Tablets are coming

Posted on February 13, 2011 by IdeaMonster

As predicted there are a few nice tablets out there with the recent announcments of Motorola Xoom and HP TouchPad joining the already successful iPad. These look and work well and will surely add to the revolution. So is it time to start rebuilding our user experiences on the web yet? Well we can start by using more and more HTML5 / jQuery options. And maybe take a different approach to content. Exciting times to be in the center of the new computing revolution. And I hope to see many great web designs for tablets soon.

My thoughts on tablet vs mouse designing

Posted on January 30, 2011 by IdeaMonster

It struck me a while back when I saw some designers using ONLY their tablets for all of the work. I mean even moving around the OS and launching apps. Right now desktops are basically having three input metods for designing. One is the graphic tablet, then we have the mouse which is still holding strong, and a new addition – a touchpad. Since the touchpads are pretty new and currently kinda low-res you won’t really have that much control over what you do, but soon that might change too.

I design using both the mouse and a Wacom tablet. The mouse is essential for most designs (well, for me) because simple shapes –> rectangles and ovals are easier to adjust with the mouse. I was trying to recreate the same level of precision on my tablet, and maybe it’s due to it’s relatively low-resolution but it was much harder. Still tablets are good for drawing things, for adding texture with various brushes or masking. For me the best way is to simply use both devices.

Also, the main difference between the mouse and the tablet is – if you’re using a tablet to design something for a couple hours you’ll actually feel more accomplished than if you’d just use the mouse all along. That’s probably due to the fact that using a “pen” makes it seem more like a real creation – our analogue memories kick in and bring us some positive feedback from kindergarten.

What do you prefer?

Tablets tablets here we go

Posted on September 26, 2010 by IdeaMonster

As soon as the iPad came out I wrote an article here that explained why I think the web should change a little bit for an oncoming wave of touch based tablet devices. Apple haters of course thought otherwise, but now we can see more and more tablets coming into the market so we need to prepare ourselves for a little different approach. Web should be more “book-like” because sites like that will be more fun for both the tablet and computer users. That means it needs to have streamlined information in such a way, that we’re not blown away by the amount of content to perceive and grasp on the first glance, yet we know that a lot of content is there and is quickly and easily accessible.

RIM has announced it’s own tablet just yesterday, there’s a SAMSUNG galaxy Tablet out already, and there’s the iPad. These three are sort of the first of the much bigger wave since every PC manufacturer is currently working on a touch based tablet. That combined with a large decline in laptop sales, might be the first sign of what laptops did to standard PC’s a couple of years back. And we need to be ready!

when redesigns kill the project / how people get used to things

Posted on September 22, 2010 by IdeaMonster

We’ve seen it a couple of times already. Facebook made some changes and groups started popping up that were hoping to get the new design back. Some even issued threats that they’ll stop using the service if it’s not reverted tom the beloved original.

That clearly defines how people hate a change. Why blame them? It’s confusing when you come back to a familiar site to see it changed. As with music – you like what you already know- if you’ve used a site for a long time and see it many, many times you get used to the design of it as well. And it doesn’t really matter if the design was good or bad. It was “home sweet home” and people don’t like others redecorating their home. Now do they?

The whole subject came up because just recently some statistic were revealed about the popular site Digg. They had a steady 40mil uu daily and they drastically redesign the site. The result? a 26% decline in a few weeks in the US. That’s a lot of users.

So what’s the solution if you don’t want to stay behind with your design but you don’t want your viewers to go away? The simplest solution would be to keep changing small stuff constantly so people don’t have the time to get used. And if you keep the changes small the evolution will be easier to grasp than a revolution.

Examples? Think Google.

Is multitasking a poke on productivity?

Posted on September 18, 2010 by IdeaMonster

This is not actually about apple mobile devices at all. Sure they didn’t have any multitasking for a long time and now they have a pretty limited one (so it won’t drain battery). No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about multi-tasking on a computer. And as a broad term to multi-task can be quite a few things like writing an essay while listening to some mp3’s or stuff like that.

Do we multi-task?

The main problem here is whether we really need to multitask to get the job done. What comes to mind here is an example of doing a presentation or some paper and switching to a web browser to find data and references. But this is actually a limited multi-tasking since you switch from one app to the other to transfer information between them.

What else comes to mind? Well when designing it’s often necessary to be on sites like istockphoto or sxc to search for design elements. And listening to music helps sometimes too.

So what’s wrong ?

