SIGNAL VS. NOISE

DISPATCH 1: Someone Please Inspire Me!

Well its over. For the past few nights I've been watching coverage of the DNC faithfully, in hopeful anticipation that I'd see something great happen. Nothing even remotely great happened, I've had my mouth agape and fists to the sky. I've been aghast at plenty but moved by little and, frankly, I'm disappointed. For every Obama there's been an arrogant and whiny Jackson, and for every Clinton we've seen a weepy Ron Ron tying himself to the tracks of some personal healthcare crisis sojourn. PAH-LEASE.

I'd been waiting eagerly to hear Kerry speak because I still had some sliver of optimism, even after three nights of vapid celebrity cameos and self-aggrandizing drivel from the countless bores who seemed to be cashing in their favors from the Kerry campaign to get a place at the mic. Someone please tell me why Steve Buscemi was a commentator on Hardball! And what was that fresh faced kid from The OC doing on stage in the first place?! When Kerry finally took to the podium last night, I felt deep down inside that he was about to say something that could move me, he simply had to after all that bull! But he didnt.

After months of anticipating that Kerry would breakout of Dullsville and inspire the nation with something we can legitimately believe in, what did he say to the weary masses? What were the words he used to wrap us up in his vision of a new America? He reminded us that Hope, as Edwards said the night before, is on the way. Help is too, if we weren't sure. Hope and Help are carpooling to the party, but it looks like they're stuck in traffic.

Kerry didnt say one thing that made my heart swell with the pride of his promises, nor did *he* even seemed convinced that his words held any weight as his eyes shifted uncomfortably over the crowd during the superfluous standing ovations from a riotous crowd of lemmings. He promised America would only enter into war, "because we have to." Oh, really John? What a terrific idea, what powerful words! He vowed to support emerging technology that will create, "good-paying jobs." Well, Im sold. The last thing I want is a president who supports bad-paying jobs, not to mention okay-paying jobs. And there was his bit about cutting middle-class taxes so that every family can pay as you go. I love it: America is now a sushi bar.

And after spouting empty, insubstantial rhetoric to a mesmerized (or brainwashed?) crowd, Kerry accepted his nomination with a stance eerily symbolic of something I've seen before. His attempt to humanize himself by touting his military service was the stiffest, most awkward salute I could have imagined, dare I say Kucinich was a more dynamic speaker two nights before! Where was

Someone help me out here: go read the transcript of Kerry's speech yourself tell me something he said that inspired you.

Dave Reidy Moves On

37signals would like to wish Dave Reidy of Coudal Partners (our officemates) the best success as he moves on to pursue his MFA. Dave is one hell of a talented and funny guy and we'll definitely miss his spot-on impressions, bizarre literary references (bizarre for me at least), musical trivia genius, laughs, integrity, and overall positivity and good spirits. Dave is one of those good guys that no one believes really exist. Keep an eye on him -- he's going places (and we don't just mean Florida). Good luck to you Dave, even though luck isn't something you'll need. Good bug spray to you Dave. Keep in touch.

Open Source

At composer Jon Magnussen's site you can download clips of his (incredible) pieces as well as the sheet music in PDF format. How's that for open source?

SPECIAL FEATURE: Politics by Deeper Throat

We have an insider in our midst. S/he's shady, informed, curious, crude, and shockingly non-partisan. And s/he'll be covering politics for us until the election (and through the recounts). Get ready to hear it as it goes down. Commentary from every corner. No punches pulled (and there will be plenty of punches). So, here comes some real opinions...

Lawyer porn: Apple vs. Real

Real announces Harmony, Apple responds to Real's "hacker tactics," then Real shoots back. Who's going to win this one? All together now... The lawyers!

Millennium Park in pixels

The Chicago junkies at Gapers Block just posted a bunch of great photos of Chicago's new Millennium Park.

When is too neat a bad thing?

Check out this product display. Cool, right? Eye catching, right? Unique, right? All good things, right? Or are they?

Question: Do you think this type of product display would actually hurt sales because people don't want to remove an individual product and disrupt the overall design?

Explode

These are the benefits. Perfect.

The Puppet Show

According to the Washington Post, the only real work going on at the Dem convention is "the nonstop currying of favor of elected officials by the most powerful interests in the country" (similar piece in NY Times about Dem politicians whoring out to fundraisers). Nice to see both sides are equally adept at sucking up to corporate interests and big money. Some choice.

