Being an RSS junkie, I've toyed around with a good number of applications for reading/aggregating the feeds I like to follow. After many rounds of installing/uninstalling, I think Bradsoft's FeedDemon is the best of the bunch. I can't speak for other OS platforms (Mac, Linux, etc.) but FeedDemon has the most thorough feature set for management of feeds.
My only gripe with client applications like FeedDemon is that my settings (which feeds I've read; which feeds I've subscribed too) are held on one client. FeedDemon recently added Bloglines and Newsgator support, but it just isn't their yet. My only option these days is to sync up the configuration files between my laptop, desktop, etc.
Another dandy little RSS reader worth mentioning is Pluck. Pluck scores points for nicely integrating with Internet Explorer. Only snag there is that I've been using Firefox for weeks now.
The recent release of Firefox has a feature called Live Bookmarks that allow you to essentially add RSS feeds to your bookmarks. As the entries come in through the feed, they're added to your Live Bookmarks. It's a nice start, but still falls short if you're a power RSS user. For me, FeedDemon runs the show for feed management.
Posted by Richard Ziade on October 28, 2004, 08:05PMAs an interface/product designer, one trend I've been watching pretty closely is that of Rich Internet Applications (RIA's). Mind you, this genre of software is hardly a trend yet, but I think its one of the most exciting areas to watch closely as an interaction designer.
The web, and HTML specifically, have long been poor platforms for delivering rich, interactive applications to end-users. Today, a lot of progress has been made through the effective use of Javascript and other client-side technologies, but we're still a long ways off from delivering the richness of desktop software through the Internet.
As computers and the Internet became more powerful, and in turn, more pervasive, management of information has become nearly as important as creating it. In many ways, the information is the application. Amazon and Ebay are compelling not because of their functionality, but because of the information they harbor. The "application" used to access this information is kludgy and often makes for a poor user experience. Yet we tolerate it because of the vast amounts of information available to us.
Google is executing a strategy whereby, slowly but surely, they are blurring the line between this vast wealth of information and your desktop. Today, Google still lives inside your browser's box (though they've made some attempts to break out). For Google to truly realize its strategy, they're going to need to break out of the browser and deliver a far richer experience.
In my opinion, a marriage between the rich interactivity of desktop applications and the rich information of the web is inevitable. The same way we use HTML as a markup language to define content today, we'll use markup languages to define these transient applications tomorrow.
We're already seeing evidence of this. Mozilla breached the browser box with XUL. Macromedia is looking to leverage its near-ubiquitous Flash platform with Flash applications. One of the cornerstone's of Microsoft's future operating system (Longhorn) is XAML. The writing is on the wall: the browser's days as an application delivery mechanism are numbered.
As an interaction designer, this is very exciting stuff. My work rarely involves static/marketing sites but rather richer, more complex applications that I'm forced to "fit" into the web world. The browser's page paradigm is inherently flawed from an interface design perspective. A fluid user experience is nearly impossible.
While we've made the best of the circumstances handed to us, interaction design, in my opinion, has become too web-centric. Numerous books have been written about "web usability." Yes, a number of customs have arisen which serve our users well because they've become accustomed to them (e.g. blue underlined text are links), but I think its important for us - as designers - to continue to challenge the notion that the web is an adequate delivery mechanism for applications. I don't believe it is and I think there's going to be room for enormous design innovation once the tools are in our hands.
Posted by Richard Ziade on October 27, 2004, 12:12PMYahoo! is really starting to fold RSS into their strategy. Many have known that Yahoo! makes available much of its news content in RSS.
Now you can syndicate your news searches and add just about any feed to your My Yahoo! page).
I'm sure there's more to come. But are Yahoo!'s motives purely altruistic. Come now, they are a business after all. Ads in RSS feeds coming soon.
Posted by Richard Ziade on October 26, 2004, 12:19PMOne of the biggest problems I've experienced with getting the word out about good information and interaction design is explaining to people what I do. Even in casual situations, usually the third or fourth question from people you've just met involves what you do for a living.
And so I respond with "I'm an information architect."
The head usually tilts sideways. People are usually intrigued. "Hmm. He's a different kind of architect?" So the typical followup question (if there's a semblance of interest): "What's that?"
