Archives for September 2004
Spaceship Design Masterclass
Axel’s been showing quite an aptitude for making cubic structures. While most of his peers are content to pile up bricks repetitively, perhaps with the occasional asymmetric flourish, he prefers to create a base, then build Guadi-like cathedrals using the properties and shapes of the materials rather architecturally. Last week Kumi showed me something he’d made that was actually a little spooky in its complexity (remember, Axel is only just four).
Managing Content Another Way
Lawd – I is churnin’ it out today!
Why is content not treated in the same way as page designs and HTML?
On most projects, one of the primary deliverables is a set of HTML “templates” to be integrated at some point into a CMS. The CMS then uses these templates to render content loaded into it. This represents a transition from an initial set of page designs (usually developed with a graphics package) into a format (HTML) generally suitable for “decomposition” in some way.
Experience and Graphic Design Process – Unformed Thoughts
As part of some recently expansive thinking, I’ve been jamming on the following theme recently as follows. So far, I’ve got some thoughts, but no good solutions, on streamlining the experience and graphic design process overall.
IA Research Shorts
There’s some interesting stuff here, including summary of some research showing that changing navigation in subtle ways actually helps users navigate (and aids their understanding of the depth of the site), thereby seeming to contradict the standard guideline that navigation should be kept consistent. Also talks about other things such as classifying information toward the end of the process, not the beginning. It’s a presentation but has some citations worth following.
Then there’s some page-scrolling stuff that’s good to counter the nay-sayers.
Polemic
There’s been an upsurge in deep thinking about development process at work over the last few days, and I’ve been in somewhat expansive mood.
Some mobile photography
Now that Bluetooth can liberate my lo-res snaps from the confines of my phone to the wasteland of my blog, I thought I’d celebrate by puttin’ some up:
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Mobile technology good, network and accessories bad
Having recently bought a Sony Ericsson T610 on a deal from BT Mobile (and no, that’s not O2), I’ve been reflecting on the fact that while the phone itself is pretty good (if seemingly designed by somebody left-handed), the peripheral stuff like support, billing, accessories and general “off-handset” features, are appallingly bad.
WARNING: The following post is probably very, very tedious.
Kaze no tani no Naushika
I watched the DVD of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime epic today with Axel, who was (almost) glued to it throughout. It’s a spooky film, and I was worried he’d get nightmares, but he seems OK.
I didn’t realise the film was made twenty years ago. The first thing that struck me was how much The Matrix (and in particular Reloaded) plundered it for ideas: the sentinels are in it (well, as huge insects) and some scenes are extremely similar. There’s even a bit where Naushika is wrapped up in tendrils just like Neo is for the big showdown.
Soapbox on Software Patents
"If Haydn had patented 'a symphony, characterised by that sound is
produced { in extended sonata form },' Mozart would have been in trouble."
Since I am involved in software design, I feel I should oppose any move by the European Union to allow the patenting of software. Software patents threaten to stifle innovation in software design and given even more monopolistic power to existing software corporations to the detriment of smaller companies and fair competition. In my own case, they could lead to a nightmare situation in which ideas in the experience design of websites would have to be checked by slow and expensive patent lawyers before they could be deployed by the clients I work for.
The European Union is considering introducing legislation that would allow patenting of software. If you make a living from software development in any way, then I think you should be similarly opposed.
For more information see this website
The Mystery of Chip and PIN
The fact that millions of pounds a year are lost to credit card fraud makes the whole “chip and PIN” thing more mysterious by the day. When’s it happening? Why did it happen years ago? How will it be introduced? There seems to be a veil of confusion over it all, but most people seem either not to know nor care about it. Hmm. Well, maybe it’ll all be OK.
But I began to worry when I got a flyer from Barclaycard entitled “Answering your questions about chip and PIN.” It must rank as the single most confusing and self-contradictory piece of customer communication I have ever received.
Firefox: you learn a new thing every day
I just had one of those Really Nice User Interface moments.
I’ve been getting into tabbed browsing with Firefox, usually right-clicking links and choosing “Open Link In New Tab.” But after a while you want to re-cycle tabs as it gets a bit cluttered spawning new ones, and shutting down old ones can be a pain.
So I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just drag the link to the tab I want it to load it in?”
And guess what? You can! Ahh, it’s sooo nice when that sort of thing happens.
CSS – nice!
So far, I’ve managed to avoid being paid to do HTML – and I count that as a Very Good Thing. To date, the pinnacle of my achievement in creating an entire site from scratch is www.bakerbates.com. Which is crap, obviously.
Is that a chip your shoulder?
I remember 1995. One of the things I particularly remember was having a conversation with a journalist who really, really hated the idea of the Internet. What the hell would happen to quality journalism if any old Joe could set up a website and start ranting?
If You Leave An Idea Hanging Around…
True story: somebody told me once they’d been looking at a site called “Flash Your Rack.” They said it was a bit like “Hot Or Not” but “raunchier.” I thought they meant effects (or perhaps server) racks. After all, I’ve seen some really impressive racks in Telehouse: twenty Enterprise 450′s divided by blue routers look cool, particularly if they have well-managed cable tidies with them and lots of flashing lights.
But no. He meant tits.
Nevertheless, I thought it might be a goer creating a site like that. And now I see somebody has!
Let’s Make It Illegal: That’ll Stop It!
I am not, and never have been, a smoker, but sometimes I find myself thinking things are far worse than I thought. This week was one of those times.
In an echo of a flabbergasting report frome the BMA that tobacco should be made illegal, there comes a survey that shows that a large proportion of people in Britain think it should be banned as well. This opinion says more about misplaced belief in the rule of law than it does attitudes to smoking, and it illustrates why I’m convinced that in hundreds of years time people will look back on The War On Drugs (and perhaps the War on Smoking?) as baffling as the obsession with witchcraft, alchemy or religious schism in ages past.
One from the logs
I was going through my chat logs this evening looking for something. It’s only the second time I’ve ever done it I think, but I must do it more often – you find all sorts of interesting stuff. Anyway, I spotted this amusing account of an exchange I’d had (edited to protect the innocent and to correct my howling typos):
Popping my Paper-Prototyping Cherry
We did a paper-prototyping dry run the other day in preparation for some similar sessions for a client (not involving me, unfortunately). It was the first time I’d done it hands-on, having only read about the theory before. Here we were basically evaluating the technique.
