Usability
Why DotNetNuke is Terrible
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | Design, DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Programming, Ranting, Usability, Venting, Web Development | 4 Comments
I really could go on and on about this, but just a few notes.
1. Forced Registration to Download their Software
When you go to DNN’s web site and sister sites, like the new DNN Events site, the first thing you have to do before you can download anything is register an account. Now, it’s not all bad because it’s free and I guess they just want to track popularity (ever heard of Google Analytics?), but the registration process takes too long. I registered an account to download the new Events Module beta about 10 minutes ago and still haven’t received my “verify your account” email. Sorry, DNN team, I’ve now lost all interest in your beta.
Not only that, but it’s not clearly obvious you have to register. They bury the instruction to register in their rather long and boring content. If I go to wordpress or drupal’s site, I see big freakin links to download (no registration required of course). It wouldn’t be so bad if they had a big link that said “Register and Download” but no, of course they don’t.
Which leads to my next point,
2. They really don’t support or discuss usability and accessibility
DNN modules and the DNN platform itself are so hard to use. Their website is hard to navigate, most of the icons don’t make sense, and the forums are cluttered and don’t work in all browsers. You can’t make a post in their forums in Safari. Sorry, Safari users, outta luck. Get firefox, I guess. No one seriously talks about how to make the admin screens and layouts of their modules more functional, faster, and easier to understand.
Most of the modules we have to buy (another point) are riddled with awful and outdated front-end code, and have the absolute worst Admin screens.
3. You have to pay for most of the modules
Now this isn’t that bad. I mean, a software developer’s gotta make money, and some people run their business solely off of DNN modules, right? Ok, but step up your game and make a module worth paying for. Refer to point #2.
More later, I have to get back to work.
Apple’s iChat Wins for Usability (at least halfway)
Friday, January 11th, 2008 | Apple, Computers, Macbook Pro, OS X, Usability, iChat | No Comments
When trying to send a folder to a buddy who uses the PC AIM client, I got this msg from iChat in the chat window:
Your buddy cannot receive transfers of directories (folders). You could create and send a zip archive of the directory before sharing, or share each file in the directory individually.
This is very nice! Simple easy explanation for what went wrong and how to resolve it. Now go all the way and give a prompt to create and send the zip file for me!
“Would you like us to zip this folder and send it now?” [Yes] [No]
Cheap Web Companies are Ruining the Web
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 | Clients, Computers, Design, Feedback, Improving Code, Life, Programming, Ranting, Usability, Venting, Web Development, Websites | 1 Comment
This is completely opinion and I didn’t do any research but I’m probably right in most cases. This is really me venting because I’ve been having more than enough run-ins with external companies who under-price our clients for “services” such as consulting or even developing systems that they can’t afford for us to do. › Continue reading
DotNetNuke and Search Usability
Sunday, November 18th, 2007 | DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Programming, Search Engines, Search Modules, Search Results, Usability, Web Development, Websites | No Comments
DotNetNuke recently added what they call a “feature” to their implementation of a search bar: the ability to search the web or search your web site.
This poses a couple problems:
- It can confuse users with unnecessary options
- It’s pretty meaningless.
Online Chat Support: Provide a Phone Number as well
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | Customer Support, Online Chat, Usability, Web Development, Websites | No Comments
I’ve been working on a project for a client this week, trying to get their hosting account set up, and I have experienced a myriad of usability issues with their system. › Continue reading
Three Scripts I wrote for DotNetNuke Skins
Thursday, September 13th, 2007 | DotNetNuke, Open Source, Programming, Usability, Web Development, Websites, Work Stuff, asp.net, vb.net | 3 Comments
I’ve been in email communication with the new Skinning Team Lead at DotNetNuke. I’m really interested in joining the DotNetNuke skinning team. I bring a pretty unique contribution to the scene, and I’d like to share it in the most appropriate outlet. So I’m talking to Timo to see if I can be useful on his team.
Until then, I’m going to share some scripts I wrote for DotNetNuke skins, which I also sent Timo in email.
Driving Directions and the Web: A waste of time and space
Friday, August 10th, 2007 | Usability, Web Development, Websites, directins, directions, driving, google maps, mapquest, routes | No Comments
I’ve been doing a lot of content integration in the past couple years and I’ve noticed that almost every one of our clients loves to type out lengthy pages to give people directions to their location.
Login Usability: Am I in or out?
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 | CSS, Code, Design, Feedback, Improving Code, Javascript, Programming, Usability, Web Development, Websites | No Comments
UPDATE: After making this post, and refreshing the parallels forums page, I was presented with “Welcome, Joseph Sak” instead of a login prompt. So maybe I got it wrong, or they did, but this post still stands!
The Parallels Forums recently got some redesign and information restructure, which all looks good and is organized quite well. But they’ve missed a couple really easy issues with their login functionality.
Modifying DotNetNuke Search and Improving the Results
Saturday, July 14th, 2007 | Artemis Solutions Group, Custom Development, DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Open Source, SEO, Search Engines, Search Modules, Search Results, Stored Procedure Improvement, Usability, Web Development, Websites, Work Stuff | 8 Comments
Recently, I modified the Stored Procedure named “GetSearchResults” to improve the results pages in DotNetNuke web sites. Here is my explanation from the DNN forums.
Page Title SEO
Friday, May 18th, 2007 | Artemis Solutions Group, Programming, Projects, SEO, Teamwork, Usability, Web Development, Websites, Work Stuff, XHTML | 1 Comment
I’ve recently sent out an email at work explaining Page Titles and their importance with SEO. I thought I’d share it on my blog. You may or may not have noticed that my Post titles and page titles come before my blog title in my page titles. I did this specifically because of SEO.
PAGE TITLE: – the text that shows up at the TOP OF THE BROWSER and in GOOGLE / YAHOO / MSN et al SEARCH RESULTS
Why is the page title important? It is what the casual searching web user will see when searching for content / services offered by YOUR CLIENT. So the page titles MUST INCLUDE keywords relevant to the pageâ??s content. The page title should be formatted well and DEFINITELY BE MORE THAN JUST A COPY OF THE PAGE NAME. The client name should be included.
If you donâ??t know how to do a very quick keyword-density page title, then AT THE VERY LEAST, format your page titles like this:
PAGE NAME | CLIENT / WEB SITE NAME
So if your client is Artemis Solutions Group and the page is Web Design
You can AT LEAST type this much:
Web Design | Artemis Solutions Group
But if you want to be keyword-savvy (just do a quick search and read on SEO Page Titles and Keywords for quick reference)
You could format it like this:
Web Design & Development | Lansing, MI | Professional Web site Design | Artemis Solutions Group
Itâ??s worth a LOT to the client for us as developers to think about their web marketing strategy and how their content and custom features affect that strategy. A little bit of Usability goes a long way, and is very easy to do.
Proper page titles take minimal effort, and add superb value to the client.
Search
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