technique - How credible is wikipedia?

I understand that this question relates more to wikipedia than it does writing but...

If I was going to use wikipedia for a source for a research project (for example) would the information be correct? I know that anyone can go on there and edit it, but the Internet has other invalid information that isn't on wikipedia. I'm thinking that over time as an article matures on wikipedia, it would have gone through a large amount of edits and be correct, but I could be wrong. The reason I want to use wikipedia is because all of the information is consolidated in one place with references.

I do believe that I should use google to search my information (which I do) and might come off as "lazy". This question may be closed because it is off-topic as well.

Answer

Do /not/ ever, under any circumstances use Wikipedia as a source for an academic paper. Because it can be edited by anyone and there is nothing validating Wikipedia's articles, they're highly unreliable and not acceptable in any professional or academic circles. Internet sources in general are frowned upon unless they come from professional or academic sources - colleges, academic journals, government studies, etc.

That's not to say Wikipedia is entirely useless. It's a great starting point. It can give you a great overview of a topic and help you get a basis for your paper/project/whatever. And the best part? Lots of it is sourced, so you don't have to go find information for yourself. If you want to say That George Washington did not return to military life until the outbreak of the revolution in 1775, that's fine. But instead of citing Wikipedia, click on the source and cite the source that Wikipedia uses.

career development - What can I do now without schooling to get me experienced in UX?

I'm out of school for the summer then I start community college, I do not want to waste time. Is there anything I can do to gain knowledge and experience? I doubt I can score an internship without any knowledge or experience so..

copywriting - Relative dates/times- Rounding and how accurate?

I was reading this question about formatting relative dates and times, but there are still some issue that I felt have not been addressed yet.

I would like to:

• 
  

  Keep relative times to just 1 unit, for example 1 hour ago as opposed to 1 hour and 24 minutes ago.

  
  


• 
  
  

  When the time/date is hovered, we display the localized date, for example, Tuesday, 24 July 2012 at 10:00 PM.

  
  

Given the above:

• 
  

  Should I round up or round down times? For example how should I turn 1 hour and 24 minutes ago into just hours?

  
  


• 
  

  Should I display relative days as Yesterday, 2 Days ago, 3 Days ago, or Yesterday, Tuesday, Monday?

  
  
  


• 
  

  At what point should I stop with the 2 Days ago, Tuesday, Monday and revert to displaying localized dates?

  
  


• 
  

  Should I bother having relative time/dates for weeks and months?

  
  


• 
  

  When should I drop the time component and just display the date/day?

  
  

Answer

• 
  

  Rounding - you should apply the same rules you would to a floating point number so "1 hour 24 minutes" is less than 1.5 hours so it should be rounded down to "1 hour". When you pass 30 minutes then round up.

  
  


• 
  

  I'd go with "Yesterday", "2 days ago" etc.

  
  


• 
  
  

  A quick check on Stack Exchange shows that they use "Yesterday", "2 days ago", localised date, while (as you point out) Facebook goes for the days of the week. I think that the answer depends on how accurate you need the date to be. Do your users need to know the exact date (easily worked out from "today" and "yesterday", but slightly harder to work out from "Monday" or "Friday") or is "some time this week" or "recently" good enough?

  
  


• 
  

  If you're already displaying older dates as the actual date rather than "some time ago" when the date is a 2 or 3 days old, then having relative dates for weeks and months seems to be irrelevant.

  
  


• 
  

  While the time component for a date that's a year old appears to be irrelevant, it's probably not worth the extra coding effort to hide it for older dates. The benefit (if any) of hiding the time probably isn't worth the cost of writing and maintaining the necessary code.

  
  

However, with all of these it depends on how accurate you need your dates and times to be. Is it important that the displayed value is as accurate as possible or is the exact date/time on a tooltip OK?

input fields - How should I implement Language selection in a CMS?

One of my client must be able to post News to both french and english language on his website. I would like to know how I should design the CMS to be the most convenient for the admin as possible.

Below is captures of what I thought would solve the problem but I doubt it's the best way to do it as I am no UX expert.

I would like your advices on that if possible.

