Bad web design

I am so tired of bad web design. My biggest pet peeve is when a web site has a workflow diagram with a little word under each picture describing the item – but you can’t click on the picture, only on the word!
It’s even worse when the word is small. A similar problem is when you are supposed to click on some teeny tiny icon to open a link. You can barely get your cursor on that icon. Here is a table of information and you click on an item to get more information. But instead of having a link from the description, you must click on the small number!
Another common web design problem is the difficulty of finding relevant information. Most visitors to certain types of web sites are often in search of 2-3 pieces of information. For example, most visitors to a school web site are probably looking for the school calendar (or lunch calendar), the attendance line (to call when your child is sick) or office phone number, or school closings. All this information should appear on the school’s main web page and you should be able to see it without scrolling. There shouldn’t just be a link to that stuff, the information should appear on that page.

Sometimes web sites have icons instead of words for common links. I think icons are ok when you use the web site a lot, like your blog. A little pencil icon means edit. OK, I get it. But if someone only visits a web site occasionally, what does a little book icon mean? Address book? Read a book? Who knows. Web sites with infrequent visitors should abandon icons or at least combine them with text.

Even worse are bad fonts. I’ve seen some pretty unreadable fonts. Here’s an example:

If you like the look of a fancy font, then use it for your header. But a paragraph needs to have a readable font. You also shouldn't assume that every browser supports the fonts that you have. At least take it into consideration when you use a fancy font.

I've seen pages that have no headers or categories - the links are embedded into paragraphs. This style was abandoned about 15 years ago for good reason. It's cute when it's your personal web site but not when it's an information web site. I don't have time to read a paragraph, just list out the relevant links!

Better searches! This is a category in itself, and really applies to big corporate sites as opposed to mom and pop web sites, since they presumably don't have the programming capability to do it right. It's unbelievable that I can go to a hotel web site, type in Madison, and what comes up is a list of damn near every Madison in the US...except Wisconsin...because that is on the SECOND page of results! Come on! Or when there is only one result to your search - but instead of displaying the information, the web site displays a link! Now you must click again to get the information. Argh!

Here's one of my favorites. I'm trying to book a flight. I enter Chicago and Albany. And here's what I get:

This site may be using a soundex search, in case people type a word the way it sounds and misspell it. But that's idiotic when they have spelled the word correctly and there is only one exact match.

Try to display the information in the same page whenever possible. I've been thinking about this lately, and I'm sure that other people have too. I'm tired of opening page after page of subcategories to get information when the site has very little information in the first place.

If you have a personal site, or your site isn’t informational, do whatever you like. But if you have an informational web site, please don’t do these:

• Bad fonts
  
• Hard to find important information
  
• Can't click on images or links are not obvious
  
• Non-descriptive categories
  
• Bad searches
  
• Too many clicks to get to relevant information
  
• No headers, categories, or list of links

My wife is getting tired of hearing me say "This is the WORST web site EVER!"

- schneid

Stimulate the economy?

Let's just send money to everyone to stimulate the economy. I'm sure that will work!

If they send everyone money, one thing that will be stimulated is home mortgage refinancing. I was just looking into this myself. I could probably break even within a year, but definitely within two years. Then I would save 43,000 in interest over the life of my loan. Even more if mortgage rates drop below 5.5%. Unless I desperately needed the money for something else, which I don't, this would be the best financial decision for me. This is probably true for almost everyone.

- schneid

New paintings

We bought some paintings from an Israeli door-to-door salesman. I bet you've never heard that sentence before.

Suzette called me at work and said that a man was selling very nice original oil paintings. They were pretty expensive, at least to us, since most of our artwork has been purchased for $50 or less, but we considered buying one of the small ones. She said the paintings were very good. She asked him to return when I came home from work.

He showed us about 20 original oil paintings on rolled-up canvases. He had an accent so we asked where he was from - an Israeli accent is very hard to place. He was very intent on pleasing us, and showed off the paintings and made suggestions for which would match our decor. We ended up buying two - a small one and a big one. They are almost identical - Paris street scenes with the Eiffel Tower. One now resides over the fireplace in our family room and the big one is in the living room. The salesman was actually the artist that painted our paintings.

