Self Editing tips/tricks

I write a daily piece and have been doing so for over 8 years. I think my writing has gotten better, but I still find mistakes at times, or more likely, my readers find mistakes.

Does anyone have good tricks for self-editing? Any tools? I spell check and use Word for grammar checking, but it doesn't seem to work so well and the pace of writing makes it hard to use anyone for editing on a regular basis.

Answer

While it's not possible for your specific predicament, the question you actually ask is much broader than that.

Put the writing away long enough to forget your state of mind while you were writing it, then re-read it. For some people this could be as short as a day, but I have to wait closer to a month before re-reading what I've written for all the subtle things I could have done better to stand out.

I know that professional author Stephen King says he adheres to a strict schedule when writing. He writes all morning, then reviews all of the previous day's work that afternoon. This way he has plenty of time and other writing-related activities between writing and revising that piece of his story.

methodology - Is asking 'balanced' leading questions the right way during user interviews?

It sounds a little bit counter-intuitive, but I am wondering if we actually lose a lot of the information that we might otherwise intend on finding out or capturing by not asking more direct or 'leading' questions.

Conventional wisdom and the dogma of conducting interview would say that it is not a good idea, but this is because the general intent of asking these types of questions is to try and elicit a particular response, which in a courtroom or a marketing study might not be particularly appropriate.

However, in the context of a user interview trying to find out what makes people happy or unhappy, what their needs and wants are, wouldn't asking open-ended questions mean that you only end up finding out what they tell you instead of what you want to know?

My question is, can asking 'balanced leading questions', that is, if you ask them a question like "Is clicking on this button difficult for you to complete a task?" and then balancing it by asking "Is clicking on this button easy for you to complete a task?" the same or better than asking "What is the difficulty of clicking on this button to complete the task?"

Should these types of questions be included in user interview situations to gain better insights compared to simply asking open questions?

color - Any problems with light text on dark background?

My high school journalism teacher always said putting light text on a dark background is hard on readers' eyes and is a bad thing to do. But in my experience making spreads, there are many instances where light text on dark background looks awesome and definitely enhances the appeal of a spread.

Is this "no light text on dark background" a good rule of thumb?

adobe illustrator - How to make an irregular blended circle effect?

I am trying to create an effect like this one in Illustrator, but I haven't been able to achieve a great result. I would really appreciate a little help, even if it is just the name of the effect. Also, if it is easier in another tool like photoshop, please let me know.

I have mostly tried a combination of the blend and warp tools. I haven't had any other ideas, or any luck googling.

Answer

On a gradient square background, draw an irregular closed shape with no fill and a thin stroke. My shape has a small feather effect.

Double click on the Rotate Tool > 1º > Copy

Duplicate until getting the first wheel > select all the vectors and group them.

Add another wheel group, the image is just a rotated duplication

Create a second similar shape but thicker, on the image has an outer glow effect the same color as the stroke.

Make the same duplicating process but less repetitions

Make three aleatory rotate/duplicate of the thick wheel, select all the wheels and reduce the opacity.

Formula for forward price of bond

What is the formula for the forward price of a bond (assuming there are coupons in the interim period, and that the deal is collateralised)

Please also prove it with an arbitrage cashflow scenario analysis!

I suppose it is like fwd = spot - pv coupons) × (1+ repo × T ), I am not certain at what rate to pv the coupons.

Answer

Amazingly, there are several different methods for computing bond forward price – the underlying ideas are the same (forward price = spot price - carry), but the computational details differ a bit based on market convention.

Let's start with the basics. Assume between now ($t_0$) and the forward settlement date $t_2$, the bond makes a coupon payment at time $t_1$. Now consider the following series of trades:

• Today, a trader buys a bond at a price of $P + AI_0$ (spot clean price + spot accrued interest).


• To fund the purchase, the trader enters into a $t_1$-year term repo agreement at a repo rate of $r$. More specifically, he/she sells the repo by borrowing $P + AI_0$ and delivering the bond as collateral.


• At time $t_1$ (coupon payment date), the repo balance is $(P + AI_0)(1 + rt_1)$ and the trader receives a coupon payment of $c / 2$ for being the owner of the bond.



• The trader re-enters into another repo agreement that spans from $t_1$ to $t_2$ on a principal of $(P + AI_0)(1 + rt_1) - c/2$. This new loan, combined with the coupon payment of $c/2$, allows the trader to retire the old repo loan without putting up any additional capital.


• Finally, at time $t_2$, the trader gets back the bond and repays the repo loan along with interest from $t_1$ to $t_2$: $$ \left((P + AI_0)(1 + rt_1) - \frac{c}{2}\right) \bigl(1 + r(t_2-t_1)\bigr) . $$

These trades are economically no different from buying the bond forward at time $t_2$. Therefore, the forward clean price for settlement at $t_2$ must be $$ F(t_2) = (P + AI_0)(1 + rt_1)\bigl(1 + r(t_2-t_1)\bigr) - \frac{c}{2}\bigl(1 + r(t_2-t_1)\bigr) - AI_{t_2}. $$

The method above is known as the Compounded Method. In the US Treasury market (and most international bond markets), a small approximation is made. Recall for small $rt$, we have $$ (1 + rt_1)(1+r(t_2-t_1))\approx 1 + r(t_1+t_2-t_1) = 1 + rt_2, $$ we therefore have the Proceeds Method: $$ F(t_2) = (P + AI_0)(1 + rt_2) - \frac{c}{2}\bigl(1 + r(t_2-t_1)\bigr) - AI_{t_2}. $$

The Proceeds Method is for all intents and purposes the standard/default way of pricing bond forwards. There's also the "Simple" and "Scientific" methods, but these are rarely used.

mathematics - What is a martingale?

What is a martingale and how it compares with a random walk in the context of the Efficient Market Hypothesis?

Answer

Samuelson suggested in 1965 that the stock prices follow a martingale (see P. Samuelson “Proof That Properly Anticipated Prices Fluctuate Randomly”).

Assume there is a security with a random payoff $X_T$ at date $T$. Let $..., P_{t–1}, P_t, P_{t+1},...$ be the time series of prices of a security with this payoff. Finally, define the price change $\Delta P_{t+1}=P_{t+1} – P_{t}$ for any pair of successive dates $t$ and $t + 1$. Samuelson begins by defining “properly anticipated prices” as prices that are equal to the expected value of $X_T$ at every date $t \leq T$, based on the information $\Phi_t$ available at date t (which, in particular, includes the present and all past price realizations for that security, $...,P_{t–2}, P_{t–1}, P_t$). That is, for all $t \leq T$: $$P_t = \mathbb E(X_T|\Phi_t).$$

In particular, $P_T = X_T$. He then proves that the “prices fluctuate randomly” since it follows that for all $t \leq T$, $P_t = \mathbb E(P_{t+1}|\Phi_t)$ or alternatively that $\mathbb E(\Delta P_{t+1}|\Phi_t) = 0$, and $$\mathbb E(\Delta P_{t+1}\Delta P_{t+2}...\Delta P_T|\Phi_t) = \mathbb E(\Delta P_{t+1}|\Phi_t) \mathbb E(\Delta P_{t+2}|\Phi_t)...\mathbb E(\Delta P_T|\Phi_t)=0.$$ In words, prices follow a martingale, and successive price changes are mutually uncorrelated.

This implies that if “prices are properly anticipated,” all the information in the past price series that is useful for forecasting next period’s expected price is contained in the current price. Note that this is a much weaker statement than to say that all information in the past price series that is useful for forecasting the probability distribution of next period’s price is contained in the current price (which is the random walk hypothesis suggested by Fama in his thesis).

adobe illustrator - How do I flatten this vector logo leaving only the visible black paths?

Hey guys I've got years of experience with Photoshop but I'm new to Illustrator.

I've followed this simple tutorial to create this logo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y9unghEExw

I want to flatten the image and make only the black lines my vector shape. Is there any way I can do this?

I've tried using the pathfinder but the entire shape goes black, possibly because its reading the White as part of the entire shape? Please advise!

usability - What is a good color combination, visibility for outside use

I am designing the layout for a touchscreen for outside use, What are some good color combination to use that will be visible under the sun light for outside use? Maybe bright neon colors?

Answer

A colour scheme with high visual contrast will work better in conditions that are more difficult to see - such as in direct sunlight.