Answer

Vertical workflow is more natural than horizontal unless the user is comparing content side-by-side. Moreover, horizontal arrangement requires users to have very wide monitors to work comfortably. Finally, there's no need to force users into a particular sequence of languages - let them decide what version is going to be posted first.

Thus, the mock-up will look like this:

Note that the radio buttons should be listed vertically despite the available space in the line (unless you have multiple columns of languages) and that the "Add translation" button should be placed closer to the editor than to the publishing controls.

Clicking "Add translation" (or whatever you want to call it) should duplicate the language selector and the editor controls right above the button so that the publishing controls stay separate from the editor.

resize - Gimp : difference between crop and canvas size

I would like to know the difference between the crop tool and changing canvas size.

If I reduce the size of the canvas, a yellow dashed line stays around the previous size. On the other hand, when I crop an image, the yellow dashed line follows.

What is the difference between resizing the canvas and cropping an image?

Answer

When you make your Canvas smaller you are allowing for larger layers around the Canvas, you are just saying: "this is the area of my image that I want to show". When you crop, you crop all the layers, ie: you delete everything outsize the cropping area.

forms - Is a confirm email address field still considered a best practice?

Having an input field to confirm an email address is pretty standard. However, I would like to know if using a confirm email address field still considered a best practice.

The Email and Confirm email input controls account for a majority of the form abandonment for a client of mine. There are a variety of different reasons for it but i'm offering the following suggestions.

• Remove the confirm email address. My rationale is that no one actually double types so if they've copied an pasted from the email input control they'll both match but you can't guarantee either is right.


• Keep both boxes but provide immediate feedback to users with a javascript enabled browsers (ARIA - will be introduce in the next phase, so accessibility will fall back to server side validation) if the email addresses match/don't match.

Personally i'd like them to remove it. I think they are pointless and the form is very long as it is but i need evidence not just my opinion.

adobe photoshop - Transparency is lost in illustrator CS6 when I use image trace. Help!

so I'm pretty new to illustrator so sorry if this is obvious - but, I'm having troubles with the transparency of a flower image.

I placed the image of the flower which has no background from a saved photoshop file (psd) and then image traced in illustrator. But I can't now seem to overlay it on itself without the back ground, and also every time I transform, it re-renders the image.

resize - Does Photoshop scale better than Illustrator?

Is it advisable to scale a raster image in Photoshop to the final size before embedding it in Illustrator or does Illustrator use the same bicubic algorithm as Photoshop when (up)scaling pixel images?

Answer

Photoshop interpolates pixels. This means when you scale in Photoshop, Photoshop uses mathematical algorithms to determine either the best pixels to remove (if reducing) or the best color pixels to add (if enlarging). When you scale a raster image in Photoshop you alter the pixels of the image itself.

Illustrator does not interpolate pixels. Illustrator simply alters the outer dimensions of a raster image to fit the desired size. This will either condense pixels (if reducing) or stretch pixels (if enlarging). Illustrator does not alter raster images at the pixel level.

Both methods can be both useful and detrimental depending upon the project. However, it is exceptionally unwise to enlarge raster images beyond 100% within Illustrator if you are concerned about image quality. You should always use Photoshop to enlarge a raster image, never Illustrator.

icon - How to export to SVG from Illustrator using Artboards

I am designing some icons. To keep the proportions correct, I designed all the glyphs in one artboard.

Now, I want to experiment a little with SVG icons, so I want to export these icons to different SVG files. How do I go about doing this?

I thought that I'd surround each icon with an artboard, then exporting would be easy... Turns out that the Export option has the 'artboards' option, but does not present any workable vector format. The Save for the Web also has the artboards option, but again, only offers gif, jpeg and png formats. The Save-as option does let me save as SVG, but does not offer any way to save the icons into different files.

Also, I have like 150+ icons, so I can't use artboards anyways (CS6 restricts me to 100 artboards only). So I tried to use slices, but where do I go from there?

Any pointers?

Answer

In Illustrator CC - the Save As dialogue has a Use Artboards checkbox. Checking this will save each artboard as a separate SVG file (don't forget to select SVG format).

If you have more icons than available artboards, I'd probably just copy/paste the excess into a new Illustrator document.

