creative writing - How to make horror events more interesting in daytime

In a book I'm writing at the moment I have created a world with a day and night cycle. I have created a veil of mystery over this madman and this machine he's made, however, every event to do with the machine has happened at night. This machine is meant to be utterly horrible, but it's more of a psychological machine than one that physically does something.

How can I create horror events about this machine in the day with increased effectivity? During the morning and afternoon my characters are awake and ready, but at night they get nightmares. Furthermore, at night it is dark and my characters cannot concentrate well.

Answer

Your goal with any tale of horror is to inspire just that in your readers: horror. In order for them to feel it though, the people they care about - the protagonist and main characters - must also experience that horror.

Are your events frightening to your protagonist, regardless of when they occur? Good. Focus on what makes them frightening, why the protagonist is scared. If you can convey what makes your hero frightened, your reader will be too. Don't rely on the time of day to inspire fear. Rely on your characters.

Explore why your characters are frightened; convey what they think and feel, and your reader will think and feel the same thing.

print design - How do I create a billboard that is larger than Indesign CS5's maximum document size?

I am making a billboard with this dimensions : 2.19m x 6.09m However, indesign's maximum document size is 5486.4 mm (5.48m)

How do I increase this document size or is the another way to handle this problem?

Answer

You should be talking to your billboard company or at least working from the information on their website. That's the short and critically important answer. The rest is based on my own experience here in the US, but should apply equally to your area.

Billboards are never created at full scale in the authoring application, in my experience. For example, one size I am regularly asked for is a standard 14 foot tall x 48 foot wide (6 m x 16 m, roughly) "bulletin." These days, I work from an InDesign document that is 27 inches by 72 inches (1.8 m x .7 m, very roughly). That is 1/8th scale, which is a little large but is still quite easy to work with in InDesign. It means that my effective image resolution for images needs to be around 80 ppi or better to be sure of getting 10 ppi output, and I don't need to worry about the text or other vector data. (That "10 ppi" is not a typo. It's quite high resolution for a billboard of that size, which is viewed from a minimum distance of 50 m. The billboard company spec in this case is 9 ppi.)

Billboards are commonly done in Photoshop -- that's how I used to do them prior to CS5 -- but always small scale at high resolution. 1/48th scale, even 1/96th scale, at 300 ppi is not uncommon. Companies and products vary. The billboard company I mentioned suggests 1/33th scale at 300 ppi for one of their products, to meet that target resolution of 9 ppi.

The final resolution on the vinyl is typically between 8 and 25 dots per inch, depending on the size and intended viewing distance, so there is no reason at all to work at full scale and 300 ppi, even if you could. You would end up with an enormous file that would be mostly wasted, and might not even be usable by the RIP ("Raster Image Processor" -- the software that processes your file for printing).

The provider will scale your PDF to the final size. Ask them what they need. When you do, have them send you their PDF .joboptions file and the color profile for their digital printing equipment. That way, the colors you see in InDesign will match what actually goes up on the billboard.

Don't feel like you are going to look naive or foolish by asking. The first time I sent artwork to one national billboard company, I got an immediate phone call back. They were excited and astonished because it was the first time they had ever received artwork from an outside designer that they didn't have to fix or send back for correction. This company is all over the US and has been in business for decades. All I did was research their requirements on their website and follow a template that they supplied. That, apparently, was enough to make me a hero.

So you won't seem foolish if you ask. You'll be a hero. Trust me.

grids - How do I progress my design aesthetic beyond the linear minimalist style i use for everything?

I love the clean style but I feel like whenever I'm given a design project I research and I see all of these templates with these cool diagonals and curves. I want to utilize the style but I feel like I am stealing. The line between stealing and be inspired by is a very grey area to me. So I panic and create a grid and produce another linear design. I just want to be able to produce a different look expand my creative range. I've included a link below.

Answer

Some thoughts first.

There is a chance the feeling of stealing could be because you try to explore a finished product too deeply and not the general idea, the initial feeling.

1) Do not look for detail

As a first step, instead of seeing your idea as the image you posted, try just to see a blurred, non-detailed image:

This is the same process as the one you perform, for example, doing an image search. You first see a low-res image, and something catches your attention. It is not detailed observing it is a "first strike".

Colors, shape, contrast, saturation...

2) Methodology

The design should have a scientific method approach:

• Observation


• Hypothesis


• Experimentation


• Comprobation


• Thesis

One "non" declared part of the scientific approach is the refutation of different hypothesis, and we assume as designers that other approaches are not right... without seeing them!

We think that we should not use curved lines... and therefore we do not experiment with that approach, just because!.

If we have a methodology, specifically for the hypothesis+experimentation part, we can explore in a layered fashion different constructive elements.

Background, color, shape, font, space, equilibrium, size, proportion, etc.

If we apply this methodology to the point 1, the subconscious idea that stroke us when we see another persons design, we can grab a base idea, not a detailed, finished, digested, developed idea.

3) The fundamentals of design... Experimentation

Play and experiment with the original case, applying the basic methodology. You now could discard some cases.

Evolve simple steps. For example, for shape: Straight lines, simple curves, more complex curves.

4) Expand your basic set of exploration topics

Be demanding on your exploration of this vocabulary. Mix them, shaken and stirred them!

Equilibrium, disequilibrium, perspective, meaning, iconography, symbolism, semiotics, contrast, contrast of colors, tone contrast, hue contrast, contrast of size, contrast of ideas...

How about some glossiness to the photo, some 3D effects, HDRI look, motion blur, digital matrix effects, quantum tunneling exploding gluon quarks effects...

5) Study the past and evolution

In the history of art this was the experimentation that took place. They grabbed a concept and developed a way of seeing things trough that. Impressionism, cubism, futurism, hyper-realism...

Some other "looks" were dictated because of technological limitations, for example flat silk print to make posters, duo-tone images to reduce costs.

This exploration could leave you not to make a "retro look" for example just because is in trend, but because you found the beauty of the approach to simplify an idea.

Study the past, design for the future.

6) Additional note.

I will steal the quote that Hans stole form Picasso

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

And I will try to go deep on that. A copy machine can... well... copy. Stealing means that you make that part of you. If the elements you are grabbing do not form an intrinsic part of you and your design, they will probably not work, at least for you.

programming - Is the Interactive Brokers API suitable for hft?

By HFT here I mean anything with holding period less than 5 to 10 minutes.

Any empirical/anecdotal evidence of using it successfully on even higher frequencies?

Answer

Holding period and trade frequency are two different things. If you have a high trade frequency, the name of the game is negotiating lower commissions. That being said, the TWS API gives you the same quality feed as you get using TWS itself.

From Article on HFT Provided by Dirk Eddelbuettel in this question about HFT:

High-frequency trading (HFT) is a subset of algorithmic trading where a large number of orders (which are usually fairly small in size) are sent into the market at high speed, with round-trip execution times measured in microseconds (Brogaard, 2010). Programs running on high-speed computers analyse massive amounts of market data, using sophisticated algorithms to exploit trading opportunities that may open up for milliseconds or seconds. Participants are constantly taking advantage of very small price imbalances; by doing that at a high rate of recurrence, they are able to generate sizeable profits. Typically, a high frequency trader would not hold a position open for more than a few seconds. Empirical evidence reveals that the average U.S. stock is held for 22 seconds

Updates and orders with the TWS API occur on the order of 10s to 100s of milliseconds, as far as I can tell, which would disqualify it for use in the regime described in the article. (This is just what I have measured on my own computer on my retail Internet connection.)

Honestly I would be surprised if anyone could do HFT with any retail product. Sounds impossible.

forecasting - What types of neural networks are most appropriate for trading?

What types of neural networks are most appropriate for forecasting returns? Can neural networks be the basis for a high-frequency trading strategy?

