What I got most out of the book was the comprehensiveness of the work collected. What was especially beautiful was seeing the progression through his career as his designs and

projects changed, from Braun design to furniture design. It’s only when you see all of his work collected in such a large volume as this that you really begin to appreciate the timeless quality ofhis designs. It’s then you realise his genius. In one part of the book it includes an interview with Rams discussing his famous Ten Principles of Good Design.

A somewhat minor gripe, as lovely as this book is, I really feel what is missing is more sketches and prototypes that he created along the way. The book functions a little to much like a museum piece, rather than a full analytical discussion into this thought processes and ideas.

Either way, it’s a lovely to flick through to get inspired by the man who influenced the shape so much technology in your kitchen, living room, pocket and handbag.

]]> http://justwhatisit.co.uk/2011/dieter-rams-as-little-design-as-possible/feed 0 http://justwhatisit.co.uk/2011/890 http://justwhatisit.co.uk/2011/890#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:11:40 +0000 lina http://justwhatisit.co.uk/?p=890 After many long months of trying out the latest BBC News app from odd ball independent developers, some being heavier and slower to use than others, it’s wonderful to finally see BBC News finally and officially make its way on Android as of end of May. But what makes it so welcome is its bewildering beauty, especially for the BBC, in comparison to its arch rival, BskyB’s Sky News app with its more run of the mill list view.

Since the iOS version of the BBC News app launched, it seemed almost certain that a lot of influences were taken from Pulse a super RSS aggregator which uses a ribbon theme throughout to display news, making the most of the mobile screen space. And it works. I use it all the time. However, there are certain parts of the design which have puzzled me for a while. For example, it was only by accident when I first downloaded the Pulse news app, a couple of months back, that I discovered I could scroll/swipe along each ribbon to see more stories. When someone looks at the screen, it seems a little too complete and static, with no indication to show that they can swipe along, a less common gesture for browsing for more content on the internet/RSS apps, typically using a scrolling down gesture.

However, the Android version seems to have addressed the iOS and the Pulse version of this with a slight redesign of this view. This includes less stories on the front screen, with two main windows on each ribbon, but with a third story window on each ribbon poking through on the right to suggest to users more located when they scrolled along. The only other mainstream use I can think of this affordance is in Windows Phone 7.

So it’s great to see this!

I’m still battling with the question: why didn’t they integrate iChat more into the device similar to the way Android did with Google Talk which auto signs in and runs in the background most of the time allowing people to ping you any time of day? From personal experience, I use Google Talk to communicate with some friends more than I would with SMS, but I still use SMS occasionally. Not everyone uses Google Talk, but you don’t need to have an Android to get it.

And this leads me to my next point. I’m still failing to see how iMessages means an end to carriers and SMS, particularly since iMessages is an iPhone to iPhone only service/app, and with Android quickly growing to become the main OS in the UK, I don’t see SMS going anywhere soon. Nor do I see iMessages being the main pull/retainer for customers from Android to iPhone if that’s what this is about. There are just too many better substitutes out there.

Revolutionary? I think not. Overstated hype designed to keep customers where they are? Totally.

However, please, please prove me wrong! There must be something I’m missing…

Instead, I was thinking that as people already use Google services, Google profiles could be an aggregator which pulls of all the many Google services people are already actively using. Sort of as a central home for all their activity.

One of the design oddities of the current profile style is the massive empty space underneath the profile picture and forcing the user to go back to ‘About’ each time they want to see their other links. To combat this, I feel that an automatically generated list of tabs of all the Google services a user actively uses is better placed underneath the profile picture. These tabs lead the user to a summary preview of the activity related to the service, with a link to the full respective site.

First tab: Feed

Something which I think Facebook does really well, is push people towards a feed which aggregates friends’ activity shared with the user. This is activity such as the albums they have shared with you or YouTube videos etc. I think Google has an amazing plethora of services which people already use and love, but I just feel that it’s too hidden and disjointed. Having a feed on the profiles page would pull together all their friends’ activity on the existing Google services.

For privacy’s sake, something which I think Google Profiles does a great job of advertising already, a little padlock symbol (editable) below the ‘edit profile’ button sits there to let the user know that this page is private view only, only the user can see this. The user can comment on the activity in question below the information, as with Facebook.

Buzz

One of the other things which has confused me over the years, is the placement of Google Buzz inside Gmail. I don’t feel it works. People access their Gmail for their mail. Buzz works best in an environment where people are actively seeking to broadcast to a wide audience.

Ideally, I’d like to see a Google Profiles which not only automatically pulls content from services already being used (with high privacy as the automatic setting), but one which acts as a gateway to all the other Google services, one that is interactive and acts as a world voice to the user, not just a shop front.

