northtemple

Several of us will be attending...

Several of us will be attending UI13 in Boston this next week. If you are attending as well, keep an eye out for our ugly mugs (except the girls of course) and make sure to say hi. We’d love to meet any other LDS designers in the community (or non-LDS that follow us), and you know… we are always hiring so ask about how what it’s like to work for the church or whatever else you want to ask :)

Alan Cooper challenges Interact...

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Alan Cooper challenges Interaction Designers to lead “an Insurgence of Quality.” I found this keynote presentation to be fascinating. Definitely worth watching.

Making the simple complicated i...

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity." ~ Jazz composer and bassist, Charles Mingus

A 'perfectionist' and a 'purist...

"A ‘perfectionist’ and a ‘purist’ are not the same person. The perfectionist seeks to do everything to the best of their ability against standards that are often set higher than average. The purist, on the other hand, seeks to adhere to some set of rules that are written for conditions in a world wherein Tom Cruise is taller and a lot less creepy, and every morning the box of Trix is full and fresh without all those lame crumb particles at the bottom of the box." ~ Greg Storey recounting an incident between (perfectionist) Dan Cederholm and a (purist) follower of Dan

Everything Frank Chimero create...

Everything Frank Chimero creates moves me to intense jealousy.

Thanks, Wade . See ya next week!

Shorter bedtime stories by Ikea...

Shorter bedtime stories by Ikea.

This is a message from Tom Vall...

This is a message from Tom Valletta who is the lead developer for our Open Source effort:

Your programmers are showing!
The LDS technical community is beginning to get traction on some cool projects. The “Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching” application has code behind it now. The “Church History Timeline” does too. But because we have no designers contributing yet, our programmers are showing. Only you can prevent this opprobrium. Please get out and donate a design or two to the LDS technical community .

So if you have some free time and would like to contribute your design skills to the Church, go let Tom know. There are some great projects that are in need of some sweet design lovin’!!

The Professor, Mr. Dil has unle...

The Professor, Mr. Dil, has unleashed his new beast at johndilworth.com. Nicely refined, John. No naked cherub babies, but well done. Who can name his title font?

Keep your eyes glued, as John will be displaying much of his MFA work, and if you’re lucky you can get in on these ridiculously cheap fine art prints he’s hocking. One of my favorites is on sale now, his Act Well Thy Part print. Now I’m just waiting for the Pants of Truth to come out, wherein John asks the vexing question, “Why is the truth concerned with getting its pants on?”

Finally, wine for Mormons. Firs...

Finally, wine for Mormons. First Blush, juice made from wine grapes (yes, it’s non-alcoholic), with a nice winey description: featuring “the unique, complex flavors of Merlot, Cabernet, Chardonnay and Syrah grapes.” I know someone here will have a problem with this, but check the design! Love the rich colors of the juice, which the design plays very well with.

Maybe now I can finally make good on my threat to start drinking..

From the Dieline blog.

The brand is what you tell your...

"The brand is what you tell your friends about afterwards." ~ Mark Hurst of Good Experience, in one of the most concise and useful definitions of “branding” I think I’ve ever heard.

JavaScript and screen readers

In recent months, many web designers have been asking the question, “How can I make my dynamic site accessible?” Unfortunately, good answers have been slow in coming from the accessibility community. While some articles have touched on the problem, not many have gone into details. Here is our first attempt at rectifying this situation.

In order to better understand [...

"In order to better understand [the elderly’s] experience I have bought a pair of ski gloves and some reading glasses (I don’t need reading glasses). Every now and again, I surf the site I am designing wearing both the glasses and gloves. The glasses make the screen hard to read while the gloves hamper my use of the mouse and the keyboard. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to select something from a drop down menu
wearing ski gloves!" ~ From Paul Boag in Boagworld podcast episode 130,
and originally found on Web Axe.

Addictive little game called Th...

Addictive little game called The Eyeballing Game. Test your ability to eyeball geometry and graphic relationships.

We like looking five-years ahea...

"We like looking five-years ahead because it gets beyond the immediate reactive requirements and starts considering what a great experience could be. If we only looked one year ahead, we’d be stuck with the current realities. If we look too far out, we get into the realm of science fiction." ~ Spool, explaining why one of the three key questions for experience design teams is whether they can articulate what the user experience will be in 5 years. Good article, if you’re in an introspective mood… I think me and my current team make the grade on 2 of the 3 questions… How ‘bout you?

