January 2009
19 posts
2 tags
Truism
“Broken gets fixed. Shoddy lasts forever.”
One of the developers I work with said this after I complained about a lingering issue in one of our products. It rings true. When deadlines are tight, and there is more work to get done than there are developers or hours in the schedule, it’s not the squeaky wheel, but the jammed one that gets the grease. The lesson, then, is to make sure it gets done...
4 tags
Air Repair
Late last year I busted Yammer’s chops about the design of their Adobe Air client. They’ve since released a new version, and they’ve either read my post or received complaints from other Mac users. Most of the issues I raised have been addressed. While the preferences still refer to the “tray”, I no longer see a mention of the “task bar”. I don’t mind the location of the close and minimize icons...
2 tags
Outlaw Driving
There have been several studies recently claiming that talking on a phone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk. Psychology Professor Marcel Just used brain imaging to show a 37% drop in driving-associated brain activity while listening to a cell phone. According to a report on CMU’s website, “Just and his colleagues showed that simply listening to a cell phone while driving can cause...
1 tag
Practical Lessons from Games: Integrated Tutorial
Every avid gamer, upon purchasing the latest and greatest game, will plop down on his couch for an hour or so and read the manual cover-to-cover before installing the game. If your jaw is not hanging open after that first sentence, you’re obviously not counted as one. After spending years reading news about an upcoming game, participating in discussion forums and fan communities, downloading...
4 tags
Microsoft’s Retail Experience Center
Engadget reported mid-month on Microsoft’s new Retail Experience Center. This isn’t the beginnings of their response to the Apple Store—it’s a showcase for Microsoft’s solutions for retailers, including everything from RFID enabled shopping carts that display information about the items on the shelves nearby, to Surface displays and back end systems.
It’s very typical Microsoft. Here’s how all of...
5 tags
Practical Lessons from Games: Introduction
I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about computer games in relation to other applications, shall we say “practical” applications, of Interaction Design. That may be in part due to the fact that it is becoming a popular topic. It may also have something to do with my own enjoyment of games. I’ve decided to start a new series of posts on the topic.
Before the holidays, I was suggesting new...
4 tags
Design vs. Innovation? - Part 2
This is a continuation of commentary on Design Versus Innovation: The Cranbrook / IIT Debate. See yesterday’s post for Part 1.
Scott insinuates that “innovation” is just design-by-committee, but gives no evidence to back it up. Then he suggests that innovation is to blame for the current state of the design community.
All the hype in the business press about this fascinating thing called...
5 tags
Design vs. Innovation? - Part 1
Seriously?
An article that appeared in Interactions Magazine and IDSA’s Innovations Magazine was just made available on Cranbookdesign.com. It revisits an article published in ID Magazine twenty years ago that contrasted the approaches of Chuck Owen of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and Mike McCoy of Cranbrook. The debate is approached from the point of view that there are two...
3 tags
Autovation
I’ve complained enough about the current state of the U.S. auto industry. If they are to blame for their own lack of innovation, as I proclaim, who is doing better? Two examples have recently floated across my RSS feeds.
Engadget reported last week that Toyota announced the new 2010 Prius at the Detroit Auto Show. They have increased its mileage from 46 to 50 mpg, and introduced three driving...
3 tags
Flash Catalyst
I’ve posted in the past about Adobe’s forthcoming tool for prototyping software code-named Thermo. Back in December, Adobe Edge revealed it’s official title, Flash Catalyst. They also published a new demo by Ryan Stewart and Narciso Jaramillo. I’ve heard that some lucky designers have been beta testing it. Hopefully, this means that its official release is just around the corner.
2 tags
A Plug for Plugs
As is often the case, some of the most innovative product designs result from rethinking an existing product that hasn’t changed in decades—objects that we accept because they’ve always been that way.
Outlet strips are one of those items. I never seem to have enough outlets, especially under my computer desk. The problem is, so many consumer electronics have bulky wall-warts. They are designed,...
3 tags
They just don’t get it!
Ryan Nakashima, an AP Business Writer, reported today on the changes to iTunes pricing. In getting the record companies to allow them to sell music DRM-free, Apple had to give in on variable pricing, rather than sticking to 99 cents per track. Some tracks will be sold for $1.29, while others will sell for 69 cents—most will remain at 99 cents.
From Nakashima’s report:
…for more than a year,...
1 tag
What are your resources?
I was quite active in Boy Scouts while I was younger. After I made Eagle and graduated from High School, I stayed on with my troop as an Assistant Scout Master for a few years. There are a number of training programs for Scouters (the name for adult leaders); Wood Badge is the most advanced. I wasn’t involved as a Scouter long enough to have the opportunity to participate, but Roger, one of my...
2 tags
In the Details: Rear Windshield Washer
The nozzle for the rear windshield washer is off-center. It is directly centered over the blade of the wiper when it is down. This had to be a deliberate decision on the part of the designer. I’m guessing his or her thinking went something like this:
If the washer fluid comes out right where the wiper begins its journey, it will push the fluid across the entire windshield making the most effective...
4 tags
In the Details: Steering Column Levers
The Mazda 5 is my wife’s car. That means that I don’t drive it all that often. Of course, over the holidays, I was driving it more than usual as we traveled to see family. I’ve written before about the rain sensor in the windshield—a very useful feature. However, because the wipers turn on automatically, I haven’t learned the wiper controls on the steering column lever.
I was driving at night,...
3 tags
Designer’s Toolbelt: GammaSlamma & Name Mangler
Until relatively recently, I haven’t been able to make much use of PNGs in my web application UI designs. IE 6 doesn’t support the alpha channel that allows for partial transparency. However, IE 7 now has wide enough adoption that we are able to drop support for IE 6 in some cases. Even better, our developers have started using GWT for our client-side development, and it applies a fix that causes...
5 tags
DRM “Free”
I was happy to hear during Phil Schiller’s keynote at Macworld Expo that Apple was finally able to work out an agreement with the music publishers. By the end of this quarter, all tracks in the iTunes store will be free of Digital Rights Management (DRM). Practically all of the other digital music retailers have been selling DRM-free files for many months—companies like BMG weren’t happy with...
3 tags
U.S. National Design Policy Initiative
Back in November, a two-day National Design Policy Summit was held in Washington D.C. with participants from most of the major U.S. professional design organizations, design education accreditation organizations, and the Federal government. The results of the meeting have just been published as a policy brief, Redesigning America’s Future, which lays out ten policy proposals.
Proposal 01 ...
1 tag
Sparkcrimes
Having just finished teaching a semester course on data visualization, I have Tufte-on-the-brain. Before the holidays, PetFlight.com was brought to my attention as an example of Sparklines in the wild.
Unfortunately, these sparklines don’t provide enough context to be of any use. Rather, they raise a lot of questions!
1. What is the time-span we are looking at? Is it months or years?
2. They...