design - Difference between Notice and Info messages?

I designed a program that is used to send data through the socket. In each program action, I display a message about process state.

I'm confused by when to display a Notice message or Info message. Some of the programs that I have encountered use both terms.

What is the difference between Notice and Info messages? And when this increased to a Warning?

Answer

I don't know if other people think about these covnentions in the same way I do but the way I see them is.

Notice: Simply a statement that is non-actionable, use these to alert the user of something smaller and passive that you want the use to notice, such as an event that has happened like successful submit.

Info: Actionable statement that you need the user to see and act on, but with no negative connotation (see Warning/Error), use this for things like "There is a new update to this Software"

Warning: Negative connotation, given before anything goes wrong but warns user of imminent problems if they proceed down a certain path. Such as "email left blank, you cannot submit without valid email".

Error: Negative connotation, given after something has already gone wrong, try to include what went wrong and how to fix said issue.

don't get me wrong these are subtle differences and could likely be used interchangeably but that is how I see them.

print design - Illustrator: preparing to deliver a logo

I'm working on a logo that the client is going to print with transparent background for putting as a watermark on photos and other materials and i'm making another format for a stamp of 40x40mm.

I'm creating the logo in Illustrator and I have few questions:

1) Should i convert the text in shape using the option Create Outlines before preparing the file for printing? I would prefer to avoid giving the font to the client, so i guess this is the option to go for?

2) After i've finished the illustration should i use the option Expand the Appearance and Flatten Artwork to flat down all the design elements? Is it better for print purposes?

3) I used clipping masks to create the logo. Do i need to do anything before preparing the file for print?

I would appreciate your help, please keep your answer as simple as possible i'm not an expert about printing :)

Answer

Be aware: It's a good idea to retain a "master file" containing live type and un-expanded art for you in case it's needed in the future. Don't provide the "master" to the client. But you keep it in your files for your use.

---

Yes. Whenever possible and feasible convert type to outlines for client delivered files. I post "possible and feasible" because it's not logical to convert a 20 page InDesign file to outlines, However, for logo work you should really always convert to outlines for your final production files. The client shouldn't ever need any fonts to use their logotype. (This also, takes care of the legal issues regarding sending someone font files).

This somewhat depends upon the art. In most cases I do everything I can to expand, flatten, and merge all artwork for a logo. There are a couple of reasons I do this. #1) It makes editing more difficult. The more difficult the file is to edit, the more it will discourage the client altering it. Since a logo shouldn't ever be altered beyond set brand guidelines, ease of editing shouldn't be a concern from the client. I provide all brand requirements necessary. And B) in some cases expanding/flattening can help with things like screen redraw if you have very complex appearance items. It can also make output a bit more direct (speedy). Flat artwork generally takes less postscript to output. Not like you'd really notice and this is really kind of minor, but it certainly won't do any harm to expand things.

Completing #2 will generally remove clipping masks if possible. If it doesn't, then they shouldn't be a problem in terms of production. I, personally, like to remove as much complexity from logo files as I can. So if that means I need to manually go in and remove a clipping mask and redraw a shape or something, I will. This is really more a matter of preference. There's no absolute technical reason you need to remove clipping masks in Illustrator -- there's more a concern about what is being clipped. Hopefully it's not a raster image for a logo, that would just be bad in many ways. *Clearly, the image you posted doesn't have rasters, so no worries there.

The big thing you can do to make a client happy with logo file delivery is to ensure you provide proper file formats. There are a few questions here with suggestions on that:

fiction - How do I balance work with my love of writing?

I'm a programmer and an aspiring writer. I love writing. Over the past year, I had been working on my first novel. Making the plot, dimensioning the characters, integrating conflicts etc. And when I started writing the novel, Snap! came a financial crisis; now I can't pay my college fees.

Fortunately, a door of hope opened and I was invited to join a team of programmers who are working on a project and will pay me for my contribution. It will be enough.

Now the real problem is, if I join them, I can be rest assured that my writing career will end prematurely. I don't want that to happen at any cost. But if I go forward with my writing, I won't be able to pay my fees. And this is India. Here, you need to have a degree to find yourself a good publisher.

Could someone suggest a way how I can resolve my dilemma?

Answer

Your writing career will only end if you stop writing. Period. So don't stop writing.

You may not have as much time as you want, or as much as you think you need. But don't stop. Write at night, write on the weekend, write over lunch.

If you want it badly enough, don't look for excuses to stop writing. Look for excuses to continue writing.

characters - Number of People on a Team

I want to build a team.

This team consists of people with diverse powers. Each of them has a different power, and some number of them are spies (one or more, I haven't decided), so they have a different actual power than they say they do. There are also several powers which none of the team members have.

I'm thinking about six characters on the team. There's only one POV (this person is also on the team), but five supporting characters with different powers, as well as one person without any powers. The relationships between the POV person and the rest of the people differ. The physical and behavioral characteristics of the team members differ.

Is this too many people? Will it get confusing? If it's too many people, how do I cut it down without losing some of my favorite characteristics?

color - How to get close to PMS 662 or PMS 296 in CMYK?

Basically I am trying to achieve Navy color or PMS 662 or PMS 296 with CMYK and having trouble. This will be used on Dye Sublimation print.

Is there any recommendation on how I should do with CMYK.

Thank you in advance.

Answer

There's a few factors you need to deal with here:

• Not all Pantone colors are reproducable via CMYK. (in fact, that's one of the reasons people use Pantone colors...to print in colors they normally can't with CMYK)


• The Dye Sublimation may print CMYK colors differently than what you might see on a offset press.

The solution is likely going to be you creating a bunch of swatches of various blues (like you have above) and sending that to the printer and have them create a proof for you. Then use your eyes to find the color that you think will work best.

What's a good replacement font for ITC Avant Garde Std?

I have a PSD comp for a website and the titles are in ITC Avant Garde Std. What's a good replacement font? It should be available for the web, either free or on TypeKit.

Answer

Century Gothic is pretty well-saturated on the Web and has letterforms that are in the same ballpark as Avant Garde. If a Mac doesn't have it on their system, you can put Futura lower down the font stack.

Not sure how scientific these surveys are, but the numbers are in line with what I've read before: Century Gothic is on probably about 87% of PCs (63% of Macs too!) and Futura is on about 96% of Macs.

creative writing - Is there any good time-line software out there?

I write mostly speculative fiction, and use Scrivener for writing and note-taking.

But I'm looking to start crafting timelines to keep track of the exact year and months events in the distant and close past occurred.

In a perfect world: I'd like for the software to be easily manageable, relatively low-maintenance or easy to deal with, automatically "sorting" (or "pinning" the event in the correct place on the line) and easily scalable.

Does anyone know of anything at all like this? If not, what do others use to create time-lines?

Answer

We are currently working on Plotist, a timeline software created for writers. It's still a beta, but anyone can sign up and try it out.

The main feature is that it connects notes and visualization, so you can check and edit your notes while building the timeline.

How can I improve my drawing tablet skills?

I've tried using my fianceé's tablet a few times, but find it difficult looking at the screen instead of my hand as I'm working.

Does anyone have any tips for becoming more comfortable so I can make better use of the tool?

Answer

Open up Photoshop/Gimp, pick a tiny brush and start drawing. Pick something complicated that has a lot of details and just start drawing. Before anything, you need to get comfortable to not looking at your hand, you need to learn to use it with at least a little precision without thinking about it.

Trying to draw something is probably the best way to practice the coordination. You can also pick something geometrical, like a house, which will teach you to draw a straight line. Actually learning to draw a straight line in any direction is very hard.

When I got my tablet, I also did this excercise, where you pick one direction, and you keep drawing one line over another, trying for them to be as close to each other as possible.

The end result will look something like this. After a while, try doing so in another direction, until you're comfortable drawing in every direction. The movement should not come from your wrist.

