Microsoft have just announced an update to Windows Phone 8. As one of the five, maybe six people who actually bought a WP8 handset I found this interesting. Then I read the blog post about it, and rushed off to write somewhat less than a thousand words about a single picture. The blog post announces … Read more
To nobody’s enormous surprise, I’ve spent a chunk of this morning bickering on Twitter. In this case, largely in the wake of the Galaxy Gear smart watch. Clayton Christensen was famously wrong about the iPhone the first time around. Now, he’s a couple orders of magnitude smarter than I am, but I basically want to … Read more
In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 … Read more
The 3D edition of Tron: Legacy opens with embedded user assistance. The film starts with an iconic white-on-black command-prompt message exhorting viewers to keep their 3D glasses on throughout. I can’t quote it verbatim, and at the time of writing nor could anybody findable with 5 minutes of googling. But it was something like: “Although … Read more
Or at least find a way to use it right. Last week, a blog I read went off on a bit of a rant about Instagram. The post seems to be suffering from a little data vs information befuddlement, and a slight miss-location of the value of photographs. But its perspective is one that had … Read more
I came across three things a while back that made me smile: Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text An article in the Onion, gently needling the atrophy of reading and attention Big Graphic Blueprint Nathan Yau at Flowing Data pokes fun at design patterns InternetOnlineWebsite.com A really slick piece of advertising making the … Read more
Last night, I was challenged to explain (and defend) content strategy. Three sheets to the wind after a pub quiz, this is no simple task, but I hope I acquitted myself passably. I say “hope” because there was a really interesting question I couldn’t answer to my own satisfaction. I wonder if any of you … Read more
Last night was the CS London group’s event Content Strategy, Manhattan Style. Yes, it’s a terrible title, feeling like a self-conscious grasp for chic, something sadly commensurate with the venue. Fortunately, this was not commensurate with the event itself, which was lively, relevant, and engaging. Although mostly if you’re a consultant. This is a strong … Read more
There was one of those little laugh-or-cry moments recently when I heard an anecdote about content strategy failings at a major online retailer. The story goes a bit like this: successful company in a highly commoditized marketplace succeeds on price and largely ignores its content team. Being relatively entrepreneurial, the founders are still knocking around, … Read more
A lot has been written about how driving content strategy from within an organisation is hard. And that’s true. Red Gate is pretty receptive to new ideas, so although I’ve not had a total walk in the park, it’s been a hike with charming scenery. But I’m one of the lucky ones. Lots of people … Read more
The discipline of theodicy is a branch of theology and philosophy. It attempts to reconcile various belief systems with the existence of evil. By way of a simple – if fatuous – example, it addresses questions like why a god might allow bad things to happen to good people. A certain kind of cynic might … Read more
I read an interesting blog snippet a while ago about information visualizations and their capacity to set change our view of the world. It asks whether we as information designers have a moral responsibility to our users that governs how we model their worlds (“First, do no mimetic harm.”). I feel like that about documentation … Read more
Ironic or unironic, the Windows 7 launch party video has been roundly mocked, for smugness, sentimentality, pageant diversity, and the paper-thin disguise of humanity it seeks to drape over glib corporate twaddle* It also went viral and reached perhaps a couple million people. Many of the remixes retained the body of the audio, so the … Read more
Sometimes, you wish you had a tool to run a software development process exactly the way you need it to run. You click your heels together and then realise that you already have the means to do it. By combining tools that can work in command-line mode, or can be automated in other ways, you can sometimes save a great deal of time and tedium. Roger Hart rummages into the SQL Toolbelt and comes up with some practical examples for providing Continuous Integration, along with the code!… Read more
<p>Did anybody go to the Information Design Conference last week? If not, you missed a fascinating presentation by <a href=”http://www.infodesign.org.uk/2009-conference/speakers/wong.php”>Michèle Wong</a> on semantic, mimetic, typography. I’m not really able to do it justice here – it was a dense, detailed presentation on some pretty big ideas. This, unfortunately, is rather more whistle-stop. In fact, when … Read more
Working on SQL Compare 8, I spent some time thinking about video. It’s a bit different, it’s fun, and it’s a good excuse to watch things on YouTube and call it “research”. As a way we communicate (technically) with our users, it’s also an area that rather interests the Technical Communications team. Surprising, that. We’re … Read more
Roger points out the difference between a good 'Wow!' and a bad 'Wow!', when uttered by users trying to find features in your tools. You really should listen to both kinds when you're developing your software...… Read more
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