Month: January 2003

Categories
Random

On 'doing a Kottke'….

I’ve been getting really behind with the stuff that I want to write on plasticbag.org recently, which probably explains why when I do write something it’s fairly hardcore and intensely thought-through rather than a piece of conversational life-fluff. So I’m going to experiment with Jason’s remaindered links approach for a couple of days until I feel I’ve caught up with the world, although I don’t think I’ll do it for long, because I’m not convinced that anyone reads or clicks on lists of links. Nevertheless there is a value to the process, if only in that my link to them (like everyone else’s links to them) constitutes a micro-vote on the utility of the article or resource in question, aiding Blogdex and Daypop reflect the mood of the web-community and helping Google serve the best possible search-results to its visitors…

  • iCommune looks like it’s going to be brilliant – as soon as there’s better auto-discovery…
  • A man of principles and passion, and prepared to stand up for them, could Martin Sheen be the best President America never had? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…
  • “My gun rights are more important than my gay rights…” Compare this news story with this thing I posted a million years ago…
  • Why are Kottke and Megnut two different weblogs? Funny. If you’re in the know.
  • A new home for left-wing weblogging in the UK: PolitX.org…
Categories
Design

On the possibility of using web-navigational schemes to communicate data rather than site-structure…

I’m two-thirds of the way through my second Edward Tufte book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Now, before your eyes glaze over and you start skipping over to one of those proper weblogs where they talk about sex and disastrous relationships and the movies they’ve been to see recently, I want to try and convince you that the books of Edward Tufte are fun and interesting. I have no obvious reason to read them – I’m not a statistician and I don’t work with graphs – and yet I find them endlessly pleasurable. I suppose there are several reasons for this , although some of them might be unexpected. Firstly, they are books which are intellectually stretching without being wordy or incomprehensible. They immediately open up realms or spheres of engagement with the world and with the information in it that are normally hidden from people. Secondly they are profoundly sensual experiences. Printed on high-quality paper, mixing textures between covers and cloth and sheet – these are quality publications. The typography is beautiful, the diagrams are never less than beautifully rendered – and occasionally they are simple beautiful diagrams, charts and the like. And finally they have the charm of the Schott’s Original Miscellany (in that they contain as asides blocks of utterly unexpected information and background) without the handicap of being about nothing… In fact all of Tufte’s books are satisfying because they exude the care of the artisan or the craftsman – someone with a profound expertise in, and love/respect for the process of creation of quality. In this respect his books really remind me of Robert Bringhurst’s Elements of Typographic Style, another book that beautifully expresses passion and expertise based around a respect for quality.

Which is probably why, when I was reading The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, I was so surprised to come upon a paragraph that was so completely alien to the practices of web clarity and usability. In it, Tufte states some beliefs that have long-since been rejected from web design – ostensibly because they are smack of elitism and are impractical – even costly. He states, in effect, that we shouldn’t forsake complexity just to communicate with our audience. Here is a brief quote from a much larger section of the book concerned with novelty and different paradigms of information-presentation:

Moreover, it is a frequent mistake in thinking about statistical graphics to underestimate the audience. Instead, why not assume that if you understand it, most other readers will, too? Graphics should be as intelligent and sophisticated as the accompanying text.

The section concerned is a lot longer and more detailed than the quote above, and is fundamentally about revealing complex and large amounts of information through graphical means – rather than about navigation or layout. But it’s still interesting to me. He talks about how most diagrams used in the national press (if compared with those used at schools and colleges) are of a pre-adult level, and that we shouldn’t allow this to happen. We should respect the intelligence of our audience. The comparison with the title of Steve Krug’s brilliant web usability book Don’t make me think! (much recommended) couldn’t be more striking.