Types of neural networks include:

• Radial Basis Function Networks


• Multilayer Perceptron (standard architecture)


• Convolutional Neural Networks



• Recurrent Neural Networks


• Q-learning Networks or Deep Reinforcement Learning

What about advanced architectures such as:

Convolutional

• LeNet-5


• AlexNet


• Inception networks


• VGGNet



• ResNet

Recurrent

• Bi-directional


• Attention Models

marketing - How can I encourage more comments on my blog?

I've been writing and running my own film and TV reviewing blog for about 8 months now, posting frequently (usually at least once a week) and what I would consider good quality content (although obviously I am biased). I share my reviews on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and I get an acceptable number of page views considering the fact that it is difficult to promote my blog any further than I already am.

However, I rarely get any comments on any of my posts. Being as films are so subjective and there are so many people who enjoy talking about films, this seems odd. How can I encourage current readers to comment more (short of asking people to comment in each post), and how can I expand my audience to include people more likely to comment?

I recently moved my blogs commenting system to Disqus as a first step.

Ideally, answers would include methods/styles of writing that help encourage discussion.

novel - Should I start work on a sequel before I have sold my book?

I finished the 1st draft of my book, and have put it in the freezer(as I asked about in this question). I was planning to start work on a sequel of the book in the meantime.

But I was told by someone that I should not work on a sequel till I have sold my first book, since if I can't sell the first book, I will never be able to sell the sequel either, and all my effort will be wasted.

Is this good advice? As it means all the effort I put in creating the characters, themes, Universe(it was a Sci-Fi/Fantasy book) will be wasted.

Answer

I say heed the Muse. If there's a story burning to be told, go ahead and write it. No effort is wasted. Even if your novel and its sequel are never published, you will have the experience of creating a universe and writing a sequel to an existing story, and you can always use that experience when crafting another story.

Besides, who knows how long it will take to sell your first book? And if the publisher wants a two-book deal, or the first one (a different story) gets bought, now you have two additional completed novels under your "brand" to offer the agent/publisher.

selection - Helping users understand that two, and only two options must be selected

I have a drop down checkbox where there are 8 items to check. Two are selected by default.

I am trying to think of an intuitive way to let the user know they have to deselect the existing ones before checking another, and that they have to have exactly two checked (no more, no less).

I think I am happy to use JavaScript to help, perhaps some sort of tool-tip or notification. Any ideas? I'm open to alternative options other than a drop down checkbox too.

fonts - Name for type that has the same width and height

I know monospaced type (font) means all characters have the same width. Is there a similar name for fonts where all character have the same width and height?

Answer

[As far as I know] There is no name for such fonts, because there are too few of them to create a categorization.

As mentioned in the comments, square or perhaps geometric could be possible search terms.

Your best option is to look for perfectly square uppercase fonts, as these are easier to find.

Here is a font with lowercase and a close-enough width-height ratio:

Panoptica

usability - The best practices for a rating bar/slider/buttons

I need to make a rating scale input device that satisfies the following requirements:

1) Each value must be associated with a number to the user.
2) It must be immediately clear that this thing measures a continuum.
3) It can't be pre-selected (making an actual slider all but impossible)
4) It must be adaptable to a number of different variables of differing levels of significance to the user.

I have attached my first attempt. It needs help.

typography - Does hyphenation increase readability?

All I could find on the subject was this paper, which is pretty interesting in itself. But it only deals with preference. 57% of the test subject prefers hyphenated text.

This is kind of surprising to me, because I get the feeling hyphenation hinders the ability to take up the entire word in one glance. Does anyone know whether there are any experiments out there that measure actual reading time?

---

Glassman, Tracy (1997). Principles of Typography for the Screen. Master’s thesis. Rochester NY, USA: Rochester Institute of Technology.

Answer

Why justify

Justification can make an important contribution to extended reading: Taming the visual 'noise' in a page of text. Nick Shinn made a particularly keen observation in this regard on Typophile:

Justification avoids the "interference" of having shapes and coinicidences occur at the right column edge, which can be a distraction, as the reader will interpret these as potentially significant. And indeed they may be, as statistically a short line tends to indicate a paragraph end.

You'll see that most long text documents use justified setting. Justified setting can fall apart without hyphenation, ending up with gaping holes in the text. The holes create a situation where a reader accidentally jumps between lines, losing their place in the text. So, consequently, hyphenation increases legibility in this case by eliminating a bigger problem.

There has been research specifically on readers' ability to 'see' words when hyphenated and there was no loss of comprehension -- of course, I can't dig up any of that info now :/ I suspect longer texts benefit from more able readers and greater context so any gaps that do arise are filled in cognitively.

How to justify

The trouble is, setting justified text is a skill that takes time to master. Here's a Typophile thread on fine tuning your justification settings. This is a fantastic, detailed overview from some real masters of text setting. Unfortunately, Kent Lew's valuable settings window screen shot is now missing. There's still plenty to learn there.

That discussion highlights a very important consideration: Employ the full gamut of justification control provided in long-document layout software for the best results. You can achieve better justified spacing and fewer hyphens if you set proper limits on

• Word spacing


• Character spacing


• Character scaling (just a little please)

Just for fun

And how could you complete a typography debate without a little client bashing: This lengthy discussion on Typophile centers around a client that wanted hyphenation eliminated. There is some great stuff in there, including links to related discussions. Synopsis:

• Justified text without hyphenation is a bad idea.


• Justified or Flush Left is a matter of taste.


• A narrow measure without hyphenation will fail.

(Can you sense my obsession with the topic?)

html - Should every page in a site have a totally unique H1?

I agree that every page in a site should have a unique TITLE, and that every page should have one and only one H1 element, but should the text of each H1 be completely unique too?

Instinctively one would think so, but there are potentially many cases where (IMHO) mind this doesn't make sense and attempting to do so will impair the user experience & presentation of the page - for example, where pages are part of a closely related cluster, e.g. a multi-step process/tool/wizard.

Surely the process name should go in the H1 (e.g. "Pregnancy Planner"), and the current step you're on should be marked up as a H2 (e.g. "Step 1 - Trying for a baby"), rather than shoehorning both into a single H1 together (e.g. "Pregnancy Planner - Step 1 - Trying for a baby")?

Not only does this make the H1 rather long and potentially impact the presentation of the page, I would argue that in combining both into one you also lose semantic goodness, as the page is surely semantically richer by keeping parent (process) and child (step) as separate, nested headings?

Furthermore, the current proposal I have read is that on the first page the H1 should be the name of the process and the first step an H2, but on subsequent pages the same text should not be a H1 at all (just text styled exactly the same as an H1) and the current step should become the H1 instead. For me this is introducing unnecessary complexity to the page authoring/production process, and inconsistency in the semantic structure of the pages within the stepped process.

So it all comes back to the basic assertion that each H1 must be completely unique, which I question. Can you convince me that this should be so and that the cost/complexity of implementing this (especially in situations such as that above) is worth it?

Your thoughts please...

Photoshop export layers to png but with specific background layer

I have a psd with ~400 Layers which contain semitransparent images and one layer with a solid color. I want to export those layers to png8 and want that layers to have that solid background. I can export those layers with File->Scripts->Export layers to files, but cannot provide the background option. Any simple way to achieve this?

word choice - How to have a character be nameless for the first few paragraphs of a book?

Let me first explain what is going in in the beginning of the story: My main character belongs to a tribal culture that requires their children pass a rite of passage to earn their name.

So I'm kind of stuck on how to refer to the character while he is on his trial. (The story would start up right in the thick of battle as he is taking the test, which is done by going out into the jungle and stalking and killing some form of food that would feed the tribe.)

Then a bit later I had planned to have my second character make her appearance, interrupting his trial so he technically never gets his name. However, she gives him one by making her nickname for him his name for the rest of the story.

But up until that point I am not sure how to reference him if I am doing it from his perspective.

Answer

You have a few things going on here:

1) If the story is first-person, your problem is solved. We rarely address ourselves by our given names in internal monologues.

2) If your story is in third person, then you have a cultural issue.

The children may not get official Names (Starfall, Willow, Runs With Scissors) until they do something to earn it. But you still have to address someone before that age, since they have to have some level of competence to hunt and kill food. A mother with three kids under the age of trial is not going to introduce them as Hey You, Thing 1, and Pain In My Butt (even if that's how she thinks of them).

So I think you need a culturally embarrassing placeholder address which is clearly not a name, which the nickname will then supplant.

• It could be a cutesy use-name, which is why a warrior of either gender would reject it (Starlight, Birdsong, Crushed Peony Booger).


• It could be a mocking name (Screech, Sewage, Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo) because the tribe thinks the gods will steal children who have fine names, so they give them ugly names until they are old enough to defend themselves against the gods.


• It could be a literal placeholder (Third Daughter of Two Blades).

3) Cultural issues aside, if this is a short story and you really mean five or six paragraphs, using "the warrior" or "the boy on trial" is fine.

internationalisation - How to design a multi-language website ?

I have a blog where I write in French, and sometimes in English. Right now, the distinction is made with a "tag" called "In English", so that users can get the feed for, say, only the English posts.

In the new version of my blog, I would like to be able to have posts in whatever language, and (that's where I'm stuck) have a simple way for users to choose which language(s) they want to see/follow via RSS. Also, the same post can be available in different languages (translations)

I code everything myself, using the Symfony framework, so I can do whichever UI I choose.

Answer

Since you only have two languages, I would simply put a link by each post (perhaps just below the title) saying "Read this post in English" or "Lire ce post en français", possibly with a flag icon next to it of the UK and France respectively. Keep it simple. Clicking the link would transfer the user to the other language version of the page (if available). Make sure that each version of each article has its own URL for SEO and bookmarking purposes, for instance /en/article and /fr/article.

For language switching throughout the site, I would place a similar link in the upper right corner or somewhere similar (upper right is conventional, so people may look for it there), again with a flag for quick identification.

For RSS, you could place two links in a sidebar or somewhere similar with "subscribe to {site name} posts in English" and "Abonnez-vous à {site name} en français" preceded by RSS icons. Each RSS feed would only contain posts in that language. You could also offer a multi-language feed for people to subscribe to if they want.

input - What would be the best way to let a user add a URL to a form?

Currently our webapplication simply shows a textbox with no validation at all. There is a small icon placed next to the textbox that allows the user to open the URL in a new browser window to check the validity. This is not a good way to stimulate a user to input a valid URL and with no other validation in place, our customers databases are full of stuff like e-mail addresses and "See Notes". We would really like to improve this situation, but with no UX-specialist on our team, we seem not to be able to find a proper way of allowing URL input.

I imagine a simple textbox would be easiest to use, but would also be hardest to validate. For example, we would like to allow the to enter URLs as http://www.google.com/ or www.google.com and only google.com. Splitting the protocol and allowing users to select it in a dropdownlist (defaulting to http://) would make validation easier and perhaps also entering the URL. However, the user would then be bugged with technical terminology. Only about 1% of the current URLs in the database are properly prefixed with the protocol and we suspect these are the result of copying the URL from the browsers addressbar.

As for the validation, I know there are a lot regular expressions out there for URL validation, but I assume these suffer from the same problems as e-mailaddress regular expressions in that either they are to strict or very, very loose, or are a couple of pages long.

So my questions are:

• What (combination of) control(s) would allow the user to enter a URL a easy as possible?


• What kind of validation would suffice so all valid URLs are allowed, but the most obviously wrong are not?

Answer

If you really care about UX - validate the URL automatically. E.g. if user types "example.com" - change it to "http://example.com".

If you want to add an ability to navigate to the URL that wasjust typed - just underline it and make it blue; the user will understand that this is a link.

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Design patterns for Search

I know this may sound very generic question, but I am forced to post this to understand different patterns of search. I am working on a content oriented site which contains various types articles/videos from different topics. The width of content is very broad which is spread across 5 different topics which are holding the entire taxonomy. Each article is tagged with keywords and the user can click the tags.

I have already considered using adaptable personalization technique to handle overload of content , (i.e) giving the right content at the right time by showing content of only subscribed topics. Now I want to provide a search feature & popular tags also for every topic. What would be best search design pattern for this kind of scenario. (Note; this is a responsive website).

Answer

The best reference I know of search patterns is Peter Morvilles and Jeffery Callenders book Search Patterns:

Search is among the most disruptive innovations of our time. It influences what we buy and where we go. It shapes how we learn and what we believe. This provocative and inspiring book explores design patterns that apply across the categories of web, e-commerce, enterprise, desktop, mobile, social, and real time search and discovery. Using colorful illustrations and examples, the authors bring modern information retrieval to life, covering such diverse topics as relevance ranking, faceted navigation, multi-touch, and mixed reality. Search Patterns challenges us to invent the future of discovery while serving as a practical guide to help us make search applications better today.

It covers everything from search result pages design to best bets and user behaviour. Best book I've read on the topic.

I think you should start there...

---

EDIT

To answer your particular question better, I think Microsoft have made a very good job filtering search results in SharePoint (as an example). You could filter by a numerous of different things which would be easely transferrable to your question tags and/or features. Take a look at the following image and see if there is something useful?!

Look specifically at the left column where the filters are... filter by type, date, product, company or concept.

vector - Adobe illustrator perfect curve between two grids

How would you combine a vertical grid and horizontal grid with matching width & heights with perfect curved lines?

Example:

I'm trying to find a method that would be salable for 100, 1000, etc grids.

Answer

I would solve that by math:

The "perfect" curve means (for me) square based curve, so the task is to find the squares, create related to them arcs and make a blend in N of steps as need.

I've created 2 guides and 1 square between one square and guides intersection -

Now I created an arc as shown and with pen tool elongated it to the second square.

The same operations for a larger arc -

And blended the arcs created -

menu - How to best show links that are internal

I have created a wordpress site recently for my club. I have come recently to a discussion about the way I have shown the list of useful links internal to the site.

I have put them under the header "Useful Links" which sounded rather obvious. Someone made me notice that with "Links" people may consider content that is external to the site (so not a page or post on my club's site).

It has to be noted that for the time being there are no external links but there may well be in the future.

While this is not a question of massive importance (no money or contracts involved) it still made me thinking and wanted to ask a bigger audience.

I have seen the similar question (External links: Whether & how to distinguishing them from internal links, and to open them): this is not about links in a paragraphs or individual links in a menu, but more about how to title the whole menu if it's made up exclusively of internal links (and whether the word "link" in itself conveys the meaning of an external page).

Is there a way to set up text tabs in Photoshop?

I have versions CS4 through CS6 (ETA and now current to CC18). I have a nice numbered list and I'd like to align things. Is there any way to set up tabs rather than letterspacing or splitting the text into separate layers?

(I can recreate the text in Illustrator and import it, but I'd like to know if I can do this task in one program.)

Answer

Unfortunately, no. Photoshop offers no "tab" function.

You can hit tab, but it inputs an arbitrary space which can not be changed.

fantasy - Querying for a setting-heavy speculative fiction novel

I'm an attentive follower of Janet Reid's Query Shark, and I've learned a lot. But Reid doesn't represent speculative fiction, which seems to present wrinkles of its own.

Particularly, Query Shark often stresses the importance of quickly introducing the main characters, and describing what happens in the book, what the conflict is, what choices the protagonist needs to make.

But in an SF/F book, if the speculative premise is complex and at the heart of the novel, this seems difficult to do without at least some explanation of the premise. The book itself, if it's good, will explain the premise gradually and with a lot of showing-not-telling. But the query seems like it might get bogged down if the premise and the worldbuilding aren't reducible to a clear one-line tag.