New in Gmail Labs: Stop sendin...

New in Gmail Labs: Stop sending email you later regret. This isn’t a joke, and it’s genius. Enable “Mail Goggles,” and Gmail will ask you a few math problems before it sends your email to make sure you’re sober enough to really mean what you just wrote. The feature is only active late at night in your timezone, and only on weekends, when some people might be prone to doing things they regret.

Love this idea, of designing things to be harder to encourage a certain behavior. We did something similar in our new Mission Office application here internally, making certain financial actions harder by requiring extra clicks or making the controls slightly obscure to discourage using them. Speed bumps are another example of using “poor” design to lead your user to act a certain way.

News coming out of Winnetka, IL...

News coming out of Winnetka, IL, today:

Police: iPhone Left In Hot Car For Three Hours

This normally peaceful suburban town is still reeling following the news Monday that a local resident, whose name is being withheld by police pending a full investigation, left an iPhone unattended for more than three hours in a car parked in the hot sun.

“Responding to calls from concerned passersby, who observed the iPhone sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot of the Westfield Shopping Center, police arrived on the scene at approximately 4 p.m. and immediately intervened to save the device,” said Winnetka police chief Douglas Blaine. “Security cameras have shown that the iPhone had been in the car—with the doors locked and the windows rolled up—since 1 p.m. Due to the tragic and highly emotional nature of this case, we cannot say any more at this time.”

Full story at the Onion (via).

Rule #1 on Seth Godin's Nine st...

Rule #1 on Seth Godin’s Nine steps to Powerpoint magic is “Don’t use Powerpoint at all.” Amen to that. The other 8 are also worth a read, for those of us who can’t escape a roomful of suits from time to time.

(Top) The view from my house be...

(Top) The view from my house between General Conference sessions. (Bottom) The view in the evening, after Conference was over.

Though not as spectacular to me as last year’s sun breaking through the clouds on the mountain on conference morning, I still like this pair of images. The cloud descends upon the mountain, the prophets deliver God’s message, and then after the cloud leaves, something has distilled on the mountain to sustain us for a little while, till the next time.

Thanks to Gilbert, Chris, and company for improving the online conference experience, by the way.

#ldsconf is the biggest trend o...

#ldsconf is the biggest trend on twitter right now.. pretty interesting to read responses to General Conference in real time.

This weekend's general conferen...

This weekend’s general conference will feature a new online video player using the super fantastic Move Networks streaming technologyz. The live video will be available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and American Sign Language. The quality of the video is quite amazing. The better your connection, the sharper the picture. (Try the fullscreen.) And it is crazy fast.

Each talk, musical number, prayer and conducting will be “clipped” for easy navigation. You can watch it live beginning tomorrow at 10:00 am MST (12:00 pm EST).

Rob Jex and Brian Hansbrow led product management of the online General Conference. Chris Mayfield, Wayne Pullman and I designed the new player. Darin Warren developed the flash player. Brent Lewis, Tyler Dalton, Travis Foxley, Mindie Sorenson, Chris Jones, Chris Twitty, Vicki Bird, Bill Bush and many others who helped put it on the site with many hours of testing (I’m sure I missed others).

And lastly, thank you to the great people of Move Networks who helped us provide this great service. Wish us luck! (We hope we can handle all of the load this weekend.)

And please give us your feedback. Thank you!

Fluid or Fixed?

Our team today had a long email thread today about the benefits of fluid vs. fixed layouts. Consensus appears to be to do what is best for the project.

So here’s a question for our readers: What do you think? Fluid or fixed? Why—or why not? And does anyone know of a css framework that allows a mix of the two?

Speaking of color, here's a swe...

Speaking of color, here’s a sweet Guide to Choosing Colors for Your Brand. The graph above was created by Dmitry at Usability Post using a new website called Cymbolism, which “attempts to quantify the association between colors and words.” Nice resources no matter what your color background.

There are two types of people i...

"There are two types of people in the world:
those who can’t tell the difference between
Arial and Helvetica, and those who despise Arial." ~ Grubing Fireball, on the new iPhone-ready Flickr.

I'm a big fan of Hulu. As a non...

I’m a big fan of Hulu. As a non-cable subscriber, it’s one of the ways I watch the cool shows. I’m also a big Burn Notice fan. This small production mistake is killing me.

