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More on iTunes 9's shoddy UI.

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:04:14 -0500

I had spent quite a bit of time reviewing and writing about the latest release of iTunes because the app is a complete nightmare that contains a great store. (My hope being that the app will adopt the store design in a forthcoming release). I didn’t finish the longer blog post because, as with most things I start writing, I felt interest in the topic waned before I had time to finish crafting my article. Am I wrong? Should I revisit my iTunes 9 article?

For now, back to the task at hand, in my March 4 tumbl I presented the iTunes 9 volume slider and wrote: ”So sick of looking at this every day. This is not a UI element, it’s an incomplete sketch.” Rohan commented, “Can you say some more please?”

Now, to be fair, the iTunes 9 volume slider functions as a volume slider is expected to function. That said, it is the best example among the awkwardly shaded UI elements in iTunes 9 and other haphazard UI decisions.

Because of the debossed style of of the already small speaker icons, and the gradient on the resulting recessed area, the speakers and soundwaves clumsily appear to be improperly rendered. This would be solved by eliminating the gradient, but it would be made all the better by forgoing the deboss altogether. It’s unnecessary visual noise on a UI element this small.

Worse than this is the lightly shaded recessed part of the slider track. Why is this some brighter “metal” than the surrounding area of the iTunes header? If anything, you’d think the designer’s inclination would be to go darker but, for simplicity sake, it should be the same colour as the header. As it is, it looks like someone forgot to colour in the slider, particularly with the dark grey surrounding area (the deboss shadow). This in particular is what my previous “incomplete sketch” comment was referring too.

At any rate, I could not possibly find this UI element any more visually offensive given the otherwise simple colour scheme. It really is a marvellous job of buggering up something where there wasn’t much room to do wrong.

Who thought this was a good idea and have they been punched in...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:49:00 -0500

Who thought this was a good idea and have they been punched in the face yet?

Now with 100% more annoyance! More annoying than Flash banners! More annoying than survey popups! It’s Snap Shots!

So sick of looking at this every day. This is not a UI element,...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:25:46 -0500

So sick of looking at this every day. This is not a UI element, it’s an incomplete sketch.

Hipsterrunoff can cry all they want to about this poster, but I...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:44:22 -0500

Hipsterrunoff can cry all they want to about this poster, but I say hells yeah to Memory Tapes and Best Coast being on tap.

"Since losing your read position is a form of minor data loss."

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:35:08 -0500

"Since losing your read position is a form of minor data loss.":

Sweating the small stuff with Instapaper. ~via @gruber

Googling douchebag sure is a rewarding experience. “No...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:28:07 -0500

Googling douchebag sure is a rewarding experience.

“No matter what time it is, you can rest assured that John Mayer is somewhere out there being a douchebag.” ~via nerdapproved.com

Get your clock here.

I have no idea what’s going on here, but I can’t...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:22:52 -0500

I have no idea what’s going on here, but I can’t look away.

Well, of course, I’m in Canada, why would I be able to...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:02:01 -0500

Well, of course, I’m in Canada, why would I be able to purchase a song from a Canadian artist. Once again music licensing wins over consumer convenience. Congrats, idiots, on continuing to run the industry into the ground.

Citibank is so not fabulis.

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:15:00 -0500

Citibank is so not fabulis.:

This is insane. Citibank arbitrarily blocks a customer’s bank account because of their blog content.

In a bit of strange and disturbing news, fabulis discovered today that someone(s) at Citibank had decided arbitrarily to block fabulis’ bank account due to what was described to us on the phone as “objectionable content” on our blog …

UPDATE: More insanity!

You know you’re in trouble when feature bloat starts to...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:35:39 -0500

You know you’re in trouble when feature bloat starts to undermine use of your core product OR damnit, there’s sauce all over my hands now and all I got out of it was these little foreskinned cheese doodles.

Love this breast cancer beat down from Y&R Dubai.

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:42:42 -0500

Love this breast cancer beat down from Y&R Dubai.

The story behind the 2010 Olympic Medals from vbs.tv. Besides...

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:12:14 -0500

The story behind the 2010 Olympic Medals from vbs.tv. Besides the landscape reference and art (no two medals are the same, yet they’re all connected), the medals were made from recycled tech waste.

~via @AdamSchwabe

Stupid simple genius for the kitchen.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:44:58 -0500

Stupid simple genius for the kitchen.

Really?!? This is something I’d expect to see Slingblade...

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:37:03 -0500

Really?!? This is something I’d expect to see Slingblade wearing. Maybe. Profoundly bizarre. And cute!

Blog commenting now updated to prevent comment abuse.

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:31:52 -0500

Blog commenting now updated to prevent comment abuse.

How to cold call...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:05:19 -0500

Just had an extremely awkward conversation with smooth talking Zina.

“Hi Lee, this is Zina. May I speak with the owner of the company.”

“I’m sorry, what’s this regarding?”

“This is Zina. Do you do websites?”

“Um…yes.”

“Are you the owner of the company?”

