Parting with Plastics
As I spent my morning routine scanning through my Google Reader updates, I came across an article (via TMN) that caught my attention. Entitled “Riding India’s Plastic Highway“, my interests in the environment & India enticed me to click.
In the piece, the author highlights a new use for plastics in our roadways. Specifically, Bangalore’s. It’s an interesting & very creative solution to the current glut of plastic production, and worse, disposal. As you likely know, traditional plastics do not degrade.
“What is not being considered is the degradation of plastic materials into smaller particles overtime. What happens when particulate plastic matter ends up in our water supply and is ingested by animals and human beings.” — dana
There is a single comment to this article that brings up entirely valid points such as the fact that plastics do not degrade and by using them in this scenario we might cause more harm than good. But it does divert the disposal of trashed plastics from the oceans to roads, likely providing some slowed environmental impact. Perhaps it’s a smarter way to dispose of the plastics we’ve already produced while ALSO minimizing our daily use (and production) of polymer based products / containers.
happy reading & happy earth day!
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04/22/2010 iPhone as a tool
No, this isn’t some weird post about the iPhone being a literal swiss army knife (although it kinda is in some way). With all the chatter about how awesome the iPhone is for gaming, we continually overlook some of the more sensational applications the iPhone provides.
Well, today I found yet another. SquareUp is an application and a device that attaches to your iPhone’s proprietary port, transforming it into a Credit Card reader. Swipe cards and pay for stuff. This isn’t exactly new stuff (the Treo of yesteryear was configured in much the same way), but it’s yet another great indication that the portable device is truly a revolutionary and ubiquitous use device.
Kickstarter. We eat our own dog food
Yup. That’s right. It’s pretty simply put. Today I launched our first project aimed at making improvements to the site itself. I’m personally excited about this as the focus is on project stats and we’re bringing in Nicholas Felton to do some heavy lifting.
I hope you find Kickstarter valuable enough to help make it better by backing this project!
Life Long Work Week
I recently had the pleasure of meeting the fine folks that make up the Chicago-based art collaborative that dub themselves The Post Family. One member, Chad Kouri, along with co-conspirator Jesse Brown have been spending their workdays in front of a window.
Specifically, working as transparently as any artists or craftsman could. Literally in front of a window. Together they’ve transformed the storefront of Renegade Handmade into their personal workspace. I have yet to stop by, but am hoping to make a personal visit this Friday before things close out.
To say the least it’s a very inspiring process, and the result is even more interesting to me personally. Each piece of work they produce during the week will ultimately go on sale at the upcoming Renegade Crafts Fair (September 12th & 13th, 2009), and throughout the week they’re inviting interested parties to participate and engage as they work. Participatory design? Crowdsourcing? Group Collaboration? Yeah, sounds like it’s pretty much all that.
For those who know me, you know where my current interests rest. Working in an open, collaborative, and involved manner with your audience is the only way to create something truly storytelling, interesting, and personal. Nice work to both Chad & Jesse on this ambitious effort, and I look forward to the next evolution.
Life in Perpetual Beta
The site & the developing documentary seem like an interesting find.
Melissa Pierce, producer & filmmaker behind the documentary has been in conversation with a band of very interesting creatives, primarily in and around Chicago. From Jim Coudal to Carlo Segura, Jason Fried to David Armano, Gary Vaynerchuk and the guys at Skinny Corp. The common theme, though it drifts, centers around the connection between creativity & authenticity.
With that said, go check out Life in Perpetual Beta.
Death to mouse
The famed & revered Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini was recently quoted in an article by the Financial Times as saying “In many ways, our continued reliance on the computer mouse reduces us to little more than cavemen, running around pointing at symbols and ‘grunting’ with each click”
In many ways this is already true. Many portables use either a nipple or a trackpad, although I’m sure this isn’t exactly what he was getting at.And of course let’s not forget touch screen displays such as the iPhone’s, which provides a unique and highly “gestured” mode of navigating from screen to screen.
It’s quite an interesting point, as with most things digital, we’ve designed devices or interfaces with referential analogs such as the pen or pencil and typewriter. Devices like the Cintiq, though brilliant in many ways, is simply a tablet PC or even worse, a pad of paper.
5-Second Test: A web app
While trying to catch up on all things design, I found a great tool via Robert Hoekman’s recent post at the IXDA site. It’s called 5 second test, a product who’s sole intent is to help facilitate and manage Jarod Spool’s 5-second test model for usability testing.
