The internet on a disc; still holds up better than Windows 8. My favorite line is ‘Take the Internet with you, wherever you go – fit it in your pocket!’. We’re lucky enough to be able to do that today, but have thankfully dispensed with the 3.5 floppy.
Body Language
I often resemble this in meetings. The more corporate jargon that is spewed forth, the more I sketch pencil and pen – a good thing perhaps, devolving to the binary form. Just someone point me to the monolith, please.
Artificial Artificial Optimisim
First time through Mechanical Turk this afternoon. Love the Artificial Artificial Intelligence sub-header – encourages me to feel optimistic about using the site.
Improving Hiring for User Experience (Part Two)
Thanks again to UX Mag, for posting the second part of the article on hiring for UX. I hope it can help serve both applicant and interviewer alike. And no, I wasn’t joking about the scented resumes. Nothing says techno-professionalism like eau de chocolate. Read Part Two of the article here.
The self-deletion of a Twitter account due to public scorn. Our instinctual response to a modern-day stoning. #2DayFM
The Useless Web – Koalas to the Max
Thanks, Adaptive Path, your reference to Koalas to the Max (via the Useless Web) just shaved years of my already sporadic productivity.
Book Review : Alone Together
Sherry Turkle’s book, Alone Together, draws upon heavily from her years at the MIT robotics lab. She chronicles her time working with some of the early consumer-focused virtual ‘friends’, often drawing upon experiences her own daughter had growing up with robots she brought home. Turkle discusses the different emotive connections that we, as humans, automatically create with what we perceive to be sentient beings.
Improving Hiring for User Experience (Part One)
Thank you to the good folks over at UX Magazine, for publishing the first of a two-part article, Improving Hiring for User Experience. Sorry that Ricky Gervais couldn’t join the party, he was especially proud of the photoshopped “Elements of UX” diagram on the whiteboard behind him.
IXDAsf : User Research Panel
I had the pleasure of hosting Nate Bolt, Mark Trammell, Jackie Cerretani Frank and Sasha Lubomirski for an event recently with the Interaction Designer’s Association of San Francisco.
Hosted by our fine friends at Yelp, Bolt and his team of merry men and women presented in a wonderful format. A Quora thread was set-up a few weeks beforehand to allow those in presence, as well as remotely, to ask questions to the panel in real-time.
Book Review : Remote Research by Nate Bolt
Remote Research is excellent for an active practitioner that is preparing to, or currently conducting research in the field of usability research. Bolt successfully frames the type of work that he does, bucking the archaic state of the research industry, stagnant with two-sided mirrors, offline engagements, and limited quantitive tactics. The age of information has opened up our ability to test, survey and probe a wider number of participants than ever before.
Mind Storm, Mind blown.
One epic Lego Mindstorm project, cycling little nerf balls around what has to be the most amazing of automated toy project. FastCo does a great job of layering in some anti-design perspective into their writeup:
Any of us who talk about design on a daily basis inevitably focus on an idea of core elegance, when simplicity, efficiency, and functionality combine in a fundamentally beautiful product. It’s a fun wake-up call to remember just how much delight one can find in the total opposite end of the spectrum, that inefficiency, overwroughtness, and sheer organizational absurdity has its place in the joy of design, too.
As a father of a child who will be coming into Legos within the next few months, I can’t wait to start the education process on building mountains out of grains of plastic.
A billion dollars isn’t cool, you know what’s cool? Cell phone pictures of food.
iPhone 5 & the Yip Yips
The Jesus phone iterates yet again. The Sesame Street aliens, the Yip Yips, are still unimpressed as they have neither hands, nor fingers. Nope nope nope nope.
Just Stream, Baby!
One sleepy Monday evening, when trudging back Eastbound and Down to the Island City of Alameda – I wanted to tune into a certain football team whose name is the Oakland Raiders play their inaugural shattering of expectations and hopes game. Imagine the frustration when, for a service that I have paid for, I am restricted by device from watching the game. If I’m restricted by bandwidth (3G / 4G vs. WiFi), I can understand that – the mobile providers don’t want to overload their networks with streaming data. If I’m restricted by account access, I can understand that as well – not paying for ESPN means I shouldn’t be able to watch the game on their network. What I don’t understand is the assumption that they’re making between viewing habits of a user on a phone versus a tablet (where the device restriction is lifted).
There’s Money in that Hot Dog Stand
Came across this abhorration of a UI from my new favorite site, Coding Horrors. Where to start with this one? How many elements are obsolete by now? The 386 chip icon is pretty flash, as is the SCSI port cable. What was cardfile, a contacts application? I’m too young to remember Microsoft Bob, but if he’s anything like his cousin the paperclip – I’m glad he never entered into my consciousness. Funny that no applications had custom icons, what a train wreck.
Behance & Beyonce
A quiet moment of serendipity this morning, while reading my email during the slog of the morning commute. Lo, both Beyonce and Behance were back to back in the inbox. Ms. Knowles, you not only ‘don’t often email me’… you never email me. Nor text, nor call, nor write. A lonely wretch like me who spends his time on portfolio sites like Behance, instead of with the jigga man spreadin the cheese. For reals.
iCloud v. gCloud v. Dropbox Deathmatch
With the birth of my first child, the amount of digital imagery we’ve generated has grown exponentially. Multiple iPhones, iPads, DSLRs and other sources are all contributing to this stream of documentation that we’re generating our son’s every step, laugh or gurgle.
