Month: August 2022

Bad design: Hiding common options behind extra clicks

There are a bunch of examples for this one, but I came across the one below when I was using the venerable Microsoft Word.

The design problem is especially common on mobile OSes, but as you can see, it’s not limited to smaller screens where companies might argue space is limited and there is a need to compact options down to only showing the most essential out front.

Word checks spelling and grammar using its AI-driven Editor, which is also available in Edge (browser) and the online version of Outlook, among other apps.

It works as expected, highlighting a misspelled word and offering options when you click on the word. Observe:

Note the three-dot menu at the bottom, next to Ignore All. What do we have here?

Two of the options, Ignore (basically “ignore this one instance”) and Add to Dictionary are pretty common options for spell checking, and having these in the main pop-up menu would not take up much more room, particularly for a program that is going to be running on desktop and laptop PCs with decent-sized to humongous-sized screens.

So why is the user forced to click on three dots to even see these options? There is no good reason, which is why it’s bad design. It’s simply in line with the current fad of minimizing UI, even when it makes no sense to, and makes the experience worse for the user.

Good design would at least offer the first two options to the main pop-up, so you’d have:

Ignore
Ignore All
Add to Dictionary

Then you could bury the other options behind the three-dot menu, though I think it would be better to just include all four of the sub-menu options in the main pop-up. What if the menu is too long because someone is using Word on a 2005-era netbook they got for $10 at a garage sale? Just dynamically have the pop-up appear above instead of below the misspelled word. Even the tiniest usable screens would be able to accommodate the pop-up menu somewhere.

Run 710: Bear-free yet unbearable

I headed out with a high amount of BA (Bear Anxiety) but the lake was bear-free, at least as far as my time there.

Another earlyish start to beat the heat, but not as successful as Monday. It jumped to 25C by the time I got there and was 27C by the 5K mark, which is where I stopped. My pace was actually pretty decent, given I was running counter-clockwise, but the humidity and sun were just too much. I probably could have done 10K, but the run was an unfun slog, so I did 5K, then intervals the rest of the way.

I don’t feel bad about this! And if the forecast is right, this is likely to be the last truly hot day of summer (the high is expected to be 32C), with the rest of the week seeing higher-than-normal temperatures, but staying in the 20s.

Oddly, my first km was slowest. Had I not started out so cautiously, I would have been under the six-minute mark–but I’m okay with that, too!

Along with the sun and high humidity, there was once more very little in the way of a breeze. When I was under the full glare of the sun, it felt exactly like that–a glare. Basically, I’ve had my fill of this weather. I’m ready for a change. I don’t want to fully embrace the R-word just yet, but at least it might make runs more palatable.

Friday is “only” going to see a high of 27C, so I’m hoping conditions will be better for a full 10K. For now, I hydrate and rest.

Stats:

Run 710
Average pace: 6:03/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:21 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:25
Weather: Sun with some high cloud
Temp: 25-27ºC
Humidity: 52%
Wind: nil to light
BPM: 152
Weight: 160.4
Total distance to date: 5207 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (315 km)

August 2022 weight loss report: Down 3.7 pounds

Good news: I am down again for the month, and ended on a new low for the year.

Bad news: My weight loss plateaued and stalled about halfway through the month.

Ambivalent news: These kinds of plateaus are not unexpected, so I should start dropping again soon unless I suddenly switch to bags of donuts as my primary food source.

On August 16 I hit 160.4 pounds and for the next 15 days my weight ticked up and down until today, when it was…160.4 pounds. The body fat percentage has dropped, though, so I am still shedding the padding.

Overall, I am pleased at the continued weight loss, if slightly frustrated at the last few weeks.

Stats:

Weight:

January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
Current: 160.4 pounds

Year to date: Down 22.4 pounds

August 1: 164.1 pounds
August 31: 160.4 pounds (down 3.7 pounds)

Body fat:

January 1: 23% (42.1 pounds of fat)
August 31: 17.7% (28.4 pounds of fat--down 13.7 pounds)

Photo of the day: Sewer cover by the river

Because there is a sewer that runs alongside this part of the Brunette River. Underground, of course, but occasionally you can smell its fragrant odor wafting by.

I was originally going to crop my feet out of the shot, but my feet are almost a meme in my photos at this point, so I kept them in. It was about 30C when I took this shot. I have probably had enough 30C days for this summer. I don’t think Mother Nature is listening, though.

Shot (but not fatally) with iPhone 12

Run 709: Unbearable 5K

Today’s run didn’t go at all as planned, but it almost didn’t happen at all, so in the end it went surprisingly well, all things considered.

First, the bug bites from Saturday (of which there were many–at least 18 on my right leg, eight on my left) were flaring up again this morning, all red and itchy as heck. So walking and running would make this even worse, probably, and for that reason I thought it might be nice to just spend the day in the bathtub instead.

But I did get changed and used cheap motivational tricks to get myself heading out.

Right around the 1 km mark of the walk, when I was traversing down the stairs into Lower Hume Park I suddenly remembered my pasties. My nipple guards. If I was doing a 10K and sweated copiously, there was a distinct possibility that both nipples would bleed like they were extras in a Saw outtake. Going back would mean adding 18+ minutes to the whole thing. I just kept heading to the lake, mulling a potential Plan B.

