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How Apple nails Fit and Finish

Posted on October 31, 2008 by Nathan Bowers

This is the Trackpad preference pane on the new MacBooks:

The bottom right is a video loop demonstrating the various gestures. When you click options on the left, the video changes to show just the selected gesture. Even though the new trackpad gestures are fairly intuitive, Apple went the extra mile to train users in a slick and effective way.

The iPhone is loaded with subtle but wonderful design touches:

I use the iPhone to pipe music through my car stereo via the audio jack. When I get out, I don’t have to go to iTunes and hit “pause”. I just unplug the audio jack and it pauses automatically.
When music is playing and I get a call, it fades the music instead of stopping abruptly.
By holding “home” and “hold” I can take a screenshot of with the iPhone. A nice touch, useful for bloggers doing iPhone reviews, showing clients what designs looks like on mobile Safari, emailing friends screencaps from Google maps, etc.

My favorite example of the iPhone’s fit and finish is something most people won’t ever encounter: the orientation of the iPhone LCD polarization.

I have polarized sunglasses. I can’t tilt most screens — like the one on my Canon camera — vertically or the polarization blacks out the display. The iPhone orients the polarization diagonally so I can see the screen both horizontally and vertically.

iPhone as seen through polarized glasses

That’s downright considerate design.

Posted in Design | Tagged Apple, iPhone, MacBook | Comments Off

Modal Dialog Hell

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Nathan Bowers

I’ve written about why modal dialogs are almost always a bad idea before. Unfortunately I am not Emperor of the Internet (yet…) so annoying modals persist.

Offender: Network World

The Crime: Popping a modal for a “how can we make our site better?” survey.

Here’s a suggestion: don’t cover what I’m trying to read with a modal dialog. I can’t imagine that they’d get very good data from that survey. Only someone whose time is worth nothing would do a survey like that. It’s much better to make improvements by passively analyzing traffic data and use patterns.

Let’s be real though. You know this survey is about collecting marketing demographic data and not “improving the website.”

Verdict: Evil and Stupid

Offender: Xerox

The Crime: Popping a modal demanding to know what country I’m coming from.

They’re already guessing I’m from a U.S. IP address. Why not just set the country to their “best IP guess” and let users change it if necessary? If users try to download or purchase something that requires country confirmation, then ask for it explicitly.

Verdict: Hamfisted, but not Evil.

Offender: Michael Port, well known marketing person (I’ve heard)

The Crime: Worse than a modal, it’s a pop-over ad that obscures every visit to the homepage.

Something like this could possibly be justified if shown just once and if the offer was really compelling. Out of morbid curiosity I clicked it and got — not a super awesome special offer from Michael Port, but a cheesy greeting card affiliate program.

Look, if you’ve got something really great and you want people to use it, make it the main thing on your homepage, within the flow of the design. Don’t bash users over the head with an ad dialog that forces them to find the “close modal” button before they can see anything else.

Verdict: Inept and also evil because it uses modals as a new form of popup ad.

Posted in Design | Tagged Modal Dialogs | 1 Comment

The one blogging disaster you can’t recover from…

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Nathan Bowers

…is data loss. I bet you thought I was going to say “zombie apocalypse”.

Probably drew the brain a bit big for an SEO consultant. Feel free to steal this image.

Usually I encourage people not to be afraid of blogging, because you can recover from any blog-related mistake — except unrecoverable data loss. The worst thing that can possibly happen is that you spend years writing posts and then, BOOM! something goes wrong and you lose everything.

You can avoid that nightmare scenario with a solid backup strategy.

For self hosted WordPress blogs I use the excellent WordPress Database Backup Plugin. It gives you an admin panel where you can set up (and this is key) automated scheduled backups that go to your email inbox. Every day I get an email with a zip file of my blog database backup. I doubt my backup file will ever get bigger than Gmail’s 10MB attachment file size limit. My ~200 posts are only 600KB when all zipped up.
For WordPress.com or TypePad hosted blogs you’ll have to set up a recurring calendar event (say once a week) and manually “export” your posts and comments. WordPress.com and TypePad are (hopefully) totally secure and backed up, so you shouldn’t ever experience data loss, but it’s best to be safe.
Feedburner email updates are another option. Just subscribe to email updates of your RSS feed and auto archive them. It would be a pain to restore your blog from these emails, but at least you’ve got an automated secondary backstop, just in case.
What about backing up images used in posts, plugins, and custom themes? If you’re self hosted, you can FTP to your sever and download the folders that contain these. (For WordPress just grab the /wp-content/ folder which contains everything you’ll need). There is a WP plugin that backs up files, and a 3rd party blog backup service, but I haven’t tried either of them. If you know what you’re doing you could also set up a cron job to automatically backup your files to another server or your own computer. Remember, a backup isn’t a backup unless it’s in a different physical location than the original.
I’m on TypePad or WordPress.com, how do I back up images? You’re stuck, unless you want to page backwards for all those posts and manually save those images. The best thing to do is save any images you upload in a folder on your own hard drive. Note: all reputable hosted blog providers let you export your posts and comments, but they typically don’t let you easily export your images or template files. It’s a nasty bit of hidden vendor lockin.
How do I back up my WordPress/MovableType installation? The good news is you don’t really need to back up your WP/MT installation. If something happens, you can always download it again.
So what’s the WordPress Ninja Way? Here’s my setup:
1. I use the WordPress database backup plugin to get automated emailed backups.
2. My entire WordPress setup (themes, plugins, and core installation) lives in Subversion version control. This is like TimeMachine for my blog’s source code. This means I have a copy on my own computer, on the web server, and in my SVN repository. I can go forward and backward in each file’s history, and see every change I’ve made. I wouldn’t expect a “normal” person to know how to do this, but if you’re a developer, I’d say “shame on you for not using version control“.
3. Important: my “uploads” folder that holds uploaded images and files is explicitly excluded from Subversion. It’s done this way for technical reasons that I’m to lazy to go into right now. To back up the uploads I have a recurring calendar event that reminds me to manually grab the folder via FTP.
4. Also, I always keep my WordPress installation and plugins patched and up to date and I use hard to guess passwords.

