Vetcetera Last chance for Dolittler 2.0 suggestions

January 10th, 2008  

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I'm not sure what you'll be doing about Captcha, but dang I hate it! That reduces usability of the internet so much for people who've had brain injuries (me, for example). Basically if my sons aren't home to help by reading out the letters I can't use any site which uses captcha installed. People with any degree of cognitive or visual disability are, well, handicapped by the system.

Otherwise, I absolutely can't wait to see the new site- the new features you've mentioned sound like so much fun. Thank you for thinking of all of us!

Cindy January 10th, 2008 12:19:00 PM

Well, since you asked..I am such a dope that when I click to reply to a message, I have unsubscribed several times. Maybe either make commenting from email an option or I don't know-get me a new brain?

nancy January 10th, 2008 12:34:00 PM

Nancy: I'll ask but that one might be tough. It's a good idea, though, since it's nicer to see all the comments on the site rather than half on the site and half in my email inbox as replies to the subscription.

Dr. Patty Khuly January 10th, 2008 01:06:00 PM

Does Captcha have an option where you can LISTEN to text? I know some other places that use stuff similar to Captcha do if you can't see the letters. You click on a link and the letters will be read to you. I don't see that as an option here, but that may be a thing to look into.

DrSteggy January 10th, 2008 01:18:00 PM

I have the problem with clicking cancel when I am meaning to click Post. Also, the security text is sometimes hard to read and decipher properly. As I post this, the security code is lh0MBAn. Thats a bit excessive. I don't know if you have any control of that but I'd rather just be asked to give a password :)

Wendy January 10th, 2008 01:30:00 PM

Dr. Steggy, the audible captcha is also a problem for people with cognitive impairments . For example, I not only reverse letters when writing, I reverse letters and numbers if they are read out loud to me. I'm not whining, btw, I'm just saying that there are a lot ofp peop,le like me who have problems using the internet when limited by Captcha.
:)

Cindy January 10th, 2008 01:31:00 PM

Here's the stuff that comes to mind right now:

* I'm not sure if it's somewhere that I don't see, but I don't think you have a link to the RSS feed of your entire blog. You have links to feeds of each category, but not the feed for everything. I was able to figure it out (I read your stuff from my RSS reader, which happens to be LiveJournal), but it'd be cool to link it somewhere for others who don't know about it:

http://www.dolittler.com/rss.cfm?mode=full

* Make a way to subscribe to a post's comments without actually needing to post a comment. Or maybe that works...I haven't actually tried clicking the subscribe box without posting a comment, but I assume it doesn't work.

* OpenID authentication! Then people who use it don't have to worry about doing a captcha at all. :)

http://www.openid.net/

* Allow limited HTML in comments. I know that you can type in URLs and it links them, but it doesn't seem to work reliably (it cuts them off sometimes). I think allowing basic tags should be good: a, b, i, u, strong, em

* Fix the emails so they're easier to read. The URL back to the comment should be on its own line (the comment text starts on the same line as it), and it should link properly even when they're spaces in your URLs (I guess that would mean HTML email, though). Or maybe just stop using spaces in your URLs? :)

* This is just me being curious since I work in the blogging industry, but what blog software do you use?

Janine January 10th, 2008 02:09:00 PM

Just wanted to say that I'm enamored with your blog. I'm having great fun going through your old posts... just excellent content all around. Nice photos, great prose, and the insight into the vet world is priceless. Plus, you're prolific... and <blush> easy on the eyes (how can you be in practice for 10 years and still look 20?)

One way to help Cindy and others who hate captcha is to pick one single word and use that for all posts... like "dolittler" ... that's still likely to fool the spambots and eases up the decryption for regular commenters.

Also, text size people should know about hitting "CTRL" and "+" at the same time to make the text bigger (or minus for smaller). Nice way to ease the reading as the day goes on.

Border Wars - Christopher January 10th, 2008 02:48:00 PM

I am forwarding this entire thread to my techies tomorrow. This is great stuff so far.

And Christopher--the three year-old you on your blog is easy on the eyes, too. ;-)

Dr. Patty Khuly January 10th, 2008 03:30:00 PM

Although it's not a large-scale solution, perhaps your blog software lets you assign accounts to people who then are approved to leave comments without using captcha. That would help Cindy at least.

Juli January 10th, 2008 06:04:00 PM

* I agree with accounts to eliminate captchas for repeat commenters.
* If you have to have captchas for everyone, don't have mixed font (sans-serif and serif) and mixed case (upper and lowercase), as those make it even more challenging even for people without visual or cognitive disabilities. The current captcha I have has the first four letters ZOJO and I have no clue how many of those are upper vs. lower case; sometimes I have to reenter the captcha three times just b/c of upper/lowercase issues.
* I agree with allowing html in comments.
* I'd also like to see threaded commenting, so we can reply directly to someone else's comment and thus have more of discussions.
* Forums?
* Larger font. Yours is smaller (viewed on Firefox 2.0.0.11 for Mac OSX it appears to be 10pt or less) than any other website I visit, and I don't want to have to readjust the browser's default font size just for one webpage.

zandperl January 10th, 2008 08:26:00 PM

Nancy: Would it help to have a link on your email message that goes directly to a comment box for this thread?

Dr. Patty Khuly January 11th, 2008 08:21:00 AM

Looks like you mentioned most things.......my only request would be spell check running inside the comment box. That's not a big deal, kind of picky, but it would be nice.

Also, I know on some blogs, that once you are "approved" for commenting by the moderator, you don't have to deal with Captcha anymore. Is there a way to do that? (I know there is if you use Wordpress, but you site seems very 'custom', so I dunno).

Keep up the excellent work Dr. Patty. You bring so much to the lives of Pet Lovers and I thank you for always providing food for thought as well as the forums for discussion.

Amy in Somerville January 11th, 2008 08:54:00 AM

Also - I love your font size. Please don't change it.

If anyone is having trouble viewing it:
On a PC-
<CTRL> <+> will increase the font size for you, <CTRL> <-> will reduce the font size.

On a Mac-
<Apple> <+>, <Apple> <->

Amy in Somerville January 11th, 2008 08:58:00 AM

Other than the occasional captcha issue, I'd say if it isn't broken, don't fix it.

The font size doesn't bother me, and the layout is simple to navigate and clean.

Stacy January 11th, 2008 11:18:00 AM

HI Doc!
Yes, a clickable comment link woudl be nice!
Nancy

nancy January 12th, 2008 04:51:00 AM

Can I tell you what you're doing right? I *love* the separate feeds for separate topics. I wish all my blogs would do that.

Also, since you're so rss savvy - could we subscribe to the comments via rss as well as email?

ellipsisknits January 14th, 2008 11:03:00 AM

ellipsisknits: I think that should be easy. I'll get that to my tachies ASAP. Thanks!

Dr. Patty Khuly January 14th, 2008 12:45:00 PM

Because you asked... cute me in all my three year old splendor:

http://borderwars.blogspot.com/2008/01/photo-of-da...

:c)

Border Wars - Christopher January 15th, 2008 01:22:00 AM

I don't know what kind of software you are running so I don't know how much help I can be.. but I can tell you that Wordpress rocks and has an excellent captcha plugin.. post a comment (or just look) at my blog to see it in action. Personally I can't read half the captcha stuff out there.. case in point: this is my second try to post this. The first time I supposedly put the captcha in wrong.

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