Design: January 2003 Archive Page

"The Geezer loves film noir. These dark, taut, black and white films give the lie to the illusion that the forties and fifties were upbeat, positive decades. I like that." The Geezer --The Geezer Speaks WeblogGeezerSpeaks.com)

An amusing personal website... and by a Geezer, too.

"It has been confirmed that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, two of the richest teens in America, have decided to attend University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, WI beginning in the Fall of the 2003-2004 academic year." --Olsen Twins Set to Attend University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, WICNN?)

Why the awkward passive that conceals who "confirmed" this claim? Why is this article in the "World" section of what appears to be the CNN website? Thanks, Sarah, for pointing it out!

"Leonardo figured things out by looking at them, thinking about them and taking them apart. That compulsion to tinker has led many modern hackers to claim Leonardo retroactively as one of their own." --Da Vinci: The Pith Behind the ManWired)

Nice backgrounder for the Da Vinci exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Since most blogging tools are both free and addictive, it's no surprise that the sales cycle has been eliminated. Better yet, point and click blog designs mean that there's minimal consulting - either customization or configuration - required to set up your blog. The result? Weblogs are spreading like wildfire - by some accounts, the market is growing as high as 25% a month." John Hiler's June, 2002 article was found via Kairosnews.

--Blogs as Disruptive Tech -- How weblogs are flying under the radar of the content management giantsWebcrimson)

A student in my Writing Electronic Text course had an epiphany a few weeks after she chose to write a weblog for her term project. Like most newbie web authors, she had fiddled endlessly with the design of her first website, but the weblog software handles all the design for her; when she suddenly realized that weblogging is about writing, not about web design, her weblog really took off.

"Three-dimensional tubes of living tissue have been printed using modified desktop printers filled with suspensions of cells instead of ink. The work is a first step towards printing complex tissues or even entire organs." Charles Choi --Ink-jet Printing Creates Tubes of Living Tissue New Scientist)

"[B]eing innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass.... [S]ome things?the nature of higher education among them?will have to change in order to ensure a perpetual source of new ideas. " Nicholas Negroponte --Creating a Culture of IdeasTechnology Review)

"30 August 2001 was the 100th anniversary of Hubert Cecil Booth's patent of the first working vacuum cleaner. To celebrate, explore our Potted History of the Vacuum Cleaner, or find out more Fascinating Vacuum Facts, all illustrated with historic cleaners from the Science Museum's collections." --A Century of SuckingScience Museum [UK])

Interesting Photo Caption...Yahoo News)

Wow... that must have been some slideshow.

"I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the way to do it. The Achilles heel of the spammers is their message. They can circumvent any other barrier you set up. They have so far, at least. But they have to deliver their message, whatever it is. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get around that." Paul Graham --A Plan for SpamPaulGraham.com)

"It happens to everyone - you accidentally cut someone off or do something bone-headed unintentionally... wouldn't it be nice to have a conciliatory tone to indicate that you're aware that you screwed up, and are willing to admit it?" jzb --One Tone Isn't EnoughDissociated Presszilla)

"Not so many decades ago, you couldn't buy or legitimately connect your own phone or other telecom equipment to the public telephone network in the United States.... Virtually everything related to telephone communications had to be leased from the local monopoly phone company, which also performed all installations and maintenance. Remarkably, it was even prohibited to attach shoulder rests or any other gadgets to phone handsets..." --DMCA: Ma Bell Would Be ProudWired)

"I have seen one of the finest instances of user interface design ever, and I saw it in the men's room at Schipol airport in Amsterdam. In each of the urinals, there is a little printed blue fly...If they had put big circular targets, and arrows with a little printed message "pee here!" (like it would probably be if anybody ever tried such a thing in America), it would backfire. A certain percentage of men would deliberately try to disobey this instruction. But this innocuous little fly just invites being peed upon..." Maddog

--Fly UIMaddog)

We at the Literacy Weblog are not too highbrow to snicker at a user interface article featuring an innovation designed to improve the cleanliness of public bathrooms by subtly influencing men to improve their aim. We are also not above making cheap jokes, like how Microsoft ought to start making these things since there are already so many bugs in everything else they make.

