I juiced with the Philippe Starck Juicer, and it made me sad.
Juice flies everywhere. The item is not stable-- it wobbled with each turn. I found myself starting the orange on the juicer, then finishing just with hand. Gorgeous, but art not appliance. In case you were wondering.
Compare to the juicer i own, a wedding present from my sister. It looks like a Brancusi, but works beautifully. No splash, fast, powerful and has outlived a couple electric juicers my husband is drawn to.
When will people realize beautiful and usable are synonyms, not antonyms.
My Brilliant Failure: Wikis In Classrooms
Visions of "negotiating meaning", "knowledge construction" and "student-to-student interaction" swam through my head. I wanted to share with the participants my experience of collaborating in a wiki environment, and how it feels to have someone else edit your document, how you see a concept from someone else's mind map. ... But finally, I ended up using wiki as pumped-up PowerPoint. "
Interesting story to read for anyong who thinks teh right technology will change/solve everything.
I continue to work toward getting widgetopia on the drupal platform. it's going slowly. The MT import issues are the last ones keeping me (I've never cared that much about the design, and am moderately content to use a drupal default design just as I currently use a MT default design. Although I have fantasies someone out there will suddenly make a design and email it to me saying, here, your site is dull..)
I watched SuperSize Me last night, which I highly recommend to anyone who has ever eaten fastfood or plans to again. This explains my current state of mind.
Now I'm eating a celery stalk with peanut butter on it. I bought the peanut butter from Trader Joes, and when I opened it, it had a layer of oil on top, which the jar instructed me to stir back in. I have never seen this before, but I don't think I've eaten peanut butter since my Jiff days either. I wondered about this creepy oil, so I looked at the ingredients list. It listed Dry Roasted Peanuts and Salt. So the oil was just peanut oil that had seperated from the "butter".
I love it when the ingrediants list is shorter than war and peace and full of things I've actually heard of: peanuts. salt. And as I stirred in the (naturally occuring) peanut oil, I thought of focus groups.
I can just imagine peanut butter focus groups talking about the oil, and stirring and how they didn't like the extra work ...
well, I picture it like this:
Moderator (thinking of a new technology they have discovered): and the oil on top, that you stir in-- do you like that?
User: It's okay
Moderator: But what if you didn't have to stir?
User: That'd be cool
Moderator (thinking): Fantastic! A user in favor for pentasodiathol 20!
... and then they put chemicals in the peanut-butter to keep it from separating. They don't say, would you rather stir or would you rather have lab created extracts in your food. Oh no. They've got DATA!
Anyhow, Philippe and I have happily removed processed food from our diets (or as he likes to point out, I've removed process foods. He's been organic for some time, though that does seem to include fattened duck liver. hmm)
And remember kids: don't listen to the users.
Trolling about, trying to see if anyone is using the term "faceted narrowing" which has recently become hip at Yahoo, and tripped over A Faceted Approach to Building Ontologies which is a very strong explanation of facet design.
From an interesting article on consulting:
"One of the gurus of management consulting, Tom Peters, made his name with a book co-written with Robert Waterman called "In Search of Excellence."
Of the companies he cited as examples of excellence, two-thirds were to run into trouble. With his theory soundly disproved by reality Peters remarked: "My principles have survived intact, it's just that the companies haven't." "
heh.
The Art of Branding is a simple slim book full of pictures and graphs that explains Brand creation and management by examining the life of Picasso, and along the way makes a convincing argument that Picasso was the master of his own brand. Recommended for the ideas, the graphs and photos, and the masterful simplicity.
John Baldessari is speaking this monday and so i did a search for him, and found this site that opens up in such a lovely way. i recomend you try it. it's actually pleasurable to navigate as a pure act of navigation. odd.
sad the site hasn't got any images of his work, tho.
happy birthday to you!
Matt writes "So what are your top 10 features for blog software?"
It depends what you mean by that. The top ten are the minimum you need to blog:
I suppose if you built this, you have a blogging system.
But next up is where it gets trickier. I'd list
Boom, i'm out. There are so many things I could think of though
But these really depend on who the audience is... baby bloggers might be better off with easy install/design wizard than fancy taxonomy management and workflow. Zines can't live without them.
