Image source: EW.com

I’m in San Francisco, for short project, this week. On some downtime, I told Florian that in my next place I live, I want to get a landline, a real copper wire one, not VOIP. He turned and said he completely agreed.

Every so often, I think about the days when I enjoyed talking on the phone.  When I lived in Seattle in the 90s after college, I would call people in New York or where ever the landed.  There were several people I would call a couple of times a month, for conversations over half an hour on a crystal clear and reliable landline connection. These calls were a rich and valued experience. These days, mobile phones and VOIP are a constant battle. Having a telephone call where both sides are clear and audible seem like a victory instead of the standard.

Rates on mobiles are cheaper, but I wonder if there will be a return back to landlines for their reliable service and clear conntections.

Is part of the reason I SMS more now because talking on the mobile phones is often a futile exercise of shouting, deciphering lost syllables, and walking around looking for the best signal?

Something has been confusing and annoying me basically since I started reading blogs. It’s one of those slight annoying things, where a little design considering would make the issue irrelevant. When reading or searching blogs, the bottom of the screen usually offers you two choices, of which, the following combination is quite common:

<< Older Entries          Newer Entries>>

<< Previous Entries     Next Entries >>

Am I the only person who is confused by this interface? Both examples are slightly ambiguous. What does “previous” or “next” mean?

Blogs are generally organized by descending chronological order, that is, newest post on top of the screen or webpage. Books are generally ascending chronologically, if they have a time-based narrative, and start at a point in time and move forward.

Because English is read left to right, the “next” page of a book and navigation pointing to the right refers to pages dates in the future. However, in a blog, “Next” and “arrows pointing to the right” could either refer to blog web pages with posts that you haven’t read yet or a page with blog posts written in the past, ie older then the posts you are currently reading. To further add to the confusion, some blogs use Google as their search engine, which serves results in order of relevance.

To reiterate the two main points of ambiguity:

#1: Blogs and books don’t chronologically map in the same way. Books based on chronology are usually presented oldest information first. Blogs are generally displayed with the newest post first.

#2: Pages in blogs and print don’t map in the same way. The subsequent unread (I’m trying to avoid saying next) page on a blog is going backwards in time. Going forwards in a history book, toward the right, is moving forward in time.

In these two examples, left arrows link to older posts by date and right arrows link to newer posts by date.

Here is the interface of weatherapattern.com, so I write:

Notice the subtle different in terminology in designnotes (composite image):

As mentioned before, the questions arise:

What does “next” mean? That is, does it refer to unread posts or posts dates in the future?

In both cases, when I see “<< Previous Entries,” do the arrow mean the past in time or unread posts?

Why are the older post to the right? If I were to print out a blog and bind it, the older posts would exist towards the right.

Is there a better solution?

I think Gigaom, has a very good solution, part of the time. Instead of using the interfaces of many blogs, they both map to the closest to the print experience as well as have clearer wording.

With this interface, Gigaom both avoids the ambiguity of “previous” and “next.” Using “newer” and “older”  clearly refers to date of the posts. Also, the arrow points in a direction that map to the printed out and bound blog. Unfortunately, that interface is only used for the main pages, and not when you search. Sigh.

So, the remaining point is, why should blogs map to the convention of English (or any language read left to right) books? My only response is that most English speakers read books before blogs. It is important for a designer to build upon the obvious reference points and mental models of their users. For blogs in languages the read right to left, such as Chinese or Hebrew, I was have Older Posts pointing to the right.

Now, I have to go try to tweak this site’s navigation.

Image source: Silverdocs

In the post-Olympic, millions of people saw daily images of the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube (designed by Herzog de Meuron and PTW Architects, respectively) which are impressive structures that are now forever linked to the 2008 Olympics. On these grounds, protest permits were denied. On the second week of the event, US art activists were arrested. Through these events, the relationship between architecture and their patron deserved continues scrutiny.

