well...

A new Home

2008-02-14T19:14:00.002+01:00

This blog has now a new home and a new name : Artificial Horizon.

All the content but the comments has been transfered, although I might do it when I find some time to. This domain name will die in 6 months so there's still a chance.

Amazing

2008-01-16T12:52:00.001+01:00

Great example of brain power wasting from Gamedaily.com : NPD analysts make a report on kids and digital content, find out kids like to play.

"What I think might be interesting is that game-playing drives much of kids' early use of digital devices and content."

Thanks for your insights, but what I think might be interesting is that you find a quicker way to tell your readers the air is transparent, or skip to your next analysis. Oh, and read this book if you haven't.
Game-playing is driving kids' early use of anything they can put their hands on, dear analysts, this is what childhood is made for, this is how we learn.

Content out of context

2008-01-06T16:20:00.001+01:00

David Lynch making a point on watching a movie on a mobile device, originally from the Inland Empire special edition, edited to fit the iPhone commercials theme.
Sure, you can't fully experience a great feature film watching it on a mobile device, you'd miss a lot of the emotions a movie can convey. But having the ability to read videos on the go can be great for other purposes than entertainment and art consumption, like getting informed or learning some skills.

via Kottke.

Sottsass has gone

2008-01-03T18:32:00.001+01:00

Only a few of the objects he designed would make it to my home because of their style and larger than necessary presence, but I've always appreciated the archetypal character of his production, his masterful sense of proportions and how he put back feelings, maybe poetry, into modern designs.
Every piece of his work I know of is a lesson ; what a sad thing to learn that the source has gone dry on monday.

Enjoy some words he gave in an interview for designboom.com back in 2000 :

"I truly believe that our duty as an architect or a designer is to design things which attract luck, rooms which protect people...
I don’t design things in any style, even less so in any fashion style,
I design things for life states."

"I think that the future doesn’t exist. What we think of today as the future isn’t the future. People are always afraid of the future, and the future has always been a disaster. Like the present is a disaster. But rhetoric about the future bothers me, because almost everything we do today we say we’re doing for the future. The future is here now, let’s try to get organized now. I don’t care about the future at all."

Q : my soul's present condition.
A : worried.

Q : the faults I can bear.
A : all of them.

Q : my motto.
A : be patient, calm, compassionate, knowing that existence is fleeting.

Judging from pictures

2007-11-26T02:05:00.001+01:00

This post, where my commentary on the Kindle product design has been described as a "silly attempt to review via photos" made me realize that product designers are actually this kind of guys, they judge products from pictures.

What happens is that we get an idea of how a product could be, given the brief, and we start drawing. Doodling first, sketching, getting more detailed with projected views (front, side, top,...) or perspective views, and eventually we build a model of it. Depending on the budget we have in our hands, we'll be able to build one to three physical models before the presses start pumping. So all along, we are judging products from pictures that are not even close to photography, and to save costs we'd better be good at it (models are very expensive). Thanks to imagination and "mental visualization" (being able to do a flyby around the object with your eyes closed), we are making choices on what a product is worth from reduced representations of reality. Paper or screen, 2D or 3D, it doesn't matter, it's still an image, and this is our fuel to get to the end.
I'm not saying we're all able to do this 100% accurately (at least we try) or that only designers can do this, and certainly not that it makes the evaluation of a physical version obsolete. I'm saying it's a huge part of the design process, and every product you see on shelves come to life through this.
Architects are the real masters in that aspect : every building you get in is built from images and have not been evaluated from a real model.

So, Mr Aaron Pressman, thank you for letting me realize it, but don't call me silly upon this (in my back on top of that : boo). I don't feel bad for evaluating the aspects of the Kindle I talked about just from the pictures. This wasn't a review at all, and I never said that nobody should buy it. I'm close to be jealous that you have one. All I said was it could have been so much better. I've been dreaming for a decent e-ink device since I heard of it in 1998, and it's just frustrating when a company that has built a much more complex object that is Amazon.com doesn't get it where it could be today.

