fish out of order

Digital Literacy - a follow-up

2011-01-19T09:58:00.005+08:00

Last time I posted here, I critiqued the concept that we should all become programmers. Instead, I suggested that interface literacy was the key to giving people the power they need to make informed decisions about current technologies.

Today, I've come across this article - Teaching Digital Literacy - which includes a video featuring Douglas Rushkoff talking about the subject of his new book Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age.

I'm currently trying to purchase a copy of the eBook to get a better understanding of the arguments Rushkoff is making (the vendor, OR Books, keeps 404-ing when I try to pay - nice work*). I still have issues with the terminology used, but the point he makes that the digital medium is just as full of bias as television, print and radio is really valuable. And that bias is not made up only of the content itself, but the actual method in which the content is shared.

Will post a follow-up here when I've had a chance to sit down and spend some quality time with the book. (If OR Books manages to fix their website.)

*UPDATE 29th Jan: I emailed them regarding the payment issue; still unable to pay via PayPal, and their non-PayPal payment method is not handled with a sufficient level of security, so I won't be purchasing the book for a while longer. Still, I have found this free sample chapter. And ooh, ooh. I have something to say about this. Next time.

Programming - the New Literacy?

2010-11-01T15:10:00.016+08:00

We use technology to create content. Literacy is a measure of how well you can create, contextualise, and accurately interpret content.

That content could be updating your status on a social network. It could be your SmartRider card logging your daily trips. We are all generating data, telling stories, leaving imprints with our technology - be it pens and paper or binary code in a machine.

In his article Programming is the New Literacy, Marc Prensky postulates that knowing how to write programming code will become an essential skill. You will not be considered literate without it.

It is an interesting argument. But I think he is somewhat confused about the nature of programming.

A computer is a tool requiring both hardware and software. This is where the confusion lies. Prensky confuses the language of software with the language of human thought. But software, while written using a 'language', does not communicate human ideas. It communicates machine ideas. Software itself is a construction - it is a tool made out of code. And just as we are not required to build a telephone to be considered capable of holding a discussion, we will not all be required to build software to be considered literate in computer interfaces.

The author also seems to confuse interface literacy with programming. Examples provided of programming performed by teens are things like "downloading a ringtone" or "customizing your mobile phone or desktop". This is not programming. This is understanding how to use a tool - much like understanding how to change the ambient temperature of your refrigerator.

I love programming (well, on good days) but do I think it will become a required skill? No. Do I think interface literacy will become an essential communication skill? Yes! Eventually. Just as we are required to understand how to use pen and paper in order to write essays in Year 10 English Literature.

You might think I'm being pedantic. Listen, this is me being pedantic: Flash is not a programming language! It is a piece of software! Actionscript is the 'programming language' used by Flash. That said, you may hear old-school programmers refer to it as 'scripting' rather than 'programming' due to it not needing to be compiled amongst other things (Okay, one of the 'other things': True programming languages usually let you write any sort of utility you want. While I could make a game or short animation with Actionscript, I could not write a boot loader with it - hat-tip to Pixelseeker for the example).

Yes. Now I am being somewhat pedantic.

Towards the end of the article Prensky re-defines programming as 'the ability to control machines'. While the semantics make me cry (oh, fine, not really, at most they add another micro-twitch to the nervous tic I'm working on to increase my nerd cred) I agree completely with the message. The abillity to control our society's current, predominant technologies is vital for any individual.

Once upon a time, our latest technologies were zippers and velcro. Today, computer interfaces. We need to understand these in the same way we need to understand how to use a zipper; if we fail, we'll end up looking like a bit of a dunce.

As we may think: reaching conclusions we cannot find time to grasp

2010-10-19T16:06:00.000+08:00

Reading this;

The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers—conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

and this;

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

and this;

All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses—the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may be established more directly?

it is hard to believe As We May Think was written over 60 years ago.

Small companies shouldn't rely on support tickets

2010-09-16T12:57:00.002+08:00

Everything installed perfectly. Your system specifications are all up to scratch. Everything is fresh and new, and you can't wait to try out the new functionality. You open up the new plugin - bam. Failure. 404. Database not found. Choose your error. It has happened to us all.

You want a solution fast. You read the manual, you Google for similar problems. You submit a support ticket.

You wait. Sometimes, for weeks.

