March 2010
23 posts
5 tags
Touch & Hold
One of the things that stands out for me watching the iPad guided tours is the heavy use of “touch and hold” to access additional options—that is, options in addition to whatever happens when you tap something. For example, touch-holding an address in Mail will give you the options of adding it to your address book, opening a map, or simply copying it to the clipboard. Touch-hold a photo...
2 tags
Mailbox
According to Wikipedia, “…the familiar U.S. curbside mailbox with its curved, tunnel-shape top (to prevent water and snow collection), latching door, and movable signal flag was designed by U.S. Post Office employee Roy J. Joroleman…” in 1915. “Originally, [the] flag was raised not only by the resident of the property to notify the postman of outgoing mail, but also by the postman to inform the...
6 tags
In the Details: 22 Pixel Shift
The Mac OS supported multiple monitors long before Windows did. It still does it better. Every part of the UI—Exposé, Spaces, screen sharing, you name it—not only works well with multiple displays, but takes advantage of them. As always, great design shines through in the smallest details.
The menu bar is only on one of the displays; it’s on my left side. I typically have my web browser maximized...
4 tags
Moving Movies
The first thing I did after setting up my Drobo was move all of my digital video onto it. Ever since I purchased an HD Canon video camera a little over a year ago, I’ve been rapidly filling up my hard drives. I’ve been using iMovie to import, organize, and edit my video, and just like iPhoto and iTunes, iMovie maintains a library of video clips organized by event. You use clips from the library in...
4 tags
Practical Lessons from Games: Progressive...
What would happen if, the first time you played a game, it was so difficult that you didn’t enjoy it in the slightest? Would you be likely to want to play it again? Well-designed games strike a very fine balance between being hard enough to be challenging, rather than boring, yet easy enough for you to learn the rules, begin to understand some strategy, and achieve some success. To maintain that...
2 tags
CardStar Part II
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the iPhone application CardStar. I have since been able to get it to work. The second time I tried it, I found out that I hadn’t entered the entire number for the bar code, as there were numbers on either end that were separated from the others, smaller, and not even on the same baseline. Tonight, I tried for the third time and got it to work. You have to get...
2 tags
Testing
I hate the first day of testing.
Let me rephrase that. I hate the first day of testing for the first build of a brand new application. Especially one that is on a tight schedule. I find it to be disheartening. After I’ve put so much work into the design and the specification, it is disappointing to see it fall so far from the mark. There’s so much to test. There are so many little details that I...
3 tags
Learning by Accident
I was using my iPhone to find my way around Boulder over the weekend. I love having GPS in my phone, but I’ve been wondering why the compass isn’t put to better use. While in the maps application, your current location is represented by a blue dot, but it gives no indication of which direction you are currently facing. The map is oriented with North at the top of the screen.
Now, many of you are...
4 tags
In the Details: Text Box Types
Photoshop utilizes two types of text boxes. The first is created by clicking with the text tool. The box grows and shrinks with the text, and therefore the text never wraps. This is useful for creating labels and lists. The second kind is created by clicking and dragging with the text tool. Text In this box does wrap, and the box remains the size you make it. You can, of course, resize the box by...
3 tags
Sadvertising
I’m flying out to Colorado today. The Interaction 11 committee is making a site visit to Boulder. I just checked in online with US Airways. When the page with my boarding passes came up, I was slapped in the face by the advertising. I had to hunt for my passes, the screen was so cluttered. And then, when I pressed the button to print my passes, I saw in the preview that ads were being included...
3 tags
They Can’t Move Forward
I received in the mail today my official 2010 Census form. It’s five pages long. The first page presents an initial set of ten questions. Pages two through four repeat the same seven questions for five potential residents. The last page has a smaller set of fields for persons seven through twelve. I searched the entire form and accompanying letter for a URL, expecting to be able to fill it out...
2 tags
The iPad Cometh
Apple began accepting pre-orders for the iPad last Friday. Yes, I placed one. After discussing it with my wife and showing her the demos during Steve’s announcement, she has decided that it will be sufficient to replace her PowerBook. In fact, she believes it will be preferable to another laptop. We went ahead and ordered the keyboard dock so that she can type when she needs to, the case, and the...
