Bansky On Advertising

Via PicoCool:

Ouch. Hey, we gotta make a living somehow. Heh.

Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | : design advertising marketing art

The Design Grand Slam

For years, I refused to purchase an iPod for a certain someone in my life (hint: she gave birth to me). I tried your $29.99 deals you find on sites like Computer Geeks. I tried one of the older generation iRiver players. In essence, anything but an iPod. Of course, she eventually went out and bought one on her own.

The other devices all worked well and good (for the most part). But the thing that really bugged me was that my mom called every one of them "iPods." I found it slightly annoying and amusing all at once. I wrote it off as part of the first-generation immigrant experience. My family came to the United States in 1975.

My family comes from a (third) world where brand names of innovations became the generic words that represented those products. For example, growing up I remember "corn flakes" being synonymous with breakfast cereal. "Frigidaire" is a refrigerator. "Kleenex" is the word for facial tissue. And the list goes on.

While companies invest to build and differentiate their brands in modernized societies, barraging you with logos, slogans, colors and typography, their impact on less industrialized cultures is far more drastic. This happens a few reasons:

• Mass marketing hasn't really taken hold in certain societies. So when someone kicks off a brand campaign, it's not a stick of dynamite, it's an atomic bomb.
• The product or service never existed before. If the first refrigerator in your village has a big metallic "FRIGIDAIRE" plastered across it, and this thing keeps your food cold, then a refrigerator is a frigidaire (lower-case 'f').
• A product or service is so obviously useful and aesthetically appealing that people embrace it, brand and all. To do this, such a product must transcend cultural boundaries and connect in a very basic way with people.  People have to get excited about it. If they don't have it, they have to want it. They have to identify with it.

Fast forward to yesterday evening. I'm walking to pick up my car from the lot here in New York City, and I'm greeted with this:

So much for stereotyping my mom as a naive Third World immigrant.

If read literally, that sign still holds the parking lot responsible for my lost Archos 605 or Creative Zen player. Of course, by "iPod's" (note the attention to the lower-case "i" and upper-case "P") they mean any digital media player.

If you reread that third bullet above, you begin to appreciate how powerful design can be. People speak of better ROI, competitive advantage and improved brand perception, but the design equivalent of a grand slam is far more profound. If something immediately evinces its utility and appeal and provides satisfaction and pleasure to those that come upon it, it will be rewarded with it's own classification and place in our lexicon. Over time, it embeds itself in our culture and collective identity.

If there were ever an argument about the merits of design, this would be the trump card. When a grand slam is hit in marketing, it makes noise, creates buzz and eventually fizzles out. But when it happens in design, it transcends the commercial sphere and becomes part of life. Your competitors? They get reduced to oddities and anomalies. So the next time you're pitching that "design phase" that everyone rolls their eyes at, talk about the grand slam.

Now if you'll excuse me, a box of corn flakes (lower-case 'c', lower-case 'f') awaits...

Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | : design ui ux ia interaction

The 2008 Cold Mud Brownie Olympics!

I was going to blog about the definition of "design" or the end of Pandora, but those will have to wait. Glory awaits. A team of chocolate "experts" have been scouring the globe to find the world's greatest brownie and now that we have an impressive roster of candidates, we can now begin.

We're also proud to announce that this event is being co-sponsored with Cold Mud. Cold Mud is a cool food news portal based in Australia.

And now, the opening ceremonies! (insert bombastic trumpet music here). Here are the competitors so far:

• Dancing Deer Baking Co. (Chocolate Chunk)
• Mari's New York. ("Classic")
• Chocolate Room
• Pret A Manger Brownie
• New York Brownies
• Geoff & Drew's Brownies
• Schmerty's

It is not too late to recommend another competitor for the Cold Mud Brownie Olympics. Just email me if you're interested in competing. Just a few things to keep in mind:

• They have to be brownies. Not fudge. Not chocolate cake. Not scones (what the hell is a scone anyway?).
• No home recipes or homemade brownies. We're looking for only commercially available brownies that ideally can be ordered online or by phone.
• No flavored brownies. This is a controversial rule. We're looking for chocolate perfection. So please hold the raspberry, caramel, walnut, etc. We do accept chocolate chunks/chips and the like.

So who will be the Michael Phelps of brownies? Stay tuned!

Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | : brownies olympics chocolate coldmud

Centralized Headaches

Gmail had its biggest failure yesterday. Both Google Apps and regular Gmail users were affected. For many people at work here at Arc90 - there was no way to get to your email. The outage affected tens of millions of users.

Email is not about sending and receiving messages anymore. It is about storage. It is about your professional and/or personal archive that you dip into many times a day. With a solution like Gmail, we've chosen to centralize everything: the user interface, our history of information (both messages and attachments) as well as the all-important task of sending and receiving mail. And here lies the flaw around such over-zealous centralization: when it goes down, it all goes down. Let's just be thankful that our data returned this time around. The worst-case scenario is the permanent annihilation of our email history.

Centralized Data

There is no reason why our email history should be soley centrally stored and tapped as needed by a web browser or mobile device. For all time, email lived in numerous places, especially in enterprise environments. Outlook may tap Exchange server for messages, but it mirrored your content locally. If your Exchange server went down, you had your data. Now everyone is talking about how we all need Google Sync for Gmail so we can recreate the benefit of mirroring local and cloud storage. A common, widely-available feature in enterprise email is now highly sought after again in an unduly complex, roundabout way. Syncing is a pain in the ass.

Centralized Interface

Imagine your IMAP or Exchange server going down and the outcome isn't just no email but no email client. If the mail server goes down, Outlook or Apple Mail won't load at all. Again, we drank the centralized browser-centric Kool Aid and failed to see how we actually took some steps back. I don't need a server to send down buttons and levers around my information each time I access email. Marc

Which Direction Are We Coming From And Which Way Do We Go?

So which way do we build out? Do we work our way back and out of the browser with tools like syncing and such or should we web enable existing client apps? Microsoft's Dare Obasanjo touched on this very point:

When it first shipped I was looking forward to a platform like Google Gears but after I thought about the problem for a while, I realized that such a platform would be just as useful for "online enabling" desktop applications as it would be for "offline enabling" Web applications. Additionally, I came to the conclusion that the former is a lot more enabling to users than the latter.

The culture of web applications, with its focus on "shipping software" and "access anyware," has gleaned over key features that while not sexy or enticing, really show their value when the s%#t hits the fan.

Yesterday was a low probability/high impact event. They are going to happen. What we can do is tweak the chain of dependencies so the failure isn't so centralized and far-reaching. Oddly, it may require that the "revolutionary" culture of Web software take a good look at taking a backseat to desktops for once.

Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | : gmail google cloudcomputing web applications software

Help Wanted

I'd like to use the massive(?) population of basement.org readers here to help out Arc90's recruiting Master Plan. We're looking for strong software people with a good grasp of web technologies (HTTP, REST, Ajax, Frameworks, PHP, Java, you-name-it). Specifically we're looking for:

• Software architect. Someone who can own an effort from architecture, API, technology/platform decisions down to the nitty-gritty development.
• Web Developer. Someone who can quickly digest requirements and build tools/apps/web interfaces. The more versatile the better.

As you can see, our quote-unquote job positions aren't very formal. That's sort of by design. We're just looking for smart, creative thinkers that appreciate working in a loose, dynamic environments. It is, after all, one of the greatest jobs in the world (or Midtown Manhattan).

If you're interested, don't hesitate to drop me a note (or resume, or portfolio).

Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | : arc90 jobs classfied software employment

What Is The World's Greatest Brownie?

Basement.org since its inception has rarely strayed from it's usual sphere of subject matter: technology, design and such. So today's post is something of a landmark (or something).

I want to discover the best tasting brownie in the world.

So how do we come upon such a discovery? Well, the criteria is pretty straightforward. You tell me about a particular brand of brownie. I will order some (or if possible purchase some on foot). Then I will eat them. Once I've eaten them, I will make a judgment. Yes, this all sounds very unscientific and subjective. I'm OK with that. There will be one judge assisting me. He is a friend of mine named Larry Becker. He loves chocolate...very much.

There is one other criteria worth mentioning: the brownies can't be flavored. No orange zest. No chiles or peppers. No raspberry or fruit. I'll confess I'm something of a chocolate purist. I don't even want nuts in my brownie (TWSS). They...how shall I say...corrupt the experience.

So let it begin. Please email me or leave a comment below recommending what you believe to be the world's best-tasting brownie.

I'll start things off: The first purchase I'll be making will be from Mari's of New York. They tout "luxuriously rich, artisanal fudgy brownies." We'll see about that. I've ordered the classic box of 6. $25 including shipping. Ouch.

Stay tuned. This is the real Olympics. The Brownie Olympics.

Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) | : brownies chocolate gourmet

Fight Night : Abstraction vs. Interaction Design

One of the things that differentiate Arc90 from your typical technology shop is our fervent belief in abstraction. Wikipedia has a nice, terse definition (narrowed to computer science):

A concept or idea not associated with any specific instance.

In other words, when we're presented with problems or asked to come up with solutions at Arc90, we'll often go up one level (or two, or three) from the particular problem at hand and think more generically about a solution. This will often result in systems that are more flexible and extensible and less tightly-coupled to the problem at hand. This facilitates reuse and better positions us (and our clients) to deal with similar problems down the road. Very often, we can leverage what we've built with some minor tweaks as new but similar challenges crop up.

There's another benefit to abstraction: it cuts us (or at least part of us) out of the picture. Yes, we could create a new report every time a client asks for one, but why not give them a platform that allows non-technical users the ability to create their own reports as they need them? We just provide the facility, supporting tools and necessary support.

The outcome of such an approach will often lead to establishing and publishing standards around the business artifacts that travel around. XML and loosely-couples services are our friends in this world of abstraction.

Arc90 : Rock Stars!

So all this higher level thinking should give us automatic Rock Star status right? Well, not exactly. We also tout ourselves as a shop that values and imbues design into what we build. Not just software design (we do plenty of that) but experience design and interaction design. There's just one snag: in the world of interaction design, abstraction is not your friend. In fact, it doesn't even exist. Good experience design is paying close attention to exactly what abstraction gleans over: the ugly, exception-riddled reality of everyday business.

A good user interface embraces such realities. Heck, it's based on such realities. Good interface design says: "I want to learn about how your work. I'm here to fit into your world." It's a custom-tailored fit. It's not about meeting a need and positioning for the next twenty needs. It's all about getting it right now.

"And In This Corner...Weighing In At 185lbs..."

So far I've pitted abstraction against interaction design as if they were enemies. This is not the case. Abstraction is all about plotting a strategy around how to build forward-looking software ecosystems. Interaction design is about the very edge of that ecosystem. The edge that is actually touched by people. You can design the most elegant, abstractly-architected system, but if the tools and interfaces don't make sense to end users, what have you really achieved? From the viewpoint of software architecture, experience design is tactical. It's about immediate gratification in many ways. It doesn't care that a particular view requires 20 SQL joins and would "tax the database." It's all about what makes sense to the people using it.

It's an interesting tension that we continue to struggle with at Arc90. We want to build forward-looking, flexible systems but we also don't want to handcuff our clients. Yes, we're empowering them, but with power comes responsibility...and the opportunity to screw things up on a grander scale. Hence the need for well-designed, nicely-tailored tools and interfaces.

"Well Which Is It Young Fella?"

The trick is to separate the two disciplines and to not let one poison the other. An interaction designer shouldn't care about the elegant API that lies underneath. And the software architect shouldn't be designing solely around user goals. It's all about respecting both philosophies and not letting one suffocate the other.

In fact, that separation is critical. Just as it's fatal to think about a software architecture as an afterthought of an interface prototype, it's just as dangerous to view a user interface as an afterthought of a software system. It's about respecting and creating some space for (and between) both disciplines.

This way, nobody gets hurt.

Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | : arc90 design ui ux abstraction software

Kindling Videos Now Available

As if Kindling - the mind-blowingly kick-ass idea management tool - isn't easy enough to use, a handful of videos have just been posted to graciously escort you through the various tasks around using Kindling. Many are under one minute long.

For the unfamiliar, Kindling is an idea management and collaboration tool that makes it easy to submit and vote on ideas within your company, group or organization. We're accepting requests for beta invites, so don't be shy. We're feeling pretty damn generous these days.

Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | : kindling arc90 idea web

Visiting = Installation

A couple of nights ago, I'm walking through the local market trying to figure out what to whip together for dinner when I quickly convinced myself to just order take-out and save my famed culinary skills for another night.

