Traces in the code…

Nice observation:

Every useful system carries the imprint of its designers. From bridges to spoons, the expression of a builder’s skill, philosophies, and production constraints are exposed in the final product. Software is no different, except in its propensity to change. Software mutates in response to users needs, and in that change, a continual re-impriting of a designer’s skill and sense of taste takes place.

Acrylic… Wonderful

Acrylic from Microsoft is quite wonderful painting software. Just when I thought Adobe could do it all. What’s interesting about this one is how creative the process is of working with it. More like actually painting.

Software Design: Use-cases, Eco-systems, Aesthetics

Some thoughts on software design:

1. Use-cases: I have only just begun to viscerally understand this even though it is a simple intellectual concept to grasp. Is it easy for real users to do real things with the software Once you have designed your cool new feature-set, go through the process of imagining a user clicking through the experience. Does it get confusing Can a user do something the quickest and simplest way We recently designed some features which are extremely powerful and our first approach was to quite directly map this functionality into the UI. As soon as we started using the new tools we realised that the functionality needed to be abstracted through a use-case process. What the functionality actually did needed to be hidden (why do users care about how it works ) behind a task based UI.

2. Eco-systems: It is easy to design software as though users are only running your software on their PC and that your software is the only thing available on the internet. The truth is that today there is a cornucopia of choice and many of these choices are connected through APIs, webservices, remixed applications and hacks. Will your software be hacked Is this good or bad Can this be accepted and recycled as a positive Why would you hack Flickr when it has such a rich API Why spend days reverse engineering Skype when you can just use its public API and get straight to the fun part

How else do users work on a particular thing For example, it is no use designing software today that allows users to express themselves through media without allowing that tool to connect to blogs. If they can’t connect it to what they already do then they will not bother.

3. Aesthetics: Many software products are comparable in terms of doing what they need to do… but users will always go for the one that looks good.

More 'Invasion Amsterdam'

More ‘Invasion Amsterdam’

Originally uploaded by pmorle.

I found another one!

Just because you can…

The trouble with the Internet is… just because you CAN record everything, it doesn’t mean we SHOULD! The world is going a bit bonkers on this front. Look at this research product from Microsoft Research.

Gibson: Plunging into Technology

We seldom legislate new technologies into being. They emerge, and we plunge with them into whatever vortices of change they generate. We legislate after the fact, in a perpetual game of catch-up, as best we can, while our new technologies redefine us – as surely and perhaps as terribly as we’ve been redefined by broadcast television.

Link

Microsoft and RSS

Today has seen the news that Microsoft will be heavily adopting RSS in Longhorn and the next Internet Explorer. This seems to be a smart move as I am not sure where else there is to go in the browser wars. Perhaps there are no more significant battles to be won in the war to present the best web pages. The new territory is the semantic web that RSS belongs to and a whole new generation of internet application that talks to other applications easily and manages rich media such as video and music as well as it handles web pages today.

“As this idea continues to gain in popularity, users will be able to subscribe not only to blogs and news, but also to content-feeds (audio, video, documents, photos, calendar events) and lists (playlists, booklists, link-lists, blogrolls, wishlists, Top 10 lists, To-do lists).“ Link

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Invasion

imgp6001

Originally uploaded by pmorle.

I was walking through Amsterdam the other day and saw this wonderful detailing on the corner of a wall. Whilst part of an old building, it looked strikingly modern.

A couple of days later I was discussing a common interest in street-art with a friend and he showed me a book about an artist called Space Invader. Here is a link from his site about the successful invasion of Amsterdam! Has your city been invaded

Online Extra: The Sharing Economy

Online Extra: The Sharing Economy

“… the economic role of social behavior is increasing.”

This is another one of those thought-provoking pieces like the ‘Long Tail’ idea that atempts to classify the essense of a trend that is happening right now… so hard to do when you are in it.

As an aside, I enjoyed the reference to the steam engine and the industrial revolution as the steam engine was invented by my great great grandfather – James Watt.

Spread the word says Rheingold

The Darknet blog has just published the foreword to the book which has been written by Howard Rheingold. It is an excellent precise of what is at stake:

Spread the word—much is at stake. Right now is the time to act intelligently on behalf of our shared future. We can create a world so much richer than the wasteland of today’s mass media.

Link