Web Versus Movie Experiences
Last week it occurred to me what’s missing from a lot of modern digital design and interactive marketing on the Web, and it began with a simple question that crept into my head while sourcing imagery for a post I wrote recently exploring some of the challenges facing digital teams:
Why is it many of us are able to vividly recall movies we’ve seen 5, 10, even 15 years ago (or longer), sometimes recalling very specific scenes, characters, and visual details -yet we cannot remember that award-winning, cutting-edge Web site we saw on thefwa.com last week?
“Time Is Not Important, Only Life” -don’t ask me how I remember this quote from Luc Besson’s visual masterpiece The Fifth Element -but I do, along with a lot of other memorable scenes involving the heroic Corbin Dallas (played by Bruce Willis) and the evil Zorg (played by Gary Oldman).
Weird, but when you actually think about it, time actually is very important when recalling events and experiences in our mind -and is precisely the reason why so many Web experiences fall short and are easily forgettable.
Here’s my theory: movies typically demand on average 90+ minutes of our full undivided attention whereas Web sites (and I am referring to sites chiefly in the entertainment and info-tainment genre) perhaps only require 5 to 10 minutes (at best) of our attention to fully experience.
What this says to me is that the majority of the Web sites out there in this genre, Web sites supposedly designed under the premise of heightened interactivity and user experience to engage and entertain people, are in fact more time-disposable than we digital creators would care to acknowledge.
The Web is a hyper-transient medium characterized by speed and immediacy of information delivery. By contrast movies are linear, passive experiences demanding much more of our time.
The other factor working against Web-based experiences are the sometimes varied and distracting environments in which we view sites. Interactions with Web based content can occur anywhere Internet access is available —and lately, this seems to be everywhere. For many of us this can be noisy public spaces including the office, the kitchen —even while commuting on public transit. Sometimes these environments are not the most conducive to immersive experiences. Moreover, how compelling can a Web site experience be on a 320 x 240 pixel screen with the sound of a bus engine accelerating in the background?
Theatrical movies performances on the other hand are presented in controlled, purpose-built environments for the optimal experience. That is, a very large dark room, acoustically isolated with multi-channel surround sound, a very large screen, and a comfortable seat -and the popcorn and snacks don’t hurt either. This eliminates a lot of the unnecessary distraction working against our Web-based experiences.
Aside from the constraints of time and space, the movie industry is also much more established than the Web industry. To be fair, movie budgets can be enormous and well supported with diverse teams of pre and post production specialists: photographers, location scouts, art directors and set designers, lighting technicians, musical score and sound designers, script writing, special effects, editing, and the list goes on.
A typical [marketing] Web site on the other hand will only include a small handful of contributors: perhaps several Web developers, creatives/designers, a copywriter, project manager, technology supervisor, several senior managers, and 1 or 2 account service liaisons -that’s about it.
Even with all these challenges and differences, digital teams can still learn a great deal from how movies are made and the working strategies we can employ to genuinely improve the quality of the Web experiences we create.
If we can’t control where people view our sites, we can certainly take steps to control what people experience by thinking more about interactive storytelling and narrative design as a start.
Do You Speak jQuandary?
Not to be confused with the open-source JavaScript library jQuery or other popular Web development tools -jQuandary is a fictitious programming language an avoidable phenomenon representing a few of the challenges facing cross-disciplinary marketing teams and our clients moving forward with digital.
I absolutely love interactive marketing. I love the planning and design, the development process, and everything in between. I love the feeling of making brands come alive with sound and motion as engaging experiences; I love the thrill of learning something new and working it into a client project as an unexpected deliverable. Yet somehow the interactive projects we digital designers and developers lovingly slave over, pouring our hearts and souls into, at some point, become these colossally befuddling realms for many of our colleagues to wrap their warm arms of embrace around. Think of the comical scene in Back To The Future where Marty McFly meets Doc for the first time after traveling back in time to the year 1955 -this scenario illustrates perfectly what I’m about to explore.
Marketing Was Simple In 1955
In 2010, let’s be honest, things can get really complicated and bogged-down in technical detail on the Web. Interactive marketing campaigns typically begin with vexing and perhaps technically elusive questions like: How can we monetize Facebook APIs for our clients? -or bigger, loaded questions like: How can we leverage the interactive space to differentiate and create brand awareness for product ‘X’? -or the quintessential question of our time: Where do we begin?
These are likely some of the thought provoking questions floating around senior VP marketing strategy meetings of late -and I’m willing to bet there are plenty of seasoned advertising professionals out there scratching their heads wondering where exactly to start with our clients digital marketing initiatives. Moreover, how best to leverage interactive experiences and social media as defining characteristics of a successful product, brand, or service.
I believe the answer lies with people. Interdisciplinary marketing, design, and technology teams working closely and collaboratively to reach a common goal: mastery of the digital domain.
This I am afraid, has not yet occurred. Often, digital teams struggle to cohesively work together and communicate in a clear tone our non-digital colleagues can easily understand. Web marketing is undergoing rapid change where everyone seems compelled to get up to speed on technology ‘X’ or social media app ‘Y’. It’s as though we have become hypnotized to a certain extent by all this new-found technological titillation and have forgotten that people and teamwork are what drive innovation -people are what create success in digital -not gadgets and apps.
This is how I would define success in digital -or any field for that matter: success is the result of collaborative teamwork and strong relationships built on fostering trust, mutual respect, and open communication. Remove or impede any one of these three elements and you severely undermine the opportunities for [digital] success in my opinion.
Case in point: the endlessly monotonous debates(1) surrounding Flash support for the iPhone and iPad -arguments focused on technology ‘X’ or standard ‘Y’; Apple is doing ‘A’, Adobe is doing ‘B’; device ‘Z’ doesn’t support thing v2.0 blah blah blah, …and so on. C’mon, these kind of debates are healthy once in a while, but now it’s getting a little tedious. Maybe it’s just easier for a lot of designers and developers out there to contribute to the prevailing cynicism rather than finding creative ways to move forward.
For digital marketers though, it can be fascinating to sit back and watch these debates unfold. At the same time, we could acknowledge these conversations fuel a form of technological determinism that will continue to breed significant evolution into the way digital advertising agencies function. Of course, it’s also fun to watch Mad Men and visualize the good old days of advertising, but unfortunately agencies today have much more on their plate to think about if they want to remain competitive.
As the marketplace evolves and our individual lifestyles become ever more dependent upon digital devices and mobile applications, the process of nurturing successful interactive business and marketing campaigns becomes an increasingly complex model to visualize. Gone are the days of simply launching a brochure-style Web site with static hard-coded content only to be updated on a random, infrequent basis.
Today, digital marketing collateral exists as a dynamic platform for engaging in real-time conversation with people. Interactive experiences now define brands and their associated digital properties have the capacity to reach larger audiences -and with greater levels of sophistication and personalization like never before.