Source: http://creativedroplets.com/export-svg-for-the-web-with-illustrator-cc/

graphs - What's a pie chart alternative that continues to occupy a predictable amount of screen space?

Pie charts have many problems.
Among them:

• Hard for humans to visually distinguish between slices of similar but different sizes.


• Nearly impossible to effectively label with more than 5-7 pieces or a few very small pieces.

But pie charts do have one major design benefit:

• Occupies a predictable amount of real estate on the page/screen.

What is an alternative to a pie chart that continues to occupy a predictable amount of real estate?

interaction design - How does something become "common knowledge"?

There was a time when there were no smartphones and computers.

Now terms like "Tap", "Swipe" or "Double-click" are common for most people in the world.

How do some interactions turn into common knowledge?

For example, even with rules of the road. There are learned rules and there are unspoken rules like this one: Someone flashes their lights at you because your high beams are on. You just know.

There are lots of times when I'm designing something and I try to lean towards established norms because I assume that's usually the path of least resistance. But how do these things get established to begin with?

More specifically: What is the process to reduce learning curve and create convention?

Note: i've read this other post ( Is it ever acceptable to break extremely common interaction functions? ) but it doesn't answer the question of how these commonly accepted interactions become convention in the first place.

Answer

You are blending two distinct concepts here: The development of ideas and the propagation of ideas.

The examples you have listed were all developed through a great deal of user research over many decades of interaction design. "Swipe" and "double click" did not emerge out of the ether, they were developed by industry leaders through an iterative process of observing and developing. This is the scientific research field of human-computer interaction, and there are a huge number of research papers on the physiological, psychological, technological and sociological drivers for interface design.

Those ideas were then propagated through widespread dissemination and imitation of both the the final products and the supporting research literature. This process is the research field of socio-cultural evolution and memetics. There are a similarly large number of papers on the driving factors behind technological adoption patterns.

The interaction of these two concepts is what you are describing as "becoming common knowledge". Hopefully I have given you enough to continue your own research.

How are limit orders selected from the order book?

I'm sure there is a simple answer to this but I haven't had any luck with searches. I'm just wondering when someone places a market order which order(s) from the limit order book are selected to fill that? Let's say the order book has the highest bid at 100 and the lowest ask at 101 and I place a limit order to buy at 100. I'm now bidding the same as all the other highest bids, so when market orders to sell come through get matched with highest bids, how are the bids selected? Is it random, in order by time, size, or some other mechanism?

And just in case it is by time like FIFO, let's say I placed many limit orders long in advance at prices well out of the money 99, 98, 97, etc. Could I get myself to the top of the list at all these prices that are out of the money just by placing my orders anticipating a possible drop?

american options - How far the spot price is likely to go from the current level in three months if its volatility is 15.7%

On Page 24 of N. Taleb's "Dynamic Hedging" the author gives the following example

Example: Assume that an asset trades at \$100, with interest rates at 6% (annualized) and volatility at 15.7%. Assume also that the 3-month 80 call is worth \$20, at least if it is American. Forgoing early exercise would create an opportunity cost of 20 x 90/360 x .06 = .30 cents, the financing of \$20 premium for 3 months. The time value of the equivalent put is close to zero (by put-call parity), so the intelligent operator can swap the call into the underlying asset and buy the put to replicate the same initial structure at a better cost. He would end up long the put and long the underlying asset.

The possible position of the operator before swap:

• 1 call worth of \$20 a


• \$80 in cash.

The position after the swap:

• 1 asset worth of $100 at the current spot price


• 1 put worth of almost zero

If I could earn 6% both on \$80 in cash and on 1 asset (i.e. if the asset is another currency for example) and the spot price would remain the same \$100 then I would agree with the calculations of the author:

1 asset x 90/360 x .06 - \$80 x 90/360 x .06 = (100 - 80) x 90/360 x .06 = 30 cents

But if the price of the asset will go down to say \$75, then I'd better stay with the call because:

1 asset x 90/360 x .06 - \$80 x 90/360 x .06 = (75 - 80) x 90/360 x .06 = -7.5 cents

So,how far the spot price is likely to go from the current level in three months if its volatility is 15.7%?

