usability - Selecting many elements from a long list

I have a scenario where my 'create user' dialog has a very long list of options, of which the user needs to select many. The project manager has suggested a 'dual list' approach: a long (scrolled) list of checkboxes for the user to choose from, followed by a list of all currently selected options. The second list would 'auto update' as the user proceeded to click them in the first list.

As suggested by the PM, it would look something like this:

(Somewhat functional "demo" of the above mockup here. The actual mock ups of the application itself are just about equally plain and ugly.)

The problem is that while the screenshot in this example only has fifteen or so options, of which only a few are selected, the real world application could have hundreds of options, and the user might have to select fifty or more. The user will always have to click fifty times, say, but what would be the best way to do this from a user experience perspective?

The project manager also suggested a 'select all' option, and keeping the lists in alphabetical order and 'synced' (checkbox select/deselect automatically updates the selected list.) The major concern for the PM from the user's perspective is that once they've selected all the options, they need some way of 'checking' to make sure they've gotten them all. The PM is of the opinion that scrolling through a hundreds-of-options-long list of check boxes will be tedious for a user to do, and that it will be easy to miss options that way.

Key points:

• A list of (possibly) hundreds of options


• User will probably be selecting many, but not all, options


• User will need to check their selections on this screen before committing their changes

This is going to be a fatiguing tasks no matter how it's implemented. I'm just looking for a way as to not frustrate the user with a clunky or ugly interface, and/or to streamline the process as much as possible.

This is very closely related to this question: Alternatives to a dual list for selecting a bunch of items from a long list? and Best way to select a subset of items in a long list?. Those questions focus on the general case, whereas I'm considering the 'whole lotta clicking' case.

images - Imitate a photo realistic rendering of a book cover

I have the image of a front cover of a book, for example,

that I would like to use (along with the image of the spine) to produce the image on the right, which is, a sideways view of the same book. The transformations of the front and the spine along with the darkening of the spine and stitching of the images together are very easy steps, and I describe them down below (using ImageMagick). I would be interested in listening to strategies for:

• the soft shadow (on the lower left)


• a soft edge on the borders and


• the shadow of the bulge of the binding

and other transformations you would consider (and how) to make this a more photo-realistic composition.

I am specially interested in solutions that are scriptable like ImageMagic

If you you want to try your hand at two examples images, here they are:

and here is a short script to put them together:

convert wc4jd.png -matte -virtual-pixel transparent \
         -distort Perspective \
              '0,0 0,0   0,651 0,651   453,0 320,43   453,651 320,608' \
          front_pers.png
convert UPj8N.png -matte -virtual-pixel transparent \
         -distort Perspective \
              '0,0 0,4   0,652 0,648   36,0 36,0   36,652 36,652' \
          spine_pers.png
convert -brightness-contrast -15x10 spine_pers.png spine_pers_dark.png
convert spine_pers_dark.png front_pers.png +append output1.png

convert output1.png -alpha set -virtual-pixel transparent -channel A \
          -morphology Distance Euclidean:1,5\! +channel output.png

and here the not-so-good yet results:

setting - Any advice on creating fictional locations in real places when writing historical fiction?

I am currently working on a historical fiction novel set during the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance, in the 1930s. As such, I would really like to have the story take place in Harlem. However, the specific places I plan to have my characters interact with, are at the moment, fictional. How much will this throw off readers?

For example, the story centers around a troupe of actors. If I place them in a made up theatre on Lenox Avenue, and no such theatre existed on Lenox Avenue in the 1930s, will that then make the novel less realistic?

Any advice is appreciated! Just want to make sure I can actually make this story work before I get too emotionally invested in it.

Answer

Creating fictional places within a real world setting not only works in fiction, but it's extremely common.

Creating the the fictional space is helpful because it allows you to flesh it out however you wish. You don't have to worry about getting it wrong (though you'll still have to do your research to make sure it's consistent with the time and place). And you don't have to worry about creating falsehoods about real life people (some of whom could conceivably still be alive, or their children could be).

I'm someone who often looks up the facts when I'm done with a book (or especially a movie, because of the visual imagery). Did this place exist? Did this character exist? Did this really happen? I'm never disappointed to find out that an author bent the facts if the work is fiction (when it's based on real people, that's another story, but still often okay), I just incorporate the reality along with the book/movie in my worldview about it.

Creating a fictional theater in a real neighborhood sounds like a perfect combination of history and fiction to me.

I'm doing something similar myself. In my book, the characters hail from a small town in Arizona in 1995. It's in Yavapai County (north of Phoenix) and maybe a half hour drive from Prescott (which was the largest town in the county in 1995).

Because my town is fictional, I'm free to use whatever features I want that fit my story. For example, it's very important to the story that I have a lake that is a particular size and shape with a small beach and a dock. I could alter it some if needed but, one, I don't want to and, two, not by much. There is no town near a lake that fits my needs in the area (even if I expand the area quite a bit). But there are plenty of towns similar to what I have and plenty of lakes that are close to what I'm looking for. The town/lake I need is completely plausible, it just doesn't actually exist.

I also get to set up the school how I want, the neighborhoods, and the businesses/services that do and don't exist in town. Not to mention some important historical events that are, again, very plausible, they just didn't happen here.

Your goal is to make your setting so realistic that people have to go look it up to know if your version is real.

There are no shortcuts with research just because your setting is fictional. Each detail is going to have to be right. Within those constraints though, you're free to create whatever you wish.

Creating the setting is very much like creating the characters. They never existed in real life but they have to feel like they did.

So go ahead and write this book. You have a solid start.

vector - How to place a perfect curve to join two circles together?

I have two circles in this position

I'm looking to acheive this (but more perfect with the flow of the curve meeting the circle perfectly on the right) notice, that it is slightly off)

How would I be able to do this that the three curves when whole are perfect circles?

I am using Corel Draw, but can also do this in Illustrator.

Sizes of the circles and positioning

Answer

Measure the radi/diameters of your circles.

1. Decide on a radius(diameter for the connecting curve, the higher this value the less curved the connection is.


2. Draw a circle with the desired diameter + the diameter (or 2 * radius) of the upper circle, centered on the upper circle center.


3. 
   

   Draw a circle with the desired diameter - the diameter (or 2 * radius) of the lower circle, centered on the lower circle center.

   
   

   

   
   


4. 
   

   The center of the new circle is at the intersection point of these 2 circles with the radius you decided in step 1.

   
   

   

   
   
   

copywriting - Best description for "tags"

Although the concept of tags has become commonplace on the internet in the last few years, there are still many people that don't know what they are or what the point of them is.

You want to make it clearer for someone that has no experience with tags.

1. How would you label the tags? (e.g. "tags", "tags / keywords", etc.)


2. What tooltip / help explanation would you give for them?

Edit: The tags will be used for books, and are given along with a description of the book. They will then be used when looking for books as people can then look at all the books tagged as "french" if they want to see french books. So mostly another method of searching besides full text search.

Answer

Many good answers, here are my thoughts:

Why is it that users don't understand tags or/and don't know the difference between tags and categories? I think it's because tagging is quite an abstract idea and not really applicable in the real world.

