Never ask favors from designers

Posted by Nick

 
 

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This lady lost her cat and asked her designer "friend" to make her a poster so she can post around the neighborhood. Hilarity ensues.

(Thanks for the link Justine!)

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"So please, be usable and useful."

Posted by Nick

 
 

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I'm currently reading through 37signals list of their founding "37signals" and unearthed that quote. It inspires me.

This software company makes some of (if not the) best business collaboration software. I'm a paying customer of Basecamp and I use it to track and manage all of my digital projects...plus, I love it to death. I've tried to get it rolled out at my current work place, but because someone else blew it years ago, spending too much on shitty project management software, I was shot down at every turn. At work, I consistently hear "Inefficiencies make us more money" and been asked to except this fact of big business agency life. Yet every fiber in my body, mind, and soul rejects the notion.

Everything 37signals puts out inspires me and challenges the way I think about how to view the web and the workplace. I finished their new book REWORK and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It describes how to cut through all the bullshit we're asked to endure everyday and if companies really understood how their workers, ya know, work, we could all be a lot happier making better products for the people that hire us to do so. Instead, we spend more time each day figuring out how to contact a key decision maker, booking and attending meetings, having hallway conversations, and discussing how a [any relevant product/service] does or doesn't work, than actually doing any work. It vexes me.

The title of this post is a bit of a mind fuck in my world. At the same time it made me reevaluate my stance on usability and if we should "test" the interfaces we make, as well as put into focus something I've been feeling for a long time. When I'm working on project, I often ask "what's this for" and "who's using this". 90% of the time, I get confused looks as if I'm speaking in tongues. We, as creators, seem to be so focused on what we are making and rarely ask, if we should make it, how it should be made and why are we making it.

Usability is always secondary. It's never the most important thing about an experience. I will accept poor usability if I get what I need, if the total experience is great. I will reject perfect usability if I am not rewarded with a useful, engaging experience.
 

-Donald Norman, author of "The Design of Everyday Things"

This quote inspired 37signals "Make it Useful", their 26th Signal.

Image Source: Cover of "The Design of Everyday Things"

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Under Construction - iPhone OS

Posted by Nick

 
 

As I type this, Gizmodo's live coverage of the iPhone OS 4.0 is getting started. I'm exceedingly interested in the new features, updated interface design, and how this new OS will affect the design, reputation, and perception of any other mobile device that is released after it. Another question that (might) be answered is how will this OS better integrate with the iPad hardware. I've seen some remarkable new apps (or updates of existing apps) that do a fantastic job of using the tablets larger resolution/size, but the base OS is more akin to Farley's "Fat guy in a little coat" than a proper implementation of a mobile OS on a 10" screen. Just look at the home screen for chirst sake...

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all that unused space. Even if you fill it up with uncategorized icons, it's still inefficient. Good design always needs white space, but this is just a waste of valuable pixels. The mockup below, shows how the space can be used more efficiently while still maintaining breathing room for all the elements. It's got some great data feeds that don't require you to open an app to get a glance at what's going on in your always connected life.

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It's not perfect, but at least it's the right direction. As it stands, OS 3 is sorely behind it's competitors. Not that Apple has ever aimed to be the most feature laden... focusing instead on making fewer things work well. But their competition, like Android;

Web OS;

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Windows Phone 7;

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are all doing far more and still makes doing everyday tasks easy.

As much as I sometimes hate to admit it, I've loved using my iPhone for the past 2-3 years. Its totally changed the our expectations of what a phone should do for us. It set the bar in more ways than can be counted. When I test out a new phone (Droid, Pre, any HTC phone, etc), the first thing I do is test the responsiveness of the screen and how quickly I can access maps, mail, web, ect. The first phone I've touched, since the iPhone came out, that came anywhere near to "feeling right" was the Nexus One. I expect Pinch-to-Zoom (multi touch in general), accurate screen touches, a somewhat consistent UI between Apps, and solid integration of social media...just to name a few. But now, I expect even more than the iPhone can offer, Multitasking, apps that aren't "approved" by one single inconsistent body, better app organization, higher levels of customization. Thank god for Jailbreaking to get me through these couple of years, it's truly made the iPhone, MY phone with much improved functionality (themes, folders, file access, wifi hotspot, NES emulation, info widgets for the lock screen, video recording on my 3G, and the list goes on).

Unless Apple pulls some amazing shit out of their ass today, they're going to start losing people like me to the "underdogs", Google and Microsoft. For years now, I've said "The iPhone is the best phone you can get for any price", but it's not true anymore. Even at their $99-199 prices, it's not. I already know my next phone, it's the HTC Evo 4G, and there's little Apple can do today to convince me to stick with them. But we'll see ;)

 

UPDATE: Apple announced some pretty impressive stuff. We're looking at: "Multitasking, folders, improved Mail, iBooks, enterprise stuff, preview of Game Center and iAd." Check out the full detailed list.

 

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Logo-bation

Posted by Nick

 
 
Logo-bation

The Office of Government Commerce in the UK spent £14,000 to have a new logo made... as you can see, they got a bit more than they bargained for. Whats cool is if you put the letters "OGC" next to each other outside of the context of a logo, it still sorta looks like a dude having a marry time all on his lonesome. I think we should get this thing off the ground... OGC = Male Masturbation. It's a fanastic marriage of what looks like an acronym and a picture made up of characters. With your help, this could be the next ROTFL, ;-P, or ==JJJJ==>~. Giggity.

(Thanks Gene for leading me to the Telegraph.co.uk where I came (heh) across this one).

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