Strickn 2.0

Skull Mutation 1′ (Classical), 2007 Altered Cassette Tapes

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:43:03 -0800

Image: Brian Dettmer and Mito Gallery via http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/dead-cassette-tapes-reincarnated-skeletons/17849

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The Best Free WordPress Themes of 2009 via @webdesignledger

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:30:57 -0800

Henry Jones

The Best Free WordPress Themes of 2009

In our “Best of 2009″ series, we’ve shown you fonts, icons, and Photoshop Tutorials. In this article, we’re presenting our picks for the best free WordPress themes of 2009. There were plenty of free themes created in 2009, but here are the ones that we feel had a little something extra that made them stand out from the crowd. If you think we missed or left one out, let us know about them in the comments.

Magazeen

Bueno

Gallery

Manifest

deStyle

Imprezz

Folio Elements

Compositio

Selecta

Irresistible

Glassical

Mainstream

FREEmium

Black Power

Vintage

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Here’s some other articles that you will definitely find useful.

10 Useful Text Enhancing Plugins for WordPress

Ten Tips for Becoming a Better WordPress Developer

12 Essential Plugins that Extend WordPress as a CMS

deGusto: A Premium Portfolio WordPress Theme by ThemeShift

deZine: A Blog Magazine Theme by ThemeShift

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How about lots of premium files to make your designs look amazing?
Learn More

via webdesignledger.com

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Florence Nightingale: Causes of Mortality infographic from 1858! via @rtkrum

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:49:05 -0800

via coolinfographics.com

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The amazing LIBESKIND’S MACHINES via @generatorx

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:59:51 -0800

By the mid-1980s, the reputation of Daniel Libeskind as a leading avant-garde figure in architecture was rapidly rising. This was based on his work as a teacher—he was director and principal teacher at the Cranbrook Academy School of Architecture from 1978 to 1985, establishing it as one of the most creative schools in the world—and on the publication and exhibition of a number of projects that, on their face, seemed to have little to do with architecture. Notable among these were his Memory Machine, Reading Machine, and Writing Machine.

Elaborately constructed and enigmatic in purpose, Libeskind’s machines are striking and sumptuous manifestations of ideas that were, at the time he made them, of obsessive interest to academics, critics and avant-gardists in architecture and out. Principal among these was the idea that architecture must be read, that is, understood, in the same way as a written text.

The chief structural features of written language, grammar and syntax, which organize the ways words are put together into a coherent, meaningful ensemble, clearly relate to architecture. Indeed, so traditional a modernist as Mies van der Rohe was fond of speaking of architecture’s ‘grammar’ and declaring that an understanding of it was essential to design. However, when it comes to the meaning of word constructions—texts—it was believed, by the 70s and 80s, by leading linguistic and literary theorists, that written texts do not have a fixed meaning established by what its author intended to say, but rather multiple meanings that readers have to interpret for themselves by using various cultural codes and references. Peter Eisenman and the circle of architects and critics gathered around him, applied this to architecture, with the consequence that the ‘meaning’ of architecture—symbolically and in terms of human purposes—was in their view not to be found in either the architects’ or their clients’ intentions. In short, form does not follow any a priori function but has autonomous existence that must, in the end, be ‘read’ on its own terms. In short, the meaning of architecture is to be found only in architecture itself.

This is a radical position that has not had an impact on most architects who, like it or not, must follow their clients’, if not their own, desires and intentions. However, it is possible to imagine that the idea of architecture’s autonomy liberated architects to design ever more idiosyncratically expressive forms having little to do with the client-programmed spaces wrapped by them. What began as a radical concept affecting the very core of architecture, is compromised, we might say reduced, to commercially marketable and client-acceptable styles—a fate much the same as idealistic modernism suffered in its time.