Buried deep beneath the Web’s mystifying façade of Joomla SEO extensions, ASPX server-side includes, and XML-driven AS3 FLV playback components (-do you really care what these things mean?) lie beautifully elegant solutions for competing brands looking for more robust consumer mind share. Yet at the same time, with this constantly evolving DNA driving much of the Web’s underlying structure, we must invariably contend with greater levels of difficulty and technological abstraction potentially undermining the viability of our marketing and executional strategies.
Are We On The Same Page?
Consider for a moment the typical interactive kick-off meeting or creative client pitch (hypothetically speaking) for Brand X Web site or campaign. On the client side, several self-appointed digital development experts, who could probably ramble off the pros/cons of every conceivable Web tool or technology from ASP to XML, critically evaluate look and feel concepts by voicing their concerns. “I have reservations over this homepage channel (dev pointing to Web mock-up on wall) -how do you expect this to work in jQuery with our proprietary CMS back-end tool?
Good question, but perhaps we can address legitimate technical concerns outside of the creative discovery meeting.
This common scenario illustrates the relative, dare I say, immaturity of our field. That is, the inclination of Web teams spearheading the creation of digital business assets to perhaps become somewhat preoccupied with the technical intricacies and back-end inner workings of a Web site or application rather than what people see and experience on the surface.
Not that I am diminishing the role or importance of standards-based development, it’s just from my perspective conversations in many interactive marketing meetings tend to become unnecessarily focused on technology, driven by “what’s not possible” in terms of constraints (e.g. browser caveats, OS/platform concerns) rather than by “what could be possible” from a creative, brand, and user experience perspective.
Maybe it would be helpful to acknowledge that on any given project every team member is potentially on a different page in terms of experience, expertise, and yes, technical concern -which do in fact represent important aspects of any given Web site or application.
Can You Hear Me Now?
Sometimes we all fail to take a step back and visualize the bigger picture on the digital projects we aspire to succeed and roll-out smoothly. Our example interactive kick off meeting mentioned above illustrates one of the central problems working to covertly segregate digital from the more established and better understood business disciplines.
Digital teams face innumerable challenges -and no, I’m not talking about things like the absurd and tediously ongoing support of IE 6, but softer issues, like breaking many of the common stereotypes held by our non-digital colleagues.
Here are a couple doozies:
1) digital development teams are regarded merely as service providers -commodities relegated to simply executing ideas rather than actively participating in idea shaping campaign planning and strategy.
2) collaborating with digital development teams can be an intimidating and frustrating experience because of their tendency to focus on esoteric technical jargon (e.g. cryptic 3-letter acronyms describing various Web technologies).
The Way Forward
Yeah, I suppose digital-centric teams do involuntarily put up these road blocks and obstacles to projects (point #2 above) by elevating technical constraints as the drivers of digital marketing collateral above all else. It really doesn’t need to be this way, but interactive teams can have an absolute uncanny ability to intimidate the heck out of our non-technical colleagues when trying to articulate the finer points of Web application development (which may unfortunately lead us to point #1 above).
A few weeks ago when I was thinking about ideas for this post, I had an epiphany when one of my colleagues was showing me the latest jQuery UI toolsets. I tweeted jQuandary was this funny language many clients were speaking fluently; suggesting clients really didn’t understand a lot of the finer points surrounding digital executions; that they were the problem why interactive was taking so long to permeate the traditional pillars of advertising.
But now, after thinking about this for the past week, I wonder if we might be the problem. Quite possibly, this notion of the Web’s inherent technical ambiguity coupled with Web development teams as these gifted magicians capable of such magnificent and transient manipulations of the black box we know as the Internet.
This very well could be a real phenomenon impeding digital -or maybe it has more to do with digital teams taking greater steps to communicate more effectively with our non-digital counterparts.
Maybe code speaks louder than words, but many [of us] digital designers and developers are horribly inept at articulating to people -in a clear and non-technical tone -exactly what it is we do, how we do it, and why our clients should keep paying us to do it.
Digital campaigns should ideally begin with softer, less production oriented questions outside the domain of code and browser compliance worship. More critical questions need to surface sooner in the process. For example: How can we engage people in meaningful conversations and experiences online while enhancing the equity of brand ‘X’? -the technical elements will fall into place later.
Conclusions Sound Authoritative
I do not claim to have any magical silver bullet solutions for improving the synergy between technical and non-technical teams moving forward with digital.
I do think of jQuandary not as an unfamiliar programming language or misguided project on it’s sixth round of revisions, but as a very real place we all end up invariably at some point (sometimes quite frequently) during our working lives despite our very best efforts to orchestrate smooth work flows.
Sometimes the digital marketing projects we endeavor to succeed reach challenging obstacles or just simply don’t start off on a positive note. Perhaps important details are missing from overview or creative brief documents (if they exist at all) or time lines fall apart and it feels as though the people we’re supposedly collaborating with are from the planet Mars speaking an alien language.
In digital marketing -or any other field for that matter, the notion of jQuandary, that is, momentary (or god forbid, prolonged) states of complete disarray, confusion and miscommunication on any given project, are in fact unavoidable realities of collaborative team work. Much like the common cold, no project is immune to the symptoms -every company -every team -every person catches the bug sooner or later regardless of how rigorously we attempt to fortify our defenses.
(1) I have no absolutely criticism of Daniel Eran Dilger’s excellent post: An Adobe Flash developer on why the iPad can’t use Flash. Daniel proposes many constructive ideas for developers interested in potential solutions to the current lack of Adobe Flash support on the Apple iPad and other multi-touch devices. The ensuing debate in the comments section on the other hand, contains several heated arguments and a few scathing remarks.
Think Like An F1 Driver
One of my favourite aphorisms right now is this illuminating quote from the DesignNotes blog:
How to Drive in Life: It’s like F1 -the best drivers brake later and accelerate earlier.
I think this analogy speaks volumes about the current economic state of the business world and the type of mindset required to innovate with design solutions relevant to an increasingly competitive and digitally-oriented marketplace.
The ultra fast sport of Formula One racing can show us the way forward.
F1 is driven by constant technological change, human creativity, and a relentless pursuit of speed and efficiency through a blend of design, engineering, and team-oriented collaboration. It is a sport where the difference between 1st place and 3rd place can be as little as 9/100 of a second (90 milliseconds); where teams must invest heavily in [aerodynamic design] research and [engine] development to gain the strategic performance edge over the competition.
Innovation -or more precisely, a team’s and driver’s ability to manage changing circumstances, to a large extent determines the overall probability for success (i.e. the number of points scored, pole positions, and podium finishes). Changing track conditions (e.g. temperature, humidity) and mechanical variables can significantly impact engine dynamics and tire selection -ultimately determining the fuel and pit-stop strategy for any given grand prix. A driver’s (and team’s) competitive prowess is then essentially measured through adaptation ability and responsiveness to changing variables throughout the season. Contrary to popular belief, simply throwing money at the equation will not ensure success as demonstrated last season by the abrupt departure of Toyota and Honda from the sport.
