May 2007
27 posts
5 tags
Surface
Today at D5, Bill Gates demonstrated Microsoft’s new platform, Surface. Basically, it is a computer built into a table with a rear-projection, 30” display as the surface. It utilizes cameras to detect hand gestures, touch, and objects, such as smartphones, media players, and digital cameras. It can communicate with such objects using wireless technologies such as Bluetooth and WiFi.
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2 tags
Microsoft is Good for Something
I’m not a fan of Microsoft. I find their products lacking (to put it briefly). Every once in awhile, they throw their money at something beneficial. One such benefactor is type design. Over the years, Microsoft has funded research into on-screen readability, and hired top type designers to create fonts for its products.
I was recently made aware of the new typefaces designed for Vista....
Wiiiiiiiiiiiii!
A good friend of mine recently purchased a Wii. I got a chance to check it out, and it’s as easy to get a hang of as I had read. We played Wii Sports. The natural movements used to play the games make it accessible to everyone. My six-year-old daughter scored over 140 points bowling. My wife wants to buy one.
I was impressed with the detailed thought that went into the Wiimote. The fact...
Subject
It puzzles me as to why a lot of people, when sending email, enter inconsequential words or phrases into the Subject field. For example, I often receive messages in which the subject is utilized as a method of salutations: “Hi!”
The subject field is intended to give the reader an idea of the contents of a message when they are viewing a tabular list. If the subject isn’t...
Pumped
There have been times that I have driven up to a pump, and then driven right on to the next gas station after noticing that it didn’t have pay-at-the-pump. I like the convenience of not having to walk into the building and stand in line at the register. I don’t want to have to care about the number of the pump I used.
So, when I finished pumping gas a couple days ago, I was annoyed...
Ad Nauseam
I understand advertising. I appreciate the fact that a lot of what I get seemingly for free is paid for by advertising. In the majority of cases, I don’t mind it too much.
When I sit down to watch a movie that I have purchased on DVD, as I did this evening, I’m ready for an experience. I’m not interested in sitting through a bunch of trailers for movies that came out a year ago...
Podium Pratfalls
Last night I wrote about the Art.i.licious event. As I said, it was very successful. There were only a few minor hiccups. Most of them were directly related to computer technology.
We opened and closed the event in a sizable auditorium named Bloch Hall. At some point within the past few years, the hall was rennovated. It has a state-of-the-art, computer-based presentation system. There is a...
Art.i.licious
I hope it is not poor manners to brag about one’s students. They really made me proud today.
I’ve been teaching a Masters-level design class at WVU for two years. This past semester (Spring 2007), I had my students tackle a Service Design project. The problem statement from the course syllabus was:
Most High School students do not receive Graphic Design training in their art...
Ice Half-Cylinders
There is nothing you could do to convince me to give up the in-the-door ice dispenser in my refrigerator. It is one convenience I will never again do without. That is not to say that it doesn’t irk me to no end.
But before I explain that little twist of schizophrenia, let’s turn the clock back a few years to a time in which I had no air conditioning, no cell phone, and my computer...
Writing in the Dark
Starting this blog was somewhat of a spur-of-the-moment decision. As I explained in my second post, the idea of short posts and a simple site appealed to me. In retrospect, I wish I had thought about the prospect more thoroughly. I find that I am now missing many of the features found on standard blogs. I now see value in tagging my entries, whereas before, it seemed like something that would just...
3 tags
R.I.P. FreeHand
Yesterday, John Nack posted on his blog confirmation of what I have been fearing ever since Adobe bought out Macromedia. FreeHand will be developed no further.
FreeHand was the very first graphics application I learned to use. At the time, it was Aldus FreeHand—some flavor of version 3. It has been my tool of choice for over 14 years. It’s going to be extremely difficult to move on for a number...
RSS: The Power, The Curse
RSS is a truly wonderful thing. I rely on it for all of my news. I use it to keep abreast of happenings in the design community. I depend on it to deliver much of my entertainment. It keeps me updated on the activities of my friends and family.
Unfortunately, there is still content in which I’m interested that doesn’t have an RSS feed. As a result, I tend not to check such sources...
Missed Opportunity #4
While I was in graduate school, I and a couple of my classmates did some consulting for a company that one of the faculty was working with. I don’t remember the name of the company, but they were interested in developing innovative methods of advertising on the internet. Remember that this was in the previous millenium, back when web advertising was limited to flashing banner ads.
One of...
