Don’t flash me when we’ve just met

Dunk your splash page is a post explaining why you should not use Flash for your introduction pages.

I think it’s time we revisit an outdated practice—the dreaded splash page. You know, that Flash introduction page that displays before you can actually enter the site.

You probably remember these popping up on websites years ago by companies wanting to show off their design creds. Then people started talking about how annoying they were. Well, they’ve vanished from a lot of sites, and for good reason—they’re a real killer for user experience. But they’ve been popping up here and there, lately, and they put a real damper on an experience with a site.

I never wait for the flash introductions to load. I always, always look for the Skip intro button and navigate the hell away from that page. It’s so annoying that designers (or their clients) decide to put up these pages in the first place.

Read Dunk your splash page. (Helmet tip Matthew Stibbe)

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Goodbye Netscape

Netscape was the browser that first connected me to the wonderful world of the Internet, so there was a slight twinge of sadness when I read RIP: Netscape browser, 13:

Netscape Navigator, the world’s first commercial Web browser and the launch pad of the Internet boom, will be pulled off life support Feb. 1 after a 13-year run.

Its current caretakers, Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, decided to kill further development and technical support to focus on growing the company as an advertising business. Netscape’s usage dwindled with Microsoft Corp.’s entry into the browser business, and Netscape all but faded away following the birth of its open-source cousin, Firefox

Of course, this is not surprising considering how Netscape had fallen off the radar despite attempts to revive it. I used Netscape for several years (starting in 1996) and even when IE was all over the place, I somehow preferred using Netscape. Heck, I used Netscape for checking email, for reading newsgroups, in addition to surfing the Web. Good times but they’re long gone.

Just like the Netscape I remember. Rest in Peace.

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What’s the difference between soccer, futbol, and futsal?

I follow the English Premier League religiously and in our part of the world, ESPN and Star Sports are the channels of choice. They do a good job of keeping the football (soccer) fans in this part of the world happy.

If you’re like me and want to know the TV schedules ahead of time, so you can plan your weekend (pathetic I know), you have to click the TV Times link on the site. Then, select the country and the channel but when you come to the sport, it gets a little tricky. (Click on the thumbnail below to see what I mean).

If you want to watch football (which is what it’s called in this part of the world), you have to pick one of three options–soccer, soccer/futbol, and soccer/futsal. (There is an option called Football as well but I think that’s for the American football (NFL) games that ESPN telecasts.)

The correct option in this case (drum roll please) is door no. 2: soccer/futbol, something that I’ve found out by trial and error. It’s also something that I occasionally forget because it’s not so intuitive now is it?

Since ESPN-Star is a website primarily for the Asian region, maybe a bit of localisation would’ve helped. Using football to mean the kind of football played around here and American football to mean the kind of football played in the US would’ve been one way to avoid confusion.

And, if the terminology was consistent elsewhere on the ESPN-Star site, people would’ve gotten the message. It’s not. The menu bar near the top half of the page has an entry called Football. A lack of consistency, clarity, and unnecessary confusion means that the user will be unhappy.

These are problems that can be easily detected using simple usability tests. For websites which attract thousands of users it makes sense to do these tests, so you have to wonder why they’re not conducted.

Sometimes the ways of the developers and designers are mysterious to us common folks.

— Update: 30-Jan-2007 —

I was switching channels on TV today and came across a futsal match. It’s basically an indoor version of the regular football. You can learn more about it from Answers.com. I wonder why I didn’t check there earlier.

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The stupidity of some online surveys

I was on a football (soccer) website and a window popped up asking me if I would take part in a 10-minute survey. Sure, if it’d help, I thought and answered Yes.

I was then taken to another site, where I was first asked my age. Then, where I live. Since it was outside the UK, I selected that option. Then, the survey (apparently panicking) asked me to confirm that I was an ex-pat, a U.K. expat that is.

Nope, I’m not, so, I said so. Then, in the next page, I get this message:

Unfortunately as you are currently outside the UK you do not qualify for the full study however we really appreciate your interest in the survey and trust that you will continue to enjoy taking part in our future surveys. If we look to survey our users outside the UK and you would be happy to be contacted as part of this process, please insert your name and email address below. You will not be contacted by us for any other reason, only for research purposes.

You ask for my time, waste it, and expect me to help you again? Go to hell.

I hacked the URL I find that the site is called Opinion Bar and their tag line is, Join the panel that’s improving the Internet. How? By wasting people’s time?

