Increasing System font size in Tiger
I got a new 30″ Cinema display, and the high resolution setting is wonderful for working, but the system fonts are too small in some cases for my tired eyes. Here’s how to increase their
Continue readingTag: usability
Breaking out of Dreamweaver for PC’s interface
If you’ve found the new DreamweaverMX 2004 for Windows interface as confining as I did, you will know the frustration of trying to get more room for your work out of the screen. I have 2 monitors, so had plenty of horizontal space, but I could not get rid of the Properties panel and other items that were taking up vertical real estate.
It took me several months to figure out that they can be dragged out of the interface. Why the actual PAGE cannot be similarly dragged, I don’t know, except that it is more consistent with the irritating way that Powerpoint’s interface behaves on a PC. An example of 2 panels hogging space is shown below with the Design and Files panels.. I realize the panels could be set to not be on top, but I wanted them OUT of there – over on the left monitor, without having to make the entire interface 2 monitors wide, which causes other problems.
Continue readingDrupal: Suggestions for improving Drupal’s Book Module – Part 2: Navigation
1. Navigation should be visible most of the time. The first time I looked through a book created with the Drupal’s book module, I recall being confused about how to proceed through the document. My confusion resulted from starting on a long page, so that the “previous/up/next” navigation had fallen below the “fold.” Since I was new to Drupal-based books, I wasn’t even aware it was there.
A long page where navigation has dropped below the fold.
The only other visible navigation which was relevant to the book was the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page, which allows the reader to jump “up” a level but not backwards and forwards between pages of a chapter.
I did figure the system out within a few minutes, but I’ve watched others who are less interested in “figuring things out” attempt fruitlessly to find their way around such issues, and pretty much give up. It is amazing how people don’t think to look around the page, or having looked, misunderstand what they are seeing.
Continue readingThe Problem with Slashdot and other web archives
Something that’s been kicking around in my head for a while, is the fact that I find most large web archives and blogs frustrating to various degrees. Including my own site!
The frustration has to do with what I would call, the “opacity” of sites to browsing, to discovery of information you do not know is there, and could not find because you aren’t searching for it directly. There are times I am in search of “information inspiration”- the serendipitous discovery of what I really wanted to know but didn’t know it.
Of course many sites have great search engines, and categorize articles by topic. But I feel that doesn’t go far enough. There are times when I am not even aware of the right WORD to describe a concept, but could recognize articles associated with it if I scanned them for a second or two. Or I am aware of the right word, but want some way to find ideas related to it serendipitously. This is what I call information inspiration.
Slashdot (and many other news sites and blogs) are date oriented. What happens to the articles after their moment in the sun, though is that they become increasingly buried. If you browse by topic, you still are unlikely to see them, since there are so many under each topic. Slashdot’s design discourages searching for topics.
First I have to say: don’t get me wrong. This is not meant as a critique of Slashdot per se: I LOVE Slashdot. I read it every day, and have for years. However, I feel like something is missing in general from our arsenal of navigation techniques on the web, so I am using Slashdot as an example here.
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