Bookishness

2007-11-22T13:56:00.001+01:00

How the Kindle is ugly and feels wrong, let aside the subjectivity of beauty or taste.

Quotes form the Newsweek article :

"If you're going to do something like this, you have to be as good as the book in a lot of respects," says Bezos.

First, it must project an aura of bookishness; it should be less of a whizzy gizmo than an austere vessel of culture.

Form factors

There's a little styling going on here.

While the overall shape seems to be well proportioned and balanced (considering the plain volume alone), I don't get the reason of being of these angled cuts. Does it add comfort when holding the device or interacting with it ? Does it help to frame the text better ? Does it relate to some cultural meaning ? As from today, I'd like to get a clue. To me this is just a subjective decision, style for the sake of it, and it hangs in there as a hair on the soup. Same feeling about the progressively slanted keys of the keyboard. Style is good, but it needs to be backed up with purpose.

ASSymmetry

I don't have anything against asymmetrical designs, and as said above, the volume itself is ok to me. But having symmetric elements (the keyboard and the screen) that weight the most visually included un-centered (left aligned) in an asymmetric shape can only result as a mess. If you choose asymmetry, stick with it. For example, don't make a symmetric keyboard when you can do an asymmetric one. But first, don't choose it when the purpose of the object is to display a book page that looks like it's having a center line (apparently they acknowledged this fact by placing the logo centered under the screen).

Let's go random

Why the hell would you formalize a linear notion such as previous/next in a non linear way ? I've been staring at this picture for a long time and I simply don't get it.

A little more visual noise, while we're at it

Somebody explain me why this separation on the right of the screen couldn't have been integrated in the screen as a graphic element rather than a plastic stripe. Does it have a function other than this one ?

Ergonomics

The comfort zones

I don't know for the guys at Amazon, but when I read a book, I like to grab it full hand. More importantly, when I lay on a couch or in a bed with a good book, I tend to change the way I hold it every now and then because it gets uncomfortable at some point. The picture above is highlighting the areas where you have the option to hold the Kindle without interacting with it. It is very little, far from being enough. Reading on the Kindle, you'll have this underlying stress of being careful to do not hit a button unintentionally, while a book while let you dive 100% in the text.

The discomfort zones

Speaking of reading comfort, here are highlighted the visual features that are distracting the eyes of the reader from the text. Far too much.

Established conventions

Usually, the left is associated with the past, and the right is associated with the future. Instead of having 2 sets of previous page / next page buttons, one on each side of the screen, why didn't they place the previous page button on the left of the screen, and the next page button on the opposite side ? Probably because they thought that lefties would be lost without a next page button on "their" left side of the screen I guess. Amazon is supposed to have great knowledge in the field of user interface, and I don't understand why they validated choices like this.

Some ideas

♦ Cover by default. A screen needs protection, and in the case of a book (electronic or not), a cover has a semiotic meaning. It's what distinguishes a pile of bound paper sheets from a book. So if you try to achieve some sort of bookishness, start from here.

♦ Get rid of the unnecessary elements like the keyboard, the logo or the "next" and "previous" writings (make them obvious instead) from the face where the text is displayed. This is a device which purpose is to stage text from an author and allow the reader to dive into it. Respect the text.

♦ Match the color and finish of the casing surrounding the screen with the ones of the e-ink screen to get closer to what happens on a book page. Making the sides darker will also help to get a better result by highlighting the "page" in the device.

♦ Make it waterproof. At least as some cameras like the Pentax K10D are. So you can feel comfortable reading the morning news while drinking your coffee.

♦ Here is a sketch of a possible scenario, assuming that touch screen are not available for e-ink displays.

a : previous page button.
b : next page button.
c : insert bookmark button.
d : book index, library, notes & bookmarks, volume, shop and news buttons.
e : slide out keyboard for additional controls and input.
f : scroll wheel to navigate menus or flick through pages while reading.

The cover would act as a power button. When it's open, it's on.
The connection points (usb, power, sound) would be accessible when the keyboard is slid out.