In any event, the vogue for a linguitic interpretation of architecture has passed, and the avant-garde has moved on, or at least elsewhere. Libeskind’s machines, inspired by reading and writing and implicitly interpreting texts, as well as memory (treated as text), would be of little interest today if the machines were only didactic illustrations of theory. But they are much more. As objects of design, they have powerful presence, as well as conveying a refined and highly rigorous aesthetic sensibility. As acts of the disciplined imagination of tectonic possibilities—how many parts might be assembled into a compelling whole—they are highly original, exemplary, and instructive. For example, in the diverse, even contrasting ways the same material, such as wood, can be used expressively in the same construction. Or, in the complexity of joints, from fixed to flexible, enabling the total assemblage. Of course, as hand-crafted constructions (a bit too ‘Renaissance’ for comfort, as was Tatlin’s Flying Machine), they are at once nostalgic and visionary, the latter if we believe that technology is not the main issue at stake in architecture.

But the most important legacies of these machines, I believe, are conceptual, and of equal or greater value today as when they were made. Their use of analogy to inform the field of architecture is a potent tool for exploring much-needed new ideas of space and its human purposes than are afforded by the ordinary design process based on history and accepted building typologies. In the past, architects such as Mies found architectural inspiration in works of art (see the post Art to Architecture), while Le Corbusier produced his own paintings and sculptures to work out complex aesthetic problems in his architecture. Libeskind’s machines are in this tradition, though the problems are different. More architects today could benefit from such an analogous method, if they set for themselves problems not already solved. This method, like the machines themselves, opens architecture to a wide range of knowledge coming from different fields of thought and work, which is sorely needed in a time such as the present, characterized by increasing diversity in the human situation.

LW

The MEMORY MACHINE:

The READING MACHINE:

The WRITING MACHINE:

Appended here are two of Libeskind’s MICROMEGAS drawings, made in 1979, before the making of the machines. Looking as though they might have been visual texts produced by the machines (they were actually hand drawn, with Rapidiograph drafting pens), they depict a new and ambiguous spatial world emerging from an older, familiar one of architectural form and representation:

via lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com

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Why everything you think re: UCD = wrong via @iA

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:34:39 -0800

Let me ask you a question.

If you had the idea for a new hammer and you wanted to test it, which of the following ways would you think gave you the most valuable feedback?

I will assume most of you answer 4. After all, getting a feel for the hammer requires the customers to actually try it out. Looking at a picture of the hammer, having it cut out or even a Styrofoam prototype simply won’t provide you with a good enough foundation to evaluate it on.

But if I was to ask you to test a digital product, whether a website, an application or an ecommerce site, most would choose one, two or three.

Isn’t that odd?

A simple product like a hammer is best tested in it’s final form. But a digital product, that in some ways is much more complex, is being tested before, by lesser means as if you can extract important feedback about the hammer.

None-the-less this is the current reality of applied UCD or User Centered Design.

Usability tests, focus groups and personas to name a few, all meant to increase usability and basically create better products by testing it with users.

There is something wrong with this. What is wrong is that it doesn’t deliver on that promise, that valuable resources are being used and that it is more what one could call a placebo for the uncertainty.

Correct theory, wrong application

Now there are many different interpretations of UCD. Is it a theory or a process or is it both? I will use the Wikipedia version to get a common definition:

An excerpt from the page:

“In broad terms, user-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of an interface or document are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyze and foresee how users are likely to use an interface, but also to test the validity of their assumptions with regards to user behaviour in real world tests with actual users. Such testing is necessary as it is often very difficult for the designers of an interface to understand intuitively what a first-time user of their design experiences, and what each user’s learning curve may look like.

The chief difference from other interface design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the user interface around how people can, want, or need to work, rather than forcing the users to change how they work to accommodate the software developers approach.

Doesn’t sound too bad do it?

In theory it makes a lot of sense. Getting users to give you feedback about your product will provide you with valuable insights into what work, and what doesn’t. The users are the ones going to use it, so obviously whatever they have to say is going to be valuable.

