jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library
Topic: Technology
11:06 pm EDT, May 14, 2008
jQuery is a new type of JavaScript library.
jQuery is a fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.
I gave up JS frameworks a long time ago, but maybe this one is decent and not too bloated.
AB Testing: Tracking UI Level Links: An Open Source Script
Topic: Technology
10:29 pm EDT, May 14, 2008
Tracking UI Level Links: An Open Source Script Posted At : April 22, 2008 9:51 PM | Posted By : Andy Edmonds Related Categories: analytics
One of the challenges with the current complex site designs is that multiple links to the same destination tend to appear on the same page.
This does not allow you to understand how your allocation of real estate is being used without resorting to really fancy analytics packages.
To solve this problem I developed a script that upon every click, walks up the document object model (DOM) looking for a an attribute on an HTML tag of ui.
If it finds one before it hits the BODY tag, then it adds a parameter to the link called ui with the value of that attribute, allowing you to understand which links on a page are being used. Shown below is a report from Google Analytics for this site showing how people arrive at my bio page:
Food For Thought: At What Age Is A Kid Too Old To Breastfeed?
Topic: Society
5:56 pm EDT, May 13, 2008
Extraordinary Breastfeeding is a documentary that aired in England a few years ago and focused on the country's discomfort with breastfeeding. Issues raised in the film included the right to breastfeed in public, breastfeeding adopted children, and at what age children should be weaned off breast milk. (The average age around the world is four years old, and the World Health Organization recommends that children be breastfed until they are at least two and a half years old.) One woman in the documentary, Veronica, believes that children should decide for themselves when they want to stop. Her daughter is about to turn eight, still breastfeeds, and has absolutely no plans of stopping. Clip — which is somewhat NSFW — above.
Author of In Defense of Food Michael Pollan explained his "eater's manifesto" at Google last month. Watch the video to hear Pollan discuss his seven word philosopy ("Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.")—or download the hour-long clip to your iPod to watch later.
A List Apart: Articles: Zebra Striping: Does it Really Help?
Topic: Technology
2:53 am EDT, May 12, 2008
So there’s no point in zebra striping?
This experiment yielded no evidence that zebra striping consistently improves the accuracy or speed of tasks. This would seem to suggest that we shouldn’t bother with zebra striping anymore.
However, there are a few arguments against tossing zebra striping out altogether.
Firstly, in this study there was a subjective preference for striped tables over plain. My reading and discussions with others suggest a number of people find zebra-striped tables more aesthetically pleasing. If many users like zebra striping (and another large group aren’t fussed either way), then why not apply it?
Secondly, this was just one experiment, with one dataset. It is possible that the particular design of this experiment meant that zebra striping had little effect. In other cases, particularly when there is considerable space between columns and/or the user is required to scroll horizontally, a more pronounced effect may have been observed.
Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, a number of participants in the study spontaneously reported using their finger, on or over the computer screen, to follow down columns and across rows. Other participants used their mouse to highlight rows of interest. These people were, in effect, creating their own “temporary” zebra striping. So we may be reducing the burden on our users if we do the zebra striping for them.