Core Calls {2}

2007-11-06T07:06:00.001+01:00

Following this previous post describing a possible way to call or text your favorite contacts on an iPhone, I did an animation of how it could behave.
To keep things clear, I didn't add the symbol of a finger touching the screen, so here is a transcript of the actions involved :
- After unlocking the phone, flip it to launch the favorite icons screen.
- If you have more than a screen worth of contacts, tap the arrows on the side of the screen to navigate them
- Tap and stay on an icon to reveal the call/sms display. Moving up and release will launch a call, moving down and release will start a sms. Release in the middle neutral zone brings back all the contacts.

I'm very thankfull to Kontra from Counternotions.com who provided me with some good advices to get the interface where it's at. He gets all the credit for the move up/down to call/sms gesture, which is much easier and elegant than the one I had thought of at first.

Paul Rand

2007-11-02T05:07:00.001+01:00

Nice BioShock review

2007-10-30T04:06:00.001+01:00

More fast swearing graphic game reviews here.

Core calls

2007-10-16T07:51:00.001+01:00

Or how to call/sms your favorites with 2 click-and-drags on an iPhone.

The last update of the iPhone software gave the double click on the home button the same functionality of bringing up the favorites, but there is maybe a way to avoid these two clicks.

1. First click and drag : unlock the phone.

2. Rotate it anti-clockwise to display the favorites. It works to call the Coverflow interface when playing music, so it might as well work to call an action from the home screen. I guess. Anyhow, this is where the double click disappears.

3. Select one of the favorites : that's the second click (or tap, how do you call them...). As a result, the other contacts icons and names fade out a little, and two bars appear at the top and bottom on the screen to invite you to the next step.

4. Drag and release the icon of your contact on top to call (the result is a fade to the classic call screen of the iPhone), and on the bottom to send a text message (also fades to the classic sms app screen). Once the icon enters one of the area it changes color to tell the user ot has understood his call for this action and performs it on release (so it's always possible to change your mind even if you entered an active zone).

Recursive actions need to be simple so they don't get boring or tiring to perform, and this is what it's all about.
One limitation though is that it would work well if you have up to 10 favorites. Passed this number, I don't know if the interface sensibility can deal with smaller icons/names, and as I don't live in the US, I can't check for myself on the device. Maybe somebody can tell ?
On the other hand, 10 is way enough in terms of favorites as far as I'm concerned.

Eames live in 1956.

2007-10-11T01:01:00.001+01:00

On top of the pleasure to discover Charles and Ray Eames moving and talking, here are two quotes I found interesting, regarding the design practice :

- Is there a basic theory of design for your chairs ?
- There is one that is : the attitude in all of them is really the same, we've never designed for a fashion, or with the idea of fitting in a fashion, and the Herman Miller furniture company has never ever requested that we do pieces for a market (...) the timing is more or less our own and sometimes it's too slow, but we are allowed to follow it through.

Eames desire to move freely in a world of enormous and unlimited possibilities is combined with a very accurate sense of discrimination and taste (...) This is an ability to select among the unlimited possibilities* and return considerable richness to the world.

Discrimination and taste. Wow, right on. I never considered discrimination as being used in a positive way, as it's always associated with "racial" issues. But that's what a designer does, choices.

Nice to see how they hold their hands, when Eames enters the set. Was it common on tv at this time ?

* this word didn't quite passed the "my first language is french" filter, so if anybody reads this and understands it better, I'd appreciate to be corrected, thank you.

Via the Mighty Coudal.

Bucky Dome in Montreal

2007-10-10T06:07:00.001+01:00

Hotel Lumen Paris

2007-10-04T03:14:00.001+01:00

Send. Receive. Period. {6}

2007-10-01T06:33:00.001+01:00

This is the sixth post about a cell phone design project that started here.

Considering the amount of time I could allow in modeling, I had to make a choice between the solutions that were presented before. The Mies track and the leather track were, to me at least, the most interesting solutions.
The essence of the project is really expressed in the Mies one, as we're aiming at minimalism and simplicity from the start.
Getting the leather solution further was interesting because this object has a strong statement : you could own a well crafted object (and therefore more expensive) that is not tied to high end technology.

