64 Notes

Stop Using Arial & Helvetica

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Arial and Helvetica are the default font stack for most browsers and for most of the websites. That's bad, really really bad. Arial and Helvetica suck on web and for paragraphs of text - they are unreadable (as compared to many other typefaces created specifically for web). And Helvetica looks ugly without proper kerning and Arial is just an ugly bastard son of Helvetica.

Some people actually have a reason to use them but most use it mindlessly - just because everyone else does. Often, no thought is given to design of the site, let alone typography.

Let me expand on merits and demerits of these defaults:

Helvetica

Films have been made and songs are sung in name of Helvetica. And all that is well-deserved! Helvetica is one of the best typefaces ever created and is still as relevant as it was when it was created.

But it is a very bad choice for web - especially when you have a paragraphs / chunks of text to typeset. It might work with headlines. Helvetica almost always requires custom kerning to bring out the best. That's something that you cannot do for every word you ever wrote on web.

Here is a comparison between Helvetica and Lucida Grande (My favorite typeface). Just keep reading and you will see the difference.

Helvetica is great. It's brilliant for print world, brand identities and maybe even headlines. I love it for that purpose. In fact, most of the brand identities I've created are typeset in Helvetica. But please do us a favour, don't use it on the web.

Helvetica Neue was recreated for web. It is much better than bare Helvetica; but again it is not as great as many other typefaces crafted for web. And availability is a big problem on Windows.

Arial

Arial is notorious amoung designers as Microsoft's bastard son (rip-off) of Helvetica. It's just a bad copy of Helvetica - a really bad one. It's just ugly.

That's Lucida Grande vs. Helvetica vs. Arial.

But there are sites and designers who have managed to make even Arial work for them. But same amount of effort will yield much better results in other typefaces.

Some popular sites that use Arial and Helvetica nicely:

GitHub uses Helvetica; but on most Windows machines it defaults to Arial and they pull it off very nicely:

Except some parts which can be much better with a different typeface:

Gmail also does a great job of typesetting in Arial:

So Why do People Use Them?

Prevalent reason is ignorance. People just don't care/know about design - let alone typography.
Second reason, which makes most sense, is availability^[1]. Arial is available almost everywhere (~99% Macs and Windows machines have it).
Safe bet and cross-platform compatibility - Arial was created in image of Helvetica. They are very much same in terms of x-height and other measurements. So they are the safest thing to do! Different x-height can break your layout! It's easy to work with defaults no matter how bad they are.
They like it. (Gulp!) Well however much I'd like to say "to each; his own" - still there are good things from mad. Justin Bieber can never be compared to Tony Bennett - he is just not that good technically no matter what popular taste is. Arial is shit and Helvetica hardly works as good on web.

If you're dropping IE6/7/8 support than you're anyway ignoring a much bigger market than you'd ignore if you ditched Arial. And if you're betting on Helvetica - you're already in peril with availability issues.

Alternatives: Meet more web-safe fonts

Unfortunately, Windows is more popular (household) Operating System than MacOS or *nix based systems. So Microsoft rules the font-availability game. But fortunately they've done a decent job there. Technically, these fonts were made for web and have amazing readability. Here are some:

Verdana

Released in 1996, it is available on 99.10% of Macs, 99.84% of Windows Machine and 67.91% of Linux Machines. It was was bundled with MS Office, Windows and IE. In fact all Mac OSX versions after 10.4 had it.

Many iPad book/reading apps use Verdana.

Poplar site Hacker News uses Verdana, what if they used Arial?

Tahoma

Originally bundled with Windows 95 (God! Remember those days?) it was part of MS Office for many later versions and part of Mac OSX from Leopard onwards.

It is available on 91.71% Macs and 99.9% Windows Machines.

Trebuchet MS

This brilliant typeface was originally released with Windows 2000 and IE4. Later became part of Mac OSX and iOS. It is available on 97.12% Macs and 99.67% Windows machines.

More Options

If your target segment have MS Office installed, then you have a wider range of typefaces available: Sego UI, Calibri etc.