Corporations, trade associations and labor unions -- all now barred from contributing to political parties -- have turned conventions into multimillion-dollar spending sprees, capitalizing on exemptions from federal campaign finance law and congressional gift bans to wine and dine all manner of elected officials, from top-ranked members of Senate committees to backbenchers in state legislatures. From the perspective of narrow interests, conventions are the one remaining way they can legally put money behind federal officials without running afoul of the ban on unlimited "soft money" donations.

...Fifteen corporations, unions and foundations have each given at least $1 million to the Boston host committee, including Bank of America Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Gillette Co., Verizon Communications Inc. and the Service Employees International Union. Another 15 have given from $500,000 to $1 million. In 1992, the Democrats did not accept more than $100,000 from any single donor.

The Ultimate AirTunes Remote

As others have noted, the iTunes/AirportExpress combo is missing one thing: a remote.

Here's an idea. If the iPod interface is specifically designed to make browsing music and choosing playlists easy as pie, why not pull out the disk and swap in some AirPort action? The iPod screen would simply show music and playlists from iTunes instead of its own disk.

A lean little WiFinated iPod might not be cheap, but I can't imagine a better remote interface to my music. What do you think?

Update: Someone else has a similar idea with cool sketches to boot -- though I think it's key to keep the screen and controls together.

Redux: Rejected Basecamp names

Back in June we posted a picture of our bathroom blackboard where we asked people to jot down some rejected names for Basecamp. We provided the chalk.

It's been growing. Some of the more recent additions include:

Dock of the Basecamp, Isaac Hayescamp, Ace of Basecamp, Basejumper, 3rd Basecamp (featuring MC Search), Basecamper van Beethoven, Crazylamp, Dagcamp, Camp David, eNormicamp, and Juicy.

Visions

Paul Ford has his eye on the future and so should we.

iTunes Phone

Motorola will make a new iTunes mobile music player the standard music application on all their mass-market music phones. Should be available starting first half of next year. Just 12 songs at a time to start out though. How long until we have a combo handset that's an all-in-one phone/iPod/PDA (sync with iCal and Address Book too)?

Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe (Plano, IL)

Some selected shots from Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House. Curious people can find out more about the house. Really curious people should visit (it's only about 60 miles outside of Chicago). Even though it's built with the most industrial of materials (steel, glass, and concrete), and it's bright white, I've never been in a space that is more in tune with the nature that surrounds it. It just feels like it belongs there. The proportions and materials inside are simply perfect. It's serenity. Do check it out if you can.

Rails: The infrastructure behind Basecamp

With the first public release of Rails, we're releasing all the infrastructure libraries used to build Basecamp. Rails is written in all Ruby and consists of two major components: Action Pack and Active Record. The former handles all the templates and control flow and the latter all the domain logic and database access.

Rails is a comparatively small web-applications framework. The two main components have just shy of 2,000 lines of code between them. That's small enough that a single man could actually aspire to understand the whole thing (which is convenient, since just one man built the thing).

If you've been following our preaches about Less Software and Say No By Default, this is your chance to see how those principles apply to development infrastructure — not just applications.

Want to know more about how we built Basecamp? Attend the Building of Basecamp Workshop on September 17th.

Building of Basecamp Workshop Update

Quick update: Even though we're still nearly 2 months away, the Building of Basecamp Workshop on September 17th is nearly half sold out. The last workshop sold out, so sign up now and don't miss this next one. A detailed review of the first session is available at Gadgetopia.

Amazon Charging Full Price

Hmmm...just noticed that Defensive Design for the Web is no longer discounted at Amazon. Same goes for other titles too. What happened to the % off list price that seemed to be standard?

Seattle Washington: Library by Rem Koolhaas

Some selected shots of the new Seattle Public Library designed by Rem Koolhaas. Rem also recently designed another unique building on the IIT campus in Chicago.

Pillow Talk

At Hotel Lucia in Portland they have a "pillow menu" where you can select from soft, firm, firmer, and hypoallergenic. At the Sheraton in Seattle they have 7 pillows on a queen sized bed. What's with the new infatuation with pillow options? I suppose it's probably a good idea, but I just find a little humor in a "pillow menu" and 7 pillows on a single queen bed. One thing I have noticed, however, is that the quality of beds at hotels is improving.

Update: I guess pillow menus are pretty popular.

