Webitects Blog

Mobile site or mobile app?

2010-11-03T22:26:37Z

Many people ask us, should we build a mobile website or an app? We generally suggest that clients build a mobile site first, unless there are compelling reasons to have an app.

Mobile site advantages:

Build it once and deploy to all devices (reach large audiences quickly)
Costs a lot less money
Backward compatibility is less complex
Design revisions are easy and don't require installing updates
Audience penetration doesn't depend on the success of particular devices
No Apple approval process

Think about creating an app(s) if you:

need to store data locally when a connection to the web is not available
require seamless GPS integration
need seamless integration of audio and video
are delivering products such as games
want a slicker look and feel
can productively make use of a wider variety of controls built in tothe device
have a board member who just purchased an iPhone

To see an example of a mobile site with quite a bit of functionality that looks and functions well, and was created on a limited budget, take a look at our Children's Memorial site, http://bit.ly/bUWwLi .

Design: the in word that is now out

2010-09-17T16:16:50Z

How could anyone help but love the term ‘design?’ I certainly did. It was an in word in my line of work—implying ingenuity, inventiveness, innovation, intelligence, initiative. All things we want to be recognized (and paid) for. The term is so versatile that it came extremely handy in many proposals, presentations and conversations.

It felt like a cold shower when I first realized that this same versatility could be a problem. Certainly it meant as many good things to other people as it did to me. The issue is—they weren’t the same things. I credit Michael Eckersley (of Human Centered) for helping me understand this. A fellow designer and researcher, he says he never uses the term ‘design’ with clients. “What !#?” was my first thought back then.

Having had five years to grapple with losing a wonderfully flexible word, I am now a convert. I too believe in not using the term ‘design’ to introduce to clients what we do (certainly not to new clients). We first explain the value we bring and the approach we use in clear terms. After that, if necessary, we might slip it in. But we never use ‘design’ in an introduction!

“Although it may appear surprising, it seems no generally-accepted, precise and useful definition of ‘design’ exists.” This is a quote from a research paper I recently found from Yair Wand at the Sauder School of Business. “It is not that no definitions of design exist in the [academic] literature. We have identified at least 27 definitions of design and sub-types of design. But all 27 definitions we have analyzed had coverage problems and about half included terms with unclear or ambiguous meaning.”

How about this one:
“Design is the exercise of Grace, the Awareness that Free Choice might align Potential with Possibilities within Circumstances for purposes of Appreciation.” (Taken from a NYTimes.com article)

True, I am sure, and beautiful in some respects. But try saying that to a client and convincing them you are not chemically imbalanced.

I still love design, in all its meanings, shapes and variations. I just try to avoid the easy route of using a blanket term to explain the value that my colleagues and I provide to our clients.

Thoughts on SxSWi 2010 and why SxSW is like pizza

2010-03-19T17:05:37Z

This was my third year attending the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. The SxSW interactive conference launched in 1994 (there are also SxSW film and music festivals) and has earned a unique reputation among web designers, developers, and entrepreneurs. I first attended in 2008 and was blown away by the experience—it was and still is unlike any other technology conference I've attended.

I have to admit that my experience this year and last have not lived up to my initial "blown away" impression. I find myself wondering if the first year I attended was truly a better conference (Twitter was still new and FaceBook was all the news), if the novelty of attending for the first time cannot be repeated, or if I have inflated the memory of that first year. Reflecting on this year's experience and reading what others have to say (why SxSW sucks and SxSW A Unique Experience) there's no question that others are having similar thoughts.

Even so, I say SxSW is like pizza—even when it's bad it's good! You know what I mean! When was the last time you had pizza so bad that you refused to eat it? Even when it's bad it's still kind of good...it's pizza after all (case in point). SxSW is the same way—even as the conference grows (estimates put SxSWi attendance between 12,000 and 14,000 this year) and some of the sessions miss the mark, the positives far outweigh the negatives.

This year's SxSWi may not have lived up to Twitter's launch at the conference in 2007, or the now infamous Sarah Lacy interview of Mark Zuckerburg in 2008, or other previous conference highlights, but overall it is still a very good experience.