Some candid shots from yesterda...

Some candid shots from yesterday’s brainstorming meeting for upcoming lds.org improvements. Notice Gilbert’s head conveniently positioned away from me in both shots. A dramatically improved experience for General Conference (in an Asian langage, can’t remember which) sits on the screen in the second shot.

Mark Hurst of Good Experience d...

Mark Hurst of Good Experience describes how the current financial crisis “could have been avoided had the people in charge followed a ‘good experience’ approach to their work: committing to simplicity (rather than gratuitously complicated products), a long-term approach (rather than short-term gains at everyone else’s expense), and an integrated view of their own role in the world (rather than a narrow view of ‘just keeping my head down, don’t ask me to think about it’).”

Apple : "We have decided to dro...

Apple : “We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software…. [T]he NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software…. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.”

Mel needs a big wet sloppy kiss...

"Mel needs a big wet sloppy kiss." ~ Aaron, resorting to sheer affection in the face of news that IE 6 may someday be retired here at Church Headquarters. Aaron later agreed to settle for a “knuckle bump” if Michelle would name her first born “Mozilla”.
You can’t make this stuff up, people.

There’s a very thin line bet...

"There’s a very thin line
between simple and clean and powerful
and simple and clean and boring." ~ Graphic designer David Carson,
former art director of Transworld Skateboarding and Raygun magazines,
and former professional surfer, in this clip from Helvetica.

A skull a day ...

A skull a day.

Companies and organizations sti...

"Companies and organizations still can’t explain what they do in one paragraph." ~ Jakob Nielsen on the ubiquitous but often uninformative “About Us” page.

Microsoft and Nokia are adoptin...

Microsoft and Nokia are adopting jQuery as part of their official application development platform. “This means that jQuery will be distributed with Visual Studio (which will include jQuery intellisense, snippets, examples, and documentation).... This [also] means that jQuery will be distributed on all Nokia phones that include the [WebKit-based] web run-time.”

Beautiful website: Kathleen Edw...

Beautiful website: Kathleen Edwards. I love how the page “turns”. Music is great, too. Designed by Expo Cooperative.

We all have talents and gifts, ...

"We all have talents and gifts, everyone of us. The bounds of creativity extends far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen or the keys of a piano." ~ President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, on creativity in tonight’s General Relief Society Broadcast.

I'm just a Wanna-Bea....

"I’m just a Wanna-Bea." ~ Todd, describing his new role in trying to take up the slack left by Bea’s imminent departure for a well-earned sabbatical. Bea, you will be missed! (For old times’ sake, here’s a list of all the great thoughts and images Bea has posted on Northtemple.)

The perfect use of a pie chart....

The perfect use of a pie chart.

Hattip: Information aesthetics

A slide from Daniel Burka's Apr...

A slide from Daniel Burka’s April 2008 Future of Web Design presentation, called “Iteration & You”, and it looks like a good deck of inspiring slides (except for the Cameron one).

Just found this: Design & E...

Just found this: Design & Emotion Conference. Wow.I wish I could go.

The Back of the Napkin by Dan R...

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam argues that visual thinking is one of the most effective ways to “tackle tough business problems.” (Video ‘C’ on the home page is particularly interesting.)

Click to view contemporist.com ...

Click to view contemporist.com

This is my new favorite site as of late. The design of the site itself is not terribly impressive, but the content is fantastic. Great design inspiration.

Don’t make something unless i...

"Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful." ~ Shaker design philosophy (via Joshua Porter)

Color inspiration

Looking for some inspiration today, and hoping you guys can help me out. I’m looking for websites that make extensive use of color. Non-white, full color websites that buck the NY Times or Apple (or Northtemple) clean but sterile style of black type on white background.

What are your favorite colorful sites?

One of the secrets of going fro...

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One of the secrets of going from good to great: just do it. Over and over and over.

I get this. My view is ... why ...

"I get this. My view is … why say, ever, anything bad about a person? Why don’t we like them and celebrate them and be happy for her elevation to the ticket? And just say that she was a good choice for him and we disagree with them?" ~ Bill Clinton, on the appeal of Sarah Palin.

Jared Spool has written a great...

Jared Spool has written a great article on what goes into a well-done critique . We have several design team reviews each month, plus many additional reviews with customers and stakeholders on specific projects. The points reviewed here about respect, design ownership, and tact are highly relevant to both kinds of reviews.