Archive for the 'Trend' Category

Page 2 of 8

Enough of IE6 already

Published on Monday, March 23, 2009 in Browsers, Business, Code, Design, Trend, User Experience and Web. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Let’s all shout loud and clear that we have had enough of having to cater for Internet Explorer 6, the quirks, the endless limitations and overall reduced user experience. Found this on Bowman‘s site. It is a link to a manifesto / petition to encourage people to move away from IE6, get a life and make the life of people creating HTML just that much easier and interesting for end users. IE6 does not comply with any standards other than those of Microsoft and now more than ever just hinders user experience in general. So please spread the word about the issues that IE is creating.
Do check out the site. It looks great and has a wonderful quote from Jeffrey Zeldman, (I translated his witty article Web 3.0 a while back):

“IE6 is the new Netscape 4. The hacks needed to support IE6 are increasingly viewed as excess freight. Like Netscape 4 in 2000, IE6 is perceived to be holding back the web.”

Bring IE6 down screenshot

Bring IE6 down screenshot

Bring down IE6 logo

Hilarious note: Pierre from work, has the same unfortunate task as myself, of having to spend ages testing and modifying HTML templates so they will work in IE6. Take a look at this very funny set of IE6 splash pages, Pierre sent me: http://blog.hugsformonsters.com/post/87657240/overly-judgemental-ie6-splash-pages

Google and design

Published on Sunday, March 22, 2009 in Advertising, Blog, Design, Trend and Web. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

There is no doubt that Google has changed the way people use the Internet; it’s search tool and to a certain extent other great services like GoogleMaps and GMail. I was surprised by learning however about the relationship that Google seems to have with design. Douglas Bowman has just left Google and explains his decision, albeit the reasons behind it in a really interesting article about his experience there. There is an underlying theme of how Google relies too much on data to decide how design decisions should be settled.

I found it fascinating, having worked in the same type of situation and also the opposite, where design is not tested and relies on the gut feeling of the creative people rather than user experience testing. The success of this approach is the luck of the draw though. And even with world class creatives, nobody is perfect and your gut feeling isn’t always going to be the right decision, even if you can convince your entourage it is. Bowman seems to be really good and you can feel the frustration of his creativity being put into question by other aspects or realities of the Google business:

Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. [...] Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

The article Bowman links to on NY Times actually describes the issue and the role that Marissa Mayer had in this story (on page 3):

A designer, Jamie Divine, had picked out a blue that everyone on his team liked. But a product manager tested a different color with users and found they were more likely to click on the toolbar if it was painted a greener shade.
As trivial as color choices might seem, clicks are a key part of Google’s revenue stream, and anything that enhances clicks means more money. Mr. Divine’s team resisted the greener hue, so Ms. Mayer split the difference by choosing a shade halfway between those of the two camps.

You feel you’re getting a peak view and understanding of an event, like watching the intrigue of you favourite TV show unfold. In this case though the importance of the debate and the impact that each party could have, can affect the crucial services that Google offer. On the one hand you can say that Google have an impressive track record, on the other, you wonder whether innovative and creative solutions aren’t stifled in the process. Too much creative lead ‘can’ damage the best overall user experience without proper testing. But never taking a chance with a different creative approach can result in uniformity / dullness. I do feel that design, when applied to services and products that thousands or millions of people will use, should be tested by people from different backgrounds to see how well they interact with it. This may again be considered data, but real live people testing your work is going to happen sooner or later, hopefully…

Does an Entrepreneur lose flair over time ?

Published on Saturday, December 30, 2006 in Business, Marketing and Trend. 0 Comments

Bill Nguyen, a serial entrepreneur explains in a CNN Money article why he feels that his experience has pushed him to be less bold in his approach and thus probably takes off an edge he would have had on ‘the market’, the first time round :

“Here’s what I think about the whole serial entrepreneur thing: Every time I do something, I suck a little bit more,” Nguyen says.
“Experience teaches you to be less bold, more concerned. All these life experiences teach you to be afraid. I have to try so much harder now not to be the sum total of my experiences.”