Support ticket systems can be very useful, especially when you are dealing with a huge customer base with problems spanning multiple areas of expertise. But if you're a company of 3, with one person doing all the support work, you might want to re-think your strategy.

It surprises me when I don't see small development companies using their forums. Most of them have one, and it is a place of tumbleweeds and broken dreams. There's usually even a board solely for reporting bugs and seeking support - but every requester is told to submit a ticket, regardless of how many hundreds of times the problem has been submitted.

If these most frequently asked questions were answered in public, a significant load could be taken off the back of your support person as many queries that would have become tickets are solved with a quick search of the forums.

Yes, there are users who are not technically savvy enough to use forums. In my experience, a little prompting from the UI can go a long way to make people confident enough to search forums, and pointing out that they exist in the first place.

When you are selling a software solution to a technically savvy audience, not using your forums is just ridiculous. People can provide highly detailed summaries of their problems. Users will often solve each other's problems, as I see all the time in the tech forums I frequent.

If you are a bootstrapped company, installing both a forum and a support ticket system and relying solely on the latter for support is a bad idea. Instead, let your users help each other, and stop having to copy and paste the same tired solution day after day to the list of people all having the same problem with your product. In the long run, you'll be glad you did.

The secret to making your Twitter account count

2010-08-24T20:41:00.007+08:00

Is there a difference between the way an organisation and an individual should conduct themselves on the internet? Both are projecting an identity. Both are aware of how they want to be seen, how people see them, and how their actions can influence the latter. Should they behave differently online?

Yes. They should. But don’t stop there. The distinction isn’t between whether you are an organisation or an individual. The distinction lies in the difference between what is successful, and what isn’t. And we all have different factors which determine our success.

Maybe your company considers success to be a ten percent increase on web subscriptions after changing the way you promote your videos online. Maybe you consider your personal interactions on a social networking site successful if at least 80% of the updates you see from your network are interesting or useful to you.

It is that end result, what you are online for in the first place, that should determine your approach – not your classification as an organisation, individual, animal or mineral.

I’m always leery when I hear advice that provides a single strategy for a single communication technology.

No matter where you are, there are only two rules to follow;

If it isn’t worth reading/watching, don’t post it, and
Don’t be a jerk

Everything else comes down to what your success criteria are. And everyone’s approach will be different.

Success on Twitter

This post was prompted by a staff member asking me what I thought of this article at Social Media Examiner. Was it good advice? Was it bad advice?

I agree that depth of interaction with your followers is key. As to breadth, I personally feel the same way about this as Derek Powazek feels about SEO. A good website gets a good ranking on Google because it

Is worth viewing, and
Isn’t being a jerk

That comes down to posting the right information, the right stories, for your audience. Posting quality. Posting relevant information. Posting unique information. And constructing your website in a standards-friendly, accessible way. If you do these things, you have optimised your website for search engines.

Sure, spammy sites might occasionally get a high rank for a day or two, but Google has developed some fierce techniques to keep content relevant – which is why they are so successful.

Twitter is the same. If your success metric is “get a lot of followers” – why? Get specific. What is the goal you are after? Too often I see company stakeholders focussing on the “how” at the expense of the “why”.

If you are running a Twitter account on techniques for painting lizards under 5cm long with non-toxic blue paint, you might have trouble attempting to gather as many followers as say, Bill Gates. You need a success metric that works for your niche, and your purposes. Are you trying to sell lizard-friendly paint, and you want to connect with other lizard-painting enthusiasts? If so, will dramatically increasing your followers (through white, black, or grey-hat methods) dramatically increase your sales. Is the investment in gaining a large amount of new followers worth the return to your business? (See: To follow or not to follow)

I won’t argue that reach isn’t important. Just that you need to stay focused on who you are reaching and why. And it is so easy for people to look at tools to increase their follower count and get carried away. (See: Seth Godin on online advertising click-throughs)

My organisation’s Twitter account follows other related organisations. We do not follow anyone falling outside of this category. If we did, would it make a difference to our success? Tricky to say. I do find, however, that good interaction, good writing and timely content makes more of a difference. (See: Twitter competitions and whether they’re worth the effort)(Alternatively, see: Feminist Hulk)

Recently I was followed by a natural health company in Perth, who must have stumbled across my tweets via TweetBeep, hashtags or just by location searches. I’m interested in the products this company deliver, but had never heard of them before. I visited their website and determined that if I ever ahd need of their products in the future, I’d certainly consider shopping with them.

