January: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

photo by dgermony

This is the first edition of my "monthly reflections" commitment, made as part of my 2009 New Year's resolutions.

I'll start with the "bad and the ugly", and finish off with what inspired me this month to leave a nice aftertaste. After all, why focus on the negative? Just learn from it and move on.

Not so cool

1. Sites that are slow to load. Yes yes, everyone hates slow connections. I get it. But what I am referring to are sites that make me sit through a huge flash (or otherwise) download without offering anything to chew on.
   
2. Unnecessary repetitive tasks. For example, copying & pasting my contacts into the Hallmark address book. Most e-mail and social applications provide APIs to import the contacts data.
3. When a new version of a site or product completely changes the location of navigation items. The upgrade of Microsoft Office to 2007 version always makes me feel stupid... looking for the basic buttons.
   
4. Being lost on a site. I like to always know which section of a website I am in, and if there is anything that requires my attention.
5. Colgate packaging. I hear it costs more to make the shiny package than the content inside. What?!! What am I paying for?
   

Now that the yackie stuff is out of the way, let's move on to...

Inspiring Stuff

1. Re-design of MyFonts.com website. I love this site, but I've always wondered when they would catch up with the times. The new version is great because it let's me interact with the fonts via sliders and dynamically updating controls, while still feeling familiar and friendly. One feature I really like is the loading of more search results as you scroll, so you don't have to use the pagination. Go ahead, give it a try by searching for script fonts.
   
   
   
   
   
2. It must be my recent trip to Switzerland, but I am fascinated with the clean and minimalistic Swiss and Scandinavian design. Here is a screenshot of Georg Jensen's website. Beautiful!
   
   
   
   
3. Designing for the flow is not a new concept, but it has recently been re-enforced for me after reading an article on AListApart (which I read daily) talking about exactly that. So I started to pay attention to which product designs put me "in the flow", and Wii Fit game is one of them. It makes me feel engaged, capable and gives me a sense of constant improvement. Facebook is another. I know we all love and rave about Facebook, but here I am referring specifically to its flow aspect of interaction and design.
   
   
   
   
4. Agile for design. Again, my faithful friend AListApart has provided food for inspiration and learning. Wikipedia has a thorough write up on agile methodology, but ALA has demonstrated the way it can be applied to design as well. Thank you ALA :)
5. Last, but not least, I am hugely moved by Hunter Valley wineries. Right now at the top of my wish list is a 3 day get-away in a cozy cottage, and grape picking!
   
   

Congratulations, my brave reader, you have gotten to the end of this month's sharing session :) I welcome you to participate in the conversation. After all, this is the era of social web.