Design Info

Month

June 2013

I think many in the press and public are intermixing skeumorphism and three dimensional elements in interface design. But 3D can be good.

Leather stitching, etc. are not needed. But a small shadow or edge here and there is useful for how human brains perceive buttons and other interface elements from things that are not. 

Color too is not just decorative or fashionable but also important in how it associates with interface elements, organization, and the over all UX.

In a well designed interface, we might normally detect shadow, form, and color but all these things combine to actually, in theory and often in practice, make it easier to use a device or screen interface.

If you notice the decorative excesses (no matter how minor), heavy shadows, over done dimensionality, etc. the interface failed. If you have trouble using it because it is too flat or colorless or lacking in color range, it has failed.

But, if it just works, and you don’t notice things one way or the other, it has succeeded.

Within any interface, there are exceptions. The proverbial “abandon ship” button should probably be big, colorful, and a touch too big. All buttons and links should also be big enough for that mythical above average human finger to actually touch. In iOS, my average human male fingers often cannot hit things as they are too small. But often it is placement that matters. The CNN app back button is a very tiny circle with an arrow in it, but it is placed in a spot where it works every time. In any app that uses a keyboard, the small default keyboard delete button is too close to the edge of the screen and too close to another button. I have deleted or not deleted too many times to count.

In early web design projects 10 or more years ago, I would often have to remind the data base programmers (I was the art director) that having some white space around text on pages and forms was essential. It seems that same problem afflicts app development too and since touch and buttons are at play, it is even more critical but somewhat unrecognized as important for the UX. 

Jun 19, 2013
Play
Jun 18, 2013
#Vimeo #architecture #architects #design #studio #shortfilm #documentary #prattinstitute #college #education #thommayne #shigeruban #davidbyrne #tedlandsmark #mauricecox
“A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutio­nary strategist.” —

— Buckminster Fuller

Quotes on Design

Jun 18, 2013
“Focus groups recommended that All in the Family rewrite Archie Bunker as a soft-spoken and nurturing father.” —

Twitter / mental_floss

This is why focus groups are to be avoided.

Jun 17, 2013
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013
Milwaukee Police News → milwaukeepolicenews.com

When good web design meets government service.

Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 13, 20131 note
Twitter / christineburns: Powerful graphic, putting ... → twitter.com
Jun 12, 2013
Dear NSA, let me take care of your slides. → slideshare.net

A designer is horrified by the NSA… slides used in Power Point. Retched graphics indeed. 
So, he re-designed the PP presentation. Now, we can clearly see the secret spy programs more clearly! 

Jun 11, 2013
Design in a Nutshell → youtube.com

Six Open University videos on design history.

Jun 11, 20131 note
Jun 6, 2013
“What form does follow is the real and perceived failure of the things as they are used to do what they are supposed to do. Clever people in the past, whom we today might call inventors, designers, or engineers, observed the failure of existing things to function as well as might be imagined.
…so we have inherited culture-specific artifacts that are daily reminders that even so primitive a function as eating imposes no single form on the implements used to effect it.”
—

Henry Petroski

The Evolution of Useful Things

Jun 5, 2013
“Putting implements as common as knife and fork and chopsticks into an evolutionary perspective, tentative as it necessarily must be, gives a new slant to the concept of their design, for they do not spring fully formed from the mind of some maker but, rather, become shaped and reshaped through the (principally negative) experiences of their users within the social, cultural, and technological contexts in which they are embedded. The formal evolution of artifacts turn has profound influences on how we use them.
Imagining how the form of things as seemingly simple as eating utensils might have evolved demonstrates the inadequacy of a “form follows function” argument to serve as a guiding principle of understanding how artifacts have come to look the way they do. Reflecting on how the form of the knife and fork has developed, let alone how vastly divergent are the way s in which Eastern and Western cultures have solved the identical design problem of conveying food to mouth, really demolishes any overly deterministic argument, for clearly there is no unique solutions to the elementary problem of eating.”
—Henry Petroski
The Evolution of Useful Things 
Jun 5, 2013
“I do not like so many things that I must pick my battles.” —Natalia Ilyin
Jun 3, 2013
Chicago Design Museum → chidm.com

June 1-30, 2013 (a pop up exhibit)

MIchael Bierut says its great.

Jun 3, 2013
Jun 2, 2013
Cheap iOS Airplay music to speakers

I want to wake up to music from my iOS device from good speakers. Well, anything better than my clock radio. I have been looking at all the new Bluetooth (BT) and Airplay (AP) speakers…

The advantage to a BT or AP all in one speaker system is you can just plop it on a dresser and, after setting it up, you are done. But hundreds to thousands of dollars later.

Why are the BT speakers on the cheaper end and the AP models the higher end? Oh, because BT compresses the audio and it sounds horrible! (I still have one good ear…). But, I really don’t want to spend $2700 on a Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay A9 AirPlay Sound System even if it would look incredible in my NY loft space.

Here is a cheaper and even free solution and sounds better than 99% of the BT speakers you would waste $100-$1000 on and it uses Airplay:

Plug in an any working audio receiver. Even an old one in your garage or your parents basement (and probably sounds better if built before 1975 anyway). Plug in any small speakers - or big speakers - whatever you like. I have a pair of Dual (Korean) small plastic outdoor speakers I got for $15 but did not use outdoors as planned. They actually sound incredible for size and price. Plug an Airport Express (any, old or new) into audio in (may need $3 mini plug to RCA adaptor cord) or an Apple TV into the HDMI on the receiver, if newer.

Set up the AE or Apple TV on your network. For AE, it is speaker mode for audio. Got to music or Pandora or Songza or other Airplay music player or service on your iOS device. Choose your new speakers. Hit play.

You now have a great sounding Airplay audio speaker system and it cost you either nothing or, maybe, $200 tops. I got a not so old unused receiver from my Mom, the $15 speakers, plus reusing an unused (refurbed when I got it new) Airport Express. I guess you could say the whole thing was free or $15 or, since I did buy the AE, say $80 tops. 

Now I set an alarm on my iOS device next to my bed and it wakes me on the speakers. Caveat: with my system, the receiver is on all night. This might not be so energy efficient compared to a newer BT or Airplay speaker which, is also on or needs to be on all night too.

Another option is to reuse old computer speakers that have amps built in. The sound will typically be nothing great but, they use less energy and are free if you own them already.

Update: Just as soon as I wrote that, a major audio manufacturer, Pioneer, has reduced prices on all Airplay wireless speakers it sells to compete against cheaper but poor audio quality Bluetooth speakers. Now, it seems, if you just want to put some speakers around the house and have $1000 or so to spend, you can easily do it in 5+ rooms and have incredible sound. Cheaper than whole house wiring and you can take it with you.

Jun 2, 2013
Adobe pricing plan raises concerns → insidehighered.com

Higher education is already freaking out, as would be expected by Adobe’s stupid rental plan.

The solution is simple:

Switch back to QuarkXPress. Try out some of the powerful and far cheaper image editing alternatives like Apple Aperture for photo organizing and editing, Pixelmator for more image manipulation, Mac Flux instead of Dreamweaver, etc. Apple Final Cut Pro for video (not cheap but, best pro app anyhow), etc.

See a list of many alternatives to Adobe products here.

Jun 2, 2013
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