Good interview with Google’s product manager by Mark Hurst on Good Experience. “All of us on the UI team think the value of Google is in not being cluttered, in offering a great user experience. I like to say that Google should be ‘what you want, when you want it.’ As opposed to ‘everything you could ever want, even when you don’t.'”
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Making a Timeless User Experience in Digital Web magazine. “One has to think in all directions to properly define smart user-centric design, then, apply those decisions in a timeless fashion.”
Please please please buy something.
Via a Metafilter discussion came this fantastic list of Dad’s responses to Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes comics. I also found a second quote list via Google. I miss Calvin and Hobbes.
C: How do they know the load limit on bridges, Dad?
D: They drive bigger and bigger trucks over the bridge until it breaks. Then they weigh the last truck and rebuild the bridge.
I got promoted today—I’m now Web Design Director for The Economist Group along with my duties for Economist.com. Good stuff.
Random bits:
Wired redesigns using XML and standard code. Nice.
Metaphors make for poor debate. Good points all the way through. I will start to eliminate them from my arguments. Right after my next Digital Web column is published.
Hart Island in The Morning News. “Most people never think about it, but New York is an archipelago; outside of the Bronx, the cityâs 8 million people live on a collection of 50 islands.”
And of course, one more plug for my moving sale.
I attended the Content Management Summit yesterday and had a good time. Learned some interesting things. Among them:
~ The Internet is still a learning space. Different media sites have vastly different concepts of the best way to make money and present information. Marketing ploys are still widely created and debated. Ye olde Web is still a nascent sales venue.
~ Of the presentations I saw (from Technowledge, eMeta, and others), few actually said much about the products being hawked. Lots of explanations were given: here’s why you need this service. With the exception of Microsoft, no one explained how said service would help my business.
~ The term du jour these days is “pay per drink.”
~ No one can really agree what the heck a weblog is, and lots of people still haven’t heard of them. John Hiler actually had the chutzpah (naivete?) to declare, “Weblogs only cover interesting things,” using “interesting” to mean “technology and terrorism and not much else.” Hiler also described his company, Xanga, as attracting “a lot of [age] 50-plus people because they have nothing to do.”
I also enjoyed catching up with Cam and meeting scores of new people, including Nick Denton and several folks who thought I was the other David Wertheimer.
Jason Calacanis throws a good conference, and I am looking forward to Brian Alvey’s next Meet the Makers assembly in November.
Time to sell the old furniture and end my days as an upper east side resident. Want anything?
~ View my for-sale ad posted to Craig’s List.
~ Contact me with inquiries! I will have an open house Sunday afternoon. . Photos available upon request.
The 1 Percent Solution? in Clickz.
The most important line in this article is one the author glosses over: “There’s nothing wrong per se with charging for online content, provided you charge for the right things and do so in the right ways.”
The article then goes onto dissecting sites such as Salon, which charges users to not see ads, which is entirely counter to the basic ad-sales model, which asks for a definable viewing audience in order to proffer an effective purchase.
Still, an interesting read, and one worth considering for us media folks.
Fun things to know about my new puppy Charley.
Things to know about Charley.
~ He is a coton de tulear, or more casually, a coton, pronounced “koh-TAHN.”
~ Charley was born July 13, which makes him just shy of three months old. He weighed six pounds at the vet September 30 and should grow to between 12 and 15 pounds as an adult. Technically, he was my fiancee’s birthday present, six months late, but Amy has declared him to be our dog, not hers.
~ With the exceptions of barking to get attention and nipping when playful, Charley is an extremely well-adjusted and well-behaved puppy. He is friendly and only a little bit shy; when confined he is paper-trained.
~ He likes his crate and sleeps through the night without complaint, unless we return home late—say, from a wedding at 3 a.m.—at which point he gets rambunctious and keeps me busy for two hours of play time.
~ Charley will chew on anything he can find. Literally. He likes his toys and anything stringed, like shoelaces, but he has discovered everything from pillowcases to cardboard boxes to the molding on the kitchen doorway.
~ He likes to see the world from his travel bag (well, he doesn’t complain) and he is very relaxed in a car (but not a taxi, just like his mommy).
~ Charley doesn’t shed, which helps keep the apartment looking clean. He does have stinky poop, which does not help keep the apartment smelling clean.
~ We have a webcam that allows us to monitor the puppy during the day. We did it for security purposes, but it’s just plain fun. (I’m not posting the URL online but it is available upon request.)
~ Having a puppy is hard, hard work, and worth every minute of it.