BASEMENT.ORG
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 31, 2005, 11:36AMSlickr : Very Cool Flickr Screen Saver
Slickr is an OpenGL-based screensaver that does that cool zoom and pan thing to give your Flickr photos an oddly sentimental/dramatic vibe. I've seen something similar on Macs. Now all we need is a Windows version of that cool RSS screensaver for Mac...
Typographica: Favorite Fonts of '05
I can get into typography now and again (though I admit I don't know much about it). Typographica dishes out the favorite fonts of 2005.
Web 2.0 & My Data
Typepad, Bloglines, del.icio.us (poor del.icio.us). Even the mighty salesforce.com. They've all suffered outages in the past couple of months. Services that we've come to rely on, not just as luxuries but in many cases necessities, are susceptible to the whims of all these wires and cables and hadware strewn all over the continent. I'm not even talking about the frustrating slow-downs and lagging pages on other hosted services that don't crash per se, but just come to a painful crawl on occasion.
Which I think leads me to ask the question: Why are my measly 85 bookmarks dependent on all this...stuff? Yeh I know, I'm loving the convenience of having my bookmarks centrally hosted so I can access them from anywhere, but should they disappear if del.icio.us goes down? I don't think they should. And now people are extolling the virtues of using a word processor or a spreadsheet inside your browser. I can see the initial appeal of this. No installation. No worries. Etc. But there's a problem here.
As we think about Web 2.0, we should slice up the pieces that are getting delivered to us through the Internet. There's interface. There's logic. There's data:
Interface. This is what web applications are all about. You deliver the interface over the wire via markup (with some CSS mixed in) and you've got an application. For a long time, it was a very static, page-based interface, but an interface nonetheless. Now with AJAX, the interface is feeling a lot more dynamic and a lot more like a desktop app (when used properly). Good progress.
Logic. Historically, we've tried to keep the "brains" on the server as much as possible. Sure, Javascript could be used for validation, etc., but that was generally frowned upon. Again, used properly, AJAX can make this happen a lot more seamlessly. Server-side validation can elegantly inject itself into a user's experience without Javascript pop-ups or full page refreshes. Again, good progress.
Data. Now it gets cute. Another appealing quality of web applications is the ability to store your data centrally. I think the Web 2.0 hype has sort of lumped in this aspect of web applications with others. I think this has led to a gross over-simplification of how data should be stored centrally.
Of course I would like my bookmarks centrally stored. And yeh, it would be nice if my documents and spreadsheets were centrally stored somewhere (maybe). But why should that result in a full reliance on some other system's infrastructure for me to get to my information? If del.icio.us is down, then I can live without tagging for a day or two, but I can't live without my bookmarks.
There is a point of failure and what lies to the left and right of it. Make sure my data ends up on my side if the chain breaks. When it eventually reconnects, sync it back up. Now I'm fully aware that the web browsers can't sync locally stored data out of the box. That problem will get solved with rich applications that have the proper hooks to sync as needed (XAML, some Flash derivative, etc.).
We can still have collaborative software like Writely and others without forcing individuals to be left without their data when something goes wrong. The interfaces around word processing and spreadsheets don't change all that much. Beyond the "neat" factor of seeing a rich word processor in a browser, the functional value is limited and the risk of being left without my documents far outweigh any benefits.
I think there's a sweet spot here that marries the richness that we're coming to expect from zero-install applications and the reliance (and comfort) we have with knowing that our information is in our hands, yet synced centrally as-needed. I don't think we're there yet.
Google Safe Browsing Extension For Firefox
Google keeps spreading that Firefox love. They've released a useful little Safe Browsing extensing for Firefox. It nicely highlights the URL box when the web address ain't what it seems.
Nice Collection of Illustrator Tutorials
I've been trying to find time to dig into Adobe Illustrator lately. I've become a big fan of vector-based art. Here's a nice collection of Illustrator tutorials. There are some real gems here.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 23, 2005, 08:54AMFeedicons.com
Now that the IE team has decided to play nice and simply adopt the Firefox icon for RSS, Matt Brett has decided to take matters into his own hands and make sure we don't screw it up this time. He's put out Feedicons.com, a site dedicated not to RSS, but just the icon that's supposed to represent RSS. Matt's been kind enough to provide the icon in just about every format imaginable (including EPS). I've gotta say, the icon has grown on me. It's a hell of a lot better than the army of buttons you sometimes see on sites ("Add to My Yahoo", "Add to Newsgator", etc...).