So instead of trying to find the correct term, I'd try to tell the user what it is in "real world language". For your case I'd suggest: "Filed under:" followed by the tags (for other cases, like on a blog for example, "Topics" would be a good alternative).

website design - Is there a free 'Helvetica Neue' alternative?

Does anyone know any other fonts similar to Helvetica Neue (free for commercial use)?

I'm working on a big website project where 'Helvetica Neue' is used heavily. I need a font that looks almost the same, is free for personal and commercial use, and looks good even when used with copytext (e.g. fontsize for copytext = 11px, for headlines = 16px).

Also there should be a condensed-font style included (if possible).

Answer

I still think that for web, the best free option out there is Liberation Sans. It renders perfectly with @font-face.

But you can get Helvetica Neue for web from Fonts.com for web use for a fair price too. I would probably use font-family:"Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Liberation Sans, Arial, sans-serif"; so those pcs with the font installed can see it, and those who don't have it can see a replacement.

language - Improving my English

I'm keen in writing stories of my imagination. However, my Grammar is not up to the mark. Even I use very simple words and not complicated words like the ones who use in Novels. I read many great books like 'To Kill a Mocking Bird', 'Gone with the Wind', 'Kane and Abel', Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and many more. I understand them very well, but while writing I make grammatical mistakes and I use simple English like we use in School. So please suggest me some tips on how to improve my English. My native language is not English, but that doesn't mean that I should not be proficient in English, isn't it? Thank you.

fiction - How to format news, poems, text messages, and other kinds of written text?

I always find myself wondering how to format written text: news (on TV and newspapers), text messages (from a cellphone), lyrics, and poems. Right now, I just put them in a new paragraph and italicize them. Example:

Text Message

    It occurred to Maria to check her phone for text messages. She went to her purse to get it. There was indeed a message from James.    

   My boss just called. One of the freezers broke last night so we have to move all the food to another one before it gets bad. I think I'll spend the whole morning on it. Have breakfast first. I'll call u as soon as I'm done.
   Maria let out a sigh. How could James stand this? She thought his boss

---

Poem

   Taking a bite of her sandwich, Eri pulled her notebook out of her purse, and re-read what she had written yesterday.
   Eri, did you feel the earthquake last night?
   Are you really sure your apartment's alright?
   As though they were some kind of secret code, she examined each of the words. Then she fished for pen, and added two more lines.
   In which planet where you wandering when it came?

   Is reality and the world as you know still the same?
   Eri put down her pen and sipped her cup.

---

Newspaper

   Making sure there were no other customers, she brought them back to her sea, and began scanning each headline.
   Typhoon Jelawat Kills 62 in Okinawa. Dangerous Toxin Found in Fish for Sale. Price of Rice Raised. Employment Rate Going Down. Tina folded the newspaper and moved to the next one. Taxi Collides with Car Causing 5 Deaths. Man Arrested for Trying to Rob a McDonald's. Temperatures forecast to be higher than average for Aug-Sept. Woman Finds Hat in a Tree.
   By the time Tina was done, she had read nearly forty headlines.

I looked around Google and some say one should use block quotes. What's the conventional way of formatting these things?

Answer

I have not really come across any conventional way of formatting these things. Much of the (rest of my answer) is based on my readings and a few other sources (which I will be citing).

The short answer first: yes, use block quotes. Solves most of the problems. Keep the following in mind for blockquotes:

• Indent the content (usually 1 inche)


• Doublespace


• Do not include quotation marks

The MLA Guideline for using block quotes can be found here: http://writingcommons.org/format/mla/621-follow-mla-guidelines-for-block-quotations

The long answer:

For text messages, use any of the following strategies:

• Italicize the text message


• Underline the text message (a little more distracting than italics)


• Use a different font than the main text (for example, use Courier instead of regular serifs)

In either case, you would have to do the following too: (essentially making it a block quote)

• Make sure the content is in a new paragraph


• Make sure the content is indented (usually 1 inch)

For poems and lyrics, use the following:

The following is based on a book The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone which includes poems in the middle of the text (was reading the book, so have used it as a reference).

• Indent the poem 1 inch from the main text (so if you have a margin of 1 inch, the total indentation for the poem becomes 1+1 inches)


• Use the same line spacing as the main text


• Use the same font as the main text


• Include an extra space before and after the poem. For example, it is a usual practice not to include double Enter between paragraphs. However, in this case, include a double paragraph (both before and after).

For newspaper: (have not found any authoritative source for this)

• If it is just the headline(s) that you are quoting, you can simply italicize them in the main body


• If you need to include a newspaper clipping, use block quotes

A few other points:

• The decision to use a different font is generally by the publisher. You can insist that they use a different font for a particular type of content (for example, Instant Messages or text messages)


• In certain books, the content is center aligned, so I believe it is something that has got more to do with the publishing house than a convention (for example, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon)

Hope these help!

Should I repeat character descriptions if a character reappears the second time too far into the story?

Should I repeat character descriptions if a minor character reappears the second time too far into the story?

For example, I have a minor character who is introduced and has a bit of involvement at the start of the novel, but comes back in the third act and stays with us till the end. I've described him the first time he appeared, and my question is, do I need to do it again because my readers may have forgotten what he looked like by the second point we see him?

Answer

Elaborate or remind, but try not to repeat yourself.

Let's say you introduce a character early on in your story:

Protagonist opened for a handshake, but Character simply stared at their hand, as if it were too much effort. They looked miserable, with dark messy hair, washed out clothes and scuffed shoes.

Then, you meet the character again. It has been most of the book since you met them.

Character was just as anti-social as last time. Protagonist smiled as warmly as they could. Character's hair was the same dark coloured mess and though their suit was still absent of colour, their shoes were only more scuffed and marked, almost giving them more personality.

The idea is to remind the reader of what the protagonist already knows, not what the reader should remember, even though your goal is actually the latter. Most readers will remember when prompted, or will simply acknowledge that this has already been stated.

As a reader with a memory like a sieve, I really appreciate being reminded of character and location descriptions, especially when they tell me even more about someone. In my example, the elaboration of the second paragraph would not have the same effect without the first paragraph. Use that to your advantage.

---

Edit:

What I meant by "do not repeat yourself" is to avoid saying the exact same thing. If our second paragraph read as:

Protagonist smiled as warm as they could. Character was just as anti-social as last time. They looked miserable with dark messy hair, washed out clothes and scuffed shoes.

Then readers who do remember will gain very little from the description and even feel patronised - which I imagine is your concern - so make sure you vary the description, even if you are admitting that you've told the reader this before.

copywriting - What is an alternative way to display a very large number?

In my application I have a text field that should display numbers (representing money) ranging from 0 to 999 trillion.

The users of my application are the general public, so displaying a scientific notation such as "1.021356e16" is not acceptable.

What formatting options do I have?

I wouldn't want to display 999,999,999,999,999.00. It's not really readable and would require a large text field, which would waste a lot of space for the majority cases which are lower than 100M.

Answer

I think (a) * 10^x, e.g. 1.02 * 10^16, is easier for people to read than scientific notation.

