User experience

Sometimes i wonder if people ever bother to try and use their websites before they push them live? I wonder if they ever experience the same level of frustration i do when using their website?

I have been thinking about this a lot as the web takes over my life more and more.

Brand new sites have some leeway in my mind as hopefully the User Experience will improve as they learn how people use the site.

Renovated websites annoy me the most as i already have a relationship with the old site, then all of a sudden everything is different and i now need to form a new relationship with the new site. I have to work out how to do all those things i used to just know how to do. I cant think of one website that i use regularly that has a better new website than the old one. Examples include

ANZ - In the pacific the new site is so slow it is painful
Hell - In fact for whatever reason they reverted back to their old site (yay)
Facebook - I had to ask people how to log out on the new site, not a good start.
Stuff - I still hate the new site and totally wish i could use the old site still...

The best renovations are the ones you don't notice, trade me is great at this... slight twinges here and there, all add up to a major makeover but done over a length of time it is not even noticed.

Maybe i might start sharing my thoughts on the sites i use... well see.

Blah Blah Blah

Hmmm

So we cleaned the Spa out today. I cant say it was much fun because the draining hose is broken and we have to do it by hand...

The good thing about spending all this time cleaning the spa out is that i am now really looking forward to my spa tonight and as soon as the Spa is hot enough, i am in there!

More photo's of the cats

I have uploaded some more photos to Tony's Flickr account if anyone wants to see them!

click here to see them

Pictures of the kittens

Here are a few photos of the kittens from over the last few weeks.

They are very good at working out if something is food or not, especially through plastic bags. They then rip the sh!t out of the bags until they access the goodies they are after! We have learnt very quickly... nothing food like can be left on the bench!

Vacuum sealed chicken jerky treats were the latest casualty!





But you can't stay mad for long when they are this cute!

Kittens.....

So, I have finally manged to get my kittens, well little cats i guess,

We went up to the Kapiti SPCA yesterday and found two adorable 5 month old kittens... I felt really really good about taking these cats home... not only are they slightly older and therefore not as easy to re-home, but we are helping other homeless cats be looked after and also have a chance to find a home!


It was really easy to name George, he felt like a George, but i did have to think twice about it as it is also my giraffes name, so now we have two George's in the family, but i don't think we will get confused.




Izzy was a lot harder... we thought of Poppy, Holly, Mildred, Hazel, Saffy etc, but ended up with Izzy as i think i am a bit of a Grey's freak!

I will upload more photo's as we go, and once we have Internet at home, as sitting at mums doing this is not so much fun!

I hate the new Stuff

Stuff have released a new version of their website today, and i hate it.

I really enjoyed being able to quickly and easily see the news of the day at a glance, and without any hassle.

Here are my main gripes with the new layout

1. Their new main page is so cluttered with ads, sponsored links and pictures that slide away or are in your face that i cannot work out what i am meant to be looking at, my eyes are drawn to so much crap that i cannot process any of it
   
2. I cannot read the text as easily as i could before and find myself having to up size it - which you can only do once you have selected a news story to read, not sure if this is because they have reduced the size of the text or just the new Font is so hard on the eye.
   
3. The colour scheme on the "tool" bar is distracting and ugly (although beauty is in the eye of the beholder
   
4. Once you have entered a section of the website ie) business or technology, you cannot move between sections without going back to the main page
5. It is heaps slower to the load pages....
   
6. To use any of the customisable features you have to "log in" i have enough sites that i have to log into that i truly do not want another
7. I have to scroll miles down the page to see the national news headlines, and only two of them have a small amount of writing under the title to give you a feel for the article, I used to be able to scan these and know if i wanted to read the article or not
8. It is so so cluttered. I know i mentioned this in point 1 but it annoys me so much it deserved a second mention
9. I miss the headline pictures that faded in and out... i always looked at them to see what the headlines where for each section of the paper... now i have to scroll all the way down the page to each section to see them
10. I hate it when Advertising gets in the way of the purpose of a site... Advertising is a necessary evil to pay for a website, but when it distracts you from reading the news with sponsored links etc all over the show, then you know you have gone to far!

Stuff was voted the best news website for several year in a row (or something like that) if it was already the most popular as it was, so then why would you change it? I can understand the need for refreshing screens and updating to keep with the times, but that could have been done with minor upgrades that would have gone largely un-noticed, now the site looks more like all the other news websites, the ones that i didn't like which is why i read stuff.... does anyone know of a better news website i can use, as stuff no longer works for me :(

Working at the weekend

I decided to have a little break from putting together Audit work papers and write a little blog on working at the weekends.

Whenever you get into work early in the morning, you always get so much more done in the time before anyone else is i,n than what you can get done all day... working weekends is slightly different

Here are some things i noted working today

1. I have had to turn some music on as i actually cannot stand just how quiet it is here with no one else around, an hour was OK but after that you start to go a little mad
   
2. I am pondering more on little things that i would normally just let slide as i wouldn't have the time to even think about it let alone ponder
3. I am quite easily distracted, but with no one here to have a short chat with i find myself looking for things to entertain me which inevitably ends up taking more of my time than a quick chat would
4. There are more road blocks, if i need a question answered i cannot just ask someone, i either have to try and scrawl the Internet looking for an answer or wait till Monday to have the question answered
5. If you need permission to do something (unfortunately there are still things that i do that i need to check with people first) you can't get it so you can't do it.
6. Lastly it is hard to stay motivated, no quick chats no smiles no "good job" or "can i help".... you are all on your own

So as i get back into it, i do believe i have done far more work today than i would have gotten done during the week....but, it's lonely working the weekend :(