Resources and further reading:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 3x5, backup, Blogging, WordPress | 4 Comments

In the event of Zombie apocalypse, please keep blogging

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Nathan Bowers

Paul Boutin tells us to “kill our blogs” in Wired because the market (i.e. the first page of Google results) has been overrun by professional blogs like Engadget, HuffPo, and Boutin’s employer, Valleywag. Supposedly we don’t have a chance against their budgets, staff, and connections.

He’s right. It would be stupid to start a “gadget” blog today. Engadget and Gizmodo have that market sewn up. They achieved critical mass first so they get the leaks, the scoops, and the invites to trade show back rooms. No lone blogger could compete with that.

Boutin is also wrong. Today is the perfect time to start a blog. This is why:

As Paul Graham says, writing about something clarifies your thinking about it.
According to Seth Godin, your blog is now your résumé. Actually, having a blog is far more powerful than a résumé because blogs are discoverable, searchable, and followable. The last time I wrote a résumé it didn’t make me any smarter or better connected.
Forget traffic and revenue. The first artist painted on the cave wall to tell the universe “I WAS HERE”. He wasn’t out to goose pageviews for AdSense revenue.
Even if you were the last person on Earth, it would still be worthwhile to keep a journal. It would keep you sane for one, and second, it’s human nature. We’ve been documentarians from the beginning. From our first oral histories, to cave paintings, to Voyager’s golden data disc, we are a species of scribes.

Finally, time has proven that entrenched players are never invincible. Eventually their new hires care more about the paycheck than changing the world, and that’s when a David comes along who doesn’t play by Goliath’s rules.

While I was writing this my friend Havi Brooks of Fluent Self posted another in her “Blogging Therapy” series entitled: “Why even bother when other people are doing it better?“. Great stuff, timely too.

Posted in Business | Tagged Blogging | 10 Comments

In-store pictures and review of new aluminum MacBooks

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Nathan Bowers

What’s great about the new MacBooks (and MacBookPros):

Totally awesome new “slits” for the breathing “sleep” light and IR ports. Though you’d think Apple would have the technology to add a Cylon/K.I.T.T. sensor sweep motion by now.
New multi-touch trackpad. The trackpad has no button, but it does click down when you press it. The feeling was indistinguishable from my previous laptop button. I always turn on “tap to click” with trackpads, but now it’s even better because of new gestures like “three finger swipe to go forward or back” in Safari and iPhoto. Gestures kick ass. BTW, the trackpad is glass, but it doesn’t feel any different, and it doesn’t really look especially glossy.
Easy access for replacing hard drive, battery, and RAM. If you’ve read my guide to upgrading a MacBookPro hard drive you know what how scary/painful it used to be.
New “Chicklet” keyboard. Didn’t really like the chicklet keyboard on MacBooks before, but it feels more solid now. Maybe I’m just falling for it because the industrial design is so beautiful.
Magnetic latch. The latch button on my current MacBookPro still works fine, but it shows signs of wear. It’s the only part of my laptop that doesn’t look brand new. It’s nice not to have to find a button to stick my fingernail into.
Glass panel screen. I’m mildly torn on this one, but the glass LCD comes down on the side of “awesome”. Matte (non glossy) LCDs are usually superior because the color stays true and you don’t have to deal with reflections. Previously the “glossy” LCDs just had a glossy finish on plastic, and they looked a bit rippled instead of glassy smooth. Anyway, these new LED LCDs are much brighter than the old LCDs, which mitigates the reflection problem, and with glass you get much better scratch protection. When some office jackass or toddler puts their fingers all over your screen it will be easier to clean. Long term, all monitors will be glass anyway because iPhone-style multi-touch is going to be everywhere. You heard it here first.

What sucks about the new MacBooks

Bottom line, to differentiate (i.e. segment for maximum profit) their laptop line, Apple is crippling them in nefarious ways.