A few of my take aways from this year's conference:

A lot of emphasis on mobile (and not just Gowalla and Foursquare). I attended several mobile sessions including a very eye opening presentation on creating native iPhone, Android, and Blackberry apps with jQTouch, phonegap, and HTML/CSS/JS.
The first session, and one of the best of the conference, that I attended was Paul Boag's Pain Free Design Sign Off. Paul shared some of the processes and best practices that he employs on his projects. It was fun to hear somebody else speak about experiences that are very familiar to us at Webitects while adding insightful and fun commentary.
There were several sessions this year targeting digital media strategies for non-profits. Many of Webitects' clients are non-profits so I found it fun and interesting to share and hear success stories and best practices.
Results Oriented Work Environment. Some of my favorite SxSW sessions focus on improving business processes and this was no exception. Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It is on my reading list.
Gary Vaynerchuk (of Wine Library TV) never disappoints. His session this year was more inspirational than instructional but very entertaining. And the rappers...couldn't have timed their approach to the mic any better! Listen to the Gary Vaynerchuk rappers.
Finally, as has been the case in past years, one of the conference highlights is being able to interact with a lot of like-minded technology-driven people. Sharing ideas, experiences, and soaking up information from others is a thrill.

Returning from SxSWi I feel energized, inspired, and armed with many new ideas that I plan to apply in the coming weeks and months.

Book Review: Here Comes Everybody

2010-02-18T00:29:59Z

I recently finished reading Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky. For those of you who don't know who this is, check out his amazing TED talk on Institutions vs. Collaborations from 2005. Go ahead. Watch it.

Both the TED talk and the book are a few years old now, but I've found his ideas to be even more true today. The basic gist of Here Comes Everybody is similar to that of the above talk: the internet and social tools have started a revolution in our society that will forever change the way we assemble as groups and get things done. Shirky provides example after example demonstrating — this - with each one seemingly starting out unrelated to the ones before it, but eventually tying in to his common theme. At times, especially near the middle chapters ('Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production' and 'Faster and Faster'), I felt these examples became a little redundant, but overall every chapter kept offering something new and insightful.

Takeaways

There are quite a few gems in this book that struck me. Of course, they made me think of the big picture he was talking about, but they also made me think about things from a web developer's perspective. Here a few:

1. Filtering vs browsing

"Comparisons between the neatness of traditional media and the messiness of social media often overlook the fact that the comparison isn't just between systems of productions but between systems of filtering as well. You can see how critical filtering tools are to the traditional landscape if you imagine taking a good-sized bookstore, picking it up, and shaking its contents out onto a football field." (p. 96)

This is probably my favorite metaphor for the web. There is so much information that the traditional tools for sorting we've used for hundreds of years are no longer effective. What's the use of a browse page if there are more than 50 results? What if there are 5,000? I guarantee most users won't bother much past the A's. As web developers, we need to come up with more precise filters, not more creative ways to sort listing pages.

2. Governance is still necessary online

"In the mid-1960s, the Dutch anarchist group Provo launched its White Bicycle program in Amsterdam. ... The program would have been just another footnote in the Age of Aquarius, but for one detail: it was an almost instant failure. ... Despite the Provos' optimism, human nature has turned out to be fairly context sensitive; given the opportunity to misbehave, and little penalty for doing so, enough people's behavior becomes antisocial enough to wreck things for everyone." (p. 256)

Shirkey goes on to relate this to online groups and the necessity of some form of governance for groups to be successful. I have also found this to be true when it comes to opening up websites for user generated content. Even if it is something as simple as tags, and 99% of users are submitting useful entries, there still needs some way for administrators to delete the ones that are inappropriate or incorrect for the sake of the group as a whole. Otherwise, it only takes a handful of people to ruin your beautiful crowd-sourced data.

3. Simple is always better

"In the 1990s [Evan Williams]' company, Pyra, was working on a complex project management tool that they could sell to businesses, but while doing so, they needed a project-management tool for themselves. Instead of simply adopting their own tool, they wrote just about the simplest application one could imagine. ... The tool, simple as it was, turned out to be far more compelling than the software they were supposed to be creating ... They named their product Blogger and launched it to the world." (p. 282)

This is a great origin story and, as you may know, Blogger went on to be bought by Google. Today, it is one of the most popular blogging platforms. The developers at Pyra created a tool they were actually going to use themselves, and thus, in a way, became their own client. This combination allowed them to step beyond 'scope requirements' and institutional barriers and let them just make something that worked. How many websites would be improved if the developers behind them had to use their own creation?

