paper & pencil

great hackers

newest essay from Paul Graham - Great Hackers

In programming, as in many fields, the hard part isn't solving problems, but deciding what problems to solve. Imagination is hard to measure, but in practice it dominates the kind of productivity that's measured in lines of code.

variation among programmers is huge:

Ordinary programmers write code to pay the bills. Great hackers think of it as something they do for fun, and which they're delighted to find people will pay them for.

so what do they want from their jobs?

good tools, it's a social decision as well as techical one:

But a programming language isn't just a format. A programming language is a medium of expression.

control

Great hackers also generally insist on using open source software. Not just because it's better, but because it gives them more control. Good hackers insist on control. This is part of what makes them good hackers: when something's broken, they need to fix it. You want them to feel this way about the software they're writing for you. You shouldn't be surprised when they feel the same way about the operating system.

good environment

If companies want hackers to be productive, they should look at what they do at home. At home, hackers can arrange things themselves so they can get the most done. And when they work at home, hackers don't work in noisy, open spaces; they work rooms with doors. They work in cosy, neighborhoody places with people around and somewhere to walk when they need to mull something over, instead of in glass boxes set in acres of parking lots. They have a sofa they can take a nap on when they feel tired, instead of sitting in a coma at their desk, pretending to work. There's no crew of people with vacuum cleaners that roars through every evening during the prime hacking hours. There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises.

interesting work

…a good manager can sometimes redefine a problem as a more interesting one. Steve Jobs seems to be particularly good at this, in part simply by having high standards. There were a lot of small, inexpensive computers before the Mac. He redefined the problem as: make one that's beautiful. And that probably drove the developers harder than any carrot or stick could.

managers with good taste :)

There's no way around it: you can't manage a process intended to produce beautiful things without knowing what beautiful is. American cars are ugly because American car companies are run by people with bad taste.

Many people in this country think of taste as something elusive, or even frivolous. It is neither. To drive design, a manager must be the most demanding user of a company's products. And if you have really good taste, you can, as Steve Jobs does, make satisfying you the kind of problem that good people like to work on.

What VCs should be looking for is the next Apple, or the next Google.

I think Bill Gates knows this. What worries him about Google is not the power of their brand, but the fact that they have better hackers.

what makes a great hacker?

The best hackers tend to be smart, of course, but that's true in a lot of fields. Is there some quality that's unique to hackers? I asked some friends, and the number one thing they mentioned was curiosity. I'd always supposed that all smart people were curious; that curiosity was simply the first derivative of knowledge. But apparently hackers are particularly curious, especially about how things work. That makes sense, because programs are in effect giant descriptions of how things work.

(via sporter)

A subway map of cancer pathways

Cancer arises from the stepwise accumulation of genetic changes that confer upon an incipient neoplastic cell the properties of unlimited, self-sufficient growth and resistance to normal homeostatic regulatory mechanisms. Advances in human genetics and molecular and cellular biology have identified a collection of cell phenotypes — the main destinations in the subway map below — that are required for malignant transformation1. Specific molecular pathways (subway lines) are responsible for programming these behaviours. Although the connections between cancer-cell wiring and function remain incompletely explored and specified — hence the many lines under construction — the broad outlines of the molecular circuitry of the cancer cell can now be sketched. Further advances in understanding these pathways and their interconnections will accelerate the development of molecularly targeted therapies that promise to change the practice of oncology.

(via informationdesign.org)

branding & user experience

2 Digital Web Magazine articles on branding and user experience design

Brand Value and the User Experience

according to author Kelly Goto companies need to focus on creating user experiences that are "Comfortable, Intuitive, Consistent, and Trustworthy"

some of the author's tips include:

Comfort

Keep surprise to a minimum. When linking outside of your site, give a warning and use a pop-up if possible. When downloading a PDF or other media, make it clear how large the file is and give an estimated download time.

Intuitive

Think like a first-time visitor—understand specifically who they are and what they are looking for. Provide an easy starting point from which to begin.

Consistency

Maintain brand standards whenever possible. Invest in the creation of a branding style guide for your company that translates to your online presence.

Trust

Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Provide multiple ways (1-800 number, email, live chat) to connect with your company.