There were some other paintings that we really liked of Mediterranean scenes and typical French or Italian hill towns, but those were all tall rather than wide, and we don't have a good spot for them.

The story is that a group of art students are opening a gallery in New York. They sold paintings in the Batavia area last year, and decided to come back again this year. The paintings are all original oils by these students.

My neighbor is convinced that this is a scam. I ask him, "What's the scam? I have two beautiful original oil paintings that I love at a fair price." Sure, it's sounds funny that paintings are being sold door-to-door, but unless they're stolen, I can't imagine what the scam is.

The artist suggested a local friend who does framing. We checked at Michael's and JoAnn's, and framing is outrageously expensive. $1000 for two paintings - with a coupon you can get it for $500. We invited the local framer to come over. He was also Israeli, and really wanted to please us. He showed us all the frames with our paintings and made suggestions. Framing a canvas oil painting involves more than just sticking it in a frame. You must stretch the canvas over a homemade frame and staple it. We picked some frames, and he would frame the paintings and return them in a week. Now that's the part that might sound like a scam - you just bought some paintings from one guy, and now another guy is going to take those paintings and frame them. Hmm, would they ever return? But they let you choose any painting as collateral - so you pick another painting that you really like and keep it until they return your framed paintings.

Of course, the framed paintings were returned in a week and we really like them. The photo is the big one. No, it's not crooked, I just can't shoot straight.

- Mike

Let's tax the rich

I have an idea...let's raise taxes on the 10% most wealthy people in the US. I would bet that, say, 90% of US citizens would agree with that. That should work! Let's use the money to help the lower and middle class. Perhaps we can have school lunches or send the kids to college. But wait...the congressmen who could pass that law are in that 10% most wealthy. I guess it won't happen. We could convince them to do it - we're their constituents, after all. We voted for them. Oh, but then some rich people would give them large donations and subtlely suggest that they don't pass the law. And the corporations at which those rich people are CEOs would also donate money. And the Republicans would somehow convince the lower class that this "Robin Hood" law of robbing the rich and giving to the poor isn't fair, put some completely unrelated religious issue on the ballot, and get another Republican voted into the White House!

Sorry, went off on a tangent there.

What's so funny? Our forefathers started this country to get away from religious persecution and taxation without representation. They wanted a government that was elected by the people, for the people. Our government is elected by the people* but I don't think it's for the people. And the government wants to impose its religious agenda on everyone through the laws and the Supreme Court. Unless I'm really wrong about Americans, in which case maybe I'm living in the wrong country.

- schneid

* Exception: 2000 US presidential election when the president was elected by the Supreme Court.

Outrageous cost of college tuition

I just figured out that I need to save $1000 per month for the next 16 years to send my kids to college. Tuition has been rising at an 8.4% rate for the last 10 years, 8.2% for the last 20 years (reference: College Illinois). This means that if current annual tuition is $15,000 (e.g., at the University of Illinois), then in 11 years when Ben starts college, annual tuition will be $36,426. Four years of college tuition for Ben will cost $165,000. For Anna, the first year is $46,398 and all four years will cost $210,000.

These numbers are so outrageous, it might seem like they are made up. I assure you the calculations are correct. And that doesn't even include the cost of books, room, and board (currently another $10,000 per year). That adds on another 2/3 of the cost. So the cost of sending my kids to college could be $625,000. And that's if they graduate in four years or don't go to graduate school. The average student is taking more than 6 years to graduate from college, according to the article College Tuition Keeps Rising from US News.

Why is the cost of tuition rising? University officials said one reason they were raising sticker prices was to counterbalance reductions in the subsidies governments (in other words, taxpayers) provide for higher education. The Pennsylvania State University's main campus, for example, received the same state grant this year that it received five years ago, said spokesperson Bill Mahon. So the school raised tuition 5.6 percent this year to cover increased salaries, benefits, energy, and other operating costs, he said. according to the US News article.

And there's more. Finally, many colleges say they are raising tuition to generate more money to hand back to students as financial aid, in part to make up for the federal government's reductions in programs like the Pell grant. But the College Board said that even after subtracting financial aid, the net cost of college has risen at least 2 percentage points faster than inflation over the past decade.

