paper & pencil

Gonna Tag You Up In My Love

Madonna jumped on the tagging bandwagon with her Madonna Tagging site. The tagging project's goal is to create the largest Madonna photo archive.

(via Wired Blogs)

Making a New Screw

An article in Forbes, The Taming of the Screw, describes how Kenneth LeVey of Illinois Tool Works came up with a better screw that won't crack concrete and will grip tight in plastic.

On the Sigia-l discussion list, Ziya explains how this relates to standards:

For millennia the form factor of the screw hasn't changed substantially. A slave to standards looks at that, shrugs his shoulders and continues to use it without questioning the basic premises. Everybody else is using the same screws, right? Safety in numbers, best practices, etc.

An innovator looks at the same set of facts and realizes that "the standards" are suboptimal, as users are wasting a lot of money and effort to compensate for the inadequacies of the screw as we know it, in terms of compression, binding, assembly workflow, etc.

For decades the manufacturing process hasn't changed and to overcome the stated shortcomings of the "standard" screw an entirely new method has to be invented.

Somebody takes risks.

After the invention, a lot of the compensatory steps that used to be necessary for proper binding are no longer needed. The (new) form changes the function. Users are served better. Quality is improved. Savings ensue.

This doesn't happen because of blind adherence to standards/best practices, but because someone studies the problem in context and deals with specifics as opposed to common denominator generalities, however old and established they may happen to be. It happens because someone is not satisfied that so many others think the best that can be done is the standards/best practices of the moment. It happens because someone actually thinks through the process and questions all kinds of received wisdom. It happens because someone isn't satisfied with what's expedient, but goes after what's optimal for a given context.

the infinite library

The feature story in the May issue of Technology Review, "The Infinite Library", looks at Google's plans to digitize millions of library books and the impact that may have on libraries, copyright, publishing industry, and the potential privitization of knowledge.

Whatever happens, transforming millions more books into bits is sure to change the habits of library patrons. What, then, will become of libraries themselves? Once the knowledge now trapped on the printed page moves onto the Web, where people can retrieve it from their homes, offices, and dorm rooms, ­libraries could turn into lonely caverns inhabited mainly by ­preservationists. Checking out a library book could become as anachronistic as using a pay phone, visiting a travel agent to book a flight, or sending a handwritten letter by post.

Surprisingly, however, most backers of library digitization expect exactly the opposite effect. They point out that libraries in the United States are gaining users, despite the advent of the Web, and that libraries are being constructed or renovated at an unprecedented rate (architect Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Central Library, for example, is the new jewel of that city’s downtown). And they predict that 21st-century citizens will head to their local libraries in even greater numbers, whether to use their free Internet terminals, consult reference specialists, or find physical copies of copyrighted books. (Under the Google model, only snippets from these books will be viewable on the Web, unless their authors and publishers agree otherwise.) And considering that the flood of new digital material will make the job of classifying, cata­loguing, and guiding readers to the right texts even more demanding, librarians could become busier than ever.

The IA of TV

A recent NY Times article, Watching TV Makes You Smarter, walks through a brief history of TV show to demonstrate the cognitive workout we are getting with shows like "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing".

But another kind of televised intelligence is on the rise. Think of the cognitive benefits conventionally ascribed to reading: attention, patience, retention, the parsing of narrative threads. Over the last half-century, programming on TV has increased the demands it places on precisely these mental faculties. This growing complexity involves three primary elements: multiple threading, flashing arrows and social networks.

The author's "Sleeper Curve" theory isn't just based on the good shows, but the bad ones too...

What you see when you make these head-to-head comparisons is that a rising tide of complexity has been lifting programming at the bottom of the quality spectrum and at the top. ''The Sopranos'' is several times more demanding of its audiences than ''Hill Street'' was, and ''Joe Millionaire'' has made comparable advances over ''Battle of the Network Stars.'' This is the ultimate test of the Sleeper Curve theory: even the junk has improved.

Explanations for the "Sleeper Curve"...

Of course, the entertainment industry isn't increasing the cognitive complexity of its products for charitable reasons. The Sleeper Curve exists because there's money to be made by making culture smarter. The economics of television syndication and DVD sales mean that there's a tremendous financial pressure to make programs that can be watched multiple times, revealing new nuances and shadings on the third viewing. Meanwhile, the Web has created a forum for annotation and commentary that allows more complicated shows to prosper, thanks to the fan sites where each episode of shows like ''Lost'' or ''Alias'' is dissected with an intensity usually reserved for Talmud scholars. Finally, interactive games have trained a new generation of media consumers to probe complex environments and to think on their feet, and that gamer audience has now come to expect the same challenges from their television shows. In the end, the Sleeper Curve tells us something about the human mind. It may be drawn toward the sensational where content is concerned -- sex does sell, after all. But the mind also likes to be challenged; there's real pleasure to be found in solving puzzles, detecting patterns or unpacking a complex narrative system.