How ROI Changes User Experience

Adaptive Path collaborates on a research project that aims to answer the questions How do companies currently use valuation methods, like return on investment (ROI), to measure the value of user experience? and What are the benefits of doing so? Here's an excerpt from the executive summary PDF:

Our research revealed that using ROI and other valuation methods helps to evolve design competency within organizations. The valuation methods provide tools for developing and measuring a design strategy as a component of a larger business strategy: The ability to value user experience design makes it a visible and credible business lever on par with marketing, research and development, and channel strategy. As a result, applying ROI-measuring techniques to user experience investment decisions has a positive impact on how Web teams are structured and perceived within an organization.

Btw, Jason will be a guest speaker at AP's User Experience Week in D.C. (August 16-19).

What The Tuck?

Flying Shirttails, the New Pennants of Rebellion (NY Times) examines the pros and cons of leaving one's shirt untucked.

Pro:

"...Guys in suits with their shirts all neatly tucked in just look so obvious and clichd," [Daniel Peres of Details] said. They look as if their parents had laid out their clothes. And in a sense, they have. On the road to adulthood, there are many concessions to the loss of boyhood's joyous dishevelment. Tucking in shirttails is an early and crucial one.

Con:

"I particularly dislike it when you see the tail of a dress shirt hanging low," said Michael Bastian, 38, the men's fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman. Mr. Bastian views the tucked shirt as an important point on the continuum of gentlemanliness, an evolution that begins with learning to knot one's shoelaces, shake hands confidently and look other people in the eye.

Language and Social Mobility

Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, has some things to say about standards in spelling and grammar in this Telegraph piece. Arguments for Writing English the Right Way are a dime a dozen, but Truss shakes things up with an appeal to social mobility:

If you encourage people to write the way they talk, class divisions are ultimately reinforced, even exacerbated. I'm a working-class girl who read a lot of books and grew up to - well, to write this piece in The Telegraph anyway, so maybe I have an old-fashioned view of education as the instrument of social mobility. But it's pretty clear to anyone that, if children are taught that "getting the gist" is sufficient, everyone stays where they are.

For more adventures in English debates and argyle sweater-vests, see the excellent In the Penthouse of the Ivory Tower: Three Days in San Diego with Charlie (the bad subject) and Nine Thousand Other Anxious Academics at the 119th Annual Modern Language Association Convention.

Terrorism Futures Market

The idea of a terrorism futures market was quickly laughed out of town in DC (it would have had investors betting on the likelihood of terrorist attacks and assassinations).

Kottke's recent post on James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds" got me thinking about it again though. Surowiecki argues that internal decision markets are one of the best ways to produce forecasts of the future and evaluations of potential strategies.

[Groups] will consistently make better decisions than an individual. Companies have spent too long coddling the special few. It's time for them to start figuring out how they're going to tap the wisdom of the many.

Everyone agrees a shake up is needed in the USA's intel community. So did we throw out a good anti-terrorism idea simply because it seemed distasteful?

Update: James Surowiecki writes, "Canceling the Pentagon's futures market is cowardly and dumb...if PAM would have made America's national security stronger, it'd be morally wrong not to use it."

Portland Oregon: Japanese Garden

Some selected shots from the Japanese Garden in Washington Park in Portland, OR. Ahh, Portland, we really liked you.

Minibar culture

Crap, I just ate a $6 bag of Peanut M&Ms.

Reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg joke... "A minibar is a machine that makes everything expensive. When I take something out of the minibar, I always fathom that I'll go and replace it before they check it off, but they make that stuff impossible to replace. I go to the store and ask, 'Do you have coke in a glass harmonica? ...Do you have individually wrapped cashews?'"

Proof first

"No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof."
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

CD Baby Experience

Retail sites often leave you in the dark about the cutoff time for next day shipping. Not CD Baby which comes right out and tells you, "You have 5 hours, 18 minutes until our next FedEx shipment."

There's a can-do attitude and lots of friendly copywriting at the site too. The human, conversational tone of these excerpts will give you an idea of what I mean...

If you have any suggestions on how to make CD Baby a better experience, please Email us now, and we will not only listen to your advice, but often send a free CD along with your order!

Any special instructions, comments, or questions? Gift-wrapping or a personal card? Tell us now! (There's almost no request we can't handle, so feel free to ask, OK?)

We have already sent you an automatic Email repeating your order. Please check your Email and let us know if anything looks wrong or if you've changed your mind...A real person will Email you again within 1-2 days to let you know when your package was mailed.

Password: Don't worry, it can be low security. We never keep your credit card info on file.