Here are some examples of SF/F novels I would have trouble constructing a query for:

• Hyperion, by Dan Simmons: The setting is a mish-mash of genre tropes and original mythology; they all intertwine eventually, but I'd be at a loss to try to briefly introduce the setting as a whole.


• The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, and The City and the City, by China Mieville: These books are, largely, explorations of their central premise. They're hardly without plot or character, but understanding these is contingent on continuous new understandings about the speculative premise.

Are SF/F agents more open to infodump-ish introductions? Or is there a better way to construct a query for a book whose characters and plot rely on a complex speculative premise?

Answer

Your premise may be central to your story. But that doesn't mean that it requires paragraphs of explanation, or that you should sideline the characters and just talk about your awesome idea. Rather, if you find that the explication of your idea is taking too much time, you probably just aren't cutting it hard enough.

To illustrate, let me post the first three paragraphs from the query letter from a novel I completed last year:

Haris is an Apostle, a first-contact specialist dedicated to renewing ties with forgotten human colonies. He arrives in secret on the planet Hesychia disguised as a native, leaving his high-tech home to live among the crippled beggars, silk-swaddled nobles, and stern monks of the low-tech world. His mission is to integrate himself into their society and convince them to rejoin the interstellar community. But nothing goes as planned.

Two different religious factions pursue him from the moment he arrives, and he finds himself betrayed and sold into slavery. In captivity he meets Layra, a slave girl who claims to be his wife and knows everything about his mission. Haris cannot understand how everyone he meets seems to know him already, but Layra explains to him the astounding truth: on Hesychia everyone remembers the future.

Some who remember Haris support his goals, while others are out to hinder and kill him. With Layra's help Haris must find out which are which---if he can even trust her. And though Layra remembers that Haris ultimately succeeds, Haris discovers that memory can deceive.

(The omitted fourth paragraph has the title, wordcount, and boring biographical details.)

I'm posting this, not because I think I have the awesomest query ever, but because I faced many of the same problems that you are facing. The setting is complex, as the book contains both an advanced space-faring society traveling from world to world, and a low-tech society that the protag visits. On the low-tech world I have to allude to the problems of the class and religious structure, including multiple religious and political factions, and somehow get across the idea of how all of these connect to the central idea of the story, which is a society built around a shared memory of the future.

How do I get all of this into the query letter? Mostly by leaving nearly everything out. I mention exactly two central characters, never mentioning the antagonist or the supporting cast at all. The POV character of the first chapter never even appears! Almost all of the setting is compressed into a single sentence in the first paragraph. And the exciting central premise is relegated to the second paragraph, with most of its implications left to the reader's imagination. It's okay to leave things unexplained in the query letter, so long as you can entice the reader to keep looking, and convince them that you have answers in the full MS.

I happen to have a paperback copy of Hyperion on the bookshelf behind me, so let's look at its back cover copy. (A common querying technique is to pretend that you're writing the back cover copy.) How does it present the premise and characters?

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

This copy presents the Shrike as the main character, which is an interesting choice since the Shrike is arguably the antagonist. But this works because there is no one protagonist in Hyperion, but all seven main characters have the same antagonist. Furthermore, we very quickly get exactly what Reid recommends: the situation (mysterious creature on a backwater planet), the plot (seven people coming to supplicate/confront him), and the stakes (fate of the galaxy). None of the seven protags gets named. The setting is almost completely omitted. The cruciform parasite, which is arguably the most important idea of the series, never shows up either. It's all boiled down to the absolute minimum.

So it can be done. For your novel, peel away the layers of complexity that you've lovingly arranged and get down to the bone. Figure out what the most interesting and most important thing is. Present that. Leave everything else out.

adobe photoshop - Creating large banners to be viewed from a distance, at a size Illustrator can't handle

I need to design large banner, 40ft X 10ft, but Illustrator can't handle that size, so I create it at 1/3 size in Illustrator. Once done, I export a web image (JPEG), and set it to 100% quality. Then using Photoshop, I create a 40ft X 10ft size canvas but lower the resolution to 60 to create a pdf file.

Basically, I resize the JPEG to its real size using photoshop and save as pdf for printing.

The banner will be seen by anyone from 80 meters, something like that..

1. In Illustrator, the canvas size is 1/3 from 40ft X 10ft


2. Once I done my design, I saved it as web image, set it 100% quality


3. Then, I create real size in Photoshop (40ft X 10ft) but lowered the resolution to 60ppi



4. The image that I saved from Illustrator will be resized to its real size in Photoshop, and save as .PDF.

Is this the correct process?

Need directions regarding the learning process I should follow for learning Photoshop

I am starting out as a freelance website developer so I need to improve my graphics drawing skill. Up till now I'm using an open source tool GIMP to create the concepts and mock ups of the websites I design.I know that Photoshop is the Industry standard(at least as far as I know).

So,what books can help me in learning some advanced Photoshop techniques used frequently in web designing.Also I want to learn how to draw cartoon characters like this.I know it is a matter of creativity but still there must be some techniques which I can learn.Please express your views.

Just for the record, I'm basically a web developer so my graphics drawing capabilities are very limited(but I want to improve that).

Applying the Windows UX Design Guidelines for Layout and UI Design consistently

There are many potential threads to this question I want to ask, but I will just limit it to two aspects from this example:

Firstly, in the Insert Picture Dialog there are five different types of dropdown selection controls on the screen. I understand that each has a slightly different functionality and therefore look and feel. However, this is quite different from my understanding of a flat/metro style of design where the interaction reveals the behaviour of the controls. So is it an incorrect application of the UX design guidelines to make the controls look the same but have different focus/hover interactions?

Secondly, I am trying to understand the hierarchy or structure to the interface layout. There are navigation elements on the left and at the top, and the filter/sort options are scattered at the top and bottom. Are the UI elements aligned individually within each section/group, and then aligned at a higher level? I would have expected to see some basic alignment of the right edges of the "Search Pictures" box with the "Cancel" button and the scroll bar, or perhaps the "File name:" dropdown aligned with the Organize dropdown, or maybe the "Tools" and "Insert" dropdown in the same grouping. Is there some rule being applied or have I missed them?

In the new Office 2013 applications, the layout and alignment also seems to be difficult to gauge. There is top alignment of the buttons, but the input field is not quite center-aligned with the buttons. The spacing is different between the input field and the text area, and the "Subject" label seems slightly out of place as well. The padding around the entire section is thicker at the top compared to the bottom as well. Any hints on what the rule applied would be appreciated.

Answer

Just to be clear, are using the Modern UI design guidelines to evaluate this image? If so, I don't think you should. While the developers have clearly tried to style it to be more inline with the Modern UI look, Word is a desktop app and is free to stray from the Modern UI design philosophy.

What we are seeing in this image is the legacy of the "UI real estate is expensive, cram as much onto it as you can" days of Windows. I'm sure you have heard the apocryphal story of the two art students who are debating the meaning of a new exhibit in a museum of modern art only to turn to someone who works for the museum and inquire about the artist and be told, "I'm sorry. That's trash from the remodeling we are doing."

And I wonder if you have not made the same sort of mistake by expecting there was a design philosophy used when it's just the legacy of the open file dialog used since Windows 98 and updated in Vista.

One way that it violates the Modern UI principles is that this dialog allows you to create folders and even files of completely unrelated types in the file system as well as reorder and organize the file system. So if you are trying to understand it in the context of the Modern UI design language and are confused, you aren't the only one! So no, you are not missing anything and your intuitions are right.

I think the image you added in your edit confirms my opinion that in these instances there is no over arching design philosophy and it is just going by "It looks good enough" rather than being held to a standard such as the Windows store apps. Areas such as the ribbon and the utility screens in Office may very well have guiding principles applied, but these examples you have shown not so much. They were built by developers not UX people.

adobe illustrator - Recreating cutup/displace/chopped up effect

This may be off-topic, I'll try to make sure it isn't though.