So what are *yours*?
drupal is not easy. Reading the forums reveals I am not alone. Reading this write up explains why.
BUT if many of you who need the AMAZING range of featuers Drupal offers go off and work on installing it, and make helpful recommendations on how it could be fixed, we could have something here folks.
btw, very little posting from me while I wrastle with Drupal. Except occasional cursing, and that mostly here
In response to Six Log: How are you using the tool?
I have this blog, of course. I have lots of tiny personal logs, some on eleganthack, some on nothing-new.com which is a old wreck of a destination, but where I mostly like to put personal stuff. personal logs include things like a bookmark list, travel notes, a bad start at a novel (I actually wrote much of my first draft of my book in MT), and a list of comics I've read. What's funny is most of these are meant to be read by one person: me. In fact, to the degree that I have even password protected some. So # blogs is misleading, and even domains is a funny one.
I'm using it for Boxes and Arrows, and even though we technically only have about 4 editors, three copy editors and a tech person plus me we have ot list each contributor as an author to make things appear. Boxes and Arrows currently makes no money, so it couldn't be considered commercial.
Widgetopia might not be so relevant, as I'm trying to switch to drupal for feature reasons-- I want people to be able to sign themselves up to author, allow folks to rate entries, good taxonomy control etc. But that currently has four authors, and shows no sign of being even a break even proposition despite experiments in adsense.
I'd pay 40 bucks for it without blinking. With features I wanted and no limits I'd probably go up to the asking price of 70 bucks.
BTW, this is a dreadful way to do user research, and will result in sample bias:
Threat to the representativeness of a sample that occurs when the procedures used to select a sample result in the over- or under-representation of a significant segment of the population. --washington.edu
I'd recommend to 6A that they send an email to all their customers to fill out a survey crafted by a researcher to inquire into pricing/value issues at the least to get better representation. Moreover, they'd do well to email users of their competitors as well with the same questions, as well as potential customers.
It's amazing to me that so many companies-- many far bigger and far more established than 6A make the same mistake, choosing pricing plans and feature sets from a subset of their overall user base, then wondering why things go wrong. Message boards in particular are prone to misleading companies- they are noisy, but represent a sample of folks who are angry or fanatic enough and have spare time enough to go to the site and find an outlet for their ire. Hardly an average user.
My momma used to say the squeaky wheel gets the oil, but there are plenty of things that go wrong with a car without making a noise until it's far to late. Research is like a check-up-- do it to the entire car, not just the parts that are making strange noises, and do it often enough to prevent trouble.
from the facinating essay :: phpPatterns() - Templates and Template Engines
"So your web designer decided for you that the "username" variable will be 25 characters max? Isn't that your job? "
no.
Aside form that, i feel like drupal is drawing me into a strange new world, in which web designers do the code, but can't actually design a usable interface. huh.
from The Virtues of Chitchat - Making I.T. Work - CIO Magazine May 15,2004
"the blogging phenomenon has intriguingly useful implications for IT. I have to ask myself: Why wouldn't it make sense for an IT project manager to post a blog—or "plog" (project log)—to keep her team and its constituents up-to-date on project issues and concerns? Is it inherently inappropriate for an individual to post constructive observations about a project's progress? IT organizations that can effectively use blogs as managerial tools (or communication resources) are probably development environments that take both people and their ideas seriously. "
lots to ponder in this article. one is the funny tone of shock- how can they let employees to opening say what they think!" but far more interesting is contemplating how a blog can be so much more. When MT came out their pricing notice, a number of arrogant souls said, hey just go back to notepad and ftp. But the reality is, even for folks for whom those tools are sufficient, blogging is just easier. And easy means everything you know and think is more likely to make it into documentation-- for good and for bad.
A critical problem is getting people at the end of a project ot write out documentation. But inline at eh time documentation si both easier and more useful.
I would question though, if blogs (or plogs if you wish) are the right tool. i'd say a wiki, with it's emphasis on topic over chronological ordering is more useful.
Still, over all I think it's an excellent trend, one smart companies should take advantage of. Blogs make post-mortems easy, reveal problems earlier, and make it more likely people will take the time to write down at least some of the logic behind decisions, plus it helps mitigate the bus-factor.
all good.