Tell Me How Many Times I Screwed Up Please

I was last month's guest here at SvN but since the guys didn't turn off my account I'll sneak this one in. Daniel Burka has made this post at Delta Tango Bravo about a contingency issue that has always bothered me.

"Hold on, did the page reload or is this the same message I saw a second ago?"

USPS: Track me if you can

So, I'm waiting on a shipment that was sent via the US Postal Service. I went to their tracking page, entered my 22-digit tracking number, and got this in return:

Key items:

"Your item was accepted at..."
"ARRIVAL AT UNIT..."

Yet, the package hasn't been delivered to my location. So it's been both "accepted" and there's been an "arrival," but none of these have anything to do with actual delivery. Now, I wouldn't be so critical if these details weren't so ambiguous. What is the "Unit" that it arrived at? Where was it "accepted?" And, finally, when can I expect delivery? UPS, FedEx, DHL, and Airborne all provide estimated delivery dates (which help set expectations and reduce "package anxiety").

The USPS needs to be a much better job setting expectations by sharpening their language and providing more context in order to reduce confusion. This is what we mean when we talk about Experience Design. Clear language and copywriting can make all the difference in the world.

Still got it?

For those web designers out there, do you still enjoy designing web sites as much as you did a few years ago? If yes, what keeps you motivated? If no, why not?

The Impact of Used Books

Is Amazon.com becoming the Napster of the book business? (NY Times)

"Used books are to consumer books as Napster was to the music industry," [a publishing consultant] said. "The question becomes, 'How does the book industry address its used-book problem?' There aren't any easy answers, especially as no one is breaking any laws here."

GMail: Using Invites To Create Buzz

Paul Scrivens writes that the GMail invite process has built a buzz for GMail that traditional advertising could never have achieved.

Already they had created a wonderful service that easily would have grown through word-of-mouth advertising, but instead they only allowed a certain number of individuals in at a time. Surprisingly, they probably did this more for testing and load balancing reasons than for advertising, but it seemed to help enormously on both fronts.

Reminds me of some advice Chris Matthews gives in his book "Hardball" that goes something like this: When you've got bad news, get it all out at once...when it's good news, drag it out for as long as possible. Instead of one "We've launched" announcement, Google has (inadvertently?) been able to milk their launch buzz for weeks.

Let's vote the rascals out

It's time for the incumbents to go. The weathermen incumbents, that is. Is it just me, or have they been awfully inaccurate as of late?

Trimming Links

Each e-mail we send to our Topica mailing list automatically includes a list of links at the end, like this:

I get why the "Update Your Profile," "Unsubscribe," and Topica links are there. But are the links to "Confirm Your Subscription" and "Forward to Friend" really necessary? If I get the e-mail and see the link, I'd say that's a pretty decent confirmation of my subscription. And I doubt a ton of readers really need a web link in order to forward an e-mail to a friend. Sure, there's always some reason to include "just one more link" but it'd be nice if Topica would just trim the fat.

Web Design Predictions

Cameron Moll's five web design predictions for the rest of 2004:
More large type, fieldset tags, horizontal drop-shadows...
Less long-scrolling homepages, constant redesigns

Community, Design, Lifestyle, STEALING

Anyone else think this site looks like Coudal's new site? We're sure Coudal came first. At least they thanked Coudal in their CSS file. Problem is they didn't ask permission first.

Amazon gets even more Defensive

I ran into a nice piece of Defensive/Contingency Design today on Amazon's site. Here's what happened... I placed an order, then placed it again because I forgot to use a $25 off coupon I had. My plan was to then cancel the first order. But, Amazon recognized that I just placed the same order twice so they wanted to check to see if that's what I really wanted to do:

I know it's cut off, and shrunk a bit, but is basically says: "Jason, you placed an order for these items a few minutes ago. Are you sure you want place the same order again?"

This is great Defensive Design -- making sure I really wanted to do something unusual like placing the same order twice. Well done, Amazon.

Audi A2: Why not in the US?

Audi, why oh why haven't you brought the A2 to the US? Wicked cool looks, 60+ mpg, all aluminum body, a friendly pull out service module tray for easy access to the dipstick, oil filler and the windshield washer fluid. Come on, Audi -- bring the A2.