Now all we have to do is fix what happens once someone clicks it.
2005 : A Look Back
Now that 2005 is coming to a close, I thought I'd sum up my own impressions into neat, tasty paragraphs. As an interaction designer and just general technology fan its been a really fun, interesting year.
Home-Grown Technology Trends. While 2005 isn't really the year of the Blog (that's probably...2004?), I think the viral power of the blog, especially in the tech community, really showed itself this year. Ideas, technical approaches and trends materialized organically and in some cases, really took off. This was great to watch. Before blogging and other social mechanisms for spreading ideas like tagging, the world waited for the big guys - your IBM's, Microsoft's and Sun's of the world - to hand us the Next Big Thing. Typically these "standards" were blessed by some standards body that was comprised of representatives of big technology companies and some academics. This changed in 2005. Loosely-defined trends like simple XML via REST and AJAX blindsided the big players. Ironically, now they're scrambling to legitimize themselves in this arena. "Hey! We want to play too!"
Simplicity. A theme I heard countless times this year, especially in the realm of design, is the value of simplicity. A hallmark of the current generation of 2.0 startups is a simple, almost toy-like design. As an interface designer, it's exciting to see the value of simplicity really start to get recognized. We can credit Google with paving the way by keeping clutter out of the experience as much as possible. Even their ads are simple and generic (at least for now).
The Year of AJAX. No doubt, a key shift in how applications get delivered over the Web is being fueled by AJAX. Again, it was really Google that reset the rules here. Before Google Maps, web designers were handed a common mandate: make it work on as many browsers as possible. So we followed directions and played it safe, frowning upon technologies like Javascript and XMLHTTP. Google had the guts to say "the hell with that. We're going to reset the bar here and make people want to update their hardware and software." AJAX has been there for years, we were just too scared to use it.
The Year Of The Tinkerer. I think in many ways, 2005 was a bit of a free-for-all. We got to play around and try new things. Tagging. RSS. Software as Service. All sorts of fun experiments and mash-ups came to be. It got a lot easier to play with simpler and more open API's. It's all been a lot of fun, but I think the costs of all this tinkering hasn't hit us just yet. I don't think we've been billed for the past year's accomodations just yet. I don't think I've run into a Web 2.0 company that is charging money just yet. True, we may see it materialize into an ad-driven model, but we'll have to see how much people are willing to tolerate with that. I would rather pay for software than see ads on my word processor. And this doesn't just go for the startups. Just about every intiative Google put forth in 2005 makes no money. They've got 99% of their revenue coming from the right-hand side of your browser, yet they fund and support all sorts of additional initiatives. The same goes for Yahoo. Maybe I'm missing something. I know the VC money is paying attention. Then again, they seem to be hyping these startups for acquistion.
I'm sure I'm missing some other key trends and whatnot. I know there are a few other "Best Of" postings out there. Overall, it's been a very exciting year. For me, it's a year marked by the shift away from standard, shrink-wrapped thinking into exploring and experimenting with ideas that may prove to be incredibly powerful. I don't think we've even come near the power of RSS for example. I'm just happy I get to listen in (and potentially contribute) to the community. Let's hope we can keep on tinkering in 2007.
As for basement.org, it's been around for almost a year now and it's readership and subscription numbers have increased pretty dramatically. Hmmm....maybe it's time for Google Adwords. I wonder sometimes how much money it would generate. But then again...
Performancing For Firefox
Performancing for Firefox is a blogging tool that integrates with Firefox. I'm using it right now and really liking it. It integrates with most blogging tools (Blogger, Movable Type and others). I'm a big fan of Blogjet, but I'm liking the in-browser drag-and-blog capability. If you're a blogging fiend like me, check it out.