Principle in Hand Gesture Design

I want to design Hand Gesture. By hand gesture, I mean the form or movement made from wrist to the end of your finger, e.g. 'thumb up', 'peace sign', 'waving hand', etc. I design it to be tested on a UI like webpage, e.g. 'peace sign' for action 'going to the next page', 'waving' for 'back to the prev page', etc.

The thing is, this is academic project, so eventhough I do have some gestures in mind, I don't think I can just say "Yeah I chose this because I felt that's good" as the reason why I design that gesture. So, is there any known principle, guidance, consensus, or standard in designing hand gesture?

This is my first time asking here, if there's any mistake or I asked in wrong place, please do tell me.

Answer

Using a gesture recognition software has to be very intuitive to a human and what you gesture should be indicative of the action you want to perform. Thus you can see that most gesture recognition software out there try to emulate sign language or borrow gestures from it to perform actions.

So in your case for going to the previous screen you can gesture "going back". This link might give you some ways to show previous: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/b/back.htm

Most commonly used gestures in gesture recognition software include

• clenching/grabbing motion : for selection


• clenching and going back : to zoom out


• clenching and going forward : to zoom in


• move hand sideways : to move through screens/navigate

... just to name a few. So I'd suggest you to find the equivalent sign language representation of the action you want to perform and use it.

Font with transparent holes-fill in and outline in illustrator

I'm using a font called Nashville. I want to outline only the most outside of the paths. If I try to use the outline tool, it outlines all of the small holes in the font, too. I want to fill in the holes in the font and then outline the most outside paths.

Somehow I got this to work on on block of text, but can't remember how I did it. I used some combination of Outlines, Expand, and Flatten Transparencies.

Font-no outlines

Font-how I want it to look

Also, is there a way to round the edges of the outline so it's not so spikey?

Thanks!

research - Video lectures and presentations on quantitative finance

What are your favourite video lectures, presentations and talks available online?

A few rules:

• 
  

  Must be related to quantitative finance. No Economics 101 courses, please.

  
  



• 
  

  Try to avoid DIY lectures for wannabe Soros types (e.g. how to earn millions trading S&P 500 futures).

  
  


• Try to post specific links to freely available stuff.

input - Is it a good idea to enforce a minimum comment length?

In a social application focusing on a niche community where the level of comment quality matters, is it a good idea to enforce a minimum comment length?

For example, see this set of comments on a photograph:

You get the usual litany of responses like "Very nice," "Excellent," "Beautiful," and "Nice shot." All of these, of course, are super helpful, and could never have been expressed by simply clicking the like button.

So does it make sense to set a bar? Be the anti-Twitter, so to speak?

Of course, there are ways to judge how valuable a comment was after the fact (voting systems), but there's no first filter there.

Answer

To me, this is all about alternatives, providing the "value menu" of things most people would want to say in a tiny comment, in one click.

Provided you have made the alternatives, e.g. "click the +1/awesome/like button!" discoverable and easy, I favor a blocking message like:

We prefer that comments be longer than 15 characters so they add substantively to the discussion. Click the "like" button if you just want to say "nice shot!"

You'd need to look closely at the pattern of comments to make sure you've provided the right one-click actions for the particular emotions they want to express, though. You might look at Buzzfeed, which has a ... lot ... of actions.

That feels like way too many to me, but the only way you will know is to look at the data of what your users are actually doing.

text - What is the best practice for data table cell content alignment

We are currently working on a windows based application where users capture data. Some data is captured in a table where other data is captured in text blocks. Im currently faced with the dilemma of how to align contents specifically decimal values. Editable cells in a grid are indicated with a pencil icon which disappears once in edit mode. You will notice that the table consists of various field types, decimals and text. So what should I do and why?

A> right align all cell content

B> left align all cell content

C> right align only decimal values in cells

D> Whatever else you can suggest

Answer

Left align is basically the default for Left to Right languages just because all content will line up; this is a powerful tool for readability. Generally stick with left aligning unless there's good reason not to.

The exception, as you notice, is numbers. Here's a little blurb by Christian Heilmann:

I chatted quickly with Luke Wroblewski about it (one perk of working in the same company) and we both agreed that if there are several fields, for example in a spreadsheet application, then monetary or generally number fields should be right aligned as that allows you to add them up quickly in your head without having to worry about decimals.

Especially in accounting spreadsheets numbers (especially dollar amounts) are almost always right aligned as this lines up the "decimal point" of the numbers and makes sure each column of numbers is the same order of magnitude, making for very easy in-your-head math. You can easily add up all the millions/tens/whatever order of magnitude without having to check the length of each number to see what the magnitude of the rightmost digit is.

As an added appeal to consistency, and accountants/financially inclined people are likely used to right alignment for the numbers, and if you ask them they'll probably tell you why; it's easy to add them up. I've gotten complaints when a report for accounting has left-aligned numbers; it's just not "natural" due to the convention, and as I've explained, the convention makes good sense.

citations - Quote a sentence with references

I'm currently writing my bachelor's thesis and I'm using the IEEE citations. Now lets say I want to directly quote the following sentence:

The barn was on fire¹ so I ran away.

with something like this in the footnote:

1) Some Research Study, 2011

How would I cite this directly? The source I'm using doesn't provide any more information than the name of the Research Study.

My guess was:

"The barn was on fire (Some Research Study, 2011) so I ran away." [13]

---

Thanks in advance,

Mike

What style of illustration is this?

What style of illustration is this? It appears to be like an old style but I haven't been able to find a name for it. Despite the text on the image, it's not "vintage".

Thanks

copywriting - Using "Sign in" vs using "Log in"

Is there any research in this area, it seems "Sign in" is more common and hence more recommended.

page layout - design/ display user evaluation state's

Im looking to discuss ideas on how to represent the "evaluation of a user".

• You the evaluator


• Users to be evaluated


• Based on score border around user profile is different color

How could this be represented in 1 single image? Attached a Concept wich is not clear enough I need something thats more catchy.

Answer

What about a transparent png icon with a background color applied via CSS?

Images would all be the same size but you could alter colors based on transparent areas of the PNG.

This is a jpg representing the idea....

But the actual png would have the actual icon transparent:

img.evaluser0 { background: #fef200; }

img.evaluser1 { background: #f26422; }
img.evaluser2 { background: #ec145b; }
img.evaluser3 { background: #00a650; }

website design - When did 1024x768 become the standard desktop screen resolution?

I need to justify my choice of screen resolution for a website that has to run on old PCs. When did 1024x768 first become popular? Are there stats somewhere about how far back you'd have to go to find a desktop with resolution smaller than 1024x768? Failing that, anyone want to take a guess?

Answer

statcounter only goes back to 2009, but their graph shows that as far back as then, it was already the majority:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#resolution-ww-yearly-2008-2011

I am loathe to mention w3schools.com, but they have a good chart showing their own stats, and at the very least, it correlates pretty well to the statcounter data:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

I would not use this as a primary source generally, because it's w3schools, but as a reference as to when screen resolutions started changing, it's an okay reference, at least backed up (kind of) by another, more reputable source. It's also the only reference I could find that goes back further than 2009 for screen resolution.

risk - Get distribution for aggregate loss using Monte Carlo

I am given two data sets containing dates and losses (in some currency).

Given a distribution for the amount of losses and an (a,b,0) distribution for frequency of losses, how can I use Monte Carlo simulations to get a distribution for aggregate losses?

The papers and books I see online seem to state how to simulate aggregate losses (by simulating # of losses and losses given such #), but how do I come up with a distribution given all that data?

There's this book I found "Operational Risk with Excel and VBA". It describes the procedure and ends with the mean, standard deviation and other moment stuff. Is that sufficient to describe the distribution of aggregate losses?

Cross-posted: https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/136541/get-distribution-for-aggregate-loss-using-monte-carlo

Answer

You can do the following:

• For each $i$ in $1$ to number of Mont-Carlo runs $K$


• simulate the number of losses $N_i$



• simulate $N_i$ many loss-sizes $X_{i,1},\ldots,X_{i,N_i}$


• calculate $L_i = \sum_{j=1}^{N_i} X_{i,j}$

Doing this you get a sample of losses $L_1,\ldots,L_K$ and you can do all sorts of hisograms, density fits, VaR, ES calculations on it.

