June 2009

Have you used your keyboard recently?

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Have you ever lamented (via twitter perhaps) the number of clickity-click clicks that you have to do to run your web-based ERP system? At last there is wide support of the widely know Javascript functionality. That's right, IE now has wide support for the most basic of needs, a keyboard shortcut inside a web-application. 

We have jumped on the chance, of course, to roll out some new features in Jobtask including keyboard shortcuts. From listening to people in various forums, it is clear that keyboard access is a highly desirable feature in an ERP system, without affecting performance.

For those who like to Tab, tab, tab + enter (return for mac guys), or simply define unique keys for functions that normally demanded a click of the mouse, the wait is over.

We applaud the latest round of updates to all browsers that support this javascript feature. Most have for years but because IE is now doing it, life for most web users will become even easier.

Keyboard access is supported* by:

Firefox 2+
Safari 4+
Opera 9+
Chrome 1+
IE 8+ Just discovered that this browser is odd one out...

Mac and Windows browsers are tested, but I would bet a dollar that Firefox on Linux will support keyboard access too.

* From our own tests.

Zooming - Have you noticed this feature yet?

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It was a novel idea in the days before IE 8 that a web designer could set a font to be 10px in IE, and the user could not enlarge the typeface. Mac users never suffered this fate, and I think older Firefox did not set font size into stone either, but judging from the stats, 85% of users suffered this potentially illegible type size. Now, things have become a lot better, without much ado.

I recently upgraded to the latest macbook pro, which comes with a pinch, push gesture on the track pad.

Turns out the gestures are really useful in zooming into PDFs in Preview, but this category in our blog is about browsers... I do like to increase font size when reading detailed content, as opposed to scanning/skimming, which is my normal technique.

In my focus on building various sites, I had also actually neglected to notice that the new zoom method simply zooms into the design/text without breaking apart a design. To my surprise, it is a definite improvement.

So I tested some browsers to see who was doing it.

Firefox3+
Safari4
IE 8
Opera 9

All have this new feature. What a relief to the designers wanting to ensure accessibility without compromising their layouts. Most use crtl+ + or command + + for the mac, and - to decrease.

Happy zooming  :)

Browser wars - which browser do we recommend

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Internet Explorer

IE 8 was released March year and we think it is a very reliable, smart looking and fast browser.

In fact, Microsoft say it is faster than Firefox and Chrome... 

Unfortunately Webhaven International and more specifically our software - Jobtask & Editmaster were not in the speed tests.

So, we have decided to do a real-world test of our own. We used 5 browsers in our test to determine which has the least bugs, is the fastest and more importantly, easiest to use to get the job done.

How we test, methodology...

1. Because this was real world testing, we decided human response time is an effective way to gauge which browser is fastest. 
   We chose the parachute method - count a steady one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand etc. Then, cut the words to where the test finishes, ie. one-one-thou/ or one-one-thousand:two-one/ - but abbreviate the count until the last 1,2,three-one/. Then we highlight the winner like the above chart from microsoft + highlight second and second equal (as it turned out).

The Tests

Webhaven.eu or webhaveninternational.com
Distance to server is about 10km, bandwidth was wi-fi 150Mbps, on a 20Mbps down ADSL line.

Cold start

Warm start

Load webhaven.eu

Click to second page after loading initially

Jobtask login page

Jobtask default module

Jobtask search for 25 records

Jobtask preview record

Jobtask edit record

Jobtask close record

Jobtask logout

Conclusions

From our tests we can see a general trend toward the newer browsers in the Internet Browser War. However, it became obvious to us during the testing that a count of under 3 was basically instantaneous for a user.

From our own understanding of how response times are recognised by users we think that every browser is within acceptable parameters for using our website and, more importantly, our flagship software Jobtask.

http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html
"The basic advice regarding response times has been about the same for thirty years [Miller 1968; Card et al. 1991]:
0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary except to display the result.
1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. Normally, no special feedback is necessary during delays of more than 0.1 but less than 1.0 second, but the user does lose the feeling of operating directly on the data.
10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the user's attention focused on the dialogue. For longer delays, users will want to perform other tasks while waiting for the computer to finish, so they should be given feedback indicating when the computer expects to be done. Feedback during the delay is especially important if the response time is likely to be highly variable, since users will then not know what to expect."

We know that the current Jobtask & Webhaven website server processes requests at speeds approaching 0sec, like .005/sec. So the actual packet/data transfer and browser rendering likely remains the bottle neck.

We also think that if we used a hard ethernet cable connection, the load time speeds would basically be brought down to <1sec for all tested browsers, having reduced wireless latency issues. So it is safe to say that we comply with acceptable response times described by Jacob Nielson at useit. [Miller, 1968].

So the general reality for web users would probably come down to decisions not completely linked to speed, perhaps based on usability behaviours in a specific browser, or the overall cost of ownership. Certainly, the newer technologies stand out with snappiness, this shows even in our estimations, but IE 8 keeps up just fine, even winning one test. I remain unsure how Microsoft arrived at their times, but we still think IE 8 is a good improvement.

For further dialogue on this please feel free to comment.

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