The distinction between blogs and newspapers blurs.

A few years ago I used to get laughed at when I suggested that the model for amateur online diarists would be that for global media corporations. De facto, this is now true.

There is something so fundamental and powerful about the reverse chronological list that it couldn’t be any other way, however recently something interesting has happened.

Blogs are becoming more like news sites like CNN, a cover page with multi column snippet digests being slapped on the front to draw people in.

The Huffington post was the first blog to do this and now Talking Points Memo has followed suit.

Chatting with Nick Denton the other day we came to the agreement that traditional blog layouts don’t pull repeat readers (not SEO traffic) into the site, off the front page, very well. News sites like CNN get 10 page views per visit, whereas Gawker sites get less than 2.

Although page views don’t strictly mean much in the days of Ajax driven sites (Nielsen announced today they are no longer going to count them), the design of newspapers and the design of blogs are merging, setting the standard for online publishing.

Denton gave me some feedback from the Gizmodo editors about the iPhone:

‘Two thumb typing nearly impossible’. - Ouch

Some waiting on iPhone improvements before buying | Reuters.com

Almost as many people are going gaga about Facebook these days, as the iPhone and the knee-jerk reaction seems to be to focus the discussion on the ui design, since it is so conspicuously different from Myspace.

Myspace is a ‘fugly’ mess, when Myspace was hip amongst the geeks, then fugly was hip. Successful things on the web, it was argued, are about customization and flexibility. The sticker-book-full-of-crap style of Myspace would do better than the stifling control enforced by some graphic design Nazi.

Facebook is different, it really is well designed, and now I’m hearing some of the same people who debated the virtues of fuglyness promote facebook.

Interestingly, not many people have picked up on the fact that Facebook is as different from what has become the web 2.0 style, as the Myspace style. Web 2.0 sites tend to use a lot of extraneous CSS and HTML to create round boxes and three dimensional shadow effects with high reflection. This style apes the third generation ‘aqua’ Apple OS.

Browsers inherently work with flat shaded square box model and so does Facebook. In doing so it creates a satisfyingly minimalist look, effortlessly that makes many web 2.0 sites look like they are designed by coders who are trying to hard, rather than designers.

Even if the focus of the design talk may be wrong not to differentiate Facebook with web 2.0 style rather than Myspace, I suspect the real issue is the type of design that people rarely talk about.

The Facebook difference is about software design rather than graphic (or even UI) design, and these things are very different.

And the key piece of software design that makes Facebook work, in my opinion, is its full on embrace of the blog style ‘reverse chronological list’. If one were to pick one of the central design components of the web it would be this, the thing that made single person online diaries become the publishing model for global media organizations online.

Facebook takes a list of friends and creates a personal newspaper spliced together from the actions of people in your network. It goes beyond the early experiments in social networking which started with bare bones links to people, followed by blog like profiles (but for the 99.999% of people who don’t really want or need a blog).

Just as blogging creates a paradigm for collecting your thoughts and pushing them out there in front of the world, Facebook creates a paradigm for collecting everyone else’s thoughts and putting them in front of you. And by doing that it is very well designed in the non superficial sense.

NYTimes

“If there is a billion-dollar gamble underlying Apple’s iPhone, it lies in what this smart cellphone does not have: a mechanical keyboard.”

This pretty much sums it up. Apples nailed the perfect form factor with the iPod (a cigarette packet rather than the disastrous Newton brick).

However, things have moved on since, in the world of smartphones and the Blackberry style keyboard beneath screen is ‘good enough’.

I feel myself drooling over the iPhone but wishing it had a keyboard. And that seems worrying.

Seven reasons why stretchy web site layouts are dead (in the manner of a del.icio.us post):

1. Although designed for the increasing plethora of screen sizes, few people open their browser fullscreen on a massive display, so you don’t need to design for that variety.

2. Most stretchy design templates behave in unpredictable ways for some content, making them look ugly.

3. Most stretchy designs allow for text that is unreadably long.

4. They are a way to show off technology (CSS) rather than make things ergonomic.

5. If something is right with a certain layout - stick to your convictions and make that option the default, thats what Apple do.

6. Imagine flexible layouts in famous paintings. Would Da Vinci have used fuzzy felts?

7. The Etsy guys recommend not to use them.

In 2004 I wrote: I want my iPhone

And boy did they deliver. The iPhone looks like the best Apple product yet.

