dilemma on vertical menus

vertical or horizontal, menus have become the de facto for navigation. should they be expanded or laid out, what options should be hidden and made available on the clicks are all decisions to be made.



Dynamic Drive CSS Library provides a good listing of vertical menu options. i like their spacing on the menus, which is just right to enclose the clear text.

some things to note and provide are
- indicate which menu option has been selected. google indicates this in a nice way..


- when there aren't many options and there is space, it is better to layout all the options. expand/collapse menu's are cool.. but not needed..

early error handling

when using online web applications, if an user makes a mistake, it is better to catch it early.

here is an example. i am uploading the file at mediafire. and in the front page it is clearly mentioned that, it can only take a maximum size of 100MB. I missed that line, I was too happy to find a site where I can upload my file. so i went ahead and added my file to upload. and the site started uploading it..

After an hour, when it finally uploaded the complete file, it failed and gave me this message.


Why make me wait for an hour if you already knew that the size of the file being uploaded is more than 100MB.



Of course, we learn from our mistakes and next time when i upload i have to look for the limitations of the site..

browser progress bars.. when they become useless?

progress bars are a great way to .. well.. indicate progress!! especially when i click on a button and have to wait for more than a say five seconds. but they can be frustrating when we can't tell if there is any progress.

one of the side effects of Ajax is that, it has made the progress bars associated with browsers "useless".

here is an example.. i am uploading a large file at filecrunch. as soon as i click on the upload, i am given a screen with "upload progress". i wait and wait and wait.. but the progress bar never progressed..



i look down to the browsers progress bar and it seems stuck. this page is sending a lot of requests in the background, so the browsers status message always displays "sending..." and progress bar is always "incomplete.."

looking at this screen, i don't know if my request is being processed.

ok.. now after that i found another file upload site mediafire, which actually indicates progress. along with a lot of details.. like how much time is remaining, how much of the file has been uploaded and what are the tasks involved in uploading a file. and the status changes.. every 3 to 5 seconds..



again.. note that the browser progress indicators are useless to indicate the progress of users actual task.

popups .. are they here to stay?

i have a mixed relationship with popups. they are annoying when they are trying to display an unwanted advertisement, and i don't want to go and manage windows that open all over the place.

however, popups are now taking new shapes. they are no longer new windows that i have to manage but just another layer in my current window.

like hover.in, that provides contextual information on highlighted text.



or take for instance snap shots, that displays a preview of the links on the page.



however, it would be interesting to watch how these pop ups will adapt in the hand held displays? does iPhone have popups?

user input error messages in the forms..

netflix's way of displaying error message is elegant. indicating at an high level that there was some error and also pointing out which fields have error.



however, this form did not indicate any mandatory fields. i clicked on continue without entering data... it complained about email, so i entered email and clicked again.. and now it comes back with error on the next two fields.



if i had to enter all the fields before continuing, it would be nice to give all the errors at the same time instead of one set at a time.

multi-page registeration forms...

during registration, if there is an absolute need to gather data from multiple pages, try and indicate how many steps are involved in the process.


Comparing this with the alternative..for example, at netflix, the first form has a "continue" button and doesn't tell me how many steps are invovled.. when i fill in the details and click on "continue", i am provided with a screen to select plan and then i click on "continue" again, and the i am provided with another form.. with "continue" button.

confirmation messages

When displaying confirmation or questions to the user, can a double negative message be used?

For example in an installation wizard, is it better to say:

-- Would you like to continue with installation? (yes/no)
-- Would you like to skip the installation? (yes/no)

However note that the above statements do not have a negative statement in them. Can we remove the politeness around the statements and say..

-- Continue with installation? (yes/no)
-- Skip the installation? (yes/no)

blogger menus

Here I am assuming that many people have more than one blog sites with the same provider. However I may be wrong, since I don't have that data.

In any case.. I noticed that Blogger site makes the assumption that an average blogger will have just one blog, and that he would be interested mostly in creating a new post or customize it..


Since I don't fit into this group.. i now have to maintain a new bookmark to the google dashboard.. and to edit posts.. which i frequently happen to do.


Wordpress on the other hand does provide me links which I find very handy.



It would be nice to have a feature for the headers, where I can customize what links I want to see when I am logged in.

Problems with Generic Status Messages

Someone at the MySql Meetup at MIT last week said.. after executing a so and so statement, I get a message saying "You have successfully updated 0 records." The whole room burst into laughter.

This is probably nitpicking.. but.. that person made a point..

And today, i was shown the following status.. when I registered at LiveJournal..

Login screens from home page

Gather falls into the category of social media sites. Like other shared media sites, the home page layout with the top section providing a way to login or sign up to the site.



Or take a look at the popular Wikipedia, which also has a link for login page instead of direct login.


Or..take the example of Blogger itself.

Why not provide the username/password text boxes in this header section like quarterlife?


Why go that extra link?

Registeration forms

if the account is not activated after entering the details, why ask for the password now?

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Fields on Login Panels

quarterlife login panel introduces the new language to the labels of login panel. with im/sms as the new communication media, we are moving towards acronym language. Is it time to use "pw" for password?




Deezer's registeration forms asks for a pseudo instead of a user name.