Answer

Keep in mind that there is nothing dynamic about this at all...it is only a snapshot and it is only a 1 sigma range.

High side:

([Price] * (1 + ([Vol] * SQRT[days to expiry]/365)))
(100 * (1 + (.157 * sqrt(90/365)))
107.7960

Low side:

([Price] * (1 - ([Vol] * SQRT[days to expiry]/365)))
(100 * (1 - (.157 * sqrt(90/365)))
92.2040

adobe photoshop - How to Insert an Image in to an Ellipse and Hide Overflowing Parts

I'm trying to insert an image in to an ellipse shape layer, I need to hide the overflowing parts around the circle/ellipse.

How do I insert an image in to a circular selection and hide the parts that are outside the ellipse using Photoshop?

Essentially, I want to put a normal image in to a circular object, creating a round image.

Answer

1. 
   

   Paste your image in to Photoshop. Drag and drop or use Open dialog

   
   


2. 
   

   Create the shape layer (ellipse).

   
   


3. 
   

   Make sure your image is above the shape layer in the Layers panel.

   
   
   

   

   
   


4. 
   

   Right click your image in the layers panel, and choose Create Clipping Mask.

   
   

   

   
   

Et voila! A non destructive method for creating circular or elliptical images.

I know this has already been answered with a very similar answer, but I felt it wasn't descriptive enough. Screenshots make a lot of difference.

Simulate pressure brush with mouse in Illustrator

I want to get a brush working like in Adobe Illustrator Draw where the ends are thinner than the main body. I cannot figure out how to apply a fake pressure like this without having a drawing pad/tablet, but I know this exists. I'm using the latest Illustrator CC. Thanks!

Answer

Okay so first I have to tell you that there is no way you can simulate pressure with a mouse. It just cannot work since you will need to provide a value of pressure before you draw the line and then provide another value of pressure for the end of your line.

As you can see it would be very difficult but don't worry there is hope. You can make an outline of what ever artwork you wish to make with your mouse using the brush tool. Then you can edit the brush strokes with the direct selection tool and add depth and variation in the brush strokes by altering the position of the anchor points. I know it sound like a lot of work but adding a little depth and make basic artwork look impressive.

I hope my answer helps.

website design - What are some advantages of left-aligning columns within the browser window?

Youtube and Google Plus have changed their layouts such that in a very wide browser window, the content columns are left-aliged, leaving a large white space on the right side. This is a change from sites like this one, where content columns are center-aligned within the browser window.

I would like to know the reason behind putting web content on the left side like youtube and google plus did. I know they did not do that just for fun; they must have some reasons? Since I remember web layout was middle centered, why is this starting to change?

Answer

This style of fixing certain things relative to the left of the window has the advantage of stability, (in Google+) my profile is always going to be here (relative to the window), my circles is always going to be here regardless of how wide the browser is. Makes for slightly faster use once you learn these items stay fixed and learn their locations.

There's an assumption that people will use this page often enough to develop enough familiarity with the fixed locations of key things that usability does increase.

I'm sure the designers realize the negatives of an unbalanced page (at some widths) and the disconcerting expanses of white space but thought fixing things this way would be (might be?) a worthwhile tradeoff.

website design - Photoshop on a retina screen, how to fix?

I am curious what's your favourite fix or option for using photoshop on a retina screen like a macbook pro 13' like mine.

I'm quite upset with this computer as it is a pain to do web design in, because as you may now, the photoshop canvas looks very very small at 100%.

For example a canvas of 1280x2000 px at 72dpi , is really small in photoshop (normal mode). But if we select the low resolution mode, the fonts don't look crisp and I find myself scrolling all the time , left and right.

So for a person like me that is constantly working on 99designs, what should I do to fix this. Besides connecting to an external display. As my HP 23xi is not working with this macbook pro, don't ask me why, it gets cut and blurred.

Some help would be appreciated.

My Warmest Regards,

Luís Fernandes

forms - Friendly format for phone numbers

Currently, on my website, users are required to input their phone number in a very specific format (555-555-5555). If you forget the dashes it breaks. Does anyone have a good suggestion for how to be more flexible with allowing users to input in any way they choose, but still allowing the system to validate if it is a real phone number? How are phone extensions handled?

adobe photoshop - Reduce file size without losing quality

I would like to save files in Photoshop but keep them as small as possible.