“Toyota, like Honda, struggled to make the F1 operation work thanks to a failure to understand that racing teams think on their feet rather than rely on cumbersome corporate decision-making by a committee thousands of miles away.” -Maurice Hamilton, The Guardian UK Sport Blog
In a way, it’s the same scenario playing out in the advertising world right now. The recession is weeding out the slower, less-innovative agencies unable to manage the rapid technological changes occurring, which now fundamentally determine how we market products and services to people, from the more digital-savvy agencies.
Many traditional agencies are falling behind, struggling with the transition from print to digital; television to mobile; retail to e-commerce; direct mail to social media -and the list goes on. The global economic recession is further compounding this situation by creating an uneasy feeling of cynicism towards layoffs and job security. As a consequence, reactionary client solutions prevail as the notion of sticking one’s neck out becomes almost inconceivable.
Yet all agencies now invariably face the same tough challenges: declining client revenues, increasing competition, and how best to allocate existing resources -now and for future longevity. The old adage innovate or die has never become more relevant than now.
I believe the best agencies, like the best f1 teams and drivers, are the ones outpacing and accelerating quicker than the competition. Put another way, the most successful agencies focus on newer and innovative approaches (e.g. leveraging interactive technologies) more than traditional campaign approaches (e.g. the 30 second television spot or DM campaign) as their primary competitive strategy.
The least successful agencies, similar to the least successful f1 teams and drivers, are the ones doing the most braking and slowest acceleration where it counts on the track; the ones struggling to master the nuances of their technological set-up (or lack thereof); the agencies most likely to be clinging to the old models of business and marketing.
These agencies have perhaps not yet tapped into the lucrative mobile and social media channels, or capitalized on the power of digital user experience as a game-changing technique for solidifying brand awareness and product loyalty among consumers.
Developing a comprehensive interactive [digital] strategy has become the new business imperative in this recession and should be the mantra of all advertising agencies intent on maximizing their competitiveness.
Interactive marketing is surviving the recession and is poised to thrive in the near future due, in part, to the continued fragmentation occurring with traditional media consumption. The digital space, once the wild west of unproven start-ups and speculative business ventures has now matured into one of the most cost-effective and influential platforms for consumer engagement.
In fact, several weeks ago I was reminded of this outlook when stumbling upon an article written by the CEO of Nurun, Jacques-Herve Roubert, on Why Digital Agencies Are Indeed Ready to Lead. Jacques’ argument personally struck a chord with what I feel are significant changes going on in the advertising industry at present, pointing to the untapped potential of digital.
Our marketplace is revealing a paradigm shift towards digital. This evolution can be regarded as an opportunity or an obstacle; agencies can either embrace change or be relegated to the past. You can think like an f1 driver and quickly innovate or put the brakes on and get used to trailing the competition.
The Scourge Of Helvetica
Lady Gaga represents all the things Helvetica (-yes that damn ubiquitous typeface!) is not. She is provocative and curiously different among most contemporary musical artists. Love her or loath her (which is quite often the case), Lady Gaga’s glam rock influenced theatrical style has captivated audiences around the globe with comparisons to the likes of Madonna, Gwen Stefani, and Debbie Harry.
Her audacious persona reminds me of classic Marilyn Manson -or for some people, the musical equivalent to playing with a fingernails-across-chalkboard iPhone app at a hypersensitivity support group meeting. For this segment of the population who feel legitimately irritated by Gaga’s seemingly grotesque façade, watching her latest video Bad Romance must be a genuinely torturous experience. The video is full of provocative metaphors that conjure up images of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and abstract juxtapositions of cyberpunk symbolism -at least in my mind.
In examining Gaga’s weird rise to pop music fandom a little further, I notice this emerging dichotomy of opinions expressing varying levels of affection or hatred -which seem to occur almost simultaneously online. On YouTube for example, text comments for Bad Romance range in tone from (paraphrased): ”I like this” / “I dislike this” to “I find this intoxicating” / “I am disgusted” to the more outrageous “Is she a man?” / “Is she a woman?” (debate to which I am still somewhat on the fence -yet who really cares?). There are also countless video mashups and hundreds of passionate video responses created by obsessed fans and antagonistic critics, yet oddly no one seems to express much in the way of middle-ground critique.
Nevertheless, I wonder if this cavalcade of digital banter ends up being rather essential in the long run -a necessary evil perhaps, to forging any meaningful integrity for the artist in question. Lady Gaga in this case seems to have established this, albeit for the moment, by carving out a Madonna-esque niche among the music industry illuminati (if you subscribe to such theories). Gaga has differentiated herself as a distinct musical entertainer -a brand if you will, just like Pink and Rihanna before her. In any case, the prerequisite to achieving global cyber-notoriety seems to first be surviving the uncompassionate brutality of the fickle Internet horde.
Helvetica on the other hand, seems to be everyone’s cup of tea, seemingly blending in with all tastes and discernable contexts of communication.
I tend to think of Helvetica as the Michael Buble of typography -you could play his music at a wedding, retirement or cocktail party and probably get away without raising an eyebrow. You could try to dance to his recycled Sinatra inspired ballads but wouldn’t it just be more fun to play some Nine Inch Nails and see what happens?
It’s funny, but I think this analogy furnishes us with some interesting food for thought when considering typographic design considerations. When I’m sketching out ideas for a site for instance, if I know the client is über-conservative or unwilling to entertain any radically new look and feel concepts, I will propose the fairly common Frutiger, Futura, or Gill Sans for certain graphic elements and a common system font for navigation and body text.
If on the other hand I am given carte-blanche (who am I kidding -this never happens!) or greater amounts of creative latitude become available, then I will explore more fringe-oriented typefaces with potentially narrower aesthetic appeal (e.g. ITC Binary) to achieve a more compelling result.
This latter scenario has the capacity to yield a more tailored design feel with a greater overall chance for success in terms of speaking more directly to the intended target audience.
In contrast, employing Helvetica arguably dilutes the effectiveness of a design solution by trying to speak to everyone with a one-size-fits-all approach to communication. Moreover, it’s not thinking critically about your clients’ marketing and business objectives, but rather dumbing a concept or approach down to the lowest common denominator in the hope everyone will understand or identify with the messaging.
In the event Helvetica does somehow attempt to creep back into the design equation, I consider the image below as a testament to the monotonous degree with which Helvetica has been used. It is well-documented, this almost insidious implementation of Helvetica in everything from corporate logoforms, to packaging and print literature, to computer applications, retail signage and movie posters. Helvetica is the undisputed king of popular culture communication.
“[Helvetica]…It’s like going to McDonald’s instead of thinking about food -because it’s there; it’s on every street corner, so let’s eat crap because it’s on the corner.” -Erik Spiekermann
With so many beautiful sans-serif typeface alternatives available I find it strangely perverse why so many designers simply default back to Helvetica. Call it laziness, taking the path of least resistance, or simply not thinking critically about the semantic issues at hand.
I believe a great typeface, like Lady Gaga or Slipknot, should not be everyone’s cup of tea. A great typographic treatment and visual composition should strive to create varying degrees of friction with the viewer, convey a mood or feeling, infuse clarity and meaning into a piece of work. Invariably this means utilizing typefaces some people simply do not find aesthetically appealing.
