Commentary Entries

06.22.2008

Design for Ugly

I ran across this tearful and inspirational story about Ugly that reminded me of what I detest about most design. Rather than focusing on our very basic need for meaningful interaction, most designers spend time unnecessarily on superficial elements. Look deeper inside. Focus on the emotional interaction. Design for Ugly. [+]

12.10.2006

Don Norman's Heresy

Don Norman makes a rather provocative assertion: Simplicity Is Highly Overrated. "Given a choice, [people] will take the item that does more. Features win over simplicity... [+]

11.18.2006

Name that Sequel

Forget Web 2.0 -- instead, let's call it Web Royale. Naming Movie Sequels: Why It's Not 'James Bond 21'. [+]

09.08.2006

No Place to Grow

Once again, Kathy Sierra hits it on the head: "Success" should not mean "Management". Your value shouldn't be measured by how many people report to you or the size and location of your office. Believe it or not, there are many brilliant people out there who aren't motivated by these things. [+]

09.04.2006

In Search of...Findability

Use Old Words When Writing for Findability quips Jakob Nielsen. Hmm, last time I checked, "findability" is a made-up word. [+]

08.31.2006

All The News That's Fit to Air

A publicity photo of new CBS anchor, Katie Couric, was apparently Photoshopped to make her look slimmer. Hmm, it's not like her petite frame doesn't fit in a widescreen. CBS Makes New Anchor Katie Couric Slimmer, via The Raw Feed. [+]

08.14.2006

Hilarious Error Messages

Screen captures of error message head-scratchers: Pop-up Potpourri: Announced By God. [+]

08.13.2006

Google Tries to Micro-Manage Language

Odd move by Google who recently sent legal papers to media organizations which forbade the use of google as a verb. Google, the verb, was officially accepted into the Oxford English dictionary last June -- a feat that most brand experts could only dream of. To google or not to google? It's a legal question. [+]

08.08.2006

AOL's Mea Culpa...Sort Of

AOL's an incredibly rigid, top-heavy organization where nothing ever gets done without approvals from several executives. I'm not buying this. AOL apologises over search data 'screw-up' [+]

08.06.2006

AOL Releases Search Data from 500k Users

Boy, AOL sure likes to piss people off...AOL Research exposes data; we've got a little sick feeling. [+]

08.05.2006

Overheard at Panera

There's a Panera (no, not Pantera) within walking distance from my house. I love their muffies (muffins without the less-favored bottoms), their asiago cheese bagels and, of course, the free wi-fi. So when I read about how Jeff Jarvis made Panera his office for a week and became an accidental spectator in the Panera theater, I chuckled. I've overheard quite a few NDAs breached while I've been trying to do some work there myself. Thank you, Panera. [+]

07.27.2006

Happy Users Oversimplified

PingMag's article on 5 Web Design Patterns for Happy Users is attention-grabbing though somewhat presumptuous about the universal preferences of all users... [+]

07.21.2006

More on Baby Product Design

Earlier, I pointed out a smart design solution for the dropped pacifier problem. Coincidentally, I ran into a BusinessWeek feature today on The New Baby-Gear Boom, a slideshow of redesigned products for babies. Except for one, the Philips DECT Baby Monitor, the products they featured were frightfully overdesigned and... [+]

07.18.2006

Innovating for the Masses, Not the Money

Putting people at the heart of innovation: Power Laws Of Innovation via Core77. [+]

06.29.2006

MSFT and Reverse Word of Mouth

The Register exposes Microsoft's rather unseamly tactic for muzzling partners who are faced with disgruntled customers. Exposed: techniques to silence Microsoft 'haters'. [+]

06.23.2006

AmEx Butterfly Card

AmEx's new Butterfly card design has been receiving a lot of press lately though I fail to see how this is a better design? It's thicker, unnecessarily uses more materials and doesn't fit into a wallet or pants pockets. I'd file this under gratuitous design. Via Cool Hunting. [+]

06.22.2006

Panda Poop and Poopers

Scientists are using panda fecal analysis to get better calaculations of the panda population and are estimating that the population may be 50% higher than the current estimated 1600 worldwide. Too bad that a handful of the Ars Technica commenters poo-pooed the research and would rather see the panda population dwindle to extinction. Nobel Intent: Panda Profiling. [+]

06.19.2006

Game, Interrupted

The online game, Second Life, will feature an American Apparel store: Online Shopping via Forbes.com. I don't know about you but I find this invasiveness a little creepy. [+]

