Miscellaneous thoughts on web design, freelancing, music and riding a bike

So, it turns out I've got quite a collection of interesting type photos. I'll be gathering them together and making a full gallery later, but for now here are a few more, mainly from Berlin this time.

(download)

Click here to download:

type-in-the-wild-gGrCGkkJbrxaqfCvfhlx.zip (1.15 MB)

Spotted on holiday in Trieste, Italy.

Read here how one optional form field cost Expedia $12 million/year.

Fascinating stuff, and one of the most explicit examples I've seen of the value of usability and thorough testing. Expedia found many transactions weren't being completed, despite customers clicking Buy Now then filling out and submitting the entire order form. Turns out there was a field called ‘Company’, which some users thought meant ‘Bank Name’ - leading to them filling out the wrong address and the card transaction failing. A good example of how what may seem obvious or easy to you might be just the opposite for someone else.

Having fun exploring and uncovering instead of just navigating.

Just had a read through Learning from the Japanese City: Looking East in Urban Design which compares Western and Japanese architecture & planning. In examining the less ordered, ‘hectic’ architecture more commonly found in Japan, Shelton briefly contrasts the manic, frenzied design of Japanese children’s magazines with the (relative) order usually found in Western equivalents.

This got me thinking. In web design there’s a big emphasis on working toward order, ease of navigation, digestibility. And this definitely makes sense most of the time. But there are some projects which could benefit from less structure, and more emphasis on exploring and uncovering, rather than navigating and finding. Some examples that spring to mind could be a personal photo collection, a vintage clothing store, an online book shop. To me, the real enjoyment of these experiences in the physical world comes from the journey – from trawling through chaos to uncover a gem – and it would be great to transfer this to the online world. I’m sure this must have been done successfully in the past, but I’ve not come across an example and I can’t wait to start a project which lets me explore this idea. In the meantime, any thoughts, opinions or examples would be great.

Magnetic Man - Getting Nowhere. Still not sure what to make of the album; love this.

Local Natives - Wide Eyes. Lovely. More tracks and some pretty nuts artwork on their MySpace.

Can't get enough of this right now. The Builders & The Butchers - Barcelona.

Saw Junip at the Brudenell last night with Dan Mangan - both were excellent and well worth a listen. Here's my favourite track from the night, Junip covering The Ghost of Tom Joad.

http://tinysong.com/hemk

When visiting an ergonomics exhibition at the Design Museum I came across the Third Age Simulation Suit. The suit restricted the wearer’s movement, allowing Ford’s predominantly young design team to empathise with the challenges faced by older drivers – truly putting themselves in their users’ shoes. The suit resulted in more interior ‘grab points’ and a modified driving position for the Ford Focus. Ergonomics concerns itself with how we interact with the products, systems and environment around us; and to me UX is a subset of ergonomics. What tools, as a web designer, do you use to gain insight into your users? Leave your thoughts below or tweet @lookmediadesign. I’ll be writing a follow-up post shortly.

I'll be posting a track online most days. I love music, I love finding new (to me) music and I love sharing it.

It's also an easy way of keeping my blog updated, rather than forcing myself to write when I have nothing useful to say (who was it that said 'If you're struggling to think of a post title then don't fucking blog!'). The track won't necessarily be new, cutting edge, wonderful, powerful, interesting or anything else. It will just be something that I've listened to that day that had enough of an effect to make me post online.

I was lucky enough to see Massive Attack at Melt! festival this summer. I was expecting an amazing performance, but having heard mixed reviews in the past I was wary of getting too excited. I needn't have worried at all - that one performance alone made the 890 mile drive to Berlin worthwhile. Here's a photo of the performance, along with a lovely remix of Teardrop, courtesy of Mad Professor (via themahoganyblog.com). It's always risky to mess with such a perfect song, but this time it's paid off.

This is pretty irrelevant but I'm chuffed and the blog is still a novelty. Friday 24th September was a good day. I passed my SMBLA Trail Cycle Leader award, meaning I'm now qualified to take groups out mountain biking. This puts me one (small) step closer to my dream of leading canoe-bike holidays in the Yukon. Baby steps, baby steps...

Looking for a simple to-do app that you’ll actually use? Try Teux Deux.

To-do lists. Definitely something a person with a memory like mine can’t live without. But I’d never had much luck: pen seemed the easiest way, but I soon found myself surrounded by scraps of paper, except the scrap I needed. Outloook, Thunderbird, iCal – all effective, but I was never forced to look at them, nor were they ever close enough to hand.

Then I found Teux Deux. First off, I hate the name, though it is nice to see some vowels for a change (Jobr, anyone? Taskr?). Once I’d got past that, we got on splendidly and I’ve been using TeuxDeux for a few months now. Why?

It’s right in front of me: I set it as my browser’s homepage so I always see what I’ve got to do, and I can easily add items when something pops into my head.

It’s pretty: I can see everything at once without clicking through menus. In fact, it’s almost like using paper.

It has just enough features: I can organise my lists, add categories, move items from ‘someday’ to an actual day, add events way off in the future and only see them when relevant. I can drag & drop items, create headings, edit items, choose dates. I like to keep a few lists in the ‘someday’ section – a misc list for any random items, a leads/ideas list, and a list with goals for each month. With a bit of playing TeuxDeux can do anything a to-do list needs to do – which isn’t much.

And that’s the beauty of TeuxDeux – there’s absolutely nothing there that I don’t use, which means less noise and more doing.

Life Cycles is coming to Leeds. And it looks spectacular.

Unbelievably excited by this. After a long, long wait Life Cycles (from the brilliant Derek Frankowski) finally premiered in late September. The reviews were as expected – incredible riding, stunning visuals, somewhere between a mountain bike film and Planet Earth. I’ve resisted getting the DVD, hoping I’d get the chance to view it in the cinema first. And great news – Hyde Park Picture House are screening Life Cycles on 10^th December. One of the best birthday surprises I’ve ever had was being taken to said cinema to see The Collective’s Seasons, and I can’t wait to be similarly blown away by Life Cycles.

The world needs more people like this. Obsesiveness: Soda Pop. If you don't smile you're dead inside.