A great typeface could essentially be characterized as one only appropriate for a specific set of circumstances while simultaneously wrong for other situations. The old adage you can’t please everyone is unfortunately true when it comes to effective typographic design and visual communication.
Helvetica usage on the other hand, in my mind, is tantamount to not really designing anything at all due to it’s inherent visual neutrality. Simply put, when everyone agrees on something and the tendency is to play it safe, the results are ultimately bland and boring.
Reality Television: May Contain Traces of Nuts
Reality television shows are quirky forms of entertainment when you think about it. They sometimes remind me of poorly designed Web sites with bad user experiences tailored to the lowest common denominator. Invariably they are full of stereotypes, visual clichés, and copy/paste smoke and mirror effects -used as a sort of crutch in place of good content and thoughtful design. Like the Jonas brothers, I wish many of these nutty shows would just fade away into obscurity.
Shows like Intervention and The Biggest Loser exist as rather unfortunate exploitations of the human condition -I find these programs difficult if not impossible to watch. While talent competitions like American Idol seem to make a farcical mockery of genuine music in favor of mass manufactured, formulaically-driven artistic development.
If John Lennon were alive today and just starting out on his musical career amidst the American Idol contestants, I wonder if he would be voted off by Simon Cowell or the viewing audience in favor someone like Clay Aiken or Adam Lambert? How would Thom Yorke of Radiohead do as a solo artist competing against the likes of Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood?
Last weekend I was reminded of these strange thoughts while drinking my coffee Saturday morning and commenting on an article that caught my eye, proclaiming the numerous marketing opportunities surrounding the lucrative reality television industry.
Reality television has become weird and surreal with a contrived feel I find quite palpable.
In the case of The Biggest Loser, the premise, for those who do not follow, centers on overweight contestants attempting to lose weight to fight for a cash prize; contestants always have the same goal: to lose the highest percentage of weight (or most weight) to become the Biggest Loser (Wikipedia).
This is can and should be a very inspirational transformation to witness. Contestants are establishing fundamentally positive changes in lifestyle through sensible diet and exercise regimes resulting in physiological changes which can beneficially last a lifetime. Yet the circumstances under which these changes are forcibly invoked on the show are in fact quite demeaning and unnecessarily intense at times.
Furthermore the very concept of The Biggest Loser is somewhat perverse -if you lose the most weight we’ll pay you money. I find this absolutely fascinating because I wonder how money ultimately factors into the contestants’ objective to win. Does the cash prize serve as the primary motivational factor fuelling the rapid weight loss? Or does the requisite yelling and screaming by the horde of narcissistic personal trainers within the context of what seems to be Body Mass Index boot-camp sound fun and exciting?
The Biggest Loser prize should not be about money but just lose weight and you’ll be healthier, live longer and have a better overall quality of life -this is the true payoff. Would people watch? -probably not.
On the other hand watching a reality show like Celebrity Rehab feels as though you’re stopping to ogle a freakish train-wreck or car accident on the freeway. Sometimes it’s absolutely disgusting and painful to witness. Yet we all do it and show producers know very well of this intrinsic human behaviour to dissect and ridicule the lives of others, so it gets broadcast.
Naturally all of this sexed-up, overly-sensationalized content feels a bit fabricated at times, orchestrated by unscrupulous producers interested only in provoking strong reactions to captivate the viewing audience, all under the guise of reality and so-called authenticity.
Watching adults struggling to overcome obesity and personal addictions can be an arduous experience and probably should not be televised for the voyeuristic viewing pleasure of an audience, but rather be presented in a more compassionate manner -if at all. Yet this likely will not happen because there’s really no compelling drama in compassionate, filtered situations -that would be too real.
Audiences want to see all the harsh and gritty detail -the pain and suffering -the blood and guts -the pathetic fall from grace. And it is for this reason, with each passing television season, reality programming steps further and further up the chain of graphic intensity and social crassness.
I predict by 2017 (roughly 7-8 years from now) we will start to see shows like The Running Man appear where contestants are literally killed off in the name of entertainment. Think American Gladiators meets UFC meets government approved capital punishment. Perhaps this will not be consumed through mainstream network channels (if television is still around in 2017), but through pirate Web casts and peer-to-peer networks originating from countries with lackadaisical Internet laws. It sounds absolutely preposterous now, but in several years time we could certainly progress to this point -a point of complete desensitization towards violence and aggressive behaviour in the name of entertainment.
In the meantime, I think overall, television has reached a point of grasping for the remains of an increasingly fragmented audience with formulaically-driven programs which have invariably been reduced to the lowest common denominator. The wide variety of half-baked reality-based television shows, in my mind, simply represents a deficiency of creative ideas and original thinking.
In The Absence Of Industrial Design
When I first stumbled upon the new Sony Ericsson Xperia Pureness smart phone the other day during my morning coffee (image above), I was immediately struck with a feeling of spontaneous revulsion. The Xperia, in my humble opinion, has achieved the pinnacle of industrial design failure -a chamfered black box. Brilliant! Where can I get one of these ergonomically-obtuse smart phones?
I wonder, was the concept and inspiration behind this product design the science fiction movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact (the monolith; also in 2001: A Space Odyssey) or the 2001 Pontiac Aztek? Either way, the Xperia lacks any type of meaningful communicative form. Its ugly plastic shell trimmed with abrasively styled chamfered edges reflect a kind of inhumanity and artificial synthetic-ness. Precisely why you would want to put this odd rectangular shaped object to your ear, from an ergonomic perspective, in public to answer a call is beyond me. The enclosure housing design seems like it would be better suited to a container of motor oil.
Nevertheless I imagine the designers, engineers and perhaps brand managers over at Sony Ericsson, at some point in time during the Xperia’s inception, reached consensus on a compelling rationale for bringing to market such a cold and quintessentially austere-looking hand-held mobile device. Remove the Sony Ericsson logo and this object could, at first glance, be mistaken for a battery recharger or an electronic stud finder found at your local hardware store (Ironically, many of the current digital stud finders convey a more aesthetically inviting form and user interface than the Xperia).
Perhaps my critique is a little too harsh. Then again, I think when a mass produced consumer product like the Xperia makes its way to market, and by none other than global electronics powerhouse Sony Ericsson, I begin to think industrial design has died a miserable death and is no longer regarded as an essential step in the modern product development process.
Chasing The Minimalist Apple Aesthetic
The Xperia represents an inconsistently executed trend in product design that I believe has been going on for a long time now, ever since the first Apple iPod was introduced back in 2001. The trend toward simplicity through characteristically rectilinear product forms stripped of all but the essential UI elements, perhaps with no more than 3-5 buttons and virtually no superficial or extraneous styling cues and a filleted corner here and there. Some people refer to this as minimalism or the Apple aesthetic. Still others may make references to the strict form follows function philosophy and design principles employed, most notably, by Braun products during the late 1960s and 70s. Regardless of the interpretations, Apple get it right with almost every product they release. But unfortunately nearly everyone else, Sony Ericsson included, get it dead wrong every time.