But I didn’t follow them back. Why would I? All they posted were links to their newest products and small facts about their organisation. I get much higher-quality health information from other sources, so I have no need to add to my information overload by following them. However, if you measured their success by introducing new potential customers to their brand, they were successful. If they only cared about who followed back, they’d be missing the point. (See: Influence vs Participation on Twitter)

As far as the recommended tools on the SM Examiner article go, there are so many third-party apps, widgets, web services and browser plugins for Twitter that really, it’s much of a muchness. They will come and go – again, find the one that best suits your needs. I use Tweetdeck, Tweetbeep, Echofon and Twidroid for the most part, but there are many tools out there.

So. Was the article bad advice? Good advice?

Cop-out ending

It was just advice. In the end, your business/personal goals should drive your strategy – that, and following the golden rules: make what you say count, and follow the rules of etiquette that belong to the system you are using. (If you don’t know them, LEARN THEM). Ignorance may be excused, but really, it’s not a good look.

…Unless that’s the look you were going for.

A question of erasure

2010-03-11T13:15:00.001+08:00

When you link to an event via blog post or Facebook, will it matter to you if that link ceases to work a few weeks later? How about a few years?

Is the description page for an event that happened in 2005 going to be worth preserving in 2020? Is it data glut or a useful historical resource?

Today I received a message along these lines from our web content editor;

"There's something wrong with our website - Google searches on our events turn up ones that have happened as well as ones we are planning!"

We don’t delete old events from our website, we just send them to the archives. That way any external links to the events will still take visitors somewhere useful. We doubt people are going to be very interested in reading the details of a single event years on, but we figure it is better to preserve the information for posterity.

This does mean occasionally older events outrank upcoming events in Google searches. All of them have their dates and years in the title or meta description, so at a glance it is fairly easy to see which ones are current and which are past. The latest event is always sitting at #2 or #3 at worst.

To my mind, this is not a major issue. We know that the majority of event page hits are from our own homepage, then our Facebook fan page, then Twitter. Search engines come in fourth or fifth. Whether that's due to people preferring to use the first methods to find out about our events, or whether people are using search engines but are unable to use the results effectively, is something we would have to find out ourselves, however.

Searchability aside, the question of archiving old events remains. Is it worth keeping those pages online? We could update them with photos and info about the event once it passed – although realistically speaking our organisation lacks the staff to generate that volume of content - our editor has her hands full just getting upcoming events and articles online. If she started composing post-event write-ups for everything we run, something else would need to go.

I think it is worthwhile to keep the old pages accessible, so long as user testing supports my interpretation of our web analytics. Then we just need to do a small amount of internal education to make sure other staff are aware of why it’s okay not to rank #1 on every possible search people can perform for an event. It’s important to do this, otherwise people begin to create KPIs that don’t really connect with what actually determines online success. Poorly chosen KPIs tend to lead to a false sense of security when in fact we should be worrying, and a false state of emergency when in fact projects are achieving fantastic results – just not results quantified by the KPIs.

If this topic interests you, you might enjoy Zeldman’s article on posthumous hosting and digital culture for a take on data generated by individuals. The strategies archivists are using to attempt to preserve digital information is also interesting – the National Archives of Australia have come up with some great archival tools.

Share your information architecture experience

2010-03-04T14:24:00.035+08:00

Donna Spencer is writing her next book, titled A Practical Guide to Information Architecture.

I've read Donna's book on card sorting, published by Rosenfeld Media. It was a very useful text, and I'm anticipating I'll enjoy her IA book even more. If you've ever attended one of Donna's workshops, you'll know she utterly immerses herself in the subject. She explains things clearly, simply, and effectively.

I'm particularly looking forward to reading about the common navigation patterns Donna has documented, and the best techniques for communicating IA structures internally.

The book is largely done, but Donna is now looking for examples and case studies to illustrate some of the points she covers in each chapter. Are you able to help out with an experience of your own? You only need to write around 400-500 words, and Donna will include your name, role, website and so on. It's a great opportunity to be a part of what will certainly be a fantastic resource.

Looking forward to seeing some familiar and new names and some great case studies.

