3 posts tagged “usability”

What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?

During the last two years of high school, math and latin. Once I was at UCSC applied narcotics was my favorite area (I almost majored in it) until I started getting serious about European literature, which ended up being my major, conveniently enough. I couldn't get enough of lit classes my last two years at Santa Cruz. I remember also really liking history during that period.

About the only subject I really disliked in school was foreign languages (which I sucked at, other than Latin, because you didn't have to speak it with the correct accent, plus Latin is super logical, unlike all of the other bogus languages that have arisen since then-stupid anglo saxons.) Actually, I had some really bad experiences in science classes my first two years in high school-a particular low point being honors chemistry. I just coudln't get my head around valences and all that shit.

I haven't been in school since 1991 but I have taken two classes through UC Extension. One really changed my life: a usability I took in the fall of '97. I actually thought about going back to school to study usability/information science, but instead got sucked into dotcom (1.0.) But that's a tale for another time.

Right now the Comet welcome page shows you recent posts, comments and photos from one's friends and family, which is great. I would also like to see recent Music (and maybe also Movies and Books) in here as well. Even better: make the page configurable, so I could choose which assets I'd like to spotligiht.

Also, because you have turned off underlining in your links, it's not always obvious what's clickable and what isn't.

- djchall

A new question of the day? This is a great idea for a feature, especially to get people new to blogging started, but shouldn't it be updated more often? Maybe it would be if Comet were a shipping product.

Here is some usability feedback: the first time I answered the "Question of the Day" I was very surprised to be greeted with the posting confirmation page when I clicked on Submit. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't to suddenly have a post already created. I think that would be alarming for a person new to blogging if that happened, because the question of the day area on the comet home page creates no expectations that you are actually going to create a blog entry by filling it out. I think it would be better if submitting the question of the day answer just brought up the post composer, pre-filled with what you've already written, a suggested title, and maybe a tag of "qotd" then allowed the user to edit their response, and select whether the post is private or public. It seems like a violation of the Comet philosophy to allow a user to create an entry where they don't choose whether it's public or private.

- djchall