fiction - How to stop projecting yourself into your writing?

I am writing about a person who is transported 10 years into the past, and has the chance to relive their life (actually being able to: 'knowing what I know now I would...')

The trouble is I keep projecting myself into the protagonists shoes.

This is a problem because it is limiting (me imagining) what the protagonist may do. And is kinda creepy because I am imagining how my current relationships would be different (would have gone out with that person, wouldn't have gone out with this other person etc).

How do I prevent myself (as a writer) from projecting my self (and people I know ) into my protagonist, (supporting cast)?

Answer

Your problem appears to be twofold. By writing in this way you are projecting onto this character:

1. Your personality, and


2. Your background

Your character is limited by the decisions YOU would make in the same situation and your story is limited by all YOUR grievances and regrets and "what ifs". Both of these issues can be solved at once: get better at writing characters.

Some people never get bored of writing characters similar or the same as themselves. But it's a good exercise to try. So take a look at yourself and put yourself into a few words. Then, get the antonyms of those words: this is your new character. If you use your head, they use their gut. If you dream of a house and family, they dream of solitude and travel. If you had siblings, they had none. And so on.

All of your characters will probably have some semblance to you, whether it's your love of peanut butter or your childhood trauma. And that's OK, but better in small doses. If you struggle with this, start with a character template. I use enneagram or Myers-Brigg to come up a basic personality type. Then when my character comes up against decisions or dilemmas, big or small, instead of looking inside my head for solutions, I instead think of that character's "type" and what they would do. Ask yourself what drives them, what are their hopes and fears, their moral values, what makes them tick.

While coming up with the personality, think about the character's history as well. What made them like this? What was their childhood like? What did they struggle with because of their hotheadedness, their absentmindedness, their being an only child? How does this effect what they hope and fear from the future?

It's likely that these answers will be different to yours. If it's important that this character is not too similar to you (as in this case), make sure they are. Remember: your character is not you. The life they have lived is different to yours. The way they choose to relive that life is different again. But only you can make them. So start at character creation and make them different!

error message - Should I show the troll that I know he's trolling?

I'm building an online store that has many features and functions.

Whenever a user interacts with the site a notification is shown.

These notifications should give the user a response to his action and tell him whether the action was successful or not and also if it wasn't successful tell him what went wrong.

I also considered and implemented control functions that check if the user tries to harm the application, other users or the database. If this is the case I would like to give the user a notification that shows him that I do know what he's doing and leave him with the feeling that he should rather stop now because "we see and know every step he takes".

Examples:

• 
  

  Contact Form: The user has to fill in his information such as his email address, full name and a message,

  
  
  
  
  • if he doesn't fill in a certain field of the form the notification "please fill in your [name of the empty field]"
  
  
  • if the user leaves all the fields empty and just hits the submit button the notification says "please don't send us any empty contact forms"
  
  
  
  
  


• 
  

  Feedback Form: The user has to write a message, email address & name are optional

  
  
  
  
  • if he doesn't fill in the message field, he'll get the notification "please write a message"
  
  
  • if he fills in the email field with an invalid email address (e.g. asdf) the notification says "Either give us a real email address or just leave the field empty"
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  

  Deleting profile information: The user can save information about himself. He's able to edit and delete his profile

  
  
  
  
  • if the user tries to delete a profile that does not belong to him the notification says "you can't delete other users' profiles, don't try this again!"
  
  
  
  


• 
  

  etc. ...

  
  

I like the nature of these notification messages but am not sure whether they are appropriate and useful, especially if for any reason a user that hasn't really tried to harm the system gets to read a rather impolite message.

Do you consider such notification messages useful?

What do you think could be problems I have to face if I use this kind of notification messages?

What would be a good alternative to such notification messages?

---

First: Thank you for your time, thoughts and help!

I'd like to add, that the given examples are by no means all notification messages/places where notifications occur. I do know, that (as msparer and Lego Stormtroopers have pointed out) the described behaviour is not actually trolling. Still there are many other functions where trolls could have a little fling (chat, product review, support, etc.).

I fully agree with what Racheet said, that there is no actual benefit in blaming the user, especially if someone accidentally triggers a notification message that was designed for malicious users.

I also absolutely love how the_lotus handles trolls and will definitely create and implement something similar!

adobe illustrator - Diagonal lines for brush stroke or dashed stroke

I would like to stroke a path with 45 degree diagonal lines that are set a fixed distance of of 0.125 inches to each other.

I'd also like the diagonals not to distort on curves- in other words, I want the diagonals to remain straight line segments that are parallel to the tangent of a curve at a any point.

I hope this is clear.

Is this possible?

Update:

This is for laser cutting a pattern - Adam's solution works nicely.

python - Compare portfolio variance using different regularizers

I'm given a question like below. Using the 48_Industry_Portfolios_daily dataset: characterize/describe the dataset and focus on the global minimum variance portfolio. Compare the portfolio variance using different regularizers and use validation methods to find the optimal parameters.

What I'm not clear is to compare the portfolio variance with different regularizers and to use validation methods.

I was using Python to find the efficient frontier. What I need to know is, are there any useful python materials where I can compare portfolio variance using different regularizes. I was not able to find useful resources

P.S : Efficient frontier doesn't look good

usability - How can I increase user adoption on a single-page app?

I have been working on this: http://spe.lt

Now, I have had a few thousand people visit this. It seems like a lot of people find it useful, but not that many end up using it. I want to increase user adoption. My sense is that I need more features to make this memorable and more useful. The site is so plain right now that it's not really sticking to users.

I have heard that giving users the ability to sign-up will increase adoption and give me the ability to occasionally email them and remind them. However, I am unsure of this and I would favor an alternative to registration, at least until it seems like a useful feature.

What is the most effective way I can increase adoption for a simple single-page application?

(if this question is too specific I would be happy to generalize it)

adobe illustrator - How to cut a compound path of several objects that share a gradient and keep it shared

Whenever I cut an object within a compound path, the gradient that was applied across all of them gets reapplied to them individually. How can I stop this from happening? I'm using the newest version of illustrator

research - Why Not Use a Real Person as a Persona?

My understanding of UX Personas is that they're descriptions of fictitious people designed to represent the common traits and attributes of a broader audience demographic.

If that's the case, in what way is an invented profile more relevant/helpful than picking an actual member of the group being represented?

Answer

The answer is in the question.

You said: They're descriptions of fictitious people designed to represent the common traits and attributes of a broader audience demographic.

Traits and attributes. Plural. They are made up combinations of several traits and attributes. Most people might have one or two, maybe even none. You might well spend a while finding the perfect real person who could represent a persona that you might otherwise come up with. Besides you still have to come up with personas to get to this stage.

Then you'll find they don't know what you think they know - or they know too much.

Don't get me wrong - nothing wrong with real users, but no need to get obsessive about finding users that could be personas. Just get a selection of real users - you can learn a lot from most users - they don't have to be the dream team.

Hopefully, you'll find personas are available 24/7, don't eat, don't sleep, don't get bored and don't need paying.

Move onto testing with real people when you think you've got enough content to make the feedback useful, but design/test/iterate with a representative selection of personas in mind, not for Dave in accounts.

EDIT: Added the following as examples of personas where the real person is going to be very hard to find:

Depending on how big the project, how long it's lasting, how much stakeholders need to be persuaded etc etc, then you might want to create quite detailed personas:

In A Project Guide to UX Design by Ross Unger and Carolyn Chandler (website: http://projectuxd.com/) they give some examples of advanced personas. You can find these on the website ( http://projectuxd.com/?page_id=5 ) under Chapter 7.

You can also Look inside the book at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Project-Guide-Design-Experience-Designers/dp/0321607376 and then Search inside this book for Advanced Personas and going to the second result (using the tab at right of 'page')

Now these personas are intended to be detailed and for good reason. As a developer or designer you should get to know these people; to understand them; get their needs, desires, influences, goals, doubts, etc. The more detail, the more real they seem. They should live on your wall; in your head, affecting your design. You should feel empathy with them.

