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An Argument For Building Attractive Things

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:13:19 -0500

Here’s a rule of thumb that applied to both people and design experiences:

The more attractive something (or someone) is, the more we’re willing to tolerate its flaws.

When something is beautiful, we’ll work with it just a bit more, despite its inadequacies. We do this because we want to be associated with beautiful things. We want to build relationships with beautiful things (same for beautiful people). We want to evangelize them. We want to become a part of them.

When one becomes obsessed with a beautiful object, it isn’t because we want that object to come into our own personal world. It’s in fact the reverse. We want to enter its world. Of course, that thing that we found to be so beautiful at first glance may actually have some awful flaws. Really expensive yet excruciatingly uncomfortable shoes come to mind. We want it to work out so badly.

Here is my theory in a beautifully elegant visual form (also known as “data visualization.”):

So what’s the moral of this blog post? When you’re building stuff, make it usable but also make it attractive. I mean, we should all be aiming for both, but not everything can be Brad Pitt.

Praying To The Wrong God

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:38:29 -0500

Let’s go back to the year 2000 for a few minutes.

The music industry is in turmoil due to an amalgamation of factors:

The Internet has arrived. Distribution of just about anything that can exist in digital form will change forever. Your big box retailer of compact discs instantly looks like a relic.
People have found ways to compress audio into a manageable size without sacrificing very much in audio quality. Not only has the distribution piping been laid down, but the packages are light and easy to transport.
Napster and its brethren come into existence. Decentralized peer-to-peer farmer’s markets crop up everywhere, compounding the nightmare for the music industry.

The music industry does what any industry would do when their precious commodity – in this case music – is suddenly as available as paper towels at your local YMCA restroom. It’s a scary place to find yourself. The natural reaction is to wrap your arms around that content and hold on for dear life. After all, it is your bread and butter.

Continue reading Praying To The Wrong God...

Addicted To Nothing

Fri, 29 May 2009 11:13:15 -0500

We are addicted to nothing. Wait, let me rephrase that: we’re addicted to being addicted. No, that’s not really it. We’re addicted to “the next thing.” Or more accurately, the “next bunch of things.” What those things are is irrelevant. We actually don’t care about their substance. We just care that they are:

Continue reading Addicted To Nothing...

TBUZZ + Readability

Thu, 14 May 2009 11:40:39 -0500

Since I started using TBUZZ (all-caps required), I’ve gotten into the habit of a nice one-two punch with Readability. First use Readability to get rid of all the bullshit, then invite in people who are talking about what I’m reading. It’s sort of like peanut butter and chocolate, except with technology:

4 Things Designers & Marketers Can Learn From the Slap Chop Website (Yes, The Slap Chop Website)

Wed, 13 May 2009 11:14:50 -0500

We’ve all had restless late nights where we can’t sleep only to be greeted with the Slap Chop guy Vince. He’s chopping food and rambling on with unbridled enthusiasm. Yes he’s a little ridiculous and pretty cheesy. And yes, he’s been remixed. Hey, mock all you want. The original TV ad has been viewed nearly 400,000 times on Youtube. The remix has been viewed nearly two million times! How many times have your videos been viewed?

Continue reading 4 Things Designers & Marketers Can Learn From the Slap Chop Website (Yes, The Slap Chop Website)...

Inventing The Semantic Web…Again

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:25:46 -0500

Over at Semantic Universe, they’ve published my article on inventing the semantic web again. The basic premise is that you can come up with a brilliant invention in the lab, but if the masses don’t connect to it (especially if it requires the masses to be fully realized) it’s really not much of an invention.

Few would doubt that the Semantic Web isn’t the “right thing.” The only thing that remains is to figure out how exactly to bring it into the context of people’s individual goals and needs. Until then, it’ll continue to be relegated to academic gymnastics.

HTML Prototyping With Polypage

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:42:04 -0500

“Polypage was designed to ease the process of showing multiple page states in html mock-ups. By adding simply adding class names to a document you can imply state and conditional view logic.” Translation: Niiiice.

Flying Garbage

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:37:01 -0500

Let’s make a case for good ol’ paper for a second. I don’t think anyone would dare throw garbage at you to make a point while you were reading a newspaper. Well, the Web I suppose is a different story.

If you visit the NY Times today, there’s a good chance you’ll see…umm…garbage fly across your screen. Here’s a snap:

Desperate times I suppose.

