ui and me

It Doesn't Hurt to Give a Tweet

2010-02-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

Give a Tweet is a relatively new Twitter application (beta) to encourage Twitter users to donate to non-profit organizations and/or match the donations of others. I don't see a downside to experimenting with this approach to soliciting donations. While there is a little labor required by non-profits to set up ("claim") and monitor the account, most of the administrative details, including the delivery of donations to your nonprofit are handled directly by Network for Good.

“Give a Tweet was founded to leverage the real-time power of Twitter to make it easy to donate to non-profits. Give a Tweet wants to enhance the donations received by helping individuals and companies promote the non-profits that they support by matching donations from friends and strangers! The original donation gets a boost, the matcher gets the kudos and the charities benefit all around.”

Risk
Because the Give a Tweet application is fairly new, it may take a while before it is widely adopted and/or perceived as a valid donation vehicle.

Benefits
There is no financial commitment required.
Administration of actual donations is provided by Network for Good.
You may be able to raise money for your non-profit via an already established social network channel – your Twitter account.

Cost
4.75% fee for collecting and disbursement of donations.

Matching
There is a potential to partner with or find donors who will match your Give a Tweet donations.
Followers of your twitter account can be encouraged to donate on your Give a Tweet page and to send their followers to your page to make donations.
Businesses (especially small businesses) that donate or match can benefit by getting exposure for their philanthropy via Twitter.

Security
A human vets your claim to set up a non-profit page.
Donations are collected via a secure donation form provided by Network for Good.
All donations go directly to your mailing address or can be directly deposited in your account.

Administration
Set Up
Login using the official Twitter account for the organization and “Claim” your organization. This goes thru a (human) verification process. Once the Twitter account is linked you can login, set up and edit your information organization's info on Giveatweet.com.
Maintenance
Directing followers to the Give a Tweet page. Attracting and nurturing followers willing to donate and/or match the donations of other followers. Checking Network for Good admin console and reporting on donations.
Tax Receipts
Tax donation receipts are sent by Network for Good.
Your organization does need to send an additional receipt.
Disbursements
Network for Good disburses all successful donations made through the Give a Tweet site on the 15th of each month.

Resources
Three Reasons Why Nonprofits Should Give a Tweet
Sample:Give a Tweet Announcement
Sample: Give a Tweet Page
Give a Tweet: How Small Businesses Can Generate Buzz on Twitter Through Philanthropy and Cause Marketing
Give a Tweet on Facebook

Writing in Books

2009-10-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

I went to a lecture recently about reading. There was a lot of discussion about annotation. Some people had strong feelings about whether they would/would not buy used books (text books) that were annotated and whether or not their decision would be influenced by whether the annotator was an A or a D student. There was talk about whether people remember the act of annotating or remember something because it was annotated.

However, when someone brought up annotation of fiction, many people seemed astonished (in a bad way). Apparently fiction is the Maginot Line of annotation. People seemed appalled by the very mention of it. I didn’t get the distinction; I thought everyone wrote in everything.

I have many of my mother’s books and many of them are fiction and many are annotated. Apparently I come from a long line of annotators, my grandmother also scribbled on everything she read (including the newspaper) and even made notes for herself on the dining room walls. Frustrated writers? Maybe. Eccentrics? Yes. Total reprobates? No, defiling a library book was out of the question. But writing in your own copy of Moby Dick – go for it.

At the time of the lecture I was reading one of my mother’s books. It was full of small notes and underlined sentences, and whether I understood them or not, the annotations, more than the book itself, were giving me great pleasure. I can’t claim to know why my mom noted what she did; why some things deserved exclamation points and others question marks; but I have a pretty good idea what YES!!! means next to an underlined sentence. I value the book because messy, illegible, snarky, incomprehensibly daring youthful and exuberant - my mother is there. Her handwriting was small with undefined letters (she always said she ruined it by learning shorthand) but it is distinctively hers. Her comments too, hers alone. Yet mine to keep and ponder, even savor, because she wrote in books.

TMI

2009-08-06T17:19:00.001-07:00

Too much information.

onSale.com

Satisfying Menu

2009-08-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

Thank you QVC.

