Blog

Well, it's been a hell of a morning. As you know, Konigi allows registered users to post to the blog, showcase, tools, and wiki sections. Up to now, all user submissions have been appropriate, but last night a registered user posted spam content to the blog. This is largely because I missed one configuration option--spam checking on blog/notebook entries.

That user has been banned/blocked, but for the time being I'm adding a few measures in place to prevent this from happening again:

1. All submitted content, whether node or comment, is being passed through both Akismet and Mollom spam modules.
2. All submitted node content (i.e. posts rather than comments) is being moderated, and held from being published until reviewed. This means any blog, showcase, and tools entries won't go into published views immediately.
3. Posts will no longer make it to Twitter via TwitterFeed. That was just a poor and lazy choice to begin with. I won't use the service anymore.

I apologize for the spam entries that made it into the site and onto Konigi's twitter stream, and thank you for enduring the past few hours. It was my fault for missing one of the checkboxes when configuring my Mollom module and setting user submissions to publish & promote to front page.

In the 7 or so years that I've maintained multi-user blogs, it's been increasingly challenging to keep spammers out. This time it was really user error and the software was not to blame. I'm really vigilant about this stuff, and had I been awake, would have put the above measures in place sooner.

-Michael (jibbajabba)

"Illegitimi non carborundum" - Don't let the bastards grind you down.

Social Design Notes has collected a list of design manifestos from the past 100 years, largely drawn from Mario Piazza’s presentation at the Più Design Può conference in Florence.

Since the days of radical printer-pamphleteers, design and designers have a long history of fighting for what’s right and working to transform society. The rise of the literary form of the manifesto also parallels the rise of modernity and the spread of letterpress printing.

Via Core77.

http://backspace.com/notes/2009/07/design-manifestos.php#more

Ex-IDEO engineer, Alan Regalabrings us another great office product invention. The Bookmarker is: 1) pen, 2) flag dispenser, 3) bookmark & 4) book strap to keep your book closed. It was designed for people who take notes in notebooks, textbooks, journals, reading books etc). The advantage this product provides is instant access to important note-taking tools because the product is super thin and fits and stores inside your book. The product is completely refillable with standard size sticky flag & pen refills.

http://www.everydayinnovations.com/pages/products_bookmarker.php

The Setup does nerdy interviews to find out what people use to get stuff done.

http://sam.brown.usesthis.com/

Mac App Storm gathers together a collection of iPhone apps with noteworthy designs. They say, "Whether you’re looking for a robotic unit converter, a realistic app for reading novels, or a intuitive Twitter client – this roundup has something for you. Each application puts design first, offering a fantastic user experience." Check it out.

http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/iphone-roundups/30-iphone-apps-with-sexy-interfaces/

Japanese office products are so cool. This is Binderball, invented by Masayuki Takahata for Sun-Star Stationery. It's a mini-binder with built-in pen that you can attach to a notepad. More about the invention on the Scription blog.

http://www.sun-star-st.jp/private_brand/binderball.html

CNet reports on an MTV Networks survey on the effectiveness of their video advertising formats.

"Project Inform," the MTV survey, found that a five-second-long "pre-roll" ad in advance of the clip, combined with ten seconds of a semi-transparent ad unit that takes up the lower third of the video (and starts about ten seconds in), makes up "both the most effective and the most audience-friendly ad product for short-form online video," according to a release.
MTVN calls this the "lower one-third product suite." It was tested against two other ad packages, the "sideloader," which combines the five-second pre-roll with an ad that rolls out of the side of the video window; and a traditional 30-second pre-roll before the ad.

So, obviously, that's a limited number of options and certainly doesn't reflect the full range of possibilities for online ads. But it was thorough: Project Inform ran consumer survey tests across about 50 million video streams on the Web properties for media brands like MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon.

There's also mention of Hulu's success last year of providing users the option of viewing longer pre-video ads rather than interrupting their video. You can read the MTV article here.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10287132-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Dustin Curtis did an interesting experiment with a short call to action at the bottom of his pages, asking users to follow him on Twitter. Comparing the results shows that direct, but informally worded calls to action, and (ugh) using a literal call out like the word "here" had a pretty significant impact.

As the forcefulness and personal identifiability of the phrase increased, the number of clicks likewise increased. "You" identifies the reader directly, "should" implies an obligation, and "follow me on twitter" is a direct command. Moving the link to a literal callout "here" provides a clear location for clicking. I tried other permutations that dulled the command, used the word "please" in place of "should" and made the whole sentence a link. None of them performed as well as the final sentence.

At the very least, the data show that users seem to have less control over their actions than they might think, and that web designers and developers have huge leeway for using language to nudge users through an experience.

Would you come to the same conclusions? Read the complete article here. ;)

http://dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html

Theresa Neil continues her tips for designing great Flex UX's showcasing interfaces that exemplify Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics.

Don’t forget the usability basics. Jakob Nielsen’s Ten Usability Heuristics are as relevant now as they were in 1999. I stress this because I looked at the Flex showcase recently, and it looks like many of the applications are not built with these best practices in mind.

Read more at Theresa Neil's blog.

http://theresaneil.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/6-tips-for-a-great-flex-ux-part-5/

Dynamic Prototyping with SketchFlow in Expression Blend is a book coming out in late 2009 through Que Publishing and is being written by Chris Bernard and Sara Summers. It will teach you everything you need to know to create rich and dynamic prototypes using SketchFlow in Expression Blend. The book site includes updates about the progress on the book and a preview chapter and the associated projects that go along with it. The preview chapter will teach you all the basics you need to know to begin using SketchFlow features in Expression Blend.

http://www.dynamic-prototyping.com/