The main thing wrong with multitasking is social networking. Being either facebook or chats / IM’s that can take a lot of the attention away from the job that needs to be done. It can take a lot of time when a friend sends some funny link or someone engages in an important conversation. And thus productivity suffers. This of course is pretty obvious, but without the ability to multitask (like on an iPad a while ago) it’d be impossible to do anything BUT the job. And sure we can turn off the IM’s and facebook, but we usually don’t. Why? Because we can have them running in the background, so we do it.

Not many people have enough self control to really focus on one task anymore. We work on our computers with the tv on in the same room. Or work and talk on skype. Or work and switch to chat.
Sure the modern age has enforced people to do more with their time and do everything quickly, but there needs to be a limit or our productivity will suffer greatly.

So probably the best idea is to have partial multi-tasking (that won’t happen) or have a lot of self control if you don’t want to spend too many extra hours on a project.

What do you think? Do you “multi-task like crazy” ? Or do you somehow moderate yourself ?

iPad brief review

Posted on September 13, 2010 by IdeaMonster

Since everything has already been said about how it’s beautiful, but no flash. How it has a long lasting battery, but doesn’t have a USB port. How it’s fast and portable but the operating system is a bit stripped.
Blah blah blah.

Since everybody knows all the tech specs already (and if not you can just look it up) I’m gonna focus on my impressions on using the device. Because in the end who cares if it does that or doesn’t do that if you hate every second spent with it. Allright then, let’s start from the basic.

It’s just a giant iPhone

No. This is like saying a soccer ball is just a bigger tennis ball, when both have different purposes and are used quite differently. What iPad is – is the revolution that the web was waiting for – not in the content and not in the delivery methods (that’s why flash doesn’t matter here) but in the form factor that’s easier and better for the web. It was the first big hit in the tablets but now, as I said before we’ll see a whole bunch of other ones, cheaper and more accessible. And in that respect it doesn’t matter if they run iOS, android or some crippled version of windows. Or linux. What matters is the way to interact with the internet is finally changing for the second time since internet was born. (this first one was text commands, then came the graphically intense websites and online videos).

So do I like it? Yes. In fact it’s become used more for everyday tasks than my laptop. I can carry it around me all the time since it’s pretty small and light, so I take my things with me everywhere. As simple as that, holding the internet in your hands is the way to go for the internet itself. And it doesn’t matter if you choose an apple device for that or something else. It has started and we’re sure even Nokia will make a similar device soon.

Facebook is the end of IE6 ?

Posted on August 30, 2010 by IdeaMonster

facebookie6
At a point in time, when facebook is the internet inside the internet, and when many people think of it as THE internet, rarely using anything else, an interesting thing has happened. Many had pleaded, many had wished for it (especially web developers), and even Microsoft urged for it. No success. Nobody was able to kill Internet Explorer 6, mainly because it’s preinstalled with windows XP and this is still what the majority uses. So all of the office computers, and all the home computers of casual users remained the silent majority of web browsing.

ie6compat This of course led to websites being done ESPECIALLY for IE6 and for the rest of the world. Twice as much work. Or actually more, since IE6 had it’s humors and wasn’t really following standards, so it was all a hit or miss scenario constantly. And as years have gone by, the usage of IE6 was shrinking, but not fast enough so it’d be convincing for a client to skip IE6 version of the site. Even at 25% of the market (and it still has more than that, significantly more) nobody would decide to skip IE6 version while building a site.

Well until now. A while ago youtube stopped supporting IE6, but most of it worked just fine in IE6 anyway.
Now facebook comes into play, and since it has all those apps and all those quizes the casual user really loves, they’ll see a big difference. And that alone – a decision of a website they spend half their awake time on – can lead them to upgrade. Sure firefox, chrome, safari and opera are better than any IE iteration, but for god’s sake! Make them upgrade to at least IE7 and that, as terrible a browser as it is – is still a huge step for the web world.

IE6 Rest in peace.

Simplicity is pretty complicated

Posted on August 27, 2010 by IdeaMonster

In graphic design the hardest things are actually the simple ones. Sure it sounds a bit stupid, but when you think about the rule of “Less is more” and then look at the big letter “a”, written in helvetica on a white background you can see that it’s not actually all peaches and cream.

Simplicity in webdesign is often refferred to as “minimalism”, which basically says it all. Something “minimalist” (-ic) is something simple, an expression of content/function with very little form.

This form can of course has it’s saturation levels – we can have a nicely designed website with just the text. Various typefaces, paddings and margins working together to create something that’s nice to the eye.
But that would probably be considered ultra-minimalism, so let’s move on.