I love kitchen stuff. From this cascading menu I can shop by product type or by brand name. The categories are easy to read (black text and bullets) and easy to select (good contrast on mouse-over and adequate leading between lines).

And, at the bottom of the menu there's a choice that's visually highlighted to view New or Clearance Items.

Works for me.

Bakeware page at QVC

This web page will self-destruct in . . .

2009-07-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Users are distracted (taunted?) in so many ways today: moving pages, moving pop-ups, pop-ups that can't be closed, messages where OK and Cancel mean the same thing, i.e. Cancel does not in fact cancel.

For me, page curl - where the web page appears to be self-destructing by peeling off a layer of its skin (complete with a ripping sound) - is one of the most offensive.

I wish someone would do a study about time on site/page curl implementation; because when the tearing sound starts, I'm out of there. . .

Semantics . . .

2009-07-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

Glossary of Naval Terms - Circa 1943
Passed on by my mother, a WAVE Captain during WWII:

Take necessary action - It's your headache now.

We should confer - Send your yeoman over to see mine.

Forwarded - Pigeon-holed in a more ornate office.

A growing Body of naval opinion - Two brass hats have agreed.

Take immediate action - Do something in a hurry before we both catch hell.

For your information - Let's both forget it.

Your observations are desired - Do the dirty work so I can write "forwarded".

Your department is negligent - I have just been given hell.

You are to be commended - This is a particularly dirty job coming in the next routing.

Naval tradition demands - I have just been talking to an old Chief.

Give this your immediate attention - For God's sake find the papers.

You will show him every courtesy - His uncle is an Admiral.

The inspection party has departed - How about a binge tonight?

Let's have a little more hubba - To hell with the priorities, let's get the routines out of here.

Much Ado About Shoes

2009-07-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

This was posted on Twitter today: BillPilgrim The holes in the soles of a lawyer's shoes have become a legal issue during a civil trial in Palm Beach Co http://tw8.us/XT

In the article, a lawyer (with, I assume, intact shoes) vehemently insists that the lawyer he is opposing has a great and unfair advantage by virtue of having (and displaying) a hole in his shoe.

Precedent might suggest otherwise. Consider Adlai Stevenson, democratic presidential candidate, much beloved for the hole in his shoe, yet still defeated by Eisenhower.

For the record, most of my shoes look like Adlai's - or worse.

What Would Dewayne and Charlie say?

2009-07-06T18:26:00.001-07:00

I didn't design this layout. But I liked it, that is, until I started to hear the persistent voices of my previous boss and of my mentor nudging me to really analyze it.

Maybe sometimes hearing voices is a good thing. Dewayne was saying "why does it waste so much real estate?" and Charlie said "why doesn't it conform to standards?" Good questions guys (as usual). Here is the original interface and a suggested redesign. (click on thumbnails for larger view)

Original Layout: http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/smallbiz/

Issues:

A tab control that doesn't look like a tab.
A tab-like presentation that uses almost one third of the screen space.
An unnecessary breadcrumb trail.
Non-standard positioning of Search entry field.
Horizontal scrolling.

Suggested Layout (based on same amount of screen real estate)

Design Suggestions:

Combine title and subtitle text to conserve vertical space.
Move Search entry field and button to standard upper right position to provide consistency and conserve vertical space.
Eliminate breadcrumb path to conserve vertical space.
Provide standard tab presentation to allow for three panel presentation of information.
Provide standard tab presentation to eliminate horizontal scrolling.
Divide third tab into text area and contact area, eliminating need for fourth level of data presentation.

I need to get out more . . .

2009-06-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

We went the Apple Store on Saturday because my son is looking for a new computer. As a former Mac user I should not have been surprised at all to see: a 60+ man in tibetan monk robes with a crew cut and a screaming eagle tattoo. Yes, he seemed very contemplative.

Where to put the farm animals & the beauty of design

2009-06-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

"It's odd to think for history's most famous architect being as obsessed with animal smells as he was with scale and proportion. But not being afraid of the ordinary side of his job was a key component of Palladio's genius. To him, architecture existed to solve problems, and he seems to have given equal weight to elevating the image of his clients, making their lives function more smoothly, and creating beautiful objects for the world. Figuring out where to put the farm animals and shaping designs of transcendent beauty were all in a day's work."