Even easier would be to just use the abbreviations for the powers of 1000:

107K
44M
392B
602T

Optimal page content for search page with no query?

When a user navigates to a search page, but no query has been given yet, what should be put where the search results normally go? Are there any best practices?

I've seen both blank page content (Google Instant) and search instructions (some CMSs do this). Does anyone have experience with filling this void?

Answer

You don't have to be afraid of blank pages.

However, placeholder text and search instructions can be added, if the "rules" of the query are not explicit.

For example: You only have a field and a "Search client" button. The user will understand what to do. But, if the query can find the client by his name, his address, his phone number, you could explain it with placeholder or help tooltip.

Also, you can define the area where the results will be desplayed. The user will be able to understand what will happen when he submit the query.

Should blog posts be reformatted to past tense after an event?

A writer is doing blog coverage of an event which is time sensitive (happens annually). The writer uses present tense for the coverage posts. Should the writer go back and reformat the old posts to past-tense after the event?

I am a webmaster for a company that does this kind of coverage for their own events. Generally after an event they request that all posts be changed to past tense. For example:

"The event is kicking off on August 20, 2013 and will continue through August 26, 2013. John Smith will be having an autograph session during the event."

becomes

"The event kicked off on August 20, 2013 and continued through August 26, 2013. John Smith had an autograph session during the event."

I was wondering if anyone else does this, or if it is standard to leave time-sensitive posts as the tense they were originally written in.

What is the connection between the federal funds rate and US government bonds

If the Federal Funds Rate changes, does that affect bond prices? How?

Also, is there any connection between the Federal Funds Rate and the coupon payment on US bonds?(for those that have a coupon payment) When the Federal Funds Rate is changed, is there also a chance in the coupon paid by bonds issued after that?

Answer

The fed funds rate is the rate setting mechanism that affects all rates along the curve, however it mainly influences short term rates. If overnight borrowing costs are going up, then its going to cost more to borrow for 1m, 3m, 6m, 1yr, 2yr.

The short end of the curve isn't affected by long term growth and inflation assumptions as much as the long end of the curve, its mainly driven by monetary policy (the fed funds rate). ie, 2% annual inflation isn't going to eat away as much at a 2yr coupon bond as it would with a 30yr bond. Long term rates also have a term premium, which is compensation for the uncertainty in future inflation.

Here's a chart (as of yesterday 8/2/2017) that shows how the yield curve has changed over the last 2yrs in response to monetary policy and long term growth/inflation assumptions. Visualizations usually help me so hopefully this will allow you to understand.

As you can see, short term rates have gone up considerably since August 2015. However as you go further out on the curve, the rate differential starts to decrease, which implies (IMO) that long term growth and inflation expectations are roughly the same as what they were 2yrs ago. If you follow the markets, think back to the summer of 2016 when rates were extremely low, with negative yields in the trillions of dollars. There was an interest rate increase in Dec 2015, so the short end of the curve is shifted up, but the long end got hammered, meaning the growth and inflation expectations at that time were abysmal (Roughly a month after Brexit, US election coming up, QE by central banks etc etc).

Looking at the six month curve, The "Trump Bump" was still in affect, with the global inflation outlook on the rise. As that has clearly died down, its left us with where we are today. Another rate increase, but much future expectations, causing the steepness of the curve to flatten.

windows - How to know which of my fonts do or don't support certain glyphs?

I have a long list of glyphs with various Unicode points across several Unicode blocks that I need to represent in a monospaced form (which mean with a single font). How I can know which glyph the font does not support in that list?

I tried Microsoft Word, Open Office, Notepad++ and some others, but even ᴡindows® Notepad tries to substitute unknown characters from glyphs in other fonts instead of using the replacement character directly. Sometimes it even substitute characters whereas they exist in the font

Opening a font editor and checking Unicode points one by one would definitely takes hours. Below is the text I need to display properly

┌─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┲━━━━━━━━━┓ ┏━━━━━┱─────┬─────┬─────┐

│ ɶ   │     │ É   │     │     │     │     │ È   │     │     │ À   │ № № │     ┃         ┃ ┃ Ver ┃     │     │     │
│ 　   │    │     │     │     │    │     │Espac│     │     │     │ № № │     ┃      ‎  ┃ ┃Num ⌓┃ ⁄ ⨸ │ ⋇ ⨉ │ ₋ ₋ │
┢━━━━━┷━┱───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┴─┬───┺━┳━━━━━━━┫ ┡━━━━━╃─────┼─────┼─────┤
┃       ┃ ᴀ   │ ᴢ   │ ᴇ ℯ │ ʀ ℝ │ ᴛ   │ ʏ   │ ᴜ   │ ɪ 🛈 │ ᴏ ℴ │ ᴘ ℘ │     │     ┃Entrée ┃ │ ⁷   │ ⁸   │ ⁹   │     │
┃       ┃    │    │ ℯ ℰ │  ℛ │    │    │    │\t ℐ │ ℴ ℴ │  ℘ │    │     ┃   ⏎   ┃ │ ⁷   │ ⁸   │ ⁹   │     │
┣━━━━━━━┻┱────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┴┬────┺┓      ┃ ├─────┼─────┼─────┤     │
┃        ┃ ᴁ   │ ꜱ   │ ᴅ   │ ꜰ ℉ │ ɢ   │ ʜ   │ ᴊ   │ ᴋ → │ ʟ ℓ │ ᴍ ℳ │ Ù   │     ┃      ┃ │ ⁴   │ ⁵   │ ⁶   │     │
┃ꜱɢᴀᴘ ⇬  ┃    │    │    │  ℱ │ ℊ ℊ │  ℋ │ \n  │    │ ℓ ℒ │ \r  │     │     ┃      ┃ │ ⁴   │ ⁵   │ ⁶   │ ₊ ₊ │
┣━━━━━━━┳┹────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┬┴────┲┷━━━━━┻━━━━━━┫ ├─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┤
┃       ┃     │ ᴡ   │ ꭥ   │ ᴄ ℃ │ ᴠ   │ ʙ ℬ │ ɴ   │     │     │     │     ┃             ┃ │ ¹   │ ²   │ ³   │     │

┃Shift ⇧┃     │    │    │    │   │  ℬ │    │     │     │     │     ┃Shift ⇧      ┃ │ ¹   │ ²   │ ³   │ Ent │
┣━━━━━━━╋━━━━━┷━┳━━━┷━━━┱─┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴───┲━┷━━━━━╈━━━━━┻━┳━━━━━━━┳━━━┛ ├─────┴─────┼─────┤  ⏎  │
┃       ┃       ┃       ┃                                   ┃       ┃       ┃       ┃     │ ⁰         │     │     │
┃Ctrl   ┃Meta   ┃Alt    ┃                                   ┃AltGr ⇮┃Menu   ┃Ctrl   ┃     │ ⁰         │ ,   │     │
┗━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┹───────────────────────────────────┺━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┛     └───────────┴─────┴─────┘

Answer

Today I learnt about a new tool, which "was made just for your question". It was published in 2011 but I am sharing it here, less than one hour after I tested it:

http://blog.tavultesoft.com/2011/07/character-identifier-tool.html

Hope this helps, it is an .exe so will probably need Windows.