I've found a really nice effect, and I'm trying to recreate it. I don't know much about graphic design, but I've been trying lots of ways to recreate this. I just don't have the knowledge/experience to do it myself. I'm asking for instructions, or help to create a similar effect.

So, here's the example image:

I've extracted the colors, and used the same font, with different text to create this:

I think I've got the basic image the same, but I have no idea how to make all those cuts/distortion.

I made my image in Sketch, but I quickly realised Sketch wasn't enough to create that effect. So, I exported my design to an SVG, then opened in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. BTW, I've never used either before. After opening it those apps, I preceded to muck around a bunch, and try and get something reasonable. Photoshop didn't seem to be the right thing, so I tried Illustrator. Using Illustrator, I created this, by doing:

• Holding alt, and using the Knife, I made a cut


• Then I pushed cmd+shift+A to deselect everything


• After that, I used the Direct Selection Tool, to move the shape around

As you can see, it's... similar. Now, I could keep doing this manually, but that'd take hours. So, my question is this:

How can I create this effect without, manually cutting everything to pieces?

Maybe there isn't a super easy way to do this, but there must be a better way then what I'm doing.

Answer

Use two vertical parallelograms to create two Scatter Brushes with the following options:

Make three layers, at the bottom the logo, and on top two repeated layers with just the middle path:

Each top layer has the same path repeated three times: black, orange and grey stroke, in this order, from bottom to top:

Apply the thick brush to the bottom layer paths and the thin brush to the top layer paths.

Mask each layer content inside a rectangle

Double click the brushes to modify the options and change the density, size, spacing, etc. To obtain a result more approximate to the example of the question, make the brushes with less density and create other thinner/thick brushes to apply always in different layers. Use the dark brush just in a rectangle around the logo frame.

Name for style of text logo where two colours overlap imperfectly?

I've seen a bunch of these - often with similar colour palettes of red with blue/green/turquoise. There are two overlapping copies of the design in two solid colours, which are almost (but not quite) exactly the same and overlap in a way which is almost (but not quite) consistent.

Does it have a name?

This is the logo of madeByRaygun:

Answer

I'd call that "Fake 3D" (or Fake "stereoscopic 3D", as suggested in comments) style. People started copying the 2D look of this 3D faking technique probably without realizing what it originally is used for. The red/green channels left and right of the original black logo shape mimic a technique used to make things appear 3D when viewed through glasses with one red and one green toned side.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moonstereo1897.jpg from the sterepscopy article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy

[Edit to reflect some of the comments and other answers:]

As @Brendan and other users suggested, the case could equally likely be an "offset printing job where two spot colors don't quite line up".

The logo uses a deliberate "misregistration", mimicing either a techniqual glitch or a 3D technique. Regardless of which of the possible two variations is in question here, this approach stylizes a technical feature and makes deliberate reference to a glitch or sorts.

videogame - How can I convert a linear narrative into a branching narrative?

Suppose I would like to create a text adventure game, but my imagination is not sufficient for creating a whole game. But there are fiction books (in the public domain) that are very imaginative and could potentially make a great game. The main problem is that, a standard fiction book is sequential, while in a game there are many branches. Even if I have, say, only 10 branches, I still have to write 9 of these on my own.

Is there a process that can make this easier? A structured procedure by which I can work, that can help me convert a novel to a text adventure, with minimal need to use my "rusty" imagination?

I looked around the web and found some links that apparently discuss this topic, but with few details:

• Five tips for turning a book into an interactive game - mainly discusses what should be in a book in order to be able to make a game out of it, namely: scalability, strong characters, first-person narrative, and genre. But, it does not speak about the conversion process itself.


• What the heck is interactive fiction? - a subsection titled "Converting Fiction to IF" gives some hints: pick a shorter story, think about the choices your character makes, think how to display text on the page, think outside the page. Again, few details about the process itself are given.

EDIT: thanks a lot to all the repliers for the wonderful ideas and the warm welcome!

Getting Transparent Images from Photoshop into Illustrator

Simply, I am trying to bring an image made in Photoshop into Illustrator for the purposes of creating a vector image for a t-shirt design.

The image has only one layer and contains transparencies. I have tried saving it as png, pdf, psd, eps. I have tried several methods to bring it in; simply open it normally, copy/paste, "place", drag/drop... all with each type of file mentioned.

But nothing worked as expected. Every method yields the same result - the background in illustrator is solid white and all transparency is lost.

Note: Yes, the transparent grid is visible, the image is definitely not transparent after it is brought into Illustrator.

---

I can get my transparency back by tracing with the ignore white option selected, but unfortunately that's not an viable solution as there is white in the image itself that needs to be retained.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Answer

Copying to the clipboard in photoshop with Ctrl/Command+A followed by Ctrl/Command+C, switching to illustrator and simply paste it into layer with Ctrl/Command+V seems not always maintain the transparency of the image.

In this case go to File > Save As or File > Save to Web and choose file format which supports transparency like .png or .tiff and place it to your illustrator canvas.

Transparent layer in Photoshop

PNG File placed to illustrator canvas

Note: Illustrator's backdrop isn't transparent by default. You can enable transparent backdrop by pressing Ctrl/Command+Shift+D. As alternative you can draw a rectangle to the first layer and set it to red. Create a new layer, paste your image into it and check the result.

development - Switching from C++ to R - limitations/applications

I've only recently begun exploring and learning R (especially since Dirk recommended RStudio and a lot of people in here speak highly of R). I'm rather C(++) oriented, so it got me thinking - what are the limitations of R, in particular in terms of performance?

I'm trying to weigh the C++/Python/R alternatives for research and I'm considering if getting to know R well enough is worth the time investment.

Available packages look quite promising, but there are some issues in my mind that keep me at bay for the time being:

• How efficient is R when it comes to importing big datasets? And first of all, what's big in terms of R development? I used to process a couple hundred CSV files in C++ (around 0.5M values I suppose) and I remember it being merely acceptable. What can I expect from R here? Judging by Jeff's spectacular results I assume with a proper long-term solution (not CSV) I should be even able to switch to tick processing without hindrances. But what about ad-hoc data mangling? Is the difference in performance (compared to more low level implementations) that visible? Or is it just an urban legend?


• What are the options for GUI development? Let's say I would like to go further than research oriented analysis, like developing full blown UIs for investment analytics/trading etc. From what I found mentioned here and on StackOverflow, with proper bindings I am free to use Python's frameworks here and even further chain into Qt if such a need arises. But deploying such a beast must be a real nuisance. How do you cope with it?

In general I see R's flexibility allows me to mix and match it with a plethora of other languages (either way round - using low level additions in R or embed/invoke R in projects written in another language). That seems nice, but does it make sense (I mean like thinking about it from start/concept phase, not extending preexisting solutions)? Or is it better to stick with one-and-only language (insert whatever you like/have experience with)?

So to sum up: In what quant finance applications is R a (really) bad choice (or at least can be)?

Answer

R can be pretty slow, and it's very memory-hungry. My data set is only 8 GB or so, and I have a machine with 96 GB of RAM, and I'm always wrestling with R's memory management. Many of the model estimation functions capture a link to their environment, which means you can be keeping a pointer to each subset of the data that you're dealing with. SAS was much better at dealing with large-ish data sets, but R is much nicer to deal with. (This is in the context of mortgage prepayment and default modeling.)

Importing the data sets is pretty easy and fast enough, in my experience. It's the ballooning memory requirements for actually processing that data that's the problem.

Anything that isn't easily vectorizable seems like it would be a problem. P&L backtesting for a strategy that depends on the current portfolio state seems hard. If you're looking at the residual P&L from hedging a fixed-income portfolio, with full risk metrics, that's going to be hard.