In addition to contrast, human vision isn't sensitive to all colours equally, with the peak being in the green colour spectrum. The graph below shows the sensitivity:

Taking onto account the sensitivity to light in human vision in combination with contrast, black on yellow produces the highest visual contrast. This is why number plates are often yellow with black writing.

stroke - Illustrator: can I align an open path to either Inside or Outside

I'm trying to create a quotation mark, and am having trouble aligning my shapes.

The top arc is the arc tool, but I can't figure out how to align the stroke to the inside of the line. Could you help me with this, or let me know a better way to create this graphic?

Thanks.

photoshop effects - How to Achieve Very Realistic Grunge Textures

I was wondering how to achieve the type of super realistic grunge effect as in the canvas in the photo. Would it be a mixture of finding intricate patterns online and "compositing" them using blending modes? Or it it perhaps an action/preset pack they have downloaded and adapted?

Thank you for your time.

labels - Files size units: "KiB" vs "KB" vs "kB"

I'm working on a web app that will show the size of certain files, and I'm wondering if there's any consensus about how to report the units of bytes. Technically the IEC has weighed in with an official standard, but I'm not sure that's worth much.

Several options:

• "1 KB" means 1024 bytes (as Windows would report it, traditional usage)


• "1 kB" means 1000 bytes (as Mac OS would report it, IEC usage)


• "1 KiB" means 1024 bytes (unambiguous, but perhaps unfamiliar terminology)

Not a huge deal since we're only talking a 2.4% difference for files in the KB range, but for MB the difference is ~5% and for GB it's ~8%.

Answer

A number of issues factor into the perception of what a kilobyte is and how to word it.

The IEC standard names are useless: As Jeff Atwood notes there is simply no industry acceptance of KiB/MiB/GiB. Hard drive manufacturers and Macs are the only major players using the 1000 bytes definition and hard drive manufacturers have absolutely no incentive to differentiate KiB from KB; it makes their drives sound smaller. Macs and Windows have no incentive to use KiB because it's an unnecessary complication for the user. Note that it's been 12 years since the definitions were created, and they're not being adopted anytime soon.

Windows vs. Mac: Mac thinks (kilobytes are) different. If detecting the OS is a possibility, display a kilobyte as what the user's OS would. If you can't, the 1024 byte definition is always a good fallback, seeing that 70% of general users are on Windows. Of course your target market might be different.

Scale: The problem with the binary prefix vs the SI prefix is that as the numbers grow, so does the difference between values. Once you get into the gigabyte range, the difference between GB and GiB is substantial--many Windows users are quite disheartened to find their 1 terabyte hard drive is only 932 gibibytes in Windows. In my experience, most of them assume Windows is correct rather than the hard drive manufacturer--and they have a point, it is in the hard drive manufacturer's benefit to use the smallest possible measure for a kilobyte.

Enterprise or technical users are a special case. If your app is measuring disk or database usage on a server farm, that 8% difference for a GB is huge, and you should allow the user to specify how you display kilobytes, even including a KiB option. These are probably your only users who would care enough to differentiate.

Finally, let's assume people really do all think 1000 bytes is a kilobyte, in their heart of hearts. Since they know file size from what their OS reports, not from counting the bytes manually, using the uncommon 1000 byte count will add unnecessary complexity and your app will look wrong because it conflicts with what the computer says. Users only know how big a file is because their OS tells them.

png - How to export Illustrator layers as individual images?

I have an Illustrator file that contains patterns. I'd like to export each pattern as an individual image to use in this new program that I'm trying called Sketch. Is there a batch processing script that exports layers as PNG or SVG? I'd like to have each geometric pattern available as a PNG, not as one large file.

Any thoughts?

Answer

If the patterns are indeed on individual layers, you may be able to use scripting to export each layer as an individual png.

Carlos Canto wrote a script for Illustrator and posted it in the Adobe forums.

In case of link rot, here's Carlos' script:

#target Illustrator

//  script.name = exportLayersAsCSS_PNGs.jsx;
//  script.description = mimics the Save for Web, export images as CSS Layers (images only);

//  script.requirements = an open document; tested with CS5 on Windows. 
//  script.parent = carlos canto // 05/24/13; All rights reseved
//  script.elegant = false;


/**
* export layers as PNG
* @author Niels Bosma
*/
// Adapted to export images as CSS Layers by CarlosCanto



if (app.documents.length>0) {
    main();
}
else alert('Cancelled by user');


function main() {
    var document = app.activeDocument;

    var afile = document.fullName;
    var filename = afile.name.split('.')[0];


    var folder = afile.parent.selectDlg("Export as CSS Layers (images only)...");


    if(folder != null)
    { 
        var activeABidx = document.artboards.getActiveArtboardIndex();

        var activeAB = document.artboards[activeABidx]; // get active AB        
        var abBounds = activeAB.artboardRect;// left, top, right, bottom


        showAllLayers();
        var docBounds = document.visibleBounds;
        activeAB.artboardRect = docBounds;


        var options = new ExportOptionsPNG24();

        options.antiAliasing = true;
        options.transparency = true;
        options.artBoardClipping = true;

        var n = document.layers.length;
        hideAllLayers ();
        for(var i=n-1, k=0; i>=0; i--, k++)
        {
            //hideAllLayers();
            var layer = document.layers[i];

            layer.visible = true;


            var file = new File(folder.fsName + '/' +filename+ '-' + k +".png");

            document.exportFile(file,ExportType.PNG24,options);
            layer.visible = false;
        }

        showAllLayers();

        activeAB.artboardRect = abBounds;
    }


    function hideAllLayers()
    {
        forEach(document.layers, function(layer) {
            layer.visible = false;
        });
    }



    function showAllLayers()
    {
        forEach(document.layers, function(layer) {
            layer.visible = true;
        }); 
    }



    function forEach(collection, fn)
    {
        var n = collection.length;
        for(var i=0; i        {
            fn(collection[i]);
        }
    }
}

Copy and paste this into a text file and save the text file with a .jsx suffix. Then place the .jsx file into Adobe Illustrator CS(x)/Presets/[your language]/Scripts. After relaunching Illustrator, the script should be visible via File > Scripts within Illustrator.

vector - What applications should I use to make this into a proper logo?

I am trying to design a logo for a company. Whilst using an app called: "Legend" on my iPhone, I came across a really cool design which fit my needs very well. However, the app is only for creating GIFs and so the quality is really low and it's just a picture (not the original file).

I was wondering if any of you could help me. Either help me design it or instruct me on the application to use to make one for myself.

I have attached the logo here:

Answer

You'll want to be using a vector application for the most part. Affinity Designer is a good prosumer option while Inkscape is the opensource option. Sketch is another option but its intended more for Interface design than the two aforementioned but it can be used for logos.

If you mean an app for mobile you could try Adobe Illustrator Draw since you're on iPhone, I believe it exports at least some of the proper logo formats but I don't have an iPhone to confirm or test. You might also just do a search Vector Drawing on iPhone for other options that are in vector format instead of .GIF which is raster. (To understand the difference: What are the differences between vector graphics and raster graphics?)

Based on the image you posted the design should be pretty easy. Draw a rectangle, add text in desired font, use an alignment panel (all 3 of the above applications have this) to center it.

When you're ready to save I'd suggest this question as a good starting point for the correct format: Logo Pack - What should I include?

If you get stuck then come back and create a new question detailing where you got stuck and what you tried.

tropes - How to compactly explain secondary and tertiary characters without resorting to stereotypes?

Sure, I understand the characters, but that's because I've been thinking about them.

But how do I transfer that knowledge to the reader without taking the time and space to flesh them out further??

The standard answer is "stereotypes", because stereotypes are broad generalizations about humans, and without the ability to generalize we must start tabula rasa in every new situation, no matter how similar it is to situations that we are already familiar with. (More importantly, stereotypes have a basis in fact -- or at least reporting -- no matter how partial, one-sided and/or outdated they are.

But since stereotypes have been declared Evil, I need some other method of KT (Knowledge Transfer) about these characters.

adobe illustrator - How do I make a radial gradient with "rays" from the origin, not circles?

