March 2005 Archive

Help: Windows task switching is horrible

Could someone please make a task switcher for Windows that works exactly like the Mac task switcher does (Alt-Tab to switch applications and Alt-~ to switch instances)? XSwitch is proof that it’s possible, but in my testing it only worked half the time. Also, Alt-Win-Tab to switch instances? I’m sorry, but my fingers just don’t bend that way. Configurable shortcuts would help; software that works would be even better.

Anyone who uses that Mac app switcher/instance switcher combination will vouch that it’s worlds better than anything on Windows. Clicking those damn taskbar buttons is easily the most monotonous task in Windows. So why aren’t there more alternatives to the built in Windows task switcher?

(Lazyweb, help me out here.)

Proof that Google is evil

A few days ago I hinted that Google’s 404 page is proof that they’re evil. Before you go off on me for making such a wild accusation, please stop and think about who Google is, their mission, what a 404 page is and the utility that a well designed 404 page can provide.

Okay, now allow me to answer those questions.

  1. Who is Google? Google is a very successful corporation who has made millions out of search services.
  2. What is Google’s mission?

    Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

  3. What is a 404 page? A 404 page is a single web page that informs the user when the page they are trying to access cannot be found on the server.
  4. What utility can a well designed 404 page provide? It can actually do a lot of things, but most importantly on a user experience level, it can help the user find what they’re looking for.

To put it another way, Google is a very rich search company with tremendous resources that has made its name by helping people find information. A 404 page is one of the simplest error handling utilities available to websites, which among other things, can be extremely useful for finding information. Yet Google’s 404 page is one of the poorest designed 404 pages I’ve seen on a corporate site.

Now if that isn’t proof that something evil is lurking inside the Googleplex, I don’t know what is.

I’m only half serious about this. I don’t actually think that Google is evil, but I do think their sites have some major user experience issues: the 404 page being only one of them.

How to create a user style sheet, or: How to remove the Basecamp ad in Ta-da lists

I’ve quickly adopted the excellent Ta-da Lists to manage my to do lists at home and work. My browser start page is set to my @Work list and @Home list at each location. I love the simple utility that they provide, but one thing that bothered me from day one was the Basecamp ad that’s at the top of every page.

My first thought was AlltheWeb.com, a lesser known search engine that allows its users to specify a custom style sheet* for the search page and search results from within the site preferences. “If only Ta-da Lists did that,” I thought. Then I could style my lists however I choose — and get rid of the Basecamp ad.

Then I remembered user styles. Remember them? In case you forgot, they’re the part of the CSS specification that basically says users can specify the way a (standards based) web page will look in a conforming browser. They received a lot of attention when CSS was first coming around, but have sort of fallen by the wayside in the past few years; which is really too bad because they’re still pretty damn cool. Here’s how to create a user style sheet in several major browsers:

Firefox

  1. Find your Firefox profile folder. The location of the profile differs between OS’s, but excellent directions for finding the profile folder are on Mozilla’s support site.
  2. In the chrome subdirectory, there should be a file called userContent-example.css. Rename it to userContent.css and edit it using your text editor.*
  3. Save userContent.css and restart Firefox.

It’s curious that a browser made “for the people” would make it so difficult to specify the location of a user style sheet. Most other browsers have a dedicated section of the preferences for user style sheets.

Internet Explorer

  1. Create a CSS file in a convenient location using your text editor.*
  2. Select the Tools menu, select Internet Options, select the General tab and then select the Accessibility button.
  3. Under User Style Sheet, check Format documents using my style sheet.
  4. Select Browse and then select the CSS file you previously created.

Opera

  1. Create a CSS file in a convenient location using your text editor.
  2. Select the File menu, select Preferences and then select Page Style.
  3. Next to My style sheet, select Choose and then select the CSS file you previously created.

Safari

  1. Create a CSS file in a convenient location using your text editor.
  2. Select the Safari menu, select Preferences and the select Advanced.
  3. Next to Style sheet, select Other and then select the CSS file you previously created.

Finally, here’s the CSS to remove the Basecamp ad in Ta-da Lists.

div#Basecamp { visibility: hidden !important; }

Now don’t you wish you could change all sites that easily?

* New to CSS? Explaining the basics of CSS is beyond the scope of this article, but if you need help I would suggest one of the many CSS tutorials available on the web

Update: I added an !important declaration below to ensure that the rule will have priority. Thanks to missha for reminding me.

London UXnet March Social Event

You’re invited to the monthly social meeting in London for the User Experience Design community.

Date: Wednesday, 16 March 2005
Time: 6:30 PM
Place: Clerkenwell House
23-27 Hatton Wall, near Chancery Lane and Farringdon Stations
Find it with MultiMap

Please email any queries to

This is a UXnet event and was organized through the coordinated efforts and resources of AIfIA, ASIS&T, AIGA, IxDG, STC UK, UK UPA and BCS-HCI, LondonIA, London Usability, UCLIC and BIMA. If you represent an organization that you feel should also be part of future UXnet event coordination in London, or an organization that would like to host future UXnet events, please contact .

Movable Type hacks I still have to make

Reading John Gruber’s recent article about his new plugin that kills the annoying nav-commenters.gif reminded me of two annoying Movable Type hacks I still have to make every time I upgrade MT:

  1. Adding in a bit of code so that MT doesn’t enclose images within paragraphs.
  2. Removing a bit of code so that MT doesn’t launch comment URLs in new windows.

Now I can sympathize with MT on wanting to enclose all of my images within paragraphs because images are usually related to the surrounding paragraph. So it seems okay to do this:

<p><img src="image.gif" width="100" height="100" alt="description" /> This is an image.</p>

But 95% of the time, bloggers are including images in their entries like this:

This is a paragraph

<img src="image.gif" width="100" height="100" alt="description" />

This is another paragraph

So taking that img and wrapping it in a couple of p’s isn’t going to add much meaning to the markup. To correct for that handful of mistakes that MT is going to make, I make the no-p-around-img hack every time.

The second hack is a completely different story. Opening links in new windows is sometimes confusing and often more annoying than helpful. Not to mention it’s so 2000. Frankly, I’m embarrassed that my CMS does it by default, so I make the kill-target-blank hack every time.

What’s your take on these hacks? Should I still make them or do we really live in world where images are always parts of paragraphs and links to external sites should open in new windows by default?

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