I was blown away by the short clip below. These eco-environments were created by ecositema urbano architects. They are made from commercially available products. They are portable and assembled using only screws. These “trees” are also revenue generating; excess energy from solar panels is sold back utility companies for a healthy profit. Who says money doesn’t grow on trees?
Posts Tagged ‘design’
Urban Air Trees
Monday, July 6th, 2009
HTML5 and the death of XHTML
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
There’s been conversation of late regarding the announcement that the XHTML2 group is expected to stop work at the end of 2009. The plan is to increase resources on HTML5. I’ve been hearing buzz about HTML5 for some time now, but had never really delved into it much due to the time commitments required by my job, where it’s more important that stuff works on current and legacy browsers. I also knew that browsers had not yet begun implementing support for HTML5. The announcement got me reading a little more on the holiday weekend. I found the article HTML 5: Could it kill Flash and Silverlight? It’s a great article that brings up the argument that some companies like Microsoft may implement support for the standard because it could potentially undermine their business.
In my experience in providing a web based solution to small businesses, they are likely to adopt a browser that will work for them. We’ve done it in the past. Many are not even aware that there are other options. The impact of upgrading a browser in smaller organizations, which still make up the long tail of American business, is not that significant. The same level of red tape that exists at corporations with big IT departments are unlikely to exists. If I tell a customer they can obtain offline access to an application and still browse the web like they do, they are likely to switch browsers because the value proposition is such that they see something to gain.
I propose that lack of support by Microsoft and other companies for the standard would only undermine their business. People will find alternatives. Companies will provide alternatives. Quickbooks Online does not work on Macs because it requires Active X. The solution … try to find something else. Finding the solution that does what I need is far simpler in a world where the Internet makes the distribution of solutions extremely cost effective; the competitive landscape will continue to increase for the foreseeable future as the world is transformed through new ideas. HTML5 looks to be a significant and exciting step in that process.
Experience Review: The New NYTimes Video Section
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
The new video section of the NYTimes online is yet another example of exemplary design by the news organization. The updated design leverages a gray background to more clearly focus the user’s attention to the video.
This new design works much better than the previous one which employed a white background. While the white background is fine for reading text, the gray does a much better with the video. The Times has long used the gray background for picture galleries, but it’s nice to finally see them extend this to the video page.
The reason this approach works so well is because of how computer screens work. “Paper white” is a pigment, meaning it absorbs light. Monitors actually emit light making the color white much brighter than that of paper. You wouldn’t want to read in a dark room, but watching movies works well.
By removing all that white from it’s page, the NYTimes has made the experience of watching their videos all the more enjoyable
Another nice touch is how the text in the area in which you hover changes to a brighter color to facilitate making a choice.
Kudos once again to the excellent design team at the NYTimes.
Experience Review: Jet Blue Survey
Monday, October 13th, 2008
After a recent flight, Jet Blue sent me a survey. There were several problems with the survey. For one, it was poorly written. It asked me a series of questions and asked me to provide responses on the old sliding scale, from “less than expected” to “better than expected.”
Given that I am a relatively active traveler who flies Jet Blue extensively, most of my answers are naturally of the middle of the road, “as expected,” variety. I have come to expect a quality experience from them, as compared to say Spirit Air.
The final straw in the proverbial hat was the overall length of the survey. While I am often willing to provide my feedback to a vendor (understanding how important it is to my own business), there is only so much time I will dedicate to this task. The survey was extremely long. It dynamically updated the questions based on my responses, and the page continued to grow in what felt like an exponential manner. This was the survey that felt like it just kept growing and growing and growing.
While I clicked on the link in the email with the best of intentions of providing feedback to what I feel is a superior airline company, the experience was so horrendous that the survey began to be more of an intrusion than was worth my time. In addition to all this, there was not even an offer for some basic, menial coupon, with some insane restrictions, that I would never use to help lube the process.
Lessons to consider: Be conscious of who you target for surveys. Ask relevant questions that demonstrate some basic consideration of the usage patterns of the sample population. Be brief and respectful of that participants time. Provide some incentive to reward the participants for their time and feedback.
Oh yeah, crazy amount of javascript code in surveys to enable the dynamic display of questions … provably a bad idea. The company fueling the survey, Market Metrix.
Bill Gates, “What an absolute mess.”
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
“An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant” is an interesting post at seattlepi.com. It contains an email sent by Gates in January of 2003 after attempting to locate and install Movie Maker. It’s interesting read; Gates go on about the quality, more specifically the lack thereof, of the user experience. Given my recent disappointment with trying to install the WorldWide Telescope, I find it interesting even Bill Gates himself has problems using the products his company produces.
New Rule: Never deliver something I can’t use.
Experience Review: WorldWide Telescope … Disappointment
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
Daaang it Microsoft! I want to like you. I anticipated the launch of the WorldWide Telescope. I thought to myself, “now there’s something cool they are doing.” And then, I get this …
Now, I am running a MacBook Pro with 256 MB of NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. I am trying to run this out of a virtual image of Windows Server 2003. 3d Graphics and a plug-in whose installation I just endured? Are you kidding me?
I had forgotten the joys of getting geeked out on figuring out what contrived interaction Microsoft had chosen to perform something in the OS. Once upon a time, I found pride in “roughing it,” on my way to some invisible merit badge. Microsoft, please make it easier … Vista no … Allow me to see what cool things you’ve made. I want to see them. Can you help me?
2-Oh Graphics
Friday, May 16th, 2008
iheartNewYork Design has a very nice, easy to follow tutorial for creating the Aqua images commonly associated with Mac OS. Look at what I made Ma!
No … No … the Planet will not be getting too web 2-Oh-ish. One more thing, you’ll need Photoshop
We’re Back!
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
It’s been a while, but we’re back. We’ll start nice and easy with a couple of posts here and there, just to get the ol’ writing legs back under us. There’s been a lot of good things happening, so I thought this the ideal time to start capturing some of these experiences once again.
Upcoming on the calendar, look for a review of the NYC AIGA’s Smart/Models: Business Principles for Design Principals.
If you are looking for Once Upon A Time in Austin: my experience(s) at SXSW Interactive, it has been archived. It will remain accessible under the links section in the sidebar.
Also, look for additional updates to our design in the coming months.