Gradient tool in Photoshop not even blend?

When you make a gradient in PS, for example a black to white gradient going across the screen, it seems that it is not an even blend from black to white. There is too much black, too much white, and not enough in between. Here is an example picture. The histogram display in the curves window shows what I mean. If it was an even blend, the histogram wouldn't show this curve shape. Am I correct in this? Is there a way to get an even blend?

buttons - Why are icons on mobile phone menu screens square or rectangular but not circular?

If you take a look at the app page of any mobile OS, for example iOS, Android, Ubuntu, Win8, BADA, etc., they all have square icons, either with rounded corner or sharp corners (shown in the first image).

I would like to know why companies are not trying to use circular icons (example shown in the second image).

What could be the reason behind this?

Answer

You are confusing mobile phones with iOS.

The icons should be neither round nor square for the best UX. They should be allowed to have a unique outline to improve scanability and hence make them easier to use.

This is exactly what Android has done, and it is a significant UX improvement over iOS.

Edit: It appears that many people are unable to focus on the shape of the icons and not on the other aspects to the image, and so I have changed the image to one that is more modern Android, but shows the icon shapes less well.

Estimation of Geometric Brownian Motion drift

One can find many papers about estimators of the historical volatility of a geometric Brownian motion (GBM). I'm interested in the estimation of the drift of such a process. Any link on this topic would be very helpful.

Answer

One reference is "The Econometrics of Financial Markets" by John Y. Campbell, Andrew W. Lo, & A. Craig MacKinlay -- https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5904.html. In particular:

 9.3.1 Parameter Estimation of Asset Price Dynamics 356
 9.3.4 The Effects of Asset Return Predictability 369

You might also take a look at Chan (1992) "An Empirical Comparison of Alternative Models of the Short-Term Interest Rate" which discusses parameter estimation of several models including the GBM: http://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/valkanov/classes/mfe/docs/Longstaff_JoF_1992.pdf

There are also rather nice packages for R, 'sde' and 'yuima', which allow you (among many other things) to estimate the parameters of the SDE models. Take a look at the slides "Statistical data analysis of financial time series and option pricing in R" -- http://past.rinfinance.com/agenda/2011/StefanoIacus.pdf -- in particular, you may find the "Estimation of Financial Models" part quite useful.

Edit (2018): Today I'd also take a look at https://yuima-project.com/papers/ and https://yuima-project.com/books/ as well as "MLEMVD: A R Package for Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Multivariate Diffusion Models": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2944341, http://past.rinfinance.com/agenda/2017/talk/MatthewDixon.pdf, https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/RFinance/RFinance-2017/MLEMVD-A-R-Package-for-Maximum-Likelihood-Estimation-of-Multivariate-Diffusion-Models.

anchor point - Sketch: Cog with rounded corners

I am new to Sketch and have been using Illustrator before.

Now I made a cog in sketch, however I don't want it to have hard edges, but rather rounded ones. Here is how I made my cog in Sketch:

Now when I select the shape, I can round corners, however it will only round the corners of the rectangles:

When I flatten the shape rounding corners for the "inner edges" (don't know what to call them) is greyed out:

In Illustrator however this is only a matter of a few clicks:

Here a better look at the desired outcome:

There surely is a way to do that in sketch, I figure. I'd be very thankful if someone could teach me how :)

Answer

I'm not a Sketch user, however if it's not possible to round the corners automatically, then it would be possible to do it manually.

• Create one tooth of a cog wheel, by drawing a rounded rectangle over a circle, uniting, and manually editing the curve by adding an extra anchor/node


• 
  

  One half of the circle should suffice, as you can delete the other half, reflect the part with the rounded tooth, and do a boolean operation to unite it

  
  


• 
  

  Then duplicate and rotate the tooth around a circle

  
  


• Then do a boolean operation to unite all the pieces

Here's a quick animated proof of concept (done in Inkscape), but I'm pretty sure it could be done in any vector image editor, with basic operations.

adobe illustrator - How do I scatter icons all over a background randomly?

I've been wondering this a time now but I just saw a background like this on dribbble. I want to have multiple icons scattered across a background with random position and random rotation using Illustrator could someone possibly point me into the right direction?

link to the dribble example: https://dribbble.com/shots/1744511-Splash-Sign-up-and-Tutorial-screens/attachments/282439

Answer

To make a pattern main steps.

1. Make your bunch of icons which you want to be repeated.


2. Go object > pattern > make


3. make modifications that you want (overlap, tile type etc.)


4. under file name click done


5. you can find it in swatches panel.

business - Usage fees / royalties for re-purposing an existing illustration

a client paid me a fair fee to be allowed to use an existing illustration I had done as a background image on their website.

Now they have contacted me to ask whether they could print the high-resolution version of that same illustration in a large-format reproduction to hang on their office wall.

Aside from any production / framing costs, how should I go about calculating a fair fee for the usage?

What are some considerations? Are there any pricing resources out there that could help determine a reasonable price?

(cross-posted to DeviantArt)

Answer

This question only depends on what you think your work is worth and is different for every person you ask.

Personally if the client was a good client and paid you a fair fee and all they want to do is print it for personal usage in the office I would allow them one print for free and disclose that in a written format and send them a PDF to be e-signed. If they are going to print it for distribution that is a different matter. Nit-picking clients wanting to show-off work they paid for to me is greedy and not necessary if there is no gain on investment for them and you should look at it like free exposure. If they are wanting it to be printed instead of charging them tell them you need to include a watermark with a link to a site or something which relates to free advertising.

Typically the price is figured by the quantity to be printed. Since they appear to be only wanting one and if you want a calculation then calculate the total hours it took you for the work, total canvas size, then divide and multiply the amount by the square footage. If they are asking you to re-do the illustration for print then charge by the hours it takes you.

risk management - What position-sizing methods are used in futures trading?

Beyond optimal / partial f and a few other older methods, there's very little information out there for futures trading.

usability - What is the best format to capture addresses for a universal user-base?

What is the best and most usable format to capture address information from a universal user base? I was thinking to have the system detect the country by IP address and have that selected by default, and then state/province droplist would be populated accordingly. But the issue is some countries have states and provinces and some do not. Some have postal codes and some do not. Is there a universal standard to capture complete address info to ensure efficiency for most users?