How it works: Creating a test is simple
The product is tight, simple and seems to be an incredibly valuable asset for quick, off the cuff insight & feedback from a user community. To start I’ll walk through how the product works from the perspective of the test moderator or manager. To start, you only need two simple things. One screenshot for which you’d like to gain some feedback and insight, and an email address. Here’s how it works:
- On the homepage your prompted to enter your email address & upload an image for testing
- Submit this information and you’re immediately provided with a short, unique URL for the test. This is displayed on the next screen and emailed as well.
- Email each participant with the instructions they should follow and include the link.
Essentially it’s that easy.
Now for the end user. It’s also quite simple.
How it works: Conducting a test is as easy as email
The other side of the product of course is to display the single screen to the test participants and collect their input after the screen is presented. This too is simple and straightforward.Here’s how the test participants would interact with the product:
- The participant would click the link from the email you provided (hopefully reading your thorough instructions first)
- The user is sent to a landing page, and given some instruction about how the test is conducted
- The user clicks “Start Test” and is presented with provided screenshot.
- After Five (5) second the display dissolves to reveal five form field to input the items they remembered based on the instructions you provided
- You’re done
I’m curious to see how the User Experience community and testing community make use of this product as I could see it becoming a fairly strong asset being that it’s so stripped down and simple. Obviously for more complex or intricate insight, a more traditional approach should be taken, but for quick, minute details such as accuracy of “Call to Action” buttons or copy, this could certainly be invaluable. We’ll see how the product evolves in featureset and experience, but thus far, it hits the nail on the head.
Oh, and to protect the client, the site enables the test creator to disable/delete the test upon compilation of results. Obviously useful.
The act of setting goals
Sometimes the simple act of writting a goal down on paper is all you need to ensure it’s accomplished. Pin it up near your monitor, in your wallent, as a reminder on your calendar, etc, and you will likely increase the chances of its acheivment.
I happened upon a very brief post today by Ryan Graves of ActionsTalk.com. The post highlights the acheivement of his goal to reach 100 visitors in a single day (certainly more than read this teeny site on a single day at this point).
Interestingly enough, as simple as all this sounds, when looking at it on a personal scale, it can be frustrating and difficult. It’s one thing to help someone else set goals, and an different story when doing it for yourself.
So in an effort to keep myself honest, on track, and perhaps set myself up for a little failure, I’m going to commit myself to publishing a post a week. I certainly have enough topics to write about, and over time since re-launching Source ID, I’ve become increasingly comfortable putting my own voice and opinion out there. We’ll see where it takes me.
So, goal #1: Set goals
Safety in Social Networks
A common, and interesting occurrence that tends to happen on social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, etc., is the reporting of natural disaster events. Most pertinent to me, Earthquakes.
I was reminded of this tonight when perusing my Twitter stream and came across a flurry of posts around 9pm Pacific all centered on the topic of a scale 4 earthquake in the East Bay of San Francisco. First of all I knew nothing of the event. It’s not the biggest we’ve had out here by any stretch, but certainly strong enough to feel, and apparently enough to cause a ruckus on Twitter by those located around me.
And of course this isn’t the first time. It happens often, if not daily.
Now perhaps the title of this post is slightly exagerated. Could I find safety in a social network? Can Twitter save my life? Will Facebook or Myspace warn me of an impending flood? I suppose not, but the underlining idea here is the distribution of information is more than just a game. Social networking is not solely about random chit-chat and blather. It’s a concept that allows for human scale interaction and communication through the use of connected technology. It’s no different at it’s core than picking up the phone, walking to your neighbors yard, or chatting with your neighbor on an international flight.
Perhaps a slightly more apt title would be reporting through the social graph.
The search for voice
So as you can tell, I’ve done very little in way of posting on this here blog. See, I’m a relative newbie to the world of blogging, and as such never quite know what to write, or more over, what I want this blog to be about.
After sitting down from time to time and digging through some of my favorite blogs / authors first few posts I always am reminded that blogging and the act of finding ones voice is typically an evolutionary process. Particularly for those new to the act of writing and blogging. So, with that said, I appologize upfront from the likely random scattering of topics that may ensue.
Perhaps you can consider this my first post, or simply my proclomation that this is one big experiment. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I am sure to find out over time. Hopefully with the help of readers / subscribers through comments. What topics, opinions, observations do you find interesting (so far none it would seem)
So here’s to the great experiment. Let’s see where it goes.
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