06.11.2006

People Are People

Apparently, users have something in common with Soylent Green. While I agree philosophically that a more human/e appelation would be preferable, I disagree... [+]

06.08.2006

AOL's Email Ads

AOL has done it again: piss off more subscribers. For $23.95 a month, AOL subscribers get Web 0.5 features and now...unsolicited ads in emails! [+]

06.06.2006

More Goofy Military Wear

Another one to add to the list of goofy military attire...this time, they get German-designed strap-ons: Special Forces Get 'Strap-On Wings' via The Raw Feed. [+]

05.31.2006

State of the Union, Deconstructed

Think of the President's State of the Union Address as the nation's zeitgeist for the pulsepoints of the American people. (Okay, so in some cases, you may have to read between the lines a bit.) And so it makes for rich material for new media artists... [+]

05.29.2006

TV Guide Needs Guidance

With print publications continuing to experience eroding readership, TV Guide seems to think it may have the panacea to recapture newsstand buyers: a free DVD of television clips. Isn't it cheaper to make these clips available for download online instead... [+]

05.23.2006

Marketing through Chatty Housewives

BusinessWeek reports that Procter & Gamble has hired moms to endorse and spread the word about their products in stealthy word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. This just really crosses the ethical line, in my opinion. Sorry, but my friends won't sell me out so they can get loads of free product samples by shilling unwanted groceries. But this is why I don't have too many friends, I guess. [+]

05.23.2006

The Funny Thing About Germans...

With a language riddled with compound words (say Abkürzungsverzeichnis three times, fast!), I imagine it's a challenge for Germans to get comic timing right. And this hasn't gone unnoticed by the Brits. A funny piece on -- would you believe... [+]

05.21.2006

Microsoft's 4,000-Page Open XML Draft Standard

"At 4,000 plus pages, a 6.7MB Microsoft Word document, the Open XML draft standard is less of a standard and more of a painfully detailed description of how Open XML could be used to display almost any possible Microsoft Office... [+]

05.18.2006

Fubar? What fubar?

Pogue's piece on The Human Side of a Microsoft Disaster offers an interesting perspective from a former MSFT employee behind what had gone wrong with their Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC): "It's like when a new Robin Williams movie comes out... [+]

05.17.2006

Tech Speak

I advocate simplicity in everything. But articles like this, Why the Tech Industry Needs to Change Its Language, only tell half the story... [+]

05.10.2006

Visual Aids, Sort Of

File these under "Painfully Obvious". Remember the Pythagorean Theorem? Well, apparently this guy never heard of it: Rethinking geometry... [+]

05.09.2006

'Savvy' users cause AOL job cuts

That's right: AOL blames savvy users for their recent layoffs. I particularly love the BBC News' double entendre headline too. (Those Brits. They do have a good command of the language, don't they?) BBC NEWS | Business | 'Savvy' users cause AOL job cuts. [+]

05.08.2006

Complexity and the Noodle

Technology is supposed to help make things simple. And it often does, though at times, it comes at an expense. Take the Biang Biang noodles, for instance. The Chinese character "Biang", made up of 57 strokes, is one of the most complex Chinese characters in contemporary use... [+]

05.05.2006

"The economic model of the film business is broken"

Just days after Steven Soderbergh railed against Hollywood's ineffective business model where, among other things, he disapproved of the outrageous compensation of A-list talent, Entertainment Weekly reports that a number of A-listers are having trouble getting their $25 million-per-picture asking... [+]

05.04.2006

Microsoft Goes Back to the Storyboard: The Snarky Version

I'm stumped by Microsoft's latest move. Apparently they're in the early production stages of developing a spate of TV-style shows, according to a recent report from Ars Technica. This is somewhat of a revival of a past failed attempt in... [+]

05.04.2006

More on Infographics

Sometimes pictures do say it better than words... [+]

05.03.2006

AOL Subscribers Continue to Defect

According to Time Warner's recent Q1 earnings call, "AOL’s overall U.S. brand subscriber base declined 835,000 in the first quarter to 18.6 million." In 1997, my first year at AOL, we had boasted 11 million members. It had swelled to 33 million by my final year with the company in 2002. What a sad reversal of fortune. The Internet Stock Blog � Time Warner Inc. Q1 2006 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (TWX). [+]

