Nice.
In Kabul in 2001 I was sent with a unit to meet with an Afghan government minister. We had to explain that we weren’t Russian, we were British. As soon as we did he rounded on us and shouted: British? You burned down the covered market! My first thought was s***, what have the Paras done now? I apologised and we got on with the meeting. Back at base I asked who had burned down the market. Blank faces all round, until someone at the back said he thought we had burned down the covered market. In 1842. #
Google recently introduced a new preview layer to their search results, which allows the user to not only preview the page before going to it, but also seeing the actual string highlighted on that page. A nice idea, wrapped in horrible interaction design.
Continue reading ‘Google Result Previews; Interaction Disaster Area‘
A few months ago, Anthony, the founder of Squarespace, asked me to fly out to New York to meet with him and a few others about a possible job; a very tempting offer, but at the time unrealizable due to circumstance.
Last wednesday we shut the door on our empty apartment in Copenhagen, left the keys in the mailbox and boarded a plane to Newark, all of our necessary belongings neatly packed into as many bags as you can fit into the back of a Lincoln town car, now effectively homeless.
Everything’s a momentary blur, but as reality settles again, maybe some time next week, I’ll be stepping into my new role as Interface Director at Squarespace and our new life here in The Big Apple.
In the scheme of things, it has been simultaneously one of the hardest, and one of the easiest decisions we’ve ever had to make. On the one hand existing obligations, jobs, friends and family, not to mention a place to call home and a daily routine are not easily shed. Yet on the other, a chance to try something entirely different, to have a go at the dream of living in roots of the worlds most iconic skyline and in a sense to try an alternate reality — if only for a time — and certainly not least, to have the opportunity to work for a company I have long admired, and which over the last couple of months, as I met with the people behind it, solidified as a force to be reckoned with, a mentality straight out of my most livid day dream and a collection of people the likes of which you’d be lucky to meet in passing, if at all.
Of course, a disruption like this doesn’t spring to life without sacrifice and broken plans, and we owe much to friends and business partners for their understanding and support. But here, at the tail end of it, it seems it wasn’t much of a decision at all as much as it was coming to the realization that we couldn’t not do this.
Which leaves us here, on the 10th floor of a Soho hotel bordering Tribeca, almost in eye-shot of the Squarespace offices, starting our scavenger hunt for a new home, and a life in the big city.
Pinch me.
“But consider what these interfaces fail to do for us. When you want to set down and idea, you should be able to go to your computer or information appliance and just start typing: no booting, no opening the word processor, no file names, no operating system.” (xviii, Jef Raskin, The Humane Interface. 2000, Addison Wesley)
We’re pretty simple. If something sudden happens, we react. We flinch. We stop. We divert all of our attention, unwillingly, to whatever it is that could potentially be posing as a danger to our well being. We will interrupt whatever we’re doing at loud noises or when catching something out of the corner of our eye. It’s our fight or flight instinct. We can’t help it.
Now watch this, and pay particular attention to the animations:
Now if I say: “hunting tiger”?
The animation curves on the Blackberry Playbooks UI are those of a predator, just as it pounces its prey; slooow and then fast!. It’s incredibly disconcerting, causing our lizard brain to subconciously analyze the motions of something as harmless as windows on a screen for signs of danger.
This recalls Apple’s ‘Breathing Status LED Indicator’ (and Dell’s hopeless imitation), though I should mention, just for good measure, that Apple isn’t above reproach; try bringing up your dashboard, and dismiss it. Notice how the widgets fly into your face!, say like a tiger, rather than simply fade away?
Interaction design should for the most part be all but transparent to the user, so here’s my pro tip of the day: try not to emulate our natural predators.
Update: Oddly, the animation curves used for all the marketing material aren’t the ones used in this practical demo:
I’m finishing The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, Jonathan W Rinzler’s recenty released document on everyone’s favorite sequel – it’s everything a nerd could hope for, by the way – and I came across this quote, which seems to pretty well describe the mentality gap between the US and Denmark:
The sequel was also number one in Tokyo, Japan, for at least four weeks, but in Denmark, Empire was ruled off-limits to children under 12 (as was Star Wars, Close Encounters, and several other films).
“Children are not allowed to see a film that desenitizes them to voilence, to suffering,” says Dr. Jørgen Bruun Petersen. “They must not see a film if we feel they will get [from it] less ability to feel pity.” On the other hand, children were allowed by the Danmark censors to see sex on screen. “I don’t think children will be harmed if they see two adults going to bed with each other. But only if they express love for each other, do what they do with feeling.”
The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, p336.
That’s not to say I agree with him on the violence (much to my moms dismay, I raised myself on RoboCop and Alien), but this schism is inherent in our culture – we released porn before any other country – and makes it so absurd to us when a nip-slip causes most of the US to dive into a frenzy, while happily enganging in wars across the world.
Imagine my surprise, when as I was doing the dishes, mine and Chewies names popped up in Episode 11 of The Talk Show w. Dan Benjamin and John Gruber. It being live, I much to Gruber’s dismay (sorry John), popped into the chat and took part.
Yes, it is a step up for power users, but I imagine it must be intimidating to n00bz and is a little too crowded for my tastes. But having finally spent some time with #NewTwitter, deeper problems make me think it got kicked out of the nest before its wings were fully formed.
We’ve just returned from a screening of Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, at Cinemateket with Jan Harlan – Kubrick’s brother-in-law and the film’s director – in attendance. The documentary itself, supreme as it is, is available on DVD; however, the Q&A session with Jan Harlan isn’t. A shame, as Harlan was both funny, honest and insightful about Kubrick and his filmmaking.
Which is why I recorded it.