Learning Illustrator, and I'm trying to find how to make a "radial" gradient that, rather than forming circles around the origin, creates "rays" from the origin:

Example

I've got a similar button design, but can't seem to find the right method. Can't seem to find any tutorials either, but am not entirely sure what to search for.

var - Historical Value At Risk on option portfolio

I am new to Value at Risk subject in fact everything related to quant. Can any body validate the Value at Risk Model on the option price ? I am using a below explained approach .

our portfolio contains an Out-the-money call on Corn sept delivery month with one month until expiry. Based on Historical VaR, and assuming we are interested in the 1-day 95% VaR, you might be tempted to gather the returns on the option over the past 100 days (or 200, or 500, …), sort them, and select the 5th worst return. This would be wrong. The problem is that we are trying to evaluate the risk of an out-the-money call with one month to expiry, but 100 days ago the option had one month plus 100 days to expiry and may have been far in-the-money or out-of-the-money.What we need to do in this case is to go back every day for the past 100 day and determine not what the returns of our option were, but what the returns of our option would have been. We do this by going back over the past 100 days, observing the change in the inputs to our option price (underlying price, implied volatility, dividend yield, risk-free rate, and time to expiry), and then calculating what the price of our option would have been. For example, if the current price of Corn is 1,077.29 and the return on Corn 100 days ago was –0.76%, then we would use an underlying price of $1,069.10, $1,077.29 x (1 – 0.76%) = $1,069.10.

To price our option. We refer to this approach as back casting, and to the resulting prices as backcast prices.

The next step in backcasting with options is to take the backcast price of the option, and calculate a backcast return. For example, if the current price of our Corn option is 10 and the backcast price calculated ( Using Black Scholes, Black 76 , Binomial Tree ) in the previous step was $11, then our backcast return would be 10, (11 – 10)/10 = 10 percent. Notice that our starting price for calculating the backcast return is the current price of the option. If we are evaluating the risk of the option on 12/12/2013 and our 100 day backcast window runs from 7/23/2013 - 12/11/2013, then the first back cast return would use the 12/12/2013 and the backcast price on 7/23/2013. The second backcast return would use the 12/12/2013 and the backcast price on 7/24/2013. We repeat this process for each day in our backcast window (100 days, 200 days, 500 days, …).

The final step in backcasting with options is the same as it would be for any security: we sort the backcast returns and then select the return corresponding to our VaR (e.g. the 5th worst of 100 for 95% VaR). In summary, for Commodity options the historical method is a four step process: 1. Calculate backcast values of the underline using Spot Price *( 1+ daily return). 2. Calculate the backcast price of the option on each of the backcast dates(Using Binomial , Black Scholes, Black 76) . 3. Calculate the backcast returns for the option. (Maket Observed Return - Calcualte option price for the back cast Date)/ Maket Observed Return 4. Sort the backcast returns, and determine the VaR.

While revaluing the option time to maturity in the option is constant from the simulation day to time to maturity . .

Would really appreciate if any one can help to validate the model ?

Answer

Your method does make sense to me, I do the same. The historical simulation is known to be a full evaluation approach: you simulate changes in market conditions by applying the same changes happened in the past to your risk factors, then you compute your portfolio value under the new market conditions.

Since Value at Risk (VaR) is the maximum loss with a given confidence level over a specified time frame (like 1 day or 10 business days), the time to maturity of the option should be adjusted for this time period: if you compute the 1 day VaR, then the time to maturity of the option is 1 day less when you compute the under new market conditions.

According to me, you tend to focus too much on time: the idea of historical simulation is to "borrow" data about changes in market conditions from history and simulate them today to see how your portfolio value changes. So you take the data and forget about time.

I give you a reference where I studied the method: Risk Management and Shareholders' Value in Banking, chapter 7. I think it is very clear and thorough.

Two notes about the comments:

• 
  

  the delta-normal approach refers usually to the variance-covariance method (there is a sensitivity coefficient in the VaR formula that links VaR to the risk factor change in value in a linear relationship). The same book will offer you some clarification about it (chapter 5).

  
  



• 
  

  About implied volatility, I believe using it is a good thing in case you evaluate with the usual Black-Scholes formula: it allows you to consider the skew/smile. However, in case of a portfolio of options, you would have a very simplified scenario: each option has its own implied volatility, but you have the same historical change to apply to all of them. This is quite unrealistic, since each volatility would change differently in value (maybe same direction, but almost surely different percentage change).

  
  

arbitrage - What is Toxic FX Flow debate?

So, basically I want to debate and find out the real reason behind being flag by ECNs and venues as "toxic". How to avoid being flagged? What kind of strategies are toxic and why?

Below is an article found by a brokerage firm... so the opinion in that article couldn't be that objective.

Article about toxix FX flow

Any thoughts?

style - How can I write poems in an attractable manner?

I have written several poems, but only very few won prices. Those poems impressed people very much, so I want you to share your thoughts, what are the key things I have to focus on or I have to keep in my mind, when I write poems.

When I wrote short love poems, five or six lines long, then people love them very much. But sometimes those kinds of poems also become unlikeable, and that's why I shot this question.

Spot Color Transparency and Screens in Illustrator

(Illustrator CS5)

I have a design that will be printed on a line printer. Possible are up to 7 colors, or a 4-color process with 3 line colors.

I'm currently sticking to PMS only (only 5 PMS colors used), and use screens to achieve certain effects. In the composition, I have a group of many different shapes, all stacked on top of each other, that are all of the same PMS color. Most of these shapes are opaque.

My question is about Illustrator's Transparency panel vs. the Color panel:

Illustrator shows the different opacity of each element in the group in the Transparency panel, while the percentage of the color in the Color panel is always at 100%. Does this make a difference when printing, or will the printer understand the transparency setting of a PMS color that's set to 100%, and convert it to screens in the printing process?

Answer

To achieve "transparency" effect Illustrator simply mixes color of given object with color of its background. For example: objects fill is set to Pantone 451. Object have opacity set to 50% and tint to 100%. It has white background. If mixing mode is "Normal" resulting color will be 50% of given Pantone. Exact recipe how resulting color is calculated is described as a math formula. Different formulas are known by specific names as "mixing modes".

Take a look at "Separation preview" in your Ill to see actual values of separate component colors on output.

When all your objects have "white artboard" as their background it doesn't make any difference if their color is made lighter with transparency setting or with tint control. It does however make a difference if their background isn't white. Similar things happen when "overprint" (most unfortunate name) is on.

Printer, in fact, won't understand transparency at all. If something will, it'll be RIP, but it'll also "simulate" transparency by telling printer to use in specific ares e.g. lighter colors. Exactly what Ill does before "sending" image to monitor.

stochastic calculus - How to express the volatility of two correlated Ito processes $Wt_1, Wt_2$ expressed in terms of $W_t$?

Having two correlated Ito processes ($W_t^1$ and $W_t^2$ are correlated Brownian motions with correlation $\rho$)

$dX_{t} =\mu_{1} dt + \sigma_1 dWt_1 $

$dY_{t} = \mu_{2} dt + \sigma_2 dWt_2 $

How can the below be proven algebraically ?

$\sqrt{\sigma_1^2 + \sigma_2^2 +2 \sigma_1 \sigma_2 \rho} \ \ dW_t = \sigma_1 dW_t^1 + \sigma_2 dW_t^2$

Answer

What can be shown is that the above expressions are equal in probability. First check the distribution. As any linear combination of a Gaussian is Gaussian the right hand side is Gaussian - the left hand side too. Then we need the 2 moments:

The expected values - it is zero ... easy to see.

Next what you did not specify is that the correlation between $dW_t^1$ and $dW_t^2$ is $\rho$ then the variance can be calculated by $$ VAR[\sigma_1dW_t^1+\sigma_2dW_t^2] = \sigma_1^2 VAR[dW_t^1] + 2 \sigma_1 \sigma_2 Covar[dW_t^1,dW_t^2] + \sigma_2^2 VAR[dW_t^2] $$ which equals $$ \sigma_1^2 dt + 2 \sigma_1 \sigma_2 \rho dt + \sigma_2^2 dt. $$

On the other hand the variance of the lhs: $$ VAR[\sqrt{\sigma_1^2 + 2 \sigma_1 \sigma_2 \rho+ \sigma_2^2} dW_t] = (\sigma_1^2 + 2 \sigma_1 \sigma_2 \rho+ \sigma_2^2) VAR[dW_t] $$ and this is $$ (\sigma_1^2 + 2 \sigma_1 \sigma_2 \rho + \sigma_2^2) dt, $$ exactly what we needed.

How to calculate stock move probability based on option implied volatility and time to expiration? (Monte Carlo simulation)

I am looking for one line formula ideally in Excel to calculate stock move probability based on option implied volatility and time to expiration?

