Tagged: usability

Is GitHub Racist?

One of the interesting aspects of privilege is how it lays bare our unconscious assumptions about the world. A male software developer may never consider that a user would want or need to change their name. Thus they would design a product which ignored the millions of women changing their names after marriage.

It's very temping to see software as racist when, in reality, it's more likely to have a root cause of unconscious assumptions.

Take, for example, GitHub. You can host all of your software projects on there - as long as you speak English.

Wait? What?

Try adding a repository which contains, say, Chinese - and all those beautiful characters will be replaced with "-".
Chinese GitHub

I asked GitHub about this, and quickly got this reply.

Unfortunately, at the moment, you can only use ASCII (i.e. Windows-1252) characters in Repo names. Most things on GitHub.com support non-ASCII but because of limitations in Git, the repo name isn't one of them. Sorry about the international-unfriendliness

Interestingly, that's not quite the case. Windows-1252 contains some characters with accents - they simply aren't recognised by GitHub.

Accents Github

We don't live in a homogeneous world. US English is not the global language. Even if it was, ASCII is insufficient to the task of information interchange.

ASCII was invented in 1972 - 40 years later and our brand new shiny kit is hamstrung by the needs of the telegraph industry! It's like that wonderful urban legend about the Space Shuttle being constrained by the size of a horse's arse.

Obviously, GitHub isn't racist. Either they or the originators of Git have assumed that their local dialect is sufficient for a service which aims to be universally acceptable. All the more strange given that Linus Torvalds, the creator of Git, is Finnish and - one presumes - knows about ääkköset (the "extra" letters in the Finnish alphabet).

At this stage in the maturity of the software industry, we should consider the practice of not supporting Unicode as outmoded and dangerous as assuming every year can be represented by a two digit number.

There's a world outside our narrow viewpoint and, if we want to do business with that world, we need to speak their language.

On Swearing and UX Antipaterns

For the last few months, I've been curating a Tumblr of a very specific annoyance. I'll let Aral Balkan take credit for inspiring me.


Any modal message—full-screen or alert—that interrupts user flow to ask them to download your app suffers from #doorslam #ux antipattern.
20/05/2012 10:45 via Tweetbot for iOSReplyRetweetFavorite
@aral
Aral Balkan

First, a quick definition:

In software engineering, an anti-pattern (or antipattern) is a pattern used in social or business operations or software engineering that may be commonly used but is ineffective and/or counterproductive in practice.
Antipattern on Wikipedia

My tumblr is simply called "I Don't Want Your Fucking App".

It chronicles all those websites which - despite having a mobile web experience - are just desperate to get you to download their app. So desperate that they're willing to slam the door in your face.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are in a mall and decided to walk into a shoe shop. The assistant comes up to you and says "Good morning! Would you like to visit our website? It's so much better than our shop!"
How ridiculous would that be? And yet, that's what these websites do. They tell you to piss off and go elsewhere.

DoorSlam Collection

How It Should Work

Ideally, when a user visits your website, you should deliver the content to them in the most appropriate format. That's it.

If they're using Internet Explorer, you serve them up the correct CSS and JavaScript. If they're on a mobile device, serve them up the mobile or responsive version of the page.

If you do have an app, by all means let the user know - but don't take over the whole damn screen!

It really is that simple.

Apple have created an excellent way to create dismiss-able banners to promote your app.

When you throw up an interstitial, you're not only giving a terrible impression, you're also forcing the user to do more work than is necessary to get to the content they want.

The F-Bomb

Interestingly, the discussion on HackerNews focused mostly on the issue of swearing. Although I'm not usually one to swear for dramatic effect, I thought it would be amusing to have an over-the-top rant which over-uses swearing to the point of banality. It is, if you like, an exercise in over-reaction.

My sweary blog posts do seem to get the most attention. I wonder if it's because people are becoming too corporate. So worried about causing offence that their language becomes reduced to bland words that are calculated to be as emotionally neutral as possible.

I disagree with that mode of acting. I think it's perfectly acceptable be passionate and to let your language reflect that passion. Sure, the level of swearing that I've used is ridiculous - but it is employed to drive home the point. That's how I feel. That's how millions of us feel when we're confronted with repeated petty annoyances in our daily lives.

Swearing. It's not big, it's not clever, but it is authentic.

iPhone Usability "Quirks"

I hate the iPhone. Always have, probably always will. However, as a geek in the mobile industry, I have to try the full gamut of devices. So, this weekend, for testing purposes, I've been lumbered with an iPhone 4S.

My aesthete friends are always complaining about how cobbled together Android is. Because there is no overall owner, the UI is full of unintuitive quirks. That's a fair criticism - some parts of Android are incredibly shonky. But, to hear those in the gilded cage speak, iOS was delivered as the platonic ideal of what smartphone should be. It is perfect, and gets more... er... perfecter with every release.

That's horseshit.

I know that coming from one phone to another, you're bound to find things which don't work quite the way you expect. This is different though, there are such bone-headed flaws present throughout iOS that I can only conclude that Stockholm Syndrome has set in amongst its users!

Firstly, it's a relief not to have to use the accurs'd iTunes to set up your phone. But, there is a fly in the ointmet. To set up the phone, you must have a SIM in the phone.

Why? Seriously - why? Literally every other phone I've ever owned "just works" when you take it out of the box. Want to use Android or BlackBerry using WiFi? Fine. So, I stuck in a SIM and it got through set up. Guess what? The SIM was invalid - it didn't attach to any network. Well done, Apple - another pointless loop for customers to jump through to pacify your insane control-freakery.