So what is it about web navigation and site structure that means we should treat our users as idiots while infographics are allowed to treat their viewers like grown-ups? Unfortunately the answer is ultimately extremely simple – infographics are designed to transmit useful information and that information is the final goal of any interaction with them. This isn’t true of web-navigation. Web navigation is designed to structure and communicate information about how to find different information. Web-navigation (and my doctoral supervisor in Bristol is literally turning over in her tenure as I say this) is for the most part nothing but meta-information – no one (except web UI professionals) visits MSN.co.uk for the information communicated by the navigational scheme. It’s fundamentally uninteresting.

But this does not necessarily have to be the case – it seems to me eminently possible that we might be able to generate a hybridised system whereby web navigation actually itself holds valuable information – much like Tufte demonstrates the axes of a graph can be redeveloped to carry additional information about the data that they frame (I’ll see if I can find a visual representation of this as soon as I get a moment). I have at this time no sense of how one might go about doing this (except through a cascading series of inter-navigating graphs) but there seems to me to be a certain amount of potential in this line of investigation… More on this later (perhaps)…

Addenda: How to pronounce Tufte (after kottke.org).

Categories
Random

A few interesting articles…

A brief list of some interesting articles I’ve read today:

Categories
Random

On the lazyweb – iTunes remote…

So I have an iBook. And I have a desktop computer. They are both Macs. My desktop computer is plugged into a stereo amplifier. I use it to play mp3s that I’ve rippped from my ample music collection. But mostly I use my lap-top for everything now. My home computer is nothing but a grotesquely powerful wireless networking bridge and jukebox. But I’m getting increasingly frustrated because I want to be able to control my jukebox from my main computer. From my laptop. My first reaction to having wireless networking is that I should be able to use my laptop as some kind of remote-control. I need a bridge a way of interacting with my main computer – something that will let me control iTunes long-distance… I hereby invoke the lazyweb…

In related – posted-after-the-fact – news, I’d like to thank Euan for pointing me towards iHam on iRye (above), which is one of the best applications with a chronically stupid bloody name I’ve ever used. I am now comfortably sitting on my sofa wirelessly connecting to my desktop computer and completely controlling iTunes. I will be able to do this from any room in my ludicrously tiny flat. Including my bedroom. While I’m in bed. All in all, excellent stuff. And in related news, Matt Webb has pointed me towards the iTrip – an achingly gorgeous little piece of kit that you plug into your iPod. The iPod then broadcasts the music it’s playing in such a way that it can be picked up by any nearby FM radio. Stunning. I must have one…

Categories
Random

On Pete Townsend, Child abuse and Child pornography…

The appalling nature of child abuse and the unpleasantness of child pornography notwithstanding, this article on Pete Townsend seems to me to highlight how cultural hysteria around these issues is leading to some extraordinary legal situations. 1300 people arrested for visiting web-sites – even grotesque and disgusting ones? How does that work?

Categories
Random

Do you want compulsory ID cards in the United Kingdom?

Do you want compulsory ID cards in the United Kingdom? I would hazard a guess that you don’t. If that’s the case then get over to stand.org.uk now and do something about it:

Hands up everybody who’s really excited about the introduction of universal Identity Cards for every man, woman and child in the country! No? Well, that can’t be right. Lord Falconer says that in one of the widest ranging consultations conducted by a government, they’ve been fair swamped with positive endorsements of the Government’s Entitlement Card plans.

With just a few days to go before the end of the consultation, the Home Office is saying that overall the public’s reaction is hugely positive.

The cynics amongst you might comment that that’s because the only people who have been really gee-ed up about downloading a 13MB PDF (here’s the HTML version we knocked up), scrutinising its every word and then writing up their fascinating points of view are those with an axe to grind about ID cards in the first place. Like the IT companies who are desperate to sell the government a brand new solution. Or the civil servants who’ve been hankering after this massive simplification of their dozens of databases for decades. Or the private companies like credit agencies who would dearly love to have a single ID to store all the data they’re collecting on you.

Categories
Random

Steve Guttenberg is gay…

So Steve Guttenberg is gay. Except of course he probably isn’t gay. That bit might have been made up. Or an error, maybe. On my part. Don’t sue. I wish Steve Guttenberg was gay, because I had such a huge crush on him when I was fifteen. Not that that’s why I think he’s gay. Not that I do. Certainly not. Don’t sue.

