

Internet Buttons: a page of buttons that make it easy to use the Web - thankuz
http://www.internetbuttons.org/

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jat850
I am not sure if the submitter was the creator or not, but I found a couple of
issues that I thought were sort of prohibitive or at least counter to the
intentions of the site (it should "just work").

1) The font choice when hovering over "Edit" or "Set up" on a button is REALLY
weird. I'm a 31 year old dude and it took me a few seconds longer than it
should have (i.e., zero seconds) to parse it

2) "Search" seems to default to <http://google.com> (which is fine, except
that using Google Chrome, for some reason <http://google.com> doesn't work for
me. I need to prepend a www or use google.ca - seems as though the automatic
country based redirect is broken?). And there doesn't seem to be any way to
edit it. So the most prominent, and probably most used, button is broken
immediately.

Nice idea, probably needs some review on implementation.

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eru
Strange. I'm using Chromium and that button works for me. What's your version?

While I tend to agree, you also have to see, that <http://google.com> works
for almost all users; and adding more options just makes the interface harder.

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benwerd
Interesting idea - but awful marketing. "Hey, gran, call me if you get stuck.
xxx" Incredibly condescending.

That said, while my grandfather uses the web every day, he does sometimes get
stuck. But a little extra personalization / friendliness would help. Where the
phone number is now, I'd love to be able to send my grandpa a new message
every day, share a photo of a family member, hook in the NYT headlines, etc.

Of course, then it turns into a kind of Duplo Netvibes and it's 2005 all over
again. Still, I can see there being a userbase.

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code_duck
Interesting. Desktop OSs don't have the interfaces to handle what many people
use computers for primarily these days: web apps in browsers. The rest of a
desktop OS is almost superfluous - they need a way to launch a browser,
mainly.

But then, where's the interface that brings all these web apps together? A
Bookmark list is pretty archaic. Opera led the way with Speed Dial, and Safari
and Chrome give you your most used bookmarks, as far as providing a graphical
menu when you start your browser. There are various extensions and web sites
that provide that, too, but it's still not like a proper interface.

I don't know whether this is a proper interface (the colors?), but it is a
great idea at the core.

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michael_dorfman
I was thinking I would have to set something like this up for my (non-reading,
3-year-old) youngest daughter. It ends up, there's no need-- she just
memorizes the positions of the items in the Favorites list in IE.

In other words: this is all about psychology, not intellect, and the site
looks like it does it well. Congratulations.

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Lagged2Death
At first blush, this seems quite similar to Opera's Speed Dial and the Firefox
and Chrome extensions that emulate it.

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jdjohnson
The design and marketing need quite a lot of work. The button on the landing
screen should be shown as more of a screenshot of the project rather than what
appears to be a demo of how it works. I clicked several of these buttons,
including the browser buttons before realizing it wasn't interactive.

Then, while setting up my buttons there is a pop up when you rollover "edit"
that reads "click here…" I never found out what it said after "click here,"
because I would try to click there when it popped up, then it would disappear.
This is entirely confusing to have an edit button, then when they try to use
it, you distract them with fluff.

Overal the interface needs to be treated with a similar concept as the
business. Make it easier and dumb it down, don't try to add playfulness and
uniqueness where it isn't needed.

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maukdaddy
How long until someone figures out how to "reprogram" other people's buttons?
Imagine the call from grandma when all of her buttons redirect to porn.

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ultrasaurus
I think I like the idea (though I'm wildly outside of the target audience).
Any chance you could add the option to use some of the open source icons[1]
(or automatically detect and show the favicon for a site)?

[1] <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Clear> looks like it would fit

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wawwd
Hello everyone. I'm part of the team developing the site. Gotta thank you all
for the comments. We've already started making some of the changes thanks to
what you've written (eg google.com not working for you in Chrome).

The site isn't officially launched just yet and we're aware of some of the
issues. We've got another version waiting in the wings on a dev server but
definitely going to take your feedback into account. Cheers!

And yes, the site's target audience are "older people" though we would include
anyone not familiar with the internet. It also relies on an actual human who
knows you helping out. Think of it as a jumping off area (both technically and
for developing a relationship between the natives and the newbies)

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wrs
If only you could do something about what happens after you press one of the
buttons!

Setting up shortcuts/aliases/bookmarks is already easy, and my "mentees"
already know my face and phone number. The usability of all the different
websites is the problem.

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nebaneba
Interesting concept. The helper quiz is interesting as well: 10. Are you
interested in health and healthy living?

Why, no, I am not interested in healthy living.

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derefr
Similar to myfav.es (previously Fav4:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129816>)

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catshirt
what's wrong with bookmarks?

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Infomus
Very Cool. It made me immediately think of my grandmother.

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spking
This is like a Jitterbug phone for the internet.

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drivebyacct2
Jesus. Zoom out 4 times and the site becomes usable. Especially the edit
button page. The text is overwhelmingly large, as in, it was stressful when I
opened it until I CTRL+-'d several times.

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frederickcook
I believe that's by design. My grandmother doesn't see so well, but still
likes to use the internets.

Next time you're in the phone isle in Walmart, note that they still sell wall-
mount telephones with huge number buttons. There are also cell-phones designed
the same way, specifically for seniors.

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drivebyacct2
Yeah, the text is so large, grandma's going to be scrolling. Which actually
means that she won't be scrolling or seeing all of the text and will be
confused before realizing this was done "for her".

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drivebyacct2
The post keeps getting downvoted... I'm not sure why. All the older people I
know have very small monitors and considering the state of resolution across
computers today, and the width of that website with that huge font, I feel
like my assertion is rather valid.

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what-to-do
Nice concept, weak domain name.

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middlegeek
"...weak domain name."

To you. Remember the demographic that will be using this.

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unwind
I think that demographic has a quite high chance of missing that _this_
particular implementation (which looked nice, once I understood what it was
for) lives on a .org domain. If they fail to realize that though,
<http://internetbuttons.com/> is there with completely differently designed
content on the same topic. I'd say that makes this domain name "weak".

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tibbon
But presumably, they don't need to know it. You'll set it as their home button
and launch page for all their browsers.

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eru
It would be nice, if they could tell their friends about what their grandson
did for them, though.

