April 2005
I really like the interface of eyebeam.org. Props to Method for doing something different with an HTML/CSS web interface.
Web Application Solutions: A Designer’s Guide is a nice comparison of different web app technologies of varying “thicknesses.”
Jet Set Ruins is Todd’s amazing flickr photoset of aircraft scrapyards.
Interestingly, this Tufte outline is all text. (does being a patron mean not having to link?)
Dale Chihuly makes amazing glass sculptures. When I was last in Atlanta I was able to see his installation at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, where he managed to create sculptures that transformed the gardens into a bizarre, otherworldly landscape and simultaneously fit into their botanical surroundings so well that you would miss them unless you looked really carefully. I’ll take this over “The Gates” any day.
Very detailed, nicely illustrated instructions on How to Cut… almost any food. Now this is what I paid kottke for.
My own private SFO: a personal geography is Mike’s map of a “place” he’s spent a lot of time in over the past year. Love it!
There seem to be two distinct approaches to the collision of space and information. The first is to create a new view to some portion of the world by collecting and organizing “reality” (photos, timestamps, GPS data) into a coherent information space. Examples include mappr, Mike’s own PhotoGeoBlog, and other 21st century variants on what is at heart a travelogue. The second is the reverse: layering information (annotations, reviews, links) onto real space. Examples here include HIPS, Vindigo, and lots more.
But I’m guessing the really interesting stuff happens when you drop the self-consciousness of either approach and build things that are what they are by virtue of knowing where they are and, further, where location-awareness is only one facet. So, for example, you’re driving to a family dinner in the next town and your car is low on gas and it knows that if you don’t stop and fill up over at that Shell station by the onramp you’ll run out of gas before you get to Aunt Vida’s house, so it tells you. I’m sure there are plenty of less-cheesy examples, but you get the drift.
Some really worthwhile posts at 37sig (1, 2, 3) notwithstanding, there is no easy formula or Venn diagram* for successful project or client management. You don’t simply Discover. Define. Design. Develop.TM your way to a great design. No, as Jeff suggests, design is messier than that. But there are ingredients. One of them is trust. In particular, you need your clients to trust you, to trust your perspective, your experience, your process (whatever it is). And you have to earn that trust.
*
thoughtlessacts.com includes images from the book as well as letting visitors contribute their own photos.
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