Dude, Where’s My Close Button?

If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve probably seen the new chat promotion running on their site by now. I’ll be diplomatic and say it’s a tad problematic, owing to the simple fact that it contains no visual cues as to how to dismiss it without first interacting with it (ie, a close button). True, clicking elsewhere on the page closes it, but as a user I have no idea that’s the case initially. By omitting an affordance to opt out, Facebook is not-so-subtly funneling many of the users who simply want to close the promotion into their sign-up process. “How the heck do I close this thing? [click] Oh…”

I Saw What You Did There, Facebook: The Facebook chat promotion as it appears on the right-hand side of a user’s homepage. Personal tidbits obscured to protect the innocent.

Removing cues to close or abandon interaction flows is something that needs to be undertaken with great care and respect for the user’s initial intent. When used in complex, multi-part forms such as retail check-outs, removing site chrome and “links out” can help focus attention and aid in the completion of a task the user has explicitly voiced a desire to do.

But when used to sculpt the flow of traffic without the user’s say-so, you risk engendering confusion and suspicion. Hence, I typically advise clients against this sort of thing. Sure, you’ll get higher sign-up numbers, but at what cost? Many of the folks who wind up making it through the process will be doing so out of ignorance, and quite a few won’t be terribly happy about it once they arrive on the other side.

Comment on this entry…

See How I Use It

A perfunctory memo from the Department of Self-Promotion’s Home Office to direct your attention to a brief interview with yours truly on The Setup. The Setup is an interview site run by the estimable Mr. Daniel Bogan that talks with interesting folks in various tech (and not-so-tech) fields about their office digs and working methods. I’m tickled to be adding my two cents. And for the record, I’m really not kidding about the desk chair.

Comment on this entry…

Saturday in the Park

A few shots from last year’s rooftop Independence Day festivities in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Happy Fourth of July, folks.

View the rest of this entry…

Comment on this entry…

Renegade Craft Fair

A few weeks back we spent a wonderful day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, consuming splendid food, watching local artists ply their skills, and taking in the Renegade Craft Fair at McCarren Park. And wouldn’t you know, a few pictures were taken while we were out and about. The full set is on Flickr.

View the rest of this entry…

Comment on this entry…

Little, Yellow, Different

Today the smart folks at A Book Apart have taken the wraps off their fourth entry in the series, Ethan Marcotte’s Responsive Web Design. I was fortunate enough to provide some feedback on an early draft, and I suspect it’s quickly going to become the canonical text on the subject.

Every so often something rolls around that makes the field feel new, and for me, this is most definitely it. Moreover, I hope it marks the beginning of a renewed awareness—and embrace of—the inherent fluidity of the Web.

There’s been some great discussion on the topic of Responsive Web Design since Ethan first introduced us to it on A List Apart, and it’s been reminding me about our history. We arrived at the current, relatively rigid state of Web design out of a desire to impose order on a medium that began life as chaotic and wildly inarticulate (from a designer’s perspective). The Web was fluid by nature, but the tools were desperately primitive. The only way to keep the limitations and randomness from impeding your content was to lock down one side of the equation. We couldn’t control the browsers, so we bolted down the designs.

But the game has changed. Browsers have gotten, dare I say, pretty damn good. And a whole host of robust tools and devices have arrived that allow users to passively view, actively consume, or deliberately repurpose as they see fit. The fantasy we once coveted, of a perfectly reproducible canvas painted in pixels, has given way to a breathing reality mitigated by circumstance and conditions we will not be able to anticipate.

And this book points the way.

Comment on this entry…

Found Type

View the rest of this entry…

Comment on this entry…

Lightweight Computing

There’s been quite a bit of back and forth lately over what to call the category of devices comprised by the latest smartphones, tablets, and slightly amorphous “smart” consumer gadgets.

Many note the term “mobile” no longer fits the bill. While current trends started there with the first truly robust smartphones, it insinuates a usage (on the go) and a bandwidth (paltry at best) that often isn’t the case. A good look at the data my phone slurps down every month is all I need to know it’s a broadband life that little electronic sidekick of mine is living.

