The internet is a beautiful place

I'm not sure if anyone else saw this post over at ReadWriteWeb. If not, you should give it a gander.

It occurs to me that this reveals something that we as designers and developers need to be reminded of from time to time. The internet is big, (like really, really big) and inherently unfamiliar, with a constantly changing map and unreliable landmarks.

I am reminded of a project I worked on, designing a food-related tool for the Japanese market. When creating a tool for a particular market, it's always important to understand both the physical and intellectual environment that the tool will be used in. I designed a collapsible bento box that can be stored in its wrapper, hung up on a wall. Does this product make sense in Agrestic, CA? Not at all, but for a Tokyo apartment, you bet!



The meaningful bit here is that when designing for the web, we sometimes become so focused on designing and developing for ourselves, or for early adopters, that we forget what happens when someone navigates by landmark. It's a shift from the intellectual environment that we expect. Take this map from Ryuch on Wikimedia Commons:

If the terrain of the Zhongshan Scenic area is unfamiliar to you, the landmarks are given helpful visual references. In other words, if you're trying to get to the big blue and white building at the center of the map, and you aren't seeing it, you're clearly not in the right place.

What does this have to do with the frustrated folks at ReadWriteWeb? I really think there are two things at play here. One being the intellectual environment of the user (which we can't control) and one being the information that we give to the user. We can't control the way that people navigate the web, but we can give them better (or at least more consistent) landmarks to go by.

Let's consider the most popular websites to be landmarks for the web: Google, YouTube, Facebook, MSN, Twitter, eBay, Hotmail, CNN, AOL. (I'm not including any porn here, sorry folks). What happens when the facade of these services changes? For those of us who are web savvy, we take a look at the URL, assure ourselves it was just another re-design, grumble about the old light bulb being so much better, and go on our merry way. What about those people that know where they are in downtown Brooklyn by finding the Williamsburg Savings Bank tower? Confusion! Chaos! Frustration! (These, by the way, are the people who are still using IE 6, not because of laziness, but because of comfort.) I think it's easy for us to laugh at these clueless rubes who can't seem to figure out that ReadWriteWeb isn't Facebook, but really, how are they supposed to know the difference? They're navigating still unfamiliar waters, taking the long way around because it's what they know, and the don't particularly care that there's a more efficient way.

The lesson here? Sure, make improvements, but what's wrong with sticking to familiar interfaces? Users don't like change, so make little changes on a regular basis. The older I get the more I admire the design that is taken for granted.

OK Trends

I can't even tell you how much I love the activity over at the oktrends blog. Every post is pretty near perfect if it weren't for one glaring thing... the charts are TERRIBLE! Between the angled labels, outlined data series, and inconsistent treatment of typography, I'm too distracted by the charts to really get through the content. My twitchy mouse hand wants to get in there and clean them up.

It's times like these that I have to recognize that perhaps I'm more sensitive to the teachings of Tufte than is absolutely necessary, or maybe even productive. Being a data visualization purist comes with its own set of blinders. The fact of the matter is that the visual information being presented doesn't have to be perfect. It's a rather small sub-set of the audience that will even notice the hammy graphics. If the exercise is to craft a compelling story with a great observational data set, the oktrends blog continues to garner my respect and admiration.

Data Visualization Bundle

So I've put together a data visualization bundle in Google Reader for any and all interested in the nerdier side of design. Enjoy!

My first sketch

So I just uploaded my first processing sketch to Open Processing. I finished the first three chapters in the Shiffman Processing text, so stay tuned for more sketches!

Resonate Revisited

Oh the horror of those things languishing in the deep recesses of the storage spaces in my apartment. The truth is, I nearly killed my sewing machine putting this little beauty together, and am loathe for a repeat performance.

What you're looking at the top is a four foot by five foot flannel quilt, embedded with twenty 2-inch speakers. Those little puffs are constructed with box pleats, spacious enough for some poly fil and a maybe a speaker.

I slept under this blanket for a year, until the stitching between its twenty panels started to deteriorate from the strain. The pleating technique used one square yard of fabric to make one square foot panel. Add to that twenty pounds of fluffy stuffing and the heft of twenty speakers, and you've got a lot of pressure on the hand-stitching that kept the panels together. I tried stitch it all together with my sewing machine, but we're talking about eight layers of some pretty substantial fabric. I resorted to sewing it by hand, a project I always mean to take up again, someday. For now the separate components are stashed in the storage spaces in my apartment, laundered and waiting for a rainy day or rainy season, perhaps? The speakers have been glued into clear plastic orbs, in the hopes that a bit more space between the fluff and the diaphragm will allow for better sound output. I did some experiments with pillows embedded with speakers, and it seemed to work alright, though I may need to find a better speaker than the little 8 ohm piezos I picked up from American Science and Surplus.

Haven't you ever wanted to wrap yourself in a song?

American West Revisited

I've always been fascinated by toy weapons... so much so that I did a re-branding project with American West caps when I was in design school.

My main memory of cap guns from childhood was watching a boy at music camp unrolling the paper caps and popping them on a piece of smooth cement with a rock, savoring the sulfur smell as he struck each powder dot.

The toy itself seemed so wasteful to me, with its vacuum formed plastic and cardboard packaging. In my revision, I like to think that some outlaw kid would staple the package to a belt they 'borrowed' from a parent and drape it across their chest like a bandoleer, given the opportunity. On the other hand, being uncomfortable with giving children toy weapons I kept with the old west theme, but surreptitiously played with the logo. (Note the surrendering American West figure at the center of the target/badge).

It's never seemed right to me to give a pretend deadly weapon to a kid. Let them make their own, I say.