BUT - These are not real people - they represent a type of person in your target audience but they are totally fictitious, maybe made up from hundreds of collected details, all accumulated through researching your audience carefully. To research your audience on a broad scale and then pick a real person as your persona, is like arranging a whole bunch of focus groups and then listening only to the one person that shouted the loudest.

Where are you going to find a single person that encapsulates all the information from one of these advanced personas.

Inkscape - How to cut lines across an arc?

I need to cut these lines across the arc. I only need the little itty bitty line ends. The arc and long parts of the lines are to be discarded.

Answer

Step 1

In order to use the circle to trim the line paths, you must select the circle and convert it to a path by clicking Path > Object to Path or Shift+Ctrl+C on Windows

Step 2

Select all paths except the circle and go to Path > Combine or Ctrl+K ; this allows you to perform boolean operations on the group of lines.

Step 3

Make sure the circle is above your lines with Object > Raise to Top. Then select all paths and go to Path > Cut path or Ctrl+Alt+/ This will cut the combined group along the perimeter of your circle.

Step 4

Finally, you can select each line trimming and delete them.

fiction - Can I shop an unfinished novel?

I've been writing a novel that addresses some very current themes. My belief is that if I can get it out there quickly, it will succeed well. I'm working on it frantically, but will agents consider representing a work in progress? At what point is it close enough?

Answer

Unless you are already an established name in the industry and one known for timeliness and reliability, you will have a hard time shopping around an unfinished book. There are a tremendous amount of finished manuscripts piling up on agents and editors doorsteps already.

But keep in mind, the publishing industry is a slow moving machine in general. Consider how many years these vampire and zombie trends have lasted. My advice would be to finish your book.

print design - InDesign and PDF printing boxes instead of shadows - Onscreen looks perfect

I apologize in advance if this has been asked, but I've searched for a few phrases and I'm not sure how else to ask it.

Using InDesign I've created a vector "ribbon" and given it a drop shadow. I've also placed a PSD file with a transparent background on the document.

On screen, the exported PDF and the InDesign screen preview look perfect (View > Overprint Preview is enabled). Here is a screenshot of the exported PDF (v1.5):

When printed on my HP LaserJet 2600n, however, I get these god-awful blocks around the shadow of the ribbon object and the placed PSD file. Here is a photo of the printed page (the camera on my phone washed out the image - it is accurately reproducing the colours):

I've tried converting Spot colours to Process in case the printer was experiencing some issue with the Pantone colours, but the colours are actually printing fine, it seems to be the placed file and the shadow causing issues.

I'd love to learn how to fix this, and more importantly - what causes the issue!

Answer

This is known as the 'dreaded white-box' problem. It was fairly common about 10 years ago (less so now) and has to do with transparency issues when the artwork is flattened. Adobe have a fairly comprehensive trouble-shooting page about it here: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/white-box-or-color-wash.html

typography - Difference between kerning vs letter spacing?

What is the difference between kerning vs. letter spacing?

Answer

Any font has built-in spacing determined by the "side bearing" of each character. In metal type, the side bearing is the physical right or left edge of the individual piece of type that determines its spacing from the characters on either side. Digital fonts mimic this in the basic design process.

"To kern" means to adjust the spacing between a pair of letters, numerals, punctuation, etc. (properly "glyphs") so that their spacing looks correct. The letters AV, for example, have to overlap in any usual typeface, otherwise at least one them ends up looking lost and bewildered. Their kerning is tightened to snug them up to one another. An italic f will collide with a following question or quote mark in some fonts, so the kerning must be opened up from the default spacing.

An ancient scribe could kern effortlessly with pen and ink, and if you read old manuscripts you'll see lots of places where a letter intrudes into the space of the one next to it. With metal type, it wasn't so easy. Kerning required cutting away some of the metal base, or table, of the character. The amount of time, skill and work involved is left as an exercise for readers whose minds are in need of a little boggling. The shapes of the letters in metal type intended for long passages of text such as books, or especially newspapers, were designed to minimize the amount of kerning that would be necessary.

Kerning tables built into a digital font assign preset kerning values to specific letter pairs, according to the designer's best estimate of how they should look. There can be a dozen or so pairs (or none!) in a cheapo font, thousands in a high-end one. No matter how thoroughly and well a kerning table is built, though, there will still be situations where some awkward combination requires that the kerning be loosened or tightened from the preset values of the glyphs.

Letter spacing (often "tracking" in software applications) adjusts the spacing between all the glyphs in a piece of text. This can help to make a page look a little more open and inviting, for example, especially with a similarly open leading. Very large type, such as a big headline, almost always benefits from tightening the tracking. Tiny type, such as in captions or footnotes, is made more readable by opening the letter spacing a bit, especially if the paper is absorbent and will allow the ink to spread a little.

A final note: Use caution with both kerning and tracking. Tracking is very often wildly overdone, kerning is seldom done enough.

navigation - Best Practice for Tab Placement on Widget?

Recently I have been working on restyling tabs on a widget. Some problems I have encountered during the restyle is our 960 grid system which with a side navigation included allows me a space of 12 cols to work with.

While researching, top tab placement seemed to be a common pattern used. However if more tabs are added to max out the first row a second row is created which isn't very eye-catching.

Side tab placement would allow the widget to display tabs in a single row going downwards. However less content doesn't look good in a large container.

What is the best practice for tab placement on a widget? Which would provide for a better user experience?

Answer

Through research regarding tabs, top placement is best as a top tab can appear as a header to the associated content below.

It's also a good rule of thumb to constrain a tab count (usually 5 - 7) that adds a bit of control to user content. If tabs exceed the 5 - 7 limit content editors will continue to create new tabs which can overflow and create clutter. Even adding a more tab could create more user confusion as it can display even more information that creates more clutter.

Users like simplicity and being able to find information quickly!

Is there a popular curve fitting formula of options skew vs strike price or vs Delta?

I was trying to build a options trading/optimization system. But it often gets more inaccurate as it scans through the far from ATM options because, you know, options skews.

That is because I did not price in options skews, or jump premium. I am wondering if there is a popular formula that takes "degree of options skew", and either strike price or Delta as inputs, and then give me skews premium in terms of IV as output.

Thank you very much.

accessibility - What should the ALT text be for an image that is also a link?

An image alt="" text should contain information about that image in the context of the page, so for instance if you have an article about cats on skateboards and then a photograph of the cat on his skateboard you'd probably give it the alt text of alt="Fluffy pulling some mad tricks on his pimped-out board".

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

However, what should happen when that image is a link to a page (such as the Wikipedia cat page)?

I don't think there is any point using the title attribute here because screenreaders just ignore that when an alt attribute exists - the only people who would see the title attribute are mouse users who hover over the image, so that excludes keyboard only users too. It's not really any benefit to accessibility to include a title in this situation (Overall the title attribute is a bit useless really).

So, what should the image ALT text say in this case?

WCAG Guideline 1.1 states:

Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language.

Therefore giving it the alt text of cat article page on Wikipedia is incorrect because that doesn't describe the image, neither does skateboarding cat image that links to the wikipedia article because the alt text should refer to the image itself, not the link associated with it.

Answer

HTML5 (Candidate Recommendation) contains the section "Requirements for providing text to act as an alternative for images", which includes the case "A link or button containing nothing but an image":

When an a element that is a hyperlink, or a button element, has no text content but contains one or more images, include text in the alt attribute(s) that together convey the purpose of the link or button.

(HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives (Working Draft) has almost the same text.)

So the alt content should not describe the image, but the target of the link.

Techniques for WCAG 2.0 (Working Draft) contains the technique "H30: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link for anchor elements":

When an image is the only content of a link, the text alternative for the image describes the unique function of the link.

So this particular technique (which is informative, not normative!) agrees.

---

IMHO this makes sense in many (most?) cases (e.g., for the examples given in the HTML5 spec), but I think there are cases where this requirement would lead to a bad user experience.

For example, a blog post which contains an image only. This image is linked to a high-res version of it. The link opens the image file directly, no HTML page involved:

Following the HTML5 requirement, the alt content could be something like

High resolution JPG of "Mona Lisa"

But now the actual content of the image is never given in text form, as the img element would have to contain the alternative text describing the target of the link, which would be the same image in higher resolution. But this high-res image can’t contain an alternative text, as it’s not part of a HTML document.

