culturedbits

Touché, a New Touch Technology by… Disney

Sun, 06 May 2012 20:09:44 +0200

Touché, a New Touch Technology by… Disney:

Most of this stuff isn’t discoverable enough to be of much use in the everyday arsenal of gesture input, but it still has a few very interesting nuggets and ideas. I especially like the idea of the body as a simple input device, which begs to be enhance the capabilities of Siri.

A Better Keyboard: The Next Generation of iOS Text Editing

Fri, 04 May 2012 09:15:41 +0200

A Better Keyboard: The Next Generation of iOS Text Editing:

Intriguing idea. Also, the way to astroturf a feature request to apple is… interesting. :)

Who Needs Objective-C?

Thu, 03 May 2012 21:33:14 +0200

Who Needs Objective-C?:

This is the most enticing non-official-IDE project for iOS apps I’ve seen to date. Also, It positions Ruby in a very interesting role: One language to rule web dev, mobile apps and everything in between.

Why You Should Care About CSS Performance and How Easy It Really Is

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:59:35 +0200

Why You Should Care About CSS Performance and How Easy It Really Is:

I always thought that optimizing shouldn’t be an afterthought. Yes, tough deadlines make it alluring to skip some steps. Which actually makes it so much more important to know-thy-trade, so that doing it right becomes effortless.

Update: Here is another good article on this from Jeremy Keith (@adactio): dConstruct optimisation

Sketch 2 – The Designers Toolbox

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:08:41 +0200

Sketch 2 – The Designers Toolbox:

Sketch 2 is really a remarkable step forward. Although Photoshop 6 is a big improvement in the arena of screen design, it’s price tag (even as a SaaS) is still a bit steep. Between Pixelmator and Sketch, you get about 95% of the relevant features for 5% of the price.

Maybe I’m a minority on this, but I would love a general purpose tool for screen design, something like a combination of Pixelmator, Sketch and Hype.

Starbucks Responsive Redesign Styleguide

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:29:57 +0200

Starbucks Responsive Redesign Styleguide:

This starts to become a trend, which I very much like.

"Anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is about trade-offs, and you end up with..."

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:26:37 +0200

“Anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is about trade-offs, and you end up with trade-offs that don’t please anyone.”

- Tim Cook on Windows 8, via 512pixels

All You Ever Wanted To Know About The WebKit Inspector, But Never Came Around To Ask.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:17:02 +0200

All You Ever Wanted To Know About The WebKit Inspector, But Never Came Around To Ask.:

This is a really thorough and well written introduction to the Inspector and a perfect starting point for http://javascriptrocks.com/performance/

The Written Communication Conundrum

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:47:23 +0200

Today I read Dan Moren’s article on iMessage, followed by Scott Allen’s more sensible approach to this and finally Adii’s tweet: “The future of email? fluent.io”

I think Dan Moren is partly right: Written communication may technically be much alike, but conceptually there are vast differences between e-mail, chat and sms. On the other hand, I think the Scott Allen is closer to the solution then Dan. Let me explain.

Since Apple’s update to their Mail app in Mac OS X Lion (and the coming Mountain Lion), this topic frequently occupied my mind. During the last year, I observed my own communication behavior closely and learned that I wrote and received some 25k e-mails, had some 6k chat conversations and sent maybe 300 text messages.

I could have saved a lot of time, if many of those e-mail conversations would have been as short and simple as chat usually dictates it. I would have preferred many chats to be as rare as the text messages I sent. And I would have loved to expand on some of the text message conversations I had.

Separating each mental model of communication into it’s own app only reinforces the boundaries around that model and makes it harder for those “edge” cases of communication where something is neither this nor that.

If you communicate in less volume, or are a very structured person, separating communication that way actually works. That’s what I did in my previous live, where I got something like 1k e-mails a year. But if you communicate in high volume, what you actually need is a command center that helps you communicate, not forces you through additional hoops.

