Installing Internet Explorer 8

I have a confession to make: despite everything, I like Microsoft products. I like Vista and 7, I like the Office 2007 interface, I love C#, the .NET framework and Visual Studio. There are obviously some other applications I don't like, especially Outlook and Internet Explorer -- and I use Gmail, Thunderbird and Chrome.

As a webdesigner and as a user I was curious about the new Internet Explorer and I decided to write a post just after installing it (I haven't even opened it!).

1. I searched Google for "Internet Explorer 8" and this took me to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx

2. I clicked the big orange "Download Now" button and ran the installer.

3. For some reason step 2 was my first mistake because after a couple of minutes of downloading and decompressing files the installer told me "This installation does not support this operative system's language" because I live in Portugal but my Windows is in English.

4. So I went back to Microsoft's website and clicked on the small "change locales and versions" link and chose another language, downloaded another version and ran the installer again.

5. After some minutes it tells me it's going to update my windows, internet explorer and search for malicious software, as it did............

6. ........a good half an hour and two reboots later, Internet Explorer 8 was successfully installed (wohooo!) but now I noticed it put shortcuts where I didn't have them before and didn't want to have...

This is how Microsoft caused me a really bad impression even before I started Internet Explorer! Not surprisingly, I'm writing this blog post on Chrome.... Which took like 3 minutes to search for and install without mistakes nor fuss nor unwanted shortcuts, just like Firefox or Safari. I'm installing a browser, not an operative system!

Edit: I ran Internet Explorer 8 and somehow it's my default browser now, and I don't recall allowing him to!

Stop using "optimized for" already!

"This website is optimized for Opera 2.12 at 1280*854"

Today I was talking about this with a friend and it kind of gets on my nerves. Who's the web developer trying to excuse for his poorly rendered website? Or is he thinking that somebody is going to change browser/resolution to see his page right?

This is a lesson for anyone creating any piece of technology that's going to be used by someone else: "stop being lazy!".

"This elevator is optimized for people who can read roman numerals"

"This building is optimized for people bellow 1.5m"

"This cookies are optimized for people wth five teeth"

Do you really want to restrict the usage of your site based on some funky choice no one cares about?

Selection on Browsers

When we try to select chunks of text and/or images on a web site very often we end up selecting unwanted and unpredictable bits. I'm sure a lot of people have experienced this effect, this happens because the organization of content in html isn't very intuitive to someone who doesn't understand html. Content is stuck inside blocks or tables and there are often tables inside tables. In our browsers, we can't select cells from different tables at the same time and this causes strange behaviours when we drag the cursor over a page. This only happens because the browser developers are lazy, it's easier to make the selections match the html organization but its counter intuitive, non-productive and not WYSIWYG at all, for the end-user.

Oh the Old Document Paradigm

Let’s face it, the current document paradigm is way too old to be used in our digital era. When was the last time you actually created a document whose finality was to be printed? And how many documents, these days, are meant to be read in the computer and through the internet? Think of a Microsoft Word document or an Acrobat document, they really aren’t meant to be read and navigated digitally.

The most common structure of a document (be it an article, a book or anything else) is a tree structure:

Title 1
Sub-title 1
Sub-title 2
Sub-sub-title 1
Sub-title 3
Title 2
…These types of structures are begging to be assessed by a tree controller like those found on the HTML help files (those that usually appear when you press F1 on any application) or on the Windows Explorer. We should be able to only see the part of the document that interests us at a given moment, and not the other three hundred pages. A large document is a pain to navigate (just think of the tiny scroll bar with very fast steps) and a pain to find information. Documents should be like web-pages except we would have several views possible including the old, tedious print view.

This document format would be suitable for web, desktop, mobile and printing, what else could we want?

Edit: Another idea... This way of editing a document can be implemented on the web. Editing a document on the web with an interface like this would be great for collaborative work! You would edit only part of the document at a time and the system would tell the others that this particular part is being edited but everything else could still be used and changed, as if each document was a small wikipedia. I've been working with partners both close to me and on another countries and, as you probably already know, tossing around emails with word document versions attached is not a productive way of collaborating on documents at all.

Start with the Interface or the System?

When I was studying, every time I started doing a programming exercise, I almost always started with the interface and everyone made fun of me (including myself). I knew it was wrong but I was just having fun because that's the way (uhu, uhu) I like it!

But what if it wasn't wrong? What if it was just another way of thinking and what if it was a better one?

If we start doing the architecture and then program the logic, our natural laziness will accommodate the interface to the system. If we do it the other way round, the system will accommodate our well thought interface.

Even when it's a kind of application in which the usability is not as important as the system's performance, making the system accommodate to the interface doesn't mean it's going to get slow and buggy, and in any case, the system should be optimized so that the user doesn't have to wait more than the absolutely necessary.

In the end, the user will only see the interface, and it doesn’t really matter how the system is implemented as long as it works the way it should and the user has a good response to his interaction.

Of course both ways have advantages and disadvantages and it all depends on the purpose of the application but I believe we should, if not start with the interface, at least have different people creating the interface and the system in order not to make the mistake of designing an interface that reflects the inner system.

TV Remote Control

Here's a common layout for a TV Remote:On the left, the Volume is vertical and the Channel is horizontal and the opposite is seen on the right.
Which one do you think is more intuitive? I have seen several examples of both.

This is a problem with the metaphors used and there's a clear conflict of mental concepts on the one on the right because of two things:
Previous and Next are usually connected to Left and Right.
Up and Down are not good metaphors for Previous and Next because Up means Above, which is connected to Next, but it could also mean Previous, due to the writing direction (left to right and top to bottom).

The Left layout is much more intuitive and it's not understandable why there are still manufacturers that ignore such basic mental concepts.

More information on the speedometer

(image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Speedometer.jpg)

A lot of times I'm driving on a street or on a highway and I notice that I don't really know the speed limit in that place. I have to wait until I see some sign with the information.

...but cars have been increasingly coming out equipped with GPS systems, so the car can "know" the actual speed limit!

Usually on speedometers, there are some red marks indicating the most common speed limits but it would be really helpful if it indicated the current maximum and minimum limits with red and green lights. The driver could know, with a glance at the speedometer, if he was driving at a legal speed.

What do you think?