So I guess we should take care when adding image-only links: if the alternative text of an image would be different when linked vs. unlinked, we should make sure that the target of the link describes the image. If not (e.g., for direct file links), we would have to change the setup, for example:

• don’t link to the image directly, instead link to a HTML page which contains this image


• don’t link the image itself, instead add a separate text link



• don’t include only the image in the link, instead add some descriptive text to it (so it’s no longer containing "nothing but an image")

Merging Two Anchor Points in Photoshop

I have a shape path that contains two shapes within it. I want to merge two anchor points from - note that the two anchors are on different paths on the same shape. Here is an image.

Is it possible?

Answer

For the general case, the normal way is to make sure the path segments/shapes overlap slightly, set Path operations (at the top when the path Direct Selection (black arrow) tool is selected) to Combine Shapes, then Merge Shape Components with the overlapping paths selected.

novel - Variations of the same story?

I have a story I'm writing, and since when I started, it changed many times the route and focus, and in some of those changes, I found two possible paths for the story to advance on, and I already chose which one it will be. However, both paths are very good and with great potential and I don't want to simply pick one and discard the other but I can't use this other path in another story since it's only that good because it fits perfectly in this story and no other (if I adapt a new story, it would be too similar).

So I thought of writing both paths and releasing them separately, i.e., the same story twice, two separate works with the same story, but with different possibilities.The difference is not just a choice between two, but the way the protagonist reacts to the main event: one is the path of self-guilt along with a problem and the other is the path of wrath and revenge along with a different problem, and both with very different outcomes, so there are a few differences in the protagonist's mindset. It would basically be a "how would it be if things happened differently".

Now what I ask is: does it make sense to do that? What are other works that do that (if any)? Is it a good idea?

Answer

There is an old piece of advice in writing circles that says "slay your darlings". When a story has been worked and reworked many times, you will have created a number of great scenes, great characters, great plot lines, great emotional arcs, great endings. (At least they will seem great to you, they will be your darlings.) The thought of not using all these wonderful bits and pieces can seem intolerable.

In Story, Robert McKee describes this as one of the greatest impediments to writing a great story that works and sells. Rather than focusing on overall story structure, he says, rewriting becomes an exercise in trying to find new ways to include all of the "great scenes", the darlings, that you cannot bear to part with. But along this course things just get worse and worse as every iteration zigs and zags off the story course to incorporate the darlings. And often more darlings get created and added along the way, leading to a story that is full of great scenes but as a whole is an incoherent mess. Thus the ancient counsel: slay your darlings.

What you are proposing, to try to spare you darlings, is to turn your work into a novelty. There are a few novelty works out there, as Virginia points out. But novelties seldom sell well. And more to the point, novelties are remembered principally for their novelty. Unless it was you intent from the beginning to create a novelty book, then presumably you want it to be remembered for something other than this novelty. To get there, you need to slay your darlings.

Slaying your darlings is often very difficult. Sometimes the best way to do it is to put the work away in a drawer for a while. Pull it out in six months. By that time, you will have forgotten how much time and labour went into writing the darlings and it will be much easier to delete them. Also, you will probably find that it is suddenly plain to you which alternative is the stronger.

Don't worry at this point about whether you can do something else with the deleted scenes. Trying to make sure that everything gets used somehow is good hunter gatherer economics, but a poor artistic strategy. Give this one book all it needs, and only what it needs. Finish it. Publish it. Then go back to the scrap pile and see if anything there still so charms you that you have to spin it into another book. Don't worry if it is similar to what you have just published. If it is popular, people will be clamouring for another just like it.

Creating metaphors in poetry

When writing poetry, is there a known method of some kind that exists that makes it easy to turn a concept I'd like to illustrate into a metaphor? If so, please elaborate as much as possible.

EDIT:

I am asking if there is a way to come up with metaphors quickly and easily, so that if I want to illustrate a concept or a thought or a feeling I can quickly come up with a solid metaphor, rather than ask and puzzle about it.

world building - In Science Fiction, how does one do research, but write at the same time?

I have posted twice before to writers.stackexchange and I compliment the people who answered me.

As a result, I am going to start writing seriously without over reliance on craft books, even if I put out pure crap for awhile. However, I still couldn't help myself from reading one more craft book titled "Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by David Gerrold. Gerrold emphasizes that his book is about coaching, not teaching, and espouses some of the same philosophies as the people who answered my first post ("critique groups...").

Gerrold's book also helps address my second post ("world sketches...") along with the other responders.

To get to my question, Gerrold states that world building requires research. He also advocates setting daily quotas for the number of words written for discipline. If I chose to outline a book to research because I think it will help with the writing, then I am spending time on that project and not writing . Does research time count as writing time, should multiple projects be worked on at the same time to "keep feeding the pipeline", or some other scheme be used to meet quota?

Craig

How to render a video in Photoshop with transparency

I am making an animation in Photoshop that I am then going to use in Sony Vegas. My animation has a transparent background and I am wondering if there's any way to render my animation from Photoshop that will allow me to place it on top of another one inside Vegas and maintain its transparency.

poetry - What qualities should a good metaphor have?

What makes an individual metaphor a good illustration of a complex idea as opposed to a "bad" metaphor that doesn't do the job of painting a picture with alternate words?

Answer

Well, first off, it should be a metaphor, not a simile. :) Ahem...

A great metaphor recasts the familiar or mundane as something strikingly different yet truly parallel. It gives a startlingly vivid picture or brings a surprising insight. A bad metaphor fails to achieve the parallel, or the fresh insight, or both. The element of surprise is an important part of a great metaphor. If we saw it coming from a paragraph away, it is far less effective; a metaphor can be bad merely because it is a cliche.

Some personal favorites:

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees/The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas" (Noyes)

"The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes" (T.S. Eliot)

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage" (Shakespeare)

"Out of the mocking bird's throat, the musical shuttle/Out of the Ninth-month midnight" (Whitman)

How to calculate monthly Return from a Momentum Strategy with overlapping Holdingperiods?

I replicate a Momentum Strategy from Rey and Schmid (2007) "Feasible momentum strategies" based on the idea from Jegadeesh and Titman (1993). I only buy the single stock with the highest past return while, by the same time, the stock with the lowest return is sold short. The momentum strategies include portfolios with overlapping holding periods. Each month, thus, 1/K of the holdings is revised. For example, in month t, the J = 6 / K = 3 portfolio of winner stocks consists of three investment cohorts: a position carried over from an investment at the end of month t − 3 in the stock with the highest average return over the respective past 6 months and two positions resulting from investments in the topperforming stocks at the end of months t − 2 and t − 1, respectively. At the end of month t , the first of these investment cohorts is liquidated and replaced with a new investment in the stock with the highest 6-month average return as of time t .The K different investment cohort are rebalanced annualy.

How do i calculate the monthly returns correctly? Am I allowed to just sum the discrete Returns vertically and divide them by 3? Or do I have to take compounding returns? How can i annualize these returns? What does the annually rebalancing means in a mathematical way?

creative writing - How do you escalate a story's plot after killing the Big Bad?

Everyone remembers the Death Star and how it was supposed to be the most potent superweapon in the Star Wars-verse. Then in the Expanded Universe, they needed to add tension to the series since the Emperor was gone and kept pumping out new superweapons to the point where it became crazy. This ultimately cheapened the effect the original Death Star had by trying to one-up it in every book.

In many stories, it's hard to find a way to keep a series interesting after killing the Big Bad because everything was leading up to that confrontation. How do you prevent the story from getting stale after killing off the main villain?

gui design - Should a login page have links that send you away from the form?

I'm designing a login form and wondering if the header and footer on the page get in the way of logging in.

Maybe I'm being too fussy, but wondering if removing the primary navigation links from the header would help focus on the log in form. Why would you go to a log in form and them link away from it - OR - should I provide options, besides the back button, to link away?

