What Would Raskin Do?

Apple introduces a multi-button mouse. (Mighty Mouse? Apple brand names are often cheesy, but rarely this campy.) Jef Raskin, one of the forefathers of the Macintosh, was both lauded and derided for his insistence on the one-button mouse. But he might not be too upset about Apple's “innovation”. In Raskin's brilliant book The Humane Interface he wrote:

A better mouse might have two buttons, marked Select and Activate, on top and on the side, a button activated by a squeezing action of the thumb. This last button would be marked Grab. Some mice at present have a wheel on top that is used primarily for scrolling. Better still would be a small trackball in that location. (Raskin, The Humane Interface, Addison Wesley 2000, p. 209)

Looks like Mighty could be Raskin's posthumous vindication.

Feed me, see more

Publishing notifications via feeds has become ever more popular, and it's finally starting to become really practical. Bloglines, the most popular web-based feed aggregator, recently introduced package tracking for UPS, FedEx and USPS. But what blew me away is seeing RSS integrated into the redesign of my local public library's website.
    It looks like RSS has finally hit the big-time. Now I can get notifications on overdue books. I've been checking out CDs and DVDs from the library; now I can even subscribe to feeds about the library's latest CD and DVD acquisitions. Handy dandy. Generally, we're taken by how the interweb connects us with people thousands of miles away, but this is a great example of technology that ties us more closely to the community in which we already live. That's pretty nifty. Kudos to the Ann Arbor District Library and their web team.
    So, what's next? RSS notifications to let you know it's time to pick up the dry cleaning, take your car in for an oil change, get a refill on your asthma medication...What else?

The missing killer calendar app

Surely I'm not the only person who could use a calendaring Web app that can host my desktop calendar (iCal) for sharing, allow me subscribe to it via my desktop app, and that can publish an RSS feed so I can get updates to the calendar (particularly for group calendars when someone other than me updates it). This killer calendar app would have to have:

1. a Web interface to manipulate the calendar from anywhere, by anyone who's authorized
2. WebDAV support for hosting my desktop calendar file
3. open-standard iCalendar publishing support
4. RSS publishing (ideally sliced and diced by user or date range)

Seems plain enough — and useful to tons of people: families, small businesses, etc. And yet I can't seem to find any such app. Is this what Backpack (more here) will be, in part?
    RSSCalendar is part way there, but it's missing the WebDAV and iCalendar publishing components. Big boys like Yahoo should have this built in to their calendars, but they don't. (Yahoo doesn't provide iCalendar publishing or RSS, and they opt for a third-party tool for calendar synching. iCalendar is the open format — third-party sync tools seem out of touch with Yahoo's push towards open standards, like RSS for MyYahoo.) Maybe they're working on it — or they're fixin' to buy someone else who already built what they need.
    What about you — do you find your calendaring tools lacking, too?

A better pill bottle: good design is good for your health

New York Magazine has a nice little article on Deborah Adler's beautiful pill bottle redesign for Target. 29-year-old Adler has done a great job redesigning something that, in retrospect, was in dire need of a redesign. What made Adler take notice? Her grandmother was hospitalized after mistakenly taking her husband's pills. Who knows how many others have been hospitalized or have even died from making a mistake that better design could have prevented?
    Some really thoughtful design moves were the color-coded bottle caps (a different color for each member of the family) and the flat face of the bottle instead of the typical cylinder, so information printed on the label is actually readable without having to rotate the bottle.
    Target, of course, snatched up the rights to the design. Yet again, they're using good design to set themselves apart from the competition — bravo, Targé. No doubt, other drugstores will be following suit before long.
    Surely there are more everyday objects like the pill bottle that could use a good redesign, and could save a life. Can you think of any?
    (As an aside, I was amused to see graphic design god Milton Glaser referenced at the bottom of the article. The author mentions that Adler now works for "graphic designer Milton Glaser" but doesn't even make a nod to the fact that Glaser was also the founder and president of the magazine for which she is writing, New York Magazine.) (Thanks to MR for this link.)

The weirdest thing about working from home?

Changing light bulbs. All the time.

Why don't browsers have a mute button?

Ever pull up a site with content you wanted to read, but had endure the obnoxious music it was streaming, which was playing over the music you were already playing in iTunes (or whatever your "music jukebox" of choice is, but come on, it's iTunes, isn't it?)? Surely there's a way to mute that unsolicited music even if the site doesn't have a mute button. Browsing the web is all about you being in control, right?

Grocery Store Layout Maps

I'm the grocery shopper in my family. I actually enjoy shopping for food quite a bit. What I hate is wasting time looking for things, and not getting everything I need on my first pass through the store. Now, I go to the same store over and over, and I still can't remember where they put the capers. What I need is a map of the store, so I can align my grocery list with my actual shopping route . I've been meaning to make my own, but why don't grocery stores provide these for customers? Wouldn't that be a great help for regular shoppers who plan their grocery lists out in advance, and encourage repeat visits? They could have copies available in store and have downloadable PDFs on their websites. Seems like a relatively simple tool to differentiate a store from the competition. Do any stores you know provide these? Would you use them if they did?

