Continue reading »]]> ‘Lean’ (re: Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup) is a notable buzzword these days, perhaps inspired by our recession and everyone’s obsession with trimming fat, getting rid of waste, stop resting on your laurels, that’s-what-got-us-into-this-mess-in-the-first-place mentality. I recently mentioned Lean UX to someone and they perked up: “What can you tell me about that?”

I can tell you that I owe my career as a graphics-visual-ui-ux-whatever-you-feel-like-calling-it-guy to this methodology, if you even can call it a methodology. I was lean before it was a trend – and I’m not just referring to my BMI. I’ve held graphic design positions (regardless of what the actual titles were) at all kinds of organizations huge and small for decades, yet I still have a hard time referring to myself as a graphic designer. My late father was one of the few real graphic designers I’ve ever known. I should be so lucky to have but a fraction of his raw talent. At least, I am assuming he had raw talent, although he did actually go to school for it. Nevertheless, I can hold my own. The fact that I know the de facto software inside and out may help, though that should be expected of anyone in this field. However, when it comes time for a design meeting, no one cares about what software you use or how clever you are while using it. It’s all about the product.

The idea is simply to get something in front of the stakeholders as early as possible. This is the product. It will be, by definition, imperfect, raw, and in need of revision. Unless you work in a vacuum, this has to happen. Ideally, there will be a few (three is a great number, never less than three) versions to review. Listen to the comments. Absorb all input. Get over yourself.

Keep iterating. Incorporate suggestions, revisions, diatribes, everything is fair game. Do not stop iterating until the product is shipped, printed, published, posted, tweeted, and of course, Pintstagrammed. After that, keep iterating, unless it’s a one-off project, in which case iterating means using all this knowledge thus far to help streamline future projects and meetings with this cast of characters who have entrusted you with their naked souls.

Whenever possible, draw.

This falls under the “I should take my own advice” category, as my own manual drawing has taken a back seat to the computerized variety for far too many years. Why draw? If a picture is worth a thousand words, a lousy picture could become a cacophony of insults. Without a doubt, this is why most people refuse to draw in the first place. Again, get over yourself. I’ve been told that I can, in fact, draw. We all can. We can all make pictures using whatever tools happen to be around. I developed whatever abilities I have over time, with practice. Pictures are far more efficient than words, and drawing by hand can still be far more efficient than using a device. There are finally some electronic tools these days which can replace pen(cil) and paper, but they cost a lot more money. Until tablets are everywhere, lo-tech can prevail.

After all this reading, I’m feeling like going back to the drawing board. That’s right, I said it. Enough with the overengineering already. Time to put pen or pencil or marker or blood to paper. Kill some trees – as long as the paper’s recycled. Maybe notes from my next design meeting will have no words at all. Maybe there won’t even be wifi. Back to basics, keep it simple, return to the roots. Feel free to insert some Buddhist-sounding cliché here.

Continue reading »]]> There’s an interesting tidbit contained in this article on #Facebook #unsubscribe and how it affects third-party tools such as #HootSuite, #SocialOomph, etc. Be mindful of the fact that if someone opts out of HootSuite posts, for instance, this will in effect mute everyone’s posts from the service. Thus, careless posting through these convenient services can result in unintended consequences for not just your audience, but others’ audiences as well.

The moral here, as always, is to be considerate of your users, but also the community as a whole. Third party tools are indispensable, but one should always strive to tailor posts to their respective audiences. Note that excessive unedited tweets – particularly those containing #hashtags - posted by third party apps on non-Twitter sites are easily identifiable.

Show your readers that they’re worth the extra effort it takes to present them your content in the expected format with regards to each platform.

The full article can be read here:

http://enlightenednetworker.com/social-media/dont-give-friends-reason-facebooks-unsubscribe-option/#axzz1s5XaVZQG

Continue reading »]]> I suppose this would be considered the honeymoon phase. I’ve been on Google+ for a while, but I’ve recently ‘rediscovered’ it, thanks in no small part to Guy Kawasaki’s What the Plus. It’s a quick read, highly recommended for anyone with any designs on becoming a ‘power user.’ If you are in any way interested in social marketing, content curation, or any of the buzzwords of late, here’s some unsolicited advice: that should be you.

The keys to the kingdom, so to speak, lie with Shared Circles, which is, as of this writing, a relatively new feature, but invaluable – and, in my opinion, a feature which frankly blows Facebook out of the water. Mind you, I still use Facebook. As much as the two services are in direct competition with one another, I actually believe they can coexist, at least for a while. They’re going to have to, at least in my world, while our Facebook friends continue to ridicule and diminish the very concept of Google+.

I would love to see a sentiment analysis of Facebook users’ commentary regarding Google+ vs. their sentiments about Facebook itself, particularly when Facebook changes its interface. I suspect that the knee jerk reactions tend to come from the same folks.