I doubt many people would want to write a term structure model in R or a monte-carlo engine.

Even with all that, though, R is a very useful tool to have in your toolbox. But it's not exactly a computational powerhouse.

I don't know anything about the GUI options.

videogame - What format/platform/structure is good for writing for a video game?

I know this may not be the best place to ask this, since it's for a game, but the game is very story driven, so I thought it would be reasonable to ask this on the writers stack exchange.

The story is far from complete - I don't usually write stories for my games, so I'm unsure of how to start. I already have TONS of notes... for the plot, scenes, characters, setting, dialog snippets, all sorts of things, but I'm having trouble bringing it all together to plan for the game it was made for.

How should I structure the story? Would it make sense to write it out like a book, so everybody on the team knows exactly what the story is about? Or should it be more concise and to the point? What would help best when we start working on the actual game?

About the game itself: It's an RPG Maker type of video game inspired by games from the Corpse Party series, which also first started from an RPG Maker game. It even has a similair setup, with a group of people trapped in a haunted place, but with a twist on how time works in that haunted place, leading to interesting situations.

Answer

Since it is for a video game, you should have a story. In fact, I'd finish the story completely, if for no other reason than for your peace of mind. That is, so you know inherently exactly what's going on. That doesn't mean the story as a whole would get published, but only parts you need to. It would mean, however, you and the team know exactly what you want everything to be. You'll all be lock step in the process with a lot less guessing.

You'd want to have the story complete before you start working on making the game, that way you'll know what elements you'll need to work on and for what. Once the story is written, it'll help everyone on the team understand the direction and flow of the game itself. Once the story is done and everyone has a good understanding of it, they'll have a better feel for the imagery of the game and how it should look.

As for where to start ... the best place to start is at the beginning. If you have the storyline worked out, it has to have a place to start already. I'd also assume you already understand the how it's going to end. Put your notes in chronological order of the story, then see what develops. If your notes are as complete as you believe they are, I'd bet once you get them in order, the story itself will flow fairly easily ... it'll be done before you know it. It may, as they say, even write itself.

Photoshop, duplicate layer order down (instead of up)

I'm working with Photoshop for over 10 years already but can't find this simple thing:

When I'm creating repeatable objects I always duplicate folders and work my way from up to the bottom. When checking my layers they are arranged differently. The bottom duplicate is on top of the layers and visa versa.

Does anyone know how to change the duplicate layer option order? I want to make them down instead of going up the last layer.

Why is my PDF size from my InDesign Export still large?

I'm doing class project that is a four-page, seven-image document with very little text. The project must be submitted as a PDF under 300 KB. However, when I export the document under the smallest file size preset and with the compression rates down to 72 dpi, I get a PDF that is 612 KB.

All my classmates are able to get it under 300 KB, so I'm confused as to why mine is so large. I'm using 5 JPGs and 2 GIFs, and each take up a 5in by 5in square in the document. They are relatively really small pictures (avg. 250 KBS) and I've even re-saved all to be under 100 KB, but the PDF size only drops to around 500 KB I transferred between InDesign CC on Mac and InDesign CS5 on Windows and wonder if that is a concern.

website design - Which of the following options best draws attention to the "buy tickets" action without detracting from the surrounding visual hierarchy?

I'm working on touching up (as much as I'm allowed) some of the design elements for a website. One client requirement is to draw more attention to the "buy tickets" link as this action is one that users take frequently. There are already a lot of other competing actions in this header area and we currently have three possible options for making "buy tickets" more visually prominent (see examples below).

Existing Layout

This is a film festival organization. Personally I think their primary action is, ultimately, selling tickets, so I believe "buy tickets" should be the most prominent element (but there are differing opinions on the client-side). Which option is most usable (i.e., accomplishes the goal of making "buy tickets" more prominent but is balanced with the other functionalities of the header which accommodates the main navigation, newsletter signup, site title, and special global links)?

---

1. Include in Main Menu

+ first item in main menu is first things users see (in the menu)
+ larger size (compared to existing) also increases noticeability
- confuses navigation (all main menu items are sections, not individual page links)
- perhaps not enough contrast (this action could be considered more important in the hierarchy than the main menu items)

---

2. Replace Newsletter Signup Button

+ easy to see (moderate contrast)
+ special visual style makes it unique and important
- removes newsletter functionality which client finds useful

---

3. Special Button Style for Existing Link

+ easy to see (high contrast)
+ prominent position (for most western cultures)
- dominates visual hierarchy (could be distracting being so high contrast)
- might be departing from established design guides?

---

Are there other possibilities that I'm overlooking, or does one of these options clearly accomplish the client's goal without taking away from the other header elements?

Answer

I guess I am going to be the dissenting vote and vote for option 2 :)

Reasons

1. 
   

   People read from left to right and when you structure a site to have a purpose,you ideally want to lead them to a place where the last thing they remember or see is the purpose of the site. In your case,the "Buy TJFF tickets" stands out clearly and it something most users would notice due to its location and prominent size (see the example below)

   
   

   

   
   



2. 
   

   The gradient of the color behind the "Buy TJFF tickets" is subtle and something that draws the eyes when reading from left to right.

   
   

recommendations:

1. 
   

   Repeating Buy TJFF tickets twice might confuse the user and make him wonder about where he needs to really go to buy the tickets. I would recommend removing it from the navigation bar at the start

   
   


2. 
   
   

   Include the newsletter functionality link in the top navigation bar right after"Festival FAQS" so that you are again leading the user on to the tickets tab

   
   

Some articles for you to read :

1. “Call To Action” Buttons: Guidelines, Best Practices And Examples


2. Call to Action Buttons: A Survey of Best Practices

adobe photoshop - Is there a way to make Adjustment Layers ignore certain layers?

Is it possible to insert a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer at the top of all layers - but make it so that chosen layers are not affected by it?

Can it be done without altering positions? (Ie. moving this layer down, and moving up the ones that I want to keep unchanged.)

vector - How to get rid of these outline artifacts in an Inkscape SVG trace?

I can get good trace results in Inkscape converting a bitmap to a vector image - except for these persistent thin outline artifacts. They resemble a topographic map and pretty much ruin the trace.

There are no strokes on these paths, just fills. So there shouldn't be any visible outlines.

In case it helps, here are my trace settings:

Such artifacts appear in Illustrator traces as well. But specifically I'm seeking a solution for preventing or removing them in Inkscape SVGs.

Answer

The problem is basically in the way Inkscape is deciding to split your image into color regions: instead of simply having the lighter colors overlap the darker ones (or vice versa), you're ending up with two adjacent color areas that both overlap a third color.

Since the edges don't line up perfectly (due to both tracing inaccuracies, and also some fundamental limitations of anti-aliased vector image rendering), some of that third color ends up showing through the gap, creating the "edge" you're seeing.

Alas, I don't know of any good way to fix this issue. You can get rid of the background colors by unchecking the "stack scans" box, but then you get transparent gaps between all paths, which is generally even worse. Sometimes, it may be possible to obtain acceptable results by tracing the image with "stack scans" unchecked, and then applying a small outset (say, 0.5 px) to all the resulting paths to fill in the gaps, but don't expect this to preserve fine details very well.

For your specific example image, one possible solution might be to trace it in grayscale (i.e. selecting "Grays" instead of "Colors") and then re-coloring the traced image afterwards; the grayscale tracing mode doesn't seem to suffer from this issue (which I'd really consider a bug, or at least a design flaw, in Inkscape's color bitmap tracing). Of course, this only works well for images that are essentially monochrome, or otherwise have simple and easily recreatable coloring.

design - How do we encourage users to write reviews on product details pages

We're re-designing the product details page of a fashion e-commerce website. Until now we still haven't been able to get customers to consistently write product reviews. One way that we do this is send the user an email after delivery to write a review. A problem in retail apparel is the products that go out of stock aren't replaced but instead newer different products come in. So any product reviews written are no longer relevant. one idea would be move these reviews under the brand of the product since that rarely changes but we haven't seen this method being used. any suggestions or experience with this?