Answer

I think the removal of primary navigation could actually break the continuity and require user to reset their understanding of nav. But if everything remains the same , they'll just focus on what has changed which is the login form.

I would rather suggest that login not be a separate page and it should just open in the page the user is in - as a modal. It'll be faster to load and it'll offer greater continuity.

tables - Method of showing that a row has been edited and will be changed upon "Save"

What paradigms exist for denoting that a row of data has been modified and that a Save action on the view will change them in the data store? Which paradigms are recommended?

A few that we've discussed:

• Bolding the text (as Outlook does for unread mail)


• Adding an asterisk next to the name column of the row


• Adding an icon, either as a new column or in addition to the name column of the row


• Using colors (scared of this due to color blindness)

Also, there are a couple questions that hint around this topic here. I don't consider this a duplicate, as I'm speaking more of the generic paradigm where they're talking about a specific problem.

In a long list of customers, how can I efficiently mark which have been edited?

An icon indicating something has changed or been edited?

automation - How can I use Automate Batch Action of Adobe Photoshop to cut 5px for every image

I have thousands of pictures and almost all have different dimensions and I want to cut the bottom of every image for 5px using Canvas Size and then save it. How can I Automate Batch Process this?

For example if the image is 600 X 600 then I want to make it 600 X 595 and then save it. If the images had same dimensions then I could make an action and Batch Process it on the folder but the problem is almost every image has different dimensions

Answer

Create a new action and hit record.

Go to canvas, select relative and type -5 into the height, set the crop to crop the bottom section.

Stop the the recording of the action.

Go to File > Automate > Batch

The latest saved action should be selected, if it's not, pick it. Run the action on the folder (pick the target folder) or opened files (I don't suggest this if you have thousands).

Save your files (if you didn't build save into your action).

Side note: I'd recommend doing them in batches of 50 or so, otherwise your machine will be running for quite a while and it's going to run hot, this way you can let it have a cool down if it's getting too much.

search results - Why don't people use the "I'm feeling lucky" button more often?

Have you ever seen or heard of someone using it?

Back in the days when Google didn't automatically redirected you to the results page as you typed, I think not a lot of people used the "I'm Feeling Lucky!" button (as backed by this and other references). They would rather click "Search" or "Enter" and be taken to the results page and from there they'd be happy to click on the first result that Google provided (if that's the case) and repeat this over and over for as long as they needed to go back to the page.

What is so appealing about the results page? Why people like to hand-pick the results, even when the Software and the User agree on the best solution? Why would the user like to skim through inaccurate results that rank lower than the actual software's best result before they actually take action?

Answer

There are two psychological key aspects that are in play when it comes to this matter.

• Users want to feel as they are in control


• Users (people) want the ability to choose

The I'm feeling lucky feature does not cater to either of these aspects.

It is true that the user and the SEO will agree on the most suiting search result on a majority of the time. However, the amount in clicks is in no way a reflection on the time spent focusing on the additional search results. As seen in this graph:

(image source)

The users will click the top search result a majority of the time. But at the same time they will on average also review the second and perhaps the third search result as well. This goes back to the previously mentioned aspects. Users don't want to feel like they're missing out on what they're seeking.

They want to be in control, requesting a range of search result and skimming through them. They want to choose, after skimming through the search result even though they on a majority of the time will choose the SEO top result.

Which ETFs should I use to test my portfolio selection algorithm?

I have a portfolio selection algorithm I want to backtest, but I don't want to limit the inputs at any point in time. For example, I don't want to exclude the Japanese stock market, just because it hasn't done well in recent history.

Ideally, I'll have a pool of ETFs that: 1. Cover broad market segments (i.e. "US Stocks," "Commodities," "Precious Metals," "Japanese stocks," "US Real Estate." etc.) 2. Are fairly liquid 3. Have low expense ratios 4. (Most important) Closely track an index that has a long history (This allows for a longer backtest).

For example, SPY is perfect. It's large, liquid, covers a major segment of the market, it has a long history, and I can substitute the S&P500 index if I need to go back further than the 1990's. CEF might also be a good option, as it's large, liquid, covers gold and silver, and has a pretty long history (back to about 1986 it seems).

Any other obvious choices

Illustrator: How do you change default Fill/Stroke Colors for the 'D' key?

Pressing D will switch to the default Fill/Stroke colors (which is White Fill / Black Stroke in Illustrator).

I remember having read about a way to define your own default Fill/Stroke colors, but I forgot how – e.g. say I want Transparent Fill and Black Stroke.

Answer

Ok, the answer was easy (but hard to recall if you've forgotten it like me):

1. Set your preferred Fill & Stroke.



2. Open the Graphic Styles panel; Window > Graphic Styles.


3. Click the New Graphic Style button.


4. Hold Alt/Opt key and drag the new style onto the default style. (The default style is the one having a miniature Fill/Stroke symbol in the lower left corner).

Now, pressing 'D' will change all selected objects to the new default style.

A bonus tip: In the Graphic Styles panel, open the Graphic Styles Libraries Menu and choose for example Additive. While having a path selected, Alt-/Opt-click on one of the Additive styles, to add some very interesting effects on your path.

layout - The use of tabs

I am working on redoing a clients application, which needs to be done for other reason, but one of the changes is to remove tabs.

The application is, in essence, fronting data records, very basic. The original application has 9 tabs on a page, holding various parts of the data, divided by function. However, the user said that she doesn't want tabs, because she always has to go through all of the tabs.

I have therefore worked a new solution without tabs. But I am wondering whether the concept of tabbed pages - a single page holding lots of data in multiple sections - is sometimes a wrong approach to take. We - IT professionals - tend to assume that this is a good way to behave. But maybe we are wrong.

So, to make this a clear question, what are the principles that we should use when utilising tabbed pages? Do we overuse them?

Answer

This is a topic I'm particularly interested in, because I actually do not like tabs for most situations. I think we do sometimes fall back on tabs a bit because it's an easy and common option to present more information in less space, rather than perhaps thinking around the problem a bit more and understanding the user's relationship with the data.

In general if we do our job properly then after looking at the requirements and understanding how users will interact with the system, then we should have all the necessary information to be able to determine for a given scenario whether tabs are the right way to represent sets of data or not.

Typically we end up implementing tabbed content because we are interested in only one page at a time. Tabs, by their very nature, hide all other content, so if a user is likely to keep needing to refer back and forth between tabs, or is going to sequentially move through all the tabs, then tabs are not the right way of presenting the data because it doesn't make things very easy for the way the users work - in fact it can be downright awkward. I frequently see users of software trying to manage ever increasing numbers of tabs of data and flicking back and forth trying to find the one that has the information they were looking at earlier.

If there is linkage or relationship between the pages of content then either the number of tabs must be reduced or alternative presentations should be considered - or alternative mechanism of accessing the content (hierarchy, favourites, historical, most popular, etc depending on the application in question).

If the tabs simply present sequential information, then tabs are not appropriate either because the criteria for splitting data at one point or another is less well defined or does not help to categorize the data in a clear fashion - you wouldn't present pages of a book using tabs - you wouldn't present pages of search results in tabs.

If there is no linkage or relationship between individual pages, then tabs should generally be fine. So for example in a browser, tabs are good - they divide separate areas of content - although having said that, actually if you really look at how people would like to organize their browsing sessions there is even life beyond tabs - eg Aza Raskin talks about Tab Candy for FireFox (aka Panorama or Tab Groups)

web app - Case studies on using gradients in a design

Are there any case studies on the use of gradients in a web design? I'm looking for answers similar to this answer about the usability of rounded corners.

Specifically, I'd like to know:

• Is there a difference in perception between using a gradient or not using one? If so, to what effect?


• What are the use cases where using gradients can help you achieve (or not achieve) your design goals?


• Anecdotally, it seems like there is a trend toward using more solid colors in design rather than a gradient. Would widespread use of subtle gradients signal an outdated design?

I realize that there is a certain degree of subjectivity in regards to a design element like gradients. Though I'm looking for some objective data on their use, please feel free to share your opinions as well.