The rest of the set-up process was predictably poor - despite setting my language as English, and knowing which country I'm in, the iPhone presented me with a country list starting with Afghanistan. That's a heck of a long scroll to get to the UK.

Still, initial impressions rarely count, do they? Let's look at what the rest of the experience delivers.

iphone clock-fs8
Well, the date on the icon is right - but the time is wrong. What's the point in that?

As it happens, there's a software update for the iPhone. I took a look at the details. Bizarrely, this link isn't clickable.

iphone non clickable update link-fs8
Great work - make it look like a link, but don't let anyone click on it. Good work there!

I went into music, there's nothing in there - other than this rather confusing pop-up.
itunes videos-fs8
I assume "OK" should read "Music"?

But look - there's a handy little link to iTunes. Naturally, it doesn't work.
itunes non clickable-fs8
You can click and click and click - there's no way to get to iTunes from this page.

Was this thing designed by a chimp?

Clicking around the App Store - which apparently has revolutionised the retail industry - I kept encountering this error.
item not available-fs8
Top tip, Apple: don't offer me link to things I can't get.

The capitalisation on this seems really off to me.
up to date-fs8
Still, attention to detail is for losers, right?

Now, on to my chief annoyance. The keyboard. I know Apple loves skeuomorphic interfaces, but this is ridiculous. Hit that shift key as often as you like - but nothing changes.
iphone keyboard-fs8
Why? It's really annoying to have to look in the lower left hand corner every time you want to see if you've hit the shift key.

Oh, bonus fuckwittery, I spent a couple of minutes looking for the "opening quote" symbol.
quote-fs8
My problem or theirs?

Honestly, this post is boring even me. It's obvious that the famed Apple design is a bit shabby. I just don't get why everyone raves about it.

Every device has quirks - and the iPhone is no exception. Yes, we should strive for perfection in design - but people are so desperate that they are being seduced into the worship of false idols.

Can Oneko Help Beat RSI?

(Praying to Betteridge!)

For the last few years, I've been using ergonomic computer input products such as the Microsoft 4000 keyboard and the Evoluent Vertical Mouse. I spend a lot of time on my computer - and I know how crippling the pain of RSI can be - especially for someone who relies on their laptop to earn a living.

Recently, I've added a new tool - Oneko!

Oneko is a little cat who follows your mouse around the desktop.

Neko has a long and illustrious history. I remember using him many years ago on Windows 3.11. Back then, I would happily distract myself by whizzing the cursor around all day long.

Nowadays, I'm using that distraction to my advantage. Whenever I move the mouse across my screen, Oneko chases it - slowly. His cute and fluffy eagerness is distracting - and that forces me to consider whether I really want to use my mouse at all.

There are some things on a modern desktop which are simply impossible to do without a mouse - or so cumbersome that no sane person would attempt them. It's particularly problematic on the web where elements are placed so higgledy-piggledy that tabbing through the page is an exercise in extreme frustration.

It's interesting to note that sites like imgur relying heavily on keyboard shortcuts for power users.

Google's search results are also very keyboard friendly. I'm also beginning to explore the other accessibility tools Linux has to offer.

In web design circles, we often hear about designing for visually impaired users but we seem to spend a lot less time taking about those can can see, but find movement difficult or restrictive.

Having large target elements is useful for those whose mousing skills are under-par, but designing a website which can be used only from the keyboard? That's a challenge.

Of course, depending on your mobility, a keyboard-only approach may not be useful for you - but I find it very helpful to minimise my mouse contact.

So, for now, Oneko is going to help me lose my love for the mouse.
I_love_Neko

Position

If you don't want Oneko to be right on top of your mouse cursor, you can set an offset position. You can adjust the horizontal and vertical position like so:

oneko -position +100-50

The first number is the X offset, the second is the Y offset. Use + or - to set the position relative to your cursor.

Love Thy Vendor

I've really enjoyed learning from Kathy Sierra's talk "Creating the minimum badass user". It's an hour long, but well worth your time.

She covers many aspects of product design, but the quote which really resonated with me was this -
How We Treat Customers

Zoomed in -
Treat Customers Right

This seems so applicable to many "services" these days. Millions spent on TV adverts, positive reviews, and glossy websites - yet nothing spent on customer care, and the entire shebang is held together with yarn.

Imagine if politicians had to actually deliver on what they promised, or if companies invested as much in customer service as they did advertising.

In many ways, this is about love. You have to love your customers. Advertising is merely seduction.

What would you do in order to seduce the object of your desires? Flowers, weekend trips to Paris, wearing a new fragrance, charming their parents - you know the drill! Then, the day after you get married, you suddenly switch - no time for your new partner; you're busy chasing other floozies! And if they don't have the bills paid on time, you'll drop them like a hot potato!

I don't really know how we fix this problem. Vendor Relationship Management is perhaps the best solution. If you see that other people have had poor service once they've signed up, you'd be less likely to become a customer.

Well, in theory! Think about all the problems that Apple have with their products - and all the complaints on their forums which go unanswered. Yet consumers - like lovestruck teenagers - wail "they really love me! I don't care what anyone else says! I can change them!"

Perhaps the only solution is to lower our expectations.

It's time to accept that companies just aren't that in to us! We must not be fooled by the cheap bunch of flowers they hand us on the first date - we have to anticipate the years of unrelenting misery they will surely put us through and brace ourselves for it.