Practical Opacity →
I think it is finally time to take the wraps off another project I have been working on…
Think of it as “Minimal Social Media”. In this age where Radical Transparency is championed, I want to suggest another direction (hence the name). In this age where we are drowning in a sea of information and expected and encouraged to drown others, I want to suggest otherwise. Basically, I hope to provide links, tips and suggestions on how to increase the signals and unfollow the noise.
I actually have been loading it up with content over the last several weeks, quietly, in the shadows. There is lots of good stuff there so go when you have time to take a look around and load up your Instapaper.
Nimble Design - /the/path/of/most/resistance →
Unfortunately for the average person, the file system is so complex that everything outside of the desktop and the documents folder appears to be a vast labyrinth which most likely hides booby traps and minotaurs.
That’s because it does hide booby traps and minotaurs.
Let’s just say I tell a client “That ‘Home’ folder is where all of your stuff is. The Mac likes it when you store stuff in there. Use it to store your stuff.” So of course, they put all of their documents in the Documents folder, All music in Music and all eBooks in the Library folder. Then, they go in there and see all of this other stuff and start moving it around, throwing it away, etc. Then, the next time they restart they wonder why nothing is working right. Booby Trap!
So, instead, I have to say “Well, you can touch this but don’t touch that. This is your stuff but this other thing that, while it is your stuff, you can’t touch because it will break things.” With all of that confusing and conflicting information, of course they are just going to save everything to the Desktop and never move it. It’s easier and there is not chance of “breaking” anything. No booby traps.
This a great read but, if you have been paying attention, it is nothing you have not heard me hammering away at for a while now.
(thx DF)
Marco.org - Overdoing the interface metaphor →
Functionally, it’s almost a calculator. But it’s also almost a spreadsheet and almost a list pad. By not constraining its design to that of a common physical object, it’s able to be and do much more than anything in the physical world ever could.
Marco raises some good arguments against the idea that mimicking real world objects in UI design is not always the right answer. In fact, it can also lead to replicating all of the problems inherent in the device you are attempting to replicate.
That said, he is also pretty honest about what this really is – another chance to highlight Soulver. Soulver is a fantastic app I have mentioned only in passing before that is basically a smart scratchpad for doing calculations in near natural language.
Both points are sound ones though and another excellent piece of insight from Marco. The world would be a much better place if all of us put the amount of thought into the things we produce that he does.
Yummygum Office
At Yummygum, we embrace a minimal mind set not only in our online corporate visual identity but also in our office. We’ve tried to create a minimal workspace, using the Bluelounge CableBox, a lot of whitespace and a clean and clutter free desk.
(Submitted by Yummygum)
Holy moly! This shot is just the beginning. Click the link and see the whole set. Beautiful stuff.
Speaking of things I have linked to before… I can’t believe I have not fully endorsed Clipstart before. But first, a rant…
One of my goals of this site is to profess my belief that the built in applications on the Mac (and I am including both iLife and iWork in that category) can fulfill most people’s needs without any additional software. Mail is a really great email program. TextEdit is a really decent basic word processor. iPhoto is great for organizing photos and doing basic corrections… iPhoto… Let’s talk about iPhoto…
It sucks monkey nuts at organizing video. I’m not talking about movies or TV shows – I’m talking all of the video us parent types like to shoot of our two year olds with those Flip Cameras we got for Fathers Day. Or the footage of the hockey leagues our kids play that we shot with our pocket digital camera. You know, those random, personal video snippets. iPhoto tries really hard. It will import that stuff into your iPhoto library just fine and then it will, well, try to treat it like a photo. Double-click the thing and, does it open it and play it right there? No. It launches Quicktime. Quicktime for Hades sake! And don’t even get me started on how bad iMovie is at such things. <Sigh>
Clipstart fills this massive void and does so by doing one thing really well – organizing your personal video and making it easy to tag, find and share it. It automagically sorts everything by year, makes navigating and tagging your videos as keyboard friendly as possible, and can upload your stuff to Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo or Twitter. It even has some basic editing capability so you can delete the fact that your thumb was covering the lens for the first minute you were rolling. Watch the video to get a sense of how wonderful in it’s simplicity this all is.
I really can’t say enough good things about it or how badly needed this app was before it existed. If you have a lot of home movies, buy this. Seriously.
Simple Desktops →
I have actually linked to this site before (Oct. 19 2009 to be exact), but people keep pinging me about it every time any other blog mentions it so I’ll link to it again.
We must strive to reach that simplicity that lies beyond sophistication.
— John Gardner
What Apple Sells…
Apple has never really been in the business of selling product. What Apple really sells is an experience.
What Apple sells begins before you even walk in the door…
It begins before you take out your credit card…
It continues when you get back home…
To when you start it up…
My point being that, any company can sell you a product. Very few take the time and attention to detail that it takes to sell you an experience. If you really want to know what makes Apple so successful where others struggle, look at what they sell.
