This reminded me of one of my favorite quotes. “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.” - Daniel Burnham
“I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I’d thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I’d go further: now I’d say it’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.” Completely agree.
“But, he proposed, substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.” I totally agree.
Great article about how detailed a rendering of an object can drastically change our perception of it’s meaning.
Grin
In my opinion it does, and I think Kottke’s points about the care and use of the visual design at the end of his post are spot on. He seems to sit on the fence with how much the visual design impacts the broken windows theory. I agree somewhat, a well moderated and active site owner probably does play a greater roll than the visual design in how much trolling and spam comments you get, but the visual design is still a vital component.
“Cymbolism is a new website that attempts to quantify the association between colors and words, making it simple for designers to choose the best colors for the desired emotional effect.” It’s never clear cut, but the associations and some of their visualizations look really useful. I just wish the site encouraged browsing words and searching a bit better. Great idea though.
A fantastic article from George Oates, one of the designers at Flickr. There’s too many quotes in there to choose just one, but it got me thinking about community design in a slightly different way.
“If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it.”
Great thoughts about the illogical parts, the feeling of UI design. I particularly loved the quote “Change and fresh energy bring hope.”
Which way do you see it spinning? It only spins clockwise for me and try as I might I can’t get it to switch.
An attempt at explaining why that video game addiction is so intense and then vanishes.