In the case of Sony Ericsson and the Xperia Pureness, it’s amazing to think with all their global resources including, supposedly, the best and brightest technologists, market researchers, creative design and engineering minds, they can only come up with a dull-looking rectangular black box for their latest smart phone creation. Surprisingly this is a product intended to appeal to the growing mass market for high-end mobile lifestyle devices -ergo stylish object of desire? I think not.
It seems virtually all large international manufacturers of consumer electronics and technology related products still appear to be chasing Apple’s somewhat elusive success. There are so many bad knock-off renditions of Apple products it’s enough to make you sick. Apple’s ability to create the objects many people desire (and many companies quest to emulate) are a glorious testament to the power of good design. Moreover, the insight of Steve Jobs’ prioritizing of design above all else, and the clever intuition of perhaps the greatest industrial designer of our time, Johnathan Ive, it seems no organization is able to replicate the mystique of Apple design. In Objectified, we get a rare glimpse into this world through the detail-oriented and slightly obsessive perfectionism of Ive, responsible for virtually all of Apple’s products since 1997.
Industrial Design Becomes The Design Of Interactions And Experiences
I believe if industrial design is to remain a relevant part of the product design and development process, we must first come to terms with the fact that physical objects themselves are becoming secondary to interactions and experiences. Unlike the physical realm, these attributes are somewhat harder to quantify without at least delving into the realm of cognitive psychology and human-centered design theory.
Technology itself has played a significant role in determining the look and feel of a great many products available to us today. Advances in microprocessor miniaturization and storage technology over the past 20 years have facilitated products of increasingly smaller size. Coupled with the recent proliferation of multi-touch screen technologies and organic LEDs, common consumer products like smart phones, portable GPS devices, and e-book readers are invariably reaching a point of critical mass where the device itself can essentially be realized and paired down to nothing more than a flat plane or screen.
In the futuristic movie Avatar we are able to visualize a plausible future where, in this case, military and science personnel work and interact with a variety of digital surfaces and curved, three-dimensional holographic interfaces.
On another level, I believe part of the challenge for ID lies with existing product design-development paradigms where companies may prioritize engineering, development and manufacturing efficiency above design and user experience.
In terms of physical products, the cost of manufacture and assembly, the tendency to utilize existing production techniques to keep costs down, unfortunately play a greater role in dictating a product’s final outcome more than interaction and experience design modeling.
By contrast, the intangible realm of interactive product design presents a somewhat different set of pseudo-physical design and development challenges. Caveats such as platform constrains (e.g. browser, OS), open-source versus proprietary frameworks (e.g. PHP versus ASPX.NET, Flash versus jQuery), can play a significant role in determining design outcome and whether or not a product is successful or fails miserably.
Where does this leave the industrial designer?
I believe the industrial designer is left with the important role and responsibility of designing beyond the physical surface to maximize the effectiveness of a product’s intangible attributes. That is, tailoring a product’s interactive qualities to the benefit of the user’s experience. Industrial designers must become experts in this area, orchestrating meaningful product interactions which place the human experience first with the things potentially undermining this relationship (e.g. creeping featurism) kept at bay. The quality of our end user’s experience must be elevated to the highest pedestal to become the most important attribute of any product, application, device or service (along with environmental sustainability of course!). This is the new ID and this is ultimately what separates good products from brilliant products we can’t live without.
“Gone are the blissful days of the ‘new objectivity,’ where things’ forms followed their functions. This is because in the age of microelectronics, it’s hardly possible any more for these functions to be illustrated – just witness the computer. To an exponentially increasing degree, the post-modern world consists of highly complex Black Boxes whose technical workings can only be explained by specialists. As I just mentioned, today’s design no longer strives for functional or objective transparence, but rather for security and the trust of the world. The more complex our world becomes, the more urgent the design of the interfaces between people and systems becomes. And thus the successful design of everyday items is no longer positioned towards the object, but rather towards the subject.” -Norbert Bolz
Further Reading
Donald A. Norman. The invisible Computer. The MIT Press, 1998.
B. Joseph Pine II, James H. Gilmore. The Experience Economy. Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
Donald A. Norman. Emotional Design. New York. Basic Books, 2004.
Norbert Bolz. The user-iIllusion of the world. mediamatic.net, 2008.
Sabeen Durrani, Qaiser S. Durrani. Applying Cognitive Psychology to User Interfaces. Part 3: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Intelligent Human Computer Interaction. Springer India, 2009.
Tim Brown. IDEO Human Centered Design Toolkit. ideo.com. IDEO Books, 2009.
Does The Web Undermine Reading?
Does the Internet, with its speed, efficiency and growing ubiquitousness undermine reading and comprehension?
A provocative question I am willing to explore largely because I spend a great deal of time online and, like most parents with young children growing up in this age of über-information at our fingertips and titillating augmented realities, I wonder how the Internet will influence my son’s capacity for reading, writing, and critical thinking.
I believe we are at a particularly interesting point in time when many people take the Internet for granted, as though it is always going to be there when we need it like the telephone, heat or electricity. The ability to carry around the entire Web in our pocket on a small device like one of latest 3G flavoured smart phones is quite a technological feat. The phenomenon of being able to text message or use Facebook anywhere is both highly convenient and fashionably addictive.
But aside from all these technological conveniences at our disposal, I wonder if perhaps we are becoming a culture of distraction where our ability to concentrate and filter out the digital junk is increasingly challenged by among other things, greater reliance upon Web-based technologies, particularly Web-enabled mobile gadgets, which seem to be creeping into all aspects of our daily lives.
But I Can’t Live Without The Internet
This sentiment is perhaps most pronounced among teenagers and young kids who likely cannot envision a world without access to their precious Web-enabled mobile ADHD-inducing gaming/gadget or device. Or heaven-forbid, getting through the daunting task of writing a school paper without in some way researching or sourcing material online. Are we now living in a time when the thought of going out to the library is becoming somewhat obsolete? (I’m embarrassed to say, but I actually can’t remember the last time I used or updated my local library card) What are the potential consequences for our education system when we can now find all our books and newspapers online and our school curriculum must now coexist and compete with the instantaneousness and rich interactivity offered by the Internet?
Does Google Undermine Our Intelligence?
Does the Internet, or more precisely Google, enhance learning and critical independent thought or obscure and perpetuate the wisdom of mobs?
When we venture into cyberspace we enter into a realm of vast knowledge where information on every conceivable facet of human existence has been indexed and parsed into some logical meta data or mathematical algorithm, efficiently made available to us courtesy of super-behemoth Google. Yet I wonder, conceivably there must be sites out there somewhere in cyberspace Google doesn’t find. Which begs the question: If a Web site is not indexed by Google, does it really exist? And, if you can’t find the answer to something through Google, are you a blundering idiot or just technologically-challenged? (In either case, you could always try MSN Search Bing if you’re dissatisfied with Google’s results)
While Google seems to work well for most, quickly and efficiently compiling our desired search results, the real task of filtering through seemingly endless amounts of information and deciphering the credible sources from the dubious and inaccurate; the authentic from the questionable; and the relevant from irrelevant redundant junk is unfortunately left to our critical best judgement.