Chicago, the green city

Metropolis Magazine has a piece on Mayor Daley's crusade to make Chicago the nation's greenest city. As anyone who lives here (or has visited -- especially in the summer) can attest, Daley has packed the city full of trees (over 400,000 have been planted so far), flowers, and mixed planters -- from the lakefront, to the boulevard medians (so far 63 miles of medians have been built and landscaped), to street corners, to rooftops (Chicago City Hall features the countrys first rooftop garden on a municipal building). The article also talks about Daley's controversial, dictatorial destruction of Meigs Field -- to build, what else, but another public park. Be sure to download the enlightening Greening of the Windy City map (PDF).

I liked this paragraph:

...Daley was criticized for focusing too much on aesthetics. At first people didnt really understand the larger benefits, says Lisa Roberts, director of the Garfield Park Conservatoryone of the nations largest and oldestwhich was on the verge of total collapse when Daley put her in charge of a complete renovation. Its not just about beautification. And he gets that. One of the smart things he did was to bring in some researchers to address city council members who showed that the presence of greening in peoples lives has a direct link to lowering crime rates, improving test scores, boosting real estate values, et cetera."

I was also surprised to read that Chicago's CCGT (Chicago Center for Green Technology) building is one of only 5 LEED Platinum-certified buildings in the country.

The CCGT is an office building, educational facility, factory, and a Garden in the Cityso multifunctional components, like a lobby that doubles as a classroom, were devised. Seventy-three percent of the floorplate is daylit, creating sizable energy savings. The building is cooled and heated by geo-exchange heat pumps, and the elevator uses canola oil rather than hydraulic fluid.

Canola oil. CANOLA OIL!

V for Viagra

This is great... My cousin Marty is the poster boy for Viagra in Jerusalem!

Our own little 37express project

We're the 37express client this time. We spent a week redesigning the Basecamp home/overview page. And today we launch the redesigned page.

Here's the before (left) and after (right):

We were looking to achieve a few goals with the redesign:

1. We wanted to do a better job communicating the various audiences and reasons for using Basecamp.

2. We wanted to get some screenshots right up at the top of the screen.

3. We wanted to highlight a few of the key, fundamental features as quickly and clearly as possible.

4. We wanted to give the page some more visual interest -- the old page was awfully text heavy at the top.

So, what do you think? Dig it? Take issue? Any other comments? We'd love to hear from you.

Want to see what we can do for you in a week? Check out 37express -- our 1-page redesign in a week service.

Interface Design Tip: Find the Epicenter

One of the topics we cover at the Building of Basecamp workshop is "Epicenter Design." It's a technique we use when designing functional screens for web-based apps, intranets, extranets, or any functional page (it's not as applicable for a content driven or marketing-heavy page). It helps answer the "where do we start?" question.

Epicenter Design involves focusing in on the true essence of the page (the "epicenter") and then building outwards. This means not starting with the navigation/tabs, or the footer, or the colors, or the sidebar, or the logo, etc. It means starting with the part of the page that, if changed or removed, would change the entire purpose of the page. That's the epicenter.

For example, here's a typical Messages screen in Basecamp. The eipcenter is highlighted with a green box:

So, if you were to start designing this page from scratch, you'd start here -- with the message unit. The subject, the body, the metadata, the link and file attachment styles, etc. Only when that unit is complete would you begin to think about the second most critical element on the page (which may be the sidebar, in this case). Then after the second most critical, you'd move on to the third, etc. That's Epicenter Design.

It can get tricky so here's another example: Here's a typical Milestones screen in Basecamp. The epicenter is highlighted with a green box:

You might think the epicenter is the calendar (on the left and/or on the right) or the colored sections, but the true epicenter is the design of the milestone unit itself -- the subject, the date due, the party responsible, etc. That's the epicenter. If you removed this stuff the page would no longer be the milestones page.

So, why is Epicenter Design better? The best reason is that it helps you focus on the pure purpose of the page. It allows everything else on the page to be based on the pure purpose of the page instead of the other way around. Traditionally, the page shape would be built, then the nav would be dropped in, then the marketing "stuff" would be inserted, and then, finally, the purpose of the page would be poured in to whatever space remained. Epicenter Design flips that process and allows you to focus on what really matters first. Everything else comes second. Everything else is built around the elements that really matter. That's why it's better.

When you take this approach to screen/UI design you'll see better, more customer-focused results. You'll develop screens that are easier to use and understand. You'll build an interface that makes more sense, and quicker sense, to the majority of the people who will be using it. And, finally, Epicenter Design forces you to think about the pure purpose of a page first. That exercise alone will result in a much better end product.

Want to learn more about Epicenter Design, or other useful interface design techniques? Consider signing up for the Building of Basecamp on September 3rd in Chicago.