I have already found a few complex samples which took a full page of data to calculate. Is it possible to simplify this calculation in one line formula with the following variables:

1. Current stock price


2. Target Target Price


3. Calendar Days Remaining


4. Percent Annual Volatility


5. Dividend=0, Interest Rate=2%


6. Random value to get something similar to Monte Carlo model?

I need these results:

1. Probability of stock being above Target Price in %


2. Probability of stock being below Target Price in %

similar to optionstrategist.com/calculators/probability

Any recommendations?

adobe illustrator - Rounded corner shape with rounded sides

I'm struggling to make the below shape in illustrator:

Rounded corner rectangles are easy but I'm not sure how to round the sides easily as well. I would want these shapes to be easy to re-size ideally. Can anyone nudge me in the right direction?

Answer

Effect > Stylize > Round Corners (or use the Rounded Rectangle Tool)

Then apply Effect > Warp > Inflate.

Or....

• Draw a square


• Draw a circle larger than the square


• Rotate the Circle 45°


• Select square and circle and choose Object > Blend > Make



• Now choose Object > Blend > Blend Options set the drop down to Specified Steps and add steps until you see the shape you want and then click OK.


• Object > Expand Appearance


• Object > Ungroup


• Delete the shapes you don't need.

adobe photoshop - Name and possibly a tutorial for this inset rounded rectangle technique

I am speaking about the drop-in effect around the round edges. I like the fact that the actual theme seems to be a bit further back and the border is closer to the viewer.

I can gather that a portion of this must be using an inner shadow with black color. Is this correct? How can I search this? I have spent quite a while now, but my non-existant background in design doesn't help.

I have access to photoshop but could use other tools if needed

Answer

It's pretty much simply a Bevel & Emboss layer style set to Emboss. An inner shadow helps a little bit. But depending upon your needs, the inner shadow may not be required.

formatting - Do American users also confuse the day and the month in dates like 01/02/2013

Almost everywhere outside the United States, when short dates, e.g. 01/02/2013, are shown on computer screens, the user can't be sure whether the first two digits represent the day or the month. Is it January second or February first?

This is a big problem for people outside the United States, as they encounter both formats regularly, and can't know if the system has adapted to their locale, or has stuck with the American format. But I assume American users see mostly the American format (because many, if not most, information systems are built by or for Americans). What I'm curious about is whether American users also are confused in this scenario?

If you can point to some evidence or research, great. If not, I'll settle for your knowledgeable experience.

Note: I'm not asking for the wonderful solution of naming the month, e.g. May 21, 2013. I'm asking about the cases where a short date format has to be used.

Answer

I don't have a pointer to published research - but in my experience US folk will always assume the US MM/DD/YYYY format unless they are knowingly using an non-US site, and are already aware of the potential differences.

If you have to use numbers only then the format that causes least confusion across cultures in my experience is YYYY-MM-DD since it differs from both "defaults" and doesn't suffer from any assumptions.

That said using an abbreviated three letter month name is only one extra character - the size argument for using numbers is usually bogus.

usability - Autocomplete returns more than X records

I have read How many items in a web form drop down is too many?. I almost agree with Vitaly's answer: no more than 30 (X) items in a drop down. So if auto-complete request returns more than X records, how it can be displayed that it is. For example, item X+1 can display "[show more results..]"or [show next X results] text or something else. And also, how can user return to previous page of results?

  ____________________________
 |  I input Search Text Here  |
 |____________________________|
 | << show previous (10) |     
 |_______________________|
 |    found item 1       | 
 |    found item 2       |
 |     ..                |
 |_______________________|

 |    show next (258) >> |
 |_______________________|

Answer

If you are providing an autocomplete field, you are helping your users find information in a long list quickly. Pagination of results obviously doesn't improve the UX because flipping through pages isn't much different from scrolling a regular drop-down list. Therefore, simply don't display any results until there are no more than 10 left (the number may be smaller if the screen's vertical resolution restricts it). This way users will see only the choices most relevant to their query.

Added per comments
It's helpful to display either a message "Too many results" or just the top 10 results before the list is short enough to be helpful to the user. However, unless the searched list contains many items that share 3-4 leading characters, there will be just enough results once 2-3 characters are entered.

terminology - What is the term for a numeric input field of a specific format?

There are new HTML5 input types being defined for commonly used numeric input types such as date, time, telephone number, etc. These terms refer to a specific input format based on the type of numeric data that needs to be captured and displayed.

I was wondering if there is a more generic term used for numeric input that is required in a specific format (but not any particular format), since the term 'specific format numeric input' is probably not commonly used. This would indicate that the input field is not a free text input that is then validated, but the format of the input itself would create some constraints in the type of numeric data that can be entered. An example of this would be credit card details with digits separated the same way as it is displayed on the credit card.

The only thing that comes to mind is a 'fixed' or 'formatted' numeric input field. Any other suggestions?

Free text format

Fixed input format

This should not be a 'technical' sounding term since it is also intended for UX specification for designers and other UX people, so I prefer not to use a developer term but something everyone can understand. Also, the term should reflect the fact that it is not a free text looking field, but something that already indicates to the user that it has a specific input format.

Answer

The term used for these format-constrained inputs is masked inputs or mask input.

Here is a demo which includes a broad range of masks (date, time, phone number, etc). If you Google 'masked input' you will find plenty more examples.

http://igorescobar.github.io/jQuery-Mask-Plugin/

And a screenshot for posterity in case the link dies in the future.

It isn't a particularly descriptive term for lay users (e.g. your marketing team). For that kind audience, I describe them as 'formatted inputs' or 'formatted number inputs', but then introduce the term 'masked input' so they know how to use it in the future.

Here's another common masked input, the Windows serial number widget:

For extra geek credit, the term is an evolution of an approach used in data entry in the early days of programming to ensure correct input. See:

mouse - Easiest cursor move?

In relation to making a pie-menu.

I've tried finding research on this, but to no avail.

My reasoning is this: Put the most used features at the easiest places (although putting opposites.. opposite each other (i.e. Undo & Redo)).

I suppose this might vary between different pointing devices, but that's not a problem. Separate statistics for different ones would be preferable.

Mouse and touchpad are probably the most used ones, although I can still accommodate for others as well (trackball, pointing stick ++) in the software's settings. ("Using a trackball? This is probably best for you")

Answer

For a mouse, horizontal movement to reach a target is usually faster than other directions (which can be seen as easier). There is a nice illustration of this phenomenon in a paper by Whisenand and Emurian 'Some effect of angle of approach on icon selection' (figure 1).

Thompson, Slocum, and Bohan (2004) add to this the factor of gain. Higher gain particularly benefits longer amplitutes, larger targets, in a horizontal direction.

I don't know about research on other devices, but I'd expect the same patterns.

iphone - CAPTCHA on mobile: what are the alternatives?

From a UX perspective, CAPTCHA's are bad, bad, bad.

But let's say we have this as a requirement. And it's for a hybrid app (compiled app, but built upon an HTML5 platform).

I'm trying to find out:

• is bot traffic from an iPhone (or Android device) actually a problem? (or--my theory--is this an outdated hold-over requirement that has been cut-and-pasted into technical requirement documents since 1998?)


• If so, are there better alternatives that are mobile-centric over yet-another-annoying-CAPTCHA?

algorithm - How to identify technical analysis chart patterns algorithmically?

I'm working on a small application that will provide some charts and graphs to be used for technical analysis. I'm new to TA but I'm wondering if there is a way to algorithmically identify the formation of certain patterns. In most of the TA literature I've read the authors explain how to identify these patterns visually. Is there a way to algorithmically determine these patterns so that I could, for example, examine the prices in code and identify a possible Head and Shoulders pattern?

Answer

As mentioned elsewhere on this site, Lo, Mamaysky, and Wang (2000) do exactly what you're talking about, namely algorithmic detection of head and shoulders patterns. Their definition:

Head-and-shoulders (HS) and inverted head-and-shoulders (IHS) patterns are characterized by a sequence of five consecutive local extrema $E_1,...,E_5$ such that

$$ HS \equiv \begin{cases} E_1 \text{ is a maximum} \\ E_3 > E_1, E_3 > E_5 \\ E_1\text{ and }E_5\text{ are within 1.5 percent of their average} \\ E_2\text{ and }E_4\text{ are within 1.5 percent of their average,} \end{cases} $$

$$ IHS \equiv \begin{cases} E_1\text{ is a minimum} \\ E_3

usability - Do pull down buttons confuse users about the actions they perform?

