Inkblurt - Latest Comments

Re: The Challenge of Taste in Design

Doug Montgomery — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:59:29 -0000

Very charitable post (about the tribal identity or posing), and honest (the importance of 'taste' input from designers who specialise or excel at this) and clever (the three legged analogy).

One or two of my tutors try to impose a rigidly functionalist dogma down students throats and they would have a fit at your suggestion, as they have had with me for contesting them.

I'm at this moment designing a project based on Pierre Bourdieu's examination of taste and class in his book 'Distinction'. I developed the scenario that in the year 2022 a lack of 'taste' has come to be regarded as some kind of affliction requiring treatment. This notion has been concocted by the government who are bound by EU commitments to environmental reform, but want one last consumerist hurrah by influencing the populace to replace any existing 'poor taste' goods (DFS Sofas etc) with Design Council approved goods on the pretext that products with 'taste' have longevity which satisfy EU sustainability principles. So, the government mandate an 'inoculation' campaign sponsored by Bayer Chemicals (aimed implicitly at the 'lower' classes) to cure the affliction of 'bad taste'.

I designed packaging complete with instructions for use and a pamphlet describing how the 'aesthetic competence' test is evaluated - basically 'sufferer's' are shown art, clothing, furniture etc, and asked to choose from a blind selection of products considered 'bad' to aesthetically 'approved', and then they are scored as individuals - but the 'lower classes' will be forcibly inoculated without recourse to the test.

Its a deliberately crude and blunt solution as its supposed to be commissioned by a future dictatorial government.

Re: My next move is a TUG.

xian — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:43:35 -0000

congratulations! TUG is kindling something awesome.

Re: My next move is a TUG.

Jeff Parks — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:52:27 -0000

Congrats Andrew. Dan and the team are very lucky to have you! All the best in your new venture.

Re: Embodied Responsiveness

Tim Dobbins — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:22:28 -0000

Brilliant.

Re: Embodied Responsiveness

David Fiorito — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:22:01 -0000

I think we will see more and more of this as we get away from the aggregation impulse (like Facebook) and move towards specialization and simplicity (like twitter and instagram). The aggregator is the device. The interface on the iPhone is the embodied solution, and we give it form by arranging app icons in a manner that fits our needs.

Re: The Path to Fail is Paved with Good Intentions

Tim Dobbins — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:42:56 -0000

Great post, Andrew.

When people design for taste, and at the expense of a coherent experience, a small part of me dies inside.

Re: The Path to Fail is Paved with Good Intentions

vanderwal — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:41:50 -0000

Andrew, read Marco Arment's take on Path issue ( http://www.marco.org/2012/02/0... ), he says publicly what most social application devs I know have been saying how they have been doing things. The downfall is lack of opt-in, which only some apps have. Path took a step, I don't think any other app/service will do that uses this practice, they dumped all of the address records and are allowing people to opt-in.

The neighborhood announcements is the top on/off option in their settings as they knew that is not something everybody wants and it is opt-in when you set up Path.

Path has an insane amount of functionality that it has crammed in a a small and somewhat simple interface. It took me a good chunk of time to sort out how to so somethings. But, when you talk with people at Path they listen and they are working very hard at iterating what they have to improve it. They also say this publicly, a lot.

Path focuses on an insanely difficult intersection that each have their own difficult segments. Mobile with rich interfaces with accordance is tough on touch devices as the usual hover for explanation is not easy to pull of as usually done with a hold or long tap, which many people have difficulty executing. But, the more difficult space is social, as most social interaction designs are still really clumbsy and awkward and not relative to how humans are social in general and don't adapt for the array of personality types that they really need to.

I'm glad you wrote this up.

Re: WordPress Comment Notification Fix

carol m — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:58:02 -0000

Does anyone know a fix for this problem in wp 3.3.1?

Re: So I’m writing a book on Designing Context

Joe — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:33:37 -0000

And the reason you weren't talking this up in Dublin last week was...?

;)

Big congrats on the book! Very happy to see this news.

Re: So I’m writing a book on Designing Context

Jorge — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:10:33 -0000

This is fabulous news Andrew, congratulations! Funny, I was thinking earlier today that there are no books at the moment that cover this aspect of UX. I can't think of anyone more qualified than you to write it... Looking forward to reading it!

Re: So I’m writing a book on Designing Context

Kaleem — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:15:06 -0000

Congratulations, Andrew!

Getting people to understand the importance of context in relation to the designed object is often a difficult task, in part due to the abstract thinking required vs. the tangibility of an artifact.

Having heard your deeply insightful conference talks and reflecting upon our conversations over the years, I've often wondered when you would write a book. If I can be of any help at all during the process, with all sincerity, please let me know.

Sign me up for a copy!

Re: Users Don’t Have Goals

Joe Lamantia — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:46:08 -0000

Hmm. Seems a core insight is that product-making cultures tend to make products that reflect their own worldviews, rather than that a misplaced focus on goals leads to irrelevant experiences [though this is also true]. I think there's lots of opportunity for the typically outstanding inkblurt take on this topic - and I'm too lazy to take it on at the moment :)

Re: Users Don’t Have Goals

Richard Dalton — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:01:39 -0000

Nice presentation Andrew, I wish I could have seen it live!