Free Symbol Icons
AIGA has a set of pedestrian symbol icons freely available in both EPS & GIF formats.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 19, 2005, 11:51AMFACE: Animated CSS
FACE is a framework for animating elements through CSS and Javascript. Really wild stuff.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 17, 2005, 11:52AM5% Of AOL Going To Google
It must feel good to be the cutest girl at the dance. AOL, who's been courted by both Microsoft and Google for the past few months, is about to lop off 5% of itself for a cool billion dollars. Google, in a Microsoft-esque move, is investing in AOL to maintain the partnership that brings all those AOL users (and yes, there are still a ton of them) to Google's services.
So the players that dicate how we get on the Internet and what we see when we're finally there are becoming one and the same. As search results replace categorization and WiFi continues to swarm, it could become pretty scary. My cousin works in the Arab Gulf region of the world has to wait a few hours before he can read my postings because the information is monitored, filtered, cached and then...maybe...delivered.
This isn't about good or evil really. These are businesses that exist to survive and thrive. Google provides an incredibly powerful service for close to no cost - at least up front. We just have to be careful with how and what we pay for all this stuff down the road. Not just in terms of distracting ads, but in terms of privacy and the homogenization of information on the Internet.
Thank God for blogs. :)
ClearType Tuner
Microsoft ClearType Tuner. Requires Internet Explorer & Windows XP.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 14, 2005, 03:13PMInteraction Design & "Chunking"
The last couple of articles I posted on interaction design (Rounded Corners & Open Space) talk about two techniques of clustering information so that users can digest them. Both techniques (and numerous others) are used, whether consciously or not, by designers.
The rationale behind such mechanisms is based upon the notion of "chunking." Chunking is not a formal term and definitions vary, but this one works:
Chunking, or recoding, is grouping separate bits of information into meaningful units (chunks) that are easier to digest and remember.
The idea of chunking was articulated in a landmark article by the pyschologist George A. Miller entitled The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information. In the article, Miller argues that our working memory (i.e. our immediate sensory intake) can't handle much more than six or seven discrete bits of information. Beyond that, it's just a big blog. Here's a simple exercise that illustrates the concept.
Google Homepage API Now Available
Google has just made available their homepage API. In short, it's a simple XML syntax that wraps existing web content or applications for display on Google's personalized home pages. There are already a few modules available.
This is effectively Google's version of Microsoft Gadgets - a similar technology that drops modules onto their Live.com personal start pages. Wow, Google came in second on this one. Funny.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 13, 2005, 09:00PMLukeW: Blog Interface Design 2.0
One of my favorite sites on interaction design is LukeW, always smart and insightful. Here's a recent article on the interface design of blogs and blogging interfaces.
When Does The Party End?
So Yahoo released Yahoo Widgets yesterday. Very sweet stuff and a good example of how to nicely fold in and quickly leverage an acquisition (they bought Konfabulator a few months ago). They've done a nice job of lighting up their services straight onto your desktop. You can pull up your contact list, calendar, Flickr photos - all without using a browser. Mind you, the download is a fat 11 megs, but there is some nice stuff there.
So my question is this: if I can search Yahoo (web, images, etc.) from my desktop and tap into Yahoo's various personalized services - calendar, mail, contacts - from my desktop, where do the ads go? I think Google's in the same boat. There's this Great Application Giveaway going on right now (whether from the big boys or the Web 2.0 startups) and I think (I guess?) something has to give at some point. This reminds me a bit of the frenzy in the 90's where all these companies gave stuff away and eventually the business realities set in and they either folded or scaled down drastically.
Regardless, I'm enjoying it. It's a pretty satisfying experience to not have to hit a URL to get to the stuff I want. Heck, if the functionality is impressive enough, I might even pay for it. But please, for the love of God, keep the ads off my desktop.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 12, 2005, 07:52AMGive'em Room Folks : The Importance of Open Space In Design
In a previous article on basement.org, I asked why we love rounded corners. I argued that the appeal of rounded corners went beyond the purely aesthetic and into the realm of "intuitive" for us. In this entry, I'd like to talk about another seemingly simple design mechanism that does more than just make interfaces look good: the use of open, empty space.