EDIT: on this sample you could try to fit a loss distribution (e.g. Gamma or translated Gamma see here) by maximum likelihood or method of moments. But you can apply the method of moments even without MC becauase if you assume that the number of losses and the loss sizes are independent then $$ E[L] = E[N]E[X] \text{ and } V[L] = E[N]V[X] +E[X]^2 V[N] $$ for these fromulas and fitting distributions see e.g. again here.

personas - How to recruit user test participants?

Where do you find participants for user tests and interviews for persona building? Is it OK to recruit them via an existing web site for example? How much do you pay them?

Answer

There are companies who specialise in recruitment for usability testing, they will be able to source the correct user groups for your needs. I would generally only use this route if you need to target specialisms, for instance medical staff or lawyers. I would provide examples, but it would depend upon your locale.

In my experience, having worked with enterprise level companies and government agencies, these types of client generally have a pool of people who they use for marketing and focus group purposes. In these instances, it is possible to work with your client to source people that match your target audience or particular personas.

Alternatively, there are plenty of remote usability testing websites available on the market today. You won’t get as strong an insight as sitting and observing users in their environment or in a test lab, but can be a cost-effective and easier route to gain some insights.

Remote usability testing companies

It is also possible to recruit via an existing website. If you are going to do this, what I have found is a really nice scheme is once a transaction is made on the site, a message is provided that asks the customer if they would be interested in helping to improve the website. If the user opts to do so, you want to try and capture information about their age, sex, location, job title and computing level. Whatever information you need to capture to meet your needs in selecting the correct people for user testing. When you contact the people you do want to use for testing, it is a nice idea to make these people user advocates, asking them to share their experience of testing to the rest of the websites community. It is good practice to offer monetary rewards to testers.

On how much do you pay them, this boils down to the type of people you are recruiting. You will need to pay medical staff and lawyers their going hourly rate, whereas if your target market is less specialised, as little as $20 per person may be sufficient. Going back to my examples of enterprise level organisations I have worked with where the client has helped source testers, the recruits were just happy to be assisting in helping to test a system that would ultimately make their lives easier in their day-to-day.

Lastly, you can run guerrilla usability testing using a tool such as Silverback¹. The way I have conducted this is usually within an Agile methodology where we will be doing lots of testing iteratively over the lifecycle of a project. In these instances we are trying to drip-feed data in to our process over time, and a little bit of testing often is what we are looking to achieve. We literally pop in to coffee shops and ask people if for the price of buying them another coffee they wouldn’t mind completing a 15–30 minute usability test on a prototype. You need to find the right type of coffee shop, generally an arty type one with WIFI (and ask the proprietors permission first).

---

¹ Silverback is a Mac application created by Clearleft, a user experience design consultancy based in Brighton, UK. It is designed to be very easy to use. It makes use of the built in iSight on a Mac to record the users facial expressions and also records the screen. Chapters and points of interest can be marked using an Apple Remote.

Is the command palette a UX tool only for power users? Or can they be used effectively by non-technical users?

Command Palette

VS Code is equally accessible from the keyboard. The most important key combination to know is Ctrl+Shift+P, which brings up the Command Palette . From here, you have access to all of the functionality of VS Code, including keyboard shortcuts for the most common operations.

The Command Palette provides access to many commands. You can execute editor commands, open files, search for symbols, and see a quick outline of a file, all using the same interactive window. Here are a few tips:

another example from fman

The quickest way to explore fman's shortcuts is via the Command Palette :

Simply press Ctrl+Shift+P (or Cmd+Shift+P for Mac) in fman to open it.

Now that the Command Palette (see above) has become a normal UI feature for power users & developers across some apps (vscode, sublimetext, some pythonide, jupyterlab ...etc), I think that in any complex program with many hidden tools/features, a command palette would be of great use.

A modern command palette serves 3 distinct purposes as far as I can see

• Discovery of commands/features based on what you want to do (i.e. duplicate a file? export a tree view ? create a timestamped zip ? ...etc.)



• Discovery of shortcuts


• Executing commands that have no obvious visual interface or is deeply nested somewhere and would require a few clicks. Or for the lazy who type faster then move the mouse and click and don't remember the shortcuts.

The way I see human memory works, is by associating which is the basic dictionary object (key, value). And our intent also is directly related to the action we want to take. Typically in any software a user has to learn to map his intent to the learned behavior of steps to execute in the software to achieve their aim. (let me know if I can explain all this better). I find that the command palette shortcuts this approach and allows a faster learning/doing experience.

I personally find it easier to remember words and actions of what I want to achieve than the steps I need to do to make it happen, so often I have to google up the exact recipe and execute it manually. However, a command palette assists with that greatly and reduces the effort required to do things. Google has also greatly influenced people to move away from structured information to queriable(?)/searchable information. I have also always thought that the command line was great for executing when you know what you want, and UI is great for discovery.

As for far in the future, we are moving from learning behaviors to just dictating what we want and let the software figure it out, this is what all this assistant stuff is for I think.

---

So my question is, is this only useful for people of certain types (i.e. developers) or is it widely applicable to the general populace?

MacOS has the help search feature, which is similar or it's action item which is quite good.

If anyone wanted to implement such a feature in a software, what would be the guidelines for them from a UX perspective?

equities - How to normalize stock data

Please advise how can i normalize stock prices.

Recently, I've been using such formulas:

1. 
   

   Log prices = Ln(Close(t))

   
   


2. 
   

   Close(t)-Mean

   
   
   


3. 
   

   (Close(t)-Mean)/(StdDev)

   
   


4. 
   

   Ln(Close(t))-Mean

   
   

Is there any other ways?

lognormal - Risk Neutral Evaluation - Exchange/Spread Options

I have two assets, $S_1$ and $S_2$, which follow geometric Brownian motion processes. This implies that both $S_1$ and $S_2$ have a lognormal distribution.

I'm trying to get the exchange option price formula through the risk neutral valuation, or, in other words $$C(t,S_1,S_2)=e^{-r(T-t)}E(\max\{S_1-S_2,0\})$$.

How do I calculate the expected value $E(\max\{S_1-S_2,0\})$??

academic papers about market making

I am looking for academic articles which model the p&L of market makers. I have read the Ho-Stoll (1984) article. Is there any recent article on this subject?

Answer

In fact you have three papers available to go further:

I prefer the last one ;{)}

adobe photoshop - Transform screenshots to look like a photograph

I want to give my screenshots a 3d, realistic photograph effect.

Something like this:

I tried using Skew but it didn't bring me desired result. Can anyone help me through?

Answer

try using the vanishing point filter. Check out this Vanishing Point Tutorial

maybe it will give you a general idea of how you need to implement it for your project.

fiction - What work better for the following piece of writing? Past or present tense?

I'm writing a short story but I'm not sure whether to write it in the past or the present tense.

This is the opening paragraph:

Sophia was awakened by the rattling sound of her washing machine. She groaned, rubbed her eyes, and glanced at her watch. It was just 2:00A.M. Barely conscious, she sat on the corner of her bed. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't washing her clothes. That'd been something she'd decided to do in the morning. Besides, she would never think of doing the laundry at this time of the night. Sophia started to feel a sudden panic. Maybe someone entered the apartment, she thought. But it was ridiculous; who would enter someone's apartment in the middle of the night to wash the person's clothes? She stood up from the bed and walked towards her door. Then, she stared at the knob for a moment, gave it a turn, and exited the door.