I think your point is that there are a lot of "things" above the *task* level that affect the context of the user? If so, I very much agree.

I started to explore this a few years ago with this diagram:
http://mauvyrusset.files.wordp...

But now that I look at it again, I find the "about the situation" cloud lacking - it needs more context (ha ha) to account for the problem the user is trying to solve (consciously or subconsciously) and for the emotions the user is having about the situation.

Re: Unhappiness Machine

Lynn Marentette — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:40:23 -0000

Andrew,

I thought you might like a video clip I took at the South Park mall in Charlotte back in 2009:
"Touch Screen Coke Machine at the Mall: 90 seconds to get a coke!" http://youtu.be/72eWDUfPLvk

Lynn

Re: Omni Magazine Shrine

Darlene Baker — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 04:32:02 -0000

I have an intact volume one of OMNI, free to good home if you pay for shipping. I've no idea how you'd rate the condition, I'd say fair. I won't be back here, so email me: typocatcher@gmail.com

Re: In Defense of D

Dorian Taylor — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:51:02 -0000

When we came up with the demonstate the damn thing slogan for the IAI, the sentiment (at least for me) was that it's possible to pore over the same material over and over without creating any new insight. In that way it's kind of like a PRNG—real randomness needs an injection of new information from the outside. So the idea was to generate new material for discussion by actually generating new material for use.

I think there is also a component of professional insecurity, trying to partition intellectual territory as well as justify the position to outsiders. It's still a nascent discipline (I'm even apprehensive about calling it a discipline). Further, perorating about the virtues of a particular practice is much less work than actually doing it. (And information architects classify things for a living anyway, so for them it's almost like a tic.)

But by no means does this account for all discussion, nor does it discount the development of the language we use to talk about our business.

Re: Identity is more than a name

James Melzer — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:28:57 -0000

The careful self-segmentation of an individual's identity should be tremendously helpful to marketers. The social networks are closing the door on a huge opportunity. If a person takes the time to create a separate Facebook account for their knitting club identity, they've narrowed the focus considerably. Furthermore, that person has increased the relevance of all their relationships, their user-generated content, and their other behavior. That identity is all signal, no noise from a marketing perspective.

The single identity, on the other hand, is a confused mess. Look how much effort Amazon puts into sorting us out, as people. Was this a gift? Okay, then Amazon won't factor into your recommendations. But who was it for? Okay, Amazon will update your view of their wishlist to take that into account. Complexity!

Re: Links, Maps and Habitats

Romney — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:26:55 -0000

Have you ever read the index of a book from start to finish? Cross references and footnotes are the ancestors of the hyperlink. The index is the map of a book. Not the book the author wanted to pretend they wrote (thats on the contents page) but what the indexer thinks actually happened.

Rarely, you'll notice an author has got involved in their own index and then it loses its value as an independent map. Its usually funnier though. Try Charlie Brooker.

Re: Identity is more than a name

Paul Rissen — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:54:40 -0000

Good post - I particularly agree with the call for more humanities-schooled people to engage with the development of digital services. I'm not sure I agree with the point that an 'entity-relationship-diagram-friendly way' is incompatible with the complex nature of personality & history, but that's my blind optimism, probably ;-)

Re: Omni Magazine Shrine

Diana Perry — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 23:46:53 -0000

My husband loved the covers of the Omni magazines and collected quite a few. However we are moving and are unable to house them. Anyone out there interested in purchasing his collection? lf interested let me know and I'll be happy to let you know what issues he has available.

Re: Two Fixes for Twitter

shiloh13 — Wed, 25 May 2011 08:39:01 -0000

I agree totally. I think we should be able to direct message someone on something they say. Not bombard them with messages but just a reply because sometimes we don't want everyone to see what we write.

Re: Context Management at Plaxo

Nick Dunn — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:51:04 -0000

Darn, I was going to suggest Github ;-) Yes, if you're a member of "organisations" then you can switch context and see only repositories or commit messages for that persona.

Screenshot: http://www.cl.ly/0f2c0C0a101X1...

Re: Omni Magazine Shrine

bee — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:50:54 -0000

I am looking for a tiny article that was in the Omni magazine in the 80's...

It was on the subject of a shadow illusion that effected on the Great Pyramid around Egypts springtime (and marked the rising of the waters of the nile
- it also had a tiny picture of the illusion on the pyramid (that only lasted for less than a minute)

I would very much appreciate anyone who could send me the text of the article or the article itself (pretty please nicely)
I used to really like the omni mag and miss it.
Al the very best to all

Re: Context Management at Plaxo

Andrew — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:17:51 -0000

Thanks for the pointer, I'll check it out :-)

Re: Context Management at Plaxo

siob — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 12:09:55 -0000

github.com has a 'context switcher'. i can switch between my private view and any organization's view i'm member of.