User testing in the museum - gorilla optional

2010-03-02T17:53:00.058+08:00

We're in the really exciting stages of re-developing the museum's information architecture at present. I haven't written much about it until now just because I've been so busy organising all of the testing sessions and co-ordinating the volunteers and full-time staff who are helping out with the project, but here's a little background. I'm hoping I can share some useful information about our research process when things are a little quieter.

The background
Our website has evolved over the many years it has existed - in the early days, staff would come to the web developer's desk, dump a large stack of paper in front of him, and then ask if he could "put these on the internet, please".

The stacks of paper tend to be emails and PDFs these days, and the website has moved from a pure HTML and CSS implementation to a nifty open-source CMS. The stacks of information just keep on coming, though, and over the last 10-15 years sections and categories have been tacked on as needed.

So, early last year as part of my web training and documentation role I began to educate museum staff about the basics of usability and IA in a series of lectures and training sessions. This grew into the Web Advocates group, comprised of about 15 staff members across different parts of the organisation, who meet regularly to learn new technologies and keep communications open between IT and the rest of the company.

We're about to begin the user testing stage now, which I will be leading though some of the Web Advocates group will sit in on the sessions so they can get a better idea of how 'real' visitors use the museum's website. I'm really looking forward to it as this will be my first opportunity to test out the Silverback software, which we won a free license for at the last Edge of the Web conference courtesy of Matt Balara (thanks, Matt!)

Once those finish, then the team will move to building new navigation prototypes based on my analysis of the results of the testing sessions. Then, we start testing the prototypes. Most likely we will be using Balsamiq for this part.

The process has gone smoothly so far so hopefully we'll get some great results from the testing. Thanks to all those who will be participating in the sessions. I'm going to have fun running Silverback - I'm a PC (and Linux) user, and while I know my way around the command line on a modern Mac thanks to my Linux experience, the GUI itself makes me twitchy. So this should be interesting.

Yes, and in my imagination everything is made of hamburgers

2010-01-21T13:56:00.003+08:00

I’m currently reading an article on a social media ‘expert’ blog. Very catchy name, this blog has. Very hip. Very now. There’s even assonance.

The author mentions that someone recently asked them what percentage of Twitter accounts were commercial businesses. His next paragraph begins with something akin to “So I had a think about it for a minute and then told him it was X%”

You had a think about it.

You had. A think. About it.

Sometimes I celebrate those who have been successful without going through the expense of tertiary education and have achieved great success through self-education and dedication. Those able to succeed without having the processes of academia drilled into them. Sometimes people prove that they can use their own initiative to make observations about the world that contribute to human understanding and progress in ways that delight and intrigue us.

Sometimes, people pull things out of their posteriors.

Beware the man with the Social Media Stick who begins to rock back and forth whenever he hears the words “scientific method”.

Originally posted at Fish Out of Order: Daily Edition

Spinning spiders from cobwebs

2009-12-18T19:17:00.000+08:00

I will be taking two weeks off from work starting on the 24th of December, and I intend to do a lot of blog house-keeping.

I've already started, in fact - I have moved my daily posts over to a subdomain run on Posterous. Have a look at the postings so far - look at how lovely and minimalist the layout is. I'm growing rather fond of Posterous.

More changes in the works. Maybe I'll even get time to code the layout I designed six months ago. Who's to say. Who's to say.

As far as spiders and cobwebs are concerned, I have always liked the idea of making a spiderweb pattern from spiders themselves. Just, er, not personally. Some of the spiders would take offense, I imagine.

If you read one thing today

2009-12-14T16:16:00.003+08:00

Read this short piece on the nature of the social group.

And if you watch one thing today - watch this man in a chicken suit play "What is Love?" It is truly the pinnacle of 2009.

That and the "surpised kitten" video, naturally.

BITING POLITICAL COMMENTARY

2009-12-11T17:37:00.003+08:00

Dear Ask Wendy,

I have a problem. You wouldn't think of it to look at me - I've nearly paid off my mortgage on my 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1 en suite house (now I just need the family to fill it!) I've got one hell of a hot car, and I'm just about to put in my own home theatre system.

You'd think I would be happy, but instead, I am sad. I am very sad, Wendy.