It’s also a correct assumption that designers in theory can’t foresee how users are likely to use an interface, thus their assumptions needs to be tested.

And a long learning curve is obviously an issue when it comes to getting users to adopt your product. It needs to be easy to sign-up, log-in, buy, navigate, understand and utilize what your product offers. Too often the software determines the option space of designers, forcing them to do design less than optimal solutions.

So in many ways there is no problem with the philosophical definition of UCD. Involving users is definitely necessary if you want your products to be used.

No the devil is in the actual practical outcome of this philosophy what I will call applied UCD.

Here is a typical UCD process for web or application design.

Have a look at the model again. Look at the last 2 parts of the process. Yes you got that right. Generally there isn’t much to say about Implementation and Deployment from an UCD point of view. It’s normally not considered to be part of the process. On the contrary it is most often assumed that once you have gone through the process of 1-3 the UCD process is done and you have established a solid solution.

So as you can see a typical UCD process to define it in terms of the hammer test, is based on testing the drawing, the cutout and the Styrofoam hammer. Not the actual hammer.

So why is that? How comes something that seems to be an obvious problematic implementation of the goal of UCD, have become the norm?

I think there is a series of reasons for this that I will try and cover here.

Waterfall process
Historically, development of digital products has been based on the waterfall method. This made it very expensive for organizations to change things once the product was deployed. So with UCD promising to test the usability and relevance of the product before it went into production it’s no wonder why it gained so much traction in the nineties.

UCD have its origins in the academia not in design or engineering
With heavy weights such as Jakob Nielsen, Jared Spool and Don Normans extensive and fantastic research it’s easy to see why UCD have gained traction. There is an answer to almost every question and problem that you can imagine. Facts about users based on years of research.

Most UCD proponents and practitioners are academics.
It’s easy to see why the usability community have picked up on this research and why they consider this more valuable than say theory of typography or grid structures or color theory, engineering, animation, programming or development process or even marketing. It’s a continuation of the academic process they know so well no matter their original domain.

Get out of jail card
As I mentioned in my other post, most large and management driven organizations don’t allow for mistakes. They religiously demand certainty and consequently punish uncertainty. If you don’t have you back covered if your project tank you are heading for trouble. With UCD being the perceived guarantee that your product has been tested thoroughly through user tests. Managers use this as a way to get some of the responsibility outsourced.

The users advocate
Humans are not just machines. We want to serve higher goals. Many usability experts see themselves advocate for the user. There is a sense of purpose more than just “doing the work” within the UCD community. It has created a strong sense of purpose and a strong almost moral culture around users.

With the above in mind it’s easy to see why UCD have gained such success the last decade.

With both extensive research, great academic minds, economic incentive, get out of jail cards and a sense of certainty, it’s a sure sell. Why should companies not want to utilize UCD to design better and more usable products?

To understand this let me make the following observations.

Customers are not users.
The first issue is with the term user. It might seem like a rethorical nitpick but it speaks volume of one of the main issues and misconceptions with applied UCD.

Users are of statistical value meaning, what we know of users we know through the research that have been done about them. Users are of relevance to the field of usability but not to the field of product design. It has no actual reference to whether a product will gain adoption or not.
Users are not customers.

A customer is someone who, through all the noise of competition has chosen your product and not someone elses.

What might be a no-go from a user point of view (statistically) might not be a no-go from a customers (utilitarian) point of view.

What matters is that you design for the customers of the organization instead of the users of your ideology. If you design for users you end up spending a lot of time on pseudo problems that might have ideological value but no implication for the adoption of a product.

According to studies by J.Nielsen, users don’t scroll. Although this might be the case from a statistical point of view it is certainly not of pragmatic value. Maybe what was tested was not relevant enough the user wanted to scroll. Maybe the design was done in a way that didn’t make it obvious that you could scroll.

None-the-less, users scroll more than ever yet this myth is continuously being upheld.

