Monthly Archives: February 2010

Internet Explorer Array.sort Unreliable

By Zach Leatherman | Published: February 24, 2010
What would you expect to be the result of executing the following code? // Create a medium size array, at least 100 items var obj = []; for(var j=0, k=150; j<k; j++) { // the value here doesn't matter. obj.push('ABCD'+j); }   // Sort the array alphabetically. obj.sort(function(m,p){ m=(''+m).toLowerCase(); p=(''+p).toLowerCase();   if(m > p) return [...]
Posted in JavaScript | Tagged , | 10 Comments

If the Menu Fitts, We Must Acquit

By Zach Leatherman | Published: February 15, 2010
One of the first things you’ll learn when diving into a self-taught course on usability is the hugely popular Fitts’s Law. In a nutshell, Fitts’s Law tries to predict the time needed to move to a “target area” (usually a link, menu, button, or form element) as a function of the distance to the element [...]
Posted in Interface Design, Usability | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

CSS 3 Text: A Tale of writing-mode Woe

By Zach Leatherman | Published: February 12, 2010
After reading an interesting article on using the writing-mode CSS property to display vertical text (I’m always interested in how to abuse what browsers currently support into something new and exciting), I decided to look into this writing-mode property and see what opportunities it might present. Generally when exploring a development opportunity, I tend to [...]
Posted in CSS, Web Browsers | 3 Comments

Trash that “Back to Top” Link

By Zach Leatherman | Published: February 5, 2010
It would seem that perfection is attained not when no more can be added, but when no more can be removed. - Antoine de Saint Exupéry While most would argue that the principles espoused in the above quote might also be applied to the quote itself, it would serve us better to consider how we [...]
Posted in Interface Design, JavaScript | Tagged , | 3 Comments