My ideal “communication”-client would actually incorporate ux concepts from all forms of communication and present each conversation the way it is most easily consumed. Many e-mail conversations can be handled exactly like fluent.io is doing it, there are even some where I would prefer it chat style. And then there are some conversations which consists of mutiple threads that actually require it to be more like a forum, or comments.

I think it’s fine that stuff like sender pictures, smart folders oriented around common communication partners, threaded conversations and reduced presentations of post-and-reply are finding their way into e-mail clients. But in the end, it needs more then the evolution of e-mail clients. Written communication needs a communication center, much like notifications need a notification center.¹

¹ And a more clever way to direct which notification goes when where and what it does there.

CoffeeConsole: A CoffeeScript Browser Console

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:20:50 +0200

CoffeeConsole: A CoffeeScript Browser Console:

The ever amazing Mr. @snookca just whipped up this Chrome extension for CoffeeScript. I love this kind of mini side projects.

Photoshop CS6 Improvements for Screen Designers

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:25:05 +0200

Photoshop CS6 Improvements for Screen Designers:

Layer Searching, Layer Effects on Groups, Pixel Snapping Everywhere, Paragraph an Character Stylesets, Strokes on Paths, Near Object Transform Info, Gradient Layer Scale goes up to 1000%, and there is still more.

Adobe managed to get me excited about PS again. :)

"Salad bars exemplify what happens when you give users too many choices: they want everything and the..."

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:23:53 +0200

“Salad bars exemplify what happens when you give users too many choices: they want everything and the resulting salad isn’t very good.”

- @taylorcarrigan

Instagrams Future

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:26:00 +0200

Finally you can download Instagram on Android. It’s very similar to the iPhone version, in features as well as UI. It’s available on a wide range of android devices, basically everything that identifies as a phone with camera and 2.2.

They had over 300k subscribers to be notified on launch and managed more then 16k retweets that they launched in the first 6 hours. Now this should be a good thing. For everyone. So I thought. Then I stumbled upon tweets like this by @jessiechar:

“How do we feel about the Instagram UI for Android basically being the same as for iOS?
Seems like kind of a copout to me.”

I’m not an regular Android user, but to me Tim Van Damme aka @maxvoltar and his team crafted one of the cleanest, most well looking Android UIs I know of.

I’ll curiously watch how this will unfold.

Update: @mraaroncruz just sent me this blog. So iPhone users are better then Android users, huh? *sigh*

Update 2: So it’s 1 Billion, huh? Whatever the reason is, I’m now even more curious what Facebook is cooking up.

iPad Quo Vadis? Microsoft Research recently showed this demo of...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 01:33:00 +0200

iPad Quo Vadis?

Microsoft Research recently showed this demo of a touch screen with vastly reduced latency and some folks wondered what the next step for the iPad would be, as it seems to be at a point where it offers everything it needs.

What I wish to see is lower touch latency, a stylus that draws only where I want it, and even better dictation. Right now, the iPad suffices for most of my spare time activities and a good part of my work activities. If input of larger texts were faster, and if it could handle my creative activities (drawing, scribbling, etc.) a lot smoother, I think I could actually use the iPad as my only work tool.

Well, except for the times when I need to code.

"Simple ideas […] will naturally occur to many people. A small percentage of those will have the..."

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 01:18:00 +0200

“Simple ideas […] will naturally occur to many people. A small percentage of those will have the ability to execute on them. A small percentage of those will then actually do so. And an even smaller group will combine it with an otherwise interesting product, thus making it into something.”

- I could rant about this for days, but Neven captures the essence in 2 Tweets and 15 characters.

Four Excellent Apps and One Workflow for iOS Prototyping Lately...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 01:10:00 +0200

Four Excellent Apps and One Workflow for iOS Prototyping

Lately I’ve found myself to adopt a rather unexpected workflow for Rapid Prototyping of iOS apps.

I start out with balsamiq, creating a rough draft of my ideas and after some back and forth with the client, we have a basis to agree on.

After that I continue to scribble the interaction design with Keynotopia, continue with some pixel-crafting in Photoshop (6) and finally I use Prototypes to give a feeling of the final look and workflow of the app.