If you design for customers you are forced to think about how to benefit the relationship between the customer and the organization. If you design for customers you are designing for the jobs they are trying to do. You will be designing for an optimal solution not a perfect solution.

Be the advocate for the customer relationship not for the users.

The map is not the territory.
We can make as many plans, diagrams and projections as we want. A product before it’s launched is not a product yet. It’s a set of ideas sketches, designs and assumptions maybe even some patent pending technology.

It’s a map of how the designers want the product to be. But it’s not a product. It has no actual form, it doesn’t belong to an ecosystem, the user can only think about how it might work. In short it doesn’t have any of the qualifiers that make a product a product.

So the kind of feedback that UCD provides before and after deployment is not the same. It’s two very different paradigms.

One is a paradigm of ideology and thus provides information of theoretical value. The other is a paradigm of application and utility and provides real world, real time feedback.

Pseudo environment
What you are solving in the wireframe phase is problems inherent in the wireframe phase, not problems with the product. What you are solving when testing the prototype is problems inherent in the prototype not in the final product. There is only one true test and that is the final product. Not until then will you start to receive valuable feedback in combination with quantitative feedback. You will get it where it matters.

No transcendence
With this I mean there is no quality transfer from insights you establish in the testing of your product into the design and development phase. One reason as already stated is that the problems are done in a pseudo environment.

Another reason is that what makes products successful and usable is only really obvious in the final form and environment. With UCD notoriously dealing with the product before implementation and deployment, it’s relying on the assumption that it can solve problems before they arise. It relies on the assumption that by fixing the usability issues your product will be more likely to succeed. This is simply wrong and flies in the face of reality.

Intuitition is neither objective nor always the goal.
Intuitive behavior is not an objective standard. It’s a slow moving target. If something becomes the default way of doing something, then it has become the intuitive way of doing it. You don’t need to test for that, you use design patterns. They are the product of the norm.

Some of the most successful products weren’t intuitive to begin with. They became intuitive after the product gained enough popularity. So sometimes even if a product fails the being intuitive test, it has nothing to do with whether it becomes a success.

Usability studies and focus groups are for refinement not for innovation.
Again the problem is in thinking of users instead of customers. Something might fail being intuitive or make sense from an ideological point of view but helps customers do a job that make them ready to endure the learning curve.

So forcing a user centric model to evaluate your ideas can be completely damaging for your assessment of your product’s likelihood of being a success.

When you test your product either in a focus group or in user tests so many other factors determine the outcome of a session. Social dynamics, groupthink, the “dumb” expert and dealing with a product in the abstract.

Implementation is a black box
When most companies exercised waterfall methodology, UCD had some value. But today the landscape is different. Implementation is part of the design process. With agile, continues integration and continues deployment methodologies and the speed at which products appear it’s obvious that there is no longer room or need for lengthy processes that only obfuscate the goal of making good solutions through the division of UCD phase and the implementation phase.

Good UCD process mean good product
Well no, unfortunately that is not the case. Successful products have nothing to do with the process as such. A good process allows you to cover what needs to be done.

It allows you to collect the necessary data and create the structure of your product. Map out what needs to be done, who should do it, in what order it needs to be done.

Putting users into the process after research and before the final product is finished provides primarily pseudo value. It confuses users with customers and is responsible for valuable time being spent in a pseudo environment with pseudo problems that have nothing to do with those you find yourself in after the launch.

But at that point it’s too late since applied UCD normally left the building right before the implementation started and where the product really starts to take shape.

And it this is where UCD really fails.

What is required to create good products is not the ability to test your idea or the usability with users. What is necessary is testing the finished product with customers and improve from there. This requires a different thinking and a different set of skills.

Testing users is about testing the current state of usability and intuition. This belongs to the area of research that people like J.Nilesen, J.Spool and others do so well. It contains has a lot of valuable knowledge and should be the foundation of anyone wanting to do UCD.