And if you're you know a thing or two about typography then you can use more OS specific typefacess with fall-backs on simillar x-height and character typefaces. Eg: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans, sans-serif.

Serifs

Though with rise of high pixel density screens, serifs are taking a back seat; but the default here sucks as well. A typeface at par with Arial in it's hideousness - Times New Roman.

Just use Georgia. It is one of the most beautiful and readable typefaces ever created. 97.48% Macs and 99.4% Windows machines have it. Seriously, Georgia is fucking amazing.

Fallback?

So what do you use as fallbacks to these typefaces? Well nothing. Plain sans-serif or serif because these fonts are fall-back in age of @font-face sorcery.

The Embedded Font Trends

With rise of CSS3 and @font-face, most people are jumping forward to better typefaces. So it's a great idea to go ahead and take a typeface which is suited best for your need.

There are some brilliant typefaces out there: Open Sans, Proxima Nova, Mueso Sans, Source Sans Pro, Ubuntu, Lato, Droid Sans, Droid Serif etc.

More examples:

Here are some popular sites who could spend few more "minutes" on typography and improve their UX:

Wired Magazine & Other Publications

I like their content, but their typography sucks. You're from publishing industry for God's sake! But they are not alone, many publishers have typography on their websites that doesn't even suck properly. I adjusted the colors to low-contrast, shift to Lucida Grande and change line-height to 1.6em.

Quora

The only reason I don't visit Quora is bad typography. Yeah, I am that crazy! This is with Open Sans and 1.5em line-height.

I had Google+ here but they recently moved away from Arial.

Notes:

^[1] Font availability stats from Wikipedia and [CSS Font Stack](http://cssfontstack.com/)

The Design Koans

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

I wrote them for Web Mutiny and refined them with help of Roma. They aim at expressing simple things about design that I believe people tend to miss out. They are more on lines of poetry than koans, but hey.

The Real Design

Design that just looks beautiful is mediocre
Real science solves problems
Simply, thus beautifully
That is real design

What Design Can Do

Designers engineer experiences
to deliver results that matter
Better engagement, better conversion, better metrics
That is what design can do

On UX & Revolution

Stylists create looks
Technicians create technology
Designers create experiences
Revolution, in an industry
Is a byproduct of experiences

Good Designer vs. Great Designers

Design is like food
A good chef makes it smell, taste and look great
But a great chef makes it healthy too

Startups & Design

Startups change the world
There is one in every corner
Like a million stars in the Milky Way
Let design help you shine

The End of Web Mutiny

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Note: In recent development, Web Mutiny has not ended (technically). The legal entity lives on with only Aditya (my co-founder) from the original team.

Opinions expressed here are no way neutral. These are biased from my personal experience and perspective. Everyone will have their own version.

Symbiosis A mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups.

Parasite A person or a thing who habitually exploits others and gives nothing in return.

It’s hard to kill your dreams. But it’s harder to kill your dreams in motion. Today it happened - I quit Mutiny and therefore, by mutual agreement, killed it. I killed my own company, my heart child.

This was a long and painful one. It just became official today. Painful for people involved. Who’s dreams and aspirations were at stake.

Discussing what went wrong without mentioning what went right will be a disaster. So here are the worst and the best of Web Mutiny:

The Worst of Mutiny:

Parasitic Nature

Businesses are supposed to be a symbiosis. People who can benefit each other come together, grow & prosper. But many relations in Mutiny became parasitic overtime. Sucking time, resources, talent and the very self-respect of some people.

Often this is a result of people believing that they are somehow superior to another. When, really, it’s a mix of incomparable people coming together. Till the superiority complex is gone, it won’t be a symbiosis. Because there will be no respect.

Overworked

This one is a personal experience. Often, I was working almost every waking hour - on everything under the sun, from handling clients to fixing the CSS bugs. Quiet obviously I burned out pretty frequent - I’d slow down, crash and burn. To a point where my personal life was at stake.