You see, I have heard that our government is spending my tax dollars to create new policy about climate change. I hear Kevin Rudd and representatives from the other states of Australia are FLYING over to Copenhagen to discuss a policy for reducing carbon emissions. Can you BELIEVE it? FLYING.

How can they be serious about climate change when they are sending so many people over there to discuss it? Surely, the 0.00000000000000000001 cents I am contributing to this flight could be spent better elsewhere!

Don't they know that FLYING in a PLANE creates a huge amount of carbon pollution whatsits?! They are clearly only doing this so that they can have a holiday with Climate Change as an excuse. In fact I think the entire thing was created just so politicians could take holidays.

You see, I believe everyone in the world is as self-serving, greedy and scheming as myself. I have also read a study that when human beings see others being blamed for something, they are more inclined to blame that thing too, regardless of how sensible it is!

And I think the Australian people are being blamed, Wendy. And now we are suffering - if they introduce new taxes to help reduce emissions, I will get hit more heavily than poor people because I earn more! Which doesn't seem fair at all. And it might set me back on that new barbecue I was going to have installed at my place.

Sacrificing even the smallest amount of my own curious living standards for the good of others is inherently repulsive to me. What can I do to stop KRUDD and his cronies from ruining my life forever with their climate change policies?

- Trouble in paradise

Dear Trouble,

I would write an article which grossly over-simplifies the situation, and misleads people about its nature entirely. Then, I would only publish comments on said article that drum up further hysteria.

Oh, wait. Someone already did that for you. Never mind. That's a shame. I just love writing those.

FIGHT THA POWER BROTHERS,
Wendy

Three healthy dinner options

2009-12-10T21:17:00.003+08:00

A Kit Kat
Two Kit Kats
Three Kit Kats and some pickles

Hmmm. Not doing so well on this one.

Three healthy dinner FOPtions

A Kit Kat consumed while wearing a monocle
A Kit Kat consumed while wearing a top hat
A Kit Kat consumed while wearing a top hat AND a monocle

In the end, I made a sandwich.

Why are you here?

2009-12-09T20:20:00.003+08:00

Back in the mid to late 90s, my search engine of choice was InfoSeek.

As InfoSeek never returned any relevant hits for my favourite film of all time, I decided to make a website for it. I spent hours after school using their computers to take screen captures from a VHS copy of the film I had taped from broadcast TV. If you wanted high res (640*480!) captures, wave files from the film, or if for some odd reason you wanted to read a teen's take on how an artificial intelligence might think, my website was the place to go.

Even the Wayback Machine wouldn't bring it back now, but far better things have come along since.

More than a decade later, I have this website. So far I have just been using it to get myself into the habit of writing regularly, regardless of how inspired I feel. The public nature of it makes me less inclined to slack off.

But what am I doing here? Other than navel-gazing, of course.

I miss the bad old days where every site I hit was either academic in nature or a great storytelling experiment. Or an 'under construction' page. Marketers hadn't really gotten the hang of the web, then.

That said, in those days most organisations I searched for didn't have a web page, and instead I had to wait to call them during office hours to find out what I needed. And the ability to buy anything online was still a ways off.

I don't miss the blink tag, either.

So.

There's a lot to be said for the current state of the web.

My nostalgia still drives me, however. I hope that eventually I'll be able to capture some of the unfettered weirdness, some of the great stories, that seemed to be easier to find back when bevels were cool. The stuff that used to get put up before people started fretting about whether Google knew who they were.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

Japanese Kit-Kat taste test

2009-12-08T22:00:00.004+08:00

Today I was able to sample four different kinds of Japanese Kit Kats. Rose, Ginger Ale, Red Bean, and Baked Sweet Potato. I purchased them from J-List.

Red Bean was the clear winner by a mile. If they had used dark chocolate for that flavour, I'd have to add an extra few miles onto that. A nice rich flavour that definitely captured the taste of red bean amidst the chocolate.

Rose takes second place. It was like eating potpourri covered in milk chocolate - should bring back memories of your grandmother, if your grandmother liked to feed you her perfume bottles.

The sweet potato flavour could have been awesome but the sweet white chocolate made it difficult to discern the potato taste. Ginger Ale was pleasant, but again, needed dark chocolate.

This is what happens when I am out of inspiration for my daily blog post. You get chocolate. Or I get chocolate, and then tell you about how I ate it all and how you aren't getting any.