Answer

I think your suggestion makes sense, you'd just need to clearly label the review type e.g. Recent Reviews for Jackets followed by some reviews. Alternatively you could have a generic review row at the bottom of your products which is populated with a variety of feedback your users have offered but just not specific to the individual item.

This may not really help as it's not specific enough so perhaps a social media angle could work:

You could ask your users to tweet about the product one receiving it with a product specific hashtag e.g. #H&MPinkCoat and then scan twitter for the tag and populate the reviews section with 'Product tweets'. This would take a bit of trial and error to get right and would like need some moderation...but so do reviews. You could incentivise the tweets by offering random prizes to people using hashtags and if you favourite peoples tweets they'll like that also as you're engaging with them (even though this could be automated).

response time - At what point does a user lose trust in a Busy Spinner?

The first scenario is an action that could take roughly 2–5 seconds to execute once the user has pressed a button. A Busy Spinner will be displayed in the button until the process has been completed.

After the action is complete feedback is displayed to the user.

The second scenario is an action that can take a couple of minutes to complete. In this scenario I don't believe it's appropriate to simply display a Busy Spinner in the button. I think that a user would start to question if any progress is being made. So instead, a dialog will be displayed:

By displaying a dialog—along with the text, I believe that the user has more confidence that the action is being carried out.

My question is—how long is too long for a simple Busy Spinner? Around what estimated time frame should I begin to introduce a dialog which mentions how long the action will roughly take?

Answer

Jakob Nielsen wrote an article called Response times - 3 important limits.

The basic advice regarding response times has been about the same for thirty years [Miller 1968; Card et al. 1991]. He wrote this in 1993:

• 0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary except to display the result.


• 1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. Normally, no special feedback is necessary during delays of more than 0.1 but less than 1.0 second, but the user does lose the feeling of operating directly on the data.


• 10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the user's attention focused on the dialogue. For longer delays, users will want to perform other tasks while waiting for the computer to finish, so they should be given feedback indicating when the computer expects to be done. Feedback during the delay is especially important if the response time is likely to be highly variable, since users will then not know what to expect.

In 2014 he updated his guidance with this:

• 0.1 second: Limit for users feeling that they are directly manipulating objects in the UI. For example, this is the limit from the time the user selects a column in a table until that column should highlight or otherwise give feedback that it's selected. Ideally, this would also be the response time for sorting the column — if so, users would feel that they are sorting the table. (As opposed to feeling that they are ordering the computer to do the sorting for them.)


• 1 second: Limit for users feeling that they are freely navigating the command space without having to unduly wait for the computer. A delay of 0.2–1.0 seconds does mean that users notice the delay and thus feel the computer is "working" on the command, as opposed to having the command be a direct effect of the users'actions. Example: If sorting a table according to the selected column can't be done in 0.1 seconds, it certainly has to be done in 1 second, or users will feel that the UI is sluggish and will lose the sense of "flow" in performing their task. For delays of more than 1 second, indicate to the user that the computer is working on the problem, for example by changing the shape of the cursor.


• 10 seconds: Limit for users keeping their attention on the task. Anything slower than 10 seconds needs a percent-done indicator as well as a clearly signposted way for the user to interrupt the operation. Assume that users will need to reorient themselves when they return to the UI after a delay of more than 10 seconds. Delays of longer than 10 seconds are only acceptable during natural breaks in the user's work, for example when switching tasks.

website design - Security question: What questions do you ask?

Working on a save quote feature for our new website, one of the security requirements is to ask a secret question and obtain a value from the user.

Does anyone have suggestions on the type of Security questions to ask?

technical writing - Is it legal to write about trademarked material and use the terms?

I am contemplating writing a technical book (and probably self-publishing it) on a proprietary programming interface for a well-known software package produced by a very large company. The company name and many of its packages are of course trademarked.

• Is it legal for to use their package names in my book?


• Is it legal to write about their software (in a good light, of course)?


• If so, how do I go about addressing the trademarks - in a foreword that states something along the lines of "foo is a trademark of bar"?

I have some connections at the company, who I am possibly thinking about getting in touch with, as well.

usability - Multiple Nested Views in Profile: Enterprise Business Application

I'm modernizing an enterprise level business application that currently does not have a graphical user interface, it's a CHUI. The application has a customer profile screen with a persistent profile header, basic info (name, customer number, etc.), and a details area.

This details area can have multiple actions to view related content below it. When an "action" is invoked the detail view switches to show the related content, but the profile header remains persistent. Each related view can have multiple actions to view other related information views. The user can "drill" through up to 4 related information screens using these actions. Most actions that a user can take will NOT have a 4th level drill, very often will have at least 3. Four levels is the worst case scenario. Here is a diagram visualizing what currently happens:

The desire is to translate this to a single page application. That said my current solution is to translate up to three of these individual views to embedded tab sets as pictured here. The fourth level I could handle in a modal. The modal may have a number of tabs as well but will not have further drilling.

My concern is primarily with wayfinding, the user getting lost within the complex hierarchy of this page. I'm confident I can find a way to visually distinguish between the different tabsets. Does anyone have any experience with drilling to this level of related content all under a single view. I'm obviously not hot on this solution for various reasons and I'm open to other solutions/insights.

Answer

There are a few strategies that can help you with deep hierarchies, some demonstrated in this screenshot (source):

• Probably the most useful one of all


• May involve 1 or more sub levels

• Limited vertical space could be an issue, specifically with dynamic tabs

• Would be tabs are unfolded to panels stacked one on top of the other.


• In the screen shot below the white and blue-grey panels can be seen as subs.

• Is it really important for users to jump between level 1 sections? For instance, if the level 1 is a list of bank accounts do users really need to jump between them that often, or would they spend most time at level 2 and below? (note that single page applications still allow a changing content view.)

So in your particular case, possibly:

• Sidebar: level 1 and 2


• Tabs: level 3


• Stack: level 4

It's really hard to give a definite answer without really seeing the hierarchy, but I hope this helps.

editing - What's the point of writing that I know will never be used or read?

Writing can be a very difficult, frustrating, stressful and effortful process. It can also be very isolating to the writer. Given that writing is a form of communication, what is the point of writing material that you're pretty sure no one else will ever read? Isn't it a complete waste of your time and effort?

Note: I saw this question posed in the comments to another question. I decided to post it as an official question --even though I have an answer in mind --because I feel NOT knowing the answer to this question was, for a long time, the biggest barrier to my growth and success as a writer. Other people's answers are welcome --this continues to be something I struggle with emotionally, even though I've embraced it intellectually.

Answer

For me, writing is a passion. Not writing is an impossibility. There are stories in my mind; I need to tell them. I need to find out where they go, how they go, what they mean. I have something in mind when I start a story, but it changes, mutates, I do not fully understand it until it is written and finished.

I find out what I think and how I feel about complex issues (moral, philosophical, political) by writing about them, directly or indirectly. A story lets me ask complex "what if"s, that lead me deeper into an issue. I can play with ideas, explore them, travel down untrodden paths to find out what lies at their end.

Writing is a process, and I enjoy every bit of that process. The research, the editing, the sketching down of hasty ideas and drawing lines between them, the bouncing of ideas against longsuffering friends - every part of the process of creation. I love it, because it is a process of creation.

Of course I want an audience. A story is to be told to someone. Otherwise, is there a story? A story that isn't told is like sheet music that's never played - it is a promise unfulfilled. I am made uncomfortable by books that don't get opened - they are there to tell stories, not to sit on a shelf!
However, while I write, I do not ask myself whether this thing will get published. For one thing, I myself might decide that this half-finished creation project is not good, and consign it to the dark pit of oblivion in a "nah" folder. Multiple mythologies speak of the gods making multiple attempts and scraping them before arriving at a final creation. My story, my prerogative.

