Hi All,
I am trying to edit the new 1700 template to fit with a website I am building. Most of the conversion is going well and I have to say that the new 1700 template is a lot cleaner and easier to understand than the previous templates. However, I am running into a lot of problems around the RadMenu component for the navigation.
RadMenu is inserting it's own styles and I can't find any way to override certain things like the background images.
PriceCache:35218;3742665;1: 112.5000
Could I set this value to 1/2 price something like
PriceCache:35218;3742665;1: 56.25
The page
http://vvv.nn.com/imispublic/Cart/Core/cart/MyCart.aspx
Has a reference to
namespace IWC.UI.WebControlspublic abstract class CartPage : DisplayPageBase, IImpersonationPage
The stock iMIS page reveals that /iMISpublic/AM/ContentManagerNet/ShowVariables.aspx
Last night, Ragan Haggard of Sun Microsystems told STC Austin about his journey producing documentation for OpenDS (an open source product) using only wikis. From the myriad available, they picked a wiki -- JSPwiki -- that met their key requirements (still in active development , syntax, rich text, content control); however, not even the best-in-class commercial wiki, Confluence, could offer the Section 508 (accessibility) and commercial quality PDF book output they still need. (He hadn't heard of FLOSS manuals, although that's still not the holy grail.)
Last night I attended the STC Austin program "Four Candles - Just What is Simplified Technical English?", presented by Alan Porter of Quadralay and the 4J's Group. (Do watch the Four Candles video if you don't know this famous skit!)
Simplified Technical English is a writing standard created for aerospace/defense maintenance documentation, born of a deadly need for clarity (such as the worker who obediently "cut the power" with loppers and died). It's a controlled language because it restricts grammar, style, and vocabulary. Its goal is to stamp out ambiguity (one word = one meaning) and present technical complexity in the easiest language possible, to support users of diverse ages, abilities, and familiarity with English. If this sounds like the Plain Language movement to you, you're right: there's significant overlap. Boiling it down, Simplified Technical English has two parts:
Last night, Dr. Clay Spinuzzi, Director of UT's Computer Writing and Research Lab, entertained STC Austin with tales of the journey by which they brought CWRL's website out of the 20th century. The site, a knowledge repository holding decades worth of white papers and instructional content, was bottlenecked, unmaintainable, and inaccessible. What to do?
O'Reilly has a new book series, "Short Cuts", that is ONLY being sold in electronic form: "Whether it's a first look at a brand new technology, a quick reference, or a thorough explanation of a narrow but crucial subject, Short Cuts bring you focused information in an easy-to-use, portable package." Interestingly, this is the same strategy we applied to handling publications on the iMIS Helpsite (docs.imis.com): the User Guides are available as bound publications as before, but the narrow, topic-specific References are posted for download only, for online use, portability, and personal printing. Where we differ is that ours are free distributions, and we post in an editable format, to support site-specific modification.
By revisiting the work of Kathy Sierra, of Creating Passionate Users fame, I followed the breadcrumb trail to the new O'Reilly book series she helped to shape: Head First. The Head First Labs blog reveals some of the research and approach employed in these "brain-friendly guides"; I'll try to summarize their strategy as it's presented in the book I purchased, Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML.
This past week, I have caught up on a lot of traffic about a new book called Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits and a supporting article both by Heather McLeod Grant & Leslie R. Crutchfield. I am also working on looking at how we organize and structure iMIS moving forward for the UX Team. The article refocused some of my thoughts.
There has been a trend in the non-profit world to adopt more for-profit business practices to succeed. I have seen, as an example, more people with advanced degrees and experience in the for-profit world recruited into customer organizations. I have often wondered about the overall impact of this direction, whether over the long-term it would bear greater results or just somehow make it more mechanical, lose a little bit of the magic. I am an idealist and I want to be believe that through my work at ASI, I am affecting social change and having an impact on the greater good, regardless of how small or indirect. It’s one of the main reasons I work here. I guess, like most relationships, there are benefits to both the non-profit and for-profit sectors from these trends.
For those of you who enjoyed the web 2.0 - The Machine is using Us video posted on YouTube by Mike Wesch, a Kansas State Professor. He has added another video on information categorization - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM. At the same time he posted another video called A Vision of Students Today - which is an interesting look into Gen Y - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o. E
Presenters: Ted Sienknecht, Marcia Kerchner
Concept: We're overlooking a wealth of usability-related data we have on hand!
Where to gather information?
. Lessons learned: Study system usage statistics and user feedback from current/prior releases for possible improvements and functionality
. Software evaluations: Study other software users currently use for implementations they expect or understand
. Field observations: Watch users while they perform relevant tasks and note process, actions, systems, problems, needs, etc.
. Interviews & Focus groups: Use structured inquiry with users about their opinions and experiences
. Task analysis: Investigate typical tasks users perform on the system
. User profiles: Create representative identities for user subgroups (personas)
. Help desk logs: Read help requests for areas for improvement or new functionality