A Side Order of Trust
There has been a lot of discussion on IxDA lately about design based on research vs. design based on gut instinct. Most of it was centered around a column that Dan Saffer wrote back in March. Basically, he outlines the situations in which research is needed, and makes the case that there are projects for which the designer doesn’t have to perform research to do a good job. For the record, I...
5 tags
Admiring Apple's Back-Side
Apple recently filed another patent for a touch-sensitive interface on a mobile device. Named the “Back-Side Interface”, the abstract reads as follows:
An electronic device uses separate surfaces for input and output. One of the surfaces (e.g., the bottom) includes a force-sensitive touch-surface through which a user provides input (e.g., cursor manipulation and control element...
5 tags
5,126 Failures
In a recent Fast Company article, James Dyson said, “I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution.” If only I had the luxury of designing to that level of detail. I can’t spend years working on a design. I have to produce results in a matter of weeks, and I suspect that a lot of...
Take Action: Addressing Asthma & Diabetes in West...
In the Spring semester of 2006, my students at WVU designed and produced an educational CD-ROM for the West Virginia Asthma Coalition. Its target audience is the faculty and staff in the public schools. Its purpose is to train them on the subjects of asthma and diabetes. Titled “Take Action”, the CD was distributed to every public school in the state this past year. All faculty are...
Hungry Man Management
I take my lunch to work. My office isn’t within walking distance of any eateries, and even those within a five minute driving radius are a poor selection. I typically take leftovers. It’s cost effective, and it’s good food. For the occasions that there are no leftovers, I keep a stash of so-called “TV dinners” in the freezer. I’m partial to Swanson’s...
Missed Opportunity #3
One of my required courses as a masters student in the Interaction Design program at Carnegie Mellon University was a project sponsored by Interval Research Corporation. We were challenged to design a computer that makes people laugh. Based on a lot of research and brainstorming, my group outlined three goals for our solution. Our product would be collaborative in nature, physically engage the...
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
The IxDA mailing list is a thriving entity that can easily push out 100 or more messages in a week. There are several recurring topics that will pop up every few months and generate above-average traffic. One of those topics is “What are the qualifications of an Interaction Designer?” The conversation typically centers around people’s backgrounds. Are they visual designers, or...
Weekaholic
Hello. My name is Jack, and I’m a weekaholic.
Judging by the comments of a couple of my co-workers, it would seem that I have a good track record for making accurate estimates of my time during project planning. I find this somewhat laughable.
You see, I have this problem. In my mind, a week seems like an infinite amount of time. Given an infinite amount of time, I can get a lot of stuff...
Hibachi Experience
My family celebrated Mother’s Day today, as my wife will be in Boston for a convention next weekend. She wanted to try a new restaurant—Ichiban, a hibachi and sushi bar.
A hibachi is an interesting example of experience design. I watched the same show take place at one table after another with small, personalized additions by each of the chefs. One of them was better at the spatula...
Time 100
I don’t put a lot of stock in web polls. It’s obvious when looking at the results of the Time 100 poll that fan groups around the world went on clicking sprees to get their icons notoriety. How else could the top three spots, supposedly the three most influential people in the world this year, go to a Korean pop star, an American comedian, and an American Idol contestant? It’s...
My First Time
I was listening to the Be A Design Cast this morning on my way to work, and they were talking about their first introductions to graphic design. My own first exposure wasn’t as specific as the examples they shared, and I had to think for awhile before anything specific came to me.
My first awareness of design was the result of watching billboards along I-79 as I rode in the back seat of...
Layout Hell
Yesterday, I produced design documentation for a new application I have been working on. It is a relatively small application (actually a small piece of a much larger system), so the document was only about six pages long. I created it in Freehand and exported it for consumption as a PDF.
Now, say what you will, but I have very good reasons for using Freehand, which has been one of my primary...
Missed Opportunity #2
During the first semester of my first year of graduate school, Fall 1996, flight reservations were somewhat of a fad. I had three different projects in as many classes that dealt with making flight reservations on the web. One of them was for my Interface Design class. I decided that it would improve the experience if users could reserve specific seats. I found a cabin layout on the web and...
Think Like a Computer
A friend of mine was trying to turn a PowerPoint slide show into a playable DVD. She figured out that she could export the slides as JPEGs and then burn them as a photo disc. The DVD player would then play them as a slide show, allowing her to advance through them with the remote control.
She sent me email to tell me what she had done, but she had a problem. When she played them on the DVD...