FYI: I did research on here and while there are some questions that are close, none are about this exact same question (unless I missed something)

simulations - Use NIG distribution to model stock path

I would like to use Monte Carlo simulation to price some options. First I use standard approach where stock price is discribed by the following process: $$S_T = S_0\exp \left[(r - 0.5\sigma^2)T + \sigma \sqrt{T}\varepsilon\right],$$ where $S_0$ is an initial stock price at time $t = 0$, $S_T$ is a stock price at time $T$, $T$ is a time step, $r$ is the risk free interest rate, $\sigma$ is a standart deviation if stock returns and $\varepsilon$ is an independent normally distributed variable $\varepsilon \sim \phi(0, 1)$ There is an assumption under this model that log returns of a stock price have a normal distribution, such that $\log{\frac{S_T}{S_0}} \sim \phi(\mu, \sigma^2)$, where (from Ito's Lemma) $\mu = (r - 0.5\sigma^2)T$ and $var = \sigma^2T . $

Now I assume that returns of a stock price follow Normal Inverse Gaussian distribution (NIG). My question is am I able just to plug into my formula for $S_T$ NIG proccess with estimated parameters (using MLE) instead of $\varepsilon$ and than compare option prices? Proccess will look as following: $$S_T = S_0\exp \left[(r - 0.5\sigma^2)T + \sigma T\varepsilon^*\right],$$ where $\varepsilon^* \sim NIG(\hat{\mu}, \hat{\alpha}, \hat{\delta}, \hat{\beta}).$

I guess that properties of NIG don't allow me to do such manipulations but I am not sure where to find the solution to this problem. Any hints are welcome!

---

Many thanks @Quantuple for help:

Answer

Assuming you've used this definition for the NIG distribution and that you've managed to come up with estimates $(\hat{\alpha}, \hat{\beta}, \hat{\mu}, \hat{\delta} )$ of the individual NIG parameters, your question boils down to:

"How to simulate paths from the global log-return process $R_t = \ln(S_t/S_0)$ for all $t \in [0,T]$, assuming i.i.d. $NIG(\hat{\alpha}, \hat{\beta}, \hat{\mu}, \hat{\delta} )-$distributed periodic log-returns (in your case daily)?"

First of all, no, you cannot use the equation you mention.

Yet, because the NIG distribution is a special case of normal variance-mean mixture (see this document, page 14), if one lets \begin{align} \sigma^2 &\sim IG\left( \frac{\delta}{\gamma}, \delta^2 \right),\ \ \text{with } \gamma = \sqrt{ \alpha^2 - \beta^2 } \\ \varepsilon &\sim \mathcal{N}(0,1) \end{align} then the random variable $X$ defined as $$ X = \mu + \beta \sigma^2 + \sigma \varepsilon $$ follows a $NIG(\alpha,\beta,\mu,\delta)$ distribution.

Now, let $r_{\delta t, i}$ denote the $\delta t$-period log-return observed for a given $t_i \in [0,T]$ $$ r_{\delta t, i} := \ln\left( \frac{S_{t_i}}{S_{t_i-\delta t}} \right) $$

You can then proceed as follows to generate realisations of the global return process $(R_t)_{t\geq 0}$.

1. 
   

   Under the assumptions of i.i.d. NIG-distributed $\{r_{\delta t, i}\}$, estimate the NIG parameters $(\hat{\alpha}, \hat{\beta}, \hat{\mu}, \hat{\delta} )$ from historical data using your favourite method (Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Moment Matching etc.).

   
   


2. 
   

   To simulate the periodic log-returns $\{r_{\delta t,i}\}_{i=1,...,N}$ (in practice $N = T/\delta t$ where $T$ figures the horizon of your MC simulation and $\delta t$ the length of the period over which the individual periodic log-returns prevail) use the key result mentioned above by (i) generating $\sigma_i^2 \sim IG(\hat{\delta}/\hat{\gamma}, \hat{\delta}^2)\ \ \text{i.i.d.}$ (see here for instance), (ii) generating $\varepsilon_i \sim \mathcal{N}(0,1) \ \ \text{i.i.d.}$ (iii) computing $$ r_{\delta t,i} = \hat{\mu} + \hat{\beta} \sigma_i^2 + \sigma_i \varepsilon_i $$

   
   


3. 
   

   Once all $\{r_{\delta t, i}\}_{i=1,...,N}$ have been simulated, build the global return process $(R_t)_{t\geq 0}$ by aggregating a certain number $n$ of periodic returns. Indeed, for any fixed $t \in [0,T] $, the global log-return $R_t := \ln(S_t/S_0)$ computes as: \begin{align} R_t &= \ln\left(\frac{S_t}{S_0}\right) \\ &= \ln\left(\frac{S_t}{S_{t-\delta t}} \frac{S_{t-\delta t}}{S_{t- 2\delta t}} \dots \frac{S_{\delta t}}{S_{0}}\right) \\ &= \sum_{ t_i \in [\delta t, t] } \ln \left( \frac{S_{t_i}}{S_{t_i-\delta t}} \right) \\ &= \sum_{i \leq n} r_{\delta t,i} \end{align}

   
   
   

This method was first proposed by Rydberg in:

T. H. Rydberg. The normal inverse Gaussian Lévy process: simulation and approximation. Comm. Statist. Stochastic Models, 13(4):887–910, 1997.

website design - Best practices for online help

we're currently developing a fairly complex web portal. To improve the user experience, we want to provide a context-sensitive online help system that can aid the user in understanding certain aspects of the site.
In our case, the site has a variety of widgets that display all kinds of tabular data, graphs, etc. For instance, one such widget may display the VIX and a the help system would offer a brief description of what the VIX is.

Now, I've looked around in the internet and found some interesting articles such as the Design Checklists for Online Help, but most of what I found seems fairly outdated. What I'm specifically interested in are design issues such as these:

• whether (or when) to use popups, divs, or link to external pages


• how comprehensive should the help entry be? how much is the average user willing to read?


• what's a good way to provide access to the help system? cluttering the UI with questionmark-icons is certainly not optimal


• should the help entry be loaded on demand with AJAX (kinda sucks, you want the info right away) or preload it (causing tons of unnecessary traffic)



• other dos and don'ts

The answers to some of these questions may seem obvious, but when it comes to usability I've made the experience that the intuitive answer isn't always the best. Secondly, I'm a software developer and as such I tend to look at things from an engineer's point of view. And I think we all know that this is, more often than not, a pretty poor angle from which to approach the design of a user interface. This is why I would very much like get some feedback from people more experienced in this field.

fonts - Anticipating problems with a Google Webfont's rendering cross-platform

Web fonts can sometimes look great on one machine, but awful on another, due to differences in rendering not just between browsers, but also with the same browser between operating systems.

Most commercial web font services have a try-before-you-buy preview feature, where you can see side-by-side screenshot images of the fonts rendered at various sizes on different browser and operating system combinations with default settings (e.g. on Typekit (click 'Browser Samples'), and on Fonts.com (click 'Web Font browser/OS samples' tab)). Google Webfonts doesn't have this feature, and since the fonts are non-commercial/open source they are rarely/never available on these services.

Assuming you don't have a convenient stack of Mac, Windows XP, Windows 7/Vista and Ubuntu machines sitting under your desk, each with a variety of browsers installed, and that you don't have the time, resources, know-how and patience to set them up on one machine using something techie like Virtualbox (not even sure that would work...), how would you go about ensuring that a font you were interested in doesn't have rendering issues?

A good answer could be...

• A service that simulates browser/OS rendering for any font or for Google Web Fonts specifically (I've not found one)



• Knowledge about typographic features to look out for that are known to render particularly differently or badly on certain systems.