Innevitably a visit to Europe always ends up in endless analysis of what better Europe vs the US. This time was partiularly strange, since much of Europe feels more futuristic that the US.

My arrival at Zurich airport epitomized this, the airport having the same atmosphere as the film Gattaca.

In the tunnels for the shuttle between terminals, pinpoint strobes light up 160 light box images of a post modern Heidi such that each frame syncs with the shuttle windows to produce an 8 second flipbook style movie.

case study

Imagine your son waking up on Christmas (if you’re into Christmas) morning and rushing to open his presents in breathless anticipation of getting a shiny new iPod, only to find out he’s got a Zune, which is like coming second in chess.

You think he’s being a spoilt little ungrateful brat until he (this is why it’s a he) gets the shit kicked out of him at school by mocking friends chanting ‘Zuny Zuny Zuny’. Yup, in the twisted ‘Lord of the Flies World’ of young adults, I’m sure this will actually happen. The Zune is unsafe for children, but surely that can’t be Microsoft’s fault?

Consider the ambiance of a cubicle divided office vs the average home. Cubicle offices, particularly in America, where deep plan spaces with no visible windows are legal, are soul crushing spaces. They destroy people’s individuality in a way that Stalin never could have dreamed of, and ironically, in the service of capitalism. Fortunately, people are not naturally inclined to this because they do not decorate their homes this way.

Microsoft is a company that sells to the type of business that has cubicle offices. It has made bad design a virtue, by making it look economical. Soul crushing design is what Microsoft is about, but personal technology is changing that.

Microsoft’s Zune may be the thing that makes it obvious that Microsoft has crappy products, because it is a luxury item for individuals, and individuals are more discerning than businesses when it comes to design.

This dirty little secret is what has suppressed innovation in computing. Its why people pay money for a piece of tawdry shareware like Powerpoint.

The moniker ‘business’, implies pro and ‘personal’ implies amateur, but the reality is entirely the opposite. Business software is quite often shit. Reliable shit, but shit nonetheless.

Zune manages to take the very few features of the iPod and over complicate or ruin them. For example, the navigation copies the iPod’s in the way it looks, and for absolutely no reason, because the way the navigation works does not require the scroll wheel design. This tell tale sign of unergonomic design is known to product designers as a skeuomorph, it’s why cheap hifi equipment has lots of flashing lights to look ‘pro’.

It’s best to let a better writer than myself bury the Zune, however. Andy Ihnatko in the Chicago sun-Times lets rip:

Yes, Microsoft’s new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. I’ve spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.”

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Andy Ihnatko :: Avoid the loony Zune

Is the iPod past it?

Apple’s iPod was a form factor success - learning from the mistakes of the disastrous Newton they went for the cigarette packet standard rather than try and invent something new.

Lately, however, I’ve noticed that the Sidekick/PS2/Blackberry are onto something with a genuinely new form factor that will possibly blow away Apple if they stick to the iPod format.

The problem is that Apple can’t stick to its own format anyway - the thumbwheel doesn’t leave enough room for a large enough video screen - and if it gets replaced by on screen navigation with the device being landscape rather than portrait, it begs the question as to whether that is the same design at all.

In fact any viable full screen video iPod would be half way towards the two-thumb typing Sidekick style format that is now ubiquitous on Japanese and European phones which will hit the US in earnest in a year or so.

So for all the hoo ha about having separate music players from phones and IM, that was just because the interface on phones used to suck when they tried to cram in extra features without a sizeable screen or useable keyboard - it no longer does.

What does suck is the design - Sidekick, Blackberry, Windows driven phones with slide out keyboards - they all leverage the fact that typing with two thumbs on a small keyboard is good enough, but they are all terribly designed at the detail and features level.

Now if Apple did a Sidekick style handheld then the combination of the right style device and elegant design would be perfect - but my guess is that they are probably too complacent because of the iPod’s success.

The Observer | UK News | Why the iPod is losing its cool

A list of recent web design trends that are about to jump the shark:

1. Obsession with rounded corners everywhere.

2. Pastel colors.

3. Linear blends.

4. Fonts bigger than 15 pixels.

5. Avoiding tables, when they are the best solution.

6. Stretchable text columns that are too wide to read comfortably.

7. Ajax use that makes things difficult to link to.

These things are so commonplace now that sites designed this way seem like the web design equivalent of a fashion victim. When the bubble bursts there will be big pastel shade mess.