And then, the thing is, in our digital world there isn't really such a thing as "no-one will ever read this", unless that's the fate you yourself want for a particular story. You might be unable to sell it. You might be unable to have it published traditionally. I'm sure as heck going to try - like I said, I very much want an audience. But I do not look to earn my bread through writing. So if all else fails, I can just post my stuff on the web, and proceed to write the next thing.

Of course I'm learning and I'm getting better as I write. But honestly, that's not something I look at. I do not write now so that "one day" I can write better. I write because writing is a fire in my bones right now.

How can I create a coffee cream effect with Photoshop?

Today I would like to create a coffee cup with the cream floral on it as a text by using Photoshop. It looks like you order a cup of hot cappuccino and the bartender will draw a flower with cream on the surface of coffee but now I want to make it like a text to present a tittle.

I just need to do the cream text effect, no need to draw the whole cup of coffee since i can't use some images. So anyone can tell me how to do this cream effect on Photoshop.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Answer

I would also agree that Liquify, combined with the Smudge tool is going to be your best bet for this result. And keep in mind that it's all about the details and effort that you put into it to help determine the realism of the effect. And for the Liquify, I would say to try doing it with about 5 or 6 steps, starting from the larger ones first to get more of an overall shape, then bring it down to the smaller brush sizes for some of the edges.

icons - Down arrow and up arrow status

I have to make an iOS app, where there are categories and I have to show the decrease and increase in status of particular category.

For decrease I used a red down arrow. For increase I used a green up arrow.

But in some categories, a down arrow is good for sales.

So I am stuck with what to do with the icons and colors.

My original approach was to change down arrow color from red to green. But the problem is, colorblind people will not understand.

Then I thought of placing emojis of smile and sad. For good it will smile, and for bad it will be sad. Down arrow and smile emoji together. However this would be unprofessional.

Please see this screenshot:

Answer

I'll make this an answer so I can expand on my comment.

Your main problem is not an arrow, icon, color or emoji thing. Your main problem is a conceptual one: you're mixing taxonomies with gradations that might be (they actually are!) absolutely opposed. Thus, you're adding a load where user has to make an interpretation of whether your taxonomy and your gradation method convey a good or bad thing. This is EXTREMELY confusing, the level of friction will go to the roof and sooner or later you'll need to redo it since it has more problems that benefits.

Instead, make 2 sublists: one where "up" is good and one where "up" is bad. You can keep your current arrow up/down method just as you have it now, including colors. And if colors bother you, choose color blind safe neutral colors.

The important thing is that up must mean up and absolutely nothing else, so your current arrows will make the trick. Then, what you need to define is whether for an specific subset up is good or bad.

As easy as that, no complicated things, straight to the point

Just noticed one of your taxonomies includes the Goods word. Be very careful and try to find some alternatives since your gradation is between good and bad concepts, hence this wording might add an additional layer of friction. Or maybe not. Just in case, it's worth testing

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As an alternative: what about using something like in Gino van de Staaij's answer? I mean, a non-ambiguous icon stating objective information: amount is growing bigger / amount is decreasing. This way, you don't need to add any subjectivity and your app will measure real data. I don't know if this is possible, so adding this as an alternative path/suggestion

Measuring liquidity

While liquidity is one of the key figure of financial markets, It seems to be very difficult to measure. Volume is sometime used as a proxy but can sometimes be completly irrelevant.

Could you point to relevant research on what data to use and how to compute the measure?

Answer

Volume merely indicates how much buy-side interest exists in a stock. For liquidity, the sell-side interest is more relevant, which implies the quote characteristics (the limit-order book).

In addition to the bid-ask spread, I look at the top-of-book quote size. Here's an example from BATS:

sym | bid    ask    bidsize asksize
----| -----------------------------
AAPL| 325.12 325.21  100     100    
MSFT|  24.70  24.71 3900    5900   

I can only buy \$32,521 worth of Apple without impacting price, as opposed to \$145,789 of Microsoft. So the slippage is smaller.

There are more sophisticated measurements for order book entries. I could look at the full book ("level II data") to see the depth of the order chain. I could look across multiple exchanges, which is what a smart order router must do anyway. I could even look at related asset classes if the investor's goal is merely to gain exposure to general risk.

To be really swanky, I could investigate dark pools, though that's harder since the quotes aren't displayed. For this, a quant would need historical data regarding how much has been executed in the past. That's one reason why the big banks have a competitive advantage in dark-pool aggregator algorithms: they have enough client flow to record execution patterns.

I need to print an image at a certain size. What dimensions and resolution should I use?

(This question is meant to be a resource to direct others to given that this is a common question.)

Given the task of creating an image that will be printed at a certain size, what pixel dimensions and resolution should I be setting my file at?

beta - annual excess returns from CAPM on monthly total returns

I want to calculate annual excess returns on portfolios using monthly returns for a CAPM (for the assets in the portfolio as well as for the benchmark), in order to have more information on the correlations, more precise betas.

I have a few questions about this (may justify separate postings):

1. Because the CAPM comes from monthly correlations, I shall calculate excess returns for each month, right? But if I only have year-end snapshots of portfolios, I should chain the monthly excess returns up (compound them) and multiply the initial value with each surprise return? Is this essentially the same as doing the annual calculation? (I suspect an argument about integrating a continuous price process into some return observations anyway.)


2. Is it standard practice to adjust (slightly) for shorter months having somewhat less information on the correlations? Shall I weight by the number of days or only trading days before return dates?


3. I do not have a principled approach on which time period to use for the beta-calculation. The observations are from 1999-2007, and it was already hard to get returns for only these year, so I do not use retrospective, historical returns. This is defensible, right?


4. Relatedly, some instruments end trading during these years, or start only later. Those betas should be adjusted somehow to acknowledge less information about them? Or the point estimate is just the point estimate?



5. Is it OK to use the monthly T-bill rate as the risk-free rate, changing from month to month? (I have average SAY yields with day-counting on the ACT/360 -- which I shall correct for, I presume.)


6. All these portfolios are Swedish. Is it good practice to include the currency risk in the correlations with expressing all returns (incl. the benchmark) in SEK?


7. Many holdings are diversified internationally, but not completely. Is it appealing to use an MSCI all-world benchmark (MSCI ACWI IMI GR USD converted into SEK) as people "should" diversify, so all extra risk is, well, extra, so it makes much more sense to compare everything to an MSCI World (viz. developed markets only) benchmark?

Thanks a lot!

adobe illustrator - Distribute objects optimaly

So I've got a file with loads of simple objects. This will later be used to cut out these shapes out of plastic. So, using the material optimally is of outmost importance. I was wondering if there is any script or plugin that could automaticly arrange the objects within the artboard so they could fit best.

editing - How can I catch more errors when I proofread?

I have a problem where I often proof my own writing and I don't catch all the errors while I am reading through it. I often miss entire words out of sentences or find myself repeating words. I can read a document several times and I catch new errors every time. Eventually, I'll feel like I've caught everything, but I find out after I've posted or printed it that I left out some word. The whole process takes hours instead of a few minutes. This process is so frustrating that sometimes I just give up. Does anyone have this experience writing and if so, what techniques have you developed that help?

P.S:

For some reason, I make fewer errors and my writing is a lot speedier if I write it out long hand first. For some reason, the word processor makes it hard to keep your train of thought going because you find yourself derailed by the formatting. I also found using NotePad to be a useful tool. Since it doesn't have formatting, it is less distracting. I also set the width of the Window to be very short. For some reason, my thoughts are less likely to get derailed and I make fewer errors.

Edit: I haven't picked an answer because all of these responses are great! I also want to keep the suggestions coming so that others will benefit. Thanks a lot.