January 2010

Apple’s iPad reflects their bet on the future of personal computing

by Alex Rainert on January 29, 2010 · 2 comments

in Thoughts

  • has a UI model based on direct manipulation of data objects
  • completely hides the filesystem from the user
  • favors ease of use and reduction of complexity over absolute flexibility
  • favors benefit to the end-user rather than the developer or other vendors
  • lives atop built-to-specific-purpose native applications and universally available web apps
via stevenf.tumblr.com

Steven Frank has excellent piece on everyone’s favorite awkwardly named magical media tablet and the process the company has to go through (and has gone through in the past) to change people’s expectations of personal computing.

The entire piece is worth a read but what I found most interesting was the way he distilled what Apple is clearly betting on as the future of human computer interaction (above).

ps: it goes without saying that this bet won’t resonate with those who champion “openness” over everything else so let’s not get fired up.

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Failin.gs empowers introspection 2.0

by Alex Rainert on January 29, 2010 · 1 comment

in Thoughts

via mashable.com

Failin.gs lets you to ask “What is wrong with me?” and allows people to respond anonymously. You can then react to that feedback, deeming it something you already knew about yourself, news to you or disagreeing with it completely. Sounds neat (and a little scary), right?

This is the kind of social software that falls right in that sweet spot between providing useful information and being totally awkward. Though it sounds weird to say now, that was a lot of the feedback we got when we were initially building dodgeball up. Over the years I’ve found that zone is usually right where some of the most interesting and socially complex experiences can take place. In that sense it makes me a bit nostalgic for ITP as that’s been a community of designers that have always thrived in that space.

Are you game to give it a go (public beta launching soon)?

via alex rainert’s content robot 3000

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EverydayUX morsels (January 25th – January 29th)

by Alex Rainert on January 29, 2010 · 0 comments

in Links

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Remember the Milk’s microcopy helps save me from myself

by Alex Rainert on January 26, 2010 · 4 comments

in Thoughts


One of my absolute biggest pet peeves in form design is when apps label the entry field “username” when what they really mean “email address”. Often these sites don’t even have the concept of a username yet the label remains unchanged – it’s pure lazyness at its worst.

Remember the Milk (which has incidentally become my Task Manager of choice after trying all the others – blog post to come) does a nice job of letting me know that I’m approaching this form in the wrong way without making me feel like an idiot. It’s a small example of the importance of thoughtfully-written microcopy that shows that there’s someone on their team actively anticipating what users might do and then actually doing something about it! Bravo.

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The need for fast, personal, and easily aggregated recommendations

by Alex Rainert on January 26, 2010 · 2 comments

in Social,Thoughts

question.jpg

That’s the question I posed to Twitter (and by proxy, Facebook) late last night. In less than 30 minutes I got the responses I’ve aggregated at the bottom of this post for those of you with a sweet tooth, occasionally with a quote from the responder about the place they were recommending. I also got this response from Chris Dixon (@cdixon):

Twitter _ chris dixon_ @arainert letmeyelpthatforyou.jpg

Chris was poking fun at the all too common practice of people using Twitter/Facebook crowdsource something they could easily find on their own with a little elbow grease + Google/Yelp/etc, what I like to call the Dark Side of the Lazyweb.

The difference here is that I wanted recommendations from my friends and they don’t happen to write a ton of reviews on Yelp. I also didn’t need a Frank Bruni-length review – a quick (140 character) mention from someone that I trust is more than enough for me.

Today, Twitter and Facebook are platforms that do a wonderful job enabling the Lazyweb. I don’t even count myself as someone with an inordinate amount of followers but any question I ask will likely pass in front of ~ 1,000-2,000 people, giving me a pretty good shot at a couple of helpful answers (in this case I got 9). (Quick Time Machine Fun Fact: remember the days when you used to have to … gasp… use a phonebook to solve this kind of problem? And then you’d still be totally shooting in the dark. Crazy.)

As far as Twitter goes, I’d love a tool to better aggregate the answers to a question in one place. Squidoo’s Twttrstrm attempts to solve that problem but they expect you to use their tool to pose the initial question – a step that feels completely unnecessary in today’s world of robust APIs. If most Twitter clients can give me the thread of “in reply to…” messages, shouldn’t it be easy enough to input my original tweet (with the question), click a button and have it gather all the messages I got in response to it? Bonus points for giving me a little control over the ones I want to use (or remove). Does this already exist? If so, please let me know in the comments.

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far in the post, you probably need a snack (and a coffee) so here’s the list I got of places to check out the next time you’re in New York near Union Square:

Taralucci
“Best espresso and yummy desserts. You know how italians do it.”
15 E 18th St
New York, NY 10079
(212) 228-5400

Cafe Angelique
49 Grove Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 414-1400

Momofuku Milk Bar
207 2nd Ave (between 12th St & 13th St)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 254-3500

Max Brenner
“although a chain, has amazing hot cocoa & desserts.”
841 Broadway (between 13th St & 14th St)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 388-0030

Birdbath
145 7th Ave (between 10th St & Charles St)
New York, NY 10014
(646) 722-6570

Jack’s Stir Brew
138 W 10th St (between Greenwich Ave & Waverly Pl)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 929-0821

Sweetiepie
19 Greenwich Ave (between 10th St & Charles St)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 337-3333

Doma Cafe and Bakery
17 Perry St (between 4th St & Waverly Pl)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 929-4339

71 Irving Place
Between 18th and 19th Streets
New York, NY 10003
(212) 995-5252

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A genuinely magic marker

by Alex Rainert on January 25, 2010 · 6 comments

in Thoughts

via core77.com

Jinsun Park’s Color Picker concept is just one of those things that hits that sweet spot between practicality and whimsy – a wonderful place to be with your product should you want to capture people’s imagination and have them spend some money on it.

Who wouldn’t want a pen that uses the world around you as a palette?

Update: Thanks to Andrew for pointing out a similar project from MIT from 2005.

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EverydayUX morsels (January 21st – January 25th)

by Alex Rainert on January 25, 2010 · 0 comments

in Links

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Fred Wilson on Rex Ryan as a model for leadership

by Alex Rainert on January 24, 2010 · 1 comment

in Thoughts

1) Knows how to connect to the team and make them feel good about their work

2) Someone who walks the halls and works on the product with the team

3) Has the intellect to make the right decisions

4) Has a plan

via avc.com

Fred, inspired by the NYTimes front page story on Rex Ryan, does a great job drawing a parallel between what about his approach has made him successful in coaching the New York Jets this season and what qualities, in general, make a good leader.

Of course there are a ton of ways to dissect what contributes to good leadership but this is as strong and concise a list as I’ve seen. In my experience, these apply to anyone in an organization that manages others – whether it’s the whole company or a specific group within the company.

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Neue: City Exploration Through Typography

by Alex Rainert on January 23, 2010 · 0 comments

in Thoughts

via showusyourtype.com

Neue is the result of 30+ designers coming together to each create a piece of work inspired by a city, realized through typography.

Personally I love these kinds of projects where you get to see how many different people approach the same creative brief, so to speak. As you can see, the first city they’ve tackled is New York (my hometown). Next on their list: Barcelona, which just happens to be one of my other favorite cities. I can’t wait to see where they take this and I really hope they figure out a way to make these available as prints.

Here are a few more of the pieces:

And check them all out here.

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EverydayUX morsels (January 19th – January 21st)

by Alex Rainert on January 21, 2010 · 0 comments

in Links

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