What worries me now is that the Internet is becoming a sort of mental crutch when we don’t know the answer to something, we just Google it, which essentially precludes the need for us to spend time systematically working through a problem and exercise our brain when most of us (myself included) would rather just opt for the easier path of “just give me the answer“. This is precisely the problem -Google makes it far too easy for us.
Recently I re-read Nicholas Carr’s infamous article Is Google Making Us Stupid? realizing many of the points touched upon concerning how the Web is supposedly reprogramming our brain and altering our cognitive function seem both fascinating and alarming at the same time. To a large extent Google represent this giant punching bag fuelling intellectual debate for or against technology’s impact on society. They have in some ways become the poster child for arguments exposing the many negative side-effects technology has imposed upon our social, economic, and education systems.
I would characterize Google as the dominant force of our modern information age and as the Web grows exponentially larger each year ‘search’ becomes ever more crucial in our ability to navigate cyberspace, determining how and ultimately what information we absorb.
On one hand Google are praised for elevating search to an almost mystical artistic form, while simultaneously they are demonized for threatening our intelligence by dumbing everything down and making it too easy to not think for ourselves.
Would We Be Smarter Without The Internet And Google?
Admittedly, it would be hard at this point to dispute Google’s broad influence on our lives. Google, and in all fairness the Internet, have succeeded in systematically infiltrating all aspects of our lives. Everything from our public spaces to cars, televisions, schools, even public transit systems are now interconnected with the Web. Perhaps this creeping penetration is unknowingly increasing our dependency for rich media and infotainment like a junkie to a crack-pipe. In my house alone I count 5 places where I can access the Internet and get my fix so to speak. As Nicholas Carr puts it: “The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.”
“For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind.”
-Nicholas Carr
There Are Too Many Apps In My Life -Is There An App For That?
I feel all of this technological convenience and ubiquity comes at a price -our intelligence, which could arguably be at stake if not holistically balanced against endeavors devoid of such technological influence. From Carr’s perspective Internet [Google] usage is altering how our brain processes information and perhaps the degree with which we are able to focus our attention. In many ways this represents a troubling sign that our growing app-driven lifestyle may be conspiring against our capacity for device-free problem solving. In the immortal words of Bruce Mau: “Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.”
Twitterdee And Twitterdum
It goes without saying there’s a lot of noise and information competing for our attention online and elsewhere. As a regular Twitter user and subscriber of RSS feeds, I sometimes feel an uneasy sense that my attention-span is getting ever shorter. Twitter as everyone knows encourages enforces brevity to the tune of 140 characters per Tweet, while RSS feeds, relentless in their ability to insidiously undermine the productivity of my working-day, deliver endless amounts of news and updates right to my desktop or mobile. (See the Tiger Woods debacle unfolding right now online!)
If Google is making us stupid, then Twitter might very well be turning us into attention deficit voyeurs of insignificant nonsense. No one cares to read status updates about how you’re so bored lately or that you’ve seen Twilight 5 times -you’re on the Internet, go learn or do something constructive!
Don’t Read This
When was the last time you remember reading through an article from start to finish online regardless of whether it was 3 paragraphs or 3000 words long? I’ll be the first to admit, sometimes it can be challenging to slow down and desynchronize from the propensity to skim text, skip from site to site, and read bits and pieces. Nevertheless, I believe the Web is shrinking our attention span inconspicuously one RSS feed widget at a time and I would venture to say most people are largely unaware or unwilling to admit this phenomenon exists. Take reading a lengthy article on a singular topic or theme for example, like Ars Technica’s exhaustive über-detailed 15-page analysis of Windows 7. Go on, I bet you can’t read through this article completely start to finish.
Again in Carr’s critique of Google, he goes on to reference developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, who suggests the Web is turning us into “mere decoders of information” due to the inherent “efficiency” and “immediacy” offered.
The Digerati Horde
I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I spend a lot of time online -and I do, probably more than the average person, largely because I work in the interactive space and part of my job entails keeping up with Web culture and the latest trends online which affect how we architect Web sites. In fact, I would characterize the amount of time I spend online as exceeding the amount of time I spend reading books (non-digital, offline), watching television, and exercising combined.
I used to visit Digg quite a lot in the past -still do, but less frequently now. Oh how I sometimes marvel at the trivialities one can find on Digg; you can easily waste disproportionate amounts of time scrolling through an endless myriad of tabloid-ladened links if you’re not careful. Ironically I’ve started visiting popurls, the mother of all news aggregation sites, which must have been conceived as a lazy person’s guide to surfing the Web without having to do much work. Here you can not only browse the top Digg stories of the day but also view Google News, Reddit, Twitter, and a host of other RSS feeds all on one gigantic page. How convenient for people too pressed for time to do any real reading!
How We Consume Media
The New York Times recently reported that in 2008 Americans consumed roughly 34-Gigabytes of information per day from various sources (e.g. television, radio, print) with approximately 30-35% potentially coming from digital media [Internet] sources.
“[The report] suggests the average American consumes 34 gigabytes of content and 100,000 words of information in a single day. (Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is only 460,000 words long.) This doesn’t mean we read 100,000 words a day — it means that 100,000 words cross our eyes and ears in a single 24-hour period.”
-Nick Bilton, New York Times
With all this information crossing our eyes at warp speed on a daily basis, it’s not surprising reading is on the decline. The inherent immediacy and non-linearity of the Web has a tendency to limit the amount of information we read on any given Web page.
According to Web Usability expert Jakob Nielsen, on the average Web page, we read at most 20-28% of the words during an average visit. Nielsen explains: “This illustrates the Web as an active environment where we move from site to site quickly scanning pages absorbing fragments of content…”.
As someone who designs Web sites professionally for a living, I take this last point with a grain of salt. Granted, there are probably large numbers of people out there who read no more than 20-28% of any given Web page they visit, however I do not believe this constitutes absolutely everyone’s behavior online. Good IA and UI design take into account the vast differences among people online -their goals, behaviours [reading/attention span], attitudes, and motivations; and it is through this understanding of the various personas online we can at least improve the likelihood people will read as opposed to skim through a site’s content.
Now, considering you’re at the end of this excruciatingly long post (really, I’m willing to bet you read only 18% of the text on this page at best), go onward and read more!
Further Reading
Jakob Nielsen. Why Web Users Scan Instead of Read. useit.com Alertbox for October 1, 1997.
Claudine Beaumont. Are ebooks the future of reading? telegraph.co.uk September 10, 2009.
Steve Krug. How we really use the Web. Chapter 2, Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Naomi Alderman. How the web is undermining reading. guardian.co.uk January 20, 2009.
Denis G. Pelli and Charles Bigelow. A Writing Revolution. seedmagazine.com October 20, 2009.
SixthSense UI Blurs The Physical From The Digital
Pranav Mistry is a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab and the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data.
