Category: Computer

Intelligent record paging

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An idea I had maybe 9-10 years ago after designing an interface that had a potential for 10s of thousands of database records built into a spreadsheet-style admin page. I proposed this idea after inheriting the traditional UI of navigating through a set number of records per page via numbers that we’ve all seen and used.

My question to the developers was “How does the user know what’s on page 7, for instance?”. The answer was that they don’t until they click on that number. They have to guess that based on 35 records per page you will probably get to your named record in 6-7 pages.

I thought that sucked. I designed this UI that requires the developer to do a little more work to pull a set of records AND pull the first and last record of each theoretical page in the full set in the db – then apply a tooltip-style popup to the number of the page that includes the first and last record visually. Then the user can hover over page 7 and know exactly what they will see, at least the extents first-to-last and make an intelligent decision whether to click there or not.

Intelligent-record-set-paging

Complimentary businesses

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A while back I had an agency give me a test of sorts to see if I was creative.

They wanted me to design a furniture site, in theory anyhow. Come up with something cool they said.

So I thought about it and asked what was the biggest issue with online furniture? One of the big ones, aside from not being able to sit on anything or touch it, is that you can’t see it in context. Some big catalogs will make these impressive fake rooms with all of their product in them and little numbers on everything to explain what they are.

How much is professional photography? We’re talking 6 figures at least. Not gonna happen with a typical startup.

I thought why not find a place that needs furniture in a temporary setting so that you can go in there and take some photos yourself. I thought doesn’t the real estate industry do fake setups with furniture and everything so that their potential customers can see what the house looks like? I know they do. They have to buy furniture for that.

Give/loan real estate companies furniture and set things up, take photos and use them in your site. Win-win.

Themeforest review site

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themeforest-envato

For several years now I’ve been buying themes from themeforest.net – probably the most popular site now for themes.

Generally the themes have been high quality. However, I have had about 20% of them, so far, be less than stellar.

The problems are either the admin interface is very poor quality or the service/support is lackluster or non-existent.

The site offers a Preview mode for each theme. This is good, but only a part of the story. Each theme author will build a preview using demo content that can be quite stunning visually.

Problem is, this perfect scenario can many times be very un-customizable for your needs, and claims of “easy customization” may be a very subjective term.

I don’t know about you, but when I design a wordpress site I want to be able to give it my client and say “here you go, have fun” meaning that they should be able to take over without too much handholding and go on into the sunset.

This has been more troublesome than I would like to admit with themeforest.

so, here’s the proposition: Build a true separate review site that uses the URL of the theme to pull in the basics and then have an area where people who have purchased the theme can give real-world feedback and in some occasions warnings to stay away.

Themeforest will likely not desire this and try to shut it down. They have responded to my attempts at trying to get a refund or say that a certain theme is rubbish with “Sucks to be you”. Since they are in Australia, they have taken the position regarding foreign complaints (I’m in the US) of “Fuck you, go ahead and try to sue us, we will do what we want”.

This means that whomever should build this site must have a great resolve. Tell those a-holes that they can’t just put up any old piece of shit just because it looks good and will make them money only to piss off clients.