I'm installing drupal on widgetopia to prepare for a more group-blog experience. some weirdness may occur. nothing to do with MT's pricing (mefi says it better than I can) a lot to do with taxonomy control, reputation managers, comment spam...
Why you should never put your picture on the Internet
Doblin - Ten types of innovation with examples of each.
from a recently trip to new york-- oddly beautiful as well as menacing (see larger version by clicking photo). I love urbanity.
I'm only slightly started to see how many terms are associated with banner ads:
Grantastic Designs: Glossary of banner design terms
BW Online | May 17, 2004 | The Power Of Design
After just seven weeks with IDEO, Kaiser realized its long-range growth plan didn't require building lots of expensive new facilities. What it needed was to overhaul the patient experience. Kaiser learned from IDEO that seeking medical care is much like shopping -- it is a social experience shared with others. So it needed to offer more comfortable waiting rooms and a lobby with clear instructions on where to go; larger exam rooms, with space for three or more people and curtains for privacy, to make patients comfortable; and special corridors for medical staffers to meet and increase their efficiency. "IDEO showed us that we are designing human experiences, not buildings,"
An excelelnt article. The magazine version is worth buying, as the photos and charts are rather nice. I had to go to a couple stores to try to buy it-- it's selling out across the silicon valley.
This guide is based on the style book which is given to all journalists at The Economist.
After joining Yahoo, I have taken up many of the services, including calendar, mail, movies, etc. One thing I cannot figure out is why I'm asked to log in at any given time. I haven't' been able to figure out a pattern in two years: i just know sometimes it knows me and sometimes it doesn't.
Yahoo, snapfish, ofoto, netflix, and everyone else who asks me to log in: hear me now. Ask me about my preferences. I am happy to tell you have two computers, both single use. I'm happy to tell you you can log me on forever, as I am the only oe who uses these things. read my IP. know me. cookie me. please. I'll tell you I'm not paranoid about my yahoo mail or my snapfish photos or my netflix queue because I have no secrets there. I'll tell you i am paranoid about my wells fargo account and my etrade account and don't cookie me at all there.
I will happily tell you everything, if you would please stop second guessing me, and just let me tell you what I care about. you can second guess me in teh beginnning, and be paranoid as you wish, but i will free you of responsibility if i could just set my preferences. your lawyers would probably love it.
yahoo, please stop asking me to sign in.
eBay item 3720968219 (Ends May-04-04 15:12:53 PDT) - AIR GUITAR!! CHEAPEST AROUND!!
thanks, randy, for providing a friday laugh....
The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > For Technology, No Small World After All
"For its part, Intel relies on a cycle of design that begins with high-level prognostication about potential markets. Then ethnographers like Dr. Bell and market researchers are sent to meet those people. The resulting information is incorporated into portraits of individual users. These portraits, called personas, describe a person's life."
Intriguing article-- thanks for the pointer, Zap.
David Greenberger gave one of the most intriguing talks at GEL. Accompanied by a piano, he acted out dialog form conversations with folks form a nursing home. Rather than being a classic oral history, these were people living in the present, though with views uniquely shaped by having a long past.
Check out The Duplex Planet
"The Duplex Planet is an ongoing work designed to portray a wide variety of real characters who are old or in decline. In our culture, exposure to people at this point in their lives is generally limited to seeing family members age and, since that points directly to one's own mortality, it's hard to glean much in the way of an objective example."
A recent article on document design in the WSJ shakily raised the question:
Is a poorly designed memo at fault for not warning the president the nature of the terrorist threat.
In many ways it's a retread of the butterfly ballot controversy, and the Challenger controversy, but I think it's a controversy worth raising again and again until careless attention to design stops killing people.
Here is the article (PDF) (html). Here is the redesign of the memo.
Here's what wasn't printed from my interview (lightly edited for coherence):
Q: I'd like to talk about the PDB and the redesign - especially what wasn't working in the original
A: I can't blame the president for having a hard time with the memo: it's a mess. Everything is wrong with it: bad writing, bad design and no sense of hierarchy. Presidents of large companies can only give a few minutes to most issues brought before them; it must be far worse for the president of the united states. Bush has to be able to judge in a few seconds how much of his precious time needs to be devoted to an issue in a memo: this one wasn't helping him.
