November 2009
17 posts
5 tags
Map of the Design Landscape in Full Resolution
Before the holiday, I posted a visualization of the major design disciplines created by one of my graduate students, Forrest Conroy. I included several screenshots of various areas of the map, but they were all too small to read much of the detail. I had some requests from people that would like to see the whole thing, so I asked Forrest for permission to post the file. You can download the...
4 tags
Google Chrome
Speed, simplicity, and security. These are the core tenets that Google has built their Chrome OS around. I watched a video of the demo they gave last week, and while I have a lot of respect for their efforts, I can’t get excited about it.
Much like the Litl, which I wrote about last week, Google is stepping back from the robust operating systems we are used to and creating something new. There is...
3 tags
Reusable Blades
Everyone knows the old ploy: give away the razor; make a killing on the blades. They’ve done it with inkjet printers and any number of other products that require consumables. A slight twist to this is selling an expensive product that also requires consumables. Take vacuum cleaners, for instance. All vacuums used to require bags, but now canister vacuums are all the rage. Of course, they’ve added...
2 tags
Apple does the right thing… eventually.
Saturday morning, I checked my email before heading to a rehearsal. When I returned home, around 11:00, I discovered that my network was down. I looked over at my Time Capsule to see that the light was off. The Time Capsule is Apple’s back-up device that works with Time Machine. It contains a hard drive (Mine is 1 TB.) and also acts as a wireless router. I have three Macs that back up to it...
3 tags
The Extra Step
Beware of the extra step. If it is part of a procedure that the user carries out within a software application, chances are that it is an action that will be repeated many times over.
When creating diagrams, a common action is to center a connecting line with the object it connects to. In Freehand, this could be accomplished in three clicks: 1 each to select the objects to be aligned, and one to...
2 tags
Let the Griping Commence
May 18th, 2007, I made a post titled “R.I.P. Freehand”. Today, I finally laid Freehand to rest. I’ve upgraded to Adobe CS4 Design Standard, and have begun working in Illustrator. For the most part, I’m able to function just fine. However, I keep running into speed bumps.
Keyboard shortcuts are one source of problems. For example, in Freehand, “group” was command+g and “ungroup” was command+u. In...
9 tags
Map of the Design Landscape Through Recent History
I’d like to feature the work of one of my graduate students. I gave an assignment in which each student was to design a map of the design landscape depicting major disciplines, organizations, educational institutions, firms, luminaries, and methods. They didn’t necessarily have to include all of this information, nor were they limited to it. Forrest Conroy incorporated everything just mentioned,...
4 tags
Design Pattern: Soft Keyboards
Efficient data entry is arguably the most difficult goal to achieve in a mobile UI. On-screen keyboards, while not as efficient as touch typing on a physical keyboard, can be useful for short amounts of text, such as filling out a form. Tablets have enough screen real estate to display full keyboards, and smaller devices can display specialized data entry pop-ups. Typically, the operating system...
7 tags
A litl More
After my brief post last week about the litl, I was contacted by James Gardner, litl’s VP of marketing. He pointed me to a post on Pentagram’s site and to a video on YouTube. As I was hoping, they painted a picture of very thoughtful design and filled in a lot more detail. In fact, as it turns out, they had an all-star cast working on this thing. Lisa Strausfeld lead Pentagram’s team in the design...
1 tag
Return
I feel compelled to apologize to my regular readers for the lack of posts last week. I was sick, and blogging was rather low on my list of priorities. Sleep was a fair bit higher. I’m better now, so we will now return to our regular program.
4 tags
Like Magic
I started using Apple’s new Magic Mouse today, and I absolutely love it. I find it very comfortable, a perfect weight, and with just enough resistance as it slides across my desktop. Of course, the best feature of it is the swipe to scroll. I really liked the scroll ball on my old Mighty Mouse, but this is a vast improvement. The scroll ball worked well, but just like the wheels, it could only...
5 tags
A Litl Something
A new netbook-type product has been released: the Litl. I find this one more interesting than the underpowered laptops we have seen thus far, however. It takes what I consider to be an Apple approach. The creators must have asked the question, “If we were to design a laptop that was strictly for web use only, what would it be?”
The Litl looks like a small laptop—it folds open revealing a screen...
1 tag
Incompetence
Dustin Curtis has a tale to tell about American Airlines, the design of their website, and the way they run their business. It isn’t pretty. This post is in response, so I encourage you to read it first.
Observation 1: Give the benefit of the doubt. Dustin’s initial post was rather harsh, declaring that AA should fire their entire design team and hire outside contractors to redesign the website....
3 tags
Tales from the Field: Collaboration
In the past, collaboration was limited to collocated activities and voice communication via telephone or radio. The introduction of mobile computers has opened up numerous possibilities for remote collaboration.
When multiple mobile devices are connected via a wireless network supported by a server, participating technicians can share information and maintain awareness of overall status. I’ve...
4 tags
In the Details: Canister Dump
I’ve had a Fantom vacuum for over 10 years. It was a well-designed product, and we definitely got our money’s worth out of it. A circuit board went bad and the beater stopped turning. Fantom went out of business several years ago, so I decided repairing it wouldn’t be a good option. My in-laws decided they would give us a new vacuum as an early Christmas gift, so my wife and her mother went...
2 tags
Designer’s Toolbelt: Parallels
Most of the projects that I work on are for the military or industry. As such, all of the software that I design runs on Windows. Even the web-based applications are built for IE without cross-browser support being a priority. In the past, I’ve had to remote into old, slow Windows machines or VMs to run IE or native applications. Now that I have a Mac with an Intel processor, I’m able to run...
5 tags
Interaction 10 Program
The program for Interaction 10 has been posted, and it looks like it will be another outstanding conference. The keynote speakers will be Paola Antonelli, Dan Hill, Jon Kolko, Ezio Manzini, Nathan Shedroff, and a true legend in the field, Bill Moggridge. Additional invited speakers are Timo Arnall, Cindy Chastain, Liz Danzico, Shelley Evenson, Dave Gray, Tom Igoe, Peter Morville, and Denise...