Continue reading »]]> The honeymoon phase has never ended with WordPress. After seven years or so using it, I finally got to put it through some paces for a high profile, mission critical application: the CALBIO2012 Annual Conference. This is a signature event for BayBio, with an international C-Level executive attendees list. A month or so before launching the site back in September 2011, I installed WordPress MU after having launched a string of other event sites: some shoehorned into our existing proprietary content management system plus a couple built entirely from scratch using HTML/CSS/jQuery (such as the 2011 California Industrial Biotech Conference and 2011 California Biotech CEO Conference, which were fun exercises, but it was time to get scalable. WordPress exceeded my expectations, and I was optimistic to begin with.

Our main site runs on a proprietary content management system which has been working very well for us thus far, which would be a solid year and a half. There have been some additions and tweaks here and there, which we’ve partnered with our contracted development team to implement. There’s the comfort level of having a team of developers, of course, which is kind of what we’re paying for. As we were going through the original site redesign when I first joined the company, I had mentioned WordPress as a potential platform, but I was not confident enough to get on a soapbox about it. I still have reservations about using it for our primary site, though there is still time for me to be won over completely. That’s a distinct possibility, especially as I try to accomplish more elaborate schemes using WordPress, such as the interactive floor plan, or custom post types, which I used to organize event sessions and participants. I’m still working through the kinks.

In this case, WordPress functioned as a content delivery system. This has been my sweet spot for sure, making content look pretty, adding some interactivity, continually striving to make information easily accessible. There was a fair amount of work that had to take place outside of WordPress, so I’ll be examining the gap that exists between what can be done within the framework and what requires other tools.

Coming up:

• Designing and building the interactive floor plan using a mix of HTML, CSS, jQuery, SVG, and Adobe Illustrator
• Choosing the right Javascript library to deal with displaying lots of logos
• Using a child theme along with Aptana
• Phasing out the use of a plugin (MaxButtons) using CSS
• Maintaining and testing using Dreamweaver
• Looking ahead: sharing content between WPMU sites

Continue reading »]]> I don’t believe I ever authorized Apple or Yahoo! to install this utility on my machine. It does not live in the Applications folder – and Spotlight seems to ignore it. Here it is. I just trashed the YahooSync.framework folder (admin permissions required). The question now is whether it will reinstall itself.

Update: It’s been over a month, and I’m happy to report there’s still no sign of Yahoo! Sync.

Continue reading »]]> Share your browsing experience from your iPad by adding these social buttons to your bookmarks. Add a new bookmark, name it appropriately, copy and paste the code while you’re editing your Bookmarks list:

Buffer

javascript:(function(){var a=document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0],b=document.createElement(‘script’);b.type=’text/javascript’;b.src=’http://static.bufferapp.com/js/bookmarklet.min.js’;a.appendChild(b);})(); void 0

Chill

Not working yet

javascript:void((function(){%20var%20bVer=’1.0′;var%20n=’chill-bookmarklet’;var%20s=document.getElementById(n);if(s){%20s.parentNode.removeChild(s);}%20void(ns=document.createElement(‘script’));ns.setAttribute(‘type’,'text/javascript’);ns.setAttribute(‘src’,'http://chill.com/bookmarklet/bookmarklet-loader.js?bver=’+bVer);ns.id=n;var%20hd=document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’);if(hd.length>0){%20hd[0].appendChild(ns);}else{%20document.body.appendChild(ns);}})())

Delicious

javascript:(function(){f=’http://www.delicious.com/save?url=’+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href)+’&title=’+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+’¬es=’+encodeURIComponent(”+(window.getSelection?window.getSelection():document.getSelection?document.getSelection():document.selection.createRange().text))+’&v=6&’;a=function(){if(!window.open(f+’noui=1&jump=doclose’,'deliciousuiv6′,’location=1,links=0,scrollbars=0,toolbar=0,width=550,height=585′))location.href=f+’jump=yes’};if(/Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent)){setTimeout(a,0)}else{a()}})()

HootSuite “Hootlet”

javascript:var%20d=document,w=window,e=w.getSelection,f=’http://hootsuite.com/twitter/bookmark-tool-v2?’,l=d.location,e=encodeURIComponent,p=’address=’+e(l.href)+’&title=’+escape(d.title),u=f+p;a=function(){if(!w.open(u,’t',’scrollbars=1,toolbar=0,location=0,resizable=0,status=0,width=555,height=570′))l.href=u;};if(/Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent))setTimeout(a,0);else%20a();void(0);

Pinterest

javascript:void((function(){var e=document.createElement(‘script’);e.setAttribute(‘type’,'text/javascript’);e.setAttribute(‘charset’,'UTF-8′);e.setAttribute(‘src’,'http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js?r=’+Math.random()*99999999);document.body.appendChild(e)})());

