Fit for…

I had a bad cold last week and had to miss my exercise classes and walks (I’ve given up jogging as it’s murder on my knees and too much like hard work). I’m a member of the gym at Glasgow University’s Garscube Complex and greatly enjoy the classes. It’s probably a combination of good instructors (Kerry, Dave, Michelle and Pilates Kerry), classes that suit me (muscle tone, core balls and Pilates), and the gym itself – the exercise studio is large and airy, with huge windows looking out onto parkland (a bit muddy at present. Oh, well). Anyway, I’m looking forward to starting back today.

Fitness experts tell us that the benefits of exercise are mental and psychological as well as physical. I certainly feel more alert and effective when I exercise regularly: more finely-tuned. The smug air of self-righteous virtue I inflict on the family is the only downside. (Or maybe it’s an added bonus…).

Attending classes also helps me manage my time more effectively – it gives a framework to my working days. Knowing I have a whole unbroken day ahead tempts me into faffing – too much time on Twitter, too many intriguing links followed and so on. But knowing that at 11.50 I’ve got to jump up from the desk and head for the gym gives me a mid-day “deadline” that focuses my mind (a bit) more on the tasks at hand.

So exercise not just as a fitness improver, inch-whittler, mood enhancer and brain booster, but also as a time management tool. What’s not to love?

By Marian Dougan

How to be a good client (2)

I wrote a couple of days ago about how to be a good client – and how to get the best out of your translator (or copywriter, web/graphic designer, editor – delete or add to as applicable).

The other good-client practice, of course, is to pay promptly and unflinchingly. Bearing in mind that if my fees are higher than other professionals’, I’m probably doing a better job and providing a superior service. There! I’m glad I got that off my chest.

By Marian Dougan

How to be a good client (1)

I’m currently translating a speech for a government speech-writer who’s a delight to work with. Here’s why.

First, he gave us advance warning (of about 10 days) that he’d be working on a speech to be delivered in mid-April. He asked if we could be on stand-by over the Easter period to translate it. So we were able to plan ahead – no last-minute urgency over the holiday weekend.

On Wednesday 31 March he sent us part 1 of the text, letting us know when parts 2 and 3 would be ready and ending his message with “thank you, as always”.

On Friday he sent us a revised draft (all changes and additions duly marked), with an apology for any inconvenience caused by the re-write. We delivered the translation on Friday evening. Today (Monday 5 April) a message arrived thanking us for “the excellent job” we’d done and saying that he’ll be doing some re-writing of the original and will get back to us tomorrow with probably the final version.

Three words sum up what makes this client such a delight to work with: courtesy, communication, and consideration. In return, he gets our full cooperation and the knowledge that we’re on his side – we want our work to reflect well on him and on his minister, so we’re happy to put in that extra effort. It’s worth it, for the added job satisfaction.

By Marian Dougan

Easter, at last

Well, that’s the first quarter of 2010 out of the way and I for one am not sad to see it go. Not a week has gone by since 1 January (or so it has seemed) without news of friends, acquaintances and family members being affected by death, illness or accident. Culminating, just 3 weeks ago, and after many hours spent with her in out-patient clinics, day hospitals and doctor’s waiting rooms, with my mother being admitted to hospital on a long-term basis.

Anyway, I’m picking up this blog again and hope that you’ll dip into it from time to time. And that if you do, you’ll find at least some little nuggets of interest. Thanks for your patience, and Happy Easter.

By Marian Dougan

Let it snow

Wintry scenes from in and around our garden. Taken by my daughter, Olivia. Even blasé teenagers get enthusiastic about snow!

Sunshine shining through snowy leaves
Sunshine shining through snowy leaves
Outhouse with snow
Our shared outhouse
Wintry trees
Snowy branches against the sky

 

Snowy trees at night
Wintry night
Snowy cedar tree
Our very own, very tall Christmas tree. Happy Christmas!

By Marian Dougan

A blizzard of books (2)

I hadn’t checked the Peachpit Press web site for months, but I’ve found more titles to tempt me. So, not just the new titles by Robin Williams, but new books too by Steve Krug and by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice of the Nielsen Norman Group.

Steve’s book, a “do-it-yourself guide to finding and fixing usability problems”, is called Rocket Surgery Made Easy. To give you an idea of Steve’s approach, Chapter 1 is called “You don’t see any elephants around here, do you?” and Chapter 2 “I will now saw my [lovely] assistant in half”. Steve doesn’t teach you how to saw people in half, but he

spells out an approach to usability testing that anyone can easily apply to their own web site, application, or other product.

