transparency - Can I change the default Gimp transparent background to white?

I'm using Gimp 2. The default grid-style transparent background makes it incredibly difficult to get a sense of what the image will actually look like, when I finally display it over a background. Is there a way I can make the transparent background display as something other than the default grid, for example as a simple white background?

Answer

Yes, that would be very easy, I just opened up Gimp 2 my self and tried it out to make sure! :p Anyway, in the layers panel, right click and choose New Layer.

Then make sure you select White for the Layer Fill Type.

Now, click OK and move the new white layer to the bottom of all the current layers.

To change the layer color, select it and just paint it in with any color you want!

Hope this helped.

What is the standard way for conveying vegan and vegetarian as separate icons?

Working on a project, I need 2 icons for Vegan and Vegetarian to display at a glance nutritional information. The problem that I'm running into is that there doesn't seem to be a good way to have each icon stand alone and the user knowing exactly what it stands for, example below.

Vt vs Vg

Vt is fairly easy to understand as vegetarian. But Vg runs the problem of not knowing that its Vegan without seeing the other icon. Is there a standard way for conveying vegan and vegetarian?

Additional Specs: The icons will be used in a variety of sizes from 150x150px to 24x24px. Here's an example of the current icon set: http://imgur.com/2NkXIcN

Answer

The standard for vegetarian is generally just a "V", usually in a green circle or something similar, and that'll be pretty much universally understood.

The Vegan Society has "the Vegan Trademark" which has been around a long time and since it explicitly says "Vegan" there's no ambiguity as there is with "Vg" vs "Vt". I have seen "Vg" and "Vt" used in the past, and even as someone who was vegan for ~12 years it wasn't clear to me what they meant; so stay away from using those.

Something that's worth pointing out though... If something is vegan it is by definition also vegetarian so there's generally no need for both icons; if someone sees "Vegan" they already know it's vegetarian.

non fiction - When *should* I use passive voice?

Is there ever a good time to use passive voice in nonfiction?

Answer

You can effectively use passive voice when the action is more important than the actor.

For example, if you were writing about the effect of pollutants on a river, you might introduce the facts in the passive voice, because in terms of the effects, it doesn't MATTER who did the action:

"The pollutants were released into the lake in 1979. Significant amounts were detected in the last test of the area, in 2010."

If this was an expose on the SOURCE of the pollutants, maybe you would want to avoid the passive voice, and say:

"Company X, Company Z, and Farmer B released the pollutants into the lake in 1979. While the govnerment said that it was all cleaned up immediately, independent labs detected significant amounts in the area in 2010."

Or there's the old "John Smith found the body on the courthouse steps," vs. "The body was found on the courthouse steps." If John Smith is just a passerby, he's not really important to the story, and it's distracting to have him in there.

I think there's also a tradition of using passive voice in lab reports, to make things seem less personal. "I turned the burner on" vs "The burner was turned on." Again, I guess it's trying to de-emphasize the importance of the actor. It doesn't matter WHO turned the burner on; the important thing is the act.

login - Why should we ask the password twice during registration?

It would be easier to ask for a user's password only once during registration.

The problem: The user could make a mistake while typing the password once because of hiding letters.

The solution: The user could have a toggle button for showing or hiding the password.

Working example with toggling the visibility of the password. This approach could be used on the registration or login page.

Are there any benefits to asking a user's password twice during registration vs just not masking the password? Why would you ask twice?

P.S. Jakob Nielsen about unmasking the password:

• Users make more errors when they can't see what they're typing while filling in a form. They therefore feel less confident. This double degradation of the user experience means that people are more likely to give up and never log in to your site at all, leading to lost business. (Or, in the case of intranets, increased support calls.)


• The more uncertain users feel about typing passwords, the more likely they are to (a) employ overly simple passwords and/or (b) copy-paste passwords from a file on their computer. Both behaviors lead to a true loss of security.

Update: I created a WordPress plugin which unmasks the password field. So you may use it if you want to.

Update 2: WordPress.com use same technique to show and hide password.

Update 3: Internet Explorer 10 added a toggle password visibility icon. It looks like this:

Update 4: Article about unmask password on smashingmagazine.

Update 5: Example with unmasking password on focus.