As you can tell, I loved this book and recommend it to anyone who is even slightly interested in the web. Shirky claims he doesn't know what will happen after the dust from the web revolution settles, but he certainly has a better grasp on what's currently happening than most of us.

Buy the book
Clay Shirky's blog
Bonus TED talk!

Books for Budding Web Developers

2009-12-30T17:55:12Z

As part of our team, we have two people who have never designed a web site: Demond Drummer (Organizer) and Tahirih (TEA) Klass Metzger (Office Manager). However, since they are working in such a web-oriented company, they have both decided to learn the basics of web development, and have asked me for advice. Below, I've compiled a list of books I recommend for anybody wishing to dabble in web design and development. Listed in recommended reading order:

Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML

The Head First series take beginners seriously. They optimize their books for learning, rather than reference material. The books are chock-full of useful advice, exercises, and illustrations. Their HTML book is a great example of their style -- easy to take in, yet thorough enough that even experienced web developers can benefit from it as a refresher.

Don't Make Me Think

Knowing the technical details of making websites is not enough. A good web developer should also know how to make usable web sites. Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think is an instant classic in that field. Styling himself as a promoter of "advanced common sense", he explains with illustrations and examples many of the factors that go into making websites truly usable.

The Non-Designer's Design Book

And it's sibling, The Non-Designer's Web Book form a very good basis for understanding the visual design aspects of web sites. From basic layout to typography, these books will help beginner web designers form a language for communicating with other designers. They will also introduce basic design rules that everyone should master before moving on. It's alright to break these rules, but only if you want your websites to look amateur (or you are good enough to pull it off).

Agile Web Development with Rails

3rd Edition, or whichever edition is the latest (4th edition is due in June of 2010).

There are debates of religious pitch about what programming platforms are better or worse for web development. The top contenders include PHP, Python/Django, and a myriad others. I will skip over the religious wars and declare that Ruby on Rails is my favorite, especially for beginner programmers. It has a bit of a learning curve, but the book eases it significantly. There are also the wonderful Rails Guides, a powerful set of tutorials to bootstrap anybody into Rails development; the IRC channel; and Rails Bridge, a friendly community whose goal is "to create an inclusive and friendly Ruby on Rails community."

Good Luck

I've done what I can to pass the torch to the next generation of web developers. Hopefully, Demond and TEA will blog about their experiences and progress through becoming proficient web developers. I would sure love to read about their success!

If you have any questions about this article, or any of my recommendations, leave a comment below, or catch me on twitter.

The future of print magazines? Only a part of it.

2009-12-17T20:28:25Z

While enjoying my morning homemade espresso, I stumbled upon a video of a prototype digital magazine reader called Mag+ and dubbed by some as the future (and the savior) of print magazines.

While I believe that magazines may well be delivered on a digital device in the not-too-distant future, I certainly doubt that just a change of delivery medium will save the news / magazine publishing industry. But this post is not actually about that.

The video of the prototype is noteworthy for a different reason. While working on the prototype, London-based design consulting firm BERG conducted contextual research about the magazine reading experience—how people actually read print magazines, what physical properties of the medium they enjoy, and so on.

What BERG discovered, once again, is that literal translations of user interfaces from one medium to another are often a bad idea. For example—the page turning metaphor. Works in print, does not work on a digital device. Yet most software magazine readers that I have seen have a version of it, animations and all, to preserve the "authenticity" of the experience. It never felt authentic to me, just cumbersome.

BERG's design research confirmed that vertical scrolling of a one-column layout is a much, much better UI approach for digital reading (like the layout used by most blogs and mobile platforms, which they also observed).

So if a cool yet usable digital reader is needed to save any industry, I congratulate BERG on taking the right approach to designing Mag+. The video of the prototype has other useful insights for digital-touch user experiences based on the all-powerful design research process.

A DROID Convert

2009-12-07T03:42:46Z

I was a Blackberry user until recently switching to a DROID. I liked the small form factor of my Blackberry Pearl but didn't like its small display or lack of applications (although that has improved recently).