]]> http://justwhatisit.co.uk/2011/redesign-google-profiles/feed 0 http://justwhatisit.co.uk/2011/chromes-new-logo http://justwhatisit.co.uk/2011/chromes-new-logo#comments Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:25:29 +0000 lina http://justwhatisit.co.uk/?p=796 After a month since the latest Chrome dev launch, it’s finally here on everyone else’s desktops and docks, including mine. The new logo, as every other Chrome release, has silently snuk onto our computers without much fanfare in traditional Chrome style.

They’ve gone for a more (supposedly) ‘plain and boring’ matt finish to the logo, ditching the 3D, more in line with the current crop of Google product logos.

I like.

What would be great now is to see a Chrome for Android…

Tab system and notifications

To start with, in comparison with Google Talk for Android, I still feel the tabbing system is a little too clunky and could be reduced further down getting rid of the ‘Events’ tab moving events to Android’s on board notifications system (à la Google Talk). I’m not so sure a history of events is needed on a phone, or can be instead inserted into the person’s chat (scrolling back through the past to see chat history and events).

My info

I’ve relabelled the ‘My Info’ tab to ‘Skype Credit’, putting the user’s status across all the tab screens. This hands the user more control over their immediate information. It also doesn’t really fit in well with Skype Credit information and feels as if it’s just been added on. Ability to edit profile information is located in the menu button.

Menu system

One of my major irks with the current design, is the menu displayed when the menu button is activated. This menu changes from tab to tab and wrests control from the user, forcing the user to search for basic information such as the ability to log out. When I first used it and attempted to log out, the menu button on the ‘Contacts’ tab (the main home tab for most people) revealed only the ability to add people and manage groups. Not even task killers sign out of Skype. It took a bit of guess work to realise the menus might be different on each tab with ‘sign out’ hidden in ‘My Info’.

There also seems to be repetition in some of the menu items and the features included on the front facing UI, such as selecting contacts from your phone’s contact list on the ‘Contacts’ tab.

I love it. It’s big, it’s bold and very stylish. One thing I would say is that it’s sad to loose the trending topics box on the front page. A further weeny point: the cursor doesn’t quite change properly when hovered over one of the trending Tweeters along the bottom of the page, so it’s not entirely clear you can click on them.

But here’s to the Twitter team! Well done :)

Correction

I’ve just found out it changed a week or so ago. It seems I’ve been twittering using my mobile a little more than I thought.

The first one and my favourite has to be Gmail Motion

I stumbled on this one by accident on the home page. It aims to improve the user experience of browsing and emailing using Gmail through unique kinestetic gestures (a bit like Microsoft Kinect) suggesting that the complicated array of physical gestures are ‘easy to learn’, ‘improves productivity by 20%’ and ‘increases physical activity’. Featuring a mad eyed actor demoing the various gestures, it’s easy to spot the joke in this one.

In addition, Google have helpfully provided two more videos to back up the above launch video with ‘experts’ who have supposedly worked on this new technology.

As ever, production quality is perfect and almost believable – hence the clear comical cues.

The second one on this list is YouTube’s 1911 filter

A super tool to make any YouTube video look ‘old’. Very easy to use and applicable to any video on the site, though admittedly I’ve experienced some slowness in playbacks. Well done to them for this feat of engineering – pretty impressive! Would be great to see this stay permanently. Perhaps in the future everyone can create several different effects on whatever video they’re watching, editing each others’ videos as and when they watch them?

In third is the Autocompleter job

A great way to advertise Google’s hiring activity, it made me chuckle. Being a formally trained touch typist I really felt for this guy, purporting to be the guy behind Google Instant and Google Autocomplete, typing everything to complete people’s searches. Yeah right! Again, spot the mad glare in this guy’s eyes that I love so much.

Google search Helvetica and Comic Sans

They often say the best way to p*ss off a designer is to use Comic Sans in your work. And that’s just what Google has done. When either ‘Helvetica’ (designers’ favourite font) or ‘Comic Sans’ is entered into the search, the UI displayed and the results are all displayed in Comic Sans. They just stopped short of changing their logo!

Maps has a fantastic addition

Extending the joke is the Google Maps team with the inclusion of  animals in various parts of the world (usually in the wrong place) pictured on maps. E.g. A narwhal in the river Thames off Millbank, a dragon in a forest in Germany, and a shark in the IJmeer lake in East Amsterdam! Many of these animals also existing in a 3D version, and it’s great to see Google showing off its acquisition of SketchUp, its amazing and free! 3D rendering software.

Google Adwords Blimp ads

With Google reportedly loosing the social graph war on social search and the lucrative ad market from that, it seems likely that this may be Google next niche to conquer. Airships hovering over sporting events!

And last but in no way least! Google’s Body Browser

Complete with Cow, Google Body Browser is a whole new way of looking at a 3D rendering of a cow, its blood vesels and veins, organs and muscles. Google again showing off SketchUp, nice one! Something tells me though that this particular April Fools is here to stay, it’s not so much of a joke, more a prototype for an actual learning tool. I love it!

Thank you very much Google! Keep the tradition alive :)

EDIT
Just found Google’s Chromercise