Marjan Venema

3,496 reputation

21021

bio	website	bjmsoftware.com
	location	Netherlands
	age	51
visits	member for	2 years, 9 months
	seen	2 mins ago
stats	profile views	375

Software developer since 1985. Started in Cobol, moved via Clipper/VB to Delphi. Delphi developer since 1998. Work(ed) both self-employed and employed.

Questions

When you ask a question, show your effort, provide all the details that will help someone to help you and be precise.

Answers

When you answer a question, don't just paste your code. Your answers will be much better when you explain why your code is doing what it does and how it achieves the asker's goal. It makes it a whole lot easier to follow along. As it is I am much more inclined to up-vote answers that have explanatory text about what the code is doing and why it is written as it is.

Answers that just contain links aren't likely to get an up-vote from me either

	3,496 reputation	bio	website	bjmsoftware.com	visits	member for	2 years, 9 months
21021 badges		location	Netherlands		seen	2 mins ago

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1d	comment	Benefits and drawbacks of modal windows Pardon my ignorance, but who/what is the "Big G"? The pages you link to do not make that much clearer for me.
1d	comment	Masked password characters in a GUI vs terminal @wim: thanks for introducing me to a new term: "shoulder surfing". Made my day.
1d	comment	Hiearchichal Selection for Grouping (ie Teams) How many groups do you expect? If just a few, then a "checkbox" grid with the groups across the top and the people along the left, might work. Could even work with more than a few groups if you display the group names at a 90 degree angle (vertically). Group creation could still be "as and when needed" as it would "only" mean adding another column.
1d	revised	Is remembering and using user ID when logged out a bad thing? added 92 characters in body
1d	comment	Is remembering and using user ID when logged out a bad thing? @jcoder: Yes, rereading your question I see that. And your question is whether it is bad UX to ask for consent. My answer doesn't state it explicitely, but I think it is bad UX not to ask for consent.
1d	comment	Is remembering and using user ID when logged out a bad thing? Actually, Amazon does exactly what you talk about. It keeps you identified (as shown by the "Not ....?" link, but still requires you to log in before you can make a purchase. But when I log out, the "Not ....?" link becomes "Login". What I don't like is they do it without asking for consent.
1d	answered	Is remembering and using user ID when logged out a bad thing?
1d	comment	What is the best way to communicate that certain functionality is currently unavailable in an application So I have to view my weekly reports on mondays only. What if I have a day off? And I can't view my weekly reports unless I can also print them? Scuse me? Save some trees?
May 15	comment	My team has to build an app that requires a Facebook auth to enter a sweepstakes. At what stage should the authorization happen? Don't bother them until the very last moment when you absolutely have to...
May 15	comment	In usability testing, what consensus from users is enough to throw out an idea in future iterations? @David: yes, exactly right. UAT indeed takes place after development and integration testing.
May 14	comment	In usability testing, what consensus from users is enough to throw out an idea in future iterations? Sorry, but this isn't user acceptance testing either. Not even according to the link you provided. User acceptance testing has to do with (representatives of) the client accepting the developed product in its entirety and signing off on your responsibility to deliver that product. I think you might mean a/b testing? To quote from the linked article: "UAT, or User Acceptance Testing, is a term used in software engineering to describe when the client would give final approval for the built system to be delivered."
May 14	comment	Why aren't Gmail-like “on-page” dialogs more popular UI solutions? Interesting test result. Personally I dislike them because they appear at an off-center location, and can't be moved (afaik).
May 13	comment	Should Carousels auto-scroll? Only if they stop on hover or click(ing its dot)... (I hate carousels that don't stop for me).
May 10	comment	Why F1 is the default help key? @PhillipW: Yep even back then there were "standards". F1 was amongst the first unwritten ones and got codified into the IBM CUA standard. Which may have been the first formal user interface guideline.
May 10	comment	Why do users click randomly and rapidly when an application hangs? Mouse malfunctions (low battery on optical cordless mice) and not pressing mouse button hard enough, also lead to clicks missed by the application, and clicking again may convince the mouse that you are actually clicking and transferring that fact to the computer.
May 10	comment	How can we visually improve the nested rule/predicate builder? While the 'And' and 'Or' may seem to add visual noice, the actually make it much clearer for me what is going on. Don't leave them out, but do de-emphasize them as in your third image. That one is actually going on my example's list!
May 9	comment	How can the mode of a car's transmission be made more clear? If the car were left first in gear when stopped , starting it without engaging the clutch will make the car leap forward, but no more than about a meter or so. It may give everybody involved a fright but I doubt they would suffer anyting more serious. The jump will also tell the inexperienced driver which gear the car is in... If the driver did engage the clutch before starting the car, (s)he is aware that the car is/may be in gear and would also check which one. So therefore: interesting hypothetical, but not really an issue.
May 8	comment	Content Management Systems (CMS) layers Flag it for moderator attention and ask for it to be moved.
May 8	comment	Log add to top or bottom Depends on the purpose for which the log is created. Even if it is to have warnings and errors taken care of, the importance may indeed rise with time past. If the purpose is to facilitate diagnostics by examining what happened in a system, chronological order is the only way to go.
May 8	comment	Log add to top or bottom Why are you logging? To have alerts taken care of, or to provide a history of what happened in the application so problems can be diagnosed by examining these events?