The reason I (don’t) think Steve Guttenberg is gay is this article about him: Steve Guttenberg Takes on Rear Ends, Leonard Maltin, And Directing. The first thing I thought when I read this was are these journalists mocking Steve Guttenberg by saying that he’s gay? and the second thing I thought when I read it was are these journalists trying to communicate that Steve Guttenberg is gay because they know he is and he won’t say it out-loud? Not that he is gay, you understand. Don’t sue me.

Anyway – here are the things in the article that make me think that they’re trying to horribly mischaracterise Steve Guttenberg as being a big homo. First there’s the phrase “takes on rear ends”. No comment. Then there’s the fact that the movie he’s doing is about straight men and gay men living together. Then there’s this exhange: iW: By the way, before we hang up, do you want to share any personal information. I have no idea if you’re single or married? Guttenberg: Just single. iW: Single and available? Guttenberg: I don’t really talk about it.

Plus, you know, he has a blonde golden retriever called Sandy.

Categories
Random

Rejected by ETCON…

Well there’s bad news and there’s good news. The bad news is that at least one of my papers for ETCON has been rejected, which means that since (essentially) I’ve already written the damn thing, all I need is for Cal to get the project that I was going to publish it through organised and then I can put it online. That is the good news – just some minor editing and rewriting required. And possibly some more conceptual and mock-up work. In related news, the other paper I submitted a proposal for (the big scary one that I’ve been thinking about for months) has yet to be rejected. So there is still hope remaining. Although not necessarily much…

Categories
Location Social Software Technology

On the Guardian and UpMyStreet Conversations…

There’s at least one clear analogue for the process of (1) getting exciting by a work project, (2) getting completely involved in said work project, (3) going at it like a mad badger and (4) collapsing exhausted afterwards. And the afterglow is at least equally pleasant. Today UpMyStreet Conversations finally comes out of beta and has been launched to the world at large by an article in the Guardian: The Square Mile. We’ve worked on a few small-scale UI tweaks over the last few weeks and we think that we’re getting closer to making the apparently simple concept easy to use and communicate. There area couple of tiny ones to come – but they’re really enhancements and should emerge over the next week or so. I doubt anyone will notice them but me.

The process of developing the UI and functionality of the site has presented some particularly interesting challenges which I’ve been mostly responsible for working through – along with Dan Burzynski (back-end programmer), Dorian McFarland (front-end programmer) and Stefan Magdalinski (who thought up the idea in the first place). Throughout the process my particular aspiration was to make it almost so obvious to use that people completely ceased to notice how novel it was. This involved paring down the message board functionality to its simplest core and concentrating on fully understanding the very distinct issues that a geographically-organised board might engender.

For example – most discussion boards operate with time as a major axis. This is so common that it almost doesn’t occur to people that it could be done any other way – new ‘topics/threads/conversations’ sit at the top of the page, and either (1) gradually deteriorate in importance through time (Metafilter, Slashdot.org, Plastic – where the content to be discussed is timely and has a limited shelf-life) or (2) move to the top each time they are updated. Time has been the main way that all message-boards have come to be directed – and so removing it as the core organising principle of a board presents profound challenges to users. Core concepts evolved – the ‘here/now’ bar reflects the co-dependency of the two axes of geography and time – as you increase the time-scale you are investigating the more threads become visible across the country. This means that your ten nearest threads are likely to be very close to you. As you decrease the time-scale to short periods, the conversations become fresher, but (since they are selecting from a diluted stock) more geographically distributed. Our concepts of tracked threads as well also hopefully balance this desire to keep it simple and comprehensible while essentially building in a completely different view of the site on offer…

So that’s it – that’s Conversations Version 1.0 – and I think we’re all quite proud of how it’s turned out. And I’ll be more proud still if it continues to be useful and interesting to people…

Categories
Random

On a day of new Apple products…

One more thing as I download my new Apple browser and look towards the pub: