The Oatmeal Does UI
Wed, Jan 4th 2012 7:08a Chris Blatnick Unless you are a little squeamish about bad language, you should check out the latest offering from The Oatmeal: "How to make your shopping cart suck less". While he uses some blue humor, there are very valid UI design points that he points out, not only for shopping carts, but for form design in general. It's worth a few minutes of your time...and funny too! [read] Keywords: blogger
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Don't Assume...Your UI Should Help Guide, Not Hinder
Tue, Mar 2nd 2010 6:08p Chris Blatnick Today I was working with an internal system. I was filling out a web-based form and got to a required field in which I could not enter any data. It was rather annoying and at the time I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I knew I was probably working on one too many things at once, so I left it to come back and try to figure it out later. Sure enough I did, but even on second glance it wasn't obvious. The sad thing was, I had filled out this form once before and had the same problem, bu [read] Keywords: application
blogger
interface
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See All Of Your Facebook Friends
Thu, Feb 11th 2010 6:33p Chris Blatnick Just a quick public service message for you Facebook users out there. Most people have received the new user interface by now. I only just received it myself, so I haven't lived with it long enough to render judgment. However, one of the things I noticed right away (besides the fact that they broke the Blackberry app for a few days...grrrr) was that I was not seeing all of my friends' status updates. So, after remembering what they did last time, I checked and indeed they throttled back the nu [read] Keywords: blackberry
blogger
facebook
interface
Folder Name Issue Causing Java UI Rendering Problem In Notes 8 Mail File
Fri, Jan 8th 2010 2:54p Chris Blatnick I was working with one of my customers and was told about an interesting problem. They are currently in the process of upgrading to Notes 8.5.1 and so far, most of the client upgrades have been nice and smooth. One user had an unusual issue that was causing a bit of angst. After being upgraded and getting the new mail template, most of his folders were not visible in the UI. Here's what it looked like. Notice anything odd? A quick check using File - Go To confirmed that the folders were indee [read] Keywords: admin
notes
archive
blogger
database
development
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java
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Changes Ahead For Interface Matters
Fri, Dec 18th 2009 6:51a Chris Blatnick The winds of change are blowing here at Interface Matters and in my opinion are way, way overdue. The only excuse I have is lack of time to devote to these changes (or at least lack of desire to devote the time since other things have been occupying my attention of late). I have been wanting to make some changes here for quite some time, and as the new year rolls around, it's probably as good a time as any to make the leap. First, I want Interface Matters to expand beyond a single voice. This [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
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notes client
xpages blogger
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On Productivity: My Paper Processing Workflow
Thu, Dec 17th 2009 8:44a Chris Blatnick I've always been a fan of performing tasks as efficiently as possible and eliminating the drudgery of those tasks that don't add a lot of value to my work or personal life. One of those tasks which is a necessary evil is the maintenance of paper-based documents. Everyone has them...bills that need to be paid, bank statements, tax documents, owner's manuals, receipts. As much as possible, many of us have tried to digitize these things so we don't receive them as paper in the first place. I'v [read] Keywords: collaboration
lotus
notes
application
blogger
development
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Forgive Them...For They Know Not What They Do...With Your App
Tue, Dec 8th 2009 1:49p Chris Blatnick If you've been following along with the home game, then you are aware that there are many excellent UI patterns that you can use to improve the user experience you deliver to your users in your applications. Today, I wanted to explore another simple yet powerful pattern: "Forgiving Formats". This pattern is perfect for those applications in which speed to data entry is key (or at least desirable in most circumstances). I know in many of the business applications I have encountered over [read] Keywords: lotusscript
notes
application
applications
blogger
database
google
interface
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Sweet Drag and Drop Actions In the Lotus Notes Client
Sat, Nov 21st 2009 9:22a Chris Blatnick I've mentioned once or twice before that I really like using drag and drop. Although it is often a bit slower than other actions and you sometimes have to show the user how to do it, I find it to be a preferred method for executing certain tasks in an application. Lotus Notes itself offers many cool and useful drag and drop actions. I've been showing end users some of these for a long time, and always there are folks that had no clue drag and drop actions were even available. I wanted to share [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusphere
notes
notes client
rich-text
sametime
application
blogger
database
desktop
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RSS Feeds For Notes Documents
Mon, Nov 16th 2009 8:14p Chris Blatnick Yes...I haven't fallen off the earth. Thanks for asking. Just spending a lot of time learning other parts of the Lotus collab stack and having to crack open the books to study up on admin topics leaves little time for development stuff anymore. I still plan to change that. :-) I thought I'd throw this very simple but highly useful tip out here because I have found that not everyone is aware of it. In fact, I was asked about this topic the other day. The question at hand: Can I create an RSS [read] Keywords: admin
lotus
notes
notes client
blogger
development
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Lotus Knows...It's Time To Do It Again!