Answer

Gradients are used to create a 2D or 3D lighting effect. They're often used in conjunction with drop shadows to create an impression of light. A typical iOS device home screen is covered with gradients and dropshadows which give a clear lighting effect.

Gradients are all about affordance and skeuomorphism; a previous answer of mine goes into some detail on the lighting aspect of this.

This post about Realism in UI Design makes lots of good points. A good summary:

The same applies to these toggles. Shadows and gradients help the user figure out what he’s looking at and how to interact with it. Adding too many details, however, ends up being confusing. The toggle switch is no longer just a toggle switch that is part of a user interface, it is clearly recognizable as a photograph of a specific toggle switch; it loses its meaning. It’s no longer a symbol, it has become a specific thing.

I think we're seeing a move away from gradients because of a larger reaction to a very pervasive skeuomorphism. Skeuomorphism is abundant in every Apple interface, and they're typically quite successful and aesthetically pleasing.

However, this is design, and skeumorphism is a bit of a fad. Google and Microsoft have taken significant steps away from skeumorphism resulting in largely flat colors and naturally digital designs in the Metro design language and the Android Design guidelines.

I don't think there's anything specifically bad (or good) about gradients, they're simply part of the what makes a design more skeuomorphic or more purely digital. As designs trend toward purely digital, gradients look less "natural" and go the wayside like reflections, gloss effects, ect.

icon - How to create a 3D effect in Inkscape as required by the Android Design Guidelines?

In the Iconography section if the Android Design Guide they describe the following style that should be used for Launcher Icons:

Use a distinct silhouette. Three-dimensional, front view, with a slight perspective as if viewed from above, so that users perceive some depth.

I'd like to know how to create this effect with Inkscape. At the moment I just have a two-dimensional shape and don't know how to continue.

vector - Convert Primitive to Path using SVG format in Illustrator

I've got a simple drawing in Illustrator consisting of multiple rectangles. I will need to handle that in code later one and saved the document as SVG.

The rectangles come out as nodes in SVG format. Is there a clean way to convert the rectangles from primitive types to a path in Illustrator ? If so, how ?

So far my hacky solution was to use Object > Path > Simplify and because I was dealing with simple boxes with no transformations applied I've also ticked the Straight Lines. This worked well for boxes (kept the same number of vertices and look)

Is there a cleaner/less hacky way to convert a primitive to a path in Illustrator ?

Answer

The trick is to turn the path in to a Compound Path (CMD + 8). That makes the SVG output an actual path rather than a primitive type.

Illustrator: Getting solid color values from transparency?

I created a logo in illustrator and after much experimentation, settled with a design which the client approved.

The problem is, some shapes have a transparency of 60% which looks amazing on white but I need to clean this up before sending final files to the client.

Question: How do I get an accurate solid colour value from a 60% transparent shape in Illustrator?

Things I've tried:

• 
  

  The eyedropper in illustrator only gathers the 100% colour value not the 60%+white which I need.

  
  
  


• 
  

  Pasting / Importing into Photoshop changes the colour appearance completely even though both are viewing as CMYK

  
  

usability - Any Research on User Experience Perceptions of Native Apps vs Web or Hybrid Apps

My organization is looking at developing mobile applications, we have a wealth of web development resources. There are many factors to consider in making the decision of how to develop this application such as Cost(s), platform support, performance, and maintainability.

But, I have not found any research that actually backs up the assumptions that users prefer the experience of a native app over a hybrid mobile web app (A hybrid app is a HTML5 app distributed in an embedded web view using PhoneGap, etc.).

Some people assert that native apps are more performant and have a better user experience, but why? Have there been any user surveys or analytics that indicate this user preference towards native?

Answer

Yes, there have been formal studies demonstrating that as users become increasingly familiar with mobile devices, they shift increasingly toward using native apps.⁴ This trend is likely a combination of three factors:

• People prefer the familiar. If people know of a site or app that's likely to address their needs, they're more likely to use that known source than to search.³ Users trust known resources because they're more reliable: information needs are four times as likely not to be addressed when using generic search than when using direct re-access of a known source.³


• Mobile users bookmark differently. Bookmarks in mobile browsers are used sparingly,⁴ instead mobile users "bookmark" by downloading the native app.^1,4


• Native apps offer superior interaction.
  
  
  
  • They can be used offline, which makes them faster to open.² It can also make their performance faster in some cases by allowing them to store information locally and only synchronize with the server after the user is done using the app.
  
  
  
  • They allow the user to use device-specific hand gestures. Android and iOS are gradually developing different conventions for interaction, and a native app responds the way its user expects.
  
  
  • They have access to device-specific functions such as geolocation and accelerometers (although with HTML5, web apps are gradually gaining access to these functions as well).
  
  
  
  

_{[1] Bales, Elizabeth, Timothy Sohn, and Vidya Setlur. “Planning, Apps, and the High-end Smartphone: Exploring the Landscape of Modern Cross-device Reaccess.” In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Pervasive Computing, 1–18. San Francisco, USA: Springer-Verlag, 2011.}

_{[2] Caspar Ryan and Atish Gonsalves. 2005. The effect of context and application type on mobile usability: an empirical study. In Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Australasian conference on Computer Science - Volume 38 (ACSC '05), Vladimir Estivill-Castro (Ed.), Vol. 38. Australian Computer Society, Inc., Darlinghurst, Australia, Australia, 115-124.}

_{[3] Heimonen, T. (2009). “Information Needs and Practices of Active Mobile Internet Users.” In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Mobile Technology, Application Systems, 50:1–50:8. Mobility ’09. New York, NY, USA}

_{[4] Tossell, C., Kortum, P., Rahmati, A, Shepard, C., & Zhong, L. (2012). “Characterizing Web Use on Smartphones.” In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2769–2778. CHI ’12. New York, NY, USA: ACM.}

mac os x - Menu bar for different major windows

Our application has different major windows which don't share a noticeable common menu item set. Hence the menu bar changes when switching between those windows. Unfortunately, I have not found any other Mac application with same behavior. Even if no window is shown, their application menu bar remains the same.

What do you suggest - try to "merge" our different menu bars into one common or use independent ones for the different windows?

Additional question: there is also a menu bar ("application menu bar"?) which should occur when no window is shown at all. Usually, it allows to open files or create new ones. What should this menu bar contain in the context of different major windows?

Answer

Having a stable menu bar is a pretty strong convention on the Mac. If you didn't find any application that does what you want to do, you should seriously ask yourself if breaking the user's expectations about the platform is really a good idea.

If you look at native Mac OS applications, you will see that the contents of the menu bar are not changing but there is often one or two menus that are only active in some contexts. For example, in Mail, the “Format” menu is visible at all times but most of its items are disabled unless an editing window is activated. Conversely, most choices in the “View” menu are not available when writing an email. Same thing with “Select”, “Filter”, etc. in Adobe CS (Photoshope, Fireworks…) One major exception is Adobe Flash CS, which does have a number of menus hidden until you open a file.

Some menus might also simply provide functions operating on another level in the background. For example, in Mail you can synchronize your mailboxes at all time, even from an editing window. I don't really understand why an “Application” menu with options to open or create a new file shouldn't be available when other files are opened (incidentally, on the Mac, those two options should in fact be in the “File” menu, not the “Application” menu). Even if you can't have two files opened at the same time, having to close a window to be able to see the menu you're looking for can be annoying.

Going for a fixed menu therefore seems the best solution to match Mac OS users' expectations. If needed, there a couple of ways complex Mac applications reduce the number of menus: Move functions to toolbars, group them in sub-menus or secondary windows accessible from the menu.

Some applications do break this convention but those are often cross-platform applications and they do not really feel like real Mac applications. In the case of OpenOffice, the issue is that OO packs, at least conceptually, several applications into one. By contrast, Keynote or Excel look like separate applications, can be closed and opened independently, live in separate windows, with a specific icon in the dock, etc. If your application can be split up that way, that might also be an interesting approach.