Now in startups - this happens. You do all this and it is worth if if there is an outcome - if there is a symbiosis. But overworking in a parasitic complex is just invitation to death.

Lack of Financial Planning

As I’ve mentioned before, money comes in easy. Specially in a services company. But to keep it & grow it - that requires great deal of financial wisdom and planning. I am not very good at this personally - but as a company there was complete lack of any sort of financial planning.

That lead to a lot of pay-less months, even though people were working. That caused much frustration and chain reactions of emotional friction.

Human Values and Relations

A startup is a bunch of people doing business and creating a culture. Without culture there is nothing life-changing that can come out. You can make money; but you won’t change the world without culture.

When building a culture from ground-up, it is essential to respect people for who they are and what they do. You’ve to respect the individual. That lacked in Mutiny a great deal. In fact we lost many valuable people when their very self-respect was at stake.

Human relations and individuals is what makes a startup what it is. Without respect and trust; nothing is possible.

The Best of Mutiny

We had balls

Internet is full of designers complaining about clients from hell demanding logo to dance and be a little bit bigger. We never took that shit.

We knew what we were doing and unless there was a logical explanation / evidence to it otherwise - we won’t do it.

I remember saying “Fuck you” to a big shot client over their non-sense corporate crap. We had balls - to tell our clients when they were wrong.

Solved Great Design Problems

One of the two key reasons of doing Mutiny was to solve good design problems. And I’ve never faced and solved more critical design problems ever in life. The nature and magnitude of these problems had real life implications. I love that!

We were out there, changing the world - one pixel at a time.

Symbiosis Nature

Not all relations at Mutiny were parasitic. In fact, most helped me grow personally and I am sure everyone who was involved grew as well.

That’s what matters - growth as individuals. That’s what keeps symbiosis going. And as long as everyone’s vision of growth is aligned - the company grows too.

A Note on Failing

There are many people who hate failing. They hate failing so much that they’d bluff rather than fail.

First thing I learned, as an entrepreneur, was - failing isn’t bad but a part of the process. It’s noting to be ashamed of. In fact, if you are not failing - you’re not trying anything new.

Entrepreneurs fail. They fail more than normal people because they try different and crazy things that have never been done before.

And in the end there is no failure, if you had fun it and if you grew as a person.

People at Web Mutiny

Web Mutiny was always a small company filled with amazing people. I want to take time to mention them and what they mean to me:

Aditya Kumar Nayak: He is man of ambition and big dreams. But what makes him really different is that he has balls. He knows how to defend what he believes in, and in design industry - we need people like him.

I’ve learned a lot from him and I owe him a great deal for pushing me, again and again, out of my comfort zone. He has, he is and he will change the world.

Roma Kalani: I do not have enough words to express what she meant to us (as a company) or me (as an individual). She played many roles from being a mother figure at times - who’d scold and give a wake-up calls. And being a coffee girl other times.

Without here we would’ve done nothing. Mutiny owes a great deal to her. There is no other like her.

Aniket Pant: A man of few words but a lot of code. My only hope is to be as focused and productive as this guy. Someone who will never be satisfied with mediocre. A very honest man. He’s been with me through good and the uglies, thanks for being there, man.

Manav Dhiman: However long he was with us, it was delight to see the dedication and enthusiasm he showed while working with us. He learns fast, damn fast. And he learns everything he can get his hands on. I wish I could learn like him.

The dreams we dreamt, high-fives & hugs, debates & discussions - clashes & burns - everything was worth it. I’ve learned a great deal from everyone. I had the time of my life.

PS: Thanks to Archit Gupta, Kshitij Kumar and Dad for keeping me sane through this.

What are Business Co-Founders & Business People for?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

“What’s the problem?”, I asked him calmly, looking him in the eyes. Trying to be firm yet comforting.

“I will not take orders from him! Not from him!” he replied in a trying-to-control-anger voice.

“They are not orders…” I tried to explain

“They are! They fucking are!” I was cut mid sentence. “Who does he think he is? He doesn’t know shit about programming or anything technical. What gives him a fucking right to tell me what to do? He doesn’t even know what I do for fuck’s sake! He some random business dude. Ooh! What does he do anyway? Why do we need him, Sid?”

