Designing for the stubborn

My first MP3 player was a 20GB Creative Labs Zen Touch, for Christmas ’04. It was a gift, but I pretty much picked it out myself. As far as I was concerned (and still am), that old Creative had a lot to offer over its obvious competition, the iPod:

• Superior sound quality? Check. (Uhh, it’s Creative Labs.)
• Ample storage? Check. 20GB. (iPod had a 20GB model too.)
• Superior battery life? Check. I think it was something like 20hrs. vs. 9hrs.
• Superior durability? Probably.
• Superior price? Check. By about $100, as I remember it.
• Superior UI (onboard & software)? Not a chance.

So I had plenty of good reasons to pick the Creative, but one reason doesn’t fit on that checklist:…

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QUOTED: William McDonough via Oberholtzer Creative

“If we think about the tree as a design, it’s something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides a habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy, makes complex sugars and food, creates micro-climates, self-replicates. So, what would it be like to design a building like a tree? What would it be like to design a city like a forest? So what would a building be like if it were photosynthetic? What if it took solar energy and converted it to productive and delightful use?”

via. Oberholtzer Creative’s (Flash, sadly) Visual Culture (non-flash, happily).

It all started when I googled myself

Like I said, I googled “Kyle Jacobson” recently. One of the results on the second or third page was for my profile on Spoke.com. There are other Kyle Jacobsons on the internet, but this spoke.com profile was for me, as it was listed along with the company name “BigMachines, Inc.” Well, I did indeed work for BigMachines, Inc. (a lovely tenure), but I don’t anymore. I never had a linkedin profile there and never joined the company’s facebook network (which became official after I left). So what the fuck, spoke.com?

To be fair, there’s nothing personal or misleading on this profile, other than the implication that I still work for BigMachines, and I don’t imagine it’s illegal. I’m sure Spoke culled this info from public-available sources. Nonetheless, it is shady and I don’t much like having this profile there, so I investigated getting rid of it. There’s a button labeled “This is me” and one labeled “Claim your profile”—forget the pronoun confusion for now. Turns out that they both lead to the same sign-up form. A SIGN-UP FORM! I need to sign up for a profile in order to delete my profile?!? Talk about user experience. Reminds me somewhat of this: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else

Designers who tweet

In a recent post (Recent thoughts: 4-28-2009), I wrote: “I wish designers on twitter would tweet more about design and less about miles ridden on bikes and burgers eaten, etc. Or keep separate accounts.” Though, I haven’t received any replies specific to this statement, I’d like to expand/clarify.

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