“It starts with better design on the glass, what I call ‘sloppy gestures’, so you can use something without having to completely pay attention to it. I think the Live Tiles are a perfect example already of a much more glanceable UI than, for example, iOS 5, where you’re basically looking at a grid of icons, requires a lot of attention and immersion to discern and find. So these are much larger visual cues that you can look at.”
—Marko Ahtisaari, head of Nokia design, on Windows Phone
November 2011
26 posts
October 2011
31 posts
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Where Are All the Ed-Ex Designers? →
subtraction.com
Khoi Vinh:
I would guess that there are less than a few dozen people in the world who can create superb software for editorial products, who can combine the holistic, systems-level thinking of UX with the incisive storytelling instincts of editorial design. […] I’m talking about the kind of person who can build a great digital product out of great editorial content, a difficult enough challenge on its own. For lack of a better term, I call them editorial experience (or ‘ed-ex’) designers.
New Lands
Justice
New Lands - Justice
This is basically Toto in their prime and I unironically love it.
Play
“I don’t want to sound too loosey-goosey about it, because I think the more time you have to plot out your story, the better off you’ll be. But we try to combine the best of both possibilities, which is to say we have enough lead time to question every possible permutation of story and reason out all the different ways we could tell the story and go with the best one.”
—Vince Gilligan on whether his planned ending to Breaking Bad could radically change at any moment. Reminded me of Leah Buley’s talk below.
Leah Buley on Being a UX Team Of One →
ugleah.com
I’m very late to this talk and found it incredibly inspiring - especially where she talks about conceptual frameworks for brainstorming.
“The authority of big data must come from somewhere else. Authority isn’t the same thing as validity, by the way. Often they go hand in hand, but sometimes the authority of a data point sweeps its validity away. The 90:9:1 rule; the Pareto Principle; the idea that Henry Ford once said something about faster horses - these are authoritative without being necessarily valid. You might call authority the “ring of truth”.”
—Tom Ewing. Read the rest.
2010
- Jobs: What all I do all day is meet with teams of people and work on ideas and solve problems, to make new products, to make new marketing programs, whatever it is.
- Mossberg: And are people willing to tell you you're wrong?
- Jobs: Yeah.
- Mossberg: Other than, you know, snarky journalists.
- Jobs: Oh yeah. No, we have wonderful arguments.
- Mossberg: And do you win them all?
- Jobs: Oh no, I wish I did. No, see, you can't! If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win. Otherwise good people don't stay.
- Mossberg: But you must be more than a facilitator who runs meetings. You obviously contribute your own ideas.
- Jobs: I contribute ideas, sure. Why would I be there if I didn't?
Play
“Great things are happening around you. Some of them funny. And some of them just plain weird.”
—Oh, you know, just gawking at the increasingly bizarre marketing copy for the iPod touch.
Adobe buys PhoneGap and TypeKit →
news.cnet.com
This is why we can’t have nice things, because Adobe will acquire and eventually ruin them. Very depressing - Typekit was such a great service, and I’ve heard good things about PhoneGap as well.
Adobe’s basically the RealNetworks of this decade.
Arrested Development announces 4th season and movie →
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
Can’t believe I just typed that.
“User: One who uses. Like, you know, a junkie.”
—Derek Powazek, 2006
September 2011
8 posts
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“I remember seeing this thing, a documentary about a Los Angeles coach [John Wooden], the guy who coached UCLA to huge wins, so they couldn’t be beat for three seasons. He’s a very legendary coach, but a very unassuming guy with thick glasses. They just won and won and won. They talked about the difference between him and, like, Bobby Knight and Vince Lombardi. He didn’t make winning speeches. He never made speeches about being winners and being the best, like, ‘This is our house,’ that kind of horseshit. Never said it. He said that to focus on that, to win, win, win, is worthless. It just has no value. He’d address all his players in his little voice, ‘If you just listen to me, and you work on your fundamentals and you apply yourself to working on these skills, you’re probably going to be happy with the results.’ I think about that all the time.”
—Louis C.K.
August 2011
11 posts
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Mobile Operating Systems: What's Left
For those keeping count:
- iOS
- Android
- Windows Phone 7 for phones / Windows 8 for tablets
- BlackBerry OS 7 / BlackBerry PlayBook OS (QNX)
Symbian, MeeGo and the slim possibility of a future webOS licensing deal are not on the list for obvious reasons.
8/12/11 9:24 AM
iPod
On whether gamification is bullshit and mind-blowing UI.
I might be doing these more often if people like them, or if I get better at it.
Articles referenced:
The Art of Working in Public - Snarkmarket
Gamification is Bullshit - Ian Bogost
Jon Radoff’s Counterpoint
Michael Barthel’s Counterpoint
And I can’t find Joanne McNeil’s post but it’s always a good idea to revisit Tomorrow Museum.
Play
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Has anyone seen this 103-page EULA for Hubway?
Paid for a 3-day rental yesterday, and it was my first time on a bike in Boston since at least ‘09, so in that respect I think the service is spectacular. But displaying a license agreement on a monochrome kiosk LCD which can display maybe 300 characters at a time is probably not the best design decision…