Mon, Sep 21st 2009 6:46a Chris Blatnick It's an exciting day to be sure, as the Lotus Knows campaign officially kicks off here in the United States. It's been a long time since Lotus has had a highly visible nationwide campaign and it's awesome to be on the inside now to see it begin to take off. Lotusknows.com is now (kinda) live and it's pretty cool. It officially launches tomorrow, but I know people started looking for it as early as this weekend. It is certainly is different than your normal IBM site. Of course, a big part [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusphere
blogger
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I'm Already Stressed Enough, Thank You...
Tue, Jun 2nd 2009 6:27a Chris Blatnick As I was once again forced to use one of the most horrible software products I have ever laid eyes on, it occurred to me that it's worth repeating one of my favorite mantras, even at the risk of sounding like a broken record (do any of you kids even know what that means? ;-) --> Simplicity in your design is your goal. If you can get to the point where the interface "disappears" and the user can just get in the flow and do their work, then you've really got something there. So many of the [read] Keywords: application
applications
blogger
enterprise
interface
Cheap UI Trick: Add Whitespace With Borders
Wed, Mar 25th 2009 11:46a Chris Blatnick When I'm building a new UI or composing a document to send to an audience, I like simple elements that make a big difference in the final presentation. I thought I'd share a trick that I use to add whitespace to designs when using graphics with wrapping text in Lotus Notes. If you've not tried it before, first let me point out that you can paste or import an image into a Notes form/document and set the properties of the image so that text can wrap left or right. This is analogous to using f [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
notes client
blogger
css
properties
13
The Inaugural GTD Summit...Did It Change The Way The World Works?
Mon, Mar 23rd 2009 10:11a Chris Blatnick After attending the GTD Global Summit a little over a week ago, my mind is still swirling with all kinds of thoughts. I wanted to write a final post to close things out earlier, but I hit the road to visit customers literally a couple of hours after I arrived back from San Francisco. Now that I've been back for a day, it's time to process my inboxes, update my lists and get some things done. One of the main items was to write this post, so here we go. First, I'll try to distill down some of m [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
applications
blogger
community
mac
twitter
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Wrap up and final comments from GTD Global Summit
Fri, Mar 13th 2009 5:49p Chris Blatnick Always loved to watch Peter Drucker on stage. Admits to not being able to live up to what he did. Great tip to relax quickly: lower your standards! ;-) Shout out to the audience about how we're all "crazy like him". 88,000 people now following David Allen (@gtdguy) on Twitter. Amazing...22,000 in the last couple of days. All that from zero in a few weeks. What he didn't hear during the conference: That anyone has the silver bullet. Structured thinking can make profound change in you [read] Keywords: blogger
twitter
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Best Practices to Good Habits: Can I Make GTD Stick?