You can even find some Mac applications with a menu directly in the window (often those are open-source projects or java applications), which might be a solution if you really don't care about the platform's convention and need to follow the MS Windows interface model closely. I suspect most Mac users would find them awkward and that could reflect negatively on the image they have of your company but such applications do exist (Matlab is an example of a large commercial application designed that way, presumably because the Mac OS platform is not its primary target).

style - How to create varying, yet realistic, speech patterns

Different characters speak differently. If someone reads me a letter written by an immediate relative, I can tell right away who wrote it. I believe --and correct me if I'm wrong-- that giving each major character a subtly unique way of speaking can help make the character seem more real.

What practices are used to make different characters speak differently?

I can't bear the thought of reverting to crutches such as speech impediments, favored swear-words, or noticeable accents.

And yet, I've read far too many books where I felt that the characters all spoke alike.

How can I make the differences be subtle, so that:

1. Characters don't sound the same; and yet-


2. The difference sounds natural, and not as if I'm forcing the characters to talk in a way they shouldn't?

Note: My question is referring to speech patterns only, not to character behavior.

Answer

Consider the different characters':

• Level of intelligence
  
  
  
  • stupid characters contribute stupid thoughts to conversation
  
  
  • smart characters might only contribute when they know they have something important to say
  
  
  
  


• Interest in the conversation



• Social personality: whether introverted or extraverted


• Subject matter of interest (since they would continually bring it up):
  
  
  
  • A priest constantly going back to the bible
  
  
  • A war veteran who relates everything to "the war"
  
  
  • A player constantly talking about women
  
  
  
  


• Level of engagement with the conversation's subject matter


• Use of gestures with speaking



• Relationship to the other characters speaking:
  
  
  
  • Their reactions, both physical and in dialogue to the other speakers
  
  
  • Any subtext brought about by the relationship(s)
  
  
  
  

Give each character about 4-5 "characteristic" phrases they use often. Eg:

• "Seems like"



• "Bloody"


• "Just so"


• "Theoretically"

Vary the sentence length between characters

novel - Which of the two cases of writing Flashback Stories is better?

I am currently working on a story which is based on a flashback event of life. I want the past scene to appear as a current phase to involve readers in my flashback event as if it is happening now. Kindly guide me how to interpret it in an excellent way ?

Following are 2 forms of speeches to write a flashback scene:

1. It is midnight, but still my eyes are awake and mind is baffled with the screams and laughs of all the students who made fun of me this morning. All these unwanted thoughts are ruining my sleep.


2. It was midnight and I was trying to sleep but my eyes couldn't rest for a while because I was going through a thunderstorm in my mind which was still in the state of the morning scenario thinking of all the insults I faced in school.

Kindly, guide which one would leave more impact on the reader. Currently, I am using (1) to depict a flashback.

Answer

This is an interesting question. However, there's one thing confusing me. As far as I can tell, if I were to read a flashback, I would prefer reading one in the past tense because when talking about flashbacks you're actually talking about a sudden incident where you're in a current situation and something triggered a past memory, hence triggering a flashback. So this basically means using the past tense would make more sense.

You can check the following link for a more professional answer that is quite comprehensive and could be of a lot of help to you.

ios - Is Apple's or Google's meaning of the three-horizontal-bar icon more popular?

Apple and Google are going head-to-head to define meaning of the three-horizontal-bars icon:

In iOS this icon means "drag me to rearrange items in a list" while Google Chrome's version means "click me to bring up a menu".

Is one of these two meanings already widely established in mobile, web, or desktop software? Also, which popular apps (on any platform) use this icon and what does it mean in those apps?

I'm asking because we're building an app that has a "list re-order" feature (using the standard iOS icon of course!), but several iOS-familiar folks I talked with didn't recognize the re-order icon. This led me to wonder how popular either variant is. Even if an icon is iOS standard, if it's not used much and the other variant is very popular, then we'll have some user education challenges we want to prepare for.

Here's pictures from the newest Google Chrome:

From iOS design guidelines:

From a sample iOS app:

Answer

Three bar icons are now being used widely to indicate a "show list/menu" function - it's not just Chrome. Below are screenshots from Day One and PlaceMe (I only had to open a couple of apps to find examples of this usage).

I believe the icon was a poor choice by Apple (in hindsight) - it does not give a clear interaction cue, it's more of a reorderable state indicator. But, let's remember that Apple made this choice before all this app-madness happened.

On iOS, both uses may be able to co-exist without confusion - since use as a menu/list indicator would have a single icon and "reorderable state" would have an icon beside each list item.

A better choice may be to move toward something similar to the "draggable" icon to indicate reorder-ability and let the three bars be a "show list/menu" function cue - as it is gaining traction.

login - Log-in form on new page or not?

What's considered better for UX?

1. User clicks on the log-in link/button, afterwards she is taken to another page where she can fill the log-in form. Example: Yahoo.


2. User clicks on the log-in dropdown button and the log-in form slides down. Example: Experts Exchange.

In my specific case the registration is disabled and only the employees can login to edit the content. Anybody can view the content.

Answer

It seems the application that you are talking about does not have that much complexity, so having log-in in a same page works better, in case if security reasons are important for you, so second page would be recommended.

Yahoo and big sites like that have so many actions in their first page, so including the log-in action in those page can potentially brings usability issues, sometimes log-in input boxes may be mistaken as search area, or newsletter email submission boxes. Also error handling will be confusing and anyway they are forced to use a second page for error handling. That's why they should put that in a second level action. If you do not have too many components in the homepage, using drop-downs will work great. But you should still deal with the error messages. Maybe you need to have another log-in page in case if you got an error in the log-in process, or you can handle those email in homepage with nice AJAX implementations.

I don't know why you used Twitter as the example for the second option, Twitter has its log-in input right in the middle of its homepage, which is not a bad solution in case if the only important component that you have in the page is the log-in component. With this style you don't need to have another page for error handling.

How many users must be tested when doing usability, and why?

Please provide empirical data.

Just to be clear, I will not accept Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, March 19, 2000: Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users without solid empirical data to back it up. I find it hard to believe that in 10 years no one has ever tested Nielsen's claim in a meaningful way.

Further, I find statements from Nielsen like this troubling at best: "The curve clearly shows that you need to test with at least 15 users to discover all the usability problems in the design."

Translation: Test 15 people and you will find 100% of the usability problems. (yeah, right!)

Answer

Why you only need to test with five users (explained) http://www.measuringusability.com/five-users.php

tools - Where can I find resources about writing "Choose your own adventure"-style books?

I have read/played a couple of "Choose your own adventure"-style book and am interested in the process of creating one.

Where can I find (preferrably free) online resources, such as How-To-Write or styleguide articles and blogs, about writing a "Choose your own adventure"-style books?

The main reason for asking specifically about a this type of book is that I am having problems with the idea of creating a branched storyline and would like to see what common ways are for creating such a story. I have asked about this on a similar question about online resources for a visual novel, but there are a few things that are quite different when thinking about "Choose your own adventure" books.

For example I have never seen such a book that was not written in the First Person. I think that may be due to the fact that you want your reader feel like a player that has to decide for themselves and thereby you are making the story feel more alive for them - it's their adventure after all. But I would love to see whether there are any sort of studies or counterexamples for this and what the recommendations are.

There is also the question about how to format the transition whenever the reader has to decide what he wants to do. Do you put it in a little box on the side where? Do you make each block as a visible block? Are there recommendations such as "You should preferrably use complete pages/half a page for each block"?

Furthermore I have sometimes seen that the different paths don't seem to be in any particular order. It looked like the authors first wrote the book with a handful of different endings and then decided to obfuscate everything by letting blocks switch place - which makes it more interesting because you never know when you are getting close to The End. Again, I am looking for resources that talk about preferred techniques and possibly tools that may assist with this.

Discussions about the length may be interesting, too, as most of these books I have seen are relatively short for a book. But then again, it's quite the work to not only write the story as it plays out in your head, but to give the reader some agency, formatting the book the correct way, coming up with multiple endings, ... The resources would preferrably talk about the average length of such books compared to novels.

