UXjam

TLDR: Beware of ugly, confusing, deceiving infographics! My @madpow blog debut

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:39:17 -0500

TLDR: Beware of ugly, confusing, deceiving infographics! My @madpow blog debut

"If the anxiety is about the deadline, then the energy really focuses on the result. If there is not..."

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:27:17 -0500

“If the anxiety is about the deadline, then the energy really focuses on the result. If there is not anxiety about a deadline, all of the anxiety goes right to the creative part.”

- Christoph Niemann (via The 99 Percent)

Finally saw enough of those pleading faces on top of Wikipedia...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:50:34 -0500

Finally saw enough of those pleading faces on top of Wikipedia pages to click, read stories, and donate. #keepitfree

Happy Knowledgedays.

Oh, Word. Why must “Comment” be the only noun here...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:00:00 -0500

Oh, Word. Why must “Comment” be the only noun here that has an adjective before it? I keep staring at this menu looking for “Comment” only to give up and go to the Review tab of the ribbon.

Of course, I wouldn’t have to worry about digging through these menus if adding a comment was in right-click context menu.

Got my first credit card today. Thoroughly impressed by how easy...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:53:07 -0500

Got my first credit card today. Thoroughly impressed by how easy to read the cardmember agreement was - complete with progress bar!

"It’s not ‘who you share with,’ it’s ‘who you share as’ …..."

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 01:32:30 -0400

“It’s not ‘who you share with,’ it’s ‘who you share as’ … Identity is prismatic.”

- 4chan’s Chris Poole: Facebook & Google Are Doing It Wrong

Brief, brilliant points.

The Rise of the Zuckerverb: The New Language of Facebook

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:24:28 -0400

The Rise of the Zuckerverb: The New Language of Facebook:

Stitching together these simple declarative statements into an autobiographical timeline creates a pale simulacrum of personal story-telling, no matter how much Facebook presents it as a way to “tell your story.”

This is what happens when language is optimized for social data-mining rather than natural communication.

Ideally it’d be the other way around - we’d be optimizing social data-mining to conform to natural communication, right? This is the kind of stuff I would love to do a PhD on someday…

"As long as we focus on the object we know, we will miss the new one we need to see. The process of..."

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:42:37 -0400

“As long as we focus on the object we know, we will miss the new one we need to see. The process of unlearning in order to relearn demands a new concept of knowledge not as thing but as a process, not as a noun but as a verb.”

- Cathy Davidson

"Eventually everything connects… The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:28:50 -0400

“

Eventually everything connects…

The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.

”

- Charles Eames

Jury duty summons have a habit of arriving at my Philly house...

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:23:00 -0400

Jury duty summons have a habit of arriving at my Philly house after people move out…and one came for me today apparently. Since this has happened before, we know that you have to contact them to tell them you’ve moved out of the area. There’s supposedly a form online that should allow you to do this, but it’s always “unavailable” (we ran into this a few months ago with another roommate). Thus, the only way to respond is to have the folks in the house now (my old roommates) mail the form to me in Boston so I can fill it out and sign it, circling “NO” where asks if I’m currently a resident of Philadelphia, and send it all the way back. Seems a little silly, because if my roommates no longer lived there then I wouldn’t know about it at all and they would have no idea if I was just ditching jury duty or if I’d moved away. Right? So what’s the point of me responding?

Also, my mail is supposed to be forwarded as of August 10th, according to the email confirmation of the request I put in 10 days prior…and according to the snail mail confirmation I got today both in Boston and in Philly. The Philly notice makes sense as a security measure to make sure someone isn’t hijacking my mail. But the Boston notice was just frustrating considering it said my mail started forwarding August 10th (which it apparently didn’t), and it said to call a number if the address listed was incorrect. But if the address was incorrect, how would I have gotten the notice and known to call to tell them it was incorrect…?!

I was excited to see USPS’s recent site redesign and how easy it was to request mail hold/forwarding…but now I’m just confused…

PS: Philadelphia Courts, the z-index of your nav must be something really high…at least higher than your overlay background, because it totally pokes through. I’d like to see that fixed…but really that form should be a higher priority :)

"Nowadays, it’s just as important for a science building to behave like a skilled party host...."

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:00:00 -0400

“Nowadays, it’s just as important for a science building to behave like a skilled party host. Because scientists believe the best ideas originate in casual conversations that occur in hallways and lounges, informal spaces that encourage sociability and serendipitous encounters are crucial.”

- Inga Saffron: Changing Skyline: Biology central | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/12/2011

Can’t wait to go back and see the inside of this building. Watching it being constructed the past few years, I’m not the biggest fan of the outside, but the concepts behind the whole package are good.

"Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not..."

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 22:32:58 -0400

“Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us.”