When I saw this talk I was absolutely blown away and began thinking how far multi-touch and gesture-based user interfaces have evolved. Interestingly in Pranav’s SixthSense demo, the concept of a screen-based UI is largely redundant.
This also got me thinking about the creation of augmented realities (e.g. Layar); as smartphones and Web-enabled mobile devices become increasingly more sophisticated and powerful, the distinction between our physical world and the digital world becomes blurred.
HTML 5 Simplifies Video On The Web
A Brave New Plugin-Free Web Experience
The new HTML 5 language specification is a huge step forward in terms of providing a more robust user experience on the Web. It represents the first major advancement of the web’s standard markup language since HTML 4.01 was initially published in December 1999.
Most significantly, provisions have been established for embedding video which mimic the look and feel of Flash and Silverlight (e.g. usage of custom skinned UI playback buttons) but without the requirement for a proprietary plugin download (e.g. Apple QuickTime, Adobe Flash Player).
The caveat here is that you need an HTML 5 capable Web browser. If you have the latest iteration of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera installed, you’re good to go.
Unfortunately Internet Explorer 8 currently does not fully support HTML 5 audio and video tags (here’s why). While this could certainly change in the near future, it is not surprising when discussing current and emerging Web standards, IE historically seems to trail everybody else by 1-2 years. Why Microsoft continually ignore open Web standards is a rather unfortunate mystery.
Open Video Standards Are A Breath Of Fresh Air
Being a bit of a Flash evangelist in recent years, I’ll be the first to admit open standards for video in the browser are a breath of fresh air. Proprietary plugins have traditionally ruled the Internet representing the only viable avenue for realizing Web-based video. Building RIAs, this problem was compounded when trying to reach people on corporate and government networks where IT administrators would notoriously limit or block access to 3rd party plugins including Flash content.
But now interactive designers and developers will have new options for deploying rich, video-enabled Web content embedded with simple JavaScript or straight HTML. Kroc Camen’s post Video for Everybody is one of the more elegant fallback strategies for implementing HTML 5 video.
In terms of open encoding tools, Firefogg a browser-based extension for Firefox allows you to encode videos to the ogg theora format.
Yes, Flash handles full screen HD video in the browser better and more reliably than any other Web-based plugin right now; and Flash-driven video sites like Hulu.com (available to U.S residents only), cbc.ca/video, or fora.tv offer great video experiences. But establishing open standards for video with HTML 5 makes video even more accessible and to a broader audience.
HTML 5 Video Example:
Dailymotion has a demonstration of HTML 5 video capabilities which appears to work fine in Firefox 3.5 yet oddly not with Chrome 3.0.195.27.
Social Networking Paradigms Examined: Us Now
Us Now, a documentary examining the power of mass collaboration, government and the Internet asks a profound question: In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?
This is an intriguing subject illustrating some of the emerging and complex structures forming online that are turning traditional, vertically-integrated organizations and hierarchies upside down.
One of the arguments I find compelling in this documentary is how the pervasiveness of information available through the Web is causing traditional companies and organizations to become increasingly transparent and potentially obsolete.
The changing relationship between customers and companies, the wisdom of crowds, open source software development, peer to peer file sharing networks -these things represent a massive shift in how we visualize our world, how it is changing, and who ultimately wields power.
You can also watch the film here.
Flash Apps To Run Native On iPhone
Flash developers rejoice! You will now be able to deploy content initially intended for the Web and/or desktop environments as native applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. This new support will be available via Adobe’s Flash Professional CS5 developer kit and strictly in the form of applications available through Apple’s App Store and not as Web-based content unfortunately.
While this is great news in terms of broadening the reach of Flash in the mobile environment, it would be great to see full support for Flash in the iPhone’s native browser Safari so users can experience all the Web has to offer.
Watch a demo of applications from the Apple App Store built using Flash technology here.
Microsoft’s Multilingual Microsite Fail
Microsoft, like most globally-oriented corporate entities, run advertisements for products and services in countries all over the world. In many instances their advertising campaigns promoting business applications and consumer IT software are virtually identical in terms of messaging, visual tone, and call to action mechanism.
However, while this strategy may be employed to convey brand attributes in a consistent light, a certain level of differentiation (e.g. imagery articulating race/culture, gender, age) may be required among advertisements appearing in one country to the next if such a campaign is to be relevant to an audience on a local scale.
Microsoft’s Business Productivity Web site – A Case Study in Failed Execution
Consider a recent online advertisement appearing on one of Microsoft’s U.S. corporate Web sites (see images below). Unfortunately the manner in which the focal imagery appearing on the Polish language corporate site had been repurposed and doctored leads one to believe the individual(s) signing-off on this creative work: a) had no knowledge of the U.S. site’s existence, or b) were perhaps out to lunch at the time.
While this Photoshop-hacked advertisement was clearly intended to appeal to the ethnic and cultural background of the Polish speaking audience (consider Poland has an overwhelmingly white population), the advertisement not surprisingly has stirred up a bit of controversy and has been ridiculed by groups online most obviously for its odd image compositing.
By crudely removing the black man’s head and replacing it with a white man’s head and retaining essentially all other elements in the composition including the two other business people in the same setting, the ads take on a less than professional tone when viewed side by side to the un-doctored image. -Why wasn’t a new stock image sourced for the Polish Web site?
Unfortunately Microsoft failed to realize in this case that visitors to their U.S. Business Productivity Web site would also access other languages including the the Polish version of the site, thus uncovering this debacle.
Granted, executing digital online ads in multiple languages, across numerous international sites can be challenging. Budgetary or timing constraints can undermine quality; perhaps this error was imposed arbitrarily by an individual through a CMS?
Nevertheless Microsoft fails on this particular work simply because such a freakish, frankenstein-looking ad could have been avoided.
Fantastic Interactive Work: Big & Small Site
I caught this incredible site the other day on the Papervision3D blog and have to say it is one of the most ambitious implementations of Papervision I have ever seen.
Created by Plug-In Media out of the UK, the Big & Small site blends extensively 2D and real-time 3D animation with, among other programmatic sophistication, a customized Actionscript 3.0 physics system for rendering particle effects and other motion-graphic elements.
Developer’s site: “It was a massive project, and phase one alone was over 200 days of coding, not to mention the artwork, 3D modelling, sound design and music.”
My 3 year-old son was absolutely mesmerized when I showed him this site. Fantastically interactive work!
Making of Big and Small Rough cut from Plug-in Media on Vimeo.
Objectified: Design Documentary
Going down to the 2009 Hot Docs Festival to check ‘Objectified’, a new film by Gary Hustwit (see also: Helvetica film) examining the role of design in society. Screening at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, Monday May 4th @ 9:15pm.
