March 2003 Archive

More Additions and Tweaks

As you may have noticed, I’ve added some pages here and tweaked a few things there. New pages include:

~~About: About this site~~
~~RSS: About my RSS feed~~
Mobile: A handheld friendly version of my weblog. Thanks to Mark Pilgrim for sharing his Palm macros and index template, which I’ve modified slightly

After reading Dan Kalowsky’s recent entry on URLs, I decided to change my archive naming convention from file names to a folder hierarchy, which I like very much.

Finally, I turned off comments on all of my archived entries. (Thanks to Brenna for her help with this.) I decided to do this so I could focus on my more recent entries and their discussions. Also, from watching other weblogs, I noticed that visitors are more likely to comment on entries when comments are enabled for selected recent entries, but not all entries. So that’s my plan from now on. Note that even though on-site comments may be disabled for individual entries, you can still send a TrackBack ping to that entry by using the URL at the bottom.

Enough metatalk. On with the blog.

Update: Oh, and you may want to reload if things look a little funky in your browser.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Something about Columbus never felt right and you’ve wanted to move out of the city for several years. A good job, no job or a girl - there was always something or another that kept you here. But not this year. This is the year that things change. You’ve already given your place of employment notice that you’ll be leaving at the end of July, after your apartment lease is up. You now have a choice to make.

University College London (yes, that London) has offered you a place in the 2003/2004 session to study towards a master’s degree in human computer interaction. This choice sounds wonderful except for the large amount of debt it will incur and the relative usefulness of a master’s degree in human computer interaction. (Update: By “large amount of debt” you mean $40,000+ although you’re not sure how much that is in the long run. This debt would be in addition to your current educational debt of about $15,000.)

Another option is to move home (yes, your parent’s home) and work for your dad who owns a business selling water treatment chemicals and chemical pumps, not exactly your cup of tea. This choice will allow you to save money and give you time to figure out the next step, including if grad school is right for you or if you should instead attend in the United States next year. The downside of this choice is that your parents live approximately five miles from The Middle of Nowhere. The closest city is Pittsburgh, which is about seventy miles away.

Alternatively, you could move to a city of your liking and hope to peanuts that you can find another web job. Grad school will still be a possibility next year, but it will be just as unaffordable as it is now and who’s to say if you’ll meet the girl of your dreams and buy a house in the meantime?

The final choice is to simply stay in Columbus yet another year and hope to peanuts that you can find another web job here. Grad school will still be a possibility next year, but god help you if you meet the girl of your dreams in Columbus and have to consider staying here long term.

You flashback to that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when that old guy tells Indiana that he has to choose a grail: “You must choose, but choose wisely.”

Educational debt is the best kind of debt! Attend University College London and study towards a master’s in human computer interaction. Turn to page 35.

Hola padres! Move in with your parents, work for your dad, save money and take a year to figure out the next step. Turn to page 15.

Pull up stumps! Move to another city and find another web job. Turn to page 52.

Bite the bullet! Stay in Columbus yet another year and find another web job. Turn to page 8.

Yes, I’m asking for your advice. Please dispense it freely in the comments. Your regularly scheduled weblog will resume next week.

Going South for War

There hasn’t been much to read around here this month, and there likely won’t be much more over the next week or so. On Wednesday, I’m going to Sarasota, FL to vacation with my family. Yes, while America’s valiant young men and women are bombing Iraq to oblivion, I’ll be floating in the gulf and baking in the sun. Oh, the irony.*

Until I return, I invite you to visit Links for an array of fine websites.

* For the record: I didn’t vote for the man, I signed the anti-war petitions, I attended the protests, I wrote my senators and I’m very sad it turned out this way.

Happy Birthday Boxes and Arrows!

The Web of Generosity, or Lack Thereof

Tanya Rabourn reports on David Weinberger’s keynote at SXSW.

The short version of “Why the Web Matters” is basically:

Every link an individual makes to another site is an act of selflessness

We are at our best when we are generous

The Web is all about linking

So, the Web is based on an architecture of generousity — it is us at our best

(Insert studio audience “Awww” sound here.) If that’s true, I’ve been a little selfish lately, which I apologize for. Recently, I’ve just had trouble finding things I want to link to and talk about. This may be a good thing because what isn’t happening in the digital is made up for in the personal. There is big news to come. In the meantime I offer this humble contribution (Link removed until I develop my photo library pages.) to Photo Friday.

Hack Hotbot With Me

Lycos is having a Hack Hotbot Contest:

Hack HotBot is a unique design contest. We are asking our users to “HACK” HotBot’s look & feel by creating their own customized skin.

I’d love to enter this, but I afraid I don’t have the design skills to pull it off. So I’m looking for a top notch designer to collaborate with me on this. You design the interface, I’ll code the CSS. Your name gets entered, so if we’re picked, you win the prize. If you’re interested, please get in touch.

Update: I found someone.

User Context and Navigation in Articles

Chad Lundgren’s latest entry got me thinking about user context and navigation within articles. The Ready.gov page is a great example of what not to do, (If there aren’t any more pages, don’t even show the word “next.”) but what about good examples? Let’s take a look at several common variations on showing user context.

I really like the way Wired shows context. It concisely shows the total number of pages, what page you’re on and where you can go. At the most, you’ll only have two navigation choices within an article: previous and next. (Click on the images for examples.)

Boxes and Arrows also uses previous and next links, but they show the total number of pages by linking to them all. I don’t like this method as much because I rarely have a use for going straight to a specific page number. I can go straight to page three of the article, but what will I find there? On the other hand, I can see it being helpful when I’m sharing the article with someone. For example, “It’s somewhere around the middle of page three.”

iView shows what can happen when the Boxes and Arrows method is taken to the extreme, but without using previous and next links. I don’t like this example for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, I can go to any point within this article, but why would I if I don’t know what I’ll find there? Secondly, not using next and previous links within the article navigation makes navigating to the next or previous page needlessly difficult.

Update: After posting this, I remembered that the iView article does have a next link at the bottom of the page. In this entry, I’m only referring to their main article navigation at the top of each page, as shown in the following image.

Futher questions:

What are some other examples of user context and navigation in articles?
Does HTML limit our ability to show context with navigation effectively?
Can anyone point to some innovative Flash examples?
Has any research been done in this area?

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