Sophia is waken up by the rattling sound of her washing machine. She groans, rubs her eyes, and glances at her watch. 2:00A.M. Barely conscious, she sits on the corner of her bed. It takes her a moment to realize that she isn't washing her clothes. That was something she'd decided to do in the morning. Besides, she would never think of doing the laundry at this time of the night. Sophia starts to feel a sudden panic. Maybe someone entered the apartment, she thinks. But it's ridiculous; who would enter someone's apartment in the middle of the night to wash the person's clothes? She stands up from the bed and walks towards her door. Then, she stares at the knob for a moment, gives it a turn, and exits the door.

I've been rewriting my stories in the present tense recently, but I can never decide which one to use.

What works better in this case? (And how do writers decide which one to use?)

(By the way, does it grab your attention?)

Answer

The second one is stronger but that will wear off as soon as the tension loosens its grip. Generally, past tense is easier to read, feels more natural for smooth storytelling. It's the default mode.

If that's a short story, you can keep it in present tense. If you want a novel with slower passages, better either pick past tense or work on smooth switching of tenses - the point of switch, to be smooth, needs some special attention. Writing whole novel in present tense? I'd give it a pass.

adobe illustrator - How do I remove parts of a cirlce?

Hi there. I really want to remove the parts of these circles marked by the yellow circles, but I've had a lot of difficulty doing so. Can anyone help.

iPhone & Mobile Web: Pagination vs. Load more vs. Scrolling

We're working on a iPhone app and mobile website with search results loaded from the web. Several sorting options are available, every result has a photo. There are potentially hundreds of results.

I see 4 patterns to navigate the list:

1. 
   

   Load everything, don't use any kind of pagination, just scroll down. Thoughts: Too much data has to be loaded (bad for speed and the user's data plan).

   
   


2. 
   

   Load a certain number of results, lets say 20, and use classic pagination ("next page" and "previous page" buttons). Thoughts: Con: The user has to click back instead of just scrolling up if he wants to go back to the first page. Pro: Every page has a real URL (SEO relevant). My preferred version for the mobile web solution.

   
   


3. 
   

   Load 20 elements, put a "load 20 more" button at end of the list (used in App Store by Apple). Thoughts: Quite elegant for apps - but why use it if you can load the results automatically? (see 4)

   
   


4. 
   
   

   Load 20 elements at start, load the next 20 when the user reaches the end of the list. Thoughts: My favorite pattern for the app, could even be used for mobile websites if SEO is handled properly.

   
   

Questions: Are there any other things to consider? Do you agree with my thoughts? Why doesn't everybody use pattern 4? (not even Apple)

Related questions:

Answer

Approach #4 is especially useful on the iPhone, where you can scroll all the way through a list with just a few swipes of the finger. Having to manually click through pages of results breaks up that flow. I'd do it this way — Apple isn't always perfect. ;)

As far as SEO optimization, you could still keep your separate URLs on the back-end; you'd simply request them automatically as the view is scrolled (eg, /results/1, /results/2, etc..).

Edit: this fantastic, older answer appears to cover the issue in more depth.

dialogue - Writing "hahaha" versus describing the laugh

When posting an excerpt of my book on a critiquing site, someone commented on my use of "hahaha" inside the dialogue instead of just having a laughing verb after or before it. They said it took them out of the reading. Obviously, this is subjective, so rather I will ask this:

Which alternative is the most popular and professional? Which do you see the most in writing?

The answers to this question said to use speech tags. But I thought this was bad, and within the phenomenon called filtering. In another question, a user taught me about this, and I've tried to take it to heart.

I thought the alternative was a separate line under, like this.

-That's so funny!

A thundering laugh rolled out of him.

Instead of:

-That's so funny, Mick laughed.

The latter having filtering, in the way there's a "Mick laughed" in between the dialogue and the rest of the text.

So, I thought the alternatives were "hahaha" and having this separate line under. The problem is, which someone once told me, having specification for the dialogue at a later time isn't good, because it often makes the reader have to go back. The person said this in relation to not including name tags after the dialogue, but I believe it applies to the way dialogue is uttered, as in if it is laughed or said normally.

Sampling color of partially transparent objects in Illustrator

Sometimes when using Adobe Illustrator I need to get a range of tints from a certain color, so I'll drop the opacity to, say, 75%, 50%, and 25% on a white background to get there. It's the quickest way to get what I want in that moment, but then it comes back to bite me later when I put something underneath and then I have visibly overlapping layers.

What I want to be able to do is get the value of the color that I'm seeing. In Photoshop I'd do this by putting a white layer underneath, merging the two layers, and then sampling the color. Is there some sort of trick I can pull in Illustrator to do the same thing?

If not, is there a different (and preferably simple) way to add white to a color? Changing S and B values in the color picker is the only thing I could think of in that regard and isn't always terribly simple to do...

Answer

In Illustrator, the easiest way I've found is ...

• Select the transparent object(s)


• Choose Object > Rasterize...


• Use the Eyedropper Tool to Shift-Click the color.



• Make note of the color in the Color Panel. (write it down)


• Then Edit > Undo Twice to get back to the unrasterized object(s)

You can adjust colors based on Hue Saturation and Brightness in Illustrator as well. In the Color Panel menu simply choose HSB.

The panel will have a tendency to jump back to the document color mode (CMYK or RGB) so you may have to continually reset the Panel to HSB though. This is an annoyance that hopefully the AI dev team will fix at some point.

fiction - Does "reversing" characters provide enough of a "disconnect "to defend against a libel suit?

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were fictional, of course, but Lauren Ipsum has convinced me that if they were real people, a story about a "drug-using detective and his MD sidekick" might expose a writer to a charge of libel. (A story about a detective and sidekick would not be a problem.) Suppose I reversed the order and made it a story about an medical doctor detective and ne'er do well crack-using sidekick. (This is the more expected sequence; Holmes and Dr. Watson are "unusual" to say the least.) Would that differentiate the characters sufficiently from the original?

Another theme I've toyed with is that of "Ivan and Donna," where Ivan is a mogul from East Europe and Donna is his ritzy American wife. Most people would recognize them as Donald and Ivana, of course, but since I've "mixed up" the two characters, would that make it impossible to tell where one character ends and the other begins?

Or could that even pass as "parody."

Answer

You really should be asking a lawyer rather than a group of writers.

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that for something to be "libel": (a) It must be written or printed, i.e. not simply spoken (that's "slander"). (b) It must be about a "clearly identifiable person". (c) It must be false -- truth is an absolute defense against libel. (d) If it is about a public figure, it must be given with "actual malice", i.e. you must have known that when you said was false and not just have made a mistake. If it is about a private individual, the standard is "negligence", that is, you failed to take responsible steps to verify that the information was true before printing it.

So I guess for you the question is about how close your fictional character can be to the actual person before it counts as "clearly identifiable". I doubt that there's a bright line there. Obviously if you use the person's real name, real occupation, give a physical description, and list his address, that's "clearly identifiable". If you wrote a story about, say, a corrupt senator, where his name, description, etc did not particularly match any real person, the fact that there are corrupt senators in real life would not be sufficient for one of them to say that you were libeling him. (I have this sudden image of someone arguing in court, "He said that the character in his book was an evil, cheap, lazy, corrupt, philandering, worthless drunk. Obviously he was talking about me!") If you change the character's name from "Miller" to "Diller", is that enough? Probably not. But how many letters do you have to change? What if you changed "Miller" to "Deller" or "Delmer" or "Delmar" or "Delman"? At some point I'm sure a court would say that there's no longer any real similarity.

Are you trying to push the limits so that you can say nasty things about some real person while avoiding libel charges? Like, you want to accuse some famous person of secretly being a racist or a drug dealer or whatever because you hate him and want to ruin his reputation? If that's the case, I think you're treading on thin ice. If the resemblance is clear enough that a typical reader will understand who you're talking about, then the judge and jury will get it too. If the resemblance is vague enough that it's not obvious to the judge, then it won't be obvious to most readers either.