No Firewire. This means no target disk mode, though supposedly there’s a migration assistant that works over USB. Lots of people are upset about it. It’s just such an obvious screw to users. The MacBook is such a compelling machine that it has to be crippled in a way that makes it useless to music and video pros, and IT-ish types who tend to buy Firewire hard drives. Otherwise why buy the “Pro” model?
No backlit keyboard on $1299 MacBook. Not really a big deal, but still, kind of lame. Just throw it in, you know? Also, the clerk I talked to about it had no idea that the lower end MB doesn’t have a backlit keyboard. It’s always fun to go to a store when you know more about the products than the sales clerks. Note: the way to indentify the lower end MacBook is that it doesn’t have controls for keyboard brightness on the function keys.
They both use a new mini external monitor port, and no adapter is included. An “outrageous cash grab” according to APCMag, and I agree. It will cost you $50 to get a DVI adapter so you can use an external monitor. I love Apple products, but the NUMBER ONE THING I HATE ABOUT APPLE is that they are TOTALLY INCAPABLE OF LEAVING ANY MONEY ON THE TABLE. It’s almost abusive how they make you re-buy iPod docks, cables, connectors, and accessories. They even tried this with the 1st gen iPhone audio jack. Dicks.

Pictures and a movie

Video of clicky trackpad

front of macbook showing new light and latch

close up of new macbook sleep light and IR port

closed front of new aluminum macbook showing magnetic latch

new macbook aluminum magnetic latch close up

close up of new macbook keyboard

bottom of new macbook showing hard drive and battery access panel and new rubber feet

hand showing size of new aluminum macbook

new pink 4th generation ipod nano

Couldn’t resist showing the “hot pink is the new black” nano.

What other people are saying:

Posted in Design | Tagged Apple, Hardware, Mac | 4 Comments

HP’s TouchSmart website marketing: How to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Posted on October 11, 2008 by Nathan Bowers

I saw a commercial for HP’s new multi-touch computer. It looked cool, so I tried to look it up on HP.com. Instead I was treated to a marketing disaster of biblical proportions.

The HUGE thing HP’s web designers/marketers did wrong:

HP.com’s homepage makes no mention of the kick ass product they’re spending tons of ad dollars on — Instead they show house ads for “Save 50%” and “Buy Inkjet Toner!” (screenshot). HP, don’t show me $500 laptops you’re riding to the bottom of the ocean, show me exciting products that you might actually be able to charge a premium for.

This is a spectacular GAME OVER failure because:

They just lost everybody who couldn’t remember the exact URL from TV (hp.com/touchsmart – screenshot). This blunder is even more shocking because they could easily have featured the TouchSmart while still showing their house ads, but they didn’t. GAME OVER.

What else they did wrong:

The dreaded URL guessing game — HP.com/touch, /smarttouch, and /multitouch didn’t work. I had to specifically remember HP.com/touchsmart.
The “right” URL redirects to an unfriendly long URL — Uncool. Whenever you have a choice between making URLs easy on your Content Management System and making things easy on human customers, make things easy on customers. Unfriendly URLs look menacing and they make it less likely that I’m going to cut and paste that URL so I can tell friends about it.
I came to see a video of the product in action, don’t make me hunt for it — When you’re not showing multitouch in action, pictures of the screen just look like a standard monitor. I should automatically see video of someone interacting with it or at least a big juicy “DEMO” button.
Ugh, Flash… — Flash is appropriate for video demoing the touch function, but there’s no reason to build the whole site in flash, and there’s no excuse for having a “skip intro”.
THE BUY NOW BUTTON IS BROKEN (!) — I clicked “buy one now” and was greeted with a bunch of 3rd party store logos (screenshot). They were clickable, but I had to hover over them to find that out. Now, here’s the best part: The store “purchase” links trigger Flash popups which don’t work in Firefox, Safari, or even IE7. So, I’ve demonstrated a willingness to buy, but I can’t because HP used Flash popups instead of simple Flash links!
Selling through 3rd parties on the web is dumb — Imagine that the Amazon popup had worked. After all I’ve been through, now I have to 1) Have or create an account somewhere else and 2) Go through all the steps that the purchase requires.

The most basic rule of usability is “DON’T MAKE ME THINK” and the HP TouchSmart campaign breaks that rule in spades. Why add a bunch of unnecessary steps between getting someone interested in your product and letting them buy that product?

Posted in Design | Tagged Design, marketing | 2 Comments

Twitter vs. Facebook: the “doe eyed” edition

Posted on September 8, 2008 by Nathan Bowers

In Clive Thompson’s otherwise excellent NY Times Magazine piece on The Brave New World of Digital Intimacy he refers to Mark “Shower Sandals” Zuckerberg as “doe eyed”.

I should update my “media contact” page to say:

No descriptions of my person reminiscent of Bambi frolicking in a meadow will be tolerated. However the following descriptions are acceptable:

Steely visage

Grim countenance

Square jawed god among men

Hulking brute

Sexual Tyrannosaurus

Otherwise Thompson’s article was spot on. You could read it and Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everbody and learn most of what you need to know about social networking software.

Posted in Technology | Tagged Facebook, Twitter | 1 Comment

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