04.30.2006

Death & Information Graphics

Somewhat macabre, but it seems that artists/designers have found interesting ways to convey death statistics. The New York Times, for instance, recently ran a graphical map showing homicides in New York City's five boroughs between 2003 and 2005: Homicides and Crime in New York City - New York Times Interactive Graphic. Instead of their typical... [+]

04.29.2006

Site Spring Cleaning Oops

Apologies to those who may have visited the site recently and found a wonkered Works section. I had been doing some spring cleaning — a tad too aggressively — and apparently tossed out files that I shouldn't have. Thank goodness for backups, the Works section is now restored: SimplifierLab: Works. [+]

01.25.2006

What to Make of This

Interesting stats from O'Reilly on the top 30 networks accessing Make's digital edition, not so much for who's on the top 30 (although as someone pointed out, how on earth did Bank of America get there?), but for who's not... [+]

01.01.2006

Creative Ranks

Johnathan Ive, Apple's SVP of Design was honored this Friday, December 30, with the title Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the queen. Ive is probably most known for rethinking beige boxes that were once the PC standard issue and instead introduced us to organic iMacs and iBooks as well as intelligently minimalist products such as the PowerBook and iPod. [+]

11.28.2005

My Buddy

About a week ago, I was surprised to see new AIM buddies added to my Buddy List. Since I was feeling post-Thanksgiving blues, I decided to IM my ShoppingBuddy. Here's how our conversation went: *** Me (4:13:47 PM): hi ShoppingBuddy... [+]

10.12.2005

Keep ... your enemies closer

The art of the portal war has definitely created some rather eyebrow-raising alliances — surely as an attempt to keep Google in check. Yahoo! and MSN today announced that they will link their IM networks. Earlier, Microsoft reportedly approached AOL... [+]

09.02.2005

Substance and Style Dissonance

It's been a few years since the release of Virginia Postrel's popular book, Substance of Style, so I was very delighted to find this bit of confection from her on Slate: How Modernism Got Its Curves. Curiously, her essay is... [+]

08.23.2005

The Occidental Divide

Asians and North Americans see the world differently according to findings reported on Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. From Yahoo! News:The researchers, led by Hannah-Faye Chua and Richard Nisbett, tracked the eye movements of the... [+]

06.27.2005

ChangeThis Back This Summer

After a long hiatus, and just in time for summertime reading, ChangeThis — now under the stewardship of 800CEOREAD — will be releasing their next issue of five manifestos in July. What is ChangeThis? It's thought-provoking reading — simplified. Here's... [+]

05.18.2005

Press: PDF Zone Interview

Published May 16, 2005: ChangeThis Builds PDFs to Succeed Onscreen, an article by Kurt Foss for PDF Zone. Kurt interviewed me on a number of PDF matters including ChangeThis' philosophy, Jacob Nielsen's view of PDF and poor usability, and design/production... [+]

03.31.2005

sIFR Slash Dotted

Interesting SlashDot thread on sIFR. I have it installed in this blog to run headlines and dates in a preferred font. Granted, I'm not wringing as much out of it as I could. Then, again, this site is perpetually under... [+]

03.30.2005

Macs, Reloaded

I'm quite fond of Paul Graham. He clearly gets it. In his latest essay, The Return of the Mac he writes about the how hackers embrace Macs. Of course, this is something I've been touting about Macs all along except,... [+]

03.17.2005

TextDrive

I met TextDrive's CEO, Jason Hoffman, in Boston recently. Really nice guy. Impressive company. I recently wrote about TextDrive's insane lifetime hosting offer and recommended them to a client. The client, too, is impressed.... [+]

03.16.2005

Google Thinks Different

An homage to Apple Computers, albeit a short-lived one. Not sure why it was pulled down quickly though I suspect Google needs to show the public that they're platform agnostic.... [+]

02.03.2005

A disclaimer worth reading

While vicariously traipsing through Douglas Bowman's photo galleries today, I happened upon this gem of a disclaimer from which I quote: If you're still using Internet Explorer 5.x -- for either Windows (5.0 and 5.5) or Macintosh (5.0 through 5.2... [+]

11.25.2004

Launch Announcement: Tom Peters Company

Just completed a new section, Tom Peters Company pages, a small site update to tompeters.com. The design follows Tom Peters' bold, clean graphic style with the signature PMS 032 red.... [+]

11.09.2004

Speaking of AOL and layoffs...

Just announced today: AOL will be divided into four units in an effort to curtail their steady subscriber decline (for three consecutive years) and provide sharper focus on growing the company. This division announcement precedes a round of 700 job... [+]

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