Up until the advent of workable tablets the term “small screen” almost cut it, but that too is out. It’s hard to argue that devices weighing in with screen resolutions starting in the neighborhood of 1024×768 pixels, mapped to physical sizes ideally suited to two-hand use, could ever really be thought of as “small.”

So what’s that leave us with? We need terminology clients can grasp intuitively, driven home by a sensible supporting statement or two, without leading the conversation down a pedantic rabbit hole. We need a suitable shorthand that broadly encapsulates the idiom. Lately, for me, that term has been “lightweight computing.”

I make no claims to lightweight computing being the perfect moniker. But as audience-friendly marketing shorthand goes, I think it fits the bill nicely. In addition to being something folks outside our industry can grasp without reams of explanation, it implicitly accounts for a style of interaction without making claims to context, data rate, or whether the device in question is the user’s primary computing experience (something that will become increasingly important down the road). The ever-changing device landscape may make this term obsolete in a matter of moments, but for now I know what I’m writing in my briefs.

Comment on this entry…

Welcome to Our Party For You

So the Editor in Chief of the New York Times went and wrote something that’s irritated a few of us Intertubes Types.

There’s a part of me that can’t get past the feeling we’ve stepped into a time warp. That this is a conversation more suited to five, maybe ten years ago, when those of us who worked in the nascent online wings of “traditional” publishing houses were viewed by colleagues as mad Che Guevaras; anarchists possessed of rebellious inclinations to set the building ablaze or gleefully slather all the telephone receivers with peanut butter.

As industries, news and publishing should have long since moved beyond the fact that the digital transition is happening and that adapting to the flow of history is the productive way forward, rather than sitting on the sidelines wagging fingers while revenue sails by. The audience chooses the time, place, and manner of the transaction now. Making money means dealing with them on their own terms.

Despite the gripes from folks like me, much of publishing’s leadership has actually acknowledged this sea change, at least in word. And therein lies the rub. For when it comes time to actually follow through with deeds their collective stomachs seem to turn, and out pops a piece like Keller’s. Somewhere there’s a block between thought and action.

Sociologist Zeynep Tufekco has put forth some supremely thoughtful comments regarding this cycle of acknowledgement and backsliding that continues to plague large institutional publishers. “[T]his angst is about conventions and conventions evolve which always horrifies those who have acquired privilege and power by mastering certain conventions while dismissing others.” She continues:

“What we are seeing with social media is the public sphere, hitherto dominated by written culture, has been more opened up to oral psychodynamics. And this is particularly difficult to deal with for intellectuals who rely on their competence with, and dominance of, the written form as hallmark of their place in society.”

A distaste with the cuisine keeps them from sitting down for the meal. Comfort with the style of these new interactions will only come with time and continued, full-on exposure. It feels inevitable, but it requires a true willingness on the part of these same publishers to rub elbows with the rabble. Just showing up to the shindig isn’t enough. We like handing our cash over to folks who actually want to talk with us.

Comment on this entry…

Above, Below, and in Between

View the rest of this entry…

Comment on this entry…

Like the Coelacanth

Back in the late 90s, when Volkswagen was an advertising tastemaker, they ran a clever TV spot where a mechanic pops open the trunk of a new VW only to find—to his shock—a full-size spare tire inside.

“I thought these were extinct.” he says to his buddy, who replies, “That’s what they said about the coelacanth.”

The implication being that Volkswagens had thoughtful features that other manufacturers had long since done away with. Something that distinguished them, and something that you, dear car buyer, wanted in on. It was a great bit of ad writing, not just for the geek humor, but because the audience grasped the bigger picture immediately. This thing is unusual, and it tells you everything you need to know about the kind of products Volkswagen makes.

Take that concept, reverse the implication, and it’s what you get when sites do things like this:

This thing is unusual, and it tells me a lot by implication about the company that put it together. Only this is one coelacanth that best remains extinct.

Comment on this entry…