The simplest design principles can go a long, long way. Start small, then grow from there. Let’s not over complicate things, or forget what we are really trying to build. I took a quick look at some of my favourite companies from around the web, and saw a whole lotta CRUD.
Which is your favourite crud, which did I miss?
#HumbleBeginings
I’ve been experimenting recently with a bunch of cool photosharing apps on my iPhone including: Path, With, Twitter, Facebook, Denwen, Color, Dailybooth… (takes breath). As much as I enjoy each one in their own unique way, none of them (yet) are able to capture the true feeling or ambiance of a particular situation, though Path is probably the closest. To be fair, most of these apps were not designed to do such. I’ve always found that regular photos (camera phone for instance) can decently capture a moment, but they often come off as rather 1-dimensional (figuratively speaking). So as an experiment, I documented ~72hours of my life by taking panoramic photos along the way. Below are shots of where I found myself wandering to over the last 3 days. For me, these wider photos do justice to some of the lovely views I get to see on a daily basis.
I am not a photographer, these are far from perfect, but I think they do a great job of giving the viewer a sense of where I was and what I experiencing. I recall reading that the switch for TV’s from 4:3 to 16:9 ratio was to make a more natural aspect ratio for the human eye. Well, even at 16:9 (which might approximate my eye’s static view), I often tend to move my head left/right, so hopefully these wide/POV shots are more emmersive. Lastly, I have to tip my hat to the team who made PanoApp, a great $2 iPhone app that does all the stitching work for you. Go download it and post stuff.
Anyway, here is 72 hours exploring in SF. This is not realtime, this is not broad casted/narrow casted, this is not person tagged nor is it geo tagged. Just some simple photos I thought some people might enjoy.
SOMA: The view from my desk at work, I have never used the monitor on the right
SOMA: Every Friday at TwitterHQ, teatime with drinks, live music and serious QA... I'm holding 2 beers.
SOMA: Walking over Howard St on the Yerba Buena bridge. I'm listening to Metric.
Embarcadero: My Thursday poker game with some of the nicest guys in town, though I'm about to lose a big pot
Union Square: The Powell BART station, heading out for food. I'm craving Chinese food
SOMA: Chatting with my coworker @alan about my panorama experiment. The pano is so meta.
Nob Hill: The top of the hill, just a few blocks from my apartment. Choice: Russian Hill ahead, China town the the right
Russian Hill: One of the steepest/funniest hills in the city. I'm thinking about tipping a car over (Broadway/Jones)
Russian Hill: Relaxing at one of my favorite "hidden" spots in the city. A random dog sits down beside me to enjoy the view
Dolores Park: Tons of people enjoying the nice weather. I'm wearing my pink sunglasses to fit in
Mission: The Summit cafe, a new but prototypical cool/geeky tech hangout with great coffee. I'm holding a fancy Cappuccino
The Marina: You can see the Golden Gate to the left, and Alcatraz to the right. It is really windy
Union Square: Tons of tourists lining up for the Cable Car and enjoying some local street performers
Mission: 16th St. BART, a shot of me going home after a long day of wandering. photo by @moizsyed
We see thousands if not millions of moments just like these on a day to day basis. Hopefully I’ll remember to stop and capture a few of them for me to revisit and share in the future. On a closing note:
I think Im developing an unhealthy obsession with taking panoramic photos…—
Ian Chan (@chanian) June 12, 2011
I am always interested in looking at large sets of data. Earlier today, LinkedIn released InMaps which provide a simple tool for visualizing one’s network on LinkedIn. After a few seconds of processing, I was presented with this colorful and interactive visualization of the ~200 connections I have on LinkedIn. Now I don’t have quite as many connections as others, but I was still very impressed with the powerful bits of information I was able to quickly get out of this graph. The plotting algorithm did a pretty good job, as I see 3 major clusters which are composed of my University of Toronto connections, the connections I made at my previous startup Thoora, and the connections I have made (mostly coworkers) since I moved to San Francisco for Twitter.
I recently received a Wacom tablet+stylus as a gift and could think of no one else to draw for my first sketch but Alan Turing. This is a 4 layer Photoshop trace atop a famous photo of one of my favorite historical scientists. I figured it could be a late tribute to one of the guys who started it all. On this day (November 28) in 1942, Alan Turing was sending a report from Washington, D.C. describing his 2 week tour of America and their code breaking efforts for WW2. I’ve always appreciated his subtle humor and lingering disappointment in his writing/dialogues, this report is no exception. Always up for a challenge, and (seemingly) rarely impressed or satisfied; breaking German encryption codes and theorizing the modern computer wasn’t bad for a 30 year old math geek from West London.