My migration toward a DROID, which is a Motorola device running Google's Android operating system, probably started a few years ago when Webitects moved its email hosting to Google. For many years we maintained our own mail server to host Webitects.com mailboxes and over a thousand more for our clients. Due to spam and email-borne viruses (and the support responsibility that comes with them) we decided to offload our e-mail hosting service. After researching options (and over a year of testing and experimentation) we switched to email hosted by Google -- similar to GMail but customized to your domain (e.g. yourname@yourdomain.com) with the ability to manage your domain's accounts and features. Oh, and it's free! A premium version is available for a per mailbox annual fee, but only a few of our clients have found it necessary.

After the switch to Google mailboxes I configured my Blackberry to download messages via POP3 and fell into the habit of monitoring messages on my mobile device but rarely responding (which I mostly did from my laptop or office workstation). I never took the time to configure IMAP or use the Blackberry synch software. A few months ago I discovered Google's synch application for Blackberry and installed it on my Pearl. It was nice to have my mobile copy of my mailbox and contacts synched with the online version. However, the app turned my phone into a dog (simply waking it up became a ten second process) and I found entries disappearing from the SMS message queue and my call log. After a couple of weeks I uninstalled the app out of frustration.

Late this summer I stopped using Microsoft Outlook as my desktop e-mail client and began using Google's webmail interface exclusively. It took a bit to get used to labels instead of folders and to get comfortable with messages grouped by conversation...but it was nice to shed Outlook for a much lighter weight equivalent.

Earlier this fall I reached the end of a two year Verizon contract, which provided an opportunity to consider a new mobile device. The Blackberry Storm 2, a new arrival with a larger touch screen, seemed an attractive option. But, online reviews weren't favorable and some hands-on experimentation at the Verizon store were disappointing. It finally occurred to me (the DROID commercials surrounding the device's recent launch were a helpful hint) that if I wanted seamless integration between a Google mailbox and a mobile device that I should get a device running Google's mobile OS (Android).

After several weeks as a DROID user I am happy to report a very pleasant experience. The large touch screen enables me to do more from a mobile device than the smaller Blackberry Pearl made possible. Email, which is what I use the device for most, is a breeze and very similar to the webmail or desktop experience. Web browsing is also nice...again, the large display is a big plus. The music player sounds great but suffers from a poor user interface and I wish I could play Audible.com audio files. The app selection is good (plenty of social media apps for Facebook and Twitter users) and, of course, the Google Maps integration (including turn-by-turn navigation) is awesome.

Donation Motivation

2009-10-14T02:44:05Z

Recently, we had the opportunity to study what motivates people to donate online the lesson we learned from the experience was invaluable.

The idea

A new fundraising campaign had been planned and the idea was to make a big splash on the main site by including a large Flash-based promo on their home page that took up 60% of their visitors' average screen resolution.

Diagram of promo placements on home page (left) and sidebar (right)

We suggested exploring alternative methods of promoting the campaign but a separate company had already been hired to create the promo and a micro site coming to us. When faced with this challenge we turned it into a learning experience.

Working with the other company, we helped them make the clicks trackable on the promo down to each button within the Flash element so we could see what motivated people to click. About a month into the campaign, they agreed with one of our recommendations and let us put smaller text-based promos with a small logo of the campaign in the sidebars throughout their site so visitors could access the micro site from anywhere in a less-intrusive way. They also customized the language based on where they appeared so the promos appealed to the the different types of audiences that read different areas of their site.

The results

Comparison of home page clicks and side bar clicks (note: the sidebar promo was added on Oct 2)

The home page promo ran for just over 2 months but didn't get much attention. Out of 100,000+ views, it received 127 clicks in 66 days versus the sidebar promo's 479 clicks in 44 days. The large difference was expected because the sidebar promo appeared on every page while the home page promo only appeared on one and most people have banner blindness when it comes to big ads. We don't have access to the numbers for how much was raised as a result of those clicks, but looking at what motivated people to click the home page promo was the eye-opener.