If an example would help, a font I'm particularly interested in is Lato 300, 400 and 900, mainly at 10pt, 14pt, 22pt

Answer

I don't know of an automated tool that will do what you're looking for, but if you don't mind setting up some test pages you can preview them using Browsershots.org or Adobe's Browser Lab. Both services are free (though Adobe's requires an Adobe ID) and will show you screenshots of your site in different browsers and operating systems.

Browsershots has a much wider array of browsers, though it doesn't include Mac versions. It also only renders screenshots (you have to manually preview different URLs if you want to "browse" a site) - though this shouldn't be a problem since you're just testing out web fonts.

Adobe's Browser Lab has a limited set of browsers (no Linux versions), but includes some Mac versions. The advantage to Browser Lab is that the preview screenshots are semi-live - you can Ctrl+Click links in the previews to browse to other pages on the site. This may not have much utility if you're just checking font-rendering on a set preview page, but is useful for other test cases.

menu - Where should the "preferences" item go in a desktop application?

I find that the "preferences" menu item is always in a different place, and often under an arbitrary name which always makes it a pain to locate unless you're already familiar with the software.

I have seen it under the file, edit, window, help, and options menu (probably more) and is either called "preferences," "settings," or "options."

Has there been any studies or evidence to suggest where the application settings should go? And I am referring to the application settings, not file/project/whatever specific settings. I already know that putting it under "file" is wrong for application global settings, and under "edit" is probably wrong in all circumstances. But what about besides that? Is it better to just have an entire options menu to further break it down? Should it be under the "window" menu since it is, after all, its own window? What about window > options? Is it ever right to put it under the "help" menu?

I'm talking mostly in terms of usability (which place users look first), but also semantically (as in, the file menu doesn't make sense). I personally never start with file, edit, or help -- even though that's often where the menu item is -- but rather search high and low through other menus first. Is this a common behavior?

Answer

For Mac OS X, it's Application Name | Preferences…

For MS Windows, it's Tools | Options or Edit | Preferences (see comments)

For GNOME, it's Edit | Preferences

typography - How do I create a solid line of uniform thickness inside of a letterform in Illustrator?

I've seen all sorts of headlines and ads that use this style a solid color section of type has a solid uniform line of a different color running through the exact middle of each letter. I've done all sorts of google searches and I haven't even come close to finding the answer (probably because I have no clue what this technique is called).

Of course I could draw a path on each letterform using the pen tool, but I want to know if there is an easier, time efficient way to do this, perhaps using the appearance pannel.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This has been driving me crazy for months!

See below for an example of what I'm talking about: "WARM INSIDE" from a Chili's tabletop ad.

Answer

Using an inner stroke is unlikely to get the results you're after.

I'm not aware of any automatic way to style the text how you'd like it. I think the designer of the packaging in question probably did one of two things:

1. Found a typeface with this feature (there are quite a few).


2. Hand crafted the text and/or the effect.

I think the first option is more likely. So, that's probably what you should do. Although, if you don't have much text, creating the inner path could work well and may not be too much effort.

copywriting - How should Ad splash pages be handled for those with ads disabled?

I see it all too often; I click a link to an article on the web and I get this:

It's not (as) readily apparent it's an ad screen, at first I thought it was the classic "white screen" of a page that failed to load. This greets a lot of us who use ad blocking add ons when browsing pages with these ad-splash screens.

Is there a better way to handle ad screens when the ad is removed? I've only ever seen one website "know" that you had removed it's ads in the past, Newgrounds.com displays a nagging message saying something to the effect of "hey, you blocked our ads! Buy something in our store instead to support us".

What can or should be done to compliment the experience of users disabling your ads. Perhaps even (professionally) goading them into enabling ads for that particular site, as newgrounds (fairly unprofessionally) does?

Answer

Two sites which handle ad-blocking in a way that enhances the user experience are askmrrobot.com and wowhead.com. Not getting all bent out of shape seems to be key.

Looking at the html source of these sites it can be seen they don't actually "know" you've blocked ads .. they've just absolute-positioned another div element in the same location underneath the ad being blocked.

Interestingly, wowhead.com also offers a facility to hide ads on any page you happen to be on. For users that don't have ad blockers this might well mitigate desire to get an ad blocker.

Which is the correct way to implement faceted search filtering: links vs checkboxes?

Is there a difference between implementing filtering options using links (or radio buttons), ie. you can only check one, versus using checkboxes?

For example: Youtube uses links, you can only select one of the filters in a given category, this leads to having an All filter. On the other hand, most of the websites use a set of check boxes, and the All function is done by checking all the boxes, eg. Kayak or Amazon do it like this.

In the images: 1) Youtube all filters are implemented as simple one-choice filters 2) Kayak all filters are implemented as checkboxes 3) Yelp uses a combination of both.

Besides the obvious, ie. the links don't allow a granular control for two or more selections, are there any advantages or problems related to selecting one method over the other?, do the users really make use of complex selector combinations?.

--
One of my doubts: wouldn't it make sense to use checkboxes in the Features field in the Youtube filters? Yelp seems to get them all right.

Answer

In Best Practices for Designing Faceted Search Filters Greg Nudelman talks about "drill-down" versus "parallel" selection:

A link is the simplest mode of filter selection. By clicking a link, a customer can either select a single value for a specific filter or drill down a level in a taxonomy, like a category or department hierarchy.

[...]

In contrast to links, which let customers indicate a single filter value, check boxes let customers indicate parallel selections of multiple filter values, limiting the scope of search results to those that match them.

So the basic difference as you noted is that a drill down selection is singular whereas a parallel selection "indicate[s] an additive OR condition."

When one should use one or the other depends on the nature of the content that is categorized and what the user would want.

Drill Down Selection Advantage

Unless there are parts of Amazon's site that I don't ever visit, they actually don't have parallel selection but rather have drill down (at least in Books).

The use case there is where you are looking to help the user exclude other branches in the taxonomy entirely. This is good for very deep sites.

Parallel Selection Advantage

For broad taxonomies, or where you are looking to allow a user to select multple branches of a taxonomy and filter horizontally across the tree, a parallel selection makes the most sense.

The examples you provided (Kayak and Yelp) are great examples of parallel selection

YouTube

So in your example I think you could argue that YouTube might benefit from allowing a user to search for videos posted "Today" that are "Short" and have a "Rating" above a certain threshold.

Perhaps there are implementation issues that don't support that?

Perhaps because a video doesn't cost a user anything to watch, they're not going to be as motivated to do a complex filter, whereas with an expensive airplane ticket or picking a restaurant for an anniversary dinner motivates a user to be much more precise in their query? Without access to any research those are just guesses.

Risk

Either way, the primary risk is to select the wrong one given what your users want to do.

However, the even greater risk is to mix your paradigms.

Nudelman uses Office Depot as an example of how presenting a parallel selection UI with a drill down behavior resulted in poor usability:

As shown in Figure 3, the Office Depot user interface uses check boxes for indicating value selections, leading customers to expect a parallel selection paradigm, in which they could indicate they want to search multiple price ranges by clicking several check boxes. For example, to find chair mats that are priced from $0 to $100, you might expect to be able to select the price filter’s first two check boxes. Thus, after clicking the $50-$100 check box, you would expect to retain the ability to select the $50 and below check box.

