fictional ui

Defined by Compromises

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:04:43 -0400

Let’s get back at posting (hopefully) regularly here.

I’d figure this daringfireball’s post from last week concerning Microsoft it’s a nice starting point.

Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky blogged on Windows 8 UI design philosophy, and Gruber insightfully bolded out a recurring “No compromise” theme in it - then noting how this was markedly different from Apple’s direction of embracing compromises to enforce a streamlined simplicity in design.

The point is clearly that Apple compromises on features for the sake of user experience, while Microsoft is willing to compromise on functionality for the sake of functions.

Which is interesting because is more or less what have always characterized Microsoft - a defining trait, which has lead to execution in products of various quality (some hogwash, some other actually very good).

Microsoft itself in its dialogue gives us the elements to build a narrative about that.

Just two days before the post Gruber linked, Sinofsky posted a interesting essay on the design process behind the improvements in Windows Explorer, which he illustrate this way:

oh hi

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:14:00 -0400

Long time no post here…

Quite a lot strange things happened to a certain venture I sincerely thought could’ve been interesting in this six months hiatus.

On other fronts, though, things have been pretty void of news.

Oh well, mobile is hard.

The perfect marriage

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:01:00 -0500

The perfect marriage:

A company that missed the mobile computing revolution because it couldn’t think beyond its desktop computing zeitgeist, and a company that missed it because it couldn’t think beyond its feature-phones zeitgeist.

They’ve got four full years to ponder about their inadequacy, one can’t help but wonder if it’s been enough. Wish them well?

HP hires former Apple exec to head up developer relations

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:45:34 -0500

HP hires former Apple exec to head up developer relations:

~ via daringfireball

The applification of HP

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:57:00 -0500

Pretty impressive, uh? and I say this in a positive way.

Before:

After:

They ain’t shy of ambitions:

It’s cool to sit and see these days.

Scroll Gawker, Scroll

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:37:00 -0500

Gizmodo (and all the Gawker network for that matter) recently debuted with a redesign that’s mildly perplexing, to say so…

The always well-informed John Gruber has some good insights on the design process that help put things in the right perspective.

Whatever you may think of it, I actually perused it for a while, curious to see if habit could make me adapt to its weirdness - and I realized that it would have been so much faster to just knock together a userstyle to get rid of the features that most annoy me, namely whitespace M.I.A., noisy fixed sidebar, unfitting choice of Georgia.

Stock gizmodo:

Butchered:

I’m sharing it, for what is is worth - it’s rough and messy, put together in ten mins throwing rules randomly at it. ^^;

Paste in Stylish or whatever you use.

body,
.sitescontainer, 
.small-light, 
#rightcontainer .post {
	font-family: 
        Avenir, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif !important;

        /* 
           Put your favorite font here 
           (you've got to have it installed 
           on your machine of course). 
           I think this design screams for sans serif 
           and just put the lovely Avenir 
        */ 
}



#rightcontainer {
	position: relative !important;
	height: 470px !important;
	overflow: hidden !important;
	margin-left: 20px !important;
}


#lbOverlay,
#rightcontainer {
	margin-top: -67px !important;
}

#rightbar_nextheadlines.rightBarControl {
	top: 436px;
}

.inner {
	border-right: 1px solid #bbb !important;
}

.mainContent .post,
.mainContent .post-body, 
.mainContent h1.headline {
	padding-left: 18px !important;
	padding-right: 18px !important;
}

h1.headline {
	margin-bottom: 18px !important;
}

.comment {
	margin-left: 18px !important;
	margin-right: 18px !important;
	width: 594px !important;
}

h1.brand {
	filter: alpha(opacity=50);
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(opacity=50);
	-moz-opacity: 0.50;
	opacity: 0.5;

	top: -19px !important;
}

.page-frontpage h1.brand {
	filter: alpha(opacity=100);
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(opacity=100);
	-moz-opacity: 1;
	opacity: 1;

	top: -12px !important;
}

.page-frontpage .gmgrid {
	padding-top: 18px !important;
}

#hoveringNextPostContainer {
	-moz-box-shadow: 0 -6px 13px #FFF;
	-webkit-box-shadow: 0 -2px 3px #CCC;
	box-shadow: 0 -2px 3px #CCC;
}



/* these hide the ad in the top right 
and the facebook widget */

.ad_container { display: none !important;}        
h1.headline iframe { display: none !important;}

/* please show some love to Gizmodo 
and Zuckerberg and remove them =) */

Is this going to be gustòso?

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:21:00 -0500

Let’s hope so.

It looks positively Apple–ish, and Web OS has always got some kind of an “even more Mac-like than Apple own stuff” allure to it.

I’d rather have more well designed integrated mobile computing platform choices, not less.

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore..."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:02:00 -0500

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.”

- Inexorabĭlis lorem ipsum