Or is it that there is some real person that you think would make the basis for an interesting character in a story? Like, you read about some political scandal in the news that you think is interesting, and you want to write a fictionalized account? In that case, the easy answer is to just change the characters enough to make them unrecognizable. Don't change "Donald" to "Ronald". Change "Donald" to "Larry". If the real person was a tall, thin white man from Massachusetts, make your character a short, fat black woman from Oregon. Etc. Only keep the aspects of the character necessary to make the story work.

user expectation - Is it a bad practice to use similar floating action buttons with different functionalities in different pages

According to Material Design Guidelines, Google states that on any page the primary action of the page can be promoted in the floating action button.

But what if on different pages, we use similar floating action buttons for different proposes?

Both actions on both pages are adding, but the item that is added is different so the functionality is kind of different, but yet it's adding and I can't think of a different icon like "plus icon" to be placed on the fab. Keeping in mind that the pages may be blow by blow, is it a bad practice to do so?

e commerce - 2 different ways to sell products on one website

I have a customer who needs 2 different ways of selling her products on a website and i'm not sure how to approach it.

She designs and sells hand-made clothes. Right now she has a Facebook page where people approach her and she takes their details along with the design of their choice, and she sends them available fabrics for them to choose from for their garment. When all is done shes collects the payment and sends them the product.

She also have a limited selection of garments that she sells on a third-party online store, but these pieces are sold "as is" (no size correction). Most of her orders are for custom designs though (people choose one of her designs and she makes a custom garment for them in the fabric of their choice).

I want to make a website for her that will offer users both the option of making a custom order, and the option of purchasing products "as is".

I thought to make 2 links on the product page - one for purchasing "as is" via paypal (on relevant products), and another link for making a custom order (this link will open a form where the user will fill in the wanted size, shipping details and contact info, and once the form is sent he will receive a message saying that his order was made and he will be contacted with shortly to select the fabric). As you can probably guess the fabrics cannot be selected on the website because they change too frequently.

This means that I have 2 ways of ordering products - one in which the users complete their purchase through the website, and another in which the order is completed manually by the website's owner via email.

The question is - how do i make a shopping cart??? Making 2 separate shopping carts for the 2 types of purchases (custom and "as is") seems cumbersome and could lead to users not making curtain purchases because they thought it was included in the other shopping cart.

It seems my only choice is to make one shopping cart for one type of order, but even in this case i don't know what to choose.

I'll be happy for any advice on this matter and i hope iv'e made myself clear enough.

---

EDIT:

Thanks everyone, but the thing is that unlike other businesses this designer sells mostly custom items (in bulk orders - 3-4 items on an average order). She only has a small selection of products for immediate purchase (also, there's only one unit of every design to be bought "as is").

Since her custom products are selling in bulk orders, i think a shopping cart is necessary because it encourages the user to collect more items and ordering them all at once (not necessarily paying for all of them at once)).

This is why iv'e come up with this solution:

All products ("as is" and custom), will all be added to the same cart.

On the product page the user will have 2 links - one for "as is" purchase and another for "custom order".

When the user clicks the "as is" purchase link they will get a lightbox with all of the product details (including size and fabric information that are relevant only for "as is" purchases), and a "add to cart" link.

When a user clicks the custom order link, they will get a lightbox with a form where they can fill in their size, add extras, write a comment etc, and an "add to cart" link

At checkout the user will fill in shipping details, and press a "finish your order" button, and then they will receive a message saying that their custom order has been sent and they will be contacted by email to choose a fabric, and a suggestion to pay for the "as is" order in the meantime (a paypal link button will appear at the bottom of the message). If they don't pay for the "as is" order it will stay on their shopping cart and in any case the site's owner will be able to see if they haven't paid for the "as is" order and refer to that in the custom order emailing process.

It's not an ideal solution, but i want to make as comfortable as possible for both the user and the site's owner.

Your opinions on this will be much appreciated

Thanks again for all the advice.

Answer

I guess this is the taskflow

As is -> Select design -> Add to Cart -> Payment gateway

Custom -> Fill form -> Mail receipt -> Manual payment

You need shopping cart only for the As is section. What you need for custom order is an order history page. But since your requirement is for customers to keep track of both in a same section, this is my suggestion

SHOPPING CART

2 items added

• As-is order 01 (and other line items like price, description, etc)


• As-is order 02 (and other line items like price, description, etc)

PROCEED TO CHECKOUT

2 recent custom orders

• 
  

  Custom order 01 (with line items like order number) Check mail for more details

  
  


• 
  
  

  Custom order 02 (with line items like order number) Check mail for more details

  
  

VIEW ORDER HISTORY

--

Instead of Order history, you can provide some other button text to guide the user to a different payment method.

This way, your users can see the status of both As-is and Custom orders in the same section, the shopping cart. The two sections are divided by the "Proceed to Checkout" button making it clear that As-is orders should procced to payment, and custom orders are already placed.

Instead of Order history, you can provide some other button text to guide the user to a different payment method.

inkscape - Increment Dynamic Offset Size

Is there any way to change dynamic offset size other than using the handle? I'd like to be able to create uniform dynamic 5px outside of the original shape for multiple.

I'm looking for something similar to the Offset Path dialog box in illustrator.

Answer

Inkscape does not yet have a GUI option to numerically input and modify the size of the offset. For now, you can easily adjust the offset numerically using the built-in XML Editor:

1. Select the dynamic offset



2. open menu 'Edit > XML Editor…'


3. change the value of the attribute 'inkscape:radius' to the desired number of px

gui design - Is there any research on whether users understand ellipses (...)?

This GUI design pattern goes right back to the Apple Lisa in the early 80s:

Is there any research covering:

1. 
   

   Whether people actually notice the three dots (...) at the end of a menu item or button?

   
   
   


2. 
   

   Whether people understand what they are supposed to signify?

   
   

delta neutral - Trading a synthetic replication of the VIX index

One cannot directly buy and sell the VIX index. Theoretically, however, one could approximate the index by purchasing an at-the-money straddle on the SP500, then delta-hedging the straddle.

Does anyone have experience with such a "synthetic" replication of the index? It might be very useful for betting on volatility or for spreads against the VIX futures (a sort of basis trade), but I can see potential problems if the replication is too inaccurate.

(To anticipate your comments: I'm aware of the many VIX-related ETFs; but, no, I would not consider using them. I'm also aware that the VIX calculation uses other strikes beyond the ATM options; this proposed synthetic is admittedly an approximation.)

Answer

A synthetic model for the VIX would be quite useful. I just mention this since it has been covered elsewhere in the past, although I don't think that it's a real solution to your problem (for a number of reasons).

Several blogs posted on the "William's VIX Fix" (WVF) in the past: marketsci, trading the odds, mindmoneymarkets. The WVF is intended to be a synthetic VIX calculation, derived by Larry Williams (see the original article here), and is represented by the following formula:

$wvf = \frac{Highest(Close, 22) - Low}{Highest(Close, 22)} * 100$

In R, this can be represented as:

wvf <- function(x, n=22) {
  hc <- as.xts(rollmax(as.zoo(Cl(x)), k=n, align="right"))
  100*(hc-Lo(x))/hc
}

This has had a reasonable correlation to the VIX: from 1995-2010 it was +0.75:

business - Where can I find web design projects?

I am a recently graduated graphic designer. I would like to know if there are any worthwhile websites that I could present my portfolio and receive or look for job offers.

I have came across the following freelancewebsites by searching the web that seem to meet my criteria:

I've also found two articles providing reviews on these types of sites:

I am new to the online freelance market. As a result, I don't have any clue which websites are mainstream for graphic designers and illustrators (which are my specialties). It's not immediately discernible to me which sites are the ones that are not a scam and are also good place for establishing myself.

I'm mainly looking for the resources that experienced designers are familiar with. I'm looking to narrow it down to the ones that have been used by those established in the industry. As a result I decided to consult the matter here and ask for input.

Answer

If you are looking for freelance work, you can try Elance or Freelancer. Both sites allow you to upload your portfolio for a fee, but the best way to find projects in those is to browse the ones other users upload.