Afterwards I asked him what had become of the 18 hours of material shot, I believe by Kubrick’s (later estranged) daughter Vivian, for Full Metal Jacket. Unfortunately it seems the sound was lost for most of it, and what remained is what made its way into this and the Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes documentaries. Shame.
Update: Thank you Jay Goodman Tamboli for normalizing the audio for me.
Foreword
The creation of Star Wars is comprehensive mythology onto itself, populated by rarely documented anecdotes, the likes of “the Millennium Falcon was inspired by a hamburger, with the outrigger cockpit being an olive off to the side” (1) or “My original inspiration for Chewbacca was my dog Indiana.” (2), compelling enough to be repeated until they’re so prevalent that they must be true, and are accepted even by hardcore fans and Lucasfilm itself. Unfortunately sometimes they’re embellished truths or half-truths, sometimes entirely false and in pretty much all cases oversimplifying a truly interesting, and luckily exceptionally well documented creative process.
And that’s what this is about; the creative process. Cultural touchstones like Star Wars might seem to have sprung fully formed from the minds of their lauded creators, but as in all creative endeavors, movie making, web design or this very post, nothing could be further from the truth. Creation is a process, and strangely, by looking at how everyone’s favorite plushy first-mate sprang into existence, we can learn a lot about any collaborative creative endeavor.
Unfortunately, perhaps because of the verisimilitude of the disciplines needed to make a film like Star Wars come together, the making-of narrative is surprisingly fragmented and often incomplete. A quick look at the bibliography needed to put together this post should give a good idea of just how fragmented. And once you’re down the rabbit hole, you quickly learn that nothing found there can be taken at face value. Quotes, drawings, photos and diagrams lack sources, are undated, some old, some new, some so distorted as to be pure fiction and most of it entirely out of context.
But while the official sources are often great, compiling from many different sources to dispel myths about Boba Fett’s ship, Slave 1 or tell in staggering detail the creation of the film from beginning till end as in the case of books like ‘The Making of Star Wars’, there are still plenty of dim, and in some cases even seemingly purposefully blacked out areas in the development of Star Wars. Just ask Michael Kasinski!
The story of how Chewbacca came to be is one of those. A fascinating look at what happens in the space between idea, page and screen.
Continue reading ‘George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It’s Okay’
Factoid time!
Human sacrifice was common in the pagan world. It was cruel but had a logic and rationale. The first child was often believed to be the offspring of a god, who had impregnated the mother in an act of droit de seigneur. In begetting the child, the god’s energy had been depleted, so to replenish this and to ensure the circulation of all the available mana, the first-born was returned to its divine parent.
Source: Karen Armstrong, A History of God, softcover edn, Vintage, 1999, p. 27.
And allow me, on that note, to pitch A Short History of Myth by same, one of the best, if shortest, books I’ve read in years. Insightful and inspiring. And short. It also comes in a beautiful mythology boxset, which is the edition I have — a present — though I haven’t read the other two books yet, so I can’t vouch for them.
I had a short discussion on Twitter this morning — I’d link to it, if Twitter had thread permalinks — sparked by Danielle’s tweet, in which she calls bullshit on Gawker’s article on the new Google Instant commercial, in which Ryan Tate (who has had a brush with Jobs earlier this year, and with whom I don’t agree in the slightest with regards to the iPad) asserts that regardless its intentions, this is one ad Steve Jobs will hate:
Even when I close any notifiers and twitter-/chat clients, I’m just too easily distracted to get writing done in proper on my Mac. I blame Command–TAB, however I guess I’ll have to take full responsibility myself…
Continue reading ‘Writing on the iPad: A Story of Love, Heartache & Infuriating Bugs’
I rather wish the sessions had been video’d, as the slideshows — particularly Tom Coates’ all-singing all-dancing extravaganza, Brendan Dawes’ interactive 2D physics and certainly David McCandless’ infographics — did carry quite a bit of weight. Nonetheless, thanks to Drew, that man of men, the podcasts are now up, and I heartily recommend you go download the following:
- Marty Neumeier on innnovation and design, arguing for making damned sure whatever you’re building isn’t just good, but different (and romantic).
- John Gruber on The Auteur Theory of Design. Every film reference seemed specifically aimed at me. Thanks John :)
- James Bridle on The Value of Ruins might have been my favorite of the conference; a natural speaker, informative and surprising from start to finish.
- Tom Coats on Everything the Network Touches needs the amazing slideshow somewhat, but should be a good listen nonetheless.
- Merlin Mann on Nerds is as always just a wonderful stream of words from the Mann himself. Without video I’m afraid you’ll have to imagine just how much Merlin looks like an animated, upbeat Stephen King.
- David McCandless on data visualization was great, but rather dependent on the slideshow. Luckily, he did a talk at TED, which by his own words, was largely the same.
Of course, if you simply want to gobble it all down into the belly of iTunes, here’s an RSS feed.
Gruber linked to these great minimalistic Star Wars posters, giving points for using the Falcon twice. I would note that seeing as the blockade runner was the prototype Falcon, in spirit the Falcon is actually the center of all three posters.
What a piece of junk…
dConstruct 2010 was above and beyond expectations, and it was, as always, pleasant putting real-world faces and mannerisms to Twitter streams. Others will do much better play-by-plays than I could hope for (the talks will be podcast, and I’ll be sure to curate my favorites then). For now, a couple of the highlights that stuck with me:
It isn’t quite an official announcement, even if every single film blog out there is treating it as such, as per usual, but it does seem more and more likely that that Guillermo Del Toro is directing with James Cameron producing, an adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.
Continue reading ‘The ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ Screenplay. Some Mountains, Madness Aplenty…’