The Mies track

The green led is the visual feedback : it flashes once when a key is pressed.
The blue leds are for the reception level and the red ones for the battery level. A single press on them and they display the level by quarters (1 led = 25%).
The front is three sided to help navigating and choosing the right key to press.

The hold button is pressed "inwards" to unlock the keypad. It stays in this position to act as a sign. The "send/end call" button is just under it : in a single and well placed press, the user can unlock and answer an incoming call.

The bottom cap (incorporating the mic) protects the USB plug and the quick SIM card access.

The leather track

In this case, the light chamfer around the keys, as well as the stiffness difference between the leather and the metal, help the user to point the right key. No plastic in this one, metal only. Leather and plastic rarely feel right...

The hold button is a slider. When it's on the right, thus aligned with the buttons grid, the keypad is unlocked.

The back side can be uncovered to access the SIM card (U shaped cut in the leather) and to slide out the USB plug.

As a conclusion, here is a transcript of Orange's director of technology Norman Lewis about 3G, during the '06 Emerging Telephony conference (link to his talk) :

if every one of our customers, theirs families and their dogs had mobile phones and used them for 6 hours a day for the next 31.7 years, we would get our money back from what we spent on 3G licensing

In other words : a mobile phone transmitting voice only ? It may suits your needs, but not the telephone companies wacked business models.

(Many thanks to Volker Weber and Steven Frank for their feedback)

Send. Receive. Period. {5}

2007-10-01T05:33:00.001+01:00

This is the fifth post about a cell phone design project that started here.

Materials and finishes.

As much as the shape of an object, materials and finishes determines its personality. Stiffness, reliability, simplicity should then be the attributes of the material used in this case. Economics are usually also driving the choice of a particular material over another, but as this is some sort of a dream project, we'll stay pretty vague and just say that that a thermoplastic is the most appropriate material for this kind of object.

The last track chosen in the form factors part of the project was born considering the portability of the object, and the answer was to give a rounded shape to the object so it would be adapted to be carried in pant pockets for example. Materials can also respond to the considered context and induce a solution. At least it's what happened here when I realized that in the objects that I carry around, a lot of them use leather : my bag, wallet, notebook,... Personal taste is of course involved, but leather reaches the attributes cited above, is soft on touch and shape, gets nicer when it gets older, smells good and speaks of good craft by its own. A cell phone made of leather first got me to think of these oh so nice phone cases with a belt clip, but it sure could be better than this. Anyhow, the leather track was on.

Next

Is this loud enough ?

2007-09-20T08:04:00.001+01:00

About this ringtones issue in iTunes.

Songs as ringtones is one of the worst experience that mobile phones have brought to us : it's an attention seeker feature, nothing more. Having a song playing when this given person calls might mean something to you, and that's fine, but for the 2/5/20 people around, it's just intrusive and embarrassing.

If you don't get the point, picture yourself in the line at the grocery store ; the guy next to you receives a call. Yeah, he's a metal fan. And metal is good when it's played loud, you see. He looks at his phone, sees who's calling and doesn't look too happy about it. The song keeps playing like there was a grinder in there. He rolls his eyes, groans, takes another look, says something like "shit", looks at you, smiles and doesn't understand why this expression of pain in your face is growing into a rage rictus. Is he going to be your friend ? Well, if you still can consider it could have been much worse, maybe. Maybe not.

So, having to pay twice the price to get one ? As unfair as it can be, it's still not expensive enough. Save our soundscape, make it ten times.

Coverflow shelves {2}

2007-09-17T01:20:00.001+01:00

A picture being worth a thousand words, here is an illustration of the idea explained in this first post.

This example displays four sets of albums, but the shelves could expand and the size of the covers shrink when you create news sets.
Each set could contain many more albums than the 6 shown here. To browse the content, you could either click to open, or skim through by hovering your mouse over the first cover.