Another step is adding a couple of elements like a background here, a divider line there, but still keeping it simple with as little colors, gradients, photography as possible. And this is where the hard part starts.
We all know that graphically rich and intense websites can hide their content flaws in a lot of flashes and eyecandy. With minimalism we don’t have that comfort, so everything has to be in place. Considering typefaces, font-sizes for different elements is crucial for the whole thing to look good while still being minimalist. If you want to make minimal websites it’s best to look around first and get some inspiration (that doesn’t mean copy+paste! ;))

minimalisites.com has some nice examples

I think every designer should have at least a couple of those minimal sites in his/hers portfolio among all those beloved graphically intense sites that we’re all so proud of.

Is technology going to eat it’s own tail?

Posted on July 30, 2010 by IdeaMonster

Think about this : the rate of production of some new gadgets like iPads, new iPhones, new Samsung screens, new nintendo consoles is the highest ever. They’ve got millions of people building devices for other millions of people. And the demand is exceeding supply. Now let’s put it in a perspective :

So you bought an iPhone

Guess what! Next june it’ll be obsolete as a new one will emerge and you’ll most likely want one. And even if not that next iteration, you’ll want the one two years after that. After all in technology two years can make a huge difference. So ok, where’s the problem – you ask. We’ll get to it on a little bit. So after a while your old phone / camera gets thrown away, you get the new one. And so forth. But since the production right now is so high, and making the components takes a lot of resources, energy and such – when will we run out of the parts from which we can make the new electronic wonder-gadget?

The rate of innovation is of course speeding up every year, so basically in a few years everyone will own a pc, a laptop, a smartphone and a tablet device, if not more. And most of these will be changed to newer versions after a few years. So the running progress of technology can lead to depleting the natural resources needed to make new tech. and thus ending technology.

What do you think ?

Business campaigns online on low budget

Posted on June 17, 2010 by IdeaMonster

I have stumbled recently across some ideas on how to enhance a traditionally (tv / radio) marketed campaign (of an event this time, not a product) by adding some internet presence but at low cost. So where should a marketer start with such a daunting task?

Well first and foremost it’s important to know your target group and which online places do they prefer. For example some countries don’t use twitter as much as others, while some have their own facebook/myspace alternative and the big two (well big one to be honest) are not as present there. But once we sort of get the idea of where to start the next question arises.

What’s next?

Is the next step adding marketing babble advertising media everywhere and waiting for our fish to catch bait?
(remembering that we’re on a budget – preferably no money, and the smaller amount we have to spend the better). So where do we start? First let’s focus on the event we’d like to promote. And since nothing nowadays is truly original we can find similar events in the past. And even if not and this is truly an unique thing we can find categories in which our event fits – like cooking / vegetarian / concerts. By narrowing it down to a couple of tags we need to start at the bottom first, because the top will be much easier. So let’s say we have those three tags and want to promote a big concert in our town of 2 mil. citizens, which is of course already promoted on the radio, press and tv.

Starting at the bottom

By starting at the bottom I mean preparing a short, friendly notice (not a marketing ad), with a couple of pictures and generally a visually pleasant form. This is important because in most cases like that plain text will be skipped.
Then we go blog hunting. We find at least 10 (50 is better) blogs that relate to at least one of our subjects and have a viewer base that’s large enough to cover our city too (even if the blogger is from some other place in the same country). Then we write to them, trying to sound as “real” as possible. Saying “Hello” at the beginning won’t hurt (yeah it’s obvious but skipped so often it makes my blood freeze). Then let’s tell them how we found them, and that we think we have some interesting info to share with them. And then the info part comes in, but it seriously should be presented like you’re describing it to a friend you stumbled upon on a street. No fancy big words, no marketing bullshit. Plain and simple. And good looking visually (photos speak!)

Moving to the top

A facebook group or page is the typical next answer and it’s also the right one. Try and fill it out with as much detail as possible but DON’T FORGET THE PHOTOS. Any promotional visual material is crucial. A nice poster. Or even internet posters with a nice photo and some basic even info on it. Post it, share it. Write there from time to time. The best way to actually get somewhere is by running a facebook ad, which in fact are pretty cheap. You can end up paying less than $1 per 1000 views of your ad and this is A LOT! Try and experiment with those.

Twitter is also a fun way to be more socially “open” to your followers (but you need to have some already) because you can communicate even more like a real person with them. Short, direct messages and remember to post something that’s only touching your subject indirectly like a funny video of someone else’s vegetarian activist concert with guys dressed as giant culiflowers or whatever. Be real and human.

Same goes with a youtube channel – get as many videos of your performers or even recipes online, tag them correctly and have each point to either your website or your facebook / twitter. It won’t hurt to make a splash screen with the most important info and put it INSIDE the videos at their beginning and end so they won’t be missed.