"When humans use a personal computer, we enter into the computer's world. If it can't do something, or if it crashes, too bad; we have to deal. But a robot enters into our world. If floors are uneven, if legs get in the way, if lighting conditions change, the robot has to deal." George Musser's review of the Roomba robot vaccuum cleaner explains why Robot armies haven't taken over the world yet. --Robots that SuckScientific American)

Another quote from the article: "What makes it a breakthrough is the price, $200, which approaches the don't-need-spousal-preapproval range." The word Robot was popularized by Karel Capek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which was written in 1920.

Women in Bangladesh who fold their saris filter out more of the disease-carrying organisms that cause cholera than the women who filter through unfolded cloths, or who don't filter at all. While folding saris to make eight layers filters out almost all of the harmful organisms, this method means that women gathering water had to wait seven minutes for the water to seep through the cloth.

--Fight cholera with Sarees, Says StudyTimes of India)

That's a usability issue -- the material (saris) are cheap & plentiful, but getting them to work effectively takes time. People don't like changing their habits if they don't see any immediate benefit -- not even when their lives depend on it. As it happens, folding a sari so it has four layers is still effective enough to cut cholera cases in half, and it doesn't slow down the water nearly as much.

This is great news of a low-tech, low-cost strategy for fighting disease.

On a completely different note, here is the abstract of the article in which the researchers publish their findings. "Based on results of ecological studies demonstrating that Vibrio cholerae, the etiological agent of epidemic cholera, is commensal to zooplankton, notably copepods, a simple filtration procedure was developed whereby zooplankton, most phytoplankton, and particulates >20 µm were removed from water before use. Effective deployment of this filtration procedure, from September 1999 through July 2002 in 65 villages of rural Bangladesh, of which the total population for the entire study comprised 133,000 individuals, yielded a 48% reduction in cholera (P < 0.005) compared with the control." Is this good scientific writing? Can scientists do better, especially when people's lives are at stake?

"At one time, voices glanced against its metal walls. Dates were made here, secrets exchanged. Once people lined up, shifting from foot to impatient foot, pointedly lifting their watches, Hey, lady, how long you gonna talk?

"But today, the pay phone by the Rodman's grocery store at Randolph and Selfridge roads in Wheaton stands empty, a smelly, rusting piece of metal and plastic. As if to highlight its obsolescence, Andres Castro stands right next to it and dials the office from his Nextel cell phone.

"He has come to demolish it."

--Requiem for the Pay Phone: As Cell Phone Use Increases, an Icon Gradually DiesWashPost)

I cannot resist this opportunity to suggest an inexplicably popular work of interactive fiction, "Pick up the Phone Booth and Die."

"Israeli geologists say a purportedly ancient stone tablet detailing repair plans for the Jewish Temple of King Solomon is genuine... Our findings show that it is authentic... If officially authenticated, the find would be the first piece of physical evidence backing up biblical texts. It could also intensify competing claims to the site in Jerusalem's Old City, where the stone is said to have been found, which go to the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict." --Biblical Technical Writing: Plan for Repairing Solomon's Temple FoundBBC)

Update, 20 May -- Scientists: its a fake.

"From an educator's perspective, games may be the most fully realized educational technology produced to date. Tom Malone (1981) showed how games use challenge, fantasy, player control, and curiosity invoking designs to create intrinsically motivating environments. More recently, Lloyd Rieber (1996) has argued that digital games engage players in productive play -- learning that occurs through building microworlds, manipulating simulations, and playing games. Rieber argues that historically, educational games have relied heavily on exogenuous game formulas, meaning that content is inserted into a generic gaming template, like hangman, rather than seamlessly integrated with gaming mechanisms as in SimCity .(He calls this endogenuous game design)." Kurt Squire --Games-to-Teach ResearchMIT)

The artificial world of the college campus is, itself, a kind of simulation of real life. Via thinking with my fingers.

"Why is this a hobby horse of mine? Largely because I've been trying to promote the idea that games are an artform since I was a teenager, when I first started designing them professionally. Also because the rest of the world, both inside and outside the game industry, is starting to realize the validity of the idea--with increasing academic attention to games, increasing press coverage of them, and an increasing interest among game developers in thinking about design on a theoretical level. And finally, because so much nonsense is written about games that I think there needs to be a venue for a viewpoint that both values games and realizes their limitations--and the often stringent limitations of the sometimes soul-crushing engine we call the games industry." Greg Costikyan

--Games * Design * Art * Culture G*D*A*C)

Another comment from Costikyan: "Games are art. Most of them are bad art, to be sure." See also Costikyan's "I Have No Words and I Must Design. BTW, it was pretty easy figuring out which categories to use when I posted this entry.