The debate was recently restarted with Daniel Libeskind’s announcement early this year that he would not design for “totalitarian regimes,” and especially pointed out China. Although, he has two commissions under construction in Hong Kong and Singapore, which leads to the question of how do you define China and how do you define a totalitarian regime. The underlying issue is more than just whether to build in China, but something larger.

What is the social responsibility of their architecture? Can you separate the building from its patron?

A New York Times article is full of money quote of influential voices in the field on the topic, as does an article by Matthias Korte, in sight and sound, also was thinking about the topic was back in January.

Barry Bergdoll, the chief curator of architecture and design at the MOMA cites the fundamental issue, architect want to get their buildings made. “It’s a problem as old as architecture and empire. Architects in the end are selling design services.”

Further, architect Peter Eisenman, notes the irony is working with a totalitarian regime. “The more centralized the power, the less compromises need to be made in architecture. The directions are clearer.”

However, quite often, architecture want to sidestep the issue. Robert Stern, dean of Yale’s architecture school is designing the George W. Bush’s library says “I’m an architect. I’m not a politician.”

Bernard Tschumi, former dean of Columbia’s architecture school, takes a balanced approached: “Some of the most amazing places were built because of dictators. Architecture is always related to power and related to large interests, whether financial or political… there is a moment when the buildings are conceived as an expression of a political regime. Then it becomes a problem. You have to believe in it.

Architects may not want to identify as politicians, although it is a common idea in Western architecture schools that their designs are agents of change, and influence people who experience their designs. Many of these same architects who make this claim, to fortify the importance of the designer, also try to avoid their political and social responsibilities. Architects then cannot be selective in their application of their effects on society, and therefore must be able to defend their selection of projects.

Image sources: nymag.com, nytimes.

Not the freshest topic, but worth recording, Vogue India’s August’s spread has a 16 page of photo editorial with average India people wearing luxury accessories. What’s the issue with average?  When 465 million of 1.1 billion Indians survive on US$1.25 a day (according to the World Bank,) having them wear US$10,000 Hermes bags and US$200 Burberry umbrellas, came off, at best, a little tacky.

New York Times quotes the Vogue India editor Priya Tanna: “Lighten up… fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful… You have to remember with fashion, you can’t take it that seriously… We weren’t trying to make a political statement or save the world.”

The quote is most interesting in comparison to Vogue Italy’s July issue, dubbed the Black Issue, whose editorial was shot by Steve Meisel and only featured black models. The issue included established models such as, Alek Wek, as well as new comers, like  Jourdan Dunn. The issues sold out quickly and required an unprecedented second printing. Although, I wonder if other people had my first reaction flipping through the magazine: the first half of the magazine, were mostly ads, featuring white models. The difference was striking and adds poignancy to the statement made by the Vogue Italy editors.

The problem is that the fashion industry is itself an agent of fashion, trends, and the new. 2006 was the year of eco-fashion, when Elle’s green fashion issue was the fashion magazine that made mainstream headlines. The next green issues were yesterday’s news, even if the importance of sustainability is ever present. These magazine and luxury brands are trying to sell aspiration. Clearly, magazines such as Vogue need to clarify the messages they are hoping people to aspire towards achieving. This point is especially important in a country such as India, whose struggles with balancing their raising middle and upper class with highly visible poverty. As luxury continues to grow as a global obsession, fashion and fashion publishing obviously has an obligation to consider its social responsibility, in a way that exists beyond the realm of “the moment.”

Images source: Adaptive Design Association

To be honest, discussions about ethics can be a downer, because you end up talking about what’s wrong and the positive stories set the ethical bar so high to instill a sense of defeat from the start. Here is a post dedicated to the middle ground.