And remember. Be a human. Because being a robot, or worse – a marketing guy – won’t buy you trust. And won’t buy you followers.

Overlapping interests

Posted on May 31, 2010 by IdeaMonster

smart-monkey Expansion in the creative field is a must nowadays, since everything seems to be running faster than us. The technology, other designers, recession of the currency. And so on. So we either try to outdo ourselves in one area – focusing on being great at one specific tasks – and hoping that we will be chosen because of the amount of skill we have. Or we try many different things like adding flash animations, video editing, sound editing, and not being too good in any of them.

But is it really that bad? I mean come on! It’s our ideas that matter. And in fact the myth of doing stuff to the point, and working long hours on every single project is bullshit. Some people work faster. And I’ve never seen a flawless project either. So is someone bullshitting us into thinking that we should be sticking to one thing, because they fear for the competition? I can make a pretty good video if I have the right material, choosing the right trimmings, effects and music. Does it mean that I shouldn’t do it because I’m not a pro at it? And I’m not talking about birthday party videos for my sister here. I’m talking about something I take the money for and I can put in my portfolio. That kind of video.

I think that creativity is not limited to a medium. It’s limited only as far as our own limits go. And if we truly commit , we simply don’t have any. Allright? Allright. So go out there, be creative. Accept criticism and turn your back on the hate because when they put their time into hate towards you and your work, you’re already on another project.
Good luck!

David and Goliath

Posted on May 26, 2010 by IdeaMonster

Today something a little bit creepy had happened. For the first time (probably ever) Apple’s Market Cap exceeded the one of Microsoft. Yeah, I know. We’ve been always under the impression that the Microsoft empire will forever be there as the most powerful and evil monopoly. As they say in cheesy movies – with great power comes great responsibility. And since Apple right now has the upper hand, we’ll probably see a lot more “influencing the world” on their part. Remember apple fans being mad that people were choosing Windows platform and PC’s? Well right now they’re forced to choose HTML5 over flash for instance. And there’s a new iAd (html5 of course) going to be released soon. So is apple going to be evil?

Or maybe in the modern world, where google, apple and microsoft each try to stand by google’s “don’t be evil”, no big corporation can actually be the good guys or they’ll loose the fight? As I always said, I use apple products and I like them, both the operating system and the devices. But I don’t want MSFT to fall, just like I don’t want to see Google fall. There needs to be competition! There need to be windows7 tablet devices. And Android tablet devices! And if both of those run flash, we’ll just wait and see who comes out of that little fight alive. Because being first doesn’t always guarantee success.

I personally hope that we’ll be able to still creative memorable and innovative advertisements instead of being stuck with all that “interactive html5 toy story bullshit” that we’ve seen a few months ago.

Apple – Adobe war has ended in a retreat

Posted on April 25, 2010 by IdeaMonster

Adobe announced a few days ago that they’ll discontinue supporting the iphone OS in flash and other products. Sure that was a battle they couldn’t win but in a way it’s pretty sad we’ll be limited to a closed platform. But maybe it’s good for the quality control, since a flash app is pretty easy to make so there would be millions of new “fart apps” and we have plenty of those already right?

So while it’s sad that adobe skips the iphone, I think it might be for the best here. Let’s just hope they won’t get mad and stop making the Creative Suite for the mac, because now that’d suck ;)

Apple vs Adobe part II

Posted on April 15, 2010 by IdeaMonster

flashvshtml5

After a serious analysis of the capabilities of HTML5 I can say the following : Flash video is FAR better than it’s HTML5 version. Really.
It’s smoother, has better quality and runs faster. And people were complaining about flash being a resource hog. Well not entirely true.
As for other things – advertisements in HTML5 are a better option, just like simple animations on the web. It’s a standard that generally will take over eventually. But what Steve Jobs was saying is that it will replace Flash entirely. And that won’t be the case – if you want proof go watch some videos on youtube and vimeo in html5 format and then watch them again in flash. The difference is actually visible even with the images themselves. HTML5 is nowhere near being good. And since youtube hasn’t implemented it yet fully means it’s not ready yet. Because they have enough money to do it if the technology allows it.

So what’s next?

We’ll see a division or if you like a “hole” between the two platforms, growing bigger and bigger over time. And since apple is the only company not accepting flash it’ll end up having them shut off from the “decent video streaming”. The rest can be done in HTML5 and it probably will be in time. Even Adobe has some tools to make HTML5 sites that will be released in CS5. It’s all for us to wait and see, but my prediction is that both the technologies will stay with us for much longer, unless the HTML5 video will be improved, because currently it just sucks.