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Sue (Susan N.) Smith | 2 Sep 2005 06:09
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InfoD-Cafe: Pop-ups Blocked?

This is a web design issue at a small website.  Teachers read a module, then
take a test for credit for continuing education.  Currently, the questions
arrive in a pop-up box, which I had a lot of trouble accessing due to several
pop-up blocking programs, not just one.  The programmer insists that most
people don't have pop-ups blocked, and anyway it's their job to adjust.  I'm
afraid we are losing people who simply give up.  Our clientele isn't
particularly web-savvy.

It seems that everyone (ISPs, web browsers, search engines) offers pop-up
blockers.  What do professionals do about this?  Has it changed the way pages
are programmed?  Do you keep pop-ups and tell people to change computer
settings?  That seems risky, since people may blame the next bad thing on the
settings they just changed.  Do you eliminate pop-ups entirely?  The pop-up
apparently makes it easy to submit the answers into our database, so it isn't
easy to give up.  [I've tried to research this, but I only find general
recommendations, and nothing published this year, when many ISPs started
advertising pop-up blockers.]

Just curious,
Sue
________________
Sue Smith
Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English
The University of Arizona

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Curtis Clark | 2 Sep 2005 06:47
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Re: InfoD-Cafe: Pop-ups Blocked?

On 2005-09-01 21:09, Sue (Susan N.) Smith wrote:
> The programmer insists that most
> people don't have pop-ups blocked, and anyway it's their job to adjust.  I'm
> afraid we are losing people who simply give up.  

The programmer is either dense or disingenuous. The common pop-up 
blockers only block pop-ups that appear on page load and other events 
where the user is not requesting a new link. Pop-ups that are the result 
of a user clicking a link are generally not blocked; if they are blocked 
in this case, it's probably the result of some Javascript trickery or 
another that is probably unnecessary.

--

-- 
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Web Coordinator, Cal Poly Pomona                 +1 909 979 6371
Professor, Biological Sciences                   +1 909 869 4062
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Caroline Jarrett | 2 Sep 2005 09:20
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Re: InfoD-Cafe: Pop-ups Blocked?

From: "Sue (Susan N.) Smith" <snsmith <at> u.arizona.edu>

<snip - background and other questions>
> Do you eliminate pop-ups entirely?

Yes. Originally, I was against pop-ups because they confused users. 
Then gradually I found that some pop-ups worked perfectly well for 
users, and so I formulated some 'rules of pop-ups' (with Carl Zetie) 
that I still consider to be a good predictor of whether a user will 
find a pop-up easy to use or not. I'm sure that there are similar 
rules formulated by others.

However, in the last year or so I've gone back to the 'no pop-ups' 
rule for various reasons but primarily for accessibility. Pop-ups 
really are hard work for people who are using screen maginifiers, 
because they are likely to pop out of the current field of vision. 
Then the user is left in limbo with no idea what happened.

I wrote a short article which amplifies the above. It's at:
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article1673.asp

Doesn't fulfil your requirement of 'published this year' but I hope 
it's recent enough to be helpful.

Best,
Caroline Jarrett
caroline.jarrett <at> effortmark.co.uk
01525 370379

Effortmark Ltd
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Karel van der Waarde | 2 Sep 2005 13:48
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InfoD-Cafe: doctoral research fellowship

Dear all,

The Information Design Group at the University of Oslo
Department of Informatics has a doctoral research fellowship
on offer.

This is a full salary position for three years at UiO, one of
the world's most respected research universities. While
the informatics department is well known, the information
design program is new and growing. There is a new undergraduate
program for information design now in place, withg master's
studies following on. The doctoral research fellow will have
an extraordinary opportunity to develop his or her own research
agenda while working with senior faculty in developing the
group's program in research and teaching.

If this opportunity interests you -- or if you have a student
who might find it attractive -- please contact the chair of
the information design group,

Dr. Almira Karabeg 
Information Design Group
Informatikk
University of Oslo

Telephone +47 22.85.24.94

E-mail <mailto:almira <at> ifi.uio.no>almira <at> ifi.uio.no

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INFO | 9 Sep 2005 16:47

InfoD-Cafe: (EVENT) Remote Usability Testing panel discussion in Seattle (Thurs 9/22 SIG CHI meeting)

New tools and improved bandwidth have made remote usability testing a
reality for many in the user research field. A panel of experienced
usability professionals will talk about how and why they use remote testing,
pros and cons of the tools, and the benefits and challenges that this method
offers. 
Please join us at the free monthly meeting of Puget Sound SIGCHI (Special
Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction)

PANEL:
Michael Medlock, Microsoft
Ken Becker, Boeing
Susan Todd, Microsoft
Michael Harding, Microsoft
For speaker bios, please see:
http://www.acm.org/chapters/pssigchi/html/meetings/09_22_2005.html  

