Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Lux The Game!

In collaboration with a Computer Science Student, i'm releasing Lux, a faced paced, exciting drawing based game.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Design Today

A question because I'm curious: Is it possible to have great Web / Application Design without Content Strategy, IA, UX, and Development?

Design, by my loose definition, is informed rationale behind decisions, whether visual, interactive, or otherwise. It is not visual icing on a cake, or making things look "pretty". If we go by that presumption, design needs to be informed of what it's designing for.

We can't design without content, which is ideally shaped, defined, and organized by excellent concept strategy and IA. Design needs to know its target audience, and UX investigates, identifies, and understands this to an incredible level. Design is also how things work, not just how they look (Steve Jobs). Development is the science of how things work. An application isn't just about how the the user sees it, it's also about it deploys and functions. It's 3-Dimensional.

Are we still designing if we just build a site sans CS, IA, UX, etc or are we shooting in the dark? The Information Age has opened up tons of new problems and opportunities. Ellen Lupton calls for designers to become masters of, not slaves of technology. I think it's more than just technology, it's a comprehension of our content, how it flows, is informed, is organized, works and lives. Thoughts / opinions?

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Thanks Filament Group!

Over the summer I had the awesome opportunity to intern at the Filament Group. They're the Development and Design firm behind the Boston Globe responsive redesign. I met Ethan Marcotte (who stops by occasionally) and the rest of the team. They also house jQuery mobile's mobile device test lab with over 70 devices. I learned a ton there and took notes: http://aetherpoint.com/Thank_You_Filament_Group/

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Catchy Dubstep / Bass Music Fades Fast

Dubstep (and more accurately Bass Music) has taken a lot of the music scene by storm. A lot of Bass music is categorized by a drop, where the track is at it's apex of energy. This is essentially the chorus.

Bass music tends to relay on sound textures more than melody lines. While some Bass drops can be incredible, they tend to (this is not a global statement) lack melody and favor more sparsely arranged notes / samples.

My hypothesis is that bass music does not sit in our heads as long as more melodic music. How often to you actually find yourself humming a bass-genre song in comparison with a pop song? While pop is written specifically to be catchy, it does so with melody and something that can generally be sung along too. You can't really sing along to a dubstep drop.

It will be interesting to see how bass music will continue. Like everything it will see falls, emergences, and reemergences. This article was definitely written from a devil's advocate perspective. In no way am I bashing bass music or saying it's lesser. I'm just pointing out it's different music approach.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Responsive Design - South Street

Responsive design is something that an be tough to pull off. You can’t just take a site and squash it to Responsive. The change takes place at a content level, an information architecture level, a development level and a design level.

Take a large image for example. In a responsive design, a mobile device will have to download that entire image. Not too great for smartphones with slower connections and with users paying for their data. Just because you can use the latest WebGL, CSS3 doesn’t mean you should. Browsers, devices, and OS’s all have their own quirks. We need to put the user first and make our websites future friendly.

The Filament Group is making some huge strides in doing responsive design responsibly. If your into code, check them out:

https://github.com/filamentgroup/Southstreet

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Mobile Devices, Browsers, and OS's Should Brag about their HTML5 integration

It's hard to keep things working consistently across a wide range of mobile devices, their OS's, and different browsers. What if companies could pitch their compatibility with HTML5, CSS3, and other best web practices, saying they give the best "internet experience"? This would encourage developers and companies to stay current to best web practices and educate consumers, allowing them to push the right things.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Television Media Query Testing

The Television has yet to be really explored like mobile devices have. I'm not even sure how well the query @Media Tv works. If anyone has information on this, or has televisions with browsers (and some spare time), please view the GitHub Thread below to do some testing.

Television Media Query Test

Resources:

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Is It Possible to Design Mobile First If We Can't Program Gestures on the Web?

Is It Possible to Design Mobile First If We Can't (easily) Program Gestures on the Web? Read the following article which brings up a great point about clunky UI buttons. Buttons are a hack.