Freshh Media

Do you remember unstoppable pop up? Ever figure it out? Or perhaps you spent hard earned money to purchase the program. Perhaps you don’t have the program, but would like to know how it works. Read on. We will give it to you not for $97.95, not $67.95, not $24.95, not even $1.95 but Free!! First, however, there are a few things you need to know and understand.

Properly used the popup can dispense data, bring you extra visitors, collect e-mail addresses, and increase your revenue without being perceived as intrusive. On the other hand, abuse it and loose visitors as quickly as the pop up launches… visitors who will in all probability never return.

King Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun”. What do you think has changed since Solomon’s reign?

This neat effect has been important to websites and internet marketers since commerce and the public discovered the world wide web. There are at least two ways to accomplish the unstoppable popup. How do I know? Because some of our websites employ one or both concepts and to date both work equally well.

Pop up stopper programmers are working diligently as we speak to prevent the unstoppable pop up but have, so far, been unable to do so.

Before employing the pop up in any form webmasters must consider that there are reasons why pop up blockers are everywhere. The final nail in the coffin of the pop up was driven by adult web sites. People were tired of these sexually explicit ads popping up in mixed company, in front of their mother, on the church computer and as their children surfed the web.

According to Wikipedia, today anyway, “Opera was the first major browser to incorporate tools to block pop-up ads; the Mozilla browser later improved on this by blocking only pop-ups generated as the page loads. In the early 2000s, all major web browsers except Internet Explorer allowed the user to block unwanted pop-ups almost completely.” Notice their caveat, “almost completely”.

In 2004, Microsoft finally built one into their Windows XP SP2 operating system along with a fire wall and ad filtering as if it was not slow enough. Microsoft playing the role of a political hack tries to be all things to all people and while that is part of what propelled their operating system to prominence, it may prove to be their undoing in the final analysis.

Remote Helpdesk 1, back in the good old days, purchased Netscape and apparently like many others was incensed at continually having to download plug-ins for anything and everything you wanted to do. Along comes Microsoft with their operating system including a free web browser and the most commonly used plug-ins. Can you say, “jump ship!”?

Now everyone is jumping ship again. Back to the future springs eternal and Linux with its many editions is right on target. Download and install the basics and then get the plug-ins needed as they are needed. How many times have you heard your mother say, “what goes around, comes around”? And, it has been our experience that Linux (Remote Help Desk 1 and Computer Man Website Design use the Debian edition) blocks more pop ups and does much more to protect a computer than most other operating systems while maintaining open source integrity for the computer user.

Like almost everyone else, the Tennessee Mountain Man Computer Man hates to have research interrupted by the couple of seconds it takes for a pop up to launch and be dispatched especially if that intrusion (as often happens) has nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

That being said it is simply a matter of proper programming. Don’t go reinventing the wheel until it no longer serves your purpose.

Option 1: Grab the pop up that occurs at http://remotehelpdesk1.com. Copy the code from the page source and change the information to meet your needs.

Option 2: Assuming you can prepare a standard pop up script, it should have about a 5 second delay, perhaps the easiest and maybe the best way in the end is to encrypt your source code. You can do this free of cost at http://computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/free_webmaster_tools_of_computer_man.htm or http://remotehelpdesk1.com/html_encrypter.htm

There is a lot of hype that this or that retail (notice you have to buy it to test it and once software is opened it is yours) pup up blocker intercepts and stops all pop-ups. No… not yet anyway!

Usability testing with children is similar in many respects to usability testing with adults. In order to get the most out of the sessions, and ensure the child is comfortable and happy, there are a few differences that you need to be aware of.

Stress of new people and surroundings

Children are far more likely than adults to find encountering new places and people stressful. You should always remember this, so try to find as many ways as possible to relax the child. Some things you could do are:

- Allow a significant period of time – at least 10 minutes – to meet the child. This is critical in putting them at ease before beginning the session. Some easy things to talk about might be computer games, cartoons, sports or school. Trying to make all the equipment used during the session match that which the child uses at home/school (phone up their parents/teachers beforehand to check).
- Try to be as comforting and reassuring as possible. It’s especially important to make it clear to the child that you want their views on the site and that you’re not testing them.
- Plan for the fact that younger children may prefer their parents to remain in the testing room with them. Make sure that parents know that they should stay out of the child’s line-of-sight and not help or distract them.