WHEN: Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005
6 pm: Refreshments
7pm-9pm: Presentation 

WHERE: Adobe 801 N. 34th St., Fremont area of Seattle, WA 98103,
206-675-7000 (directions at
http://www.acm.org/chapters/pssigchi/html/meetings/09_22_2005.html#jumptodir
ections ) 

SIGCHI meetings are free and open to the public. We encourage people
interested in user-centered design and usability to join us ($20 yearly
dues). Details at http://www.acm.org/chapters/pssigchi/html/membership.html 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Randal | 16 Sep 2005 00:51
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InfoD-Cafe: Internet Explorer Interface Designer Switches to Firefox

Interesting blog entry from the main IE UI engineer explaining his reasons for switching:

http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/?p=115

-- Randal
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Drew Shiel | 19 Sep 2005 17:32
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Re: InfoD-Cafe: Pop-ups Blocked?

On 02/09/05, Sue (Susan N.) Smith <snsmith <at> u.arizona.edu> wrote:

> It seems that everyone (ISPs, web browsers, search engines) offers pop-up
> blockers.  What do professionals do about this?  Has it changed the way pages
> are programmed?  Do you keep pop-ups and tell people to change computer
> settings? [...] Do you eliminate pop-ups entirely? 

  I've been working on eliminating them completely from the sites that
I work on, in the face of considerable resistance. Several of the
people I report to are convinced that popups prevent confusion, in
that people can still see the originating page behind them. However,
with the increasing popularity of blockers, I've managed to get things
to the stage where only supplemental information is in popups, rather
than essential information.

  At present, the rule of thumb I'm working to is: Can the process
we're working with go through fully with popups disabled? And when
that's the case, I can leave it be.

  One anecdote in support of most people having blockers enabled: A
reasonably tech-savvy new employee in Marketing here was trying to
view one of the popups on the site. I had to disable no less than four
different popup blockers for her, including IE's own and three from
toolbars and plugins, before she could see it. Her machine had been in
use for a week.

  Drew.

--

--
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Dave | 19 Sep 2005 18:11
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Re: InfoD-Cafe: Pop-ups Blocked?

HI Sue,

It all depends.
1. most blockers don't block popups that are initiated directly from a
link. It is only the passive variety that occur with a onLoad command,
or similar programatically passive method that the user didn't
actively choose to happen.

2. Is what you are talking about information-based, or is it part of
an application where you are doing the equivalent of dialogs.

Most popups can be done by creating DHTML windowing systems; and done
really well using RPC calls (aka AJAX). But these are best for views
that are basically dialogs as part of an application's process.

If you want to popup "help" information, this should be an 'active'
link popup and should pass most blocker requirements.

On a separate note, you can auto-detect popup blockers being on, and
ask the user to add you to their "allow" (or white list) list so that
popups are allows for your site.

If you really need to focus a user, you CAN probably use a new
screen/page anyway. I suggest people look at using a new paradigm in
DHTML programming called AJAX that is really helpful for a lot of this
work, as it eliminates the "flicker" of a page request.

I hope this is helpful.

-- dave
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Karel van der Waarde | 19 Sep 2005 18:38
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InfoD-Cafe: Interview with Karen Schriver

Dear all,

Peter Bogaards, the editor of InformationDesign.org, just interviewed 
Karen Schriver. The substantial and enjoyable interview can be read 
at:

http://www.informationdesign.org/special/schriver_interview.php

Kind regards,
Karel.
waarde <at> glo.be
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Daniel Harvey | 19 Sep 2005 19:04
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RE: InfoD-Cafe: Pop-ups Blocked?

That said, there are some blockers out there (sorry that I don't have a
list at this time) that do block even user initiated clicks. These work
by essentially turning off javascript which is commonly used to launch
popups. The workaround for this would be to target new windows with good
old fashioned html.

-----Original Message-----
From: infodesign-cafe-bounces <at> list.informationdesign.org
[mailto:infodesign-cafe-bounces <at> list.informationdesign.org] On Behalf Of
Dave
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 12:12 PM
To: Discussions about information design
Subject: Re: InfoD-Cafe: Pop-ups Blocked?

HI Sue,

It all depends.
1. most blockers don't block popups that are initiated directly from a
link. It is only the passive variety that occur with a onLoad command,
or similar programatically passive method that the user didn't
actively choose to happen.

2. Is what you are talking about information-based, or is it part of
an application where you are doing the equivalent of dialogs.

Most popups can be done by creating DHTML windowing systems; and done
really well using RPC calls (aka AJAX). But these are best for views
that are basically dialogs as part of an application's process.

If you want to popup "help" information, this should be an 'active'
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Gmane