I use Save for Web (and Devices) and save as a JPEG. Here are the settings I used:

I really do not want to lower the quality settings because I use text and sometimes I see artifacts if the setting is too low.

This produces file sizes of several hundred kilobytes depending on size of image. While this isn't a huge issue these images are used for the web and smaller is better. What are techniques without reducing quality to reduce the file size?

Update:

To add some more information here:

Many of the images I use and create get sent via email. This severally limits what I can do with placing of text using HTML and CSS over the image.

Also I use a variety of fonts. Some I could use for the web using CSS's @font-face but you can run into large file sizes and in some cases you cannot upload the font to the web legally. I could use a service like Typekit but again many fonts I use are not available with Typekit.

Here is an example image:

Answer

Choice of the best compression method depends on your image content. If you're trying to save image with a lots of colors and smooth transitions between them, your choice would rather be JPEG. Otherwise, if you've got some lineart, text, image with a couple of colors you should try PNG instead.

Specific compression scheme, parameters, color reduction etc. depend on the specific case. There are some images you can safely save with JPEG compression "slider" set to 30 or 40 without making artifacts apparent. Some other require settings 80 or more. Your eye should be the judge.

When we speak about JPEG compression, don't hesitate to try to use e.g. "Progressive" option or to set "Blur" to non zero value (subtle blur can mask severe compression artifacts).

In the case of PNG, you should try to reduce ammount of used colors as much as possible (use PNG-8 for that). When some "smoothing" is required try different dithering algorithms.

Here is a couple of examples:

Left to right, top to bottom, their parameters are:

1. JPEG, Progressive, Quality: 40, Blur: 0.18, Size: 9 672 bytes


2. JPEG, Optimized, Quality: 60, Blur: 0, Size: 16 898 bytes


3. JPEG, Progressive, Quality: 60, Blur: 0, Size: 11 104 bytes


4. PNG-8, Dithering: diffuse, Colors: 256, Size: 4 528 bytes

Compare them visually and then take a good look at their respective data sizes. First pair is about 9.7 kB vs. 16.9 kB. Second is 11.1 kB vs. 4.5 kB. All that by (IMHO) negligible visual difference.

creative writing - Do I really need to have a scientific explanation for my premise?

So, in my post-apocalyptic novel, the world was caught up in an international war (basically WWIII), and all the world's nuclear superpowers launched their warheads and killed much of the global population. Ambient radiation from the nuclear fallout has caused humans to develop supernatural abilities.

And that is not science.

I totally get that radiation just hurts/kills people, it doesn't give someone the ability to manipulate life force or become pyrokinetic like I assert in my story. That's not scientifically possible.

But does my story need to be scientifically accurate or plausible? Will I lose readers because all they can think of is "that would never happen"? Can a story like mine with inaccurate/nonexistent science still be appealing?

Answer

Without reading the other answers, my answer is that your premise is fine as long as you set the contract with the reader.

The reader is fine with your premise if you do not promise a science-based story.

Imagine this. Imagine you start your novel with the story of the navel-lotus of Vishnu. Or the bush that burned but was not consumed, of YHWH. Or the tale of Icarus, the young woman who aspired to greatness by flying too closely to the sun, and fell to the depths below when the heat melted her wax.

There is truth in mythology. There is a truth in story. Science is distinct, but you can start your story with a commonly held 'truism' that is not scientifically based.

After you establish that you are speaking in layers, within your story, you say something (contract-driven like): Sometimes truth lies not in the facts, but in the ideas beneath the facts. CHAPTER 1.

This sets you up to have a story that is not science-based.

What you do not want to do is promise science... and then deliver nonsense.

Story is a distinct quality of being human that predates the human experience of the scientific method. It's been told from the dawn of language. Hard science fiction, if that is what you're aiming for, has less allowance for nonsense. If you are writing hard science fiction, then you must approach this problem differently. It sounds as though you are not aiming for hard science fiction, so the answer to your problem is straightforward. Set up the contract to fit your story.