“You really want to know?” I raised my eyebrows.

There are people who understand and work in technical part of a startup - let’s call them Sherlock Holmes. Bah, let’s just call them the techies. That includes the tech co-founder, the programmers and the hipsters who computer.

Then there are people who run the money and people part of the show - the business side of it - let’s call them Dr. Watson or business people. That includes the business co-founder, sales people and the guy who convinced the monk to buy a Ferrari.

These two worlds, in a startup, are intertwined yet run parallel. They affect each other and yet they are often isolated in deep details. And like any two god-fearing nations, they often clash.

It’s not new to see business people having hard time earning respect and empathy from the geeks (and vice versa). And more than often it affects the startup and culture. Obviously it’d be wrong to throw a blanket on everyone and stereotype. But for sake of clarity and making a point let’s assume that everyone is so.

For now let’s see what the business people do. How valuable is it? How real is it? Now these things are ideal situation sorts. Not all will be true but just go get an idea:

People Power

Sherlock likes to focus on what he does the best - thinking (read: tech work). The dirty job of talking to people about stuff they don’t get / care about isn’t something they are often good at.

Dr. Watson (a business co-founder) is likely to come with people skill. And do the dirty job of bargain, negotiations, meetings and face everyone from nut-case clients to CA & lawyer meetings.

Financial Planning

It’s one thing to make tons of money and another thing to keep it & grow it. The later requires financial wisdom and planning. Something that I’ve been working on since past few months.

There will be days in business when you think you can afford a whole range of newly launched Apple products. And sooner than you think, here will be days when you will browse the restaurant menu from the price list.

Financial wisdom is one of the crucial qualities startup founders need to have / cultivate. That’s what makes it a business.

More Financial Planning

The buck doesn’t stop there, apart from day-to-day, month-to-month planning. Then there is often fund-raising, equity munching, and soul-selling-to-Satan things to deal with.

Often looked upon as a waste of time by Sherlock(s). They’d rather fix an IE bug than sit through a meeting with investor.

While for business people, this is a natural thing.

Non-Tech Side of the Startup (Product or Service)

Whatever it is that you provide - there is technical side of it (Google is just a database that needs to query very fast with some magic) and then there is business side of it (people looking for things, people want to get looked at, money!).

Having that extra eye that has a different way of thinking puts thing into 3D. Suddenly you can see much more.

Get Customers

This one might sound like - oh the sales guy. But it isn’t. Getting more customers should be everyone’s deal (and keeping customers more than that).

Usually, business people do a better sales job to non-technical market {1} than technical people will do.

Non-Tech Disaster Management

When there is a security breach, server crash, or reddit is down - it’s a tech world disaster. Everyone on the tech team will be on it. Sherlock will stay up for nights drinking coffee.

Of course there are disasters on business side as well. A deal gone wrong, tantrums of the bank & government, and running out of coffee. Often, it is a client costing you more than he is worth. At times like these you need someone who knows how to deal with such disasters.

Conclusion

In nutshell - you need someone to have your back. You need someone to take care of business while you make sure the gears are working. To run a profitable band - it needs good music and good business.

PS: It goes without saying that just the job of a business co-founder is an entrepreneurial one {2}. In other words, it needs someone who is driven and passionate about the business side of things. Just like the technical side of startup does.

PPS: Stories of people who’ve not touched code in lifetime becoming programmers and kicking off a startup and stories of programmers learning how to “business” are not unheard of. It’s good to have someone experienced, but you can learn it yourself as well - and one should. Helps you respect and appreciate the other half better.

{1} Non technical market is often the best one to create a business in. More on this later.

{2} You need not be a founder / co-founder / CEO or even a business guy to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is about the way you approach and think about life. More on entrepreneurial nature later.

Focus, will you?

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Time is valuable but focus is even more rare. There are 24 hours in a day but not 24 hours of focus a day.

