Category: Information Design
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A Peek into the Sausage Factory (IA Summit Presentation Post-Mortem)
My IA Summit presentation was an experiment in what is a new presentation style for me. I have long admired the rapid-fire presentation style of Lawrence Lessig (aka the “Lessig method“) and in particular the example of Dick Hardt’s keynote at Identity 2.0. Also, I’ve always wanted to achieve the same aesthetic and pedagogical dazzle…
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Interaction Design Style (My IA Summit 2007 Presentation)
It’s been a little less than a week since my IA Summit presentation. To my great surprise, it went really well. I mean really well. In the next day or so I will be posting a summary of my experiences preparing and discussing my topic, which was, in a word, style. Many people came to…
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Are Some People Just Visually Dull?
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Everywhere you go, you see 16:9 widescreen television screens playing regular 4:3 video programs stretched out to fit across the whole screen. You see these in airports, banks, bars, and offices. Maybe you even see this in your own home. Presumably, the owners of these TV screens can’t bear to see all those extra black…
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Stop Putting Dates in File Names!
You know who you are. You are my friends, colleagues, and clients. You’re really smart about how to use computers and stuff. You’re great people. But I just can’t stand it when you put dates in your file names. Whether you put dashes between the numbers, use two- or four-digit years, I still can’t stand…
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More World Maps
Just thought I’d post a couple world maps to compare with my own drawing. First, let’s see what the big shots say over at Rand McNally: Not bad. Almost as accurate as mine. Let’s see how I compare to the 17th century cartographer Nicolas Visscher: I think I kicked his ass.
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My Map from Memory
I’m getting some traffic today from kottke, so I figured I’d actually show y’all what the heck it is he’s talking about when he wrote: The first time I saw a world map drawn from memory was at Christopher Fahey’s apartment. I forget how long it took him to draw, but it was remarkably accurate…
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Performative Diagramming
The cover of Bill Moggridge’s excellent Designing Interactions features a sketch/diagram that looks intriguing at first glance. But then when you actually try to figure out what it means, you’re stumped. I tried, but I couldn’t even scratch the surface. Inside the book itself, we learn that the diagram is based on sketches that Bill…
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The Holy Grail of Information Architecture
In a recent blog post, Garret Dimon claims to be hot on the trail of something fabulous: I don’t have the details worked out yet, but I’m slowly putting together a vision of how we can really document web applications in a pragmatic way. The primary driver is to create something that people can understand,…