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Writing
Opinion: The Beginning of The Archivist
A couple years ago, my friend irhetoric and I were chatting about Twitter, as we were at the end of building Flotzam, a social networking aggregator tool that collects and visualizes the ephemeral information floating around in the social sphere. In some ways, this ephemerality is beautiful: all this information swirls around us like leaves that appear and decay over time. On the other hand, if this information is valuable, capturing and keeping it could be useful.
Opinion: The Evolution of The Archivist
In this post, part II of a series, I’ll take a step back and explain how we concepted and executed The Archivist Web (alpha)and talk about what came before the design and code. Check it out on MIX Online
Opinion: Bass-ackwards
Back in March I published a little Opinion piece regarding building websites and applications backwards: looking at a solution and applying a problem to it. Check it out and leave a comment. Which comes first, the problem or the solution? IMHO, obviously the problem. So why do we so often develop technology solutions and then [...]
Opinion: A Circuitous Route
Question: “If you don’t have the 5 years’ experience requested by the job description, how do you break into the industry?” At industry conferences like MIX10, one of the most important things you can do is attend outside events—the ones hosted ad hoc or set up from people outside “the inner circle.” So often, these [...]
Opinion: "Cheers to saying no"
I published a new Opinion today, which stemmed from a conversation Tami and I had about working with one potential client. I’ve been in this situation may times and it totally stinks. You’d like to get the work, you want to be nice, but you *know* that client is a total pain in the ass [...]
Opinion: “Design For Tables”
Okay, the title of this Opinion (Design for Tables) is purposfully a little misleading. When I’m talking of tables in this Opinion piece, written for visitmix.com, I’m talking of desiging for actual tables, or, more specifically, Microsoft Surface and other tablet/touch devices. Honestly, I to think I’d talk about desinging with actual HTML <tables> is [...]
Opinion: “Transparency Yields Better Results”
I had a really hard time writing this Opinion piece for visitmix.com, and was truly thankful to have a great copy-editor hack it down a bit for me. Originally I was speaking about the fact that the recently released application, The Archivist, has been getting use in areas of academia and law, fields we hadn’t considered [...]
Opinion: Who gives a “gosh-darn”?
I published a new Opinion on MIX Online today, dealing with community-generated content, and some of the unforeseen pitfalls of dealing with it. Broadcasting an audience’s live, unfiltered feedback is compelling and useful, but it also presents some challenges, most of which revolve around profanity, search results, and spam. But what about less obvious instances [...]
Opinion: Away from the screen
Getting away from our screens and actually meeting people is critical to learning and growing. We all have different personalities and quirks, and it can be hard to “put yourself out there.” Still, it seems so worth it to extend your hand and take the risk of making a connection, learning something new … growing. [...]
Opinion: A Beginning Glossary for the Web Designer or Developer
I thought it would be beneficial to provide a glossary of the terms and acronyms I gloss over my previous post. Additionally, I’m hoping you, fair reader, will leave comments with additional terms and acronyms you commonly use, and would benefit the community. Read The Article
Opinion: Styleguides for web vs. events
If you’ve ever created a styleguide that has to work for both web and print, you probably know how challenging it can be—print and web are very different mediums, with very different restrictions. When you create a styleguide that works for both, you do double duty. Read The Article
Opinion: From Web, to Real World
I published a new Opinion today, talking quickly about how the Web content and ideas are migrating from the screen to the real world. These days, though, I find “online” creeping back into the print and physical world. Fray.com, for example, has started a print version of its long-standing website, making the content available in [...]
Opinion: “Getting Beyond The Simple Stream”
Today I published a new Opinion on MIX Online regarding how to get the most out of Twitter, the hot micro-blogging service, and extend its reach for you and your business. Check it out here: http://visitmix.com/Opinions/Getting-Beyond-the-Simple-Stream For me, there are two particularly magical things about Twitter: The open API and the immediacy of use/feedback/interaction. Twitter’s [...]
A Two-Image CSS3 Framework for Thunderkick
As a web designer/developer for years, I’ve been working in xHTML and CSS2 to build sites for clients and myself. Currently, though, there’s a movement – as many of you know – to develop and approve the working standard of HTML5 and CSS3. I’ve been working a bit with both of these emerging standards and [...]
New Opinion: I <3 hMedia
One of the nice things about hMedia is that it spans multiple media, specifically audio, video, and images, which is what people produce and consume on the web. This fact makes it attractive and we think it has good chances for widespread adoption. One of the nice aspects of hMedia is how it plays well [...]
New Opinion: How We Work
I recently posted a new Opinion on MIX Online entitled “How We Work (and sometimes skip some steps)”. It’s basically a short essay outlining in the broadest terms the process we go through here at Microsoft when creating a new website. Oftentimes creative assets, whether they be visual comps or individual assets, are “handed over [...]
MIX Online: Designing the pdc09 Experience
I’ve posted a new Opinion to MIX Online. This one speaks to the design considerations when designing out the PDC09 experience. http://visitmix.com/Opinions/Designing-the-pdc09-Experience Throughout the lead-up and through the conference itself, I’ll try and provide insights into “the sausage-making” of an event like this, specifically geared toward the designers PDC09 Since 1991, the Professional Developers Conference [...]
New opinion: card sorting
During the initial exercise in working out the I.A. for the PDC09 site, we used the process of “card sorting.” It had been a while since I had gone through that exercise, and remembered how very useful it can be.
Opinion: Capturing the Ineffible
I got in touch with a friend recently, kinda randomly. He’s an incredible motion-graphics designer, and I’ve always admired his skills. He recently wowed me with not only a beautiful short-reel, but some User Interface work he’d been doing for mobile devices. I was surprised: our worlds were converging in a way I hadn’t anticipated. [...]
Designing With Microformats
With the recent re-boot of MIX Online, one of the new features was the publishing of comprehensive articles centered around a particular subject. For launch, the first subject we tackled was the technology of microformats. We were fortunate to get John Allsopp to write the first article, basically introducing the concept of Microformats. John Allsopp [...]
The New Iteration
The New Iteration: How XAML Transforms the Collaboration Between Developers and Designers in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) My buddy Karsten Januszewski wrote this great article about designer/developer workflow using WPF. I designed the graphics and site for him. Enjoy. The New Iteration: How XAML Transforms the Collaboration Between Developers and Designers in Windows Presentation Foundation [...]
hospice
I watch the rise and fall of her chest the pulse in her neck to see when I should cry and push the button. When we’ll turn off the hum of the oxygen When we’ll leave this room too cold and too hot get up from couches put our newspapers away and retire other distractions [...]
Return To Florida
You have a smile like sunshine bright and warm and everyday even through hell of machines and radiation and chemicals which made your skin ache and muscles turn to pumice. And I’ll miss it your smile like I’d miss the sun or air and breathing or the moment of waking where we move from sleepland [...]
Return
It’s cold back here in Seattle. Back from the Florida heat and parking garages. It’s a different cold than the hospital we inhabited. You can smell smoke from the chimnys and fireplaces, grass wet with rain and too long from a week’s neglect. We returned to mail and a messy sink; cats needing attention; [...]