Unusual honesty and an interesting read…

Washing your hands can save lives

Published on Friday, December 29, 2006 in Society and Trend. 0 Comments

Just came across a very interesting blog and article explaining that a recent study demonstrates beyond doubt that hospitals were employees systematically wash their hands decrease deaths due to infections. The article explains how “the current New England Journal of Medicine reports on a study conducted in Michigan hospitals” :

And it worked, big-time. “The results are pretty breathtaking,” Dr. Peter Pronovost, a Johns Hopkins researcher and the lead author of the study told the Baltimore Sun. “The numbers of infections went down quickly and they stayed down.”

Outsmarted by your smart phone

Published on Saturday, October 21, 2006 in Smartphone, Software, Tech and Trend. 0 Comments

I have read various articles about how you should not leave your old PC with just anybody, more specifically your hard drive, and use software like cyberscrub myself. I was not surprised to read that Smartphones retain extremely sensitive information about you, even after a reset. WashingtonPost explain how a Smartphone user had encrypted banking details but that emails, pictures and contacts were not properly deleted.

It seems understandable since the procedure of deleting files on a hard drive with a 3+7+3 type method or the Gutmann method to stop even hardware recovery are unknown to most people. Smartphones work in the same way as hard drives in that they use pointers a type of File Allocation Table to indicate where a file is. Deleting a file doesn’t actually delete the data, it deletes the pointer that indicates where the file is in the memory. This means the file is still there and some clever software can retrieve it.

BlackBerry devices are in theory among the most secure of smart phones, Schroader said. However, those used by consumers lack the same security features as those used by government and private companies, Laudermilch said. “Even though there may be some security features on the device, most people don’t know how or when to use them,” he said.

Checking the specific Smartphone company support site often reveals how to properly erase your data should you want to part with the phone. Don’t let your smart phone give away vital information about you !

Longing for a really unique and luxury iPod again

Published on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 in Design, Music, Personal, Trend and Video. 0 Comments

The Washington Post writes about the iPod and how with iTunes it holds nearly 70 percent of the market. When I bought my first (and only) iPod several years ago it was a luxury product. The iPod has kept key functions and design concepts while getting smaller thinner and more powerful.

ipodfamily.jpg

Even though the new iPods are without doubt the best designed portable music players on the market I feel that Apple has not provided as much innovation as I would have expected. The consistent attacks on developers providing software to transfer music from the iPod to your PC (yes computers do crash) and refusing to let iTunes transfer to anything else than an iPod is a real pain. I only own an iPod but I don’t like the way Apple is behaving at all !

ipod_both.jpgWhen you look at Macs, PowerPCs, iMacs etc there is a real innovative strength that is sometimes breathtaking in new models. With the iPod, there is far less innovative strength in my opinion. It must be said, with such an awesome initial design, it may well have rendered innovative ‘next steps’ far more difficult. But when you think that the iPod is now capable of showing videos why restrict users with such a tiny screen ?

Adding the ability to have the full length of the handheld as a screen would have been a nice touch. Hopefully Apple will be back from the drawing board soon with a new dazzling design that will again be a really unique and luxury item among portable media players.

You Tube : the phenomenon

Published on Monday, October 2, 2006 in Marketing, Trend, Video and Web. 0 Comments

There is nothing like bad publicity the ad people will tell you. Well, You Tube is making the headlines with bad, good and excellent media coverage !

You Tube has made uploading video to the Internet in order to share it, a simple procedure. Sharing videos really is dead easy. Although tagging the content efficiently is still to come, their site is also full of interesting functions.

you tube mtv google yahoo

Media companies realising the potential
When you hear a successful entrepreneur saying this product is never going to work, while at the same time companies like Google, Yahoo, MySpace, MTV… trying desperately to copy them, you’re kind of left puzzled by such comments. The arguments of Mark Cuban are ‘You Tube is just allowing people to upload content they don’t own the rights to’. From a simple perspective though Cuban owns companies (like HDNet) that distribute content just like You Tube. All his content is with copyright owner’s consent though. Wouldn’t that make you mad too – especially if they are likely to be selling it for a lot of money soon ?
Now even though that may be part (even a large part) of You Tube’s content the guy is missing a point and a big one. Cuban doesn’t seem to have noticed how much the Internet is changing things.
You Tube has a massive audience, actually a real community behind it. It is a platform to broadcast a message on. The issues it faces are similar to those that MySpace faces. The big media companies realise this type of platform could potentially be a “highway to heaven” but certainly not a ‘pathway to hell’…