And the impact on kids and adults...

Kids and grown-ups each can learn from their increasingly shared obsessions. Too often we imagine the blurring of kid and grown-up cultures as a series of violations: the 9-year-olds who have to have nipple broaches explained to them thanks to Janet Jackson; the middle-aged guy who can't wait to get home to his Xbox. But this demographic blur has a commendable side that we don't acknowledge enough. The kids are forced to think like grown-ups: analyzing complex social networks, managing resources, tracking subtle narrative intertwinings, recognizing long-term patterns. The grown-ups, in turn, get to learn from the kids: decoding each new technological wave, parsing the interfaces and discovering the intellectual rewards of play. Parents should see this as an opportunity, not a crisis. Smart culture is no longer something you force your kids to ingest, like green vegetables. It's something you share.

 

norman's defense of cheating

Don Norman posted a very thought-provoking essay on education, In Defense of Cheating, on the jnd.org site.

In schools we over-emphasize individual work. Perhaps the only place where individual, isolated work is encouraged and cooperative work punished is in the school systems. In examinations, not only is it prohibited to copy other's work or to ask others for help, but it usually isn't possible to refer to books or, oh my goodness, the Internet. Yet these are all important skills in the world outside of schools. Students should be taught how to work effectively in teams, how to use reference works, how to use the Internet effectively, and especially how to find the significant from the non-significant, to distinguish quality from nonsense.

Consider this bit on mastery grading ...

In other words, the goal is not to rank order the students by some arbitrary mark of performance measure, which is what grades do, but rather to determine a student's true attributes and skills and to record them accurately. Some students are scholars, others leaders. Some are team players, others not. Some are generalists, others specialists. The goal is accurate characterization. We do not need value judgments among the attributes: society needs all of them.

... and modular learning:

Suppose the grading system measured level of accomplishment. Suppose the school curriculum were divided into modules of useful knowledge or skills, each relatively small (a week or two of class, perhaps even a few hours). Each student is mentored, and the module is marked as complete only when the student masters it. In other words, grade on a "Pass" basis. But only use "Pass" — do not use a "Fail" or "Not-Pass" grade. A student either knows the stuff or doesn't, and in the latter case, the student is encouraged to keep learning.

Some modules should be mandatory: some optional. Schools could require that students complete the mandatory modules as well as a specified number of others, perhaps requiring a distribution across disciplines. The major structure of a curriculum need not change. The major point of mastery grading is that evaluation specifies the modules completed rather than today's attempt at measuring the quality of accomplishment of a fixed-length course. A student transcript would list the set of modules completed satisfactorily.

Admission to higher grades or to universities — or even employment — could be based upon what students know. Schools or employers would not look at grade point averages, rather they would judge students by their particular skills, by their ability to work in teams, and by the set of modules that they have mastered.

10 things Milton Glaser has learned

In early 2002, Milton Glaser published 10 Things I Have Learned, from a presentation he gave at the AIGA Voice Conference. IT is his respone to 9/11 and contains a summary of the bits and pieces he knows about the practice of design.

Some of my favorites:

Number 1 YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
It took me a long time to learn this rule because at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism inferred that you didn’t necessarily have to like the people that you worked for, and should maintain an arms length relationship to them. As a result, I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Some years ago I realised that I was deluded. In looking back, I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. Affection, trust and sharing some common ground is the only way good work can be achieved. Otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

Number 3 SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
This is a subtext of number one. There was in the sixties an old geezer named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible.

Number 5 LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless. But it sounds great because it contains within it a paradox that is resistant to understanding. But it simply does not obtain when you think about the visual of the history of the world. If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’

Number 8 DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
Everyone always talks about confidence and believing in what you do. I remember once going to a class in Kundalini yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a more practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins.

implicit associations

malcolm gladwell references the Implicit Association Test web site in his new book Blink.

The IAT was originally developed as a device for exploring the unconscious roots of thinking and feeling. This web site has been constructed for a different purpose -- to offer the IAT to interested individuals as a tool to gain greater awareness about their own unconscious preferences and beliefs.

The tests are really interesting and kind of fun to take.

champagne chairs

annual design within reach champagne chair contest winners have been posted. you can also check out a sampling of the entries.

"I drink champagne when I win, to celebrate … and I drink champagne when I lose, to console myself."

—Napoleon Bonaparte

design the vote

AIGA, IDSA, UPA and the University of Illinois at Chicago came together to create the non-profit Design for Democracy.

We approach election issues with a unique perspective: as designers. To do that, we have specialists in graphic design, industrial design, interface design, web site development, anthropology, and usability, all of whom understand the human factors involved in voting.

They are featured in the exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Hitsory:

Vote: The Machinery of Democracy explores how ballots and voting systems have evolved over the years as a response to political, social, and technological change, transforming the ways in which Americans vote.

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)