Send it to the future

2007-09-10T03:52:00.001+01:00

About woodworking, the pleasure of building with your hands, and an interesting argument on what qualifies a professional versus an amateur. 5'12".

Coverflow shelves please

2007-09-08T07:23:00.000+01:00

Ohhh, look how much albums I have in my iTunes collection, look at the lovely covers, I can scroll through them for a good thirty seconds full speed without actually seeing anything but that I have loads of them. Nice eye candy aye ?

Sure enough, Coverflow offers a much better way to visualize your digital music collection than going trough a list of names, and it came as a relief when I first used it. Lately though, I found some discomfort using it, as if I felt it had no end. I think I figured why.

I made a little math today, using the (crazy) 40 000 songs numbers advertised for the new iPod :

40 000 songs = 3333 albums (12 tracks each) = 12,8m / 42 ft of vinyls records or 33m / 108 ft of CDs in cristal boxes.

Yep, that's it, I feel just as if I was in front of a 30 meters long shelve of CDs. Well, it's even worse than that : in this dark place called Coverflow, I just can see a small portion of it, not the whole 30 meters thing. But I know it's there, looking at me and waiting for me. It's a record continuum coming straight from the Matrix. Even if I could afford a house to display my record collection in this horizontal manner, I'm not sure I would find it usable. It would be sure beautiful, very minimal, repetitive and graphic, perhaps dramatic, but it would take so much time to go through and pick a record to listen to.

Ah, time.

The time you need to identify a record from its cover is what paces your progression in the collection, not the speed of your finger (wether it's flicking physical records or a mouse button), neither the distance you have to physically cover while browsing. Time is the common limiting factor between the n meters shelve and the Coverflow display.
Coverflow is a giant horizontal stack you'd better be patient to deal with if you don't already know what you're looking for. Ok, it's an organized continuum, in its inner alphabetical nature, but still, it feels a bit uncomfortable to apprenhend past, say, a hundred records. Cover flaw ? Sorry, it's really bad but I had to make this one.

I know a few freaks having the habit to classify their records in alphabetical order, but they are few. Usually, people tend to organize them differently : by music label, by sleeve designs, by time of purchase, by family of artists, or even by personal taste (duh !). In the cd or vinyl world, these groups would end on different shelves, or parts of a shelve.

I'd like to look at my digital records collection just as I would do when I sit on my couch and look at my record shelves : I can visualize everything in a single look, and I can find the music I want to listen to even if I can't recall the name of the artist or album because I know it's in the upper left corner. Shelves formalize emotions, moods, and in the music world, mood is a much better option than the alphabet to find your way.

I'd love some shelves in Coverflow. Christmas ?

Send. Receive. Period. {4}

2007-09-08T06:06:00.000+01:00

This is the fourth post about a cell phone design project that started here.

Form factors

First, about the scale. We know that the technology won't stop us from going really really small here, and that the ergonomics are the limiting factors.
Ergonomic aspects needing to be considered :
· the size of the device. It must allow you to hold it comfortably, and allow the speaker / mic to work nicely along the ear and mouth distance. The smallest phone I've used so far was as big as a credit card, and I used these dimensions as a reference.
· the size of the buttons, of course.

Semantics : it should look like a phone, as it's nothing else. It should say that it's a USB key too, as it's one. Other ideas to express : basic, solid, reliable, durable, fit.

As it's not designed for a particular brand, the branding guidelines that are usually getting into action at this point are, well, non existent. So we're left with a relative freedom here. That's one of the pleasure of the personal project after all.

Three different tracks came up so far to give a character to this object.

1. In a way, the functionality of this phone is nostalgic and backward looking, as we are refusing all the possibilities that technology is offering us but the ability to be wireless and compact. The Daddy's track.

Grandaddy's got one too.

2. The hard core nature of the functionalities can lead us to the modernist way, "form follows function and we're not expressing anything else here, ok yes we do but ya know..." The Mies track.

3. As it's compact, it's likely that the user will carry the phone in a shirt or pants pocket, so it could be a well rounded and soft object that will prevent the garment to be torn. The Tender track.

