

I was on a contextual inquiry recently though. The user group consisted of four women, age 35-45. All had 21 inch monitors with 800x600 resolution! I could tell what they were working on from three aisles away. I asked one of them to switch to 1024x768 and she said, "Oh no that's too small. I can't read that."

My guess is that age had nothing to do with the relative size of the text. They just started their jobs with that resolution and got used to it.

I wonder what the stats are on how many people change the default resolution of the screen. And maybe that's why 1024x768 is on the rise. Bigger monitors come with a higher resolution set standard.

09 Apr 2003 | stumpy-p said...

Let me start by saying I had nothing to do with the creation of the new UPS Corporate site.

I've made 3 websites, a CD-ROM, and 14 html emails and a dozen banner ads for 3 different UPS branches. If you have ever worked with them, then you know and share in my sympathy for the dev team of the new site.

UPS controls their brand and content like no other company I've ever worked with. The creative approval process is done by large committees, basically, the entire department your working with. The back and forth, over a 'clear button' can go on for a couple weeks. In the end, if the VP of department logistics wants a 'clear button'... guess what.

Id love to (and have) preach(ed) standards, css layouts, usability and contingency design. But not only do they not want to hear it, they have done their own tests/studies. In the end, if the VP of department sales wants a 'clear button'... guess what.

As far as they are concerned, you'll do it, and do it on the cheap, or they'll find someone who will. Which is fine by me. You have to open your books/jump through hoops to become an Agency of Record. Then they provide a nice steady flow of work.

By no means are they some kind of bad client. The people I work with over there are great. Plus, the UPS shield looks nice on your client list.

And in this economy... forgetaboutit! How many more clear button would you like? Im having a special this week on super sized extra value clear buttons.

09 Apr 2003 | Darrel said...

On another note, what's with the 735x600 design? While 46% of Web users are at 800x600, 1024x768 is catching up at 41%.

Throwing stats out like that totally ignores the fact that screen resolution HAS ABSOLUTETLY NOTHING to do with any particular user's browser's viewport size.

09 Apr 2003 | steve said...

Darrel, exactly right. While 800x600 folks are most likely browsing with their window maximized, you don't know what to expect from users with higher screen resolution. To this day, the only safe play is to design for the bare minimum (640x480) or use percentages instead of fixed widths.

09 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

The 800*600 usability myth.

09 Apr 2003 | fajalar said...

800x600 (resolution or window size) has NOTHING to do with usability.

My mistake for mixing pixels and resolution in a paragraph. A maximized browser window at 800x600 resolution (on a 21 inch monitor, I don't have a smaller monitor to look at) is about 800x570ish (30ish is taken away for the Windows task bar) pixels.

So I still want to know why they designed for 735x600, when they have 65x600 pixels of space on the right side of the screen.

I would say that the only safe play would be to find out what the user group uses. Monitor size, resolution, maximized widnows... It's not going to be the same for everyone. There is no actual standard, but one seems to be followed.

09 Apr 2003 | pb said...

"clear" is *not* a JavaScript thing.

After reading the examples of where clearing supposedly makes sense, I still don't see any reason for clear.

And as Darrell noted, it is completely assinine to base web page width on what display resolution is generally used. Even on Windows, not everyone is a lame-o using full-screen mode. Web pages should be 800 pixels wide *max*. 730 is better, imo. Web designers should put *nothing* of import more than 700 pixels from the left edge.

09 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

So I still want to know why they designed for 735x600, when they have 65x600 pixels of space on the right side of the screen.

Becuase 800 screen pixels does not equal 800 pixels of viewable area in the browser window. The scroll bar takes up probably about 10, the window borders take up some, text isn't run right up agains the edge of the window, so you have to account for the gutter. 800 pixels leaves only about 750-760 pixels of viewable space. Some designers prefer to narrow things further to account for people who have the MS Office toolbar running on their screen as well.

09 Apr 2003 | fajalar said...

The more I know, the more I know that I know nothing.

09 Apr 2003 | steve said...

Here's a useit.com article on reset and cancel buttons. Jakob, of course, thinks they're generally a bad idea.

11 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

steve said: "To this day, the only safe play is to design for the bare minimum (640x480) or use percentages instead of fixed widths."

Most sites I build use percentages for widths, but on a 1280*1024 screen and a 2 column design sentences can get very long and unreadable.

What do 1280*1024 (and higher) users out here do? Do you rescale your window (so it isn't full screen)? Do you have your font size increased? What do most sites look like?

21 Apr 2003 | Lyle, Lyle - Croc O' Lyle said...

fajalar said...
"A Clear button may be very 1998, but used properly it speaks to one of the highest tenets in UCD: user in control."

Sure - the user's in control and has a customized button to help them shoot themselves in the foot.

If you like web forms with clear buttons, then you should start lobbying Microsoft for a special button in Word that would allow you to clear all text from the current document and delete the corresponding file from disk - oh, and the keyboard shortcut should be CTRL-A (right next to CTRL-S).

RARELY is a clear button ever really warranted. Why? Because most keyboards already come with overtype, backspace and delete options built in and how often do you ever want to clear ALL fields in a form?

Just say no.

(Note this post brought to you without great emotional stress and swearing due to the absence of a clear button.)

05 Jan 2004 | Music said...

Schaut Euch mal diese interessante Seite The ACLU said Thursday that the brief argues that peer-to-peer networks are speech-promoting technologies that have many noninfringing uses. 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

05 Jan 2004 | Music said...

Schaut Euch mal diese interessante Seite The ACLU said Thursday that the brief argues that peer-to-peer networks are speech-promoting technologies that have many noninfringing uses. 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

17 Jan 2004 | Anthony said...

At WWDC, I listened to Apple representatives make some excellent points about taking the time to build a 100%-compliant Aqua application, and I think all developers need to look beyond the code and listen to what the folks at Apple have to say

17 Jan 2004 | Ursula said...

At WWDC, I listened to Apple representatives make some excellent points about taking the time to build a 100%-compliant Aqua application, and I think all developers need to look beyond the code and listen to what the folks at Apple have to say