“I’d say we have come a long way since Zygalski sheets and Hut 8 in Blechley Park, Alan. Don’t forget to thank Welchman for that diagonal board. R.I.P.”
Above is an overlay of every (CrunchBase listed) startup in San Francisco. In an afternoon hack, me, @alan and @thetylerhayes scrapped the crunchbase API then mashed it into Google Maps to get an interesting view of the city. I am always amazed at the amount of startup culture in this city (hence I moved here), but never had a chance to really see it from this perspective. My office and apartment are somewhere buried underneath one of those pins. I’ll try to put up a more interactive version of this chart sooner than later.
As a summary, this post outlines some good-to-know things for any Canadian software developer thinking about moving to the US to work.
Pretty bizarre tutorial no? But after going through this experience (just shy of 2 months ago) I realized that there are a lot of things I wish I had done / known before. A recent visit from a friend from Toronto had me thinking that others may benefit from a post like this. This info is specific to San Francisco, however I am sure it applies to many other cities. I have to thank @bentlegen and @shazow for the advice I got while moving in, I intend to pass the baton. For a great post on how to decide where to work (if you are fortunate enough to have options), checkout @shazow’s post on: A check list while considering offers. This post outlines all sorts of issues I ran into, feel free to skip ahead to the parts you might find useful. I will cover things like: getting a visa, finding a place to live, and how to efficiently spend your first week in the city. As a disclaimer for all the immigration advice, this is just through my experience. I am not an immigration lawyer and if you have specific questions, I suggest you consult one.
The infamous TN1-VISA: Its like Willy Wonka’s golden ticket, except this one lets me legally work in the US. I took this photo 5 minutes after walking out of the US customs office in YYZ
(for tips on what to do/expect when making the move yourself, checkout my other post here)
I recently moved from my home town of Toronto, Canada to downtown San Francisco. A lot of people have asked me why I moved (other than the job) so I thought I’d write a quick post about my move. Over the next few months I will also be publishing weekly (hopefully) updates about my journey into the heart of the tech world.
Read the rest of this entry »
I often (wrongfully) ignore great examples of UI design outside the computer world. While making a connecting flight in Vancouver, I stopped to take a picture of this (in my opinion) great “User Interface”. It reminded me of Tufte’s Envisioning Information, although I’m sure there are many other books which better exemplify this point, maybe this one.
I am always reminded of an interview question a friend had a few years ago while interviewing for a PM position at Microsoft: “Design a information kiosk assuming that your target demographic is illiterate.” That’s a cool problem that I think a lot of people freeze on. It opens up so many ways of exploring perceptual psychology and visual affordances, and generally brings up some great design questions.
The above sign is printed in English and French (Canada’s official languages), Chinese (likely due to the large amount of Chinese visitors and immigrants going through Vancouver) and some visual queues for everyone else. But realistically, the visual queues are the main focus, and the labels are just supplementary information. An arrow showing which direction to walk, the picture of a man traveling, the Canadian flag, signifying domestic, and a green light… which to be honest Im not sure what means, but lets me know that going this way is good.
Does your application’s or website’s UI communicate well to your users? Do you rely too heavily on English labels? Do you rely too heavily on icons? Does your website pass the blur test (now that green circle makes sense)? I won’t open the debate of icons vs. labels, or even the discussion about Realism in UI design, I am just thinking aloud.
An interesting thought, which stuck me while passing by this lonely sign in the Vancouver airport .
Update: For a very interesting and thorough breakdown of this idea in field, check out this great article on SmashingMagazine: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/20/web-design-trends-2010-real-life-metaphors-and-css3-adaptation/.
I love the color pink/purple - I change my syntax highlighting colors so that I comment more...
One day, a software developer was walking down the street and came across a large pill of dog shit. He bent down to get a closer look and said to himself “yep, that looks like shit”. He then gave it a sniff, and said “Yep, that smells like shit”. He then put his finger in it, and said “Yep, this feels like shit”. Finally he did the unthinkable and tasted his finger and happily said: “Oh yeah, that tastes like shit…”. He then walked away satisfied, and said out loud:
“That was definitely dog shit. Good thing I didn’t step in it!”
An old joke which I managed to re-arrange and fit into my experiences with software. Sometimes you have to taste the shit to avoid stepping in it. Don’t look too deeply into the metaphor. Testing is hard, not everyone wants to do it, but it is your duty to prepare for and handle the worst, so your customers don’t need to. I guess there is a hidden message about thoroughness too.
The penis shape was truly unintentional
I thought about drawing a linear / exponential function, while lining up for a beer at a club on the weekend. To prevent myself from becoming either an alcoholic or one of those ‘holding a drink dancers’ (see graph x:[7-9]), I will just no longer go to night clubs.
