twoshortwords

This article comes off as hand-wavy. The crux of the argument, that "[t]op aligned labels have proven to be faster and easier to fill out than left or right aligned labels", is unsupported. The author supplies no links to research or other corroborating sources.

The graphic is a little misleading, too. Under "Top aligned labels", it says: "less vertical space". I initially understood that to mean that the form occupies less vertical space. It really means that the form leaves less vertical space below it.

I'm confused why they didn't consider other types of labels, especially for text boxes. For instance, the iPhone puts the labels inline with the form element. And placeholder text frequently replaces labels, anyway. How does that affect usage?

Interestingly, they don't follow their own advice. The comment form after the article uses right-aligned labels.

Warning! Pictures contain EXIF data. Camera phones frequently geo tag photos.

In other news, your computer broadcasts an IP address.

I can only access the abstract, but this is fascinating: "[t]he highest centile increased by some 18 to 22 units in the course of the century". An increase of 22 units runs the gamut of possible BMI values [1], from severely underweight to obese class 2. It's equivalent to gaining 170 lbs (for a 5' 11" person).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

I like OkTrends because they use heaps of data to arrive at interesting conclusions. But they often arrive at wrong (or at least incomplete) conclusions.

For instance, this bit: "the general pattern is that more complex cameras take better pictures". That's certainly true. Think about the person behind the camera, though. If they own a dSLR, they're more likely to be good at composing photographs.

This, too: "a 28 year-old who used a flash is as attractive as a 35 year-old who didn't". Most people don't know how, or even when, to use a flash. Using a flash properly can and does lead to a better photograph, but it takes a lot of practice.

Therefore, if you want to have an attractive picture, have somebody that's good at taking pictures take it.

He may be deliberately using a strange wording to point out that these activities "pass time" (and not much else). However, I agree that the wording is off. Especially considering that's what "pastime" means in the first place [1]. Paul Brians notes that "pastime" is correct, too [2].

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pastime [2]: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/pasttime.html