Figure 3

However, once a customer selects the $50-$100 check box, the Office Depot search user interface does something completely unexpected. It drills down into the $50-$100 price range and removes the $50 and below check box, breaking the affordance of a group of check boxes that should let customers select multiple, parallel OR values for a single filter. Instead, the user interface now displays $50-$60 and $60-$70 ranges, while still displaying the range of $50-$100 the customer originally selected as one of the available OR values. Mixing the drill-down and parallel selection paradigms results in a very confusing search user interface.

adobe photoshop - Risograph Printing: Separation for Duotone Print

I am preparing my first print project to be realised with a Risograph. In the process, I have come across multiple recommendations to consider a duotone print as an effective way to print images/photos. There is an example to be found here: Duotone Risograph Print

The website suggests a separation of the image into two layers and the subsequent printing of each layer with a different color. I am not sure how this separation of colors is done and would like to know. I know of the Duotone Mode in Photoshop but this is yielding a different result for me.

Do I have to select the areas which are supposed to be printed in a certain color by hand? That does not seem to be the case to me, as the images in the example look more like individual channels (like when separating an image into the separate Red, Green or Blue channel of RGB), each having been converted to a separate greyscale-image. Can someone help me out and explain this separation process to me?

Here are the images which go along this explanation:

Printed Duotone Image:

Orange Layer:

Green Layer:

Here's one of the images I would like to print in duotone with the Risograph (all other images are somewhat similar) :

Answer

Short answer

There is not one correct way to make two-color images.

Difference between CMYK and spot colors

The process of separating an RGB image to the four CMYK colors has been totally standardized. It is native to Photoshop and other applications. It is the best/most versatile way we know to reproduce the colors of real life on paper. We have a wide array of color profiles, created to be able to do the conversion from RGB to CMYK so it suits the specific inks and medium.

When it comes to images in spot colors (1, 2, 3, 4 or more inks of for example Pantone or the inks used in Risograph printing) we are more ore less on our own. There is no real standard. In the end it is a matter of aesthetics and taste. It is not given that we would even be able to make a good reproduction of an image in any two colors.

Furthermore, we might not be able to get an accurate preview while creating the document (especially if we use metallic or fluorescent colors). We have to rely more on our imagination and to do some experiments.

But the result can be beautiful and truly distinguish itself from CMYK so it's worth the trouble in my opinion.

Choosing colors

Let's focus on two colors. Choosing the right two colors is important. You could try this as a way of playing around with the possibilities:

In InDesign, create two Pantone spot color swatches (you will have to find out which Pantone colors to use to simulate the Risograph inks by asking the print shop). I have deleted the other swatches.

Now, in the Swatches menu, select New Mixed Ink Group. Set it up as shown and click OK.

We now have a set of 9 swatches (one of them white - nothing), showing the possibilities of that color combination. You can change the colors dynamically to try out different stuff. If you choose complimentary colors (lying opposite of each other in the color circle - or almost), you will get the widest array of perceived colors.

You will have to find a combination that matches the colors of your image (if you want realistic colors - you could also just go psychedelic). In your case I am not sure what to choose. The image contains all hues, but you would probably need the blue. And the maybe green for the grass. But if we use a yellow we could mix it with blue to get the green. But that means yellow skin and no red shirts (and no blood). In Photoshop, I used Image/Mode/Indexed Color and scaled it down to make some quick sketches to show the dilemma in blue/yellow, blue/orange and green/orange:

The last one (green/orange) looks like it might be on the right track, but as you see the image gets kind of flat.

What to do now?

There are different kinds of styles of two-color images you could explore. Here are some of them.

Duotone

Try giving Duotone Mode another try. You can achieve many different things if you play around with the curves (take a a look at my answer here for inspiration: Matching cmyk photo with pantone colour).

Color grayscale images in InDesign

You could convert the image to grayscale and flatten it. Then place it in InDesign, select its content and then choose a Pantone color. Maybe place it on top of another, apply a gradient. Experiment.

Work with channels in Photoshop

You could add some spot color channels to your image and try how it works using the different RGB or CMYK channels in the spot channels. You could add, subtract, multiply, filter, grainify, paint and manipulate the channels till you get a good result. But you would have to be able to repeat the same process on all images so it can't be too complex.

Make manual masks

In channels in Photoshop or with vector shapes in InDesign, you could manually draw the areas to color.

Use a color profile

It is also possible to buy special color profiles for two-color printing. They are made like CMYK profiles: Test prints are made with combinations of the two colors, they are measured using a measuring device and the results is entered into dedicated software. Then a color profile can be created which can convert any given image into those two colors. The aim is to create an image which looks as similar to the original as possible when printed with the chosen colors. The only place I have seen these kinds of profiles for sale is colorlibrary.ch which offers profiles for Risograph colors as well as a selection of Pantone colors.

speed - What to do when it takes a long time to load the content into the app?

I'm replacing all loaders (spinners) in the app I'm working on, because I need another solution which won't be tied so much with waiting. When people see loader they're frustrating, because loader indicates that they need to wait, so instead of loader I'm going to display pre-loading skeleton screens as Luke Wróblewski recommended and as e.g. Facebook uses (print screen). A skeleton screen is essentially a blank version of a page into which information is gradually loaded. This creates the sense that things are happening immediately as information is incrementally displayed on the screen.

In this case user has a connection with network but the connection is bad e.g. 2g or the time of servers respond is longer than usual.

My question:

1. What to do when content isn't displayed for a longer time (e.g. more than 5 or 10 sec)? Whether the pre-loading skeleton screen should be displayed all the time until the content will arrive or should be replaced by something else e.g. additional information - "we're sorry that it takes so much to load the content, check your network".

physical - What was the reason behind total transition towards wide screen displays by the manufacturers?

I often hear complaints by users who are not satisfied by the wide-screen monitors and prefer traditional screen ratios of 4:3 and 5:4. Unfortunately, such monitors now are quite rare and the laptops with such screens are completely wiped.

Most of the people to whom I spoke (and I myself) do not use laptops to watch TV broadcasts or HD films because we have TVs and computers with much bigger screens, which are more suitable for the purpose.

I have heard several theories proposed by the disappointed users to explain such an overwhelming transition by all manufacturers to the wide screens without leaving the users any options.

• 
  

  Use of TV matrices. According to this theory, the producers of computer monitors switched to use wide screens because of the availability of a lot of of cheap matrices being mass produced for new generation HD TVs. Producing one kind of a matrix for all devices is cheaper than producing one kind for TVs and the other for computers.

  This theory does not explain why the laptop producers also switched to wide-screen, because small-sized matrices are not widely used in TVs. It also does not explain why initially the ratio 16:10 became popular instead of 16:9 used in the TVs. Nor does it explain why TVs mostly use BGR pixel ordering while the computers mostly use RGB (although some matrices probably can be turned 180 degrees).

  
  


• 
  

  Cheating. Because the monitors were sold for price per inch of diagonal size, the manufacturers after transition to wide screens could sell a monitor with smaller matrix area for better price.

