[Sunspots] The habitable edition

Habitable software: “Programmers essentially live in the software they create. Therefore, it is a sensible thing to make sure your software is habitable…This speaks to not only writing software that you are proud of, but also rejecting ideas that will compromise the livability of your software while embracing the practices that enhance the livability.”
5 reasons why enthusiasm is better than confidence: “I think the word ‘confidence’ creates more problems than it solves. I usually advise clients to change the word to ‘enthusiasm’. Here’s why…” [via swissmiss]
Tom Asacker summarizes 2007 trend predictions: One thing to look for: “More ‘Jon Stewartizing’ of marketing and PR: Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ has changed how people consume TV news, getting more from smart comedians on the Comedy Central than the establishment networks’ news broadcasters. Look for more companies to ‘Jon Stewartize’ their Web content, sales meetings, PR programs, similar to what IBM did when it released its hilarious fake mainframe sales training videos on YouTube.”
Wall Street Journal's managing editor talks about the thinking behind the new redesign: “I think we’re now in the environment of continuous change – that if we see an opportunity to gain from change we’ll go for it. There’s nothing that says I’ve done this big thing, don’t talk to me. Maybe you get one day to enjoy the victory in that game, then it’s time to get ready for the next one. You see this particularly on the web.” See the redesign. [via NewsDesigner]
Maggie’s Big Moo highlights: Name something: “If it has a name, your peers can measure it. If it has a name, they can alter it. If it has a name, they can talk about it. And if it has a name, they can eliminate it.” Finish with something remarkable: “Those last five minutes make it easy for your customers to find the difference between you and everyone else.”

In defense of mess: “Messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat ‘office landscapes’) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts.”
24 ways: Photographic Palettes: “Choosing effective colour schemes will always be more art than science, but there are things you can do that will make coming up with that oh-so-smooth palette just a little a bit easier. A simple trick that can lead to incredibly gratifying results lies in finding a strong photograph and sampling out particularly harmonious colours.”
Dictionary.com's top 10 looked-up new words for 2006: Includes conversate, metrosexual, barrista, and queif.
50 Greatest Cartoons: Online video links for the 50 Greatest Cartoons as voted on by the animation industry in 1994. [via cynical-c]
Time: “Apple's New Calling: The iPhone”: “Jobs likes things that are broken. It means he can make something that isn’t and sell it to you for a premium price…Apple also places an inordinate emphasis on interface design. It sweats the cosmetic details that don’t seem very important until you really sweat them. ‘I actually have a photographer’s loupe that I use to look to make sure every pixel is right,’ says Scott Forstall, Apple’s head of Platform Experience (whatever that is). ‘We will argue over literally a single pixel.’”

Basecamp wrote this on Jan 11 2007 There are 9 comments.

Peter Sieburg

on 11 Jan 07

I am glad to see that, on list of 50 best cartoons, Chuck Jones is all over it (and holds #s 1,2,4 and 5). He truly was one of the greatest directors of animation ever. I find it odd that “dover boys” didn’t score higher, though.

Dan Boland

Regarding the mess vs. neat article, I laughed aloud when I read of the “anti-anti-clutter movement.” Why must every author dub any concept or idea a “movement”?

Adam Keys

Thanks for the link, guys. Richard Gabriel’s got some great things to say, I’m glad ya’ll are helping spread the word.

Nathaniel

The nytimes article is messed up. A cleaned-off working area means I can clutter my desk with the one project I want to work on without being distracted by other projects.

Walker Hamilton

regarding that messy desk article:

That’s not to say that those of us with messy desks don’t wish we could clean up the thing more than occasionally.

MH

Re: Habitable software,

Depends on your standard of habitability. Have you seen programmers’ apartments?

Jamie Stephens

on 12 Jan 07

“Name something” made me think of two things:

1. Dale Carnegie’s assertion that the sweetest words to a person’s ear are hearing their own name. (And I guess if people aren’t talking about you, then it is nice to have them talking about something that is yours.)

2. Oddyseus and Polyphemus (the Cyclops) – When Odysseus told him that his name was oudeís, which means “nobody,” Polyphemus could not properly talk about Odysseus. He claims “Nobody is ruining me” and he has no name to give to his father, Poseidon, so that Odysseus might be properly cursed.

My apologies if this sounds pedantic. Just thought it was interesting to see how the power of a name presents itself throughout history.

Mark McGuinness

Thanks for the link, much appreciated. And for adding ‘conversate’ to my vocabulary – can’t wait to use it…

Brian Morykon

From the Time iPhone article, in reference to Apple: “I can’t think of a comparable company that does no—zero—market research with its customers.”

Skipping market research isn’t for everyone, but for the right people, the visionaries, the ones who see How Things Should Be, it works. It’s like they know what the customer wants more than the customer does. The customer hasn’t ever seen what he really wants, he can only criticize what’s there and point out what he doesn’t want.

When Jason redesigned the 37s homepage someone asked if there had been focus groups. Jason replied that there weren’t, it was all gut.

It may sound contradictory, but gut is trainable. My gut is still failing me: I make a lot of decisions that turn out to be wrong. But by studying the work of people who have great ‘guts’ - this blog has helped me find many of those people - my everyday design decisions are getting better, my gut is becoming more accurate.