I wanted to share five paragraphs of customer support conversation I’ve had with the rest of the team (two other guys). As I’ve IMed with one of the guys few minutes ago, I automatically went for the IM window. But first thing that stopped me was I remembered that sometimes the IM does not send longer messages. So I am thinking: “OK, there has to be some better way.”
Then it clicked: “Oh, wait, this is the sort of thing we have Basecamp account for!” And that led me to realizing one obvious disadvantage of abstract software. Continue reading
For my czech readers Tomáš Baťa needs no introduction, for the foreigners here: He is czech version of Henry Ford, for shoe industry, and more morally grounded one.
Nice people in Tomas Bata University Library, Audioknihy.net and Tomas Bata Foundation with the financial support of Tomas Bata University in Zlin has produced free audiobook. Profesionally read by Alfred Strejček in czech version and by Josef Guruncz in the english.
Download the czech or english version of the audiobook (MP3, 770 MB).
Researchers have identified over 18 visual cues wired into our brains and the list keeps growing. These cues range from the orientation of lines, thickness of lines and blinking, to the density of visual objects to motion, velocity and so on. The cues are illustrated below.
The truth about the greatest commercial of all time – Think Different – is that the intended audience was Apple itself. Jobs took over a demoralized company on the precipice of bankruptcy, and reminded them them that they were special, and, that Jobs was special. It was the beginning of a new chapter.
“Designed in California” should absolutely be seen in the same light. This is a commercial for Apple on the occasion of a new chapter; we just get to see it.
As Jared Spool notes, when teams are designing and building for themselves, they consistently improve the tasks that they do frequently but ignore the critical-but-not-frequent tasks.
He then proceeds to give specific examples. Good reminder.
Nice insight into how Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger get smarter.
We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot. But that’s not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don’t grab the right ideas or don’t know what to do with them.
My hack: I listen to audio books and podcasts if the interesting info is there. Reading is second best for me.
Trouble with this “sucking all the knowledge” scenario is that there is more that you can handle, plus you need time to digest even the little piece of it you manage to suck.
So, you need to be a curator. And that’s the tricky bit. And to use Steve Jobs words:
You know, ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing. I mean, Picasso had a saying, he said: Good artists copy, great artists steal.
We forget that physical objects are also just specific embodiments – or presentations – of their content and function. A paperback book and an ebook file are two embodiments of the text they each contain; the ebook isn’t descended from the paperback. They’re siblings, from different media spheres, one of which happens to have been invented more recently.
The biggest intellectual stumbling-block we’re facing is the fallacy that just because physical embodiments came first, they’re also somehow canonical.
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That’s what [Jony] Ive is talking about, I think. He’s not saying that skeuomorphic or embellished design is “bad” in any absolute sense, but rather that it’s false. It’s obviously false on the visual level, but the issue runs much deeper: it’s false because it implies that you can generalise experiences from different realms of interaction. It’s making promises that not only inevitably fail to deliver in some way, but also actually compromise the uniqueness, and quality, and essence of what you’re creating.
