UI Iconography
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Because it is irrelevant to the question I asked. It is only relevant to the irrelevant suggestion you made, which is irrelevant to the question I asked.
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Do you understand now?
I understand that you have a stupid idea in your head that a learning tool should emulate the format of a specific test. I don't know WHY you have that stupid idea or where it came from, but now I at least know it exists.
I'm doing the window dressing and you're talking about changing the underlying model because you don't like the model. Not that you even understand it. And that is why your suggestion was stupid.
Most people asking questions like yours are doing fucking stupid things. (In fact, I still think you're doing a stupid thing, but at least you've now explained your stupid logic.)
The correct way of answering questions like yours are to go up the abstractions until you figure out the actual problem, then solve that problem. Otherwise, you end up giving wrong answers to misguided questions and making the product worse.
You can't blame me for wanting to improve your product because you were too fucking lazy to type out your asinine and almost undoubtedly wrong assumptions.
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I thought your idea was stupid. But now I know it's just you that's stupid.
No wonder everybody has been warning each other about how stupid Blakeyrat is. I didn't believe it until I actually saw it.
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Because it is irrelevant to the question I asked. It is only relevant to the irrelevant suggestion you made, which is irrelevant to the question I asked.
Think about the guy who asks, "what's the best way of storing a list of localized strings for the 'My Documents' folder so when my product is installed in Germany it puts stuff in the right folder?" (This is the "how do I pound a nail? Shoe or wine bottle?" question.)
The bad answerer will say, "oh well here's what you do to create an array, and check the OS language, etc..." (This is the guy who says "Shoe."
The GOOD answerer will say, "you really should be asking the OS what the name of the 'My Documents' folder is, because it can change at pretty much any time-- the OS default language can change between logins for example, and then your program would be looking in the wrong path."
I was trying to be the good answerer.
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No wonder everybody has been warning each other about how stupid Blakeyrat is. I didn't believe it until I actually saw it.
Your miscommunication is not someone else's fault."But my question was clear and unambiguous!"
Yes, and it might also be entirely the wrong question, evident to anyone who's built a lot of web forms. So born from that doubt, a completely reasonable suggestion was offered and you're all "lol why can't you read my mind".
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Can the real test mark questions for later? If not, then allowing your users to mark questions for later is just as "wrong" as presenting the unanswered questions later, and "breaks" the "workflow" just as much. They'll get used to marking questions for later and won't have that to fall back on when they take the real test.
You asked a question, and @blakeyrat thought it was the wrong question. He gets trolled because he responds, but he's often right. Sometimes this place is worse than high school.
You should read OldNewThing, you'll see how often the wrong question is asked.
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Can the real test mark questions for later? If not, then allowing your users to mark questions for later is just as "wrong" as presenting the unanswered questions later, and "breaks" the "workflow" just as much. They'll get used to marking questions for later and won't have that to fall back on when they take the real test.
That is Captain Oblivious's opinion. I'd love to see some evidence backing it up.
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And what they need is a UI that matches the workflow of the UI they will be using when they stop taking practice tests and take the real test. Iconography is a specific question with a specific answer.
So why don't you use the same icon that the 3rd party uses then
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They're my users. I know what they need in this product
The ultimate truth, if I'm being honest about it, is that if you come here asking about some trivial icon, then I don't think you've built a ton of user-facing things, and I estimate the chances that you're asking the wrong thing a lot higher. So I'm sorry if that's not clear, but that is what I think.
Come to think of it, the best answer to your question is: you can use almost whatever you want, from an asterisk to a tiny square to an icon of an old shoe, to nothing at all and just colour the questions red. The icon doesn't matter, the visibility does.
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Wow, sometimes simple-looking questions really blow up.
:alanis:
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You asked a question, and @blakeyrat thought it was the wrong question. He gets trolled because he responds, but he's often right.
He also acts like he said something he didn't say. Now he's acting like @cartman82's suggestion was what he was thinking, and although @cartman82's suggestion could be a part of the implementation of @blakeyrat's original idea:
Just force them to go back and complete it before they submit.
It's not really the same in the ways that matter. @Captain could have handled @blakeyrat's idea better and communicated why forcing them [EDIT: to answer] is stupid, but since we already know we're talking about an exam, it should be fairly clear why that's stupid.
Not to mention another tedious example of ignoring real world requirements to berate @Captain about the quality of software that isn't under his control.
Aside: The filter by user functionality is incredibly useful for figuring out what a particular user has said. Not surprised it was in a blakey-filled-thread.
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Yes, the real exam has marking. And it's important to the workflow. If you have 50 questions that each take an average of 6 minutes, and only 240 minutes to do them in, you need to be able to mark the ones you skip because they're do-able but take too long to do first (as opposed to the ones that are just too hard/don't know)
That is exactly why I'm including marking. Because the user needs to practice marking strategy to have a chance at passing.
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Then the obvious thing is to copy the original as closely as possible, as @PJH mentioned.
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it should be fairly clear why that's stupid
Not to me. The requirements could be anything.software that isn't under his control.
How was he supposed to know?
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Though this runs into accessibility issues, of course.
I humbly suggest colouring the questions low-saturation yellow on an olive green background.
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Not to me. The requirements could be anything.
Seems to be implied by this being an "exam," which was mentioned in the OP.
How was he supposed to know?
He could have read and comprehended the thread. This was made clear at the point where the rant in question happened.
I humbly suggest colouring the questions low-saturation yellow on an olive green background.
I'm not an expert, but how would stuff like screen readers handle that?
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I
TDWTF.We discussed economy, politics, religion, *nix and controversial forum software. All nice and civil.
