To: BryanB who wrote (1443 ) 8/8/1999 9:30:00 PM From: Tom C Respond to of 2340
Byan, Is this the proper thread to provide my comments on for the new SI? I?m trying to give it a fair shot. I really am. I'm trying to use it 100% of the time. I figure my best shot is to try to try to improve the hand I'm dealt rather then hoping classic SI will be around. I have not been reading along on this thread so these things may have been brought up already. Item 1. Thread trading information Take a look at the Stock Trading information at the bottom of a message. From a usability or "human factors" stand point the stock info part is crazy. When I look at this part below the message there are four things I?m looking for (this is me, others may differ) 1) current stock price, 2) bid, 3) ask, 4) volume in relationship to the avg. volume. I tend to read from left to right. When I do this what do I see? First of all the stock symbol. I generally know what thread I?m reading so this is redundant but I can live with that. So where is that all important price, is it next, no the next thing is the time of the last trade. I kind of care about that but maybe as the least important thing. Finally the third item is the delayed quote. Next where is the bid and ask information? The next thing is the change, yes, that?s important but it takes up so much room. Couldn?t that be collapsed into a single entry like | +3 (12%) |." Next I expect the bid and ask, oh there it is on the next line. That?s fine at least its lined up under the change. Up till now I can live with the layout although it wastes space and requires me to do a lot of scanning to find the info, especially given the colors used (gray on dark gray with black lettering) this causes me and my 46 year old eyes to really have to concentrate and focus. The worst offense is that the Average Volume is not below the Volume. Here are three links to the same information. Which one is the easiest to read (I?m referring to the stock info)? I?m not asking which one is the prettiest, but which one is easy on the eyes yet informative.Message 10853966 quote.yahoo.com exchange2000.com Item 2 Options. When I started to use the new SI. I was annoyed by the different ordering of the posts when I went to a subject so I decided to customize my options. I was glad to see that I can change the order using "Would you like messages to appear in descending order - yes no". So I changed it on my laptop. I was less then happy when I went to my downstairs computer ("office") and learned that it is implemented with a cookie and I had to set it again. I do training and travel so I log on to SI from about 25-30 different computers a year, am I really going to have to set up my options on each computer I use? Can you provide a list of other features that are machine specific? Things that will have to reset each time I am using a different computer? Item 3. Searching for old messages. There is this great thread over in the coffee house (http://www.exchange2000.com/stocktalk/subject.aspx?subjectid=29878) it has kind of turned into a locate the funniest SI messages thread. Guess what? You can not locate old posts with the new SI. Period. With "classic" SI I can go to a thread with the knowledge that the post was in the 2000 - 2500 range and look for the post by reading the first line of each post. One hundred first lines are displayable. If I?m willing to put in the time I?ll eventually find it even if the thread has 30,000 posts. Usually I?ll remember the approximate month. Under "classic" SI I can narrow the search down fairly quickly if I can remember the time period (search this thread does not go far enough back to be helpful in this kind of search). Under the new SI what are my choices. Go to the thread where the latest post is numbered 30,000, click "Previous 40 posts" a million time to be able to review the first lines of the post until I get into the post 2000 range or the month and year I was thinking about, or use the "Goto message" which takes you to a specific message then proceed forwards and backwards ten post at a time. Item 4. "The next link" Is there a good reason it?s all the way to the right as far as you can go. I?m left handed. Instead of "View Next 10 Messages Respond Previous Next" It should be more like "Messages Next Next 10 Respond Previous" and there is no real reason to stick it as far to the right as you have it. Keep it right of center but not right aligned. Item 5. The Mailbox Icon when you log in is useless. I had private messages that I want to keep. The only way to do this in "Classic" SI was to not respond to it and to not trash it. I want to know the message count so I can see if I really have new messages. Item 6. Options: "Would you like the stocktalk messages to be stretched to fit the window?" This must be a joke. If you choose no, you get a boxed message in the middle of the page. It looks really stupid. SI takes up all of the window only the message is constrained. I think peoples intent on this was that SI links and displays would also be restrained instead of stretching to fit the entire window. As a developer I can see how this happened. A user suggests that they do not like the messages stretching to fit the window. The manager gives the complaint/suggestion to the programmer. The programmer evaluates the suggestion saying, sure we can do it but it?s kinda dumb to do that, o?well whatever those fickle people want. What the people want is not fickle, no one bothered to try to understand what they were really asking for or someone chose the easy way out. People want the display on the page constrained not just the text of the message. My god man at least left adjust the box instead placing it in the middle of the screen. Item 7. Last one for now. The Subject Marks page. For us laptop users, please put a little separation between the subjects or put the "New" message count closer to the subject. If I open up two browsers (the same height) and look at my "Subjectmarks" page the "classic" version displays 9 subjects the new SI displays 19. That?s good except that it?s much harder to find the particular subject you are interested in. It also requires a steady hand if you expect to drag the mouse over to the new column and actually click on the little number that represents new posts for this subject. I?ve been trying to use the new version for two days and I have clicked into the wrong "new" message count several times. Regards Tom ps: If I did not care I would not of written you. The new site looks great but I?m determined to make it usable. pss: One thing that's really annoying about the new SI is when I copy and paste from MS Word and use a single quote as in "I'm" it sometimes gets translated to a question mark as in "I?m". This has never happened before. psss: Why is the damn reponse box so small. Everything about New SI spreads out all over and takes a much room as it can, yet the response box I'm typing in is really constrained. I think it's the "classic" response box. pssss: Sorry about all the spelling a grammer mistakes. They're not in my original document. It's the fault of the new SI!