Brand Experience and the Web

author Dirk Knemeyer:

Ultimately, we are the winners here. As consumers, we are being treated to products and services that increasingly address our unique needs and desires. And, in the process, we are becoming more selective. We are less tolerant of products and services that are not reflective of our preferences. Thanks to free and easy access to information, we are much less likely to make purchases we would not be satisfied with. More than ever we expect experiences to work the way we want them to. Of course, these factors have direct implications on Web design, as well, but they represent the very fabric of why Brand Experience is so important.

at the end of the article Dirk explains the opportunity we have as web professionals:

As Web professionals we have a real advantage over many other people who are engaged in the Brand Experience space: we are the experts of the shiniest new toy, which also happens to have the greatest upside. Many people with more “traditional” backgrounds, like print design or marketing or general business, do not have a comfort level with the Web. Very few people understand it. Some are even afraid of it. And while there is a lot written about the “how to” nuts-and-bolts of building for the Web, there is precious little scholarship on the strategy of the Web, or how it can be leveraged for the greatest possible business gain. Therefore, not only do many people not yet grasp the implications of Brand Experience, they also have real gaps in how they understand the most progressive and powerful new tool in the toolbox. And whereas best practices and approaches in marketing are well-defined, and can easily be learned by anyone with the time and inclination, that is not the case with the new and uncertain terrain of the Web. Indeed, the Web provides a fertile opportunity for innovation and definition. If we understand the Web, and understand Brand Experience, we can propel our careers forward and help our employers and clients become much more profitable in the process.

gotham

A 9/11 Cornerstone, Chiseled With a New York Accent

The typeface, Gotham, deliberately evokes the blocky, no-nonsense, unselfconscious architectural lettering that dominated the streetscape from the 1930's through the 1960's in building names, neon signs, hand-lettered advertisements and lithographed posters.

(via dave heller on AIGA Experience Design list)

worst jobs in science

recent article in Popular Science details the worst jobs in science. The icons used to classify job types are fantastic.

(via Info-D-Cafe)

UXnet

User Experience Network (UXnet) recently formed:

UXnet is dedicated to exploring opportunities for cooperation and collaboration among UX-related organizations and individuals.

yeah!!

Interview with Ben Shneiderman

some highlights from the sigchi.nl interview with Ben Shneiderman (pdf)

When it comes to user interfaces, providing user control over font size, button size, or contrast, benefits all users. The lesson is not small buttons or big buttons. The lesson is user control.

Creativity is the next challenge. We need to support individual creativity to enable more people to be more creative. Enabling people to create something and make it public, even by simple software tools such as blogs and Wiki’s, generates a huge response. Other important issues will be empathy, trust, responsibility and privacy. I start from the human needs – if you can support empathy and trust, you will be able to create a successful technology.

Creating well-organized information-abundant visual displays is important. I think the computer is a visual machine. We need to look more at pointing, zooming, dragging and selecting. I think we are only at the beginning of understanding how to implement direct manipulation. We need to scale up from a thousand to a million items on the screen. We need to use human perceptual skills more effectively.

Focus first on human needs. Think about how we want to change the world, what people need in their lives and from that derive an agenda. That is a very important strategy, which I call generative theories. We have theories in HCI that are descriptive or predictive (like Fitts’Law), however, we need generative theories that will enable us to invent new technologies.

Professionals in HCI need to participate in these policy issues. If law enforcement agencies are going to use face recognition or other technologies, HCI professionals have to be involved. These are not easy issues, there is no perfect solution and no easy answers, but I do think it is important for HCI professionals to contribute their skills.

real-world standards compliance

Dave Hyatt and his Safari team aim for what they call "real-world standards compliance":

What that means is that where possible we attempt to be fully compatible with the W3C standards, but we also want to support the real-world standards, i.e., extensions that for better or worse have become de facto standards.

he writes in response to concerns over some of the HTML extenstions Apple has made to support Safari RSS and Dashboard. basically they need to be compatible with WinIE extensions that are used by already deployed systems. other possible solutions ran counter to the goals Apple had in mind for Dashboard (easy to develop widgets).

(via drew)

css hacks

for long-term css hack management the css gurus are recommending a separate style sheet for the hacks so that it can be easily removed in the future and you keep your primary style sheet hack-free.

Tantek Çelik explains the Mid Pass Filter for Internet Explorer 5.x for Windows

Douglas Bowman explains the IE5/Mac Band Pass Filter for Internet Explorer 5.x for Macintosh.

real reason for web standards

Andrei Herasimchuk: The real reason you should care about web standards

If our business and political leaders don’t apply pressure to Microsoft, no one should be surprised at the outcome looming on the horizon. Even more important, if we — collectively known as the developers, coders, designers and content creators of the world — don’t do our part to educate those business and political leaders, we are all to blame in the end result.

Andrei lists out the items he feels the W3C should be doing before focusing on "next generation" enhancements.

• Flatten the current specifications&hellip needs to be a single, updated document for users to refer to for critical information.
• Determine what group of specs should be considered critical to this first phase of web development.
• Create two sets of documentation. There needs to be specs for developers and creators of user agents, and then there should be specs for designers and web developers.
• Refocus the current W3C home page. &hellip It’s time the W3C sharpened the focus to how the rest of the world should view standards, not how the group wants to operate as a bureaucratic entity.

Veerle continues with more suggestions for the W3C