I've worked with both, so I'd recommend you to be particularly careful about which projects you choose, there are lots of fake ones and it's quite competitive, as there are freelancers from all over the world with very different money exchange rates. My advice: Charge what works for you, don't go lower than your usual rate just because of the other offers.

It's probably better if you choose one site (between those two, I'd pick Elancer, they are more professional, no unexpected fees like freelancer), because these pages are based on reputation + portfolio. Upload some good examples of your work, and try to get some projects, perhaps smaller, to get you started. Having some positive feedback makes a huge difference, and while it's a bit tricky to get hired without reviews, once you have a couple of them everything gets easier.

If you want projects to come to you, I'd consider something like Behance or Dribble, that are specificall y used to display a portfolio.

style - Should I prefer long or short sentences in scientific writing?

Currently, I am writing papers with rather short sentences: About half of them contain around 20 words, about 10% to 20% even less. I am doing this for three reasons:

• I find short sentences easier to read,


• prefer to show relationships using other means, such as colons and conjunctions (e.g. thus, because of, but),


• and thought the scientific community agreed upon short sentences being better.

Now I did some research and came upon contrary statements, for instance:

So: Should I use long or short sentences, or a mixture, in scientific writing? Why?

Answer

I would say that the sentences need to be the appropriate length to what you are saying, which is liable to be, on average, shorter than novel writing. One of the reasons for using long sentences is to convey a mood, to put a lot of ideas together in one, to build and build the picture you are drawing. In scientific writing there is no need for this, so this sort of long-winded sentence should be avoided.

However, it is also important to make your sentences make sense. If you need to put a lot of information together. Then put it in one sentence. Don't chop them just for style.

lists - Panel arrangement and responsive design

In a user interface it is often appropriate to use to panels arranged in a grid to display content, either as a way of showing content instances to a user or as a way of arranging content instances for administration interaction.

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

When we are designing interfaces in a screen size responsive way is it better to adjust the size of the panels depending on screensize or adjust the number of panels in each row? I am thinking more about the difference between 1280 and 1960 as screen widths rather than specifically responsive screen size and mobile devices.

Is the loss of pattern recognition such as 'third panel on the second row' sufficiently compensated for by keeping the panels a similar size regardless of the screen size?

copyright - copy right issue with using exact Text from a text book

Here is a question related to a website providing mathematics solutions for students. Here are details:

1. 
   

   Students will enter the page number and problem number on the website, and the site will show the text of the Mathematics problem described in that text book;

   
   


2. 
   

   then the web page will show the solution to that math problem.

   
   

My question is, is my web site violating the copyrights of the text book publishers for showing the text without their permission.

This is not just a one page/one time issue. The site may show hundreds of pages from the book.

creative writing - How to use short stories to explore a new setting and potential characters for a novel?

I'm an aspiring fantasy and sci-fi writer and I my goal is to write a novel that is to be the first in a series within the same setting. I'm getting to a point where I can feel "the world coming together" and images are floating around in my mind. I know what I want my book(s) to be about (as in overarching motives) but don't have characters yet. Would you suggest writing short stories first to get a feel for the setting and explore a couple ideas for characters? I'm asking because I myself have never been interested in reading short stories and I keep telling myself that if J. K. Rowling jumped into her first novel successfully without prior training, I can do it, too. For now I'm limited in the time I can devote to writing so a short story becomes more attractive than plunging into a novel headfirst because finishing it seems that much more achievable.

Answer

I'm tempted to tell you that writing some short stories is the "right" way to proceed, but the reality is there is not "right" or "wrong" on this issue. You need to find what works for you.

The most common path to getting the first full-length novel completed involves plowing right into it with little idea of what you are doing, who your characters are or why you are willing to waste vast spans of time filling pages with drivel. Then after a week or a month, with rage and self-hatred in abundance, to throw those first pages into a box and ignore them for a time. Then, when the itch eventually returns,open the box and get back to work.

At that point you have two options. Throw out what you've already done and now hate, or try to fix it. In either case, in a month or so, you will have a slightly larger pile of paper which you like a little bit more than the original, but you will have wandered down into a plot hole and gotten stuck about with what to do next. Back into the box goes all your hard work.

When the itch returns as it always does, you will decide that it is time to seek advice on how to survive this insanity. Writing books, magazines, groups and forums will become your new obsession. You will learn about plot design and character creation and how to attack writer's block. You will start to tool up for the long road ahead.

• Maybe you will outline your story down to the smallest detail.


• Maybe you will develop each of your characters to a point where they can act on their own with only occasional references back to your plot.


• Maybe you will combine those methods into something uniquely your own.

Somehow you will find for yourself a method for putting quality words down on paper and then assembling those pages into art.

Whether you write short stories or epics is not that important. That you keep writing is. Some people win the lottery with the first ticket they've ever purchased, but I wouldn't bet my future on either the lottery or the first time win. Better to learn how to push the pen across the page, even when it doesn't want to go there. Build your skills and your novel will come.

Find your voice. Learn your methods. Feed your muse.

Keep Writing!

In retrospect and realizing that I didn't actually answer your question during that rant, here are the advantages of short stories over longer works...

• 
  

  If writing quality remains constant between the two, short stories are easier and can be completed quicker than long stories. This allows you to experience the entire literary life cycle in a shorter time and to discover what post-writing procedures (editing, packaging, promoting and marketing), work for you.

  
  


• 
  

  Short stories can work with smaller sets of characters, allowing you to focus on the individuals without having to fill up the ranks.

  
  


• 
  

  Short stories can each be rendered with a different writing style and voice; allowing you to discover your preference and proficiency.

  
  
  

Should I show the "Save" button before the required state is achieved

In our web application, to save a transaction (such as an invoice) the user must select the contact's name and add at least one item to the grid.

Presently, the save button shows before these actions are complete. If they click the save button before they enter the required details they will get a message to add those details.

My concern is that having the save button shows before the required state, suggests to the user that they can actually save something.

The other solution we are considering is to only show the save button if the user has entered the required details.

What is the better solution?

Note, the application auto saves the transaction as a draft. Save though commits the transaction and can have impact on other areas.

vector - Inkscape: Caps on lines are always black

If I use a cap on a line, usually so I can make an arrow, it is always black despite the stroke color. Is this a bug or am I not understanding something?

Answer

From the Inkscape Wiki:

By default, markers are black. You can change their color to match the color of the stroke of the object they are applied to by enabling an effect: Extensions > Modify Path > Color Markers to Match Stroke.

You will have to apply this after you had drawn the line and defined the marker.

For a text based approach we may also edit the resulting .SVG file for a given marker to edit the path style as follows:

...
       ...
     style="fill-rule:evenodd;stroke:;fill:"
     ... />
....

Replace with the desired marker color in 6 digit RGB hexadecimal notation (eg. #ff0000 for red).

When to end usability test task

I was wondering: if participant thinks he has found the solution to a task, do you end the task even if the solution is the wrong one? Eg. you task the participant to find some information, but he doesn't find it, but instead finds some contact info and says 'I would call there and ask'. Will you move on to another task at this point?

My own thought is that this is a good point to move on as participant wouldn't keep looking in real life.

Answer

Your goal should be to squeeze out as much information from the participant as you can without leading them.

In this case, I would mark it as a fail but continue prodding him with phrases like "Can you think of any other way you might find the information?". Also, try to figure out why the participant discounted the other possible ways of finding the information in the first place.

What is the standard on displaying wide tables on mobile devices?

We need to display wide tables (10+ columns) on our new mobile website. Is the standard to:

• Scroll Horizontally without any indication that the visitor can scroll to the right (like Google Docs) regardless of the device being in portrait or landscape mode, or



• Scroll Horizontally with an indication that the visitor can scroll to the right? For example an ">>" or a blurred right hand column regardless of the device being in portrait or landscape mode, or


• Force landscape mode and keep zoom at 100% with (or without) an indication of scrolling left or right, or


• Force landscape mode and keep zoom at 20% (or small enough to view all columns) and allow the visitor to pinch and zoom their way around, or


• something else?

