My good friend @barneyhanlon has been specifying the next release of the SVN version control system recently, with some help from our design team:

More of their contribution can be found on flickr

The latest version of Subversion is in alpha, and a list of new commands are in testing. I've added a list of some of those currently in testing so that you can familiarize yourself with them. Note that as the product is in alpha this will be a growing list as I believe there is a "wishlist" system going on.

svn repent
Used after another repository user has set svn blame. Indicates that the user acknowledges the fault and is very sorry.

svn resent
Used either after an svn blame function or to show disaffection with version control. The flag essentially shows that the use of Subversion in general is causing them distress.

svn relent
Used to either stop the above two commands or to stop arguments regarding changes to a committed file.

svn revolt
Turns the svn client into a simple FTP program, bypassing the version control system.

svn commie
Flag to show that the user has an ideology they wish to express. Allowed flags are -che, -stalin, -marx, -lenin, or -lolcats

svn tor -rent
Turns the subversion client into an anonymous Torrent client and hides the resultant .iso files in the repository. If used in conjunction with svn blame, then the IP address of another user is stored so the RIAA will seek legal action against the other user.

svn odd
Marks that changes made by another user look weird.

svn picard
Immediately makes a file live, sucking the entirety of the company bandwidth to do so, and bypasses the sysadmin.

svn ensign
Sends a request to the sysadmin for a tag and release, attaching a lolPicard to the email with the -caption attatched. The default caption is "wtf is this shit?"

svn fu man chu
The file is deleted, but the world shall here from it again.

Confession: I'm a complete nut for Prog Rock, so being home early on Friday evening and getting to listen to Planet Rock's Fish on Friday is very pleasant (even if the reason I'm at home is that I've just had minor surgery on a toe).

In fact, I'm enjoying many of the tracks enough that I want to look up what they are. This should be easy on a DAB radio, but unfortunately Planet Rock broke their "now playing" DAB Metadata a while back.

So, I thought I'd give their much vaunted new website a visit. Firefox handily remembers, as I type in 'planet' that it used to be at http://www.planetrock.co.uk/default.asp .

Try the link. Uncustomised IIS 404 page. Would a 301 from the old homepage to the new one have been so hard? Or a humorous custom 404? They're all the rage these days...

OK, maybe I'm expecting too much. I tend to find, when it comes to web design or development agencies, that the best thing to do is to set my expectations low, stamp on them a few times, and then throw them out.

So anyway... the site, once I get to it, boasts this "On Air" page:



Where would you expect to be able to click?

If you guessed any of these locations, you'd be completely wrong:



If you're cripplingly literal-minded, and guessed any of these locations, you'd be in luck.



So who on earth designed that? Leaving aside the revolting semantics of making (almost) all links have the text "Click Here", why can't you click on any of those 4 square boxes, particularly "How to listen"? Why can't you click on any titles?

Those "click here" links, by the way, look like <div class="click_here"><a href="rockblock.html"></a></div> - not text, nor even images, let alone images with title or alt text... In fact the nearest thing to alt text or titles is the text 'adholder' for those four boxes.

So, what were the design and usability objectives here? What accessibility standards were they working to?

Frankly, what were they playing at?

And why am I getting so excited about a dud design for a radio station's website?

Because I care about usability.

I care about professionalism.

I care about giving customers, and site users, a good deal and a good experience.

And because I spend far too much time in my day job cleaning up after charlatans who can't code, who know that they're dealing with non-technical clients (most of the time, I tend to give them a nasty shock) who don't know what to look for, ask for, or test.

These guys give my industry a bad name. They provide crap where they could provide quality; they choose "barely good enough" where they could delight. They hold back the development of the web.

I never did find a "now playing" banner. The nearest I got was this delightful stream player:



Doesn't really delight, does it? For some reason you *can* click the Alice image this time, although it then opens the page in the (non-resizable) popup window.

Fortunately I did manage to identify a few of the tracks. I picked up my iPhone, switched to Shazam, and pressed the button. It listened, and told me what the tune was. A usability dream - and I'll be putting 13th Star on my Christmas list!