Aug. 11 2010

SXSW 2011 PanelPicker - No Excuse: Web Designers Who Can't Code

In a recent interview, Jonathan Ive said “It’s very hard to learn about materials academically, by reading about them or watching videos about them; the only way you truly understand a material is by making things with it.” He’s talking about product design, but the principle is just as relevant to the Web (if not more so). “The best design explicitly acknowledges that you cannot disconnect the form from the material—the material informs the form…. Because when an object’s materials, the materials’ processes and the form are all perfectly aligned…. People recognize that object as authentic and real in a very particular way.” As our industry grows and roles get more specialized, it’s possible to become a “web designer” without more than a cursory understanding of the fundamental building materials of the Web: the code. Is this just the price of progress? Are the days of the web craftsman soon to be in the past? Or is a hybrid approach to web design and development something worth preserve?

my perspective on “south by” and if i’ll ever actually go aside, this panel rings true to me. not because i design for the web or code for the web. sure, i’ve done both and both together but it’s not my formal profession. it’d take many more years of practice and application to get to that point.

however, the road that’s taken me to where i am now started with both coding & designing for the web. learning absolute building blocks of something, today, that’s so much more to so many people. part of my job is understanding attention and helping people find what they’re looking for. on the surface, “academically,” it seems relatively simple. you tweet? you’re on facebook? you can read a web page? SIGN HERE. but that’s half the story, i think. you’re attacking a problem from the outside - in, instead of of the inside - out. does this mean i’m smarter than someone who doesn’t have a history of code & design for the web? no. does it mean i can do my job better? no. does it mean i have unique insight and perspective? yes.

that’s a huge point of difference. your final product, no matter what it is, will always reflect from where it came from.

what’s your starting point?

Jul. 28 2010

If you have the choice to invest more time/money into your user experience or some branding campaign, choose the user experience every time.

Experience Precedes Branding (via viiv)

Maybe 90% of the time.

(via mikehudack)

yes, please.

May. 03 2010

How 'The Karate Kid' Ruined The Modern World

The world demands more. So, so much more. How have we gotten to adulthood and failed to realize this? Why would our expectations of the world be so off? I blame the montages. Five breezy minutes, from sucking at karate to being great at karate, from morbid obesity to trim, from geeky girl to prom queen, from terrible garage band to awesome rock band.

this hit me while enduring an amazingly shitty dining experience at the cheesecake factory tonight.  the internet is great because i came home and there it was in my reader.  i was watching a yankees game and some guy hit a homerun.  immediately, the broadcast went directly into how this amazing result of talent and understanding of the game, skill, etc. was a coors light “cold, hard blast.”

advertising immediately moving and adjusting outcomes and, more importantly, our understanding of process.  i don’t know, i’m not really a fan of it.

oh yeah, the other blog post?  it’s about the service industry.  it’s about how intense it really is, how it needs some of the most talented and intelligent people, how it demands that.  think about it - you’re in retail, selling or you’re in the restaurant biz, selling an experience, a meal.  there are so many things you can do right, easily and the minute it goes the other way - the entire experience comes to a screeching halt.  i won’t go into much more detail b/c this type of thing happens everywhere every single night.

it just baffles my mind about how avoidable this all really is.

Mar. 01 2010

Enhanced Salsa

But aside from making me really hungry, the video also made me think of how certain media is presented to allow for an experience, to make the technology behind it disappear. That oh-so-smooth transition from “video on a video hosting website” to “Salsa Show!” was clutch to making me view this as more than a 40-second clip about a vegetable I really couldn’t care less about and something I wanted to click away from. Movie theaters are certainly designed to be invisible, and I think physical books are as well, providing only the turn of a page as the sole interruption between the written word and the reader’s imagination. Even then, that interruption is the mark of a good book: a “page-turner.” With the boom of electronic reading devices, it’s important to keep this feature in mind; which device will allow you to have an experience with a book, to make you want that salsa and nothing else, and then give it to you?

my sister is a better blogger than i am.

Danny Kahneman Talks Memory at TED

Nobel-winning econo-psychologist talks experiences vs. memory at TED 2010

the average human present?  3 seconds.

Jan. 19 2010

You never master it, I don’t care how many lifetimes, and that’s the beauty of it. You see, that’s the slippery slope, where people say “master this”—there’s no master; you’re in a relationship with something. That’s what’s really beautiful about it, it’s always bigger than you. It needs you, you need it. There’s no difference in any relationship. There’s no mastering of it—you engage. You engage with it on a daily level. Take pizza, we have our objective, our intention, our medium. Our cooking medium, what we’re able to work with: flour, water, condition, time, audience and what their expectations are, and what’s our intention—and really being clear with that intention—and serving that intention and staying focused on it. It’s very similar to music or sports in that way, where you stay focused on your mission and know that you might get better at something, but the minute you believe you’ve mastered it, it’ll show you who’s boss. I’ve had a beautiful relationship with flour, water, yeast, salt and the human experience.
Chris Bianco

Oct. 22 2009

slantback:

“As a result, General Mills (who own Betty Crocker) altered their product, abandoning the powdered egg in their mixes. The requirement to add eggs at home was marketed as a benefit, conferring the quality of ‘home-made’ authenticity upon the box cake mix. (Whether using fresh eggs instead of powdered eggs actually enhanced taste was beside the point.)”

I like this story because it nicely sums up the progression in thinking from ‘just designing for ease and speed’ (old-school usability) to ‘designing an entire experience’ (new-school experience design). (via “Just add an egg” – Usability, User Experience and Dramaturgy- 90 Percent of Everything)

yet another example of how something succeeds by paying attention to process.  no longer does value only exist in end-product.  the pay-off isn’t that i’m writing a blog post, it’s that i’m using software that makes it easy, smart, etc.

i’ve talked about this before.

Jul. 02 2009

Re-

lonelysandwich:

lowindustrial:

We spend our lives rereading and rewatching and relistening and relearning. We eat the same things over and over. We end up loving people who remind us of other people. We perform these rituals, this spacetime origami, because the basic fact of our n-dimensional existence is this: Most things can be recalled and some things can be revisited but precious little can be relived.

do new things.  make good things.  experience life, stop trying to box it up.

Jan. 21 2009

rickyv:

This picture reminds me of something I’ve been occasionally pondering lately — experience vs. capture. Notice not one of the kids in this photo has their eyes on the President and his wife (woah, that felt good to type), but on the tiny LCD screen on the back of their camera. Are they missing out on anything? When all is said and done, what’s a lifecast worth on a deathbed?

I think we’re going to start seeing this go one step further over the next few years, with documentation leading experience, instead of the other way around like it’s been forever. People will choose what activities they do in the physical world based on how it will appear to their friends in the virtual world via their Twitter/Tumblr/Flickr/Facebook/etc.

Pics or it didn’t happen, indeed.

Jan. 07 2009

FORA.tv - Mike Rowe: Reclaiming Our ‘Dirty Jobs’

Drawing on his experiences picking up roadkill, feeding swine, and castrating a lamb with his teeth, Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, discusses how modern American culture belittles necessary labor.
via tom & ryan