Using read status instead of the little red flag for better email management

This isn't a profound discovery, but one that's helped me deal with my email much better. A couple of things had always bothered me about how when I click on a new message in my email app the message immediately switched from the bold unread status to the unbold read status:

1. I might not have finished reading the message when I had to tend to something else, click on a different message, etc.
2. I might have finished reading the email but not replied yet, even though the message required a response.

Now when I come back to my inbox, I have no way to know at a glance what balls are in my court and who I just left hanging.
     Most email apps come equipped with a tool to deal with identifying which messages require follow-up: the cute, little red flag (). But I never use that thing—I have to actively choose to call attention to a message rather than choosing not to. I assume that new messages will require some follow-up, so I'd much rather make an active decision to consider a message dealt with than an active decision that something hasn't been still needs to be dealt with. Plus, it's just hard to notice that little flag even if I take the trouble to turn it on:

What good is a flag if it doesn't shout for attention?
     My workaround is pretty simple: forget about the red flags. Instead, turn off the preference to "mark messages as read when displayed in the preview pane" (as Entourage 2004 words it). Now whenever email comes in, the de facto flag (the message appearing bold in the message list, which actually does get my attention) stays set until I choose to turn it off (that is, mark it as read, which in Entourage is as simple as pressing Cmd+T). (I tried to use this trick with my desktop blogreader NetNewsWire, which I use to pick up the sensitive RSS feed from my company's Basecamp site, but, alas, NNW doesn't have the option of turning off the automatic "mark as read". Mozilla's Thunderbird does offer that option, but its handling of RSS feeds is not yet ready for prime time.)
     What are your tricks for dealing with the daily onslaught of email?

A Designer's Website that's Usable

Stefan Sagmeister is one of the more important graphic designers of our time. This past weekend he won a Grammy for Best Boxed or Limited Edition Package. Surprisingly -- or actually, maybe not surprisingly at all -- his firm's website is extremely usable. Many designers'/artists' websites provide a less than satisfying experience (brilliant though their work is). Not Sagmeister's. Its big chunky buttons and clear navigation couldn't be easier to use (except, perhaps, if it didn't use Flash so unnecessarily, which oddly crashed my copy of Firefox) -- despite the way they appear in different places and even at different angles on the portfolio pages.
     The buttons are, of course, self-consciously/ironically designed to be really, really, really button-y, but the joke doesn't compromise usability. Usable doesn't have to be boring or dumb.

Better file uploads with drag and drop

Browsers should allow users to drag files from their desktop and plop them into the "browse for file" form element. Do any browsers do this?

Online maps done right

High quality maps, big viewable areas, seemless Javascript, intelligent address parsing: Google Maps.

Looking to hire good people? Don't look to the job market.

Joel Spolsky of "Joel on Software" book and blog fame makes a good point about why it's so hard to find good people on the typical job posting sites : they're not there.

I like... big... buttons and I cannot lie.

A great example of taking advantage of Fitts's law: Amazon.com: Amazon Prime Sign Up

Direct manipulation Shopping Cart without Flash

Panic, makers of solid Mac software, had already implemented Flash-less drag-and-drop on their home page for downloads, but the implementation on the shopping cart for their new store is even better. (Via Good Experience).

Hostage appears to be toy

You couldn't make this stuff up. (Via CNN.com.)

Light petting

Am I the only one who thinks this icon is a little silly? Granted, it's easily identifiable, the colors look nice together, it's got some life to it. But, it's a fox. With its back to us. His tail is on fire -- I guess that's cool. But he's kind of pawing at the earth anemically. Like a limp hand shake.

Scrolling using the new PowerBook G4’s trackpad

Though Apple still hasn't been able to solve the heat sink problem involved in cramming a G5 processor into a PowerBook, it has introduced a nifty innovation to the ubiquitous laptop trackpad: double-fingered dragging for scrolling. (This is the equivalent of the scroll-wheel on a mouse.) From Apple's site:

Ready to Scroll

Scrolling through web pages or large documents on a trackpad can challenge even the most nimble fingers. That’s why every PowerBook G4 features a new trackpad with scrolling capability. Just drag two fingers over the trackpad to scroll vertically and horizontally or pan around any active window. Change this feature to suit your needs: Customize your trackpad settings or turn off scrolling completely via System Preferences.

^{(© 2005 Apple Computer, Inc.)}

What's so great about this is that, without changing the hardware (presumably), Apple has opened up a whole new dimension for an existing input device. It's simple to use, and won't get in the way if you don't want to use it. Simple and brilliant. (The animated GIF ain't too shabby, either. Nice little bit of info design.)

Google: search TV shows via close captioning text

The latest thing from Google.

Nice pants

Yow — the Lee Jeans site is gorgeously crafted, and with web standards, too.

Interviewing as Service

Khoi Vinh has some solid tips for interviewees about how they should prep for an interview with his firm, Behavior. Vinh's suggestions essentially speak to interviewees giving their interviewers good service: look the part, do your homework, be prepared for the worst, and complete the exchange graciously.
     Incidentally, Vinh's award-winning blog, Subtraction, is a gorgeous study in grid-based design, as well-handled as any website I've seen. (Vinh details his process in another entry on his blog.) Monochrome, with strong, understated typrography, and he's designing with Fitts's Law in mind (the nav bar at top has plenty of nice, fat click targets, as mentioned in my first post). Exceptional.