Franklin’s first photo was taken before he even left the womb, the anesthesiologist taking my Nikon and snapping my wife’s innards as they’re still on the operating room table. Shortly after, our brand new baby boy was carefully lifted from the incision, and quickly moved to the warming table within 15 seconds. That’s when his flourishing EXIF career began.
Book Review : Designing for Emotion
The third of three book reviews from the A Book Apart series around writing, design and development for the web. Designing for Emotion is another pamphlet-sized novella on how to generate emotion in simple things like layout, tone, palette and other elements of interaction design. There were more than a few insights of discovery that were worth the quick read – for example, Twitter’s new layout was based on a nautilus shell, where each component of the layout was exponentially smaller than the conjoining section. The author, Aaron Walter, also took a chapter of time to discuss the connection people have with cartoon-like figures, the MailChimp mascot being a prime example of how when we think something is cute, we gravitate to it. Maybe this is why LOL cats is a million dollar industry.
Havin’ Trouble Quittin’ You, Barack
Great discovery to help offset an initially negative reaction. After receiving my 10,000th email from the campaign in Obama’s first term – I was dun. D-U-N, dun. Nothing against you or your policies (although drone-based warfare does have real consequences), it was just that you were emailing me four times a day. Every peep that an idiot GOP’er uttered, I got an email. If a fundraising deadline was less than 100 days away – I got an email. You’ve got my vote, just don’t take my inbox. You’ll pry my gmail, when you take it from my cold, dead hands.
It was to much delight when I was re-inspired by a aspirational video auto-playing, as well as an option to deescalate the situation by just selecting ‘fewer’ emails. Self-recognition is an emotion not often found in the world of direct marketing. So, yes, Barack – we’re still friends. Maybe you won’t call as often as before, but you can still feel free to drop me a line.
Code Lola Code
Grooved on this one all morning. Great soundtrack for productivity, great movie for entertainment. Run, Lola, Run!
Book Review : Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson
The echoing retort from this book lies in the question that Jobs often snapped in response to criticism, “so, what have you ever done in your life?”. It’s was Jobs’ strong response to ask when someone is trying to tear you down, especially over seemingly insignificant things. All of the shortcomings that Jobs, he measured up against this tenet. He would ask of himself and others, ‘what have they done to change the world?’. He was truly one of the most innovative businessmen of our generation, on par with Murdoch, Branson, or Ellison.
Viva User Experience, RIP Information Architecture
There will be no Dawn for IA. According to Indeed.com, “User Experience Designer” has completely blown away all the other industry job titles over the past six years. No longer are we to architect information – no longer must castles be drafted of data. It is not about the structure, it’s now all about the experience, man. Good luck to all those applicants out there!
Open Source Gestures Library
A great resource for anyone designing tablet or mobile applications, this GML (Gesture Markup Library) goes a long way to standardize the way Interaction Designers draft their specs. From two finger pinch to the patented five finger triple tap, this open source typeface will allow you to quickly your gesture references with a single keystroke.
Even visionaries can misread their customers when they are blinded by their past success. -- Greg Sandoval
UX is neither a profession, nor a career
A disruptive view from someone who moved tech director to become a UX director. @burtbrumme. S’OK Burt, if you want to spend engineering resources away from your keyboard, we’d love to have you join us. The accountability is both of ours.
He who flings mud only loses ground -- Fat Albert
Pointer Pointer
Some may ask, what’s the point?
A New Clocktower
At :45 minutes past in my office, without fail, a symphony of chimes and bells from Androids and iPhones sound. This marks the reminder for the next meeting at the top of the hour. No longer a call to prayer, our mobile devices instead sound a call for assembly.
Go where the climate suits your clothes. - Woody Guthrie
Book Review : Design is a Job
I often waver between an unquenchable need for self-criticism and an optimistic appraisal about where I’ve found myself in my career. As this economy continues to fluctuate, designers should take a perspective on what we do as being a pretty good gig.
Are We Ever 100% Complete?
According to Google, I’m now incomplete when I search. Apparently, there is now a competition going on to see just which Nick Cawthon is going to fight to the top of the search engine rankings? Lights out, all-region High School football linebacker Nick Cawthon; or somewhat jaded, psuedo-hipster with the far-away eyes Nick Cawthon? We’ll, time to show these young whippersnappers just what SEO ranking is all about. Boom! I’m gonna clobber him with keyword categorization and, Wham!, optimized headers.
PhoneGap Night @ the A’s : Game Two
Thanks again for coming out to the ballyard this week for our Meetup. We had a great time talkin’ PhoneGap and watching the A’s beat the Dodgers 4-1. Looking forward to our next event and seeing you all around the meetups soon.
Laptop Paradox
Another Surface parody, courtesy of @isaach. Mr Ballmer, wherever you go – there you are.
It takes a long time to become very young. - Pablo Picasso
Book Review : Elements of Content Strategy
Sometimes the best way to learn about the web design world is to close your browser and open up a book. Erin Kissane’s The Elements of Content Strategy does just that. Just one part of A Book Apart’s series of “brief books for people who make websites,” Elements covers content strategy’s basic principles, its origins and what it produces.
Twitterations
Great post from Subtraction, highlighting some tweaks to the new Twitter logo by APELAB. Doesn’t take long for the interwebs to iterate. Change your avatar today!
PhoneGap Night @ the A’s Game
Had a great time last night watching your Oakland Athletics with a great group of devs who love PhoneGap and the new Cordova build. Thanks for coming to the meetup, we’re going to do it again in a fortnight.
Book Review : The Business of APIs by Kin Lane
The Business of APIs, more aptly described as a well-published pamphlet is a great starter to anyone interested in the use of APIs for business, either externally or internally.