Admittedly, I rarely know how to answer. I fear being labelled a "designer who makes web pages" because I know there is far more to it than that. I equally fear being viewed as someone who's "in technolgoy." Both are obviously incomplete, yet its always an uphill battle to not only explain what I do, but to explain that what I do is somehow valuable. If you're trying to convince a potential client, this is not a good posture to be in.
And so, I pull out the analogies and the examples. "At that point in the engagement, I come in and do my thing..." It's often exhausting to go about this. In my opinion, if Information Architecture the profession were a company, its PR campaign should be deemed a failure. I confess, I don't have a degree in IA (does anyone?) and I latched onto the title because I was part business analyst, part product designer and part interface designer. And so, I labelled myself "Information Architect" because it seemed vague enough to cover a few different areas.
After some time now, I'm less comfortable with the title. I don't think it adequately captures what I do. Yes, I architect informaiton in that I try to organize and present information in logical, easy-to-digest patterns. But most of my work involves the layout of controls that allow users to interact with and manipulate information as well. Even more importantly, I often find myself sitting in on and actually defining what the product is before a single screen is drawn. I'm not sure if the breadth of my responsibilities is unique (I doubt it is) but "information architect" falls short regardless.
These days, I've settled on "Interaction Designer." I don't think that's a home run either, but it'll have to do for now. Time to print up some new business cards.
Posted by Richard Ziade on October 25, 2004, 07:44PMNick Bradbury chimes in on the future of the Internet, your desktop and the Google onslaught. An interesting comment thread ensued.
I like Google and I like what they stand for, but I can't help but think they have a "let's just do cool useful stuff and figure out how this all folds into a business model later." Unless of course, they're sitting on a Master Plan that they aren't sharing with the rest of the world (beyond ads on everything).
Then again, they're valued at $50B as of today. With that much cash, do you really need a plan?
I revisited Newsgator's website yesterday and noticed that their online service is now free.
It's a pretty good alternative to Bloglines. The interface is a bit confusing (especially the folder management stuff). One cool feature is that it allows OPML import of your feeds. Neato.
The basement.org links are now up. It's a collection of some of my favorite design, development and general interest sites (RSS feed links included).
Sitepoint has a tutorial up that shows how to create Windows XP-style icons with Illustrator or Freehand. Pretty useful. The WinXP style is a bit too toy-ish looking for my taste, but the techniques are salient nonetheless.
If you're a fan of the Mac OS X's aqua styles, here's a brief article on recreating that look.
Posted by Richard Ziade on October 24, 2004, 10:31AMAfter toiling away at over ten different themes and styles for this site and finally settling on a design, I run into this painful posting on the sameness of designs (via Kottke). The poster (Heather Champ) is "so very tired of seeing the same six templates."
Garrett at YourTotalSite makes some good points in speaking to this issue, and really nails it in the first paragraph:
I am so absolutely sick of hearing, "It's nice, but it still looks like a blog." I can understand everybody's desire to see the limits pushed, but let's be logical about this. Have you ever said, "I love all these new books being published, but they all look like books." Or maybe, "That's a beautiful car, but why does it have 4 round wheels?" How about, "It's so boring to always have the door knob on the outside edge of the door about waist high."
He's hitting on a critical point here: blogs serve a certain purpose, and to make them useful, key features are becoming conventions. Conventions allow others to get proficient and good at using these things we interact with. And so, because we are concerned about ease of use, we self-impose some boundaries to work within. That's the interaction designer in us. Once the boundaries are set, the creative designer is left to roam around.
Of course, we could choose to be bold and try something radically different and ignore boundaries altogether. It's really any designer's prerogative to do so. The Holy Grail, in my opinion, is striking that balance - presenting an intuitive interface that leverages common conventions while introducing designs that are compelling and attractive.
In fact, I would argue that a good, familiar organization of information and controls lends itself to the overall aesthetic appeal of a design. I've run into numerous sites where the design is beautiful, bold and provocative, but the interface is downright awful. The ultimate feeling I walk away with is "that didn't feel good." Conversely, you can have a well thought out interface that is visually unappealing (Jakob Nielsen's Useit comes to mind).
Posted by Richard Ziade on October 22, 2004, 11:54AMWelcome to basement.org - the Blog-face of me - Richard Ziade. Here, I'll share thoughts mostly on interaction design, technology and all things Internet. Some of things that tickle me silly these days include: RSS (or feed syndication in general), rich Internet apps, and the challenges of making machines work better with people.
I hope I can add something to the community and maybe spark a few interesting discussions here and there.