Chart of clicks on home page promo

There were five buttons on the home page promo—each pointing to different areas of the micro site for watching a video about the campaign, reading about the benefactors, the campaign's progress, how it helped, and the donation form. The distribution of clicks shows that most people wanted to read about how their donations were going to be used before donating.

These results make a lot of sense. The large home page promo was the equivalent of shouting at people the minute they arrived at the site and asking for money before they had a chance to find out why they should give. The first chance they got to find out more, they took it. The most successful of the sidebar promos also briefly promoted how donations were going to be used.

The sidebar promos and micro site were kept running after the home page promo was removed. We're pleased to report that the sidebar promos continue to drive a steady amount of traffic to the micro site.

There's a New Mobile Site in Town

2009-09-21T15:44:55Z

Last month, we launched our first dedicated mobile site for the Council of Real Estate Brokerage Managers (CRB). The request started with a client's Board member asking for an "iPhone app," and eventually evolved into an open ended "mobile something" request to us. Having never done much with mobile sites before (other than making our XHTML/CSS mobile-friendly), we quickly jumped on the new challenge.

What would be our approach? Do we create a phone specific application, and if so, for what platform? The iPhone and Blackberry have the top market shares, but would one be easier to develop on than the other? We'd heard that Research in Motion, the creators of the Blackberry, had some .NET development tools already, but what about the iPhone? (Note: Mono appears to be running on the iPhone now.) Even further, what about Android phones and even the Palm Pre? We realized that creating an application on just one platform was too limiting, and creating the same thing on several was not within our budget or time frame. The solution had to be a mobile site.

Now that the platform had been decided, the next step was to decide what content to include on the mobile site. A quick look at Google Analytics indicated the most frequented sections were the course calendar and member directory. These areas far and away generated the most traffic and were also updated the most often, so we started with those. When designing mobile sites, there isn't much room for displaying a lot of different content. The goal is to allow visitors to quickly find the information they want without any other distractions.

Course calendar

The calendar displays courses for maintaining certification as a CRB and is updated frequently. A simplified agenda-style interface was designed, displaying upcoming events in a way that allowed clicking/tapping anywhere on each event to take the visitor to the landing page with all the pertinent details—as is expected on modern mobile sites.

Member directory

The member directory on the main CRB site consisted of six criteria including name, company, city, state, and chapter affiliation. After some research with Google analytics, we found that 85% of users were searching just on the name or state fields. This made pairing down the complexity of the mobile search a cinch: name and location (a combination of the state and country fields). Similar to the calendar, the results page consisted of large, easy-to-tap links leading to a simplified landing page.

Compatibility

After we decided on an approach and content, building the site was the next challenge. Ideally, we would have made a separate site for each type of mobile phone—feature phones (tiny screens and numeric keypads), smartphones (mid-size screens and QWERTY keypads), and touch-phones (iPhone, Android)—as outlined in Nielsen's latest mobile report, Usability of Mobile Websites, however the budget and time frame encouraged us to think creatively.

The end result was a hybrid site compatible with all three types of phones. We had to make some sacrifices in semantic markup but the big challenge was finding out which styles worked in which devices. Touch-phones are fairly straightforward because they have the equivalent of a regular browser in them. The most common feature phones and smartphones have low support for styles so we developed a few clever workarounds. We're looking forward to the day when touch-phones are the majority.

Since its launch, the site has been getting a healthy dose of mobile traffic, most of it from iPhones. We're using Google Analytics to track usage for phones that have JavaScript enabled and experimenting with Percent Mobile to track all other types of phones. As more and more smart phones come to market, and more and more users adopt them, one day the mobile site traffic may rival the traffic of its parent site!

Like the mobile site we created or have some feedback?

Kindled by a Kindle

2009-09-03T15:18:34Z

Since a young age I've been enamored with shiny new gadgets. As a kid these included Apple II computers (I often forfeited recess for screen time), the Atari 2600 (Space Invaders anyone?), and a Commodore 64 (which, by the way, had more rattle and hum than Bono).

As an adult I'm too practical to salivate over the latest cool thing (most of the time). Nonetheless, given the kind of work we do here at Webitects, I think there are certain gadgets that heighten our awareness of interactive media and digital technologies. My iPod (combined with iTunes and Audible.com) has changed the way that I listen to music and audio books. Netflix has changed the way I choose and watch movies. My Nintendo Wii has changed my definition of a video game (sorry Atari). And, quite possibly, I think the Kindle might change my reading habits.