But testing customers mean getting the products in the hands of them and learn how they behave, pinpoint problem areas and then figure out how to improve. It allows you to test the actual problems instead of a number of pseudo problems that may or may not arise.

Summing up the problem with applied UCD

Applied UCD have gotten itself into a corner it will have a very hard time getting out of. Unfortunately that is what it needs to if it wants to stay relevant.

On one hand it’s as successful as ever, the area is very well covered. Lots of research, lots of value have historically come out of this area, understanding the users is important.

On the other hand it has become successful on the wrong premise. Too often it is simply used to push responsibility away from those who should have it. And when it’s not, it’s being misapplied for some of the reasons mentioned above. It’s being perceived as providing certainty but where none really exist.

The speed at which products, services and applications are being launched today is increasing rapidly. One reason is because there is more competition, but also because products can be built and iterated much more rapidly than they used to be. And with the move away from waterfall methodology, the consequence of this is that UCD proponents and practitioners needs to re-think at what part of the process they see themselves adding value. There is nothing today that hinders a process in which products are launched before they are tested and then iterated if necessary. A revised UCD process would look something like this:

This way, users have become customers and you can suddenly start to test where it matters with valuable feedback.

This will no doubt mean that many have to re-educate themselves and rethink how they approach design whether it be UX, IA, UI or GUI. It is none the less as stated, necessary to stay relevant for the future. A pivotal part of this will also be to re-educate clients and help them understand that they will need to look at at product design a little different.

Design is a decision, not a democracy. If you are serious about using design strategically then courage is the strategic advantage you should be looking for. And with the ability to quickly change wrong assumptions you it’s not really dangerous, just common sense. If you find this to resonate with you, I would suggest you take a look at another post of mine.

Let me know what you think.

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Mac vs PC People: Personality Traits & Aesthetic/Media Choices via @brynn

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:33:30 -0800

Today we’re releasing a new report called “Mac vs PC People: Personality Traits & Aesthetic/Media Choices.“ As the name suggests, the report explores the personality and the preferences of self-identified “Mac People” or “PC People” beyond just their choice in computers.

Here’s the executive summary:

Mac People are more likely to see the existing world in a light of “sameness” and thus express a need to be perceived as different and unique. This is consistently reflected in their aesthetic choices such as bold colors, “retro” designs, one-of-a-kind clothing and highly stylized art.

PC People are more likely to see the world as “different enough already” and appreciate “being in tune with those around them.” This is reflected in their more subtle, “mainstream modern” (neither retro nor extremely contemporary) design choices and their practical choices in clothing, footwear, and cars that favor getting the job done rather than making an overt design statement.

Media choices and preferences vary greatly between the two groups, with Mac People trending toward more independent films, specialized comedians and design-centric magazines, and PC People trending toward more mainstream alternatives as well as sports.

From a personality perspective, Mac People are more likely to describe themselves as “verbal”, “conceptual”, and “risk takers”, with PC People countering that they are “numbers oriented”, “factual” and “steady, hard workers”.

There are a lot of fun details and images in the full 13 page report, which is also available in a downloadable pdf version. And once again, we had an illustrator distill all this down to make the following 2 pictures roughly worth the report’s 3,000 words.

PC users are down-to-earth team players who enjoy sports, practical design, and mainstream media

Mac users trend towards retro design, bold colors, an appreciation for objects which express their individual identity, and “media with a message”

Again, read the full report here or download it here. (and if you haven’t already, also check out the report we issued a few weeks ago entitled How Food Preferences vary by Political Ideology.

via blog.hunch.com

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Eric Nakamura: Deth P Sun only the brave

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:28:53 -0800

via giantrobot.com

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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22)

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:33:05 -0800

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Oxbow shrooms

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:20:53 -0800

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Society must decide if it 'will accept relationships between humans and robots' - Telegraph

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:56:35 -0800

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Published: 6:30AM GMT 18 Nov 2009

Arnold Schwarzenegger in the fim Terminator Photo: COLUMBIA FILMS

Rapid advances in technology mean cyborgs, or human-like robots, are no longer a vision of a distant future.