Thank you, state and local governments. It's a pretty simple formula. Politicians make the decisions. They are (almost all) rich. They can afford college tuition regardless, and will probably send their kids to private schools. And they decide how much money will go to education. I can hear the thought process now. "Hmmm, we can give the rich a tax break, or we can give more money to the colleges. I vote for the tax break." The result? Fewer middle and lower class people will get a college education. And that's just what the rich elite want. If you're scared and uneducated, you'll just keep falling for their same old tricks.

The sad part is that we continue to vote for these politicians. They are supposed to represent us, but really they just represent themselves. They make every election about one or two issues. Ignore the man behind the curtain.

Personally, I think education benefits everyone, not just the person receiving the education. We would be a better country if people were more educated. I don't know the root of the problems in this country, but it wouldn't surprise me if poor education was one of them.

- schneid

Cheap stuff equals lost jobs

I've been ranting and raving about this for years. One of the biggest problems with our country is everyone's desperate need to buy everything as cheaply as possible.

My inkjet printer broke recently. It originally cost $100 about 5 years ago. My choices were: buy a new printer for $75, or buy a new printhead for $50. This is a very typical scenario these days. In fact, maybe it's not, when I think of my car stereo. When that broke, it would cost $100 to buy a new one, and more than $100 to get it repaired. So I bought a new one. But when the printer broke, I bought the new printhead instead. The printer was still perfectly good, it just needed a new printhead. Why send the printer to a landfill? Maybe I'm just a more responsible citizen now. I hate to see all the stuff people put by the curb to send to the landfill.

Suppose you could pay $200 for a DVD player guaranteed to work for 4 years. Or you could pay $100 for a DVD player that would last 2 years. What would you do? Most people would pay $100, with the justification that "Hey, I can get another brand new one in 2 years!" But there is a hidden cost, in the landfills, god knows what's leaking out of the electronics in the landfills into our environment, and the lost jobs.

I think that manufacturing quality parts and opening automobile repair centers that are reasonably priced could save the American auto industry. Instead of making cars as cheaply as possible, they could make them as reliable as possible, then make money when you buy parts to repair them. It's only a matter of time before the American auto manufacturers are sold off to the Japanese, Germans, or who knows. I think the unions are partially to blame because they insist on a certain wage, and when they get it (or near it), thousands of people get laid off. The unions are squeezing their own people out of jobs. Then who profits? The people who run the unions.

Sure, many people want to buy a new car every few years, or they want to buy more expensive cars. But these aren't the people who can save the American auto industry. I'm talking about the lower and middle classes. They are the ones who want to buy American cars. They are the people who will spend $500 to repair their car every year, rather than get fed up and buy a new one. They don't have a choice. But they aren't stupid, and they're probably buying a lot more cheap foreign cars these days.

I just ran across the article Wal-Mart You Don't Know today and I feel vindicated. It says that not only does Wal-Mart want to sell the cheapest stuff, but they want to buy the products for less money every year, squeezing their suppliers for profits. This is causing the suppliers to outsource the labor, and is taking away American jobs.

This paragraph sums it up best:
It's Wal-Mart in the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand. And the Milwaukee employees of Master Lock who shopped at Wal-Mart to save money helped that hand shove their own jobs right to Nogales. Not consciously, not directly, but inevitably. "Do we as consumers appreciate what we're doing?" Larrimore asks. "I don't think so. But even if we do, I think we say, Here's a Master Lock for $9, here's another lock for $6--let the other guy pay $9."

If we keep outsourcing our jobs, who will have any money to buy all this stuff? The problem is that everyone only looks out for themselves, and few look at the big picture.

Here are some reactions to the article:

• Liberals: goddamn greedy corporate bastards
  
• Rich suburbanites: Wow, $2.97 for a gallon of pickles? I'm driving my Hummer to the nearest Wal-mart right now!
  
• Republicans: Awesome, every time they sell some pickles, my Wal-Mart stock goes up .00000001 cents
  
• Young people: OMG, NBD WCA ZZZZZ
  
• Libertarians: It's a free country
  
• George Bush: Terrorists hate our cheap pickles.
  
• Democrats: goddamn George Bush
  
• Everyone else: And this has what to do with me?

- schneid

Dec 3 update

187. Don't know how that happened, haven't exercised a lot due to work and been eating badly. I'm probably dehydrated. Forgot my gym stuff today so I can't work out, but someone scheduled a meeting right up until 12:00 anyway that is sure to run long, so I probably wouldn't have time.