All He Surveyed, How Palladian was Palladio?
by Paul Goldberger
The New Yorker, March 30, 2009

My Least Favorite UI Control

2009-06-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

*to view control in action: http://bit.ly/19Qb5T

Issues:

A tab control that doesn't look like a tab.
A tab-like presentation below instead of above the tab content.
A tab used as a toggle to show/hide just one entry field.
An entry field that seems to serve double duty yet is mutually exclusive, i.e. the user can only search by a City OR a Postal Code. Because a user can enter the City and Postal Code sequentially, he may assume that he is searching on the combination of his two inputs. However, his search results will be based solely on the last entry.
Radius dropdown menu has label embedded and no reasonable default. (If user does not make a selection, when the search is enabled the radius defaults to 20 miles in the search results list. Therefore, would expect the radius default on the entry screen to be 20 miles.)
Actions: the user can Save this search and have the results emailed to him or he can perform the Search. Based on placement, it is not clear that these are the action choices.

Suggested Layout (based on same amount of screen real estate as control above):

Design Suggestions:

Use radio buttons to present mutually exclusive choices.
Disable field associated with deselected radio button.
Enable field associated with selected radio button.
Provide an appropriate default for the Radius dropdown.
Present action choices next to each other to emphasize that the user can select Action A or Action B.

A Tiny Bit of Fun

2009-05-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love dinosaurs?

Especially really tiny dinosaurs?

Tinysaur

An Error in Error Messaging

2009-05-28T11:30:00.001-07:00

This is the message I just got at bitly.
I was signed in, tried to navigated to a different bitly page, and voila!

Cute? Yes.

Helpful? Not a bit.

Where is my Sears Craftsman 2009 laptop?

2009-05-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

We bought our first (and only) lawnmower, as required, with our first house. It is a Craftsman from Sears. The first five or ten years I thought nothing of hauling it out of the garage and expecting it to start in the spring. But it has been twenty-four years now, so every spring for the last four or five years I have considered it a minor miracle when I go to the garage, pull out my four wheeled workhorse and start it up. Miracles aside, I have utter faith in my faithful tool.

I am not proud of this, but my maintenance routine is to put the lawnmower in the garage in October and get it out in April. I understand it has an air filter. Actually I can see the filter. It’s pretty dirty. It’s original. Also I think there is some part (the engine?) that is supposed to be oiled (have its oil changed?). I wouldn’t know. My routine is: raise the spark plug cover; pump the rubber ball six times; pull the cord. Oh, and occasionally I pour gasoline in the gas tank.

It is the most dependable machine I have ever owned. And it has been stress tested. It has been the victim of a careless owner/user and yes, of downright abuse. The number of metal cans, tinfoil balloon bodies (don’t ask), dead basketballs, windsocks, and pine cones it has challenged and conquered? Countless. Plastic beer can holders become confetti under blades that have never been sharpened. The grass catcher became a casualty long ago, understandably, considering it was designed to catch grass, and the rubber flap at the back is in shreds; but my lawnmower still cuts grass. It cuts foot high grass, wet grass, and yes, even the occasional vicious and ubiquitous blackberry branch.

I wish any other machine at my house, especially a computer, could perform like my lawnmower. I have owned two Macs, a Toshiba and an IBM (and treated all of them with kid gloves). Yet I have always felt they could go at any minute, that they were finicky, high maintenance, mercurial. I mean think about it, they need to be updated, optimized, immunized, and secured against a multitude of viruses and bugs. I could not call them, with any confidence, dependable, rugged, stalwart.

And most importantly, they have never given me the unadulterated satisfaction of starting up my lawnmower in April. When Craftsmen starts making laptops, sign me up.

Far from delight . . .

2009-05-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Someone needs to tell match.com that this ad is just plain creepy.

The sensation of being watched/stalked by this guy as I check my email at Yahoo is far from delightful.
Why would anyone design this "experience"?