  This theory does not explain how wide screens became popular on devices where "per inch" pricing makes no sense (i.e. portable devices). Nor does it explain how it is cheaper to buy a 1920x1200 monitor than a 1600x1200 one, so that a person who wants a 4:3 monitor is forced to buy a wide screen one because it is cheaper and then use it with resolution 1600x1200.

  
  


• 
  

  Small vertical viewing angles. This theory suggests that the cheaper TN matrix types used in modern monitors have small vertical viewing angles while horizontal angles are much better. So when using a monitor with high vertical size the image at the top and bottom of the screen appears to have the wrong colors.

  This theory does not explain why if a vertical a viewing angle is good for 1920x1200, it is bad for 1600x1200. It also does not explain why high-end medicine and industrial monitors such as Eizo RadiForce who always used matrices with high viewing angles in all directions are also undergoing a slow transition towards wide screens.

  
  
  

So what were the actual reasons behind such a total transition in all areas without leaving a possibility of choice?

usability - Why don’t we remove door handles and let doors open both ways (inwards, outwards)?

In browsing the site today, I came across a question about doors somewhat related to something I’ve been wondering for a LONG LONG time:

Why don’t we remove all door handles and let doors open both inwards and outwards?

I have lost count how many times I failed to open a door the first time I grabbed the handle, mainly because of the consistency problem:

• Some doors open inwards, some outwards.


• Doors in some countries open inwards, some outwards, some either way.


• Door handles come in way too many styles: knob, lever, car door style, vertical bar, etc.


• Door handles are positioned sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right hand side of the door (in the case of lever-style, will make left- or right-handed people grip the handle in an awkward way)


• So-called "local conventions" are regularly violated

I can understand that there’re historical and cultural reasons with people getting used to the way doors open growing up. However, as the world is getting flat, people traveling and immigrating everywhere now, shouldn’t the design of the door be evolved somehow?

What about this design?

Remove the handle completely, let doors open both ways (inwards and outwards) and just let people push the door swing open the direction they are going towards.

Naturally, removing the handle and letting doors open both ways would solve many usability problems:

• Remove the confusion regarding which way to turn the handle


• Remove confusion regarding which hand (left/right) they need to use


• Usable by both left- and right-handed people


• Remove the confusion about whether we need to push or pull (always push now, as there's no handle to pull)


• People can always keep moving forward after opening the door

From a UX perspective, what would be the reason for arguing against that solution? I'd also wonder if there's some kind of study about this.

Update - Regarding the door smacking another person coming from the opposition direction, the same risk occurs in the current designs. We can never be sure if somebody is behind the door when we push it open. And that person is never sure which way the door is going to open either (towards or away from them). So he will always be in a defensive position anyway.

20s30s curve convexity

Let’s assume I trade a 20s30s spread on the curve and i’m flat delta (-100k on 20Y swap, 100k on 30y swap dv01). If the market moves, i’m not flat delta anymore. Is there a simple way to estimate the convexity in this trade i.e gamma (forecast/forecast delta)/cross gamma (discount basis delta/forecast delta) ? Am i right in saying that this convexity comes from the dynamics of the 20Y vs 20y10y annuity?

Thanks

Answer

Yes.

Simple Approximation - Rule of Thumb

Use the formula:

$$ \gamma \text{(pv01/bp)} = -\frac{1+tenor}{10,000 (bps)} pv01 $$

So for the 20Y and 30Y tenors respectively this formula gives 210 and -310 respectively. Of which half is produced from PnL component (discount risk) and half is produced from forecasting risk.

Approximation Accounting for Shape of Curve

Use the formula:

$$ \gamma \text{(pv01/bp)} = -\frac{pv01}{10,000 (bps)} * \frac{\sum_{j=1}^{N}2jA_j}{\sum_{j=1}^NA_j} $$

where $A_j$ is the analytic delta of a 1Y forward trade, so for a 3Y swap ($N=3$) you would use the analytic delta of a 0y1y, 1y1y, 2y1y. Note this reduces to the approximation above if $A_j=1$.

Further Detail

These formulae are derived in Pricing and Trading Interest Rate Derivatives: A Practical Guide to Swaps by Darbyshire. The bibliography includes code that has even more accurate formulae calculating the specific cross-gamma risks, and methods of converting between par and forward representations.

usability - big form VS steps/wizard

In a form to insert products/services (in wich products will have extra data for products that are composed by a mix of quantities of other product(s)) is it better to have a large form with all the fields there and showing the extra fields when "it's a composed product" is selected running the risk of a lot of fields being overwhelming for the user but having everything you need right in front of you and just fill it in. Or dividing this form in steps and follow a different route in case you choose 'Product' (to select if it's composed or not) and then again a different route if the Product is Select as a composed one.

My inclination is for the latest approach but then I think it might take a lot of steps.

what would happen when creating a Service:

Description and Reference->Is it a produtct or a service?->Brand->Service Family->Service Type->Stamp duty and VAT->Want to had a image?->Any extra observations?

when creating a composed product:

Description and Reference->Is it a produtct or a service?->Is it composed?->Add the products and quantities that compose it -> Brand->Product Family->Product Type->Stamp duty and VAT->Want to had a image?->Any extra observations?

EDIT

also my problem with giving feedback, in the steps/wizard approach, is the fact that there will be a different number of steps according to choices made during the process

EDIT2

Ok i've been trying to figure it out and think I might have a solution. If I aggregate a few actions in the same step is it a bad idea? (because the user performs up to 3 actions but the step is still the same)

Step 1: Description and Reference->

Step 2: Is it a produtct or a service?->Is it composed?->Add the products and quantities that compose it-> OR JUST Is it a produtct or a service?-> (in case of a service)

Step 3: Brand->

Step 4: Product Family->Product Type->

Step 5: Stamp duty and VAT->

Step 6: Want to had a image?->

Step 7: Any extra observations?

What are your thoughts on these?

Also Franchesca's latest suggestion is interesting but i don't really like the idea of changing the size of the steps along the way, it seems like it gives somewhat of an inconsistency feeling.

print design - Can a 2-color logo be red, black and white?

Can a 2-color logo be red, black and white? I'm thinking that maybe white doesn't count because it's the background color?

Does a 1-color logo need to be literally black with a transparent background?

shapes - Illustrator: how to create a spirograph?

I am trying to create a spirograph in Illustrator, as per attachment. How do I do this? Where do I start?

Answer

Ok, so a spirograph is just a function and I have made a function drawing script called jooGraphFunction. With this tool at hand we can go and plot

cos(2*t)*(10*cos(12*t)) -sin(2*t)*(26*sin(12*t)) 
sin(2*t)*(10* cos(12*t)) +cos(2*t)*(26*sin(12*t)) 

over range 0 to PI with stepping PI/24 and you get. Where 12 is the number of lobes.

Image 2: Screenshot of jooGraphFunction GUI and a few alternate versions with different number of lobes.

Image 2: And drawing with same number of lobes as yours (36) made with same technique.

You can also dissect the script for a starting point for your own learning.