This also makes for an excellent brief for the developers, as a good level of detail about the apps user experience is already defined.

Simple, self explaining, pain alleviating, and it’s no...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:45:00 +0200

Simple, self explaining, pain alleviating, and it’s no more expensive then a normal lock. A true treasure of UX improvement for an everyday problem, no one addressed in the last few centuries.

Two Reasons why a Dislike Button wont ever happen

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:48:00 +0200

When I woke up today, I was bombarded with news about Facebook implementing a “Dislike”-button. It was on TV, public radio and everywhere from ORF teletext (update: they removed the article again) to twitter and blogs.

After some research, I couldn’t find any official statement or even anything coming close to being an authoritative source for this, so I dismissed it to as rumor. Actually, it’s a rumor that surfaces every few weeks, only this time the austrian mass media decided to run it, without first checking the facts.

That traditional big media institutions forgo simple fact checking is nothing new in this day and age (even if it still irks me to no end), but in this case good came from it by motivating me to write a article about this whole “dislike” shenenigans.

Reason #1: Informational Uselesness

Facebook has very carefully created an environment where every statement comes from an identified source. This very much eliminated trolling on Facebook. Liking something has subtle social implications¹, but more importantly it creates the kind of information Facebook is seeking.

It allows to target you on the stuff you have a positive connection to. Stuff is getting sold on good feelings, not on bad ones². A dislike button would generate information that is only of secondary importance to the brands Facebook is living of.

Reason #2: Moral Culture

I’ll admit it, I don’t believe that Facebook operates on a strong altruistic streak, despite what they say. Still, their current approach to negative sentiments requires people to articulate themselves about what is bothering them, thus (theoretically) requiring them to think about it (which generates valuable feedback for a brand³).

A dislike button would just dumb down the conversation about disagreements. In fact it would further weaken the already desolate culture of debate we have nowadays.

Conclusion

A dislike button would reduce the quality of content and provide little relevant data about you. If Facebook ever finds a way to create meaningful information about you through a dislike button, I’m sure they will implement it. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it.

1) Most lifestyle brands profit from people wanting to be associated with them. If you think brand X is cool, you will like it and by doing so communicate that you share certain values. Which means that you declare a bit of your own worldview and values. It’s subtle and very fuzzy, but it still is a very important part of how your online identity is constructed.

2) Sometimes this good feeling comes from a motivation to avoid/get away from something bad, so it may look like you sell something on a bad feeling. But in the end you only create loyal, returning, happy customers if you cater to a positive feeling.

3) Well, to those brands who listen anyway. The new pages actually facilitate the honest communication between brand and person, without requiring the person to go public or the brand to react to (sometimes unwarrented) trolling on their timelines. Believe it or not, most people are not interested in public swearing, no mater how good it may feel.

The Local Maximum

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:41:00 +0200

The Local Maximum:

In his latest article on 52 Weeks of UX, Joshua Porter once again nails an important aspect of UX:

One strategy we might employ is to optimize until we reach a point of diminishing returns: design until changes just aren’t having a big effect. Then, stop optimizing and return to other kinds of analysis to figure out the next steps. Conduct interviews. Do user testing. Give surveys, ask questions. Find out the biggest existing pain points instead of focusing on tiny design elements at this stage. Focus at the activity-level. What are people trying to accomplish? What are their higher-level goals? What aren’t people doing that we want them to? What big hurdles keep them from taking the next action? This level of insight will allow you to make those bigger changes.

If you’re a freelance, chances are good that you’re hired at the beginning of a project, or when it’s hopelessly stuck. You rarely get to the place where small change optimization reaches the point of diminishing returns.

The more important it is to keep an eye on it, so chances of innovation aren’t missed.

"The best software has a vision. The best software takes sides. When someone uses software,..."

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:44:00 +0200

“The best software has a vision. The best software takes sides. When someone uses software, they’re not just looking for features, they’re looking for an approach. They’re looking for a vision.”

- Jason Fried, Getting Real

This quotes latest reincarnation appears in Mike Rundles excellent article Kill The Settings, Build Opinionated Software and is still very true.