I don’t consider myself a very focused one. Just a couple of years back I was receiving “focus!” lectures by almost everyone around. I used to jump from one idea to another. For me every idea was worthy and inter-connected. I had energy for all of them.

Even in school my train of thoughts would diverge off into the woods and hardly anyone could catch-up. One moment I’d be onto film-making, the other moment all gaga about Buddhist scriptures and then talking about teen troubles. Rare was someone who could follow the connections in there.

The classic idea of focus was too boring (it still is). I usually have too much energy, and slowing down isn’t an option - it isn’t fun.

Years past, I get question about focus. Especially from school students. At the heart of it the question isn’t “How do I focus?”. The question is, “I can relate to you, tell me what you did about the ‘focus!’ thing they talk about?”

I usually tell them this:

Focus is thought about in a very wrong way.

Focus is not about subject at hand. Focus is about mood - about emotions. If you can conjure and maintain your mood - things will flow.
Don’t try to focus on things that don’t interest you. It’s unnatural. Seriously, just give it up. Focus is natural with things of interest. That means something.

I know how much work I get done with ease and brilliance when I am in good mood. The focus happens and things shine apart. But when my mood is off, I can’t even talk.

So whenever I am in not so good mood - I make no efforts to change the mood. Just release of all efforts to ease out. And focus is back in no time.

I find that jack of all trades, master of… thing bull-crap. Everyone I know is multi-talented, multi-faceted. And why not? Life isn’t about eating pizza everyday - so why a profession? Being an entrepreneur, I know how every random interest, hobby or passion plays an important part.

I can be wrong; I usually am. But one thing I know for sure. Focus as it is sold - focus on one thing at a time is a sad boring business. Creativity flows in all direction, and all things flowing go down-hill. Naturally. Trying to take them uphill is waste of time.

It takes tributaries to build a river, however focused it might seem. Only thing certain is the general direction. That’s focus.

the Secret Path

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked:

What do you seek?

Enlightenment

replied Daiju.

You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?

Baso asked. Daiju inquired:

Where is my treasure house?

Baso answered:

What you are asking is your treasure house.

Daiju was enlightened! Ever after he urged his friends:

Open your own treasure house and use those treasures.

That’s one of my favourite Zen Koans. And this a rare and one of my favorite question from students. (Mostly from college students since they’ve the career sword on their head):

I am good at this, this, this and this. But I don’t know where to go form here.

Welcome to the Club! And it’s likely that your membership is permanent because you might never know ‘the path’. I guess there is no path - you are to carve one out for yourself!

When realize that you don’t know the way, that’s when you finally see what others miss out. The miss out on it because they’ve stopped questioning themselves. Now that you stand clear off the stupid assumption that people know what they are doing and have all the answers - you are curious. Like a kid! This curiosity will take you places.

The curiosity is the way!

It’s your stairway to heaven. You will always be looking for answers, and you will always have more questions than ever before.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

No, seriously! Even I don’t know where I am going. I just like the direction. Don’t follow me, I am lost as well. Follow your intuition, your inner calling. That’s the only thing I’ve know to work.

“The farther one travels, the less one knows.” - The Beatles, The Inner Light

The more you know, the more you know that you don’t know.

I find it funny when my friends doing MBA ask me for that 5 years plan for my business. Business don’t work that ways - you cannot tell about next 5 days let alone 5 years!

Oh and that’s true for life as well -

where do you see yourself 10 years down the lane?

How lame! How do I know if I will be alive?

Well, assuming you are.

I guess I finally have an answer:

10 years down the lane, if I am alive, I will be happy, content and dancing in joy.

Have you seen little kids? Curious as cat! About everything! And they don’t ask you, they just start playing with it and figure it out. That’s the natural instinct and it freaking works! That’s how they know the latest technology! Play with it, break it, bend it and master it! I have a strong feeling that even life works that ways.

Keep questioning, keep seeking - this I am told is also the Hacker’s way.

Curiosity killed the cat; the cat died wise & content. The Frog never asked a question, died nevertheless.