A couple of years ago, I once took a class at the Adaptive Design Association which offers in training in adaptive design and creating custom equipment for children with disabilities. Adaptive design takes existing objects and makes them more accessible or using common and inexpensive materials for custom fabrication. ADA promotes hacks such as making custom furniture out of corrugated cardboard, as well as, basic techniques such as making normal drawers accessible with the simple hack of adding straps to the knobs or handles.

Sometimes ethical design is not just about making life saving products or about arguing that every single thing that is designed needs to be made accessible to everyone. There are times when design can be maximized for the majority of people. I don’t think thriving for ethical design should demand that all drawers have straps for opening instead of knobs.  Although the basic design curriculum should include instruction on the consideration that something like drawer handles can be designed to be more easily adapted.  The designer’s responsibility is not removed completely from the obligation of university access. They must still consider ensure that her designs are easily adapted for special cases.

Why shouldn’t all design be universally accessible?  My main argument is that, often, it is better for able bodied people to use their bodies.  Talking the stairs for one or two flights is, in fact, better than than forcing people to take elevators, which usually happens in most tall buildings. The middle ground would be for all design to include the allowance for a certain amount of hackability, to allow for the easy modification for special cases.

On security:

Esther Dyson talks about How Loss of Privacy May Mean Loss of Security.

First Noah reported getting spam in Facebook, now an application was launched to expose how a security hole could be exploited to turn Facebook accounts into a botnet for denial of service attacks. Facebook quickly released a security patch, but  Danielle at Concurring Opinions rightfully wonders if other holes exist.

On a lighter note:

Core77 breaks it down for all incoming design students.

Although Monte Williams might not, I totally remember The Adventures Of Galaxy Rangers, even I do recall thinking that the robot horses were a little weird. Regardess, the show is out on DVD.

Image source: flickr

Well, the internet is buzzing with the discussions and reviews of Google’s recently release browser, Chrome. Nick Carr has some good thoughts on the subject, his key take aways:

“To Google, the browser has become a weak link in the cloud system… Google can’t wait for Microsoft or Apple or the Mozilla Foundation to make the changes.”

“…winning a “browser war” is not its real goal. Its real goal, embedded in Chrome’s open-source code, is to upgrade the capabilities of all browsers so that they can better support (and eventually disappear behind) the applications.”

I agree with this basic idea of needing to move browser technology forward, and having a few competing products motivates people to innovate. I recently heard an explanation that Google’s “Don’t be evil” credo really meaning “Don’t be Microsoft.” However, they were often criticized for releasing non-standard products, including features in Internet Explorers but also C# and Active X (more on that later.) In order to give browsers more speed and capabilities, Google had to move away from web standards.

Just to be clear, web standards are basically a really good idea, even if adoption of new ones is a slow process. Leaping frogging the standards process brings us back to web development in the mid-90s. In those days, after creating a website, we had to test the web pages on all the browsers across all the platforms. More likely than not, the site never worked on the first try, which gave the process a Groundhog Day feel. (Of course, we still have to do that today, but it is thankfully not has bad as the days of Netscape 4 and IE 5.)

Google’s decision to go open source is clever, but there is an implied statement to the other browsers of “join us, or be left behind.” I suppose, at least the other browsers are given the option of having access to the code, unlike other proprietary browsers. I’ll admit that an optimal outcome would be the other browsers would adopt only the best features, and those features would eventually be accepted as web standards. However, the problem with this scenario is that it will take a while for time for the best features to emerge, as web developers create new kinds of content for them. In the meanwhile, developers will have to play the user percentages game, and make trade offs to maximize what the number of people who can see their work. More importantly, users will have to have multiple browsers to access different kinds of content.

The fundamental problem is that the moving away from standard and interoperability is going to fracture the internet. If you want a glimpse of the implications of this idea, an interesting place to look is Korea where a large percentage of sites use Active X, which I learned about first hand trying to plan a trip to Seoul last year. Blogger and friend, Danny Kim gives a interesting account of the use of Active X in Korea. He also sent me a parody of Google’s Chrome comic book, which is worth a look as well.