"Dirty" Interfaces
This is a snapshot of a typical "newspaper" destination on the web. It's the home page for The Economic Times. Notice how the content of the page is crammed together. There is very little "open area." I'm sure the designers were given a mandate to display links to all sorts of resources. Nonetheless, the viewer is left to wade through a lot of visual data to make sense of what's going on.
When we land on a page like this, we're not really "reading" just yet. All these snippets of text and links are really a collection of options presented to a user. They can make any number of choices here. Before a user can start making such a decision, he has to first break up all of that data into digestible pieces. Studies have shown that we don't scan such pages in any predictable way. Instead, we sort of zig-zag around. We delineate this blob of information into chunks that we can take in, think about and ultimately act upon. It's sort of like noise-reduction for information. We first reduce the noise and then we listen.
As information and interaction designers, we are armed with a toolset that can help users understand the information before them. The more complex the set of information, the more work we have to do. Without much thinking, designers provide visual cues of what is related to what by a process I like to call delineation. We box things. We color things. We title things. Through delineation, we can deliver information with less noise.
One of the most powerful means of delineation is the use of open, empty space. By pushing less semantically-relevant information away we reduce the potential for cognitive load that can arise when less relevant information is placed too close together. In other words, we're handing the user a greater level of context to work within.
The blogging explosion and the advent of CSS brought with it a new design aesthetic that introduced an emphasis on the use of open space. One of my favorite sites is We Break Stuff, not only for its content but its visual appeal. Kubrick, the now nearly infamous default template for the Wordpress blogging platform, makes excellent use of space to convey a simple elegance. While the Economic Times barrages your field of vision with all sorts of "information pollution" We Break Stuff is a breath of fresh air. One of the most gratifying comments I can receive from a user is how "clean" an interface is. For me, a user is telling me that they didn't have to deal with a lot of clutter to understand it. They didn't have to work as hard.
Less Is Not Only More, Its Actually Better
A few months ago, I was at a Sigur Ros concert here in New York City. During one of their songs, the music just stopped and there was nothing but dead silence for at least 30 seconds. The crowd was perfectly silent during this pause. And then, finally, the music started up again (Kottke was actually at the same show and blogged about it). At first, it felt a bit self-absorbed and trite, but when the music returned, it had a new emphasis. It stood out.
Beyond reducing cognitive overhead, open space can convey a captivating, often times dramatic message. A bit of information, often times a title or brand name, that is placed in a drastically open space calls upon viewers to stop and pay attention. Used well, it can exude confidence and an understated power. One of my old law school professors often lectured us about speaking as slowly as possible. "When you hold onto your words, people wait for them." The Economic Times is the visual equivalent of a rambling, anxious speaker. Sites like We Break Stuff and the recently redesigned A List Apart for example, convey an unassuming confidence. You can find many examples of simple, powerful designs on site galleries like Webcreme and CSS Beauty.
Any designer would appreciate the ability to deliver a simple design while simultaneously delivering an emotionally powerful message. Open, empty space is one of those rare tools in a designer's arsenal that can do both.
This article and the previous article on rounded corners are based upon a design methodology called Information Objects. A white paper explaining Information Objects is available in PDF format.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 11, 2005, 09:45AMBest of Web 2.0 In 2005
Here's an excellent breakdown of Web 2.0 apps released the past year. I agree with all his "winner" selections.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 10, 2005, 08:14AMMmmm Tasty : Yahoo! Buys Del.icio.us
I'm a bit late to the party on this bit of news, but nonetheless, Yahoo has acquired del.icio.us. I was actually just talking about this recently ("Did del.icio.us get bought yet?"). It will be really interesting to see how/what Yahoo does with these little gems. Between Flickr and del.icio.us, they're holding onto an immense amount of goodwill and community. Let's hope they continue to see the value in that and foster it.
Call me naive, but don't these things have to start making money at some point? There are no ads on del.icio.us (or Flick for that matter). Yahoo is a publicly traded company. Yeh, their brand gets enhanced a bit, but at some point you've got to start making this stuff pay off (I think). Do you just slap ads on everything? Do you start charging money? And over here, you've got the likes of Microsoft and Google building all sorts of free stuff without charging a nickel. 95% of Google's services have no ads (yet). Meanwhile, 98% of their money comes from basic search ads. I would love some enlightenment in all this. Maybe one of those venture capitalist bloggers can help me out.
Anyway, enough of my whining. Congratulations to del.icio.us and the people behind it. It's a great, innovative service.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 9, 2005, 12:25PMWe're Outsourcing The Good Stuff Too!
I'm all about equal opportunity. In our globalized world, if there's a capable and ambitious dude 11,000 miles away who wants to contribute to the World Economy, hey, why the hell not.
But now, we're outsourcing softer, less tangible parts of our lives. Fleeting, ephemeral things like Fun and Understanding and "Time Together." The New York Times reports that we're now outsourcing video game playing to China.
What's left? Love? Chivalry? Or maybe even more abstract notions like Warmth and Kindness. Wait, someone actually already tried this...
Sitepoint.com : The Anatomy of Web Fonts
Sitepoint.com : The Anatomy of Web Fonts.
Kwmap.net : Keyword Visualized Search
Here's a trippy way to look at search resutls. Kwmap.com presents a visualized map of keywords you search against. It displays an intersection for words you searched for. Try it out.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 8, 2005, 06:56AMYahoo! Answers Debuts
Knowing full well that machines can't do everything, Yahoo! just released Yahoo! Answers, a service that allows people to ask questions that can be answered by other real people.
I'm not sure about the purpose of this, but it's interesting nonetheless. I think people love to share knowledge. We are social anmials after all. It makes us feel good to talk to each other. This is partly why Wikipedia and Amazon's vast collection of product reviews are so compelling.
As to its utility, that's yet to be seen. Yahoo! seems to have taken the categorization route (a la Ebay) for organizing the stuff. Will there come a day when humans are contributing to search results? Why the heck not.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 7, 2005, 10:51AMLooklater
Looklater looks intriguing - essentially del.icio.us with the ability to make bookmarks private. Their blog has more.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 6, 2005, 05:35PMCSS For Bar Graphs
Apples To Oranges : CSS For Bar Graphs
Neat, Free, Tiny Icons
i have no idea who is behind www.FamFamFam.com (actually it's Mark James, a designer from the UK), but he's decided to share some high-quality free icon love. Check them out. Good stuff.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 5, 2005, 09:10PMThe RSS Investors Fund Starts Investing
The hooligans that call themselves the RSS Investors have thrown done some cash to get involved with Attensa. It's their first investment in an RSS play. Attensa has an Outlook plug-in that enables it for RSS. It's free (for now) and it's pretty slick. Newsgator is the leader in this space (for now).
From where I'm sitting, Attensa's client looks like just another client-side play among many, many plays out there riding the RSS wave. There are tons of applications (many of which are very good and free) for consuming and organizing feeds. They have plans for some Enteprise-ish stuff, though it's not very clear. As for the investment side of things, you have to be skeptical of an investment fund that is technology-centered rather than solution-centered. RSS is a potentially paradigm-shifting technology that is capable of reinventing how we work and communicate. It's already been invented. The real hurdle is bringing this technology to the masses. Think: ubiquity of email.
Protopage 2.0 Released
For the unfamiliar, Protopage is a virtual desktop. I'm liking it. It's all AJAX-y and Web 2.0-y (sort of). You can maintain stickies, news, RSS on public or private pages. Version 2.0 just came out and it supports OPML import and Bloglines. This is a very slick little toy. Very dynamic and relatively easy to use. The Protopage Blog has all the propoganda on the new release. Check it out.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 4, 2005, 09:25PMAnimated Favicons
Let the hate mail pour in. It turns out you can animate favicons (those little icons that land in the URL box, tabs and bookmarks. You'll find a few examples here. Apparently, they're simply comprised of animated GIF's. This of course has the potential to annoy the living hell out of people. So let's be good little desginers about it.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 3, 2005, 04:01PMNice Data Visualization Gallery
VisualComplexity.com : Data Visualization Gallery
Handful of Free Vector Icons
I'm all about vector these days. Here's a nice gallery of free vector icons and GUI interface elements.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 2, 2005, 03:22PMWeird, Naked White Collar Guys
One of the things I'm all about these days, as an interaction designer, is simplicity. I think a lot of what is driving all the excitement is grounded in the notion that if you work at masking the complexity behind things - whether through a simple API or through a simple user interface - you will win.
A few months ago, I stumbled on this process diagram for a financial company. Now, I'm all about communicating through thoughtfully created artifacts that communicate. This diagram, however, does not do that (click on it to view it in all it's glory):
This is an actual representation of...some sort of process. It amazes how much our brains get in the way of our brains when we're trying to convey something to others. This diagram not only solves nothing, but actually creates more problems on top. Though I have to admit, I love the weird, naked white collar guys toiling away at their workstations.
So let's leave information design up to the experts folks. We, the information architects of the world, possess the requisite empathy and forethought to create simple, intuitive artifacts. We would never be caught dead putting out noisy, cluttered diagrams like the above. Or would we?
XUL Periodic Table
So what can XUL (Mozilla's XML User Interface Language) do? Check out the XUL Periodic Table to find out. A great example/source code browser for the unfamiliar.
Posted by Richard Ziade on December 1, 2005, 11:04AMGoogle Is Absolutely Terrified Of RSS
The ReadWriteWeb is pondering why Google has been out of sync with the whole RSS trend. Yahoo and Microsoft seem to have embraced the technology as a sort of pseudo-transit system for the web. Sort of like what XML was supposed to be.
So why hasn't Google joined the party yet? I'll tell you why: RSS has the ability to upend how and more importantly where we get information. The "where" part of the equation terrifies Google. While their initiatives are popping up all over the place, their bread and butter is those gosh-darned ads that are on...gasp...web pages. Web pages that you need to go and visit.
I am an avid RSS fan. I'm pulling in over 200 feeds and I can digest an incredible amount of information without going anywhere. Pure, distilled information without ads and without clutter.
Yeh, ads are starting to find their way into RSS, but Google ain't dumb. They've got a good thing going here. Google wants you searching and visiting web pages. And yeh, I guess RSS feeds can lead you back to web pages (that's what the major publishers are counting on), but Google isn't going to rely on the whims of people to lead them back to their pages. This post you're reading right now will be delivered in its entirety via RSS.
So yeh, Google will play with RSS. They sort of have to. They're going to look silly if they don't. Or I guess they can keep pushing that whole ATOM thing...
It's On! : Ajax vs. Flash
You gotta love the whole blogging, "we're all connected acrosst the World Wide Web" thing. Dotone, a neat little blog out of the United Arab Emirates, is the voice of Saleh, a web developer based there. He wrote a solid comparison of Ajax and Flash - pitting the two in a Battle Royale worthy of pay per view (or something like that).
My .02 on the whole thing: Ajax is useful and worthwhile - for now. It's still a pain to implement and prime for abuse and misuse. It's a hack job (despite some of the elegant wrappers/API's people have written for it). The big advantage? You can take an existing web site and light it up with some of that dynamic goodness in just the right places. In other words, it's a bolt-on that can happen pretty quickly.
Flash, on the other hand, is it's own platform. The learning curve is arguably steeper. It's a whole other world - a world that's been dominated by a visual design mindset. But the possibilities are that much wider. You can do things with graphics, sound and video that you're just not going to pull off with Ajax. Beyond the multimedia, the stuff just feels smoother in Flash. And let's not forget platform compatibility. You go to Ajax, you're asking for a world of hurt if you're planning on deploying to a wide array of browsers. Even Google Maps didn't support Safari at the outset. The Flash player is just about everywhere and runs things consistently.
More broadly speaking, these are just tools. They're a means to an end. I think the general lesson learned is to deliver better experiences - however way you get there. A static website can prove to be a bad experience. Denying someone an application because of a particular browser is a bad experience. Applying Ajax or Flash in a contrived way without thinking about how it will benefit the user can result in a bad experience.
In the end, this isn't about technology. It's about people.