warner music group

An example of this is the deal that You Tube has just signed with Warner Music Group “that will let users embed some Warner wares in their own music videos and amateur flicks”.
The main issue for media companies was the idea of losing money. Attacking the everyday Joe and making his life hell rather than looking for ways to distribute their content intelligently and easily, is slowly being dropped.
Warner’s deal with You Tube like iTunes’ numerous deals for series and films should pave the way for simple and accessible content via the Web.

It is easy to appreciate how a lot of people could miss the trend that led to this. The large media companies have realized that they can capitalise on these massive communities AND make money from it. Hey, they finally realised that the MP3 fiasco and all the legal mayhem surrounding it was really negative for them. The media companies have started to embrace the Internet as a medium to sell their products !

Forbes dossier on You Tube
So when Forbes magazines does a whole dossier on you, do you listen to some entrepreneur who got it right once or twice, or to Forbes ?

An example from the Forbes article (there is a whole dossier actually) on You Tube :

Miles Beckett, a creator of the fictional “lonelygirl15″ videos that lured 900,000 viewers in recent months, foresees the advent of “wiki-television”–where fans get involved in the story; those who provide the most clever responses get a cut of the ad pie. “If the fans generate enough revenue from their videos they can quit their day jobs, too,” Beckett says. “We think it’s such a cool way to tell a story. It is just something you can’t do with the traditional media.”

And this is the example used in the Forbes article, a video you can simply paste into your article just like I’m doing here :

Rewarding video makers
But You Tube receives criticism from companies that have built different models. The Forbes article also talks about Revver and how they distribute, just like Google a portion of the revenue they receive with the creators of the videos. In the same way Netscape is trying to pull away key participants of Digg and pay them to add content to Netscape this type of criticism seems valid :

The amateurs who filmed the geyser effect of Mentos candy jammed into bottles of diet Coke have reaped nearly $35,000 from Revver.

Just as money speaks to the media companies looking for profitable ways to distribute their content legally, video creators who provide real value will not need long to choose between ‘money and fame’ versus ‘fame alone’.

Although You Tube are making more and more big deals this issue will need to be addressed in the medium to long term ! Key community members and followers may feel (like the Digg example) that all their hard work is only filling the pockets of You Tube and turn elsewhere…

Madonna’s fashion holidays in Italy with H&M

Published on Sunday, October 1, 2006 in Advertising, Fashion, Society and Trend. 0 Comments

Madonna in a track suit draped across Il Duomo in Milan courtesy of H&M !

madonna Il Duomo milan h&m
© Red Label

When you have been instrumental in changing the way a fashion concious country like Italy views value for money clothes then making a statement in one of the fashion capitals of the world probably seems acceptable (IHT) :

Both H&M and Zara have found success in Italy by convincing the fashion- conscious masses that you can look good even if the label does not say Armani or Prada. And that was not an easy feat.
…
H&M has become a Swedish success story to rival Ikea. Founded in 1947 as Hennes – “hers” – in Swedish, the company acquired Mauritz Widforss, a men’s clothing store, in 1965 and added Mauritz to its name soon after.

The Madonna advert is riding on a wave of a change in Italy. Many talk about the Euro and the way it has given people the distinct impression that prices have gone up far more than salaries across Europe. These types of feelings have undeniably helped fashionistas see the price versus value proposition from H&M and friends :

For more than a month the fashion conscious masses in this city flowed by the cathedral and peered up at Madonna in her track suit, and all indications are that it has become socially acceptable for the fashionistas to shop at H&M, at least some of the time.

And hopefully the proceeds of H&M’s advertising event will help speed up the renovation of Milan’s Il Duomo !

Lyle’s Golden Syrup is officially a UK icon

Published on Saturday, September 30, 2006 in Advertising, Brand, Marketing, Society and Trend. 1 Comment

It seems that Lyle’s Golden Syrup has acquired the status of brand stardom since the Guiness Book of Records has officially recognized it as as Britain’s oldest brand !