I'm only a couple of days into my Kindle experience but so far I like it. I'm impressed by the device's simplicity (a sign of good design). And, the ability to subscribe to newspapers, magazines, and blogs is not only convenient but green (no more papers or magazines to recycle). The Kindle's web browser is a bit clumsy, but I like being able to read online content while sitting on the train without breaking out my laptop - reading large chunks of text on a computer screen has never been entirely comfortable. It's interesting how just being able to hold this device like a book makes it more familiar and comfortable.

When I first subscribed to Audible I was motivated to listen to books which spiked my consumption of information. Now I listen less often...but still, there's nothing like a good audio book to make a long drive seem shorter. And now, I'm feeling motivated to read more - Amazon has kindled my interest in reading, at least until the novelty wears off or I find an excuse to get another new toy!

Webitects is presenting at Agile2009

2009-08-24T05:00:00Z

If you have done any Agile software development, you already know that the biggest Agile conference will be in Chicago this year. Well, we got ourselves a presentation spot at Agile2009, talking about approaches to user experience design that work well with the Agile SDLC.

We will be presenting our experiences from the Obama campaign, during which we studied the software used to run field operations and collected ideas for improving it based on input from the people who used the applications daily.

The emphasis of the presentation is how to learn a lot of what you need in little time--we spent 9 days in the field and produced an 18-foot chart of ideas for improvement (that’s two feet per day). You can read more of how we did it in our Experience Report, or hear about it at Agile2009.

If you are attending the conference, stop by our presentation, or find us before and after. We’d love to chat about Agile and UX working together.

Opportunities and potential

2009-08-21T05:00:00Z

Today is my oldest son's first day of second grade -- a milestone (one noticed more by parents than children). With the new school year comes a new teacher, new classmates, and new things to learn. So much opportunity and potential!

Today also marks the launch of a new website for Webitects. It has been fourteen years since we began building websites. Just like a new school year, each of those fourteen years has brought with it new opportunities and potential. New client relationships, new technologies, new methods and processes, and new ways to think about the web as a medium.

With the launch of this new website we are unleashing just a little more of the potential that makes Webitects what it is. Learn about our team, what makes us tick, and some of the great work we are doing.

Transparency and consistency: A magic formula for the web

2009-08-20T05:00:00Z

Overview

As Webitects gets more and more projects that call for a Web 2.0 approach, I find that my skills as a web developer transfer surprisingly well to developing online communities. Concepts which seem endemic to community development are ones I learned while learning to be a good coder. In this three part series, I will explore how the concepts of transparency and consistency apply to writing good code, designing usable websites, and building strong communities.

The importance of good code

Non-technical people often underestimate the importance of writing good code. What else is there, other than making code that works? As long as a widget appears in the right place, and does what it's supposed to, that's good enough. Unfortunately, the truth is much more complex. The widget will need to change. For example, a customer needs to add YouTube videos to their image gallery. Suddenly, the image gallery needs to be transformed into a generic media library.

Code as communication

When features get added, it can be a real time-sink to figure out where to make changes, and what code to keep as is. Imagine trying to edit a book without a table of contents, chapters, index, or page numbers. That's what working with poorly written code feels like.

Good code, on the other hand, communicates its intent very clearly. It is easy for the next programmer (usually your future self) to figure out exactly what the code does, and how to work with it effectively. Code that abides by good coding standards tends to be very easy to read. It is transparent in its intent, and consistent in its implementation.

Let me finish with a quote from Ward Cunningham, as delivered by Robert Martin at RailsConf2009:

Robert Martin: "What is clean code?"
Ward Cunningam: Clean code is when you look at a routine, and it's pretty much what you expected.

"Pretty much what you expected." That's the responsibility of a good programmer toward his code. He makes sure that a competent future programmer can understand the code fully and consistently.