Kara and Jakob’s book is called Eyetracking Web Usability – the “does what it says on the can” approach to book titling. According to the blurb,

Their findings will help designers, software developers, writers, editors, product managers, and advertisers understand what people see or don’t see, when they look, and why.

I’ve attended – and greatly enjoyed – Kara’s usability workshops, and have read – and greatly enjoyed – Steve’s Don’t Make Me Think. So I reckon these new titles will be worth reading – a treat for 2010.

If you read either of these books in the meantime, I’d love to hear your views – let me know in the comments.

By Marian Dougan

A blizzard of books (1)

I don’t know whether to be delighted or dismayed. Peachpit Press has published new titles by Robin Williams.

Dismayed, because I’m in the middle of a clear-out and decluttering exercise that involves tens if not hundreds of books that I’ve accumulated over many years. And I’ve just splashed out on cut-price books at Borders, so I really don’t need to be spending money on, or filling up shelf-space with, yet more books.

But of course I’m delighted, because Robin is my favourite non-fiction writer, not least because her books are so attractive to read. I can’t get enough of them.

Robin’s new titles are: “The Non-Designer’s Presentation Book”, in which she explains:

four fundamental principles of good design as applied to digital presentations, and adds four more principles specific to clear communication with slides.

An exhaustive list of timeless presentation rules…that you should totally ignore.

I don’t use PowerPoint (or the Mac’s Keynote) for presentations. But if anyone can persuade me to use slides, and hopefully teach me how to use them well, it’s Robin.

Her other new title, with Carmen Sheldon, is “Creative Handmade Elements for Digital Design”. I’m not a designer and I’m certainly not good at “hand-made” or crafts. But I’m sure that Robin’s book will provide loads of fascinating insights to what good design – whether computer-generated or hand-made – is all about. Even for non-designers like me.

And then of course are Robin’s Mac guides: with John Tollett, the “Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Peachpit Learning Series” and, for Mac newcomers, the “Little Mac Book, Snow Leopard Edition”. Here’s Robin’s Peachpit page.

I can’t praise Robin’s books highly enough – if you’re a new or seasoned Mac user, or are interested in typography, design and layout, they’re well worth a look.

By Marian Dougan

The demise of Borders UK

I visited Borders UK’s Glasgow store a few days ago, feeling like a vulture as I filled my basket with cut-price books (TimeOut travel guides, IT (Mac) user-guides and English language reference books. Plus two novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard for my daughter).To my surprise I found myself feeling sad and nostalgic at the store’s closing.

Yet I’ve never felt any particular attachment to Borders. When it first opened I saw echoes of the David-vs-Goliath tale You’ve Got Mail, starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Small independent bookseller versus Big-Business Bookseller. Guess who wins.

I think it’s safe to say Borders put the city-centre branch of John Smith & Son (Glasgow) Ltd out of business. (John Smith & Son: Glasgow’s second oldest trading company and the oldest bookselling company in the English speaking world. It’s been around since 1751 and in spite of its city-centre closure is, apparently, thriving, focusing on university campus and legal information bookstores).

So from the outset I wasn’t well-disposed to Borders. That said, when I lived in Italy and book-shopped in Glasgow, I used to lug suitcases full of paperbacks, dictionaries and reference books back to Rome after each visit – first from John Smith’s, then from Borders. So I’ve been a frequent and loyal customer.

The death of any shop is a sad business (I’m speaking from experience, as we’ve recently had to close our chocolate shop. It’s like a bereavement). For people who love books, the death of a bookstore is particularly sad. And after the many business failures during these last two bruising years, the death of yet another well-known retail name is heart-breaking indeed.

I don’t know enough about the world of finance to understand just what machinations lay behind Borders’ demise, over and above the competition from Amazon. Here are my thoughts, for what they’re worth, on why Borders didn’t make it.

Borders didn’t have the serendipitous feel of a small independent bookseller. It was a reasonably efficient book supermarket, but not enough so to compete with Amazon. You entered the store and could rely of finding more or less everything you were looking for. What you couldn’t find, you could order. The choice was plentiful – at times dizzyingly and excessively so.

Three-for-two tables, a coffee shop. But did it have to be Starbucks…?

And that horrible aisle of tat you had to run the gamut of to get to the tills – latterly lined not just with cheap little books but with cheap sweets, snacks and fizzy drinks – just too cynical to bear.