So I whip out my trusty iPhone (not the new one) and decide to use Modern Technology to order dinner via Seamless Web. So I hit the URL and I wait...and wait...ah here comes some of the interface...I wait some more. I'm still AT&T's crappy EDGE network, so the damn thing is taking forever. But beyond the network, the entire experience of loading the interface before I can get at the content just plain sucks.

Cache Money

One of the slickest features of web browsers, desktop and mobile alike, is the ability to use some smarts to cache the assets that would typically have to go over the wire from servers scattered all over the globe. The dark world of exactly how browser caching works eludes me to this day, but it goes a bit like this:

• Browser makes a request for a URL resource and it's related assets.
• As the content starts to get served up, the browser realizes that it has a lot of this content so instead of just swallowing all the assets wholesale, it actually has a little conversation with the server to find out if it can just use the same content it retrieved last time (since it hasn't changed) or grab it anew. This is called a conditional GET.

The result is a perceivably better browsing experience...maybe. The rub is that the browser has to do this for every resource - referenced graphics, stylesheets, etc. It's admittedly more complicated than this. If you're the masochistic sort, feel free to peruse the wildly engaging prose behind HTTP/1.1, RFC 261, Section 13.

The caching mechanisms built into today's desktop and mobile browsers are designed to handle typically static content. Newspaper and magazine articles, blog posts, image galleries and the like.

"Please Wait While I Check For Updates To Your Software Every Three Seconds"

Now back to my ten minutes of pain in a supermarket aisle while I wait for Seamless Web to load up on my iPhone. What am I really waiting for? Listings of restaurants? Menus? Nope. I'm waiting for my iPhone and Seamless Web's servers to have a long-winded conversation about how to deliver the interface around Seamless Web. Buttons. Drop-downs. Interface controls.

It's a complete waste of time because for all intents and purposes Seamless Web is an application. It's an application that should live on my iPhone and its content - restaurants and menus - should be the only thing that is delivered on request. Instead, I wait for an unnecessary dialog to occur.

There should be a way to tell a browser: "I'm not a magazine site. I'm a full-blown application. Don't ever bother checking for new content until I tell you to (akin to a "Software Update"). When a user visits my URL, just load it locally." In other words, when I visit Seamless Web, it's interface should pop up instantaneously on my iPhone. Forget the is-it-last-modified nonsense. It should just be there.

Taking The Long Way Home

I'm as excited as the next person about all the cool new applications springing up for the iPhone. Native, Internet-wired applications are cool. The way we've chosen to address the "Web application problem"  is to build native applications that tap data services. This way the interface and controls get delivered once and your computer or device only worry about data interchange. Still, it seems like we're taking the long way to get there. Platform-specific SDK's and development tools are a much bigger pain in the ass than straight-up web development with some new caching directives.

Beyond just caching it's about treating certain URL's like applications. Visiting the first time = installing the app. Visiting every time after that = loading the app locally. The primary responsibility for servers is serving up content. Yeh, they also deliver the app (that first visit) but just sometimes - and rarely. For mobile devices, this distinction takes on a whole new urgency. Such devices are ill-equipped to have a rambling dialogue about whether content is new for every graphic and stylesheet. Why bother?

This way I can quickly order Chinese food while loitering the produce aisle of the supermarket. Can you think of a better cause for such change?

Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | : web development server internet software

The Greatest iPhone Application Ever (So Far At Least)

I bitch a lot on basement.org ("bitch" being a slang term for "thoughtful analysis" of course) but every so often, I'm floored by something really, really good. I'm as psyched as the next iPhone user for all the new apps coming out for it, but one really stands out: Instapaper.

Marco Arment's Instapaper (the web version) does a great job as a lightweight mark-to-read-later tool as it is. It queues up articles, blog posts or whatever that you can then come back to later and read in either web or a stripped-down text view. The iPhone app takes it to a whole new lever with offline reading of both web and text views, all delivered in a snappy native app.

Yeh, there are all kinds of cool (and ridiculous) apps for the iPhone, but Instapaper adds a dimension of usefulness that really elevates it to a whole new level. Pass on Super Monkey Ball and iBeer and grab this guy. It's great.

Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | : iphone apple instapaper ipod