Oh, stop looking at me like that.

Web fu style: form of a grapefruit

2009-12-07T21:24:00.005+08:00

Search engine friendly titles are for wimps.

I say this with a grin, but you clench your abdominal muscles in fear, because you have heard the rumours; that I trained under the secret Web Master centuries ago to learn the ultimate web-fu style: Double Death Ultra Dragon Mega Menu Killswitch Combo Harvesterscript.

After besting my master and completing my training, I have wandered the land taking stock of all I see, casting judgment on none, but always watching... always waiting. Some say that when I cross over the earth on a cold autumn morning, that you can see the weight of my feet crystallise tiny floating divs on the ground below.

Others say that when I pass server rooms, LED displays glowing fitfully in the night, all the machines reboot simultaneously, their operating systems replaced with an inscrutable interface that plays like a text adventure with many, many endings.

A single wrong move and you could be sleeping with the grave-fish... but you have come here to learn, and learn you will.

As you kneel in the snow, balancing two servers on either shoulder, a support manual dangling from your teeth, I sit and sip my tea on the cold rocks above you, and secretly, I smile.

Itchy feet

2009-12-06T11:49:00.003+08:00

Every day, that urge to just drop everything, grab a backpack, withdraw all my savings and travel around the world (or at least to Japan, Turkey and NZ) gets a little bit stronger.

I want to explore, but how do you do that when you're in front of a screen in a windowless room 5 days a week and public transport slows to a halt on the weekends?

Everything is just so easy. So unchallenging. Sure, we have problems. Part of our house burned down. The cat likes to chew poisonous things. I've had to deal with two stalkers in the last two years, one of whom is still causing me stress, because he's the stabby-go-postal kind. Given that my partner is a full time student, we're low on income too.

But these problems aren't interesting. Stressful. Strengthening, maybe. But not interesting.

I don't want to be challenged just by how much stress I can take. I want intellectual challenges, social challenges, the chance to use my practical skills.

But the logistics of doing anything else overwhelms me. I just don't know where to begin. I don't even know the questions to ask.

I'm going to keep on asking until I find the right ones.

Giving without clutter

2009-12-05T18:04:00.006+08:00

Today I gave the best birthday present ever. It was a Quenda.

I'm tired of giving things that may or may not be of use, things that end up in landfill or at the bottom of cupboards. I want to give things that mean something.

If you are looking for inspiration on clutterless presents, here are some of my suggestions;

Adopt an animal at Kanyana Wildlife - When you adopt an animal you receive a certificate of adoption including a photo, an information leaflet and the knowledge that your contribution goes towards the care and rehabilitation of a special kind of Australian animal back into the wild.
Adopt an endangered animal - Especially the Sumatran Tigers, okay? Okay? *stare*
Oxfam Unwrapped - buy seeds, literacy classes, start a business...
Kiva - loans that change lives
Greenpeace Giving - Many animals and conservation projects to choose from
World Vision Australia - Haven't you always wanted to buy a toilet in your friend's name? Haven't you? Really?
Red Cross Gifts
Water Aid Australia
Fund a creative project (Kickstarter)
Give the gift of life to homeless, neglected and abused dogs and cats in Thailand (Soidog)

Those are just a few options, there's far more out there. Right now I'm a struggling working stiff, but one day I hope to help these causes with more than just money.

For now, these seem like much better presents than... I don't know, an ice-cream container full of Bombardier Beetles. Which is what I normally give people.

Secrets on the internet

2009-12-04T21:13:00.004+08:00

I love finding hidden places in websites.

These days most of the hidden 'easter eggs' I find tend to do with the alt attributes of images – the text you see when you hover your mouse over a picture.

But man, back in the 90s, I was finding hidden things all over the place.

I love it when I roll over a seemingly unimportant graphic and I see entertaing alt text. (The SEO-obsessed masses might take offense at hiding non-keyword messages in images, but honestly - shoosh. Anyway, it's better than "left_corner_gaphic_4.jpg"...decorative elements being a popular place to hide 'secret' messages). Obviously a screen reader can make this a little less hidden...

I also love it when I view a website’s source code and see the developer has left comments - relevant or not. Or hidden an extra message in text the same colour as the background. Or a hyplink on an innocuous block of colour that leads to a ‘secret’ bonus page. Changing a URL based on onsite clues to find a bonus directory.