Book no doubt are a commodity, but they shouldn’t feel like one. Amazon treats books exactly like a commodity, and a commodity is what its customers expect. Amazon focuses on price, speed and convenience, regardless of product. You get what you pay for, no frills attached.

But physical bookstores aren’t convenience stores. They’re places where you go to browse, ponder, and discover the unexpected. That’s the quality Borders UK lost in recent years – a quality I’m not sure they ever really had.

So what’s going to happen now, in Glasgow at any rate? The Borders store occupies a prime Buchanan Street location. Argyle Street has been reduced to major chains plus pound shops. Sauchiehall Street isn’t worth talking about and bears scarcely a trace of its former glories (does anyone remember Pettigrew and Stephens, Copeland and Lye, Daly’s, Hendersons, Muirheads, Trerons?).

So here’s an idea. Waterstone’s should close its dismally located branches in both these depressing streets and take over the Borders store.

Glasgow could thus continue to have a prime retail space for books, while this reduced but more concentrated city-centre offering would – should – give  a new lease of life to out-of-centre independent bookstores.

What do you think, booklovers and Glaswegians?

By Marian Dougan

Accessibility – why bother?

maze formed by streetlamps blocking not lighting the wayI’ve been focusing a lot this year on web design, content and usability. Mainly because I’ve been working on my new web site, with lots of help from the wonderful and infinitely patient Zoë Tucker of Rude Goose. I’ve also attended several usability workshops run by the Nielsen Norman Group (aka NN/g) – and if anything focuses your mind on usability and accessibility issues, it’s an NN/g workshop. Their videos of web-savvy visually impaired or blind users trying to cope with thoughtlessly designed sites are painful to watch.

Yet some people dismiss accessibility as not worth bothering about. It’s not a legal requirement, they say. How many customers with disabilities are you likely to have? Why bother?

Well, accessibility is worth bothering about. It is, quite simply, right to bother. And even if your main concern is the bottom line, it makes sense to open up your site to as many users as possible. Why on earth exclude potential customers?

It doesn’t cost much to make a site accessible, in fact it needn’t cost anything at all, apart from some extra time and care in the design process. And accessible sites will probably benefit “able” users too, not to mention winning you search-engine brownie points.

A 2-part article I’ve just read by NN/g’s Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini makes a point that should give even the accessibility sceptics food for thought:

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be disabled? Well, you better start thinking about it! As my collegue Gregg Vanderheiden is fond of pointing out, “We all will have disabilities eventually, unless we die first”.

Bruce also cites two firms that have found an inclusive approach to be good for business: OXO, a household utensils producer whose distinguishing feature is:

Universal Design – A philosophy of making products that are easy to use for the widest possible spectrum of users.

and Simple Human, which designs

everyday tools to help people become more efficient at home

You can read Bruce’s thought-provoking article here and here for more accessibility  insights.

By Marian Dougan

Localisation, Kiwi style.

I received an email recently from BT encouraging me to sign up to the Terminate the Rate campaign. This aims to end the fee applied to landline calls to mobile phones, or to calls from mobiles to users on a different network. My first reaction was suspicion – a utilities company urging me to join a campaign to help me save money?

But I clicked on the link to Terminate the Rate. And here I have to admit my translator’s curiosity overrode my interest in saving money. There, just over half-way down the page was the heading “Drop the Rate, Mate! Terminate the Rate goes global, Kiwi style”

The change of style isn’t just linguistic: it continues in the web sites’ design. The UK’s is in cool (i.e. cold) blues and lilacs, the only hint of rebellion being the slightly grungy type used for the headings. New Zealand’s Drop the Rate site is in eye-popping orange, fuchsia, red and ochre, with running text in bright blue and green (plus fuchsia and ochre again) adding to the visual din.

The UK’s site shows a smiling grey-haired woman talking serenely on her mobile, New Zealand’s an enraged 30-something man yelling at, not into, his phone.

The UK’s is static, New Zealand’s dynamic. And good grief, they even use the word “bloody” in one of their running banner texts!

I’m bemused, I really am. What sort of cultural stereotypes are they appealing to here? Are they valid? Do you identify with either reaction – smiling serenity or angry rage –over mobile phone charges? Comments from Poms, Kiwis, Aussies (Ozzies? – guidance from Sarah Dillon would be appreciated here!), or any other ethnicity most welcome.

By Marian Dougan