Asking for help

Children are far more used to asking for – and receiving – help than adults, so it’s very important for the moderator to:

- Clearly explain at the beginning of the test that you want the child to use the site on their own
- Make a sustained effort to deflect any such questioning during the session itself

Good ways of deflecting questions can include:

- Answering a question with a question (e.g. What do you think [you should do now]?)
- Re-stating that you want the child to use the site ‘on their own’
- Asking the child to have ‘one last go’ before you move on to something else

Children get tired, bored and discouraged more easily

Children (especially of younger ages) are less inclined – and/or able – to apply themselves to a single task for a prolonged period. Some ways to work around this are:

- Limiting sessions to 1 hour or less.
- Taking short breaks during sessions if the child becomes tired or irritable.
- Ensuring that sessions cover the intended tasks/scenarios in a different order – this will make sure that the same scenarios are not always tested by tired children, who are less likely to succeed/persevere.
- Asking the child for help so as to provide them with motivation (e.g. asking ‘Could you please find out for me how to…’, or by actually pretending to not be able find/do something on the site).
- Keeping up a steady stream of encouragement and positive feedback (“You’re doing really well and telling us lots of useful things – it will really help make the site better. Keep it up!”).

The importance of non-verbal cues

Children can’t always be relied upon to verbally articulate their thoughts/feelings, either due to their:

- Not being articulate enough
- Being too shy
- Not wanting to say the wrong thing and displease an adult
- Saying things they don’t believe just to please the adult

This makes it particularly important that the usability expert be sensitive to children’s non-verbal cues, such as:

- Sighs
- Smiles
- Frowns
- Yawns
- Fidgeting
- Laughing
- Swaying
- Body angle and posture

Physical differences

A couple of very obvious – but easily forgotten – differences which need to be taken into account are:

- Chair and table settings – Make sure you have a chair/table setting that allows the child to comfortably use the equipment during the session.
- Microphone positioning – Children tend to have quieter voices than adults, so microphones should be placed slightly nearer to the participant than normal.

Levels of literacy and understanding

It is critical to ensure that a session’s participant has an accurate understanding of the scenario being presented to them. Some ways to do this include:

- Asking participants to re-phrase scenarios/goals in their own words.
- Asking participants to repeat a scenario (i.e. what they are trying to achieve) if the task has gone on for some time and you suspect they may have forgotten it.

I believe some people create and publish websites for the sole purpose of tormenting their visitors. Browsing various websites and navigating the Web can often be like trying to read on an airplane while a kid kicks the back of your seat and the baby next to you alternates between screaming, crying and drooling on you. There are some excellent websites out there to be sure, but there are also a lot of dreadful ones too. The latter are the bane of so many people’s existence, especially those who use the Web regularly.

The Net continues to grow in popularity and importance for consumers and businesses alike. Therefore, the quality of sites needs to keep pace. Creating and maintaining high-quality websites is more important now than ever. Higher quality equals more revenue.

The following lists the top ten ways that a website misses the boat and contributes to hair loss and nervous breakdowns. Notice the common thread that runs throughout each of these. Namely, a bad website neglects to consider the site visitor’s experience in some fundamental ways.

1. Animation
Seven year-olds like watching animated cartoons on Saturday morning, business people, professionals and most other adults don’t. Sites that include showy Flash animations as an ‘Intro’, animated gifs on every page, or flying words are really annoying. They take away from the content and distract the visitor from achieving their goals. Unless your site is an entertainment site, try to avoid maddening motion. However, if your product or service can be better demonstrated using Flash, Quick Time, or other multimedia, which is common, offer your visitors the chance to click a link to view it. But don’t force them.

2. Too much scrolling
Once I scroll down a full screen’s worth, my eyes start to blur, I feel slightly lost, my head spins and my interest wanes. Computer monitors really aren’t the best medium for reading. The Net and many sites are so big that it’s important to always provide a clear frame of reference for your visitors at all times while they’re on your site. If a page requires two full screens of scrolling or more, simply split it up into multiple pages.

3. Long, text-heavy and blocky paragraphs of unbroken text
I really have to be into a topic or desperately need to glean the information to trudge through big chunks of unbroken text online. If I’m just shopping around for a product or service, you’ve lost me if I have to endure this kind of torture. Again, it is harder to read text on the Web than in other mediums such as books. Additionally, Web users are notoriously impatient, so make your content easy to read and non-intimidating. Use titles, sub-titles, small paragraphs, bullets and numbering.

4. No obvious ways to contact the company
If all you supply is an email on your website, your legitimacy may be questioned. Why can’t you answer the phone? Why hide behind an anonymous and cold email address? Make it easy for your existing and potential customers to talk with you.

5. Unchanging or out-date content
If I start reading content on a site and soon discover that the content was written three years ago, I split. Since there’s so much information out there, my reasoning is there’s got to be comparable information online that’s more current. If you keep your content fresh your site will attract repeat visitors. And repeat visitors are more likely to turn into customers.