Big Media’s Big Head Start

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:25:37 -0500

A common theme that tech pundits enjoy ruminating over is the mass democratization of media by way of the Internet. The line goes something like this:

Gone are the days of an extreme concentration of power to mass communicate. Large television networks are giving way to an endless number of video “channels” on the Web. Newspaper journalism is engulfed by a wave of newly-enabled publishers that can reach anyone and as often as they like. Distribution channels around music and movies seem antiquated in this new era of immediate-gratification-entertainment delivery.

In other words, the handful of megaphones that a lucky few had (and held onto with sweaty palms) are drowned out. Everybody’s got a megaphone now. I don’t need to be published. I just publish. I don’t need to be signed to my record label. I just put my music out. It’s all one big hyper-specialized sea of endless “channels.” The restrictions are gone. May the best content win.

Continue reading Big Media’s Big Head Start...

“I Wanted To Make Posters”

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:36:48 -0500

Jacek Utko talks about how he infused art design into the newspapers he worked on and saw both critical acclaim and a marked increase in circulation. In essence, he elevated the newspaper from a generic source of news to an overall experience that marries content and design. It’s an inspiring six minutes:

I’m not sure if this translates into “design will save the newspapers” but Jacek is on the right track: he’s blowing out the definition of “newspaper” as we understand it today. He’s bringing something else to the table. It’s no longer only about “well, the news isn’t timely anymore because I have the Internet.” It isn’t only about content anymore in Jacek’s world.

1:27 Of Monday Morning Zaniness

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:26:30 -0500

This brought a smile to my face. It’s wacky and nostalgic (in a lo-fi video game sort of way) and it’s called 8-Bit Waterslide. And then, about half way through, it yells out “Super Mega Hyper Boost Pipe.” What else can you ask for?

The Better Project

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:16:01 -0500

Implicit in the pervasive message of “change” that swirls around us these days, is “change for the better.” After all, nobody would suggest change for the worse. To date, there really hasn’t been a platform that taps the collaborative power of the Web to help change things for the better…until now.

The Better Project let’s anyone create a place where they can meet and collaborate with others who share a common goal. It’s a completely free to use.

Arc90’s very own Jen Epting sums it up nicely in 90 seconds:

So what are you waiting for? Act now!

Fullsize : Building On The Good Ol’ Web

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:22:14 -0500

There’s a great little pitch at www.addfullsize.com :

Fullsize is an attempt to get a new <IMG> attribute called fullsize into the next version of HTML. Hopefully this site will get the attention of the W3C, and they will add fullsize to HTML and make it a standard.

In essence, it’s trying to cut through all the libraries, tools, frameworks and technical hoops you have to jump through and propose a really simple way to create full size views of images. The creator (Drew Wilson) even created a JQuery plugin the drive the point home. It’s a very slick useful little tool.

What bugs me about ideas like that is that their path to true adoption is at the mercy of the W3C (HTML 5 anyone?) and worse, the cabal of web browser providers. I’ve written in the past about how the new wave of dynamic, AJAX-y Web stuff is great and all but it left a massive population of enablers behind. Tools like Fullsize are brave attempts to invite the masses back into the fold.

What we need is a way to flip a switch and enable simple, easy-to-use additions like Fullsize with very little additional work. How about a way to get this stuff out there without waiting seven years for the W3C or Internet Explorer 9?

I may have to bug the mad scientists at the Arc90 lab for this one…

Google Gravity

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:50:41 -0500

Google Gravity is one of those Google Chrome experiments that shows off the Javascript powerhouse that is Google Chrome. Still, it works in most browsers. Pretty fun…and I love that the links still work. (via Swiss Miss).

Common Sense In The Wonderful World of Warez

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:38:10 -0500

Ah, the weird, twisted world of software piracy. Installous (a free app for jailbroken iPhones that lets you grab pirated versions of iPhone apps) has declared war on Mega (a service that does the same thing, except they charge money).

The created an app called Grabulous (you with me so far?) that makes all the apps on Installous freely available. The rationale:

“Grabulous should be saluted and applauded by consumers AND devs. This is common sense, it’s not cracking , it’s not hacking. Paying for cracked apps is a crime against common sense.”

Someone needs to help me sort out the 2009 definition of “common sense.” Nonetheless, it makes for very entertaining reading.

Found via Waxy.