At the moment we are mimicing Google Docs.

Answer

Google Docs is a pretty good starting point for any user experience inspiration, but I'd be inclined to say your second point would be the best possible option if it's practical.

If the information in your table is important and you don't want it to be missed, I think it's important to let the user know that there is more information available if you scroll. Blurring the side of the screen suggests that there is something else to be found, and also looks good, which always helps the user experience. I think it also panders to the curious side of people. I know if I see a blurred part of the screen, I want to see what follows! At the very least I'd be wanting an arrow, although you might find users would try and click on this, which isn't what you were asking for.

I definitely think your second option is the best solution, for usability and aesthetic reasons!

usability - Integrity of "expand all" when user can expand/collapse children independently

Consider an application that displays a table (of arbitrary length) where the table is comprised of a header that includes an "expand-all/collapse-all" button, and each row in the table includes a local expand/collapse button. That is, the "expand-all/collapse-all" button is NOT expanding and collapsing the list itself, but rather it is expanding and collapsing the details of each row in the list.

Schematically, here is the list with all rows collapsed. The header row has an expand-all icon (+) and each row has an expand-row icon (+).

+ name   condition   type
+ fred       5         B

+ sally     23         C

If I click on the individual expand-row next to fred, the list would now show this. Note that (a) the expand-row icon on the row has toggled from a plus to a minus, indicating it is now for collapsing, and (b) details about fred appear immediately below the original row.

+ name   condition   type
- fred       5         B
    Before Data    After Data
    foobar1        foobar2
+ sally     23         C

Next, let's say I click the expand-all icon. Note that ALL icons have now switched from plus to minus (regardless of their prior state), indicating they would now collapse when next pressed, and that each row has details immediately below it.

- name   condition   type
- fred       5         B
    Before Data    After Data
    foobar1        foobar2
- sally     23         C
    Before Data    After Data
    chocolate      vanilla with strawberries

Now to my specific scenario and my question:

1. Start with all items collapsed; the header row and all rows have an expand (+) icon.


2. Press expand-all; all rows expand; the header row and all rows now have a collapse (-) icon.


3. Press the collapse icon on the "fred" row; its row icon changes to expand (+). What, if anything, happens to the icon on the header row?

Keep in mind that this list may have anywhere from dozens to hundreds of rows. Technically, the collapse-all icon appears because all rows are expanded; thus if even one row is collapsed then it is no longer the case that all rows are expanded, so should it still show collapse-all? What about if 5 rows are individually collapsed? Or what if (n - 1) rows are individually collapsed, leaving only a single expanded row?

I want the expand-all/collapse-all icon button/icon to do what the user reasonably expects within the limits of this design. My leaning is that what happens on individual rows should be of no interest to the expand-all/collapse-all button (with one exception). If the user has collapsed 5 rows, then collapse-all should still work, just having no work to do on those 5 rows because they are already collapsed. The one exception is that if and when the user manually collapses the very last row, after having collapsed all the others, then and only then should the collapse-all take notice and switch to expand-all.

So--within the limits of this visual layout--is that a reasonable user experience?

screenwriting - How to keep writing?

I really love writing, mainly screenwriting. I can also come up with ideas and start writing. But there is one problem, I just start writing them and never take up the work again. What do you do to keep youself motivated and get back into writing a certain story? Are there any tricks?

adobe illustrator - Scale multiple object while keeping text size

Whenever I scale multiple object, text size always gets scaled instead of only the text area.

Is there a way to preserve text size while rescaling multiple objects or groups?

For instance, I have one text area and a rectangle and I want to scale them both simultaneously. If I select one and ctrl-click the other and scale, then text gets squashed. If I only select the text and scale, then behavior is correct and only text area is scaled.

Answer

Alternately, if you use the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow, keyboard shortcut A), you can select the whole rectangle, and just the frame portion of the text object by clicking just the edge of the text frame. You'll know you've just got the frame only selected if the text inside the frame is not underlined.

Text and frame are selected:

Frame only is selected:

Then you can scale your objects together, and the text inside the frame will not be distorted as result of the scaling.

Before scaling:

After scaling:

Does a loading animation on a websites initial load improve usability?

I'm working on a site where I am being asked to implement a loading animation on page loads. Essentially, the site will display a loading animation as soon as possible, which will go away once all of the assets (images, essentially) have been loaded.

I'm worried that this will actually reduce usability, but am very interested in any data on this. I want to know the "right" answer.

Essentially I have two feelings:

1. 
   

   If images further down the page are still loading, I as a user, don't care. I want to start consuming any content as soon as it's available. From this perspective, hiding the site until everything is loaded would actually reduce perceived performance.

   
   


2. 
   

   The browser already gives a good indication that the site is still loading. Users are at least subconsciously aware of this and are used to some things appearing after the initial render.

   
   
   

I've seen this sort of thing often on single page javascript applications where I think it makes a lot more sense. The user has an initial loading page, and afterwards the application is ready to go with all assets loaded. But, seeing a loading image every time you click a link feels a bit off to me.

I am very interested in opinions or data from people more knowledgeable and experienced in UX than myself.

fiction - How long can a prologue be, and what should you not do?

A while back I wrote a prologue about the beginning of time and space and all that. One thing I noticed later is that between the prologue and the story itself, the prologue ate out the chapters not leaving much for me to write out for the actual start. I did some backtracking but the point where I want to end the prologue and begin chapter 1 puts me in a bind. I'm pretty sure its at 18k now.

Question: Exactly how long can a prologue be and what should I not do?

Sidetracked: When introducing a story, would a prologue be best for those with historical and adventure genres?

book - Which traditional presses publish poetry?

I would like to publish a poetry folio through my university press. My ex-poetry professor at my alma mater says that is possible, but the university will only publish me if I already have a book published elsewhere, through a traditional publisher.

Toward that end, can anyone recommend a traditional publisher to submit to? I have found lists on the internet. However I have not found any high quality lists with working links, nor any indication that these publishers are genuinely interested in publishing poetry.

I would suppose there aren't very many. I'll probably also end up doing an ebook. But... it would tickle me, and my family, if I could publish via the university press from my college. So that's a career goal.

Good advice on how to further my objective would be much appreciated.

Answer

I would check on duotrope.com. They list a large number of publishers looking to publish individual poems, chapbooks, as well as full collections. You will be able to sort by genre, pay scales, and acceptance rates. Once you find a few possible publishers, find out what else they're publishing and if you think you'd fit with them.

forms - "Find" or "Search" to display a list of results

Before displaying a table of results on a page I first require the user to select some options from some dropdowns.

I have a button after the dropdowns which when clicked/tapped will work out which results to show in the table based on their dropdown choices.

I want to know what to call this button when the user first comes to the page. i.e. when there is no table displayed and they haven't clicked it yet. Should it say "Find", "Search", something else?

And then after they have displayed this table and they change the dropdown choices should the button say "Update Results", or stay the same?

Is there a (free/open source) black and white emoji font?

I wonder if there is a free black and white emoji font out there. All of the ones I have seen are in full color, but there are the two Unicode glyphs ☺, ☻, that's all I have seen.

Answer

This answer is copied from Black and white emoji fonts – enfascination

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Noto Emoji Font Google has a fully internationalized font, Noto, whose emoji font has a black and white version: https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-emoji/tree/master/fonts The smiley’s are blobs.

EmojiOne EmojiOne is a color font with black and white fallbacks. I couldn’t figure out how to trigger the fallbacks, but I found an early pre-color version of EmojiOne: https://github.com/eosrei/emojione

Android Emoji Not sure why, but one of Android’s main Emoji fonts is black and white https://github.com/delight-im/Emoji/tree/master/Android/assets/fonts The smiley’s are androids.