6. Long page downloads
It’s amazing that this is still a problem. When I click on to a site and have to sit there waiting for it to appear in my browser, I start sweating, picking my teeth, tapping my toes, rolling my eyes and soon want to throw my computer through my office window. I’m obviously a little impatient, but again, I know there are other sites out there with the same information that will download more quickly, so why wait? I’m gone.

7. “Me, me, me!” instead of “You, you, you”
Generally speaking, no one cares about you, your company or your thoughts. What they do care about is what you can do for them. So sites that show pictures of the company building or tout their deep philosophy on the way business should be conducted really don’t bode well for keeping the interest of site visitors. On the other hand, sites that speak directly to potential customers about how they can solve their problems, make their lives easier, safer, richer or more comfortable have a much better chance of keeping the eyeballs glued.

8. Non-explanatory buttons or links
Here are some examples of buttons that leave me dazed and confused: A wedding site with a button called ‘Blanks’, a boating site with a button named ‘The Lighthouse’, a book site with a button called ‘The Inside Story’, or a Web design site with a button called ‘Tea Time’. They sound like Jeopardy categories. Imagine trying to find your way on a highway where its various signs read ‘Over Here’, ‘Moon Beams’, and ‘Lollypops’. Good luck navigating your way through. It’s the same with navigating websites. Button and link names need to tell the visitor where the link leads to. Make it as easy as possible for a visitor to know where they’re going before they click. However, there are times when naming a link an ambiguous name may pique the curiosity of a user and get them to click on it. But as a general rule, keep your links and buttons as descriptive as possible.

9. Inconsistent navigation
Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and the waiter comes over to you and hands you five different menus, one for the appetizers, one for the soups and salads, one for the entrees, one for the desserts, and one for the drinks. Annoying. Now imagine if each menu had a different format, layout and method for listing the items. Brutal. I really don’t want to work that hard at picking out my dinner, I’m hungry and I just want a meal. Don’t make your visitors work hard either by expecting them to re-learn your navigation system each time they enter another section of your site. They too are hungry; for useful information and they’re even more impatient.

10. Inconsistent look & feel
When the look & feel completely changes from one page to another in a website, I think I am visiting another site, another company, a partner or subsidiary. I get very confused. This screams poor planning and often results from tacking on new sections later after the original site was built. This can lead to design-drift. It may be tempting to stray from the original design; you may have a better design now. But wait till you do a complete next-generation re-design of the entire site before introducing a new look & feel. If not, lots of visitors will be scratching their heads with one hand and possibly clicking away with the other.

Finally, any site that employs a number of these notorious features is particularly painful to experience. When I click to a website that has five different fonts and colors, scrolls down to the core of the Earth, incorporates zinging words and big fat blocks of text, lists no phone number and has content written and dated in 1996, I scream and know deep down inside that pulling my fingernails out wouldn’t be as torturous as having to remain there a minute longer.

User-centered design (UCD) is a project approach that puts the intended users of a site at the centre of its design and development. It does this by talking directly to the user at key points in the project to make sure the site will deliver upon their requirements.

The stages are carried out in an iterative fashion, with the cycle being repeated until the project’s usability objectives have been attained. This makes it critical that the participants in these methods accurately reflect the profile of your actual users.

Focus groups

What are they?
A focus group involves encouraging an invited group of intended/actual users of a site (i.e. participants) to share their thoughts, feelings, attitudes and ideas on a certain subject.

Organising focus groups within an organisation can also be very useful in getting buy-in to a project from within that company.

When to use
Focus groups are most often used as an input to design. They generally produce non-statistical data and are a good means of getting information about a domain (e.g. what peoples’ tasks involve).

Issues
It’s necessary to have an experienced moderator and analyst for a focus group to be effective.

Usability testing

What is it?
Usability testing sessions evaluate a site by collecting data from people as they use it. A person is invited to attend a session in which they’ll be asked to perform a series of tasks while a moderator takes note of any difficulties they encounter.

Users can be asked to follow the think-aloud protocol which asks them to verbalise what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.

You can also time users to see how long it takes them to complete tasks, which is a good measure of efficiency (although you should bear in mind that using the ‘think aloud’ protocol will slow users down considerably).

Two specialists’ time is normally required per session – one to moderate, one to note problems.

When to use
Usability testing can be used as an input to design or at the end of a project. It represents an excellent way finding out what the most likely usability problems with a site are likely to be.

Usability testing can be used generate non-statistical or statistical data.

Issues
Usability testing requires some form of design to be available to test – even if it’s only on paper. Testing works best if it focuses either on gathering non-statistical feedback on a design through ‘talk aloud’ or statistical measures.