I have seen this question: I want to write a Choose Your Own Adventure styled e-book, what's a good approach?, but it focuses on writing a technical guide that is displayed as a digital document that allows readers to use for example hyperlinks to get from point A to point C to point B, whereas I am looking for different genres such as mystery, fantasy, ... in a printed form where the reader turns pages as instructed (or not, depending on your reader) and specifically about online resources, such as discussion forums, guides and tools, that would help with the process of creating such a book.

dialog - When to include an Apply button?

In a dialogue box, when do you use an Apply button?

Is it correct to assume that the Apply button will only save the changes without closing the dialogue? Does it represent an advantage? Why is Preview button not as commonly used (in window based applications)?

I know this might seem like a lot of questions, but I what I want to understand is the usage of the Apply button, its advantages and disadvantages and common scenarios. The Preview button discussion would be a bonus.

Answer

The main reason for the Apply feature is to yield closure in the user. What I mean by that is that you don't want to complicate a task for a user, making the user having to think too much about the mere interactive pattern of an application but rather the main task at hand. In this case it's really to ensure the user that changes the user makes are being saved without the user having to worry about it.

The Apply button is most commonly used in dialogues that feature more than one tab/perspective. The apply button is there to ensure the user that changes being made in one tab will not be lost when the user switches to another tab. This can of course be easily technically avoided, there's usually no problem to store changes that are not currently being displayed to be saved at a later stage, but the user is not aware of this, and that's the problem.

In some ways it can almost be regarded as a placebo control. There is no real use for it, in most cases, since changes can be cached outside the displayed content to be saved when the user finally clicks OK. However, if the user doesn't know this, and worries about whether or not their changes will be lost if they switch tab, they may start clicking OK for every change they make. And that would be very inefficient. I have to point out that I am aware of instances where changes has to be made and saved before continuing, so I know that there can be some actual technical functionality to the Apply button, however those are the rare cases.

Regarding your Preview idea. I see two direct flaws with it. First and foremost Apply and Preview has two different semantic meanings to them. Preview conveys that changes are not actually being made, but that you're rather temporarily tempering with settings to see what WOULD happen. This is not however how Apply works, Apply will save the changes in the same way as if a user clicked OK. Therefore I don't see it transferring correctly.

Secondly the Apply feature is usually used where a "Preview" wouldn't make any sense. Eg:

• Set file attribute to Read-only, Preview -> ?.


• Cancel report subscription, Preview -> ?.

However, where it does make sense, like in graphical tools, this terminology is also utilized. Eg:

• Apply filter, Preview -> Render with new filter.



• Rotate 35°, Preview -> Display object rotated by 35°.

Here it's utilized because it makes sense.

Combine Two Vector Shapes into One, With One Path (in Sketch App)

(In Sketch, the app.)

I'm trying to create a shape that is symmetrical on the vertical axis.

I made one half of the shape, duplicated it, flipped the duplicate, then grouped the two together into one object using the Union join menu option.

This is almost what I want, except that when displaying the border for the object, the vertical line where I joined the two objects still appears.

Is there a way to combine the two union'ed vector shapes so that one vector path goes around the outside outline?

I believe the equivalent in Photoshop is the Merge Shape Components option. I can't seem to find the equivalent in Sketch.

thank you

hullwhite - Hull-White formula on wikipedia, correct?

The distribution for the short rate in Hull-White model on Wikipedia is:

But the same equation in Damiano's Interest Rate Models - Theory and Practice is:

Q: I don't see how the formulas for the expectation are related. The formula in the book has instantaneous forward curve, which is nowhere in Wikipedia.

Answer

For the Hull-White model, where \begin{align*} dr_t = (\theta(t)-a r_t)dt+ \sigma dW_t, \end{align*} under the risk-neutral measure, we have that, for $t\ge s \ge 0$, \begin{align*} r_t = e^{-a(t-s)} r_s + \int_s^t \theta(u)e^{-a(t-u)} du + \int_s^t \sigma e^{-a(t-u)} dW_u. \end{align*} Then, if $\theta$ is a constant, \begin{align*} r_t \mid r_s &\sim N\left(e^{-a(t-s)} r_s + \int_s^t \theta e^{-a(t-u)} du\Big), \, \frac{\sigma^2}{2a}\Big(1-e^{-2a(t-s)}\Big)\right) \\ &\sim N\left(e^{-a(t-s)} r_s + \frac{\theta}{a} \Big(1-e^{-a(t-s)}\Big), \, \frac{\sigma^2}{2a}\Big(1-e^{-2a(t-s)}\Big)\right). \end{align*}

For the general case (see this question), the price of a zero-coupon bond price is given by \begin{align*} P(t, T) &= A(t, T) e^{-B(t, T)\, r_t}, \end{align*} where \begin{align*} B(t, T) = \frac{1}{a}\Big(1-e^{-a(T-t)} \Big), \end{align*} and \begin{align*} A(t, T) &= \exp\left(- \int_t^T \theta(u) B(u, T) du -\frac{\sigma^2}{2a^2}\big(B(t, T) -T+t\big)-\frac{\sigma^2}{4a}B(t, T)^2\right). \end{align*} Given the initial bond price curve, note that \begin{align*} \ln P(0, T) = \ln A(0, T) - B(0, T)\, r_0. \end{align*} Then \begin{align*} f(0, T) &= -\frac{\partial \ln P(0, T)}{\partial T}\\ &= \int_0^T \theta(u) \frac{\partial B(u, T)}{\partial T} du + \frac{\sigma^2}{2a^2}\Big(\frac{\partial B(0, T)}{\partial T} -1\Big)+ \frac{\sigma^2}{2a}B(0, T) \frac{\partial B(0, T)}{\partial T}\\ &\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\ + \frac{\partial B(0, T)}{\partial T} r_0\\ &=\int_0^T \theta(u) e^{-a(T-u)} du+ \frac{\sigma^2}{2a^2}\Big(e^{-a T} -1\Big)+ \frac{\sigma^2}{2a^2}\Big(e^{-a T}-e^{-2a T} \Big) + e^{-a T} r_0\\ &=\int_0^T \theta(u) e^{-a(T-u)} du - \frac{\sigma^2}{2a^2}\Big(e^{-a T} -1\Big)^2 + e^{-a T} r_0. \end{align*} That is, \begin{align*} \int_0^T \theta(u) e^{-a(T-u)} du &= f(0, T) + \frac{\sigma^2}{2a^2}\Big(e^{-a T} -1\Big)^2-e^{-a T} r_0\\ &=\alpha(T)-e^{-a T} r_0, \tag{1} \end{align*} where \begin{align*} \alpha(T) = f(0, T) + \frac{\sigma^2}{2a^2}\Big(e^{-a T} -1\Big)^2. \end{align*} Moreover, from $(1)$, \begin{align*} \int_0^T \theta(u) e^{au} du= e^{aT}\alpha(T)-r_0. \end{align*} Then \begin{align*} \int_s^t \theta(u) e^{-a(t-u)} du &= e^{-a t} \int_s^t \theta(u) e^{a u} du\\ &= e^{-a t}\left(e^{at}\alpha(t)-e^{as} \alpha(s) \right)\\ &=\alpha(t) - e^{-a(t-s)}\alpha(s). \end{align*} Therefore, \begin{align*} r_t \mid r_s &\sim N\left(e^{-a(t-s)} r_s + \int_s^t \theta(u) e^{-a(t-u)} du\Big), \, \frac{\sigma^2}{2a}\Big(1-e^{-2a(t-s)}\Big)\right) \\ &\sim N\left(e^{-a(t-s)} r_s + \alpha(t) - e^{-a(t-s)}\alpha(s), \, \frac{\sigma^2}{2a}\Big(1-e^{-2a(t-s)}\Big)\right). \end{align*}

web app - Back function in (mobile) native apps vs. web apps

I'm currently prototype a search / result workflow for a web app.
You search something, click on a result and be able to go back to the search result.

Now how do I display that? Do I implement a back-button or should I rely on the browser back-button?

But first some information on the web-app & what I've already tried / searched:

The web-app
The web-app is a tool for work. It means that there are no alternatives and the users will use the tool multiple times everyday. So they could learn complex interaction-systems overtime.