Next

Send. Receive. Period. {3}

2007-09-07T17:21:00.000+01:00

This is the third post about a cell phone design project that started here.

Extending the interface

The settings of the phone numbers assigned to the keys and the ring tone adjustments are made through the other interface the phone offers through its USB abilities : the computer to which it's plugged in when need be.

Here is a mock ups of the interface that would appear on the screen once the phone is plugged in. I guess an auto launch of a dedicated app sitting in the phone flash memory is something possible, so you could use the computer based functionalities on any computer you could use.

It displays the battery charge level and the reception level, and an eject button so you can unplug safely the phone when you need it.
There is also a text field where you can enter a phone number followed by a "send" button to allow you to place calls from the computer, using its mic and speakers if they are recognized by the software. The connection to the network is still made by the phone which acts like an antenna. Of course, this makes sense only if you can't make a good use of VOIP while using your computer.

When you click on 'Memorized numbers" in the bottom bar of the window, you are presented an interface with which you can set the phone numbers to the key numbers.

You can add the name of the contact so you can remember which contact has which fast dialing key the next time you get to set them. Clicking "Collapse panel" resizes the window to its original appearance.

When you click on "Ringtones", you get access to their settings.

You can choose from internal ringtones, or choose a sound file to be played instead. The sound file is copied on the phone's flash memory when you select it. To set the phone on vibrate, just lower the volume fader to its lower position.

I've been thinking of adding the ability to send sms from this interface, but it would make no sense since you wouldn't be able to receive them when you're not connected to the computer. You'd be better using email in this case.

> Next

Send. Receive. Period. {2}

2007-09-07T17:16:00.000+01:00

This is the second post about a cell phone design project that started here.

The phone interface

What is the minimum required to place or receive a phone call ?

· A power button to turn on the device
· A standard keypad
· A send/end call button
· A speaker and a mic, of course

It's a mobile device so it needs :

· A hold button so you don't dial a number while the phone is in your pocket.
· A way to know your battery charge level
· A way to know the reception you're getting at the place you're at

A screen ? No. Why ? As said, the aim is to stay very basic and simple. We could use phones without screens for years, why couldn't we anymore ?

But we need visual feedback for some actions like :
· Dialing : to confirm a key press gesture
· Connection established : yes you are slowly & surely eating your monthly plan
· Battery and reception levels as mentioned above.

The no screen manifesto prevents the use of a contact list, but we'll deal with it buy adding a memory key that can be used to fast dial up to 10 numbers.
Knowing that you'll lose only 10 numbers if the phone dies instead of the never backed up 76 ones you could have on a regular cell might help to accept this limitation. Or, consider that you won't need to play Dr. Kawashima to train your memory because you'll need to know all your numbers by heart.

Finally, the USB plug and its protective cap.

Schematically, here's what we end up dealing with :

Just to confirm that we didn't forget anything, let's run a scenario of placing a call from the turned off device.

1 - Check that the hold button is unlocked
2 - Press 2 seconds on the power button
3 - Continuous blinking signal from the reception level display to invite you to enter your pin number. If nothing happens, charge the battery by plugging the device to the nearest usb port around.
- - - - Starting from now, every key press will be confirmed by a single blink of a LED.
4 - Press the four digits of the pin number and dash symbol to validate.
5 - Three long blinks from the reception level display then information on the reception level confirm you accessed the network.
6 - Dial the number you wish to call and press the send/end call button.
7 - Once the number has been reached, the visual feedback LED is continuously on.
8 - Have a nice conversation.
9 - End call by pressing the send/end call button.
10 - Lock the phone with the hold button.

If the number you wish to call is one of the 10 memorized number of the phone, then the 6th stage becomes :

6alt - Press the memory key followed by the number of your choice.

When someone tries to reach you :

1 - The phone rings
2 - Check that the hold button is unlocked
3 - Answer call by pressing the send/end call button.
4 - The visual feedback LED is continuously on.
5 - Have a nice conversation.
6 - End call by pressing the send/end call button.
7 - Lock the phone with the hold button.