GNU’s FreeFont FreeFont is black and white. http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/freefont/ http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/?C=M;O=D

SymbolA SymbolA is a black and white Linux font with nearly full Unicode support: http://apps.timwhitlock.info/emoji/tables/unicode http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/

EmojiSymbols A free font by an independent designer. http://emojisymbols.com/ You can convert from woff to ttf here

Microsoft Segoe UI Symbol Microsoft has a very high-quality emoji set in its Segoe UI Symbol/Emoji font. And because of copyright law, in which things have to be copyrighted separately for different uses, there shouldn’t be anything keeping us from using it to create printed type: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segoe http://www.myfontfree.com/segoeuiemoji-myfontfreecom126f132714.htm

FireFoxEmoji This might be from an old pre color version: https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/moztt/blob/master/FirefoxEmoji-1.6.7/FirefoxEmoji.ttf

Twitter’s Emoji font Twitter open sources its emoji font. This doesn’t have a black and white version, but it does have black and white fallbacks. If I can figure out how to extract or trigger the fallbacks, this could be great. https://github.com/eosrei/twemoji

There may be more at the bottom of this: https://github.com/eosrei/emojione and here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/fonts#Emoji_and_symbols

adobe illustrator - Do I have to create vector files at the correct print size?

I had to create an 800mm x 2000mm print and so I started by actually creating a 800mm x 2000mm file in Illustrator.

The file contained only vectors so my question is:

Can I create my file size dimensions to be smaller as long as it keeps the correct ratio for the final print?

Like I said, vector ONLY, no photos or raster images.

Answer

I usually try to work in 1:1 scale, but rarely do I work with formats that large. It's not uncommon for artwork to be set at a smaller scale, though. Here's a question that touches on that: In Illustrator, how do I set my file at 10% scale?

When going back and forth with a customer, I find it easier to communicate with exact sizes. I try and avoid language like "I'd like it 50% bigger" (which is very ambiguous) and rather go for "I set the graphic to be 5 inches wide".

Working in a 1:1 scale saves me the trouble of having to remember to convert the measurements. Illustrator does have size limits, but the dimensions you specified are within the working limits. If you do scale down your artwork, just remember to add a notation somewhere in the file so that it's clear!

If you're concerned about file size, it should not make a significant difference if your artwork is 100% vector.

How do I insert arrows into a picture in GIMP?

I'd like to insert perfect arrows (the sort you can make using Inkscape: straight, symmetric tips, of customizable width and length, etc.) into images in GIMP. At the moment the closest thing to this I can do is by holding down "shift" whilst using the PaintBrush tool which just creates straight lines (with no arrowheads).

Answer

GIMP features no ready "shapes" tools, or the ability to easily create arrows. You have to draw then manually - either zooming in the head region and using click_shift to raw two straight lines for the head - or using the paths tool to start with, manually putting two segments to the head, and selecting "edit->stroke" for the whole path.

The advantage of the second approach is being able to fine tune the arrow before the stroke or undo/adjust/stroke again.

Depending on the workflow, you could draw a nice, steady arrow in a separate image, then copy it and edit->paste as new->brush - then you'd have a nice arrow stamp, with customizable size and angle to use with the brush tool.

icons - Best practice for Navigation usability?

I'm currently working on a social network type system, and was wondering about the best practice for navigation. Would it be better to use Icons or Text? I was thinking a mixture, icons for some things, and text for others. Opinion?

Also, would it be a good idea to implement breadcrumbs?

My target audience is mainly novice computer users, but we are also aiming at computer literate people as well.

line art - Graphical differences between Photoshop and Paint Tool Sai

Me and my friend were discussing about Paint Tool Sai and Photoshop. About the lining systems.

He claims that when you make a line using a drawing tablet, Paint Tool Sai calculates the path and draws it smoother by filling in the bumps.

The bumps are what I get when I draw a straight line in Photoshop. In photoshop for some reason, I get bumpy lines.

What are the differences? Why is Photoshop giving me bumpy lines if I draw as fast and the same as in Sai?

My drawing tablet is UGEE and his is Huion if that's any difference too. Thank you.

organization - How do you track random thoughts and ideas?

If you're like me, you get story ideas anywhere and everywhere. If I'm at a computer, I'll write down the idea in onenote or outlook or scrivener (depending what's open). If I just have my phone, I'll send an email to myself, or use the voice recorder app to spew some thoughts. If neither are handy, I'll write down ideas on the back of business cards or on whatever paper I can find.

As you'd expect, I find myself losing track of these little ideas. I find most of them eventually (I think), but would like to hear some ideas on how others keep track of random story ideas.

Answer

I keep a good old fashion Moleskin notebook with me, one that is hard back so it can survive in my pocket (as well as a pen). It's useful not only for writes notes but for everything else I need to jot down while away from the computer. It also comes with a band to hold it closed, which is useful so I can keep cards in it and the like.

There's also something satisfying about being about to pull the notebook out and open/close it with the snap of the elastic.

marketing - Is it appropriate to use lower quality design to make a product look cheap?

In an article I was reading it has this picture:

It claims and rightfully so that one looks cheaper than the other. However the explanation says,

My old direct-mail client was correct in his assessment of whitespace for his particular product, because direct-mail packages need to appear down-market to work—and adding whitespace to his design would have lent his package an undesirably upscale quality.

But is this a correct outlook to have? Should a product deliberately use an advertorial style that looks like they have a small marketing budget?

Answer

Sometimes yes. It so happens that companies sometimes hedge their bets by selling products both in bulk to chains and as premium under their own brand. According to Tim Harford (The undercover economist page 51 second paragraph in particular) the reason for cheap look is to get most out of the customers money. By selling same product at a premium to not so price sensitive buyers. This is called price targeting.

So basically the only difference for example between certain breakfast cereal and store brand cereal is in the package. So it stands to reason that the cheaper product needs to differentiate somehow. Usually the mechanism is to use a package that looks less glamorous, so that more brand conscious buyer buys the more expensive product, with more profit, while at the same time also getting money for those that couldn't afford the premium. Conversely some people might assume a premium on a product that looks too well branded.

So for me at least this was a eye opener. Stores are full of such products if you care to read the labels. Sometimes cross pollinated across store chains. There are also other interesting psychological effects such as not being able to ascertain price efficiency of products that have no competition.

Edity: Now that I'm home I see that my memory fails me a bit the book was not Freakonomics but rather the undercover economist instead. Fixed my reference and added page number. I stand corrected.

black scholes - How do different models impact option Greeks?

If I trade an option using delta, vega, Prob OTM, etc. these are derived from a model. How do leading models impact valuations in terms of the Greeks?

I suppose to form a baseline it would have to be relative to Black-Scholes.

CRS Process Model, Heston Model, [CGMY][1] Model. For example, does the Heston model generally depreciate the delta of a call option relative to what BSM would predict? Can any descriptions of the models be learned from these comparisons?

regression - How to compute a Fama-Macbeth R-Squared (R2)?

I'm reaching out regarding the R-Squared of a Fama-Macbeth regression. This is often reported in econometric results but I have yet to find a good explanation of how it is computed.

Specifically, if I consider the second stage of a Fama-Macbeth regression, where we are potentially running hundreds of regressions, how are the R-Squareds of these hundreds of regressions aggregated into a final R-Squared for the entire procedure? I understand that the coefficients are aggregated by a simple averaging, but was unclear about the R-Squareds.

I understand that there are codes to do this, but am trying to understand what's under the hood.

Thanks!

EDIT:

From the Fama-Macbeth regression we specify a model where each return $y_{i,t}$ of portfolio $i$ in time period $t$ can be priced by: $$ y_{i,t}=\gamma_0 + \gamma_1 \beta_{1, i}+ \gamma_2 \beta_{2, i} + \dots + \gamma_j \beta_{N,i} $$

where $N$ represents the total number of factors.

When calculating the predicted values to calculate our $R^2$, do we take the residuals of each time period or the mean portfolio returns, i.e. are our residuals $y_{i,t}-\hat{y}_{i,t}$ ($i \times t$ number of resids) or only $y_{i}-\hat{y}_{i}$ (i number of resids).