The user
The users will mostly use the web-app on Android devices. But it needs to be able to acces the tool over desktop & iPad too. The device-usage is about the following:
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini: 80%
Desktop: 10%
iPad: 8%
others: 2%

Analysis
So I started trying out some websites and searched for best practices and I came across an intresting fact: native mobile apps are implementing back-buttons / -links while web-apps don't.

Here are some examples (left web-app, right native app. Only Android, no iOS examples):

Zalando
The web-app doesn't offer a back-button while the native app offer a back-arrow top left but removes the navigation completly. So while a mobile user need to rely on a browser back-button or Android back-button, he is able to still navigate and search. The Native App user on the other hand is able to quickly go back to the result, but can't navigate further.

If you scroll down, the native app have a fixed header where you can go back all the time, while the web-app don't have a fixed header at all.

Pinterest
Similar to Zalando, Pinterest have no back-button on the web-app while the native app provides a back-arrow.

More examples for native Apps can be found here on mengto.com.

Conclusion
Native apps are 100% mobile optimized, because it's the only focus. I'm aware that there is also a difference between Android and iOS since iPhone doesn't have a back-button on the hardware and need such a back-button in the UI. But most of the Android-Apps still provide a back-button in the application itself.
So why do web-apps don't provide such a back-button on the mobile size, since it's integrated in most native-apps?

And what should I use in my web-app? Should I provide a additional back-button or not? (As I mentioned earlier, we focus on Android User).

Article I read but didn't satisfy me completly
UX-SE Q&A:
Should a web-based UI rely on the browser back button?
Any Research on User Experience Perceptions of Native Apps vs Web or Hybrid Apps
Back button on mobile web app
Is a back button a good idea for mobile?

Blogs / Articles:
6 UX Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Native Mobile App
4 Design Patterns That Violate Back-Button Expectations

Answer

This answer is focused on Android, it might or not be applicable to iOS.

Google Material Guidelines has a very complete section on Navigation which describes how a user interacts with the navigation history in apps. It is clearly explained there so I'll mostly use references to it and some thoughts.

---

The two main navigation buttons are:

• The App specific Up button:

The Up button returns users to the previous screen they viewed. It navigates upward in the app’s hierarchy until the app’s home screen is reached.

• Android OS main Back button:

The Back button navigates in reverse chronological order through the history of recently viewed screens.

.

Whereas the Up button ensures the user remains in your app, the Back button may take the user back through recent screens outside of your app.

For this reason it is a good idea to have an Up button in an App.

---

In the examples you propose the two cases are:

• 
  

  Browser App

  
  


• 
  

  Native App

  
  

In both cases the App provides an Up button. The App in the Web case is the Browser, which already has an Up button.

---

The way the App responds to the user scrolling is probably dependant on the decision of the developer. Google describes different ways of how the Toolbar could react to the scroll.

When sheets scroll underneath toolbars, they are clipped and cannot pass through to the opposite side.

Sheets can also cover the toolbar as they move offscreen.

(...) Toolbars can share a seam with another sheet.

In cases where they share a seam that transforms into a step, it is called a waterfall.

---

I hope this answered your main question.

About the second one: What should I use in my web-app? Should I provide a additional back-button or not? (As I mentioned earlier, we focus on Android User).

I don't think providing an extra Up button to the browser's one is a good idea. It might create confusion as the user will not know what is the difference between both (as both should be doing the same).

You might want to check how to prevent the address bar from hiding.

---

Edit:

To me it is a little bit confussing how the buttons actually work:

Up button: The up button sometimes brings me to the App parent (ascending navigation), and in some others to a sibling (lateral navigation) and after to the parent (ascending navigation).

Back button: The back button in some apps brings me to the App parent, whether the parent was the previous history screen or not. In some others it respects the history line. For example:

In Play books App if from the Home screen I open the App and it shows the page of a book, pressing the back button will bring me to the Home screen.

In Google Keep App if from the Home screen I open the App and it shows a certain note (single view), pressing the back button will NOT bring me to the Home screen, but to the parent (ascending navigation).

The key difference is that the Up button won't let the user go out of the App, but the Back button might.

---

Answering to your comment, in the Chrome App the Back button brings the user back in history inside the App (only in the actual Tab). When the "first accesed page" of that Tab is reached it will bring the user to the OS Home screen.

My guess is that as there are no parents in the Chrome App there is no need to display an Up button. The back button will navigate all Tab history.

Critique: Is my logo conveying what I want to communicate?

I'm working as a junior web designer. I want to redesign my portfolio, including that I'm also designing my logo.

This is the first time I'm designing a logo. I learnt guidelines and I designed my new logo.

What I want to communicate through my logo is:

1. It should clearly convey my profession i.e. designer.


2. I'm very much passionate about my profession, so I want to reflect the same in my logo.

Is my logo conveying what I want to convey? Also, if there is anything to improve in my logo please suggest it to me.

Answer

First, I like your style. It's well executed and easy on the eyes. But, to be totally honest, a pencil is probably not the best association with web design. Or are you doing professional mockups on paper and showing these to your clients? If not, I think the symbol is a bit weak.

Client wants me to teach them InDesign

My client wants me to teach them how to do basic editing in InDesign. This is after, against my better judgement, I had agreed to give them the ID files of the documents I created in favor of continuing the business relationship smoothly.

What would you do? Charge a large fee for teaching them, or decline and say google it? BTW this client was an overall very good one, but their budget is up in the air and I'm not sure if I will get more work from them this year (last two months has been very little work from them.)

Answer

I include a disclaimer when delivering native files:

.... makes no promise, provides no guarantee, and offers no support, for the continued use, alteration, or editing of native files after files have been delivered. It is the sole responsibility of the client to ensure they have proper software, hardware, and expertise in order to utilize any native files should an agreement for delivery be reached.

I then merely refer back to it if asked to "train" someone on my files.

"Sorry, I don't have the time to dedicate to training others in the use of software. Adobe offers online tutorials and there are additional places such as Lynda.com which will offer courses on [application]."

To me, it doesn't matter if they are my best client or my worst. I just don't have the time teaching requires because I don't want to be a full time instructor.

There's nothing wrong with teaching them (for a fee) if that's what you want to do.

However, depending upon your business model, you may just want to decline any instruction at all. Realize that it will take a lot of your time. Much more than you can estimate. Time you may not have to spare if you have other clients and other projects.

In addition, they will most likely be in a hurry to learn anything and everything in order to make the edits they want to make. So they will not be patient learners.

And... you have no idea what type of students they will be. Some students pick up things rather quickly, others require you to repeat the exact same thing several times before the concept sinks in.

Teaching is great... but it is its own animal. Requiring you to feed it and babysit when necessary. If you want your career to move more in that direction, then go for it! But, if you want your focus to stay on design, then stay on design and decline teaching.

I love sharing what I know, but I hate teaching. I've done it, in a classroom environment and one-on-one. For me, they both have way more "cons" than "pros". But then... it's probably personality based for me. I'm not great at biting my tongue when I've told someone something 15 times and they haven't heard a word I've said.

(Quite honestly, if you decide to teach, I'd consider more in the range of several hundred dollars per hour. One-on-one training is much different than any general course, and the pricing should reflect that. If they just want to learn, there are online courses for probably close to what you'd charge your normal hourly rate. You should make it worth your time if you intend to teach.)

Another option may be on-site workshops... you travel to their business... set up a conference room somewhere at their location and then give 3-5 days of dedicated instruction. They pay for your travel, lodging, per diem, and instruction in one lump sum. The benefit here is that when training is done, it's done. If they want more... they pay more.

So you could offer a 3 day workshop for up to 10 students at their business for $xx,xxx.xx. You work out what it would cost you to travel and lodge for that time, $150 for food/expenses ($50/day), a rental car for 3 days, and then 3 - 8 hour days of your time.

If I teach, this is how I prefer to do it. You do have to work up a syllabus and handouts (3-ring binder as a "manual" or "cheat sheet" is fine) for the training, but it's better than trying to do the email or phone call exchange to train anyone. It does take far more planning (so include planning time in the cost), but it is often the most headache-free way to train when asked.