Then again, these days a lot of 404 pages are exciting enough to feel like an easter egg on their own...

Sure, Google can index your easter egg content, allowing searchers to hit it without going through your mysterious web trail (though norobots.txt or other methods can prevent this of course).

I'm not talking about accessibility standards or optimisation or anything you'd expect me to be behind as a developer. I'm just talking about having a little fun.

Yes, I know. Hidden content isn’t appropriate everywhere.

On a personal site, however… I only spent about two hours building this Blogger skin when I started Fish out of Order, and I’ve been meaning to come back and clean it up. I have two weeks off coming up in January… maybe I’ll add some hidden surprises then.

While I'm at it - Dinosaur Comics has some of my favourite alt text messages ever.

Also, this easter egg will cover your website in glitter when a user enters the Konami code. Go forth and Cornify.

Crawling floor staff, hidden doors

2009-12-03T21:51:00.009+08:00

Even though I have worked in the same building for six years, I haven’t stopped looking for secret doors.

While now I spend most of my time in a small windowless room at the back of the building as a full-time web developer, it was not always so. My first role was as a science presenter and general operations staff. It was my part-time job while I studied at university. Floor staff get to see a lot of hidden doors.

Two years into my work I discovered a service door leading to a narrow crawlspace behind our rotating perception tunnel. That crawlspace was the only way to retrieve shoes, hats, mobile phones, and anything else visitors lost over the edges of the safety rail. It was a good thing I found it, because the very next week I ended up slithering along the crawlspace several times. There is something about a rotating space (and we have had several) that makes people want to drop things into it.

After your wriggly journey down the tunnel to prod a long, curved stick at Nokias and Nikes, you would become ridiculously itchy. There was a lot of dust under that exhibit, and doubtless a lot of dust mites. All of which was rubbed deeply into the front of your uniform during your travels beneath the perception tunnel.

And every time a visitor came to us looking to retrieve their lost items, I was always first to volunteer.

I got to go somewhere few people could go. That was worth the dust and the itching.

Earlier secret places...

Along a certain part of the Swan River are some limestone caves, some partially underwater.

You can get to them by swimming, or by boat, or by sneaking between a gap in the fences around some of the bush to the south, as I did.

The caves were one of my favourite secret places as a child. Sometimes you would see evidence of others visiting the area, but I never saw another soul. I walked along the rocks, snorkled between rocky islands and into the cold water inside the caves, and enjoyed hearing nothing but the water lapping against the cliff face, and voices carried over the river from distant boats.

I want to see a lot more secret places before my life is done. I’m not sure where to look next. But I’m sure I’ll know them when I see them.

Do you know of something hidden and interesting that would be worth seeking out? Even if the seeking covered you in dust mites? I’m up for the challenge.

Footnote
Little did I know, within a few hours of writing this entry, I was to discover a new mysterious place...

Lorem ipsum dollar, amirite?

2009-12-02T19:55:00.008+08:00

Lots of informative websites out there filled with interesting green smoothie recipes, but there was definitely a lot of the "send $5000 to my uncle in Nigeria and he will personally prescribe you the ultimate green smoothie for your blood type" sites out there. It was a source of some amusement.

My favourite was the one whose privacy policy was just lorem ipsum text. The site had been around for at least a year and a half, so no excuses there.

Have never understood the success of sites that have have about 60 pages of text on the one page with "thousands of success stories from real people" and gigantic red text saying things like "GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOUR LIFE 4X MORE SUPER AMAZING FOR REAL" - it all feels like a relic of a simpler time. But, like spam email, someone must be giving these guys money, otherwise they wouldn't still be doing it.

Anyway, now that I have my bucket of lettuce, I'm ready to start my 14 day Green Smoothie Challenge. The theory seems sound. It might not work for me. But there are a lot of people singing its praises who aren't (discernably) making a direct profit from it, so I'll give it a shot.

I've created a meal plan for the next fortnight with my smoothies included, as well as a spot to record activity. Will try to update it through the week as some things will doubtless need to be altered.

So. Guinea pig mode beginning in 5...4...3...2...1...