Readability

javascript:(%28function%28%29%7Bwindow.baseUrl%3D%27http%3A//www.readability.com%27%3Bwindow.readabilityToken%3D%27Gzs4vAT7udmeNv7fb5WLqmFSZR3zcdXttJEVt4n5%27%3Bvar%20s%3Ddocument.createElement%28%27script%27%29%3Bs.setAttribute%28%27type%27%2C%27text/javascript%27%29%3Bs.setAttribute%28%27charset%27%2C%27UTF-8%27%29%3Bs.setAttribute%28%27src%27%2CbaseUrl%2B%27/bookmarklet/save.js%27%29%3Bdocument.documentElement.appendChild%28s%29%3B%7D%29%28%29)

Shareaholic

javascript:var%20s=document.createElement(‘script’);s.src=’http://www.shareaholic.com/media/js/shareaholic_bookmarklet.js’;s.type=’text/javascript’;void(document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0].appendChild(s));

Timely

javascript:(function(){var w=500,h=225,l=Math.round((screen.width-w)/2),t=Math.round((screen.height-h)/2),d=document,s=w.getSelection?w.getSelection():d.title;if(s==”)s=d.title;window.ft=window.open(‘http://timely.is/bookmarklet?s=’+encodeURIComponent(s+’ ‘+window.location),”,’left=’+l+’,top=’+(t>0?t:0)+’,width=’+w+’,height=’+h+’,personalbar=0,toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,resizable=1′);})();

Continue reading »]]> It started with Fred, his first pet, a ferret. Fred wasn’t very friendly, in fact distant, an independent sort of animal, always eating, drinking and hopping around, yet never reciprocating with any affection at all. This annoyed Fred’s companion and owner, Kyle, who was 5 at the time.

Kyle grew weary of the daily ritual in which he tried to teach Fred etiquette.

“Bad posture, Fred,” he’d yell, then swing him by the tail into the wall. Finally, Kyle realized he’d never learn. “Seems you’re a waste of life,” he said, and threw Fred out the window, watching him plummet fifteen floors and become a tiny red dot on the street. Afterwards, Kyle has a pleasant dinner with his parents consisting of Swedish meatballs and a tossed salad.

“Fred’s gone, Dad,” said Kyle, as they prepared for dessert.

“‘Fred IS gone,’ Kyle. We will avoid using such contractions in the future, is that clear?”

“Yes, Dad. Fred is gone.”

“Animals teach humanity, Kyle. After dinner we will discuss your next choice of a pet.”

He named his bullfrog Ain’t.

“Ain’t?” said his father with a twitch.

“You told me I could name him anything I wanted.”

“Yes, as long as it was not a vulgarity.”

His father tolerated Kyle’s tendency to call Aint’s name loudly in his presence, but refused to refer to the bullfrog as anything other than ‘it.’

“Get it out of here immediately,” he would implore Kyle after a few minutes of being in the same room with his son and the loudly croaking frog.

Kyle bored easily of the repetitious hopping and croaking. One evening he inserted a large firecracker into Ain’t's mouth. “You must really learn to enunciate,” he said as he lit the explosive and hurled the bullfrog from his window. Ain’t exploded roughly fifty feet from street level, showering a taxicab with frog bits.

“Ain’t has left us, Dad,” said Kyle just before dessert.

“What have you learned from your bullfrog, Kyle,” asked his mother.

“He is learning humanity, gentility, and responsibility, Mildred, now please have our dessert ready immediately,” said Kyle’s father. “I think you should have a tortoise, Kyle.”

He named his tortoise Cecil. Cecil lived for three weeks, but Kyle became impatient. “You’re just too… damned.. SLOW!” He brought the hammer down in three broad strokes upon Cecil’s shell. “AAARGHHH!” screamed Kyle. The turtle was silent, motionless, dead. He was disposed of in the usual place, the pavement far below.

“You’re maturing into a quite a fine, well-mannered young man, Kyle,” said his father that evening before dinner.

“‘You ARE maturing,’ Dad. We must avoid contractions.”

Kyle felt the coldness of the steak knife in his hand.

“They’ll just never learn,” he thought to himself.

Continue reading »]]> Google Analytics does not track outbound links by default.

Usage

Assign link-outbound class to any trackable external links on the page. As scripted here, your outbound links will appear in Analytics as /outbound/ with the full URL of the outbound link appended. This can be modified to suit your reporting needs.

Example

External link:

<a class="link-outbound" href="http://www.externalsite.com">Link to externalsite.com</a>

Script block (assumes jQuery and Google Analytics are both loaded):

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
$(document).ready(init);
function init() {
$('a.link-outbound').click(function () {
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/' + $(this).attr('href')])
});
}
-->
</script>