The first flame war on the new forums: "Which icon should I use?"
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Semi-relevant quote:
You know you're reading comp.lang.lisp when the religious debates are calmer than the other posts.
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Seems to be implied by this being an "exam,"
Diff'rent exams, diff'rent strokes.You could still circumvent the marking thing by letting the computer handle that for you: "You have left question X, Y and Z unanswered. Do you wish to submit anyway?" (or some UI-handy form of that. Hey, let's make the app mark the empty questions, and display them to the user. Manually marking seems a page from the same UI book as people who made flash readers with virtual page turning.).
()
I'm not an expert, but how would stuff like screen readers handle that?
I imagine they'd just take the text, and if you are incapable of memorizing question numbers, then you're out of luck.I never take screen readers into account. Not out of choice; it just doesn't form as part of my habit.
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You could still circumvent the marking thing by letting the computer handle that for you
I agree, and I thought @cartman82's suggestion made sense, until we got additional information.
Manually marking seems a page from the same UI book as people who made flash readers with virtual page turning.
Yes, although it could be useful in theory to see which questions people thought they could / should come back to.
I never take screen readers into account. Not out of choice; it just doesn't form as part of my habit.
I'm just very wary of color coding, since one of my most important users is color blind. So I always try to give some indication beyond the color, which is still incredibly useful for non-colorblind people.
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I'm just very wary of color coding, since one of my most important users is color blind. So I always try to give some indication beyond the color, which is still incredibly useful for non-colorblind people.
That's a good point. Must put that on my todo list. Maybe using green and red alone to indicate correctness wasn't the best idea.
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The first flame war on the new forums: "Which icon should I use?"
Well, we did flame other people in that forum thing discourse...
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Parts of the @SCOTUSblog thread got a heated. Still, certain users almost guarantee flames when they arrive and don't bother to understand what anyone is writing, including themselves.
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The problem is I'm some kind of caveman throwback now, everything changed around me and now I'm stuck in an island of Discourse and stupid.
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TDWTF: where we can have a flame war about whether we had an argument.
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The problem is I'm some kind of caveman throwback now, everything changed around me and now I'm stuck in an island of Discourse and stupid.
Yeah, that's totally what happened.
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it just doesn't form as part of my habit.
one of my most important users is color blind.
That would do it, yes.
which is still incredibly useful for non-colorblind people.
My naive idea is that taking colour blind into account invariably results in more contrast or more shape-based identification, which benefits non-colour blind as well.The problem is I'm some kind of caveman
I see.
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My naive idea is that taking colour blind into account invariably results in more contrast or more shape-based identification, which benefits non-colour blind as well.
Shape or text. Depends on the situation, of course. I'm sure it also helps the normal sighted, too, but for some things, the colors are much easier to spot quickly and get a big picture view, like showing a calendar of events and being able to highlight things that have moved.
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The problem is I'm some kind of caveman throwback now, everything changed around me and now I'm stuck in an island of Discourse and stupid.
You have my deepest sympathies.
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Your new avatar.
You're welcome.
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Discourse: so easy a caveman could use it.
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Discourse: so easy a caveman could use it.
Go to meta.d and suggest it as a tag line.I'm sure we could get another inflamed topic started
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And we could get them sued by Geico.
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And we could get them sued by Geico.
Since Jef clearly doesn't believe that copyrights can be sued over
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All that time I was reading Blakey's rants, and all I could imagine was...
[img]http://what.thedailywtf.com/uploads/default/4686/30299886596f56ea.png[/img]
I guess the sockpuppet rumors were true.
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This post is deleted!
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Oneboxing ruined the context. I was referring to Blakey being Jeff's sockpuppet. Fixed it!
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Yes, and I realized this and I deleted my comment after you fixed the post. But not before you replied :)
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What would be really funny is if Jeff were Blakey's sockpuppet.
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He would go through all the effort of founding StackOverflow and then, years later, an ultimate WTF forum product, just to troll us? That would be spectacular. I would feel humbled.
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He would go through all the effort of founding StackOverflow and then, years later, an ultimate WTF forum product, just to troll us? That would be spectacular. I would feel humbled.
Wait...
Years of work... Software... Trolling TDWTF...
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No, SO wasn't about trolling us. But I see no evidence that DC is anything other than an attempt to troll the forum industry in general and the people that genuinely respond to questionable software with perceived improvements.
But yes, there's always the whole trolling TDWTF aspect ;)
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The plan wouldn't have been so perfect if he didn't already have some reputation behind him, so making SO and his blogs were an important part of the trolling blueprint.
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No, I'm sure SO and blogging horror were him just being him, and on the back of that, DC is only possible because of his 'reputation'. That it inspired him to troll everyone and enabled him to do it, but wasn't part of the plan.
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Irregardless of my joke, this all really feels like we're discussing Swampy again.
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Irregardless of my joke, this all really feels like we're discussing Swampy again.
It does, doesn't it? Hence the whole feeling of being trolled. I never did work out if Swampy was a long term troll or genuinely insane.
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It does, doesn't it? Hence the whole feeling of being trolled. I never did work out if
SwampyNagesh was a long term troll or genuinely insane.
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Nagesh spouts buzzwords like there's no tomorrow.
Swampy and Jeff fling shitty code at us.
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Irregardless of my joke, this all really feels like we're discussing Swampy again.
Hmmmmm.
![http://what.thedailywtf.com/uploads/default/4686/30299886596f56ea.png[/img]](http://what.thedailywtf.com/uploads/default/4686/30299886596f56ea.png%5B/img%5D){kind=link}