I see TED people

2009-04-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

Unveiling the "Sixth Sense," game-changing wearable tech

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/481

Searching for Steinbeck

2009-03-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

A Journey into Steinbeck’s California

Examines the relationship between this iconic American writer and the area he loved and that features so prominently in his work.

http://www.roaringfortiespress.com/content/steinbecks_california.php

By Design

2009-03-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Design, rather than anarchy characterizes life. In human life, design implies the acceptance and even the deliberate choice of certain constraints which are deterministic to the extent that they incorporate the influences of the past and of the environment. But design is also the expression of free will because it always involves value judgments and anticipates the future.

So Human an Animal, Rene Dubos

Black History Month

2009-02-09T18:19:00.000-08:00

Black History Month reminded me to recommend Coming of Age in Mississippi.

It is not a feel good story. In fact it is a feel bad story but it is real and urgent and rings disturbingly of truth.

I think of Anne Moody often; I dare you not to be moved by her story.

Link to "Coming of Age in Mississippi" on Amazon

So it's a control issue?

2009-01-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

Why Products Fail

Most gadget and software makers don't understand what users want most: Control

"Both users and product designers alike talk about user interface (UI) consistency, usability and simplicity, and system attributes like performance and stability. What's missing is that these attributes are means to an end. The real issue is always the user's physiological feeling of being in control. And control comes in many ways: . . ."

Link to article

Seriously, did they have to name it The Fusion Render Node?

2009-01-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

" Advanced Micro Devices CEO Dirk Meyer on Thursday said the company will deliver high-definition gaming and movies to devices like smartphones in an attempt to bring more usability and interactivity to the devices. . .

People will only need a Web browser on a smartphone and a decent broadband connection to access the supercomputer to instantly play games or watch Blu-ray movies, Meyer said. The supercomputer, which will be called the Fusion Render Node, will change the way games and movies are delivered to mobile devices, Meyer said."

AMD to Bring HD Gaming and Movies to Mobile Phones

10 Best Intranets of 2009

2009-01-07T13:58:00.000-08:00

"Intranets are getting more strategic, with increased collaboration support. Team size is growing by 12% per year, and platforms are becoming integrated, with a strong showing for SharePoint. Improving usability increased use by 106% on average."

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, January 5, 2009

Skid Software - helping children with disabilities

2008-12-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

"17-year-old Arpit Khansili, could not use the Internet earlier because he suffers from a motor disability that makes it difficult for him to use the mouse or the keyboard attached to his personal computer.

However, he is surfing away, thanks to a software program that identifies inputs from any device such as a joystick, wheel or a gaming console. What’s more, it is a free software and based on an Open Source platform – which makes it easily modifiable. . .

The program, named Arpit’s Wheel, has been conceptualised by IIT alumnus Arun Mehta, who has won the Manthan Award this year for his work. “Our software is based on Rubyonrails, a language based on Open Source, and can be accessed on any Web browser,” said Mehta, who is also the managing director at Delhi-based computer training organisation Indata Com Private Limited.

Currently, the software offers about 12 modules that help a user write or edit pictures. The software is available for a free download at www.skid.org.in."
Hindustan Times Link to article

*I met Dr. Mehta at the 2008 Nonprofit Development Summit. If you can help him with his project which provides free software for disabled children, especially if you are a Ruby developer, please visit www.skid.org.in and contact him.

Kryptonite for MRSA?

2008-12-21T17:35:00.000-08:00

"A study found that copper fittings rapidly killed microbes on hospital wards, succeeding where other infection control measures failed. In the trial at Selly Oak hospital, in Birmingham, England, copper sink fixtures, toilet seats and push plates on doors all but eliminated common bacteria. Lab tests show that the metal kills off the deadly MRSA and C difficile superbugs."

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/WBL02118/Copper-Sink-Fixtures-Kill-95-Percent-of-Superbugs.html

Reaching beyond your grasp . . .

2008-11-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

"The critical path organization of the Apollo Project disclosed some two million tasks that had to be successfully accomplished before the human astronauts were to be returned safely to Spaceship Earth. NASA's Apollo management then put a scientifically and technically competent control group to work to identify all the approximately two million tasks, a million of which required technological performances the design, production, and successful operation of which had never before been undertaken by humans."
Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller