BASEMENT.ORG
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 28, 2006, 01:58PMTechnical Ignorance Is Bliss
Years ago - when I owned a 486 (or something similar) my mom woke me up at 7am in a panic. "Rich, the computer is flashing something! It says 'your text is here!' Have you been waiting for your text to arrive?"
My mom had mistook the infamous Windows "Marquee" screensaver for an announcement from some nebulous service that my text had finally arrived.
Recently, I set my mom up with a Yahoo account for email and calendaring and such. All was well until she called me and with a frustrated tone. She couldn't understand why she couldn't log into her Windows desktop. She assumed that her new Yahoo user name and password applied to everything. Her Windows desktop. Her Amazon account. Everything.
A reporter recently wondered why the most searched term on Google was "Yahoo." What exactly is the difference between a URL bar and Google's search bar? Yeh yeh, Google is a web site (sort of) and it's search bar is just HTML that posts to their servers.
The lesson learned here? Do not underestimate the value of the non-technical user who is absolutely clueless as to how things work. Unified authentication between your desktop and web apps is a complicated thing. It also happens to be the right thing. This sort of feedback not only sheds light on how people use systems (i.e. usability data) but also, and almost by accident, illuminates possibilities that we as technologists simply write off because of assumed limitations.
Why do I have to manage twelve different passwords? Why is it so hard to find my pictures from last weekend's trip? I wish my calendar would SMS me with reminders?
So at your next family get-together, sit your uncle or grandma down at the PC and watch closely. Watch how they fumble around. Just as important - listen closely. Listen to the "why" questions that arise out of their blissful ignorance. You'll often find gold in them thar hills.
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 27, 2006, 09:47AMVideo Art For iPods : ArtPod
This is kinda weird and sorta cool. ArtPod has little video shorts for the iPod. They're these neat little ambient movies for your iPod.
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 20, 2006, 02:06PMCool ≠ Useful
Ars Technica is reporting that a recent Nielsen survey reveals that only 2.2 percent of video iPod usage is video (yes that's a decimal between the 2's). Consider how loudly Apple and other device makers trumpet video playback capability - that's a pretty sobering statistic.
So what's going on here? We've had digital audio for years. Technology has finally made it feasible to affordably watch videos on a portable device. First audio, now video. Makes sense, no?
No.
Who said users want to watch videos on a 2 inch screen? You can do a lot of other things while listening to audio. Run. Read. Work out. Do your work. Study. Audio even has the ability to enhance such experiences. I can't imagine running without music. Add video to the mix, and suddenly your options narrow - a lot. Demanding the undivided attention of your eyes requires commitment and concentration.
There's one other problem: it's still hard to deal with video. Pop a CD in your computer, and it shows up in iTunes. The story isn't the same when it comes to DVD's for the casual user. Nor is it really any easier to deal with TV. Regardless, I don't think the need is really there.
Cool technology isn't always useful or sought-after technology. It isn't a far leap to see that people don't have a lot of hours in the day to fully commit to video on a small screen. Audio is great because we can "share" our other experiences with audio.
It's disheartening for technologists to face the hard reality of what the real world wants. Great design ingratiates itself into people's lives without demanding too much. We first have to make sure people want it in the first place.
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 17, 2006, 09:55AMYahoo Maps Released From Beta
Yahoo Maps - built on the Flash (and some Flex?) platform - has been released from beta. Congratulations to Yahoo and Adobe. This is compelling validation for using the Flash platform as a way to deliver richer experiences. I'm not sure if there's a more accessible, mainstream application out there on Flash.
Google Maps is still winning the battle in terms of mash-ups, and if I'm not mistaken, Mapquest (yes Mapquest) is still the most popular. Old habits die hard I guess.
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 16, 2006, 04:49PMHevetica...The Documentary
Yeh. You read it right. "Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture." Yeh. I'd watch it. So what?
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 15, 2006, 09:04AMGoogle Desktop Now See-Thru
The latest version of Google Desktop is now see-thru. Kinky.
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 14, 2006, 02:11PMJquery - Beautiful And Smart
At Arc90, we're always looking to build our dynamic web skills and Lord knows there are all sorts of spiffy frameworks out there - Prototype, Dojo come to mind. Then there's Jquery a really lean little framework that does all sorts of cool things. It's a got a nice plugin architecture so people can easily build capabilities on top of the framework. It's also really skinny (compressed to 12k).
Here's a nice example of how to light up something with Jquery. A simple nested list can turn into a nice collapsible menu system with Jquery and eight (yes eight) lines of code. Here's a nice little video to show it all happens. Pretty damn slick.
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 9, 2006, 09:25AMLab Pixies
Lab Pixies : cute little gadgets that can be added to your personal Google or Windows Live page (some work with Netvibes as ewll).
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 7, 2006, 05:07PMDesign Is...
I just finished reading John Maeda's The Laws Of Simplicity, a short, thoughtful book about simplicity and design. While it's goal is ambitious and I don't wholly agree with all its tenets, the book left me feeling good about design. John's positive energy really comes across and it had me thinking about what good design is really all about.
Design is that weird craft that is partly utilitarian and partly an expression of the creator. But beneath all that, what is design? Everyone is a designer in a sense. But what separates good design from bad design? You can create a wildly expressive, captivating product that leaves one who interacts with it fuming with frustration. What's missing there?
What's missing is empathy. Good design is about taking the time and energy to see through another's eyes and create something that sympathizes with how they think. At the risk of sounding hokey: Good design is thoughtful and compassionate. The beneficiary of a good design experiences something very unique. A good interaction experience creates an emotional bond and loyalty to the creation that is really, if you stop and think about, a bond with it's creator. "Someone took the time to think about what I need and worry about how I think."
Design in its broadest sense is forethought. Good interaction design is forethought and consideration about what others are going to experience before they do so. Everyone's seen that scene in countless movies where a character comes home and finds a candlelit dinner all beautifully prepared. Good design is anticipation.
Defining bad design also helps highlight what good design is. Bad design is selfish, unsympathetic and self-centered. Bad design makes end users feel abandoned, left alone to wade through the maze before them with no help in sight. It sometimes even leaves them insulted, embarrassed and often frustrated. In this case, the end user met the creator and he found him to be rude and patronizing.
Product managers and marketers often wonder why products with more features and better performance fail behind others. They put the latest hardware and software in and wrap it in the fanciest packaging. Giving customers more stuff is only half the picture. What they really want is your forethought and patience in learning how they think and delivering things that are in tune with that. If you do that, you can give them less and still win them over.
Posted by Richard Ziade on November 6, 2006, 02:18PMWonky Over Widgets
Everybody's going wonky over widgets (or gadgets, or dashboards, or...). There's even a conference dedicated to widgets (Om Malik has a write-up on it).
We're trending away from the browser - and it's going to keep going. In my oh-so-humble opinion, there will be two players left standing when it's all said and done: Microsoft and Adobe. It's going to be fun to watch. And the designer in me is all sorts of giddy about being able to create more seamless, targeted experiences outside of the browser. I've written at length about this in the past and the time is nearing. Yippee!
Update: Speak of the devil. Techcrunch talks about SpringWidgets - yet another widget platform by Fox Interactive that actually uses Flash on both the desktop and web. Smells a lot like Apollo. It's funny how two different species of business are going at this from two different directions. The content providers (Yahoo, Google, Fox, etc.) and the software platform people (Adobe, Microsoft).
Over at the Arc90 blog, I talk further about these trends and the skills and technologies that are going to lead the way.