http://blog.wilsonet.com Interaction design and usability, technology, politics, music, and random thoughts... Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:50:37 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Click on a conversation participant's buddy icon: Drag and drop to your e-mail client: A new message is created: Assuming there is an e-mail address associated with the IM handle in your address book, the message is pre-addressed. http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2008/04/08/drag-and-drop-im-quotes/ A few ideas to improve the alignment guides in Apple's Keynote presentation software, based on version 4.0.3. Allow users to simultaneously create intersecting vertical and horizontal guides by dragging from the upper left corner between the rulers. This halves the number of drags needed to create a bounding box using guides. Click… …drag… …release at desired position. Consistent with the above, allow users to reposition existing intersecting guides simultaneously by dragging from the intersection. The current behavior seems to default to just the vertical guide. Allow users to copy and paste guides between slides using commands available in the Format menu and a contextual menu that ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2008/04/05/keynote-guidance/ Based on iPhoto 7.1.3. General Clicking the bottom left Info pane while viewing a single photo switches back to the library/album view rather than allowing input. When viewing a day with multiple events, dropping one event poster on another should combine the events. Due to the distance of the search/filter field from the Library source list items, it would be nice if the magnifying glass was displayed at the right of the item being searched to make it more obvious that a search or filter was in effect. A small touch I find helpful in Contactizer. When viewing individual images, it is not clear when ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2008/03/02/a-few-iphoto-comments/ When selecting multiple items to be sent via e-mail or IM or copied to another volume, it is helpful to know the total size of the items; many e-mail servers restrict attachment sizes and CDs and DVDs only hold so much. The Finder provides this running total through the Inspector (Command-Option-I), which is both fairly hidden and changes based on the active view. The only method I know of for getting similar information in iTunes is to use the File menu's "New Playlist from Selection" command (Command-Shift-N), then looking at the status bar. Status bars that display the sum of the ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2008/02/18/summing-it-up/ During my holiday visit to Seattle, I helped two people address disk space shortages on their Macs. While purchasing additional storage was not the solution I recommended in either case, it got me thinking about the issue. There are many places to buy storage online, and a few of them allow you to filter the options based on the Mac the drive will be in or attached to. This is helpful, but it would be better to filter the list automatically based on the known system configuration without requiring user input. The Warning Dialog I didn't have a screenshot of the actual current ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2008/01/13/data-store-store/ Generally, you have some idea as to the expected social etiquette during an event when you are adding it to your calendar. Is it a meeting with a potential business partner? A date? Would it be irritating or embarrassing for your phone to burst into the latest Top 40 hit in the midst? All phones have a way to switch them from audible to vibrate, but do you want to deal with that in the middle of a proposal? The three options would be: Phone default Ring tone Silent ringer A ringer configuration interface should also be available in the iPhone's calendar application. Event ringer settings ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2007/11/17/be-the-lord-of-the-ring/ Users should be able to quickly change the audio output device without leaving their current context. This came to mind because I regularly change my output from speakers to headphones so I don't disturb my roommates and upstairs neighbors. Before bed during the week, I change the output back to speakers so that I can hear my alarm the following morning. For output switcher quasi-mode activation and cycling, either Control- or Command-Volume Down/Up would be easy to remember. Shift-Volume Down/Up is already bound to changing the volume without the feedback sound and Option-Volume Down/Up/Mute opens System Preferences to the Sound pane's ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2007/11/10/output/ Overall, I'm very happy with 10.5. The new features are mostly useful and intelligently implemented and I've experienced only minor upgrade-related problems with third-party software. General & Miscellany Spotlight results are nearly instantaneous for even very broad searches. A very impressive improvement. The menu bar opacity is not as bad as I thought it would be. I believe it was adjusted before the final release. The smaller font size in the Help menu looks a bit odd next to all the menus using the standard size, though it is consistent with the Spotlight menu. Foreground/background window contrast is much improved by the increased shadow depth ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2007/11/10/generally-spottieottiedopalicious/ For even when they are otherwise identical, there are likely to be marked psychological differences between one product and another. Advertisers strive to stamp each product with its own distinct image. These images are functional: they fill a need on the part of the consumer. The need is psychological, however, rather than utilitarian in the ordinary sense. Thus we find that the term “quality” increasingly refers to the ambience, the status associations—in effect, the psychological connotations of the product. As more and more of the basic materials needs of the consumer are met, it is strongly predictable that even more economic ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2007/10/21/future-shocked/ I joined my parents and one of my sisters on the Washington coast at the end of August, where we stayed for a week in a rental house near the beach. The house was generally laid out logically and well appointed. Unfortunately, whoever handled shower faucet selection chose a design that, while sleek, obscures a core faucet function: how to switch the water flow from the faucet to the shower head. No, not by pulling the handle in any direction. You turn the ring (which has no visual affordance) at the mouth of the faucet. Of course! This design is acceptable in ... http://blog.wilsonet.com/archives/2007/10/02/consider-the-context-of-use/