"By downplaying competition, There hopes to attract women to its universe, which is roamed much like the legendary computer game Myst. In fact, some areas look and sound like the mythical Myst island with the constant chirping of birds and distant roar of surf. 'If we can build a product that women love, guys will show up,' Melcher said. 'The reverse is not true.'" --New Game "There" Puts you ThereCNN/AP)

And how will they build a world that women love? By letting gamers shop in virtual stores, for virtual clothes for their virtual bodies. An interactive Myst sounds like a good idea, but Atrus wouldn't have approved of the commercialization.

"Apparently Jennifer Lopez is coming out with a new 'fragrance' (which is what they call perfume these days, I guess) called Glow by J-Lo. Here's some others that will follow on its heels.

• Mince by Prince
• This Is How You Should Smell by Martha Stewart
• Texas Tea by G.W.B.
• Free For The Taking by Winona
• Affair by Cher
• I Am Led To Understand That This Has An Agreeable Odor But, Lacking A Nose, I Cannot Vouch For It Myself by Michael Jackson
• Stink by N*Sync
• Attack of the Colognes by Lucas
• Drool by Jewel
• I Hereby Command You To Purchase This by Oprah
• Republic of Sudan by Alan Greenspan
• Stench by Judi Dench"

Matthew Baldwin

--Non ScentsDefective Yeti)

BTW, I get a lot of links from Jorn Barger's Robot Wisdom.

"The MetroCard Vending Machines in New York's subways are a classical case of programmer-directed hierarchical menu hell, forcing the user to make choices without knowing the consequences, and throwing the user off altogether at the smallest problem. With a little careful thought, we are able to improve the interaction considerably, while at the same time extracting some valuable heuristics for interaction design. " Lars Pind

Submitted by my former student Matt Hoy, who writes: "Excellent write up, well thought out points. The reader responses at the bottom are a little troubling. Do people reall view usability reviews as 'attacks' on the current design? Is it normal for usability testers to encounter this kind of opposistion?"

--MetroCard MessPinds)

Yes, Matt, there's often a huge gulf between the brilliant "ar-TEESTS" who dream up fancy designs, and the usability trolls who seem to scour the underworld seeking the densest, stupidest users to botch up even the simplest transactions. In retail, the cusomter is always right -- even when the customer is obviously wrong. Good design does not try to force the user to behave a certain way -- instead, it watches the way people behave, and then builds a system so that people can use it effectively by doing what comes naturally. Pind suggested that it wasn't necessary for the New York metro subway vending machines to present the user with a language-selection menu first, but a reader comment pointed out that people will walk past a machine displaying the "wrong" language. So, Pind's suggestions can't all be taken without scrutiny -- and they would, of course have to be subjected to usability testing by a wide range of users. One good way to do that is to put two machines with different interfaces side-by-side, and see which one gets more use. Let's just hope somebody from the New York transit authority read the article and the reader comments.

"In what will surely be regarded as one of the best science-fiction 'fan film' projects of all time, a pair of 'Star Trek' fanatics have created a new episode in exacting 1960s style using their own actors, sets and props." Julio Ojeda-Zapata --"Star Trek" Reborn in Online EpisodePioneer Press)

Sigh. I am such a Trek Classic geek. This news made me weep. Which is nothing compared to what will likely happen when the lawyers at Paramount Pictures hear about this flagrant breach of copyright. After the above link expires, you can still read the discussion on Slashdot.

"Proposal. Develop a false website and organization concentrating on the newest national concern: videogame addiction and violence. This organization is called Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (MAVAV, www.mavav.org). There is a great amount of stereotypes about people who play videogames (anti-social, depressed, unintelligent) and a lot of videogame violence bashing and blame (scapegoat) by the media and the government. So I decided to play off this, exaggerating all the common stereotypes, creating absurd facts, and officially linking violence in videogames to killers. :)" David Yoo --Interactivity Final Assignment: Create a Hoax. Submission: "Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence" (Parsons School of Design)

For years, undergraduates everywhere will be citing this website in their freshman composition papers. Hint to students: look for peer-reviewed academic journal articles, not web pages that pop up in response to a google.com search!