Card sorting

What is it?
Card sorting is a method for suggesting intuitive structures/categories. A participant is presented with an unsorted pack of index cards. Each card has a statement written on it that relates to a page of the site.

The participant is asked to sort these cards into groups and then to name these groups. The results of multiple individual sorts are then combined and analysed statistically.

When to use
Card sorting is usually used as an input to design. It’s an excellent way of suggesting good categories for a site’s content and deriving its information architecture.

Card sorting can be used generate statistical data.

Issues
Providing participants with a trial run on some easy cards (e.g. sports, animals, etc.) can reassure about what they are expected to do and result in a more productive session.

Participatory design

What is it?
Participatory design does not just ask users opinions on design issues, but actively involves them in the design and decision-making processes.

When to use
Participatory design is usually used within a mini-project to generate prototypes that feed into an overall project’s design process.

An example would be a participatory design workshop in which developers, designers and users work together to design an initial prototype. This initial prototype would then feed into a more traditional design process.

Projects which only utilise participatory design are very rare.

Issues
Participatory design sessions can be very fluid and require an experienced moderator with thorough knowledge of the domain to guide them.

Questionnaires

What are they?
Questionnaires are a means of asking users for their responses to a pre-defined set of questions and are a good way of generating statistical data.

When to use
Questionnaires are usually employed when a design team:

Can only gain remote access to users of a site
Is seeking a larger sample size than can be realistically achieved through direct contact
It is for this reason that questionnaires are usually administered through post or electronic means.

Issues
Questionnaires allow statistical analysis of results, which can increase a study’s credibility through its scientific appearance. This makes it all the more important that the questionnaire is well-designed and asks non-biased questions.

Interviews

What are they?
An interview usually involves one interviewer speaking to one participant at a time.

The advantages of an interview are that a participant’s unique point of view can be explored in detail. It is also the case that any misunderstandings between the interviewer and the participant are likely to be quickly identified and addressed.

The output of an interview is almost exclusively non-statistical – it’s critical that reports of interviews are carefully analysed by experienced practitioners.

When to use
Interviews are usually employed early in the design process in order to gain a more detailed understanding of a domain/area of activity or specific requirements.

Issues
Interviewing places a high premium on the experience and skill of the interviewer and analyst.

Conclusion

This has been an introduction to the major user-centered design methods. It’s vital to remember that although each can be extremely valuable, using them in the right way, for the right reasons and at the right time is critical.

Exactly which method to use, and when and how to use it will differ from project to project.

To Join or not to Join Myspace

There are so many reasons why you have to join myspace.com and there also so many reasons why you would think twice in joining such website. Although there’s no proper debate whether you have to join or not, there are people that will advice you not to join these social networking sites while there are others who doesn’t see the problem in joining them.

One of the reasons why you shouldn’t join these types of websites is security. This is especially applicable for those that are not of legal age yet. There are sexual predators that cloak themselves with very sympathetic ideas to anyone who has a problem. Kids who sometimes get frustrated at school and family tend to rant on things in the blogs of their myspace webpage. There they start giving clues about themselves. And predators will have the chance to take a look at a more personal level of other people and they will try to connect to what they feel. They start to bond and then horrors will just start there. Without the social websites, your kids can just go online, watch some free clips online or play family friendly games.

Not only is it dangerous for kids but for adults also. You might reply on a classified being placed online in myspace classifieds. But the catch is that you’ll have to pay them before you can actually work for them. Before you start thinking of paying them, don’t. There are so many crooks out there that all they wanted is your money. You can easily find them offering home based jobs stuffing envelopes and entering data online. It’s sounds really great but too great and they are using the myspace classifieds especially to those who are not really familiar with online scams.

However, there are so many good things in myspace that you can think about on top of your head. That’s why millions are online everyday just to update their list of friends.

If you have an account for personal use, you can easily get hold of your long lost friends. They may change their phone number or email, but they can’t just change their myspace page since there are already tons of contacts there. You may lose their number but you can always get in touch with them anytime through myspace.

Businessmen can also myspace to create contacts that have the same interests. They can swap ideas or even trade services and from there they can get bigger and bigger or even have more clients because of the popularity they have in the website.

Artists, musician can also have a chance to express their art freely in myspace. There’s a page for these people and from there they can have a number of fans that will like their music. In fact, some of the known singers nowadays started in myspace and people started to really get crazy about their songs and before they know it, they already have a million dollar record deal.

These are only some of the reasons why have or don’t have to join these social networks. It’s still up to you whether you wanted to join these networks. Either way, be sure to protect yourselves and your family online.