- Daniel Burnham

"Design is not a form of art, not a form of science, and not a form of management. Design is not..."

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:57:36 -0400

“Design is not a form of art, not a form of science, and not a form of management. Design is not applied art, not applied science, and not the same as business practice. It is not the same as invention or creativity in general. Design is not a simple change in practical step-by-step procedures or the use of particular tools. Design is the activity we humans engage in when we are not satisfied with our reality and we decide to intentionally change it. It is an approach that deals with overwhelming complexity, that rely [sic] on judgment as its logic, and that is focused on the creation of the ultimate particular.”

- Erik Stolterman

One of the Five Manifestos for Life from Brain Pickings, my new...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 09:36:23 -0400

One of the Five Manifestos for Life from Brain Pickings, my new favorite blog of delightfully curated content

"If you’re not disruptive, everything seems to be repeated endlessly - not so much the good..."

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:32:02 -0400

““If you’re not disruptive, everything seems to be repeated endlessly - not so much the good things but the bland things - the ordinary things - the weaker things get repeated - the stronger things get suppressed and held down and hidden.””

- Robert Adamson via Molly Holzschlag @WhartonWebConf

"While life may imitate art, it’s not necessarily meant to be displayed as such"

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:09:20 -0400

““While life may imitate art, it’s not necessarily meant to be displayed as such””

- Conceptual Suburbia: A Design Project Descends on Levittown - Allison Arieff - NYTimes.com

Fascinating failure to work with “users”

Dear Google, I want my screen real estate back. For the past...

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:01:45 -0400

Dear Google,

I want my screen real estate back. For the past four years I have organized my life with Calendar, and while the new look is generally cleaner, it reduces the area for the main focus of the page — the calendar. The week view on my wee little netbook screen loses an hour of visible time and has thinner day columns.

Normally I wouldn’t be miffed over a few pixels, but one of your key design principles for these changes is

Elasticity: The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from your desktop computer to your mobile phone to your tablet, while keeping a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.

It’s clear that more emphasis was put on style in this change. I have to wonder where netbooks fall in that classification — we still behave like desktops, but we have similar sized screens to a tablet; did tablets experience this misappropriation of space as well, or are they given a platform-specific design?

The standardized treatment for the search bar struck me as a huge waste of space at first (in 4 years I’ve used calendar search maybe a handful of times), but on comparing to the old version it is only a pixel or two taller; where most of the space is lost is the added padding in and around the navigation bar. Reasonable, but aggravating. It would be nice to be able to collapse the search bar and left sidebar (like you can with Tasks on the right), enabling some sort of “full-screen” view. Also, I never use the “Create” button…and while it may be considered a primary call to action on the page, I resent all the space and emphasis it’s getting. And what’s up with that big margin on the left of everything?

Yours Overcritically,

Jamie

"The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a..."

Mon, 30 May 2011 17:06:54 -0400

“The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.”

- Seth’s Blog: The future of the library

I went to see the Arctic Monkeys last night, and for the first...

Thu, 19 May 2011 18:39:01 -0400

I went to see the Arctic Monkeys last night, and for the first time waited around after the show for autographs (something I’d never thought to do before). The Sharpie supply in the crowd was impressively low and I only managed to get my ticket signed by the lead singer and bassist, but it was still pretty cool.

One fan had an iPad and got the band to sign using their fingers. They’d never encountered this before and were a little confused at first, but played along. It was a strange sight that got me wondering about the nature and future of keepsakes like autographs in our increasingly digital world. What is so special about getting something signed by an artist? Is it about the changed object you get, or the experience of interacting with someone who is normally out of reach? If it’s about the object, is there something less valuable about a digital signature, with its lack of physicality and reproducibility?

This also came up recently at UX Book Club when I had Indi Young sign my copy of Mental Models, and others had only digital copies of the book and therefore nothing to sign. Could there be some analog* for ebooks, and would it come close to the value we instill in getting a physical book signed?

*pun fully intended

"AIM was also a sliver of who you were. In many ways, it was the internet’s first mainstream..."

Mon, 16 May 2011 20:38:02 -0400

“AIM was also a sliver of who you were. In many ways, it was the internet’s first mainstream social network. AIM profiles were a cocktail of all MySpace’s tacky, inane juices squeezed out, but again, they were personal and public. Blank slates. White boxes. You could make them whatever you wanted—grating, bleeding pink text on black backgrounds, sprawling links, Odyssey-length inside jokes—anything that fit within the 1024 character limit. It was primitive but pioneering.”

- Remember When AOL Instant Messenger Was Our Facebook? - Gizmodo

I grew up on AIM, and this article captures a lot of thoughts I’ve had about it over the years. Oh, nostalgia.