I installed some cabinets (salvaged from a neighbor's remodeling job) in my laundry room with the help of Greg T this weekend. OK, mostly Greg did the work and I watched. It's awesome to have a friend that knows how to do all this stuff. Our laundry room is 30x7 so we really needed some cabinets to get it organized. Plus those cabinets were taking up space in the garage where I wanted to park my car.

I hate winter! I have lived in Illinois every day of my life except for vacations. I grew up here, went to college here, still live here. And I hate the weather. On Friday, it snowed, then it rained for 5 or more hours, and everything was covered with ice. Walking from your car to your front door was a dangerous experience. Then, strangely, by morning everything had melted. I really want to move somewhere warmer, but we're committed to staying here near our relatives until the kids go to college...so guess I'll be moving to Florida in 2021. Only 14 years to go! Hooray!

Illinois is going to the Rose Bowl? That's surprising. It's great, but I guess the Rose Bowl doesn't mean as much as it used to.

- schneid

November 30 update

188. I gained about 3 lbs over Thanksgiving. We went to North Carolina to visit Dad and Kay. Debi and David came in from Boston too. We had a good time and had a lot of great food and wine. I did go running one time...

Once again, I'm sorry for lack of updates. November was a really tough month. Ever had a bad day? Well, I had a bad month. Just one thing after another. And when I'm stressed, there are two things I want to do: 1. nothing, like sit around and watch movies, and 2. eat eat EAT! I had to work late from home last night, so to ease the pain, I ate a pizza (yes, a whole one) for dinner plus almost an entire huge Hershey bar for dessert, and I watched Minority Report while I worked. I worked until about 2:30 AM. When I'm up late working on metrics, it reminds me of a quote from Friends. Chandler says "Alright kids, I gotta get to work. If I don’t input those numbers...doesn’t make much of a difference." I also had a huge cheeseburger and fries for lunch. And Starbucks for breakfast. Funny, it didn't help.

I've had very little time to do anything enjoyable, and I have to manage my stress very carefully, which is why I avoid stress. So when don't have time to exercise or have fun, it's twice as bad.

I ran about 3 miles with Tim on Monday. I'm so disgusted with myself. Tim has lost 30 lbs so far (gained a few back over Thanksgiving). My best is down 16 lbs, and now I'm only down 12. I had to work through lunch yesterday and today so no exercise. Things will get back to "normal" next week, but December is always hard since there's so much to do for the holidays. If it wasn't for Tim, I'd probably have gained 12 lbs by now instead of losing it. It's good to have a running partner.

Poker-wise, I'm going to start playing on Full Tilt and maybe Poker Stars because Ultimatebet is a drag. We'll see. I may need to build my bankroll before moving. People are winning a ton of money in the big Sunday and other tournaments, and I'd like to try to get a cut.

- schneid

Lazy Blogger

Sorry I've been so lazy blogging lately.

I have been maintaining my weight pretty well (185) but haven't lost any more weight in the last few weeks. I've been consistently running 1-2 times per week and playing basketball 1-2 times per week. And I've been eating healthily about 2/3 of the time.

This past Saturday was a total wash. I attended the Illinois game with Justin and Steve, and it was a total blast. We had a great time and the Illini crushed Northwestern 44-21. We went to a great tailgate party that had an awesome barbecue spread, and later went to Murphy's and Brother's (formerly Mabel's). I had about 8 pints of beer, 3-4 servings of barbecue, a bratwurst, and a mega cheeseburger with cheddar, everything, and extra pickles, and fresh cut fries. Whew.

And now it's Thanksgiving. I'm going to enjoy myself but try not to overindulge too much. I might even get in a run or two. We'll see.

- schneid

Oct 29 update

186. I ate a huge dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill on Saturday and didn't eat very well the rest of the weekend either. I played basketball on Friday.

Exercise:

• ran 4.75 miles today with Tim R (ran 3.75, walked 1)

Food:

• 2 granola bars and coffee
  
• lentil soup
  
• 20 oz diet Pepsi
  
• dinner will be taco salad - I'm going to have spicy fish in my salad instead of ground beef.
  

- schneid