DISQUS

I'd think a fast-cascading tree menu would be fast and intuitive. I've worked as a server, and I've designed food-ordering systems, it shouldn't be hard. My guess is they didn't spend the money to hire someone that actually understood the design goals for the project, instead they just tossed together some Visual Basic garbage and expected the servers to adapt to it instead of building something that made their jobs easier.

Making it a tablet computer is just dumb. An iPod Touch app, with a ruggedized sleeve would make more sense and probably be cheaper long term (though employee theft might be an issue...).

Thanks man. See you Wednesday.

The way your wrote it leaves it unclear who you're calling out. That got me a little heated, honestly. But that's a matter for private discourse, not public.

Whoa, cool your jets there, firecracker. I didn't respond to the ping because I was taking care of my kids while my wife was sick. I guess that makes me some kind of jerk, hmmm? :)

Ah, I forgot to mention. I also use a page description document, but a much better one. Build it as a Word document in outline mode, like this:

1. Page
a. Most important element on page
i. function of that element
ii. another function of that element
b. Second most important element on the page

etc.

It's simple, it's clean, and most business clients will immediately understand it.

For me, sharing the wireframe with the client is a vital part of the design process. It allows for rapid iteration through functionality, while also giving some hints to layout. Typically I will use my wireframes to build up to the eventual layout. When done properly, this makes it much easier to get buy-in from the client, as the design is already subconsciously familiar to them. They've seen it in the wireframes, but they may not realize that.

How long was Mosaic around before anyone that wasn't a supergeek used it? How long was Google around before Joe Average started using it instead of AOL or Yahoo? How long was web-based mail around before typical users started using it instead of Outlook?

These things are always embraced by the geeks and tech-savy first. The products that rise to the top in the geekosphere then get a chance to filter out to the mundanosphere. It's a slow process. Plenty of people out there still don't really understand how to use a computer. It's a bit much to expect them to embrace wikis and RSS.

Blogs are asynchronius. Their main feature is that they exist outside of time, and you can stumble upon any past post at any moment. How, then, would you encounter someone to chat with, unless it's an immensely popular blog with a regular posting schedule, so you know when everyone else is going to be reading it?