Pull down buttons (if that's their official name) are starting to pop up here and there. For example, if you look at Eclipse it seems that almost everything is a pull down button. Personally I find them misguiding, since the action they perform is sometimes context sensitive, sometimes it just executes the first action on the pull down list, etc.

When is it okay to use a pull down button? Personally I'm having a hard time justifying their existence.

Answer

You got to consider design conventions for different platforms , In this case these buttons can be seen in tools like eclipse and photoshop which is used by users who are not new to computer. These tools has many options which has to be grouped under single name , it was like this

File Edit View

As the tools got more advanced with so many options that led to not enough real estate for the users to work with , even the " File " "Edit" "View" were changed to small buttons. Its perfectly normal to use, Even few websites are trying with these buttons . Eg dropbox

creative writing - Should I write my story if I haven't established a plot?

I'm in the process of start writing my story and I'm not sure if I should do it if I'm not done with the main plot of the story. Also I don't know since what part should I start writing off, The start, the end or the substantial parts.

Answer

Should I write my story if I haven't established a plot?

Discovery writers, like myself, "discover" their characters and their plot as they go along; it is not uncommon for them to be more than half way through the book, or even two-thirds of the way, before they actually realize what the plot is going to be.

The way you approach this is closely related to the Three Act Structure [3AS] (or four acts, as the 3AS often morphs into).

The 3AS divides the story with FIVE distinct turning points; seen here (from the link to TV Tropes) occurring at more or less regular intervals within the story: Incitement, Plot Point #1, Setback, Plot Point #2, Climax. These produce six story segments.

However, all of these are actually plot points, but you don't have to know them up front. This is just how your story is going to turn out. Because these phases are not some rules that all authors and publishers and readers and TV and movie viewers have just somehow agreed upon without your knowledge: These are derived from the analysis of thousands of successful stories, and finding out that most (not all) follow roughly this pattern and timing (relative to the entire story length).

The way you use this as a discovery writer is simple: What you need is not a plot, but a character (or a few) and a big problem.

Act I is the first 25% of the book. (all these percentages can vary by 5% or so and still be considered the 3AS).

This is the "Normal World" of the MC. In the first half of this, (1/8 of the story) we have the "Completely Normal World", up to what is called the "Incitement" in the picture. That "Incitement" point is when, for the MC, the big problem begins (whether they realize it or not). Note the big problem can be anything that is going to upset the MC's normal world; in a love story this may be meeting her future spouse; in another it can be witnessing a crime, learning of a loved one's illness, the car breaking down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, etc.

If you already have a rough plot that's fine, you can work with it. It too must have an incitement; so figure out what that is.

But, for a discovery writer, the idea is imagine a character, and her normal world, and what her big problem is going to be. Then you can write the first 1/8 of your story; because this is 100% introduction to your character and world, as we follow her through her completely normal life. Now, to be NOT BORING, typically what we do is give the MC some conflicts to settle in this time, mini-problems we have to solve that may or may not be connected to the inciting incident. Anything from waking up late due to a power failure, or she risked taking her morning run under cloudy skies and got caught in a downpour. Completely Normal World problems. All designed to show us who the MC is, her personality, her strengths (she should be expert on at least one front that will matter), her weaknesses (she should be terrible on at least one front that will matter), her friends, possibly her enemies (stories can be told without enemies), and so on. You don't have to be short, in a 100,000 word novel (at 250 words per page) this is 12,500 words, this first eighth is 50 pages, and you have another 50 pages before we leave the Normal World.

Plot Point #1 (at 25%) is when the inciting incident has escalated to the point the MC can no longer continue her normal life and worrying about mundane day-to-day problems at home, with her love life, or children, or job, or friends: She must leave that behind (physically or metaphorically) and start actively working on her big problem.

As a Discovery writer, you can get this far without really knowing how the story will end; what you should have learned for this first 25% is your MC, and what you have designed is a character with a mind of her own, values and talents and some moral setting. Now true, you have that Big Problem and it is getting worse, so at the 25% mark she decides she has to do something about it. This is the entry to Act IIa, and the second 25% (which will bring us to the middle point, SetBack).

I call it Act IIa, because it feels different than Act IIb! Often we can see this 25% of the story as a Reactive phase, the MC's initial attempts to deal with her Big Problem by addressing symptoms, or pretending the problem doesn't exist (like a disease perhaps) and hoping it goes away, or she tries to find an easy way around it, or her naive attempt to negotiate her way out or appease her enemy backfires. Somehow she is trying, and failing. Often she tries several things in this second 25%, and they all fail or make the problem worse.

Act IIa is also something you can write without exactly knowing the plot, just let go of the reins on your character and let her do what she (with her personality, talents and weaknesses) will most likely do. That gets you halfway through your book.

Now, at the beginning of Act IIb when everything has failed, you are at 50% and it is the time to start thinking about the Climax, at around 87.5%. How is this going to end? How will she eventually prevail over her Big Problem?

You need to come up with this in some detail (just notes, don't actually write it because it may change a lot), it must be consistent with who she is, and consistent with what has happened in Act IIa, to get her to her setback. This takes some problem solving imagination, but often the big problem is not what it SEEMS to be, or people are not who she assumed they were: They have secrets, and secret motivations.

That is often the reason her attempts in Act IIa failed, because from the Incitement to the Setback, she thought the problem was one thing, and it turns out to be the other. If you can't do that on the fly, then before you start writing, imagine how the real big problem could manifest itself as a different kind of problem, so her initial attempts fail, for trying to solve the wrong problem.

In Act IIb, instead of being reactive, she enters a more proactive state. The turning point at 50%, the setback, leads to a reassessment of what she is doing. She becomes more intentional about probing and understanding the big problem, and taking steps based on that understanding. e.g. Running away from the villain won't work, she must find a weakness, figure out how the villain keeps finding her, etc. in Act IIb, this intentional confrontation (with the problem, not necessarily the villain, must have its own conflicts and may have a setback or two of its own, experiments she tries that go wrong, but it leads to an understanding of HOW to defeat the problem: That is Plot Point #2, at the 75% mark.

Now at 75%, she has in hand the tools, attitudes, knowledge and allies she needs, to bet it all and succeed or fail. Implementing this final plan leads to the fifth turning point, Climax, where she wins (or wins enough) to end the villain, or at least thwart them or send them running, or have them arrested, or whatever. Usually the bet pays off (unless you write a tragedy). The last section (eighth) is steadily reducing action, explanation and cleaning up, and basically a return to her normal world (or her new normal; as we'd see in a romance).

As a Discovery Writer, you don't have to know all these things up front to start, you don't need a plot outline. You just need a sense of how much you are writing (look at your page count or word count) and where you should BE in the story, vis a vis the six basic sections.

Somewhere between the 25% mark and the 50% mark, you should be thinking of formulating a plausible ending for the story. I do that, and as I am writing along, if I write a scene that would make that plausible ending impossible (or stupid, or trite, or cliché) then I have to delete it, or come up with a different ending that is at least as good, and hopefully better. I often hit 3 or 4 endings while writing a book; each better (in my mind) than the last.

A plot is planning your exact route from A to B. Knowing the ending is like knowing where the end point is, and like a compass direction it keeps your story on course, but you don't have to know every step of the way exactly how you are going to get there.

I am a discovery writer because early on (decades ago), I tried to be a plotter, and although I liked my plots, I was bored writing the stories. It felt like a job, all the creative work (to me) was over, and my characters "wanted" to do things off-plot. Not letting them made them feel forced and cardboard-y.

If you feel like your characters take on a life of their own, then you are suited to discovery writing. All you need to start is a character with personality, a setting you want her in, and you can start writing. That can help you find her big problem (or maybe you already knew that), and get you through each of these six sections; inventing the "plot" as you see / feel you are getting close to one of these five turning points.

adobe illustrator - Giving a vector shape a rough edge without manipulating anchor points

I’m looking to give my very smooth vector drawing a hand-drawn style.

When I say this, I don’t mean applying a texture over the top of the whole vector (like this).

A technique that would produce something like this would be what i’m looking for:

^{Author: Rob Clarke}

fiction - In a "Gatsby" type story, how does a narrator relate what he doesn't get to see?