Learning from the Community

2009-08-18T05:00:00Z

A few weeks ago, I attended a community meeting in Chicago's 4th ward. The meeting, held by the Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee, was intended to provide an outlet for citizens of several nearby wards to express their concerns about Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid. I was there in support of the Gropius in Chicago Coalition, an architectural preservation group that hopes to save several historic buildings currently slated to be torn down for the Olympic Village. This was my first community meeting concerning the Olympics and I expected a fairly low key event. However, by the end of the meeting, I realized how little I knew about community meetings and wondered what I, as an information architect, could do to help the people in the community get what they wanted.

My first clue that things weren't going to go the way I expected was that, even thought I arrived for the meeting a half hour early, most of the chairs in the meeting room were already filled. By the time the meeting started, it was standing room only. There was a sense of anticipation as the Olympic Committee members took the stage, and, as the meeting started, the crowd settled in to listen patiently to the Committee's pro-Olympics sale pitch.

The Committee spent 45 minutes explaining how great the Olympics would be for the citizens of Chicago (especially the residents of the communities where the Olympics were scheduled to take place), and then opened the floor for concerns from the audience. From the very start, people were skeptical of the Committee's assurances that the neighborhoods where the Olympics would take place would see long term benefits from the Olympics. People had come to the meeting from communities that had heard flowery promises of revitalization before. They had been disappointed by city leaders in the past and they wanted to know why they should believe yet another group of strangers coming into their neighborhoods with plans for change.

I listened from the back of the room as one citizen after another pleaded with the Committee members for some guarantee of accountability from the city and from the Olympic Committee. People were calm and respectful as they voiced their concerns, but it was clear that they were beginning to feel powerless as the real possibility of the Olympic juggernaut rolling into their neighborhoods took form. At the same time, I sensed that people didn't feel hopeless. They knew that a strong community, like the one that had showed up for the meeting that night, could pull together to make their voices heard. What they needed was a way to organize in between community meetings. If they couldn't do it in person, they could do it in other ways.

I didn't need to suggest the Web as a tool for organizing. The topic of a website for holding the Olympic Committee accountable was brought up early in the question and answer session. And then an idea for a website for tracking Olympic money was suggested. Others pointed out websites that their own organizations had set up. The crowd wasn't particularly technical. They were average citizens who happened to be concerned about the Olympics. But they understood that the Web was a powerful tool for organizing and making their voices heard. For me, this was the most exciting part of the meeting.

As a web developer and information architect, I'm often immersed in the technical world. My view of the Web is heavily influenced by emerging web standards, the latest programming language changes, and hot new web development tools. But, from time to time, it's informative, as well as inspiring, to see what's happening outside the high tech sphere. The South Side of Chicago might not be Silicon Valley, but regular people are still using the web in creative and interesting ways. Taking a look at what happens outside the rapidly changing technical world can be an educational experience for anyone wanting to know how the Web can be used in unique ways.

Who uses fly-up menus?

2009-08-09T05:00:00Z

The Weather Channel apparently does. I've only seen "fly-up" menus used on one other site that would have easily qualified for Worst Website Ever years ago and was amazed when I discovered they're now being used for the navigation on The Weather Channel's site.

I'll bet the conversation went something like this:

"No one's seeing the drop-down menus? What can we do to fix that?"
"Pop-ups?"
"No, those are annoying."
"Bigger drop-downs?"
"Hmm. Maybe."
"How about fly-up menus?"
"Perfect! Now everyone will have to use them!"

Now I know The Weather Channel's site far from the greatest site in the world. After all, they put the weather map—the most useful thing on the site—at the bottom of the local weather page; but that's a topic for another day. However, these fly-up menus really take the cake. Not only do they suffer from the usual problems with any kind of drop-down or flyout menuing, but they obscure the search box as well.

This means that you can wind up reading about alerts, severe weather, flight status, honeymoon spots, auto advice, aches and pains, or air quality depending on which menu you accidentally open when trying to do a search.

If you move your cursor too high to escape the menuing, you'll often open the drop-down right above the search box to change languages—thus requiring you to carefully maneuver your cursor to the search from only the left or the right.

Fewer clicks ≠ easier to use.

When will we get over this obsession with drop-down/fly-out/fly-up menus? It's far more important to make crucial features easy to use and focus on what visitors need rather than making sure everything is just three clicks away. What's next? Putting the search in a menu too? It's still far too easy to use despite their best efforts. Surely they can "improve" the navigation some more.