Friday, November 20, 2009

Uh Oh, Bad UI Design?

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I'll admit to being a Google fan boy but a recent experience with the Google Reader UI on my Droid has my scratching my head. First off, for those of you not using Google Reader... why not? Just do it. I currently have over 150 blogs in my read list and none of this would be possible without a RSS feedreader and Google Reader is my reader of choice. It can be used on most any device and I use it on any desktop PC, my BlackBerry, and my Droid. The navigation using the keyboard is super convenient and allows you to quickly churn through your items.

Now, on to my complaint. On an Android device, maybe an issue on others but I can't speak to those, the Refresh button is perilously close to the "Mark all as read" link. The Refresh button is used to refresh the items in your view. I have my reader set up so that only unread items appear. Any item that has been read will disappear from the view when you hit Refresh, it will also bring into the view any new items. If you click the "Mark all as read" link it will cause every item in the list to be marked as read which means they will disappear from the view....



Yep, since the button and link are so close together when I went to refresh the view my "shot" was a bit off and my finger hit the "Mark all as read" link. Every item that I had not yet read disappeared from view. Bad design especially when you learn there is no undo with that action :-(  Below is a screen shot of the opportunity.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

MINI Clock

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The fun factor of the MINI brand is the best. I never tire of the fun things they come up with either from their YouTube channel or on the MINI USA site. They just came out with a MINI clock that will reside on your computer's desktop. Looks like the speedometer but instead of speed it represents the face of a clock. Some cool items:

  • At the stroke of each hour a small MINI comes out of a "garage" and depending upon the hour does a variety of interesting things. I won't spoil it for you. Get the clock and behold.
  • Once it starts to get dark the "dash" lights up. Just wonderful attention to detail.
You can get the MINI Clock here and below is a quick shot of it on my desktop.