Lyles_Golden_Syrup.jpg

Should you have suddenly acquired a craving for golden syrup just looking at the tin, then you’ll be happy to know that you can purchase some through Amazon.

As an article in the Daily Mail explains :

The Lyle’s story began in 1883, when Scottish businessman Abram Lyle built a sugar refinery in London.

A by-product of sugar was a treacly syrup, but it was canny Lyle who discovered it could make a tasty spread.

This syrup was poured into wooden casks and sold to his workers and local customers.

Word spread fast and, in a few short months, a tonne a week was being sold.

Wooden casks soon gave way to large Lyle’s Golden Syrup dispensers being displayed on store shelves.

Lyle’s Golden Syrup was first poured into tins in 1885.

Now nearly 1 million tins leave the Plaistow Wharf factory in East London each month.

Time Zone change on Google Analytics

Published on Friday, September 29, 2006 in Analytics, Blog, News, Tech, Trend and Web. 18 Comments

I’ve been conversing with Google on getting my Time Zone changed from the default ‘Pacific Time’ (GMT-08:00), which is not very handy when you live in Europe like some of us ;)

Please note that if your Analytics account is not linked to an AdWords account, you’ll be able to set your timezone preference from the Main Website Profile Information section of your Profile Settings page. By default, all accounts are set to use Pacific Time.

Further down the email from Google Support states that :

If your Analytics account is linked to a Google AdWords account, your time zone will be automatically set to your AdWords preference and you will not see the time zone feature in your Analytics account. This ensures accurate reporting on your AdWords campaigns. To learn how to set the timezone in your AdWords account, please read
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=35211 in the AdWords help center.

However I tried both suggestions and neither provided me with any way of changing it. I have an Adwords account but had never got round to activating it. I didn’t like the idea that the I would be advertising for anything/anybody. Especially not without any assurance that it wasn’t a scam, or shabby products I don’t believe in and definitely wouldn’t want to endorse in any way.

As you can see here the Google Analytics Account Settings page doesn’t allow me to change the time zone :
Google analytics time zone change

And finally here you can see that my AdWords account does not let me modify a thing either, with regards to the time zone :
Google Change Adwords time zone

So I got back to Google to explain this and well, it seems that you can’t change it, so all of my analytics data is pretty difficult to read at the moment. I’m getting the impression that people start looking at my pages from Europe at about 1 o’clock in the morning. I must appeal to the insomniacs among us !

Please note that though you have not activated your AdWords account, your AdWords and Analytics accounts are already linked. Once you have linked your AdWords and Analytics accounts, the time zone that is set in the AdWords account is automatically set for the Analytics account. This is done to ensure that data is reported accurately for your AdWords campaigns being tracked in Analytics. Therefore John, you may not be able to change the time-zone for your Analytics account.

We apologize for any confusion you may have experienced.

So I am basically stuck with this and never specifically asked for the time zone to be “Pacific Time” (GMT-08:00). There was no warning about the fact that you cannot change this nor that it would then stop me from changing my Analytics time zone settings ! Since I’m not even using AdWords I have now gained a greater distaste for it than before !

So if anybody knows what I can do about changing the time zone on my Google Analytics account I would really appreciate a heads up on what I need to do !

I just wrote to Google, asking them if cancelling the AdWords account, will get rid of the problem…

I must say that the Google Analytics system is really good although not being to change the time zone is a real pain and something that one of the lead programmers obviously forgot to integrate as an option between the two systems. Maybe the linking up with AdWords has caused this issue but regardless of the blame it is a problem that needs to dealt with.

So if you are thinking of using Google Analytics which is really useful, then do remember that your initial Time Zone setting is important !

Update: Paul Hiles has just posted a solution in the comments that I can’t check since I’m writing this from my Blackberry. I’ve copied his comment here so that you don’t have to scroll further down to read it. However if you can test this and confirm it works please let everyone know and conform it works:

The timezone setting is in Adwords, and can only be set once, but if you do make a mistake there is the option to change it (but only once!).
If you are logged into your account, then clicking the link below should automatically open a request form to update your timezone.

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/request.py?contact_type=timezone_change

Changes are carried out by authorised Adwords personnel and are usually complete within one working day (exluding weekends).