"The Great Gatsby" was told from the point of view of Gatsby's neighbor, Nick Carraway by name, with Nick using the first person. Nick gets to see a lot, but not all of Gatsby's dealings. A case in point is Gatsby's early dealings with Dan Cody, his mentor, at age 17. What gives Nick the "right" to relate these dealings? Can a narrator "show, rather than tell," by featuring dialog and interaction between Gatsby and Cody? Or must he limit himself to a second hand narrative of those dealings?

Actually, I created a story within a story as follows: First, I wrote it in third person from "Gatsby's" point of view. Then I put on my "Nick Carraway" hat and commented on the story that I was now able to read. Can a format like this make sense?

Answer

In Jane Austen's novels, for example, it happens more than once that characters learn about an event second-hand:

Darling, I've just heard that...

Or

It is only the desire to be useful that compels me to tell you that...

This allows you to introduce events that your narrator couldn't have witnessed, and it's not as boring as you might think: characters might learn about a past event in a dramatic moment (making previous decisions they've made suddenly wrong), the person recounting the event might colour it with their own emotions, their own POV, etc.

Taking this to an extreme, Roger Zelzny, in Chronicles of Amber has on occasion whole chapters of a secondary character telling the MC something that happened to them in the past, with no interruptions from the MC. It reads like a complete mini-story, told in first person. You wouldn't find a story told in first person boring, would you? Same here: it works.

returns - Computing Pooled IRR from the IRRs of parts

Suppose I have two cash flows:

• CF1: -10001001001100


• CF2: -20020301

I can compute now:

• IRR(CF1) = 10%


• IRR(CF2) =-55%


• IRR(CF1+CF2) = 4.46%

Is there a way to compute (or at least get a fair estimate) of the pooled IRR (i.e. 4.46%) by only knowing the two original IRRs along with, say, the initial investment values (or some additional partial metrics of the CFs)?

Answer

You could roughly estimate it by approximating the cash flows (which you do not know in full) using some "reasonable" simplified model. One example of such a model would be a cash flow of the form

$$-\mathrm{investment}, 0, 0, \dots{\small (n-1 \text{ zeros})}\dots, 0, \mathrm{returns}$$

Such a simple cash flow has IRR $r$ iff $$ \mathrm{returns} = \mathrm{investment}\cdot(1+r)^n. $$

Now, if you only knew the IRRs $r_1$, $r_2$ and investment amounts $a_1$, $a_2$ for the two cash flows, you could approximate the PIRR by constructing the corresponding "model" cash flows and computing their pooled IRR:

$$ \hat{\mathrm{PIRR}} = \left(\frac{a_1(1+r_1)^n + a_2(1+r_2)^n}{a_1 + a_2}\right)^{\frac{1}{n}} - 1 $$

In your particular example, taking $n=3, a_1 = 1000, a_2 = 200, r_1 = 0.1, r_2 = -0.55$ you would obtain $\hat{\mathrm{PIRR}} = 3.98\%$.

Note that when $n=1$ this approximation corresponds to the weighted average of the two rates (with investment amounts being the weights). As $n\to \infty$ the approximation converges towards $\max(r_1, r_2)$.

The latter observation also illustrates why PIRR is not uniquely defined. In fact, if we used different real-valued lengths $n_1$, $n_2$ in the model representations of the two cash flows, we could have obtained almost any* desired resulting value of PIRR within $(\min(r_1, r_2), \max(r_1, r_2))$.

_{* It is always the case when both rates are positive. When one or both rates are negative this claim is not as obvious and might require proof.}

layout - Which placement of list of ingredients is most convenient for the cook?

In the process of doing the layout for a cookbook, I'm faced with the problem of placing the list of ingredients for each recipe. I've looked at several cookbooks and seen numerous approaches. I can see good and bad aspects of all of them, so I'm left with the question of which placement of the list of ingredients is most convenient for the cook?

Usage of the list boils down to: looking up ingredients for shopping, looking up ingredients when preparing and checking for ingredients when done. Occasionally a recipe might reference the list ("Mix the nuts and..."). There might be other uses, but I will consider these looking-up cases to be the most important and most used.

Convenience could be understood in many ways, but it should be considered that cooks would want to touch the book as little as possible when cooking. In other situations the book is not constrained in any special way.

Some of the examples I've seen include:

• Above the instructions


• Below the instructions


• Besides the instructions


• Mentioned and highlighted in the instructions

Answer

I will answer this as an avid hobby cook, my experience with design and usability is beginner to intermediate, but on the lower side in this community.

The answer is: I do not care if it is above, below, or to the side. The main concern is to be able to see the list at a glance. It should be recognizable as its own module, separate from the instructions, so I can home in on it before I read anything else.

The reason is that, as a cook, I use the ingredients list for three things: 1) evaluate the recipe, 2) create a shopping list, 3) create my mise-en-place. The first is probably the most important one. There are hundreds of recipes out there, and I have to decide if the one I am reading is worth cooking. The list of ingredients is usually enough to make this decision. This is because I can a) look at the flavor pairings, and decide if they are what I want; b) check the ratios and see if they are about right or wildly off; and also c) deduce the probable techniques used. In some cases, it isn't entirely clear how an ingredient is used; then I will check the instructions too. But even then, I use a) and b) first for filtering, and only if the recipe passes these filters, I check for c).

As for the shopping list and the mise-en-place, I don't need the instructions at all, so again it makes sense to have the ingredients as a separate module. Conclusion, don't even think of dispersing the ingredients in the instructions: even if highlighted, this makes me wade through lots of noise when I need the list. The placement before the instructions is only logical for the mise-en-place creation, but if a recipe could spill over a page break, I will want the ingredients list close to the recipe title and the picture (other elements which make me decide whether to cook it), so below the instructions may be a bad idea. But placing them on the side is no better or worse than above the recipe, as long as they are visually separated.

Beside placement, I can give you other tips for the ingredients list. First, it was mentioned in another answer, but it deserves to be repeated: group the ingredients logically! If you are making a soup starting with a roux, list the flour and butter together; if you are making a soup where onions are sweated in butter, then canned tomatoes are added, and flour comes in after simmering, the order should be butter-onions-canned tomatoes-flour. This helps immensely in usage 1c) I mentioned above (deducing the techniques). If it is a more complex recipe, like a cake layer, syrup for soaking, and a frosting, it is best to separate the ingredients for the three components with headings.

In the separation part, you will run into a problem. Say the cake layer needs 240 g sugar, the syrup another 120 g, and the frosting also needs 120 g sugar. If you list 480 g sugar, this will make it easy to construct a shopping list, but hard to make the mise-en-place and impossible to deduce the techniques. If you list each sugar under its own heading, you will help the technique understanding, but the cook will have to do some addition in order to create a shopping list. This is probably a matter of personal preference, but I am firmly in the separate listings camp; I don't mind some addition when making a list. If you insist on having a single number for a list, consider adding an explanation, like

480 g sugar (240 g for the layer, 120 for the syrup, 120 for the frosting)

Another thing you should do is to list each ingredient on its own line. Don't make a comma-separated list, this is hard to read. If you have to save space, do it elsewhere. And don't forget to put the quantities right there in the list.

Another thing you can do to make a cook's life easier is conversion. (I know that this might not be your responsibility, if you are a graphic designer. But please bring it up in the project). Serious cooks use weight measurements, because volume is not reliable. Home cooks in the US have an aversion to weight measurements and use a complicated system consisting of juggling a set of measurement cups numbered in odd fractions. The conversion between the two requires knowledge of the density of the measured ingredient, so it is not easy to do it in your head. You should list both at once (Or even weight only, if your audience is professional). The imperial-to-metric conversion is also a hassle, but less so. You would need to list volume imperial, weight imperial and weight metric to cater to everyone, but if you only have space for two of them, leave one of the weights out (usually metric is left out for the US audience, which then leads to listings like 0.055 ounces yeast). Oh, and speaking of volume: If you are allowed to make cosmetic edits to the text, pay attention in the ingredients listings. 1 cup of walnuts, chopped is not the same thing as 1 cup of chopped walnuts, the first is chopped after measuring a cup of whole walnuts, the second means measure first, chop later, which creates different amounts of walnuts. With weight, there is no such problem.

Lastly, consider including a list of equipment beside a list of ingredients. This is not important for all cookbooks, but it is a nice touch if it contains complicated recipes. It has happened to me more than once that I only noticed in the middle of the recipe that I don't have a skillet of the needed size and had to improvise. If the recipes need lots of special equipment, it becomes even more important.

