Design: November 2003 Archive Page

Users are berated and insulted for not having consulted the documentation, but, in many cases, the user can hardly be blamed. The documentation is shoddy, incomplete, and badly organized, if it's present at all. Exceptions are becoming rarer and rarer.| As documentation decreases in quality, users stop turning to it. As users stop turning to it, companies stop trying to maintain it -- why bother, if the users won't read it? This line of reasoning is dooming the future of documentation to failure. Documentation is important and needs to be taken seriously. --Peter Seebach --The cranky user: The importance of documentation (IBM)

Seebach was the good-natured target of my pedantry earlier in the year when I criticized a title an editor chose for one of his articles, originally titled "Here ye -- let thine site visitors speak". I've only been away from teaching technical writing for one semester, but I really wish I'd had the time to introduce my "Writing for the Internet" students to some basic technical writing concepts such as report writing. But the semester just got too chatoic. Oh, well, maybe next time.

"We intend to try our case in the courtroom, not in the public or the media." --Michael Jackson, on a website devoted to trying his case in public and in the media. --Michael Jackson (The Official Press Room)

I don't actually blame the guy for wanting to have his say, but it's a bit hypocritical to criticize what you are doing while you are doing it. Having said that, the website is minimalist and restrained; Jackson's PR forces are carefully controlling the message in a manner that they weren't able to do when he gave his famous baby-dangling interview.

[Nothing to quote -- which is ironic, considering the page is about literacy.] --America's Most Literate Cities (U Wisconsin, Whitewater)

An interesting find, from my student Julie Young. The website itself is an abomination -- all these words are images, so you can't copy and paste, a search engine won't be able to find it because search engines don't read images, and a blind person will get no useful information by sending this page through a screen reader. The full paper is available, but only as a PDF. A sad example of print design that misunderstands the power of the Internet. Use text, people.

Nick Montfort's Twisty Little PassagesLiteracy Weblog)

I just ordered my copy of Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction -- Nick Montfort's study of riddles, Adventure, Zork, and beyond.

Reading the news on a computer may soon be passe. Internet-enabled mobile phones and hybrid devices are fueling the next wave of change, and journalists need to know how to deliver content to these devices. --Vivek Shankar --Reporters, readers get new ways to publish and readOnline News Association)

This is some light, friendly PR-style coverage of a conference on online journalism. The sidebar has short summaries of other panels that looked interesting, including Andrew Sullivan on the blog replacing the op-ed and convergence.

The world's only double-barreled cannon is now proudly displayed on the lawn of the Athens City Hall, about a hundred miles off Route 1. It is a monument to every geek who ever had what seemed to be a really good idea at the time. --Michelle Delio --Clocked by Two Smoking Barrels (Wired)

Unless you're into history, this story is a little dry until the appearance of the robot with the shotgun.

I suppose you could say that the subhead trend bothers me because I'm a writer and I try desperately to perfect antiquated stuff.

Transitions and Flow

Like transitions and flow, and because I think writing, like most everything else good in life, revolves around flow and rhythm. But the truth is, subheads bug me even more as a reader. Some of the best editors I've ever had have justified subheads to me, explaining that they are necessary "eye candy" and "reader guides" imperative to "reader friendliness."

I'm with Stupid

All I know is that whenever I read a column or story that's been broken up by subheads, especially a syndicated story that appeared somewhere else first without any subheads, my inner reader feels violated.--Jim Walsh

--Commence Skimming: Start reading. Now. Or. Whatever. (City Pages)

Note the way the imaginary copy-editor inserting the subheads starts arguing with the writer.

Great Stuff

This is great stuff, though I shudder to think

what

Amanda

will

say

about

it.

Found on A & L Daily.

There is clearly a need for CSS to be taken seriously by graphic artists. The Zen Garden aims to excite, inspire, and encourage participation. To begin, view some of the existing designs in the list. Clicking on any one will load the style sheet into this very page. The code remains the same, the only thing that has changed is the external .css file. Yes, really. --CSS Zen Garden

Via KairosNews, which also has the amusing ReUSEIT (a contest to redesign web guru Jakob Nielsen's minimalist UseIT site),

Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Communication, and Culture (LCC) will offer a Ph.D. in Digital Media, starting fall 2004. The program, one of the first of its kind worldwide, is aimed at educating research-oriented theorist/practitioners who will bring the traditions of the humanities and arts to the design of digital media. Graduates of the program will be prepared to work in industry, public service, and universities, where they will help to shape the emerging digital genres and to expand our understanding and mastery of the representational power of the computer. --PhD in Digital Media (Ga Tech)

Janet Murray is launching this program, which sounds absolutely wonderful. Found on GTA.

Video games have received more attention over the past several years as their revenue has grown faster than any other form of digital entertainment. Gross revenue from video-game hardware and software sales has surpassed revenues from movie ticket sales, video rentals and concert tickets, according to Mike Goodman, senior analyst with the Yankee Group. --Katie Dean --Academics Can Be Fun and Games (Wired)

How do you describe what can't be seen? Well, thank goodness for the marvelous metaphor. If you took all the metaphors I've used over the years and stacked them up end to end, they would reach from Earth to the far side of Uranus and back. But all the good metaphors I've used could dance on the head of pin, their substance a thousand times thinner than the width of a human hair. | Which takes me back to nanotechnology. It's suffering from a chronic case of misleading metaphor. --Howard Lovy --Merkle and the case of the misleading metaphor  (Howard Lovy's Nanobot)

The PDA is Dead... Long Live the PDA!Literacy Weblog)

The Palm has changed a lot in six years. When I bought mine in 1997 (or was it early 1998?) it was called a "Pilot."

It's not hard to imagine the power of millions of people each taking pictures and attaching them to physical places. You're headed into Helsinki, and you want to see what the Esplanade looks like in mid-August. Or you wonder what the inside of the Intercontinental hotel looks like. | There's immense potential for people to keep each other informed, or perhaps, misinformed. We all know the power of a picture to over-select, to crop, to be too specific and miss context important to other people on the scene. Now that potential is being democratized. --Justin Hall --Personal Life Annotation Devices (The Feature)

Via Jill, who has also recently posted links to the Idea Line (a beautiful expandible index to new media art and narrative) and the 100 x 100 Project.

After inviting every robot maker with a dream to take part in the Grand Challenge, Darpa, the Defense Department's research arm, has suddenly declared that only 20 drone roadsters will be allowed to enter. This may not mean much to the conglomerate-sponsored, university-backed outfits in the race. But bootstrapping crews like Chabe's six-man Team LoGhIQ now may not make the cut. --Noah Schachtman --Darpa Runs Robo-Racers Off Road  (Wired)

The wildfires weren't the only things burning in Southern California last week. Web servers at The San Diego Union-Tribune were also hot with traffic. --Wildfires Break Records at San Diego Website (Editor and Publisher)

The California wildfires forceD journalists to improvise in order to provide audiences with the coverage they need in a time of crisis.