The machines have been made famous by films like Terminator and Blade Runner but real life is increasingly catching up with fiction.

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Laser-powered space lift fails to work

Earlier this year researchers announced they had created robot ‘scientists’ – complete with the ability to think for themselves.

As the machines become more sophisticated, they will increasingly seem more like humans and could demand ‘human rights’, Anna Russel, from the University of San Diego warns.

One of the flashpoints could be over relationships, including sexual relationships, with humans, she claims.

In an article titled “Blurring the love lines” she warns: “While this humanoid is a giant leap forward technologically, if a self-aware, super-intelligent, thinking, feeling humanoid is developed, the legal system will be hard-pressed to distinguish this creature legally from human actors on grounds not stemming from a religious or moral prejudice.”

Lawyers have to start thinking now about what rights should be accorded to cyborgs, she argues.

Most societies will want to regulate such relationships but Russel claims they have to prepare themselves for how they would respond if the cyborgs clamoured for sexual freedoms.

As the technology improves “it will be inevitable that legal issues would be raised and the love lines blurred,” she warns.

“In what way would such sexual activities be regulated, however, and how regulation would work is not clear.”

The article is published in the journal Computer Law and Security Review.

via telegraph.co.uk

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This is The Fader #62. It’s such a great mix.

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:19:43 -0800

This is The Fader #62. It’s such a great mix.

[Acoustic Cover] The Kooks – Kids (MGMT) via @hypem

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:09:13 -0800

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Dr. Fox's Old Timey String Band - Kids (MGMT)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:07:27 -0800

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Light on the wall

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:29:51 -0800

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Self Portrait

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:37:53 -0800

via flickr.com

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A Guy Thing via 9000

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:35:51 -0800

via flickr.com

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@threadless, 11/20/09 8:02 AM

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:13:12 -0800

Threadless (@threadless):
11/20/09 8:02 AM
From the folks that brought you Threadcakes, we proudly present @Threadknits !!! http://www.threadknits.com

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Action Method Online :: Tour

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:34:25 -0800

via actionmethod.com

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New and Improved: Action Method for iPhone 2.0

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:32:58 -0800

	Capture and manage tasks on the go

	Delegate and receive tasks

	Organize tasks into projects and groups

	Manage contacts and deadlines

	Sync automatically with the AMO web application



	Keep all your most urgent Action Steps front and center.



	Track and manage Action Steps you’ve delegated in real-time.



	Such as search, “snooze” and productivity analytics.

Strickn 2.0

Skull Mutation 1′ (Classical), 2007 Altered Cassette Tapes

The Best Free WordPress Themes of 2009 via @webdesignledger

The Best Free WordPress Themes of 2009

Related Posts

Want more from WDL?

Florence Nightingale: Causes of Mortality infographic from 1858! via @rtkrum

The amazing LIBESKIND’S MACHINES via @generatorx

Why everything you think re: UCD = wrong via @iA

Mac vs PC People: Personality Traits & Aesthetic/Media Choices via @brynn

Eric Nakamura: Deth P Sun only the brave

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22)

Oxbow shrooms

Society must decide if it 'will accept relationships between humans and robots' - Telegraph

Related Articles

This is The Fader #62. It’s such a great mix.

[Acoustic Cover] The Kooks – Kids (MGMT) via @hypem

Dr. Fox's Old Timey String Band - Kids (MGMT)

Light on the wall

Self Portrait

A Guy Thing via 9000

@threadless, 11/20/09 8:02 AM

Action Method Online :: Tour

New and Improved: Action Method for iPhone 2.0

The Death Of The Blog Post - Smashing Magazine