“What is it that you’re calling about?”

“I’m calling about cold calling.”

“So you want to cold call on our behalf?”

“Yes. Are you the owner of the company? You see, I’m trying to establish that I’m speaking with the right person.”

“Yeah. Thanks for calling and best of luck.”

Why on earth would we ever hire somebody to cold call who can’t understand three simple cold calling basics:

1. If you’re going to call a company, do the basic amount of research (like, visit their website) so you’re not asking stupid innocuous questions like “Do you do websites?”

2. Sure, you want to speak to the decision maker regarding your product or service, but where does “owner” come into play? How presumptuous.

3. What an awkward fucking conversation. Goodbye.

Restaurants and the Web. Welcome to suck.

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:49:15 -0500

A conversation dwineman has with himself every month or so:

Me: (tries to visit a local restaurant’s website via iPhone)
Restaurant website: I require Flash. Fuck off.
Me: I just want to know how late you’re open.
Website: Nope.
Me: But I’m on my phone. Don’t you have a little “HTML Version” link up in the corner or something?
Website: I’m ignoring you.
Me: What if I’m on my phone because I’m out, looking for a place to eat? Didn’t that ever occur to you?
Website: Fuck entirely off.
Me: (gives up, switches to computer)
Website: Oh! Hi! What can I help you with today?
Me: What are your —
Website: Hang on, I’m loading the music.
Me: Really.
Website: You’ll love it. It’s “Girl from Ipanema” arranged for steel drum and keytar.
Me: No, you don’t have to —
Website: Loading…
Me: All I want is —
Website: I SAID DOT DOT DOT.
Me: (drums fingers on desk)
Website: There we go. Isn’t that nice? It’s… what’s the word. Ethnicky.
Me: What are your hours?
Website: Take a look at our menu! It’s a PDF of a screenshot of a scan of a Word document printed on a dishtowel. With fonts!
Me: I don’t care. What are your hours?
Website: Don’t worry, the menu loads in a new window so the music won’t stop. Can I show you some broken images?
Me: What. Are. Your. Hou. Rs.
Website: I… I don’t know.
Me: (goes to Denny’s)

MTV logo development process revealed. “The logo redesign...

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:07:26 -0500

MTV logo development process revealed. “The logo redesign was a complete re-drawing of the original “M” logo, with subtle but notable changes like an open “V”…” Mmhmm. Sure it was.

A sad state of affairs...

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:40:00 -0500

Besides the completely obtuse segment of kids in hot tubs, doing body shots, and stripping on CTV’s primetime Olympic coverage, there’s this frightening situation happening on the intarwebs:

Here’s the deal: ReadWriteWeb has written an article discussing Facebook and AOL, along with Google’s Buzz, etc., which is now a top ranking search result when you Google the term Facebook login. Some people are clicking the ReadWriteWeb Google search result, getting this article, and doing their damndest to login to Facebook while at ReadWriteWeb.com. Now, I get intarnet newbies not using their browser URL bar or bookmarks. Really, I’m fine with that. You have to start somewhere and I wouldn’t judge that. But the offensively illiterate gutter trash that are commenting on this article make me weep for mankind.

I was super convinced this was all a great big joke but most of these people had the wherewithal (that’s definitely not the right word) to use the comment form and Facebook connect to connect to their actual Facebook account prior to leaving their comment.

And now a selection of the article comments sorted by escalating punctuation (other sort options I considered: deeploarble spelking; UNNECESSARY EMPHASIS; saddest attempt at communicating):

“I truly love Faceback.I am able to talk to more then one person.”

“The new facebook sucks> NOW LET ME IN.”

“Seams like all of the comets i read agree with me you people messed up royal i was enjoying facebook now i am thinking of getting rid of it all”

“wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz”

“IAM NEW AT FACEBOOK NOW WITH CHANGES IAM LOSSSSSSSSST!”

“I WANT THE OLD FAFEBOOK BACK THIS SHIT IS WACK!!!!!”

“please give me back the old facebook login this is crazy……………..”

“I just want to log in to Facebook - what with the red color and all? LOLLLOLOL!!!!!111”

“I LOVE FACE BOOK CONNECTED W/PEOPLE I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL W/ESPECIALY ONE CLOSE FRIEND.KNOW LET ME LOG IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“All I want to do is log in, this sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1”

“EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY NOT JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!1111”

Impressive as it may seem, that’s just a selection of the 50 most current comments. What other gems might we find in the remaining 1079?

Design the platform, not the end product.

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:58:57 -0500

Impermanence is the rule not the exception with design. There is no design artefact (ie, a website, brochure, product, etc) that offers a solution as business needs, customer behaviour, etc, evolve.

Design needs to be the foundation for researching, understanding and collaborating on iterations. Immersion and iteration is how you address impermanence, not an all or nothing attitude about design artefacts.

So design the platform (research methods, collaboration methods, technical methods) that supports iteration instead of focusing on building artefacts based on a snapshot perpsective of a business and their consumer.