A green smoothie in the hand is worth two on the internet

2009-12-01T20:44:00.002+08:00

I'm run down. My insomnia always gets worse in the summertime. When I'm tired, I get hungrier than usual, and crave energy-dense, processed foods. My activity level drops off as the sleeplessness increases. I've gone from 1-2 coffees a week to three a day in order to stay focused during work hours.

I've got a dance performance coming up soon, and I need to get some proper sleep in or I'll be spinning off of the stage!

So, I've been researching new tactics to help me sleep. Enter the Green Smoothie.

A green smoothie is a drink made from blended leafy greens, plus fruit to make it more palatable. The idea is that if you have one for breakfast, most of your body's nutritional needs are met early on, enabling you to feel more energetic for the rest of the day.

Feeling better during day = less stress = chance of more sleep. I'm going to trial the 'Green Smoothie Challenge' for a fortnight and see if it helps me any.

I've never tried any of these new-fangled 'detoxes' you kids are always going on about, so we'll see how I deal with this. I'll be sure to post the results at the end of the fortnight.

Sine flu: It could be terminal

2009-11-30T17:24:00.005+08:00

I blame my last post and this tweet for the awful, awful joke you see here.

I can't be the only one to make this joke, can I?

Can I?

Oh. Apparently not.

Carry on, then.

Put your heart in my shopping cart

2009-11-30T11:40:00.000+08:00

I approach mathematics the same way I would approach a shark. I appreciate the raw beauty of it, the power.

And I keep a healthy distance away at all times.

Maths is awesome, don’t get me wrong. Unfortunately the majority of the notes I wrote during my high school maths class were not actually on topic - I’ve been struggling to keep up ever since.

The problem I do have with maths is people using the results of mathematicians’ hard work without understanding it. Interpreting data in ways that on the surface make sense but with a deeper inspection yield entirely different conclusions.

A related gripe is the way increasing numbers is used as an indicator for success without any consideration of human factors. Last week a co-worker read out an article about how video advertising increases ROI. The reasoning behind this is that people tend to stay longer on a page with video ads than they do regular banner ads.

From experience, a lot of video ads force you to watch them before you see the content you want to see. My partner and I both get up, leave the PC to grab a beverage and return when it is time for the thing we actually came to see.

Basing things on my own experience is, of course, not scientific, yet neither is connecting “they were on the page longer” with the perception that this will ultimately increase sales. No actual solid data was given in the article my co-worker read to prove this case – it all seemed to rest on the perception that more clicks, longer pageviews == more money.

To me, it feels like “increasing numbers” is a lazy marketeer’s way out. You’re doing something that might look good on paper, but could ultimately mean nothing without proper investigation.

I’m an emotional shopper. When I feel an emotional connection to a product or seller, I buy.

When they post engaging, personality-imbued, useful tweets about their product – I step closer to buying. When they make an effort to be involved with causes their demographic cares about – I step closer to buying. When they respond in a friendly and helpful manner to messages I post on their Facebook Fan Page, their blog – I step closer to buying.

This all requires an investment of time from the seller – rather than the relatively quick tasks of tallying of numbers of clicks at the end of a month. I can see the appeal of using it as a key performance indicator.

When an ad stops me from watching the show I want to see, or worse, pops up in my face while I’m halfway through reading a blog article – even if I was after the product you are selling – I make the emotional decision not to buy from you. If your video auto-plays… shame on you. Shame. You are uninvited from all of my birthdays, forever. Take that, faceless advertiser!

Postscript…

May have to re-write this article later. The whole one-post-a-day-for-a-year thing means I don’t have a lot of time to edit. In fact, I don’t really edit at all… Just get the ideas out, and move on. I’d be interested to hear how other people go about their purchasing decisions, particularly online ones.

And yes, posting once a day is increasing a number as an indicator for success rather than trying for high quality, infrequent posting – but right now I’m attempting to ingrain a habit, so in this case it is a successful indicator. Take that, faceless readers! (All 14 of you)

The words "early onset" come to mind

2009-11-28T08:48:00.002+08:00

Today I walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. I placed the cup down in front of the kettle, stared blankly at it for a moment. Then I turned, left the kitchen, and spent the next thirty minutes working in my study.

Eventually, my partner made the coffee for us.

I don't know if I am a daydreamer because I have so few opportunities to dream at night, or whether it is just an innate part of my mental machinery.

Maybe the answer is at the bottom of this cup of coffee.