This kind of thing has happened to me on more than one occasion, which is why I’m writing about it. I can understand that some surveys need information from people in a particular geographical area. However, if that is the defining criteria, shouldn’t the people who designed the survey forms ask that question first?

All forms like the one I mentioned above tend to do is to put people off doing surveys. And that’s a pity because surveys, when done right, can be helpful sources of information.

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The worst thing about spam

Spam is like a fly that gets into your house and buzzes around disturbing you. You can ignore it for a while, but after some time it gets on your nerves. Earlier, it was only email spam. Now, it’s blog comment spam, trackback spam, web search engine spam (results that point to sites that use meta tags that have nothing to do with what you’re looking for), mobile spam (messages from your service provider asking you to download the latest movie’s songs or whatever else)… you get the picture.

The worst thing about spam is the time it wastes.

Even if I trust the spam filters, I have to take a look every now and then to ensure that a genuine email or comment didn’t get trapped by mistake. Spam filters aren’t perfect you know.

Or, if an email or a comment that is spam is let through, then I have to “mark it as spam” and delete the pesky insect. Some more time taken away.

Then, there are the methods used to combat spam. Some websites make me look at images that have garbled text and ask me to figure out the text and enter it. The burden has shifted to the user and that’s one more time drainer. I can understand why it’s done, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

There’s also the toll spam that takes on the user

Sometimes I don’t want to look at the spam that my blog’s comment filters catch. There’s just so many comments and most of them have to do with the usual crap–you know what I’m talking about. And, my blogs are not high traffic blogs.

I feel sorry for the people with high traffic sites–I can’t imagine the amount of spam they must be getting. It’s information overload of a different kind–a mountain of trash dumped at your doorstep.

Fight back: Kick some orc ass
Nuke ‘em. It feels good as to empty the spam folder or spam comments folder and kill the spam comments. It’s like swatting the pesky fly–sometimes a little bit of “violence” is cathartic.

Yesterday, I blocked an IP address of a spammer. Felt good. The idiot will have to spam me from another IP address. Maybe it’s simple for him or maybe not. Either way, I’m taking the battle to the spammer–however small the irritant I’m putting in his/her path.

So, fight back. Take back the web, so to speak. We can’t let Sauron win.

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Reducing RSS subscription clutter

If you’re an RSS nut (i.e. you like to read your blogs in RSS readers) or if you’re into visiting blogs, you can’t help notice that most people offer RSS feeds to their blogs.

You would’ve also noticed that some sites have about a gazillion buttons allowing you to subscribe to their blog using your favourite RSS reader. One or two buttons, I can live with, but some blogs go button-crazy and create that enemy of all websites–clutter.

Enter Seth Godin, who does it differently. (I’ve not seen this used elsewhere but that may just mean that I’m an RSS nut.) Godin has two buttons under his RSS Feeds section and they both take you to a site called Add This. (See the screenshot below.)

I think it’s worth the extra mouse-click to reduce clutter, speed up website loading times, especially on pages which already have loads of images or on computers with slow Internet connections. So, if you’re one of those people who uses multiple images, consider using the Add This Widget. It’s elegant, it’s simple, and it reduces clutter.

And, it could be a way to achieve website Shangri-la.

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The 37 Signals Story

Time magazine has a nice introductory article about 37 Signals titled Small Is Essential. Here’s an excerpt:

At 37signals, a company with just eight employees whose Web-based collaboration software is used by thousands of small businesses, there isn’t time to sit around a conference room sipping latte and deconstructing memos. Come to think of it, there isn’t even a company conference room. There are just a couple of cubicles, loads of brainpower and three simple goals: make useful business software, make it easy to run, make money selling it. Repeat.

Founder and president Jason Fried, 33, decided early on that he didn’t need to be in the shiny valley of Silicon to make cool software. Half his team works out of a plain-vanilla Chicago office that 37signals shares with a design studio. The other four are scattered: Portland, Ore.; Chesapeake, Va.; Caldwell, Idaho; and New York City. This tiny crew, only three of whom graduated from college, has built software that many in the world of Web 2.0 consider the best for small-business collaboration. One of its development tools, Ruby on Rails, is the backbone for dozens of popular websites, such as Shopify, Twitter, 43 Things and Jobster.

If you like the article, you can also check out their blog about design and usability, Signal vs. Noise. And, if that doesn’t satisfy you, go read their book Getting Real for free, online.

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