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Node.js Overview

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:08:42 +0000

Simon Willison is genuinely excited:

That technology is Ryan Dahl’s Node. It’s the most exciting new project I’ve come across in quite a while.

At first glance, Node looks like yet another take on the idea of server-side JavaScript, but it’s a lot more interesting than that. It builds on JavaScript’s excellent support for event-based programming and uses it to create something that truly plays to the strengths of the language.

Basic Maths WordPress Theme

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:32:25 +0000

Beautiful new theme from Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole. It’s full-featured and comes equipped with everything you’d expect in a theme (although probably don’t need). The best part, which I’ll undoubtably be stealing for some future project, is the presentation of the archives in the right-most sidebar.

Real Relationships Drive Contribution

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:00:02 +0000

The idea is that different types of online social relationships drive different levels of engagement. Whereas getting a lot of people to watch your youtube videos will encourage you to post more, you’re likely to get even a greater productivity boost if a lot of your actual friends favorite or comment on your videos.

Luke Wroblewski leaves it with a guess on why this is often the case:

So actual friends (real relationships) are more likely to encourage contribution. Perhaps we can blame this on the 0-1-2 effect which states that the probability of joining an activity when two friends have done it is significantly more than twice the probability of doing it when only one has done so.

Reconsidering Arial

Ephram Zerb — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:45:32 +0000

Jonathan Nicol does a nice job of visually demonstrating how Helvetica and Arial render at smaller sizes on a PC. My typical font stack has been Helvetica, followed by Arial; however, seeing Helvetica rendered at small sizes on a PC makes me reconsider that habit. The conclusion for me can be generalized as: use “Arial, Helvetica” for body copy and “Helvetica, Arial” for headings.

Clever Hans and Usability Tests

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:36:17 +0000

Lukas Mathis retells a nice story that illustrates a hidden bias that can pollute a usability test.

Clever Hans, his horse, quickly learned to do a number of complex math calculations – the horse could add, subtract, multiply, divide, do date calculations, and even understand German. It would tap out the answers to any math question with its foot. It could even read and give the correct answers to questions written on a piece of paper.

Of course, when psychologist Oskar Pfungst investigated the horse, he quickly figured out what was happening. The horse didn’t understand German, couldn’t calculate, and couldn’t read. Instead, it responded to involuntary cues in the body language of Wilhelm von Osten, who, in turn, solved the math problems for his horse. Von Osten was completely unaware that he was providing these cues to the horse.

Craigslist Make-over

Ephram Zerb — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:13:40 +0000

Faux-redesigning Craigslist is like a right of passage for some designers. This time it’s officially sanctioned by a print publication, who put some top notch designers to the task. Of course, Khoi Vinh and team (Anh Dang + Paul Lau) just killed it, because they are part one of the best digital design teams in the industry (New York Times Digital). On the other side of the spectrum is Pentagram, who only mustered a gimmick, which is frustratingly appropriate in light of their web design pedigree.

Patterns in Social Design

Ephram Zerb — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:45:41 +0000

A good design pattern library acts as a dictionary, allowing one to be more expressive by making abstract concepts concrete. When you can ground concepts you can use them to build something greater than the sum of its parts. You can’t solve an algebra problem without the basic language of arithmetic, in the same way you can’t design a social system without a basic language of interactions that compose it. This wiki collection of social design patterns serves as a companion site for an upcoming O’Reilly book from Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone – and judging by the wiki, it should be a good one.

Memory is More Important Than Actuality

Ephram Zerb — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:58:18 +0000

Don Norman reminds us how humans evaluate and interpret experiences before, during and after they’ve occurred:

Rosy projection: “the tendency for people to anticipate events as more favorable and positive than they describe the experience at the time of its occurrence”;

Dampening: “the tendency for people to minimize the favorability or pleasure of events they are currently experiencing”;

Rosy Retrospection: the tendency for people to remember and recollect events they experience more fondly and positively than they evaluated them to be at the time of their occurrence.”

The insights are directly applicable to design:

Design for memory. Exploit it. What is the most important part of an experience? Psychologists emphasize what they call the primacy and recency effects, with recency being the most important. In other words, what is most important? The ending. What is next most important? The start. So make sure the beginning and the end are wonderful… Accent the positive and it will overwhelm the memory for the negative.

Jon Hicks on Icons for Interaction

Ephram Zerb — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:33:41 +0000

Here you will find a PDF of Jon Hick’s talk on icon design. The presentation reminded me of a great survey (Comparative Test of Public Symbols) and introduced me to a new resource (Iconfinder). Select slides featured below.

Anatomy of a Feature

Ephram Zerb — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 19:45:49 +0000

If you’ve ever implemented or designed a feature, this account of the process will likely resonate with you. What on the surface looks like a simple tweak easily snowballs into an avalanche of repercussions. My favorite quip comes in the end:

Applying the 80/20 rule means you will get feature requests from the 20.