Synopsis
From telephones to toothpicks, nearly everything that fills our world is designed. Objects look and work the way they do because someone made them that way. Director Gary Hustwit examines industrial design’s sweeping cultural impact with the same curiosity and cinematic craft of his graphic design hit, Helvetica. International stars including Karim Rashid, Marc Newson, Apple’s Jonathan Ive, and Braun’s Dieter Rams share their philosophies and fab products, bringing the driving forces of the field into perfectly composed focus: “good” industrial design makes the product supreme, but the design invisible. In an age where forms cannot possibly resemble the myriad of functions they now perform, however, what will our world look like? How does design’s drive for “new and improved” reconcile with environmental sustainability? And how do individuals express themselves through mass-produced “stuff”? Objectified is a fascinating look at our relationship with objects and the people who design them. Myrocia Watamaniuk.
Random Ideation
The Perils of Web Development
There’s never a dull moment in the wonderful world of Web development. The release Google Chrome marks yet another Web browser designers and developers need to consider when producing interactive content. Not really such a big concern unless your job entails the creative/design, coding, production, or quality assurance of Web-based content. If so, then Chrome is the latest browser to potentially add to the plight of the front-end Web Developer by further undermining the likelihood a Web site will succeed in establishing visual and functional consistency across the browser landscape.
At issue are potentially the small to large discrepancies which may occur in how a Web page renders and interprets scripts (Javascript, AJAX, and jQuery for example) based upon browser architecture and the particular rendering engine employed. Combine this with the integrity or flexibility of CSS code in dealing with the idiosyncrasies between the various browsers, and it becomes arguable that 1 more browser equates to yet 1 more coding caveat designers and developers must unfortunately contend with when building a site.
Google Chrome: New Browser On The Block
Launched September 2nd, 2008 and pushed from beta development into full release in a mere 100 days, Chrome represents quick and strategic manoeuvring by Google to capitalize on its search-engine success and build market share within the highly competitive browser arena.
Google, notorious for keeping applications in a perpetual state of beta development (Gmail, Picasa for example) clearly have intentions to raise Chrome’s profile and snatch people away from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari by removing the Beta tag designation and going head-to-head with the more established browsers so quickly. Call it brand positioning or a long-term business strategy, Google like Microsoft are keenly aware of the trend towards Web-based applications and will no doubt continue to release RIAs in 2009 that increasingly leverage the browser as a platform for consumer engagement.
But How Does Google Chrome Stack Up?
In terms of standards compliance, that is, the adherence to coding practices (HTML, XHTML, CSS for example) to define layout structure, typeface, and colour properties of a given web page, Google Chrome actually does quite well. Compared with Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7, Chrome scores marginally better in the Acid3 test which essentially qualifies how well a browser complies with a given set of Web standards.
Design for The Best, Test for The Rest
This old adage characterized by optimizing code for the primary target browser (usually IE) and creating a series of supplementary code-snippets or ‘hacks’ to accommodate the less-popular browsers may have been the only viable strategy in the past, but now more clever thinking is necessary to tackle newer challenges.
The rise of Chrome and the fall of Internet Explorer below 69% market share signifies the rapid pace of change on the Web.
Acknowledging the fact that no one browser is 100% perfect or standards compliant, the design effectiveness of a Web site should now be measured against how well visual and functional inconsistencies are minimized across browsers with the realization subtle differences in how a Web looks and functions will no doubt be unavoidable until browser adherence to standards improves.
In the meantime, there are numerous best practices and tricks which can be employed to at least minimize inconsistency issues and ensure interactive content displays and behaves across multiple browsers in a more predictable fashion:
- Catch and resolve potential design issues early during the concept/creative development phase by including the Web development team in an internal review of the proposed creative prior to the initial client presentation.
- Build a development site indicative of the live site environment/file structure and test it thoroughly in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, and Chrome.
- Before deploying the Web site to a live environment, validate the code to catch potential errors.
- If you find yourself wrestling with CSS to make the design/layout work and all else fails: http://giveupandusetables.com/
If problems persist and are significant enough to catch the attention of the client and/or brand manager who may ultimately end up calling the interactive team with questions demanding to know why their site looks and behaves noticably different when viewed in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, then most likely one or more of the above points were neglected.
Digg is Turning Into a Tabloid
But lately I feel as though Digg has started to loose its credibility as a reliable online destination for quality news and information. Just today I caught this story (screenshot below) prominently ranked second in the day’s most popular news items.
First reaction -has the collective intelligence level of people online decayed to the point where stories like these end up ranking among the most popular news items online? Is this story indicative of the type of information people are reading, find interesting, and generally share with others online?
I’m a bit mystified because the premise of Digg, or so I thought, was to focus on quality information related to technology, gaming, science, culture, politics, and other prominent subject areas; subject areas I consider interesting and worthy of my time. But unfortunately the online collective masses (read: Beware the Online Collective, by Jaron Lanier) who dictate what ultimately ends up being most prominently displayed on Digg and other user-generated news aggregator sites (user-ranked news sites) have other ideas of what is considered news-worthy and intellectually stimulating.
In any case, now please go read the real news at the New York Times and BBC -okay?
A More Socially Minded Best Buy?
Best Buy recently began to reevaluate their corporate brand identity with, among other points of marketing collateral, a refreshed logoform.
Part of a larger marketing strategy as reported by RetailNet Group, the proposed although not finalized new corporate logo (left) is an interesting departure from the company’s existing ‘price tag’ version (right) which has been in use since 1987. Using a modified Klavika font setting, the lower case sans-serif font is a stark contrast to the all upper-case typeface previously used. The horizontal typographic setting visually feels more contemporary and less edgy while the drastic reduction in yellow conveys a softer, more open tone. A smaller and simplified price tag element (notice the modified shape) de-emphasizes the notion that low prices are the company’s number one core value offering.
Brand Strategy:
People (not the stuff) make the difference
Consumer behaviour is moving online and people now have the power to influence and shape brands. Sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Craigslist epitomize a societal shift towards peer to peer production in which people use technologies (e.g. Linux and BitTorrent) to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations. Loosely, this trend is known as the groundswell effect, encompassing 3 distinct forces: people, technology, and economics (Read: Groundswell by Forrester Research).
Best Buy, clearly aware of this phenomenon is considering a new tag line: “you. happier” which speaks to a new positioning strategy that effectively differentiates their expertise, service (e.g. Geek Squad), and shopping experience from competitors.
In reading through some of the recent discussions online, it has been suggested by some that Best Buy intend to, among other things, position their brand more upscale with less emphasis on price competition. While this and other points may appear to be unsubstantiated conjecture, the truth (if you really want to know) on what the company is thinking with regard to its marketing efforts can be read on the Chief Marketing Officer’s blog.
A More Socially Minded Logo?
So, is this the beginning of a more socially minded Best Buy or just a synthetic composite of the Web’s most prolific social network?
Personally, I think what Best Buy is trying to say with their proposed new identity is that they want to be seen as more open and personable. Perhaps they acknowledge the era of the cold and austere big-box retail environment is coming to an end.
Accessibility -by this I mean purchasing technology-based products shouldn’t be a daunting experience, and social mindedness reflect the new consumer mindset; personalized, focused service -not just low prices, are what consumers really desire.
Hi, my name is Darryl Jonckheere. I currently work for