4 tags
In the Details: Double-Negative
Nothing can confuse a simple form like a double-negative. Take, for example, this checkbox from a sign-up form I was recently filling out.
“We’d like to keep you informed via email about product updates, upgrades, special offers and pricing. If you do not wish to be contacted via email, please ensure that the box is not checked.”
Checking a box is a positive action. It should be labeled as...
3 tags
CardStar
I picked up an iPhone app called CardStar that is meant to replace all of the store cards in your purse or wallet. It allows you to punch in the number from the card and then converts the number into a bar code. It will then display the bar code on the screen so that you can scan it at the register. I love this concept, so I downloaded the free application to try out.
The first place I tried it...
3 tags
Tales from the Field: Screen Properties
From large tablets to tiny head-worn displays, screen size, resolution, aspect ratio, and other display attributes vary greatly. It is critical to know on what type of device an application will be used. Tablets are commonly 1024 x 768, but may be larger. PDAs are typically 240 x 320. HWDs come in a variety of non-standard resolutions, such as 720 x 240. Screen layout depends heavily upon the...
3 tags
Swatches Make Me Blue
The color swatches palette in Photoshop has always annoyed me. There is no way to reorder the swatches. You are stuck with the order in which you added the colors. I’m a very organized person, and I’ve been known to recreate a palette from scratch so that I could put the colors in the desired order. Thanks to Ben Munson’s comment, I was importing swatches into Illustrator and InDesign today....
3 tags
Data Visualization & Social Change
On Friday, March 5th, President Obama appointed four people to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. One of those people is Edward Tufte, author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, practically the bible of data visualization. As posted on Tufte’s blog, the panel was created in 2009 with two goals:
To provide transparency in relation to the use of Recovery-related funds. To...
3 tags
The Tangled Web We Weave
I’m currently involved in projects that are classified as NOFORN, meaning “no foreign nationals” are allowed to see what we are working on. As such is the case, we have certain security measures in place. The main one, and the most annoying, is that we set up a separate network that doesn’t touch the internet. So, I have two computers at my desk: one for email and web access, and the other for...
3 tags
Mo’ Drobo
The industrial design of the Drobo, while simple, is quite good. The front of the device is translucent black plastic. This covers the slots where the drives go while letting the status lights shine through. There is one green LED that indicates power, and another that indicates drive activity. Then, each drive bay has it’s own larger light to indicate health. Green is healthy. Yellow indicates...
2 tags
Drobo
Almost a year ago, I replaced my tape-based digital video camera with a high definition camera that records to an SD card. 720p video takes up a lot of storage space, and I’ve about filled up both my 300 GB external drive and the 320 GB internal. I decided to splurge on a long-term solution. I just got a Drobo.
Made by Data Robotics, the Drobo is an intelligent RAID. I’m no expert on...
3 tags
Parsimony
Eric Raymond’s Rule of Parsimony can be approached from several directions.
Write a big program only when it is clear by demonstration that nothing else will do.
Raymond discusses it in the context of volume of code, internal complexity, and maintainability. He also points out that people tend to be reluctant to throw away the result of a lot of work, even if it is a failure. In looking at the...
3 tags
CS doesn’t stand for Color Sharing
Unless I’m way off my rocker, one of the benefits of purchasing the Adobe Creative Suite is that all of the applications work together. Can somebody then please explain why something as simple as color swatches can’t be shared between applications? If I’ve painstakingly created a custom swatches list in Photoshop of the colors I use regularly in my company’s products, I should be able to then...
2 tags
IxDA.org
The Interaction Design Association (IxDA) got its start as a Yahoo Group. In October of 2003, it moved to its own domain and thrived as an email-based discussion list for many years, known as the Interaction Design Group (IxDG). In 2005, it incorporated as a not-for-profit, taking on the current name. Around that time, it also introduced a website that somehow managed to work with the existing...