To get a feel for what good design in a cookbook looks like, I recommend taking a look at following books: The Professional Chef by the CIA, and Death By Chocolate by Marcel Desaulniers. You also have some nice work in The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, with big, highlighted ingredients lists. But I don't find it as easy to use as the others, maybe because the instructions are verbose, and because I am sent flipping to other pages to look up the formula for a pâte fermente or the pictures for how to shape a fugasse ladder loaf while my fingers are sticky with dough.

As a final note, I am a fairly advanced cook. I use all kinds of cookbooks, both advanced and for beginners. It is possible that beginner cooks need some other information available easily (e.g. difficulty) and don't do everything I do (e.g. mentally check if the ratios are right, or if the flavors are harmonious). If you are making a beginner's cookbook, maybe you should consult a beginner cook too.

fiction - Credibility of using English in non-English-speaking worlds

In the Magic Tree House series, two ordinary English-speaking kids travel to different faraway lands through a portal. Every character they meet, whether it's ancient Greece or ancient China, speaks English. However, this series was aimed at little kids, and when you're writing for an older audience, do you have to explain away the language barrier conundrum?

More importantly, if your story employs lots of rhyming riddles and 'lost prophecies' from other worlds, would the story instantly lose its credibility if they all happen to be in English? (E.g., main character discovers lost scroll in Egypt. It's a rhyme in English!)

I know suspension of belief is required for all fantasy stories, but at what point do you try to explain the mechanics, and when can you just hand-wave it all under the rug?

Answer

The notion of "willing suspension of disbelief" is one of the most misleading phrases in the literature of writing (right up there with "show don't tell"). It is very much worth reading Tolkien's On Fairy Stories, in which he offers an extensive critique of the concept.

Tolkien's argument is essentially this: a story involves immersing a reader in a sub-created world. Their participation and belief in the sub-created world depends on the internal consistency of the world, not on its correspondence to the real world.

Secondly, stories are lenses, not windows. They exist to focus the reader's attention on certain aspects of the human experience and one of the principal devices by which they do this is to simply omit many of the details of ordinary life that real people would have to deal with. Thus characters seldom eat except as something incidental to a meeting or a party. They virtually never have to relieve themselves (except in broad comedy). Virtually no use of computers in all of literature is remotely realistic. Crimes are not really solved in a day. Etc. etc.

A story needs to be self consistent. Whatever it says or suggests about the rules of the story world must be followed consistently within the story. If you decide to ignore language barriers in a story, go for it, but make sure that there is not anything else about the way the story is told that suggests that they matter.

Note that when I say "story world", I don't mean exactly what the folks who indulge in that odd hobby of worldbuilding mean. It is not about creating a world with self-consistent rules and then setting a story in it. It is much more about the conventions of the telling itself than the objective laws of a world, real or imaginary. It is a tacit compact between the writer and the reader that we are not going to concern ourselves with whole classes of practical problems that would otherwise slow down or get in the way of telling the parts of the story that we actually care about. This is not a rare or unusual thing. In fact, it is probably universal. Certainly no contemporary TV show could function without this convention. (In the real world, for instance, all the characters in any cop show would be invalided out with severe PTSD by the end of the first season.)

If you have not noticed that storytelling works this way, well, that just shows how ingrained this feature of storytelling is. We are not consciously aware of it most of the time unless it breaks down. But it is there in everything we read and watch if we only take a moment to look for it.

So, if you want to ignore the language issues, ignore the language issues. Just make sure that you tell the story in a way that people accept (without particularly noticing) that languages issues, like going to the bathroom, are not something we are going to concern ourselves with in this story.

What research methods can I use to create personas?

My experience with personas has been from creating personas with data that already exists usually provided by the marketing team based on their research.

How do you go about conducting research to create personas for new - or existing - applications if no research data exists yet?

Are there any recommended research methodologies, tools, interviews (and types of questions), etc that one should look at when performing this kind of research?

Answer

There are a number of research methods you can use depending on your scenario.

But first, state your research goals...

Get the questions out of your head and onto paper and share them with others, get feedback. Start out getting all collaborative right off the bat. Plan the whole process and verify you actually have the time and funds available.

...and define how you will use personas

Ask first whether you actually need personas and if you think you do, then how you will use the personas. Ensure that personas don't just become an artifact, because the value is so not in the artifact itself.

Contextual inquiry - user interviews

*If you do have existing users*, interview them, but don't just take the path of least resistance and interview people you know or people in your building or friends and family. Interview people you don't know and from different locations or environments that reflect real world use.

Try and interview at least a dozen people as you won't be able to spot trends with fewer people - remember you're not trying to find the 'perfect user', you're trying to find a sense of commonality from different sources that you can project and overlay onto your persona. But as well as trends, you're also interested in surprises. Personas are meant to gloss over the irrelevant human idiosyncrasies, but things that 'make people human' are desirable factoids for personas. Ask the why. Lots.

But on the other hand, if you're not learning anything much new as you interview more people then you're wasting time. It might be useful to plot 'the total number of factoids' as you interview each person so that you can see when you reach a plateau.

*If you don't have existing users*, then you need to increase the number of other sources of information to account for this, but it's worth looking at using one or two other sources in addition to user interviews anyway.

Liken this to Damien Newmans squiggle of the design process where at the early stage of design, the more squiggly the squiggle (ie the more input/research), the straighter the 'solution line' that emerges.

Ethnographic research

In the case of no existing customers, you need to actively seek out people you would like to be your users. As well as going where the users are, go to locations where they might congregate. Don't just talk to people, but make sure you observe them too. Watch them go about their business in their own environment. Empathise with them. Become them. Record their language. Do this because you want to empathise with your personas to make them work, so don't be fooled into thinking that you can easily empathise with a persona 'on paper' if you haven't done so in real life.

People are happier to talk in their own environment and comfort zone, so going to their location works for you in several ways. With permission, take pictures or video so you remember their environment and objects around them. You're looking for a story around your persona - when you use your personas you're going to ask questions like, 'would Bob use this?' 'What would Bob the power user think of the way this looks', 'How would Bob find the experience of using this product', and without being able to empathise with Bob, and without positioning Bob in this contextual storyline, it's almost impossible to say what Bob might think.

Review

If possible, try to review your findings against what you origianlly put on paper for your research goals so that you have a sense of understanding whether you achieving what you set out to do, and can adapt if necessary.

Proto personas...

Where you can't get enough information from the above methods, or time or money is not available there's a kind of quicker 'Guerrilla user research' alternative using indirect information instead of first hand research. So this can include second hand research, informed hunches, outcomes of stakeholder interviews and brainstorming workshops based on domain knowledge and gut instincts about users and their motivations, made up but informed stories about what a day in the life of a user is like, before during and after using the product or service you will offer.

...but keep it real

Precisely because proto personas are 'second hand' research they need validating - or invalidating - against the real world if at all possible. The last thing you want to create is a bullshit persona that you can't actually backup with real information so validation of proto personas is really critical.

If the information is real, the greater the chance of the persona being taken seriously. And when those who control the purse strings start pushing their 'opinions' onto the project, you want to be able to point them at the persona and say, no 'Bob the power user wouldn't like that' and be able to back that up with the research behind it. If the persona ends up with fake content, and you use the personas as your design focus, you're whole direction is fundamentally flawed.

Don't forget the competition

Don't be afraid to go on the hunt for information about users of a competitor product - maybe visit physical locations or online places where these competitor users 'hang out'. If competitors don't exist or are information about them is difficult to locate, try and be a little inventive and think laterally about what else your users might typically do or places they go and where they might congregate.

Take the journey together

Above all, remember that creating personas should be a collaborative experience for everyone to be on board acoss muliple departments and at multiple levels in the company org chart. In the same way that customer journey mapping holds all it's value in the collaborative act of mapping, so is it the case that the value of the persona is not in the artifact itself but in the act of its creation and subsequently in the life of the persona who you must ensure stays alive and well at all costs. Don't farm out the persona creation completely to a third party unless they are going to come in and facilitate the research and persona development within your organisation, instead of without you.

By the time the personas actually materialize, all the stakeholders should already know them - intimately. [No - not that intimately, stop it!] Everyone will have been a part of the journey of persona research and know there's no fluff, no bs, and that nobody just made this stuff up.

