January 2008
29 posts
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Narrative Visualization
Based on Tufte’s categorization, one of the assignment’s in the class I taught last semester was to design a narrative visualization. It resulted in several disparate, and quite interesting, designs. Pictured below, Tarannum’s narrative was titled “An Insight into the Active Me”. Inspired by Jeff Howard’s Data Self Portrait, She analyzed her activities and...
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...but who’s counting?
I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever have a good air travel experience again. I booked my flight for the upcoming IxDA conference, Interaction 08, back in November. I figured that would be the best way to make sure I got the flights I wanted at a good price. In convincing my company to send me to the conference, I made my trip as short as possible. I fly down Friday morning, arriving in...
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Designer's Toolbelt: TextWrangler
While I prefer to leave implementation to the developers, I do have to muck with code on a regular basis. For HTML, I rely on Dreamweaver. I’ve already written about CSSEdit. When it comes to anything else, such as XML, a DTD, or the occasional JavaScript, I pull up TextWrangler. Bare Bones Software’s TextWrangler is a very simple, yet powerful text editor. It will open any file you...
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Let’s It Snow
I’m not sure which is worse: the fact that this gift bag was designed, printed, shipped, stocked, and sold, or the fact that my relatives didn’t notice until it was purchased, used to wrap a gift, and the gift was given and opened. Oh yes, the bag says “Made in China” on the bottom.
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Everything Old...
I heard a news story yesterday about a new, innovative method of ship propulsion that will conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions. Wait for it… Wind! Can you believe it? How did they ever think of harnessing the wind to move ships across the water? Amazing! Kidding aside, the kite is expected to cut fuel costs by 20%—approximately $1,600 a day. Read more about it here.
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Time Series II
In this second example from my course on Information Design and Visualization, another time series, the student found data on the number of organ donations in the U.S. over the past 15 years. The data was broken down by organ type and also specified the number of deceased vs. living donors. As you can see below, she did almost everything wrong in the first version. It only represents the total...
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In the Details: Head Phone
One of my favorite iPhone features has nothing to do with the innovative multi-touch screen or the various applications that make it so useful. As easy and fun as the iPhone’s interface is to use, there are times when you don’t even want to be bothered with it. In those instances, the headphones are the primary input device. On the cord that extends to the right ear is a small,...
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Time Series
One of the early assignments in my course last semester was the design of a time series data visualization. This example plots the earnings of Tom Hanks’ movies in a chronological comparison with the number of Oscar nominations he received. An additional indicator marks Oscars he was awarded. While a relatively simple data set, its multivariate nature made it perfect for the assignment....
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Pump Stumper
A good friend of mine related the following story to me last Friday. After breakfast today, I stopped for gas, and when I got out of the car, the guy at the next pump immediately asked me, “What do you press after entering your zip code?”, to which I responded, “You have to enter your zip code?” I walked over, assuming that it would be obvious. It wasn’t. I told him...
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Simplehuman
It always excites me to see companies succeed due to exquisite design innovation. For OXO’s Good Grips to Nintendo’s Wii, they become public lighthouses, beacons that bring awareness of Design to the masses. Simplehuman is one that may be added to the list. I purchased one of their trash cans after using one at my in-law’s. The Industrial Design is quite good, but it’s more...
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Jello is GUI
The new version of the iPhone software added a number of quite useful features (although I’m still waiting for copy & paste). I think the use of animation to indicate that the screen is in “edit mode” is really quite clever. To edit your “home” screen, you tap and hold one of the icons for a couple seconds, and then all of the buttons on the screen start to...
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Time Capsule
I’ve been planning for some time now to put together my “ultimate” back-up system. I have Time Machine, part of Mac OS X Leopard. When Steve Jobs originally demoed it, he said it would work with a drive connected to an Airport base station. I figured I could back up all three Macs in my house. I was disappointed to find that feature missing when Leopard finally released. My plan...
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Powramid
One of the few things coming out of CES that actually perked my attention was Kreative Power’s Powramid. The name’s crummy, and it isn’t even a pyramid, but I do enjoy an idea that breaks the mold. It’s so simple, addressing one of those bugs that bothers me quite often. Certainly, there will be power bricks that will be too big for it, but that’s a separate issue....
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Alarming Clock
The clock/radio/CD player in my hotel room last week almost stumped me. It had multi-position switches on the left side by which the two alarms could be turned on or off and set to sound a buzzer or the radio (or CD?). On the right side were a tuning dial, volume control, and some other things. The face of the clock had a line of buttons beneath it that controlled the CD player. The top of the...
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SelectShun
I realize that what I’m about to say is obvious, but using the iPhone for all of my email and blogging this week has brought it front-and-center in my thoughts.
Selection is an extremely important capability when editing text.
It is taken for granted until one must do without it. This is one of my few complaints about the iPhone. When replying to an email, the original message is...
Pretty dumb bird! Brraaaaauwk!
One of the toys that my daughter wanted most, and received, this Christmas was the FurReal Squawkers McCaw Parrot. She has some strange fascination with motorized, stuffed animals. She already owns Go-Go My Walkin’ Pup, Lucky the Incredible Wonderpup, and an annoying, pink poodle that barks incessantly. All of these but the poodle respond to speech, or are supposed to. And therein lies the...
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Every Day
When I originally started DesignAday, I did intend to post every day, and I did post every day for awhile. Of course, then I realized that sometimes I didn’t have a computer or internet connection. Then there were times that I just didn’t have time. So, fairly recently, I decided that I would stop posting on weekends. This is working fairly well, and I plan to continue in this fashion....
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In the Details: Contextual Volume
It is readily apparent that Apple thought a lot about the context of use when designing the iPhone. There are typically three ways that I listen to audio from my iPhone: with the headphones, with a cassette adapter in my car, and through its own speaker. The iPhone remembers the volume setting separately for all three. For example, I could be sitting in my office, listening to a podcast with the...
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Aptera Typ-1
Looking more like a small airplane cockpit, devoid of wings or tail, than a car, the Typ-1 is a visually striking and technologically innovative electric vehicle. Just before the holidays, Popular Mechanics put up a short, but informative video about it. While I was certainly impressed with the physical design and engineering of the vehicle, I was even more taken aback by the dashboard. Instead of...
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Registration Frustration
Now that the holidays are over and I’m back home, I have a stack of product registration cards on my desk. I never fill them out, choosing instead to register online. There are three things that I find especially frustrating about this process. 1. Serial Numbers Registrations typically require serial numbers from the products. Of course, the products, especially consumer electronics, are by...