Potential Plan B’s:

  • Don’t run at all, just do an epic 18 km walk around the lake and back
  • Do a 5K run instead, so less overall sweating
  • Do a 10K and hope that the cooler temperatures would offset the humidity and result in less sweating

As it was, I ended up going with Plan C:

  • Do a crazy back-and-forth combo of main and side trails for a total of 5K after three different people warned me about a mother bear and two cubs “ten minutes” up the way I was heading

A man and a couple (walking in close proximity of each other) flagged me down as I set off clockwise down the Avalon Trail, where four fresh new culverts have been installed. As expected, the man warned me he had seen a mother bear and two cubs wander off the trail and into the woods about ten minutes back (roughly a km or about six minutes for me at normal running pace). He seemed somewhat confident that the bears would be gone if I continued on, but when it comes to a mother bear and the potential to see me as a threat to her cubs, then mauling me to death, I am good with giving the bears an extremely wide berth, and switched to counter-clockwise and made the call to do only 5K by looping around the side trail and out, which I did.

Because the run was relatively short, I had no issues and felt very springy, finishing with a pace of 5:57/km and a BPM of exactly 150 (it got as high as 157 on the last km as I stepped on the gas a little).

The hip didn’t actually make its presence known at all until I was walking back on the river trail, but it was no big deal. I ran a fair bit there, too, since I had energy to spare. Funny how 5K almost feels short now.

Overall, a decent, if shorter than expected, start to the week.

I look forward to the bears hibernating.

And here’s the map of my route (I have no idea why Apple uses a dark map, it looks terrible, but Apple gonna Apple). The leg on the right was my expected route, before I doubled back and did a couple loops over on the north side of the lake (oh, and so it doesn’t drive you crazy, the cut-off text says Warner Loat Park):

Stats:

Run 709
Average pace: 5:57/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (a little of every direction)
Start: 10:11 a.m.
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 29:54
Weather: Sun with high cloud
Temp: 21-22ºC
Humidity: 67-54%
Wind: light
BPM: 150
Weight: 160.9
Total distance to date: 5202 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (310 km)

Curiously unmotivated

Yesterday (Saturday, August 27, 2022, for the record) I was curiously unmotivated to post. I was up late and as I watched the time tick by, and it got closer to midnight, I thought, “I should at least post something, even just a haiku.” and yet I did not. I watched some videos, I had a nice shower, I did some reading. I slept.

I regret none of these things. Sometimes you just need to let everything slip away and get lost in your own head for a while. Which I did.

Now that that’s done, here’s a haiku and a cat:

Enjoying nothing
Is no easy thing to do
Brains don't shut down nice

Cat:

Run 708: Actual clouds! A mere 18C! Weird right foot!

The weather finally changed today, giving me a break from my least favorite combo of heat and humidity.

It was a mere 18C and cloudy, with even the very slightest bit of drizzle around the 7K mark. It was refreshing! Even with the humidity at 78%, it was still fine. In fact, I sweated very little after the first half, thanks to the cooler conditions and a nice breeze.

The hip was present for the back half of the run, but it wasn’t exactly sore, more just there. More annoying was the right foot mentioned in the title–right near the start pf the run and until some point between the second and third km, the sole was hurting in some weird way, kind of like an arthritic kind of pain when I stepped on it. It wasn’t hugely hurting or anything, just random and annoying, as I’ve never had issues with the right foot. It went away and after that was back to normal.

The body is weird.

Speaking of weird, I decided to skip the side trail since I started back of the zero marker and because the sun wasn’t going to be beating down on me. However, after having a woman with a stroller suddenly push the stroller directly into my path at the last moment (she apologized as I deked around) and a couple with a dog mildly freaked on my approach, forcing me to awkwardly run between them, I abandoned the plan and cut up the newly-resurfaced connector trail that leads to the Conifer Loop, then stuck to that. I also stayed on the Piper Mill Trail. I’ve learned my lesson in experimenting!

And speaking of experiments, two kids were on a bike midway between the 6-7K mark, careening all over the place and laughing. I told them bikes weren’t allowed on the trail as I ran by, annoyed. I could clearly see their drunken path in the dusty trail right by the sandwich board that says NO CYCLING. I hope they rode the bike into the bush, punctured both tires, fell into a giant bush of poison ivy, then had a deer pee on them. Sure, I’ve never seen deer at Burnaby Lake, but this is my fantasy, so deer it is.

As for the run, my energy level was much higher thanks to the more favorable conditions, so I finished the full 10K without issue. I did flag a bit at the 7K and 8K marks, but picked up after that to finish with a pace of 5:57/km for the last stretch and an overall pace of 6:06/km, which is perfectly cromulent (and matches my 5K-shoulda-been-10K on Wednesday).

Overall, a nice way to end the week.

Stats:

Run 708
Average pace: 6:06/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:36 a.m.
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 61:18
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 18ºC
Humidity: 78%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 160.4
Total distance to date: 5197 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (305 km)

Walk 82: Hot hot hot

I have seemingly fallen into the habit of doing a river trail walk on non-run days. They take about 70-80 minutes and provide a nice calorie burn, plus scenery, so I’m enjoying them for now, despite the heat and humidity.

It was again very humid. And hot. I sweated a lot, even though I didn’t do much actual running.

As an experiment, I played music on the way back to see if it would make me move faster, and I think it did! The brain is funny.

But one of the songs that came up was “I Wanna Marry You” from Bruce Springsteen’s 1979 album The River, and hearing him repeatedly sing “Little girl, I wanna marry you” in that husky voice of his is pretty creepy, really.

Now imagine subbing “little boy” for every song that uses “little girl.” Creepier still!

Overall, a nice walk on a hot, sticky day. I did avoid the side of Fader Street with the Bad Dog, but it was nowhere in sight. Still, I’m not ready to be lunged at again.

Stats:

Walk 82
Average pace: 9:00/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 8.71 km
Time: 78:23
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 28-30ºC
Humidity: 49%
Wind: light
BPM: 108
Weight: 160.4 pounds
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 605.64 km