If you can't or don't want to answer the call, you can stop it from rigging by pressing the power button once.

Turning off the phone is as easy as pressing 2 seconds on the power button.

> Next

Send. Receive. Period. {1}

2007-09-07T17:13:00.000+01:00

Here is the first of a serie of posts about a cell phone project I've been working on. The idea is to document the process leading to the definition of the object and its experience, and hopefully get some constructive comments about the ideas pushed here.

One of the current negative comments from cell phones users is the clutter of functions shipped with them. These functions are unnecessary to many users, but they have no choice but dealing with them daily. Even if it means that it will cost them more money, add confusion in the user interface. Good start to make a customer happy.
Some people want to take pictures, send 50 sms a day, surf the web or send emails with their phone, but some others have a cell because they want to place and receive calls while they're on the road, just as they would do with any basic land line phones.

In a MobileMonday Paris conference I attended last year, there was a very interesting presentation of the latest advances in mobile phone chips, describing all the features you could embed into them. I asked the guy to give me an idea of the room needed to get the GSM, dialing and memory capabilities in a chip. He couldn't find anything small enough around him to answer my question but his little finger's nail. Today's technology is able to bring you the basic cell phone functionalities in a Bic pen cap, aside of ergonomic issues. There is no technical obstacle preventing us to build a simple, compact and robust cell phone for a basic use. Sounded like a good design project to me.

One of the high tech devices I enjoyed the most because of its small size is a Phillips USB key that is also a digital camera. Sure enough, the image quality is crap (good crap though), but I had it in my pocket everyday for a year and a half without noticing it, and I could take loads of pictures when I felt like it. No preview, unusable viewfinder, but all I want now is a new battery so I can use it again because the original one has died.
Anyhow, 1+1=2, and a USB key phone made its way. The USB feature is resolving the charger issue (you actually don't need one), and provides a new functionality that will be described later.

The brief is simple : design a compact USB device enabling the user to have wireless vocal conversations through a cell phone network. Nothing more. It's tempting to add features, but no, let's stay very basic and simple, even if it's just for the sake of this exercise.

> Next

Using Coda

2007-06-20T16:10:00.000+01:00

I had to redesign my portfolio website recently, and as Coda had just been released by Panic, I gave it a try.
Of all the good features this app offers, the best experience I had with it was actually the Panic sans font rendering on the screen. It's sharp, rounded, very comfortable to read. I used to work with Monaco 9pt as I found it was the most lisible font I had to work with code, but Panic sans feels so much better, as you can see :

a. Monaco 9pt

b. Panic Sans 11pt

Working code with an inappropriate font is like sitting at work all day in a bad chair, and Coda's font is like sitting in a sofa for that matter. Of course there are other good aspects such as the easy way to upload files or the one window thing, but this is a little detail making a lot of difference. This font being named from the company who did the software, I guess they did put some work into the rendering of the font at these small sizes.

One con though about the app : having to be online to access the reference book doesn't seem right to me. Sure, web development often means being online, but not always. So yeah, that was a bit of a frustration the first time I tried to look for some information there and that I was said I had to be online to get there. Is this part of the trial's version limitations ? I'll know the answer soon I guess, as I'm considering buying it.

Thank you JM

2007-04-24T13:47:00.000+01:00

Jasper Morrison in Milan during the 2007 Salone, discussing the term "Supernormal" with the new director of Domus magazine :

"Supernormal is the synthetic replacement for normal. Because I think we're not innocent enough anymore to make normal. We kind of threw it away, it's gone.
Everything now which is build, every chain store, every restaurant, every chair, every teacup is designed.
The innocence of a product which is really at ease in an atmosphere is lost.
So I think that's really a dangerous situation.
The goal of design has been distorted in a way by too much media attention, you know, too much attention on the designer.
...
So, yeah, I think this is something we need to talk about, at least."

The interview has an overall Borat taste but these words made it worth to look at. Get to the Philippe Starck bit for a live example of what he meant.