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?

Vonnegut on Technology

On replacing human contact with electronic contact:

…

Then I’m going down the steps, and my wife calls up, “Where are you going?” I say, “Well, I’m going to go buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in a closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I’ve had a hell of a good time. And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different. Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We’re dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go do something. [Gets up and dances a jig.]

emphasis mine.

Questions for the Novelist Gary Shteyngart - The Russian Immigrant’s Handbook

The death of reading is a longstanding fear of futurists.

Maybe we’re all wrong and there’s going to be a huge comeback in 10 years where all the kids are going to drop their iKindles and start reading like crazy. “Dude, did you read the latest Turgenev? It’s so sick. This dude is like all over the subject of love and serfdom.”

That would be nice.

I don’t know how to read anymore. I can only read 20 or 30 words at a time before taking out my iPhone and caressing it and snuggling with it.

Silence is so over.

Silence has been destroyed, but also the idea that it’s important to learn how another person thinks, to enter the mind of another person. The whole idea of empathy is gone. We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.

Why do you think you write about the present when so many novelists are immersed in the past?

How could one not write about today? It’s so fascinating. When civilization takes a nose dive, how can you look away? You’ve got to be there. You’ve got to be at the bottom of the swimming pool taking notes.

…

Any thoughts on the Russian spy ring that was just dismantled by the F.B.I.?

I think this is a holdover from when Russians knew so little about Americans, before YouTube, and it was impossible to figure out what makes these people tick. But I think it’s very easy to figure out what makes us tick.

What is that?

Fear. And hamburger.

great little exchange.

De inventione punctus

All signs sug­gest punc­tu­a­tion is in flux. In par­tic­u­lar, our signs that mark gram­mat­i­cal (and some­times seman­tic) dis­tinc­tions are wan­ing, while those denot­ing tone and voice are wax­ing. Fur­ther­more, signs with a slim graph­i­cal pro­file (the apos­tro­phe and comma, espe­cially) are hav­ing a rough go of it. Com­pared to the smi­ley face or even the ques­tion mark, they’re too visu­ally quiet for most casual writ­ers to notice or remem­ber, even (or espe­cially) on our high-def screens.

Everything I Know About Tennis I Learned from Cow Paths

Modern technology has created a tennis monoculture, one that is best seen in paths of dead grass.

great observation about grass court play in 2010 vs. 30 years ago.