Answer

We should not ask for password twice - we should ask for it once and make sure that the 'forgot password' system works seamlessly and flawlessly

style - Using dashes in writing dialogue

Does anyone use em dashes (or two hyphens) to denote speakers in dialogue passages? Joyce does this as does William Gaddis. Many others. I practice it, but my only "conceptual understanding" is that the dash-dialogue format allows you to group a character's entire range of actions, thoughts, and words into one chunk, headed by a dash. I really like this idea; it's very dramatic.

Here's an example which will lead to a more specific question.

Rick and Nelly walked through the cathedral.
-- It always makes me feel cold when I come here, he said shivering. I think it's something in the prayers.

One thing I seldom if ever have seen with dash-dialogue is the placement of the speaker tag at the end. So never this:

-- It always makes me feel cold when I come here, Rick said shivering.

So, I have made up a sort-of rule in my head that any speech tags or character blocking written into normal dialogue should only be inserted into the middle of dash-dialogue and not at the beginning or the end. My question is: does anyone know if there are specific rules to follow in writing this kind of dialogue?

Answer

I think that's the default in Spanish; I grew up reading stuff written that way, and I find the quotes... strange.

I do use it a lot to add description to the dialogue. The way I use it slightly different to yours, though:

Rick and Nelly walked through the cathedral.

-- It always makes me feel cold when I come here, - he said shivering. - I think it's something in the prayers.

It's called a "quotation dash", apparently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark,_non-English_usage#Quotation_dash

registration - What should a e-mail address confirmation e-mail say?

I'm sending out an e-mail containing a link to prove the user had registered with an e-mail address they have access to.

1. 
   

   What is the name of such an e-mail? Verification e-mail, confirmation e-mail, account activation or something else? In a similar sense what is the name of the link in the e-mail?

   
   


2. 
   

   What should the e-mail say? I want to make this accessible to non-technically inclined users.

   
   
   


3. 
   

   What should the subject of the e-mail be?

   
   

Answer

Sadly there is no standard for the name of such an email - all your suggestions are used. But consider the following:

• Verification Email - used when you can still access services, but need to verify your email in the meantime.


• Activation Email - used when services (account) are not accessible until email activation takes place. You can argue that there is some more urgency in 'activating' than in 'verifying'.



• Confirmation Email - I prefer to think of this as something sent as a confirmation of something (purchase confirmation, password change confirmation). You can say that the email is to confirm the user's email address.

Here are a few examples to get you started (starting with my favourite):

Please Verify your Noun Project account

The good:

• Very minimalistic design.

The bad:

• email subject and content terms don't match. Subject says 'Verify' while content says 'Activate'.


• No need for the 'Activate Account' heading. It is redundant to the button, which is the primary action point.


• Link contrast somewhat low.

Activate your MailChimp account.

The good:

• Monkey and "Just one more step..." make the system appear more fun and the sentence should motivate people to click on the button.

The bad:

• No need for the line asking people to click on the button. Most people should get it without these instructions (and even if they won't get it - people often try the most probable possible action when inconclusive).



• Few will care for the address of the company, or the copyright clause at this point and user eyes will most often skip this. The address of the company does promote trust, but such soft goal is likely to have already been satisfied prior registrations.


• No links in case the email was sent by mistake, or if people have problems when clicking the button.

Please confirm your email

The good:

• Nice design.

The bad:

• Again, no real need for the sentence next to the button.


• Two exclamation marks can be considered style that is not ideal. Exclamation marks should be used sparingly for a very specific desired effect.


• The long link is ugly, and in my view unnecessary. This is even more odd as the Privacy Policy is given as a normal link.

research - How do approaches for UX differ between intranets and normal websites?

I have been asked to offer advice for the development of an intranet for a large international company.

The client will be developing the intranet in Sharepoint and is keen to use a user-centric approach for its development and I have been asked a question:

"how do approaches for UX differ between intranets and normal websites"

I'm finding this quite hard to answer succinctly because its complex and nuanced. By and large the procedure will be much the same insofar as one must carry out substantive user research and develop iteratively, but I'm still having trouble with any specific differences of approach between ux of intranet vs website.

Have you developed for intranet? what were your experiences and how did they differ from developing for normal websites?

caveat: this is a general question that I have been asked lacking any real specifics