People scan newspapers for a number of reasons: too much daily information, difficult reading conditions such as subways and buses, etc. Journalist like yourself write using the inverse pyramid. This allows the reader to immediately understand what the article will cover and if it is relevant to their lives. It's the same with writing for executives; they are so deluged with information they have to scan as a survival trait.
Imagine if that first sentence was "Data from reliable internal and external sources indicate Bin Ladin planning a large scale attack on an US target." from there you can move on to bullets
This way the president can glance over the memo to understand the threat and then dig in to richer information that can help him decide how to act.
Adding color and graphs would improve both scanability and impact. Imagine if every memo had bargraphs displaying a scale of how severe the threat was, how urgent the issue was and how trustworthy the data sources were. Bush could then compare that memo to those on corn production and diplomat dinner schedules and know where to place his attention.
In a strange way it's like designing a comparison shopping site like Yahoo! Shopping-- you know when users are searching for a camera, they want to be able to look over a number of stores who are selling the camera and quickly see if it is a brand they know, what is the user rating, how much is the price... the president may need to know how severe is the issue, how much time does he have to respond, how trustworthy is the information.
And he has less free time than an average shopper.
(I'm not a presidential adviser, so hard for me to say what he needs to know, but let's use those factors as strawmen)
Q: "what is information architecture?"
A: A profession devoted to making the complex clear, via information design and content organization. It requires an understanding of human nature when faced with mountains of data.
Some good definitions here
http://www.aifia.org/pg/about_aifia.php
1. The structural design of shared information environments.
2. The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets,
online communities and software to support usability and findability.
3. An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of
design and architecture to the digital landscape.
Q: What is the growth of the info architecture field since you've been involved
A: When I first started, there were very few IAs out there. But the growth of data has resulted in information overload, and trouble means opportunity. There are hundreds of dedicated practicing IA's, and thousands of people who make IA a part of their work. Data is useless, knowledge is invaluable, someone has got to make one into the other.
Q: Have you ever heard of/seen a company that tries to apply usability principles to internal communications.
Yahoo! does. During a major Yahoo! property redesign, every single day the product manager sent out html email updates. Each item was a bullet point, and each item was color coded green, yellow or red depending on how much danger it was of slipping.
The Senior VP could take a look and in a second he knew where he needed to spend his time straightening matters out, and where he could relax. It was a very successful project, and those simple daily memos made everything run a bit more smoothly. I bet Bush would have enjoyed a similar design. After all, shouldn't a red flag be red?
Q: Do you know what the readership is like for "Boxes and Arrows"? Any sense of how many readers you've got, and whether it's grown during the two years it's been around?
A: In our first year, we had 1001117 page reqs, in 03 we had 2337704, and this year's numbers suggest we'll grown by another half. (aka half again each year.) our mailing list went form 2000 in year one to 6000 to year 2.
Q: What are big topics in IA circles right now?
A: IA is going in two directions right now. Many folks who are "hands on" IA's are becoming master craftsmen of taxonomy design and navigation systems. Others are going in a slightly tangential direction-- working on complete user experience strategies that encompass multichannel design based on business priorities. Both are thrilling: the hands-on IA's are embracing things like topicmaps and emergent classification tools like Wikis, while the big-picture IA's are becoming involved in organizational innovation and user experience strategy. Overall its an exciting field, with a lot of innovation and experimentation.
Q: What's going to be the challenge for the next few years?
A: The challenge in the next few years is two-fold; one is how do we push forward to the next generation of knowledge management. By that I mean how do we harness the vast amount of information that is out there-- every day physicians prescribe the wrong medicines because as humans they can't keep up with the massive amount of new knowledge flooding the field... sometimes this limitation results in a less than effective treatment, sometimes it actually result in death.
The information space is growing so rapidly its becoming harder and yet more crucial we keep it human-manageable. I think this is one of the reasons we're seeing search get so much attention-- its one potential solution to the problem.
The second challenge is exactly what you spoke of earlier... how are we making sure what we've learned is getting out there. That's one of the reasons I founded Boxes and Arrows-- it's critical that as advances are made, they are shared. That way we are standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, instead of reinventing the wheel....
Also see: every breath death defying: IA in the WSJ
Correction on the WSJ article: I am no longer President of AIfIA, that role is now Peter Morville's. I was AIfIA's first year president.