Fri, Mar 13th 2009 3:16p Chris Blatnick Live blogging from the GTD Global Summit. Panelists: Meg Edwards, Dean Hering, Alan Nelson, Jim Whitton Moderator: Danny Bader First hearing about the panelists and how they got started with using the GTD methodology. Hearing common themes throughout the conference such as "it's easy to fall off the wagon, but easy to get back on as well" and "the weekly review is the hard but essential part of GTD" Why keep it going? We know why...but let's talk about how to keep it going? "The B [read] Keywords: blogger
blogging
email
workspace
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David Allen: Making It All Work At The GTD Global Summit
Fri, Mar 13th 2009 10:34a Chris Blatnick Day two is starting off with a presentation by David Allen on Making It All Work. This will be another live blogging session in an attempt to capture the thoughts as they fly. Opening video testimonials (Evan Taubenfeld). Well spoken and interesting to see that creative types can embrace GTD too. Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer & Motivational Speaker gives testimonial about how GTD helped him immensely in his solo explorations. David now on stage talking about Evan and Ben and how they've [read] Keywords: blogger
blogging
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Twitter People At The GTD Summit
Fri, Mar 13th 2009 9:34a Chris Blatnick T minus 1 day to the GTD Summit. This event is bringing together some incredible minds to have a dialog around our rapidly changing world and how we can get more things done with agility, flexibility and speed. I'm thrilled at the prospects of learning about raising my potential to the next level with this great group of speakers as well as my fellow attendees. I'll be blogging and tweeting the event. As you know if you've been here before, I tend to write rather long pieces, so I'm not sur [read] Keywords: blogger
blogging
twitter
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Entrepreneurs and GTD - Making It Up and Making It Happen
Thu, Mar 12th 2009 5:56p Chris Blatnick We're getting ready to begin another session at the GTD Summit. This one on Entrepreneurs and GTD together. Panelists: Buzz Bruggeman, Peter Gallant, Frode Odegard, John de Souza Moderator: Bruce Somers Every corporation that exists today was due to an entrepreneurs. The importance of GTD is about clearing the path and allow this thought process to happen. Peter - Got to have a couple failures under your belt. Serial entrepreneur. Entering next stage as his company has been acquired. Love w [read] Keywords: application
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community
outlook
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A GTD Workforce: Is There a New Industry Standard?
Thu, Mar 12th 2009 3:52p Chris Blatnick The afternoon kicked off with another GTD Summit panel. This time, the conversation centered around whether or not GTD Panelists: Todd Brown, Randy Harward, Jeff Irby, Ron Kaufman, Sara Larch, Brian Lowery, Eric Ly Moderator: Mike WIlliams Todd - No...there is not a standard. Not seeing GTD skills on resumes yet. This is very important, however, due to globalization and the economic crisis we are seeing right now. A lot of distractions in life (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Are these adding valu [read] Keywords: blogger
facebook
linkedin
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GTD @ Home: From the Boardroom to the Living Room
Thu, Mar 12th 2009 1:16p Chris Blatnick OK...this is my first attempt at live blogging, so we'll see how it goes. I'll likely expand on my thoughts later. I usually tend to write longer pieces, so doing a stream of conscious blast of info will be interesting. The first breakout session of the day is "GTD At Home: From the Boardroom to the Living Room". This panel is being moderated by Eric Mack with panelists Med Edwards, Ismael Ghalimi, Kim Hagerty, Brian Lowery, Bruce Somers, John de Souza and Mike Williams. Two other excellent [read] Keywords: blogger
blogging
office
12
It's All About The Whole Package...Designing for the User Experience
Mon, Mar 9th 2009 1:35p Chris Blatnick While the title of this site is Interface Matters (because I thought it had a good double meaning to it and it reflects an area where many Notes applications have issues), I'm really more inclined to think about the entire user experience (UX). Now certainly, the user interface is one important aspect of the user experience, but UX is much more than just what the screens look like and what the user sees. I'm an advocate of taking a holistic approach to the art and science of application design [read] Keywords: notes
application
applications
blogger
bug
interface
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GTD, Lotus Notes & the eProductivity Challenge: The Weekly Review
Mon, Mar 2nd 2009 9:09p Chris Blatnick Webster defines a coach as "one who instructs or trains." I'm a big fan of coaching. Whether talking about a presentation coach to help hone your skills on the stage, a performance coach to help you better your 5k time or a life coach to get you to focus on your overall goals and objectives, coaching is a fantastic way to help you achieve your potential and then reach for loftier heights. In fact, I'm writing this post right now while waiting for my son to get out of his teen life coaching [read] Keywords: lotus
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