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References / Resources

Tina Calabria An introduction to personas and how to create them

Jeff Gothelf Using Proto-Personas for Executive Alignment

UIE Jared Spool Five Factors for Successful Persona Projects

UIE interview with Kim Goodwin

Jill Christ and Stephanie Carter Avoiding Bullshit Personas

Leah Buley's UX methodologies described in her workshop UX team of one bootcamp at UXLondon 2012

guidelines - Desktop software design patterns

There are a lot of resources on the web about web applications design patterns, but only a few about desktop applications.

And this is quite strange as most of the business targeted software is (still?) desktop based.

At the same time, Apple's or Microsoft's UI guidelines are manuals of hundreds of pages, dealing with buttons width as well as air theme or icon style.

So, can you suggest me some good resource about desktop software UI patterns, informative and concrete just as Yahoo!Design Pattern Library (to name one among the many) is for webapps?

Answer

You already named the definitive sources for desktop applications for the two major operating systems. Those guidelines from Apple and Microsoft are what you should be following.

usability - Mobile global/sub navigation for a long scrolling page?

A website with long page scrolling with deep hierarchical content wants to follow best practices when adapted to mobile. The designer currently recommends that the navigation change to a local navigation as user begins to scroll down. Is this considered best practice?

Global nav is pictured all the way to the right, while proposed local navigation is the two left most photos. Thank you

gui design - When creating a GUI wizard, should all pages/tabs be of the same size?

I understand that some libraries would force me to, but my question is general.

If I have a set of buttons at the bottom: Back, Next, Cancel?, (other?), then should their location ever change? If the answer is no, then what do I do about pages with little content? Do I stretch things? Place them in the lone upper left corner? According to Steve Krug, it does not make sense to add anything to GUI that does not need to be there.

I understand that there are different approaches to wizards - some have tabs, others do not. Some tabs are lined horizontally at the top; others - vertically on the left. Some do not show pages/tabs, and are simply sequences of dialogs. This is probably a must when the wizard is "non-linear", e.g. some earlier choices can result in branching.

Either way the problem is the same - sacrifice on the consistency of the "big picture" (outline of the page/tab + location of buttons), or the consistency of details (some tabs might be somewhat packed; others having very little content). A third choice, I suppose is putting extra effort in the content in order to make sure that organizing the content such that it is more or less evenly distributed from page to page. However, this can be difficult to do (say, when the very first tab contains only a choice of three things, and then branches off from there; there are probably other examples), and hard to maintain this balance if any of the content changes later.

Can you recommend a good approach? A link to a relevant good blog post or a chapter of a book is also welcome.

Let me know if you have questions.

Multiple input boxes on a search form - And/Or Functionality

I am looking at redesigning a search form, which has multiple cases of ‘And/Or’ in between 6 different input boxes.

So a user must enter at least 1 piece of search criteria, but may enter up to 7 if he/she wishes.

Ideally, I would like to house them within one search box, with a drop down menu for different category searches. (mentioned on this similar post here).

This solves the ‘or’ part of the functionality, but am wondering how can I also implement the ‘And’ function in a similar type solution.

I did not like the idea of adding extensive notes to search bar and some of the search criteria is quite unique: Name, Location, Application Number, Date Application was received, Date Decision was made etc

Has anyone got any good examples of this in use or came across similar design problems in the past?

selection - Assigning working hours on a duty roster

Here's a screenshot of the duty calendar in the system I'm working on (I've deleted all names here for privacy reasons).

Each person can have a day of particular type (listed in the legend above: working day, friday (i.e. shortened) etc.).

Those types are changing in a way shown in the picture: first you click in the type inside the legend (legend changes it's background) and then put it in the calendar - just like color picker in photoshop.

So: is this method good or do I have to think of something else?

Answer

The Right Information

Firstly, make sure your displays show the information the user needs to make good decisions and input. The use of a color-coded matrix assumes that your user is trying to achieve a certain pattern of assignments, such as a certain number of people in each duty type per day (e.g., have adequate coverage when some are on vacation), or systematic rotation of duties among the workers, or cyclic frequencies of duties per month. It implies that the user sits down each month and plans the roster. If that’s the way users do things, then it’s fine. Your user research will tell you if that’s the case.

Consider an alternative where the pattern of duties over workers and time doesn’t matter. What if, instead, assigning a person to a duty depended on their rank, training, level of experience, and sock color? That would imply a very different interface that focuses on the characteristics of the individual rather than the pattern of duties over a month, perhaps a UI showing one worker per page. Possibly, duty assignment involves relative individual characteristics, so you want a table to see who has higher values of relevant characteristics for duty assignment. Possibly both the monthly pattern and individual characteristics are important, so you need to show both.

The Right Input

Assuming the matrix is the way to go, your suggested method of input is a good way to do it. I call it a pointer-tool input, which, as you note, is similar to the “palettes” of “tools” (there’s a mixed metaphor) used in drawing and image manipulation programs (e.g., to fill a space with a certain color). IMO, pointer-tool is underutilized.

The main alternative is basic selection-action input. Here, the user selects the days for each worker first then selects a command button to set the duty for the selected worker-days.

Assuming you’re supporting multi-selection in either case (with dragging, control-clicking, and shift-clicking), both methods are about equally efficient. The main difference is that pointer-tool puts the user in a mode. That’s good if the user tends to stay with assigning one kind of duty for a long time, gradually filling the matrix with that duty. In contrast, selection-action in such a case means lots of single-selection of a worker-day followed by a command button, a two-step process that gets old fast (although putting the Duty commands on a context menu would make it a lot easier). Or the user of selection-action uses Ctrl-click to select a complicated pattern of worker-days to set them all to a single duty, but then accidentally clicks somewhere else blowing away the multi-selection. That error can’t happen with pointer-tool.

The main problem with pointer-tool is that users may forget what mode they’re in and accidentally set a bunch of worker-days to the wrong duty with a single swipe of the hand. Obviously you should have Undo whether you use pointer-tool or selection-action, so that should only be a mild annoyance, but it is something to consider. The main way to combat mode-forgetting is with strong feedback on the current mode. The currently selected duty should be obvious (I don’t see that in the wireframe), and the sprite (pointer symbol) should change to represent the current duty (both with color and shape, in your case).

Another potential issue is that many users are less familiar with pointer-tool than selection-action, but that has to be weighed against similar unfamiliarity with multi-selection, which may be a critical skill for efficiently using selection-action. Check with your users. If they are familiar with Photoshop, then pointer-tool will probably work okay, especially if you make your duty menu look more like a tool palette and less like a bar of buttons.

The bottom line is selection-action is probably better when there is a lot of switching between duty types, while pointer-tool is better when users stick with one duty type for many interactions. Your user research will tell you which is compatible with your users.

Details make the Difference

Beyond the form of input, consider what you can do to attend to the details of the users’ specific task. That will make the bigger difference in the UX than pointer-tool versus selection-action. This may include:

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  Multi-selection, which I already mentioned, so that users can set a whole block of worker-days to the same duty (probably especially handy for assigning vacation times).

  
  


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  Good defaults minimizing the amount of work in the first place. Perhaps each new month can by default be the same as the previous month. Or perhaps Fridays should by default all be the Friday Duty. Whatever saves your users work.

  
  


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  Automation tools that allow the user to set a common pattern for a given worker(s) or day(s) ( e.g., standard rotation of duties).

  
  


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  Aggregates showing counts or other statistics of each duty type in the margins, which may be important for achieving target numbers of duties per day or per worker.

  
  


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  Copying and moving allowing users to duplicate or shift a block of duties to a different set of days and/or workers. This may be through Cut/Copy and Paste, supplemented with drag-and-drop. Note that for pointer-tool, this implies you need a generic Selection tool in addition to your duty tools.

  
  
  


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  Redundant codes where shade or distinct symbols also indicate the duty of the worker-day. This is primarily for accessibility reasons, but a symbol may also be easier to learn and remember than a color code, reducing the need for the user to refer to the legend/palette/toolbar. With some work on the graphic design so it’s easier to use the column header, you can show the symbol instead of the date in the worker-day.

  
  

As always, the needs for such things are determined from user research.

forms - Right-Click menu awareness on Web Application

The web application I am building has a custom right-click menu. I'm concerned that the user might not find this menu as normally right-clicking will only display the default browser's menu. Is there a standard way to make the user aware of custom right-click menus? Is there another way to show this information?

Answer

If you're worried people won't discover the context menu action, how about having a small button in the corner of each actionable item when you hover over it. This would pop up the context menu.