I rearranged my desk tonight—and actually—it’s not something I do rarely.

Whenever I find myself cleaning, I start to rearrange things. I seem to do that to relieve stress. The cleaning, not the rearranging. If say, Django’s kicking my ass, I’ll go ahead and do the dishes¹ and wipe down the counter, maybe even vacuum to get the nerves down. It’s relieving in an odd way. Well, I have a hard time not thinking about things, especially if said thing is troubling me. Things like, the rent being due, but not having any money. Or, the rent being… wait I said that already. Anyway, I digress.

Let me give you a run down of the events. Jen scored a new hard drive today, and we ran out of outlets. So, I grabbed the nearest surge protector and proceeded to trek under the desk to connect said drive. Once I got down there, I immediately thought of another way to rearrange the cords so that Jen would use one surge protector and I would use the other. I also thought that if I put the router, modem and stray cords behind the desk, that the cats wouldn’t be able to rip up the carpet under our noses. Thoughts like this quickly turned into disconnecting everything, pulling out a few twistie ties to try and quell the inevitable entropy. Before I knew it, my desk was cleared, my widescreen monitor had been turned sideways and my MacBook Pro’s screen was open once again even though it was sitting closed just an hour prior.

As of late, I seem to be getting better at predicting my own actions. So when Jen came to sit back down (she had been vacuuming), I looked at her with a smile and said: > I give myself two days before I turn this back to the way it was.

I proceeded to laugh, but I was quite truthful. If my desk didn’t return to normal, it would probably be rearranged into yet another productivity test.

So now, you can see why I redesign so much. If you’re looking at me like—__o_O?__—then let me explain. The conclusion I can make from the above monologue is the fact that I change or rearrange things when the opportunity presents itself. I can’t simply iterate, or in this case, move a speaker. I have to move the whole damn system around. I get addicted to the process until I’m satisfied. Bringing that back to designing, you could say that I get my kicks out of developing things, not maintaining them. I can even admit that every time I decided to add or tweak a feature of Avalonstar, it would more than likely get redesigned.

It’s probably a consequence of the fast-paced environment we’re in or just the mere fact that I’m never satisfied with what’s on the canvas after leaving it alone for a week.

There’s always something that can be done differently, always something that can be placed to the left instead of to the right. Again it’s that snowball effect. If I change one thing, I have to change another. This has happened so much recently that I’ve stared to depend on an “accident” to happen to jump-start the process.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s unhealthy, but I gather, might as well use the nerves now before I lose them all. ;)

It’s been a a few years since I purchased a first-generation pair of B&O ear-“pieces” at a pricey boutique in Greenwich, Connecticut. I paid too much for the privilege, but took the risk. I’ve not been disappointed. I still prefer the Bang & Olufsen Earphones to anything else I have tried since.

I’m listening to them right now.

However, the current Bang & Olufsen website could be an example of how research and/or user studies might too easily dilute and overcome brand vision. I feel uncomfortable with the present B&O web presentation. It just doesn’t seem right with my 25-year history and feeling for the brand.

You can find historic references of your own vintage at the Internet Wayback Machine

Deriving color palettes from found imagery is not a new idea, at least for most professional designers.

So, what else is new?

Technology assistance in color hunting is now just seconds away.

Not too long ago, I posted Floor Tile Design - a very simple solution to discovering a useable palette using environmental observations, such as a photograph. Here’s a new twist…

There are free web services that can do all the heavy lifting for you when you are looking for color inspiration. All you need to do is pick a favorite photograph or other reference… and wait (seconds).

Let me make it simple for you. Start here:

Color Palette Generator

Color Hunter

Enjoy.

Deriving color palettes from found imagery is not a new idea, at least for most professional designers.

So, what else is new?

Technology assistance in color hunting is now just seconds away.

Not too long ago, I posted Floor Tile Design - a very simple solution to discovering a useable palette using environmental observations, such as a photograph. Here’s a new twist…

There are free web services that can do all the heavy lifting for you when you are looking for color inspiration. All you need to do is pick a favorite photograph or other reference… and wait (seconds).

Let me make it simple for you. Start here:

Color Palette Generator

Color Hunter

Enjoy.

Deriving color palettes from found imagery is not a new idea, at least for most professional designers.

So, what else is new?

Technology assistance in color hunting is now just seconds away.

Not too long ago, I posted Floor Tile Design - a very simple solution to discovering a useable palette using environmental observations, such as a photograph. Here's a new twist...

There are free web services that can do all the heavy lifting for you when you are looking for color inspiration. All you need to do is pick a favorite photograph or other reference... and wait (seconds).

Let me make it simple for you. Start here:

Color Palette Generator

Color Hunter

Enjoy.

So I’m thinking about getting an iPhone, but a few potential dealstoppers keep coming up and I haven’t seen much info on it even though it’s coming out in less than two weeks. Maybe some of you readers can help.

1. Is there an airplane mode where phone functionality is shut off? The one place I find myself watching tv/movies on my iPod is on planes. Given the simple interface, so far I haven’t seen or heard that there are preferences menus that’d let you easily shut off your wireless phone functionality and just use the device as an audio/video player inside aircraft where phones are prohibited. Most smartphone/PDAs have this option.
2. My existing iPod dock on my computer and the car charger/adapter I already have will work fine, right? When it was first announced, I believe Jobs said the iPod connector on the bottom was standard, but I’ve heard about companies making iPhone adapters for cars and I’m sort of unclear if I just simply use my existing Belkin iPod charger in the car (which also has audio out that I wire into my car stereo). I hope it all works.
3. The interfaces all look fantastic, but is the music player going to be something I can use by feel? Currently I use an iPod in my car and I place it on a mount right next to my steering wheel. I barely have to take a finger off the wheel to change songs and I barely have to glance at the iPod to do it, letting me keep my eyes on the road. Given the iPhone interface, will I be able to change songs by simply clicking on the right side of the screen? Or am I going to be required to use CoverFlow at 65mph?
4. Has AT&T announced their data plans for it? I can’t believe it’s less than two weeks away and no one seems to know if it’ll be $40 a month or $50 or $60 or more for unlimited data and a few hundred monthly minutes. They really do seem to be rushing this to market if they’re not openly sharing the plan pricing in advance.
5. I’ve heard that every AT&T Wireless store in the US should get about 20 phones to sell on the first day, but I’m still concerned about availability. How is the 4Gb/8Gb split going to be in their inventory? 50-50%? Is the 6pm launch really going to happen? Should I line up in the afternoon? Can I get all my credit check/plan forms filled out before 6pm so I can just have the phone and leave the store at 6:01PM?
6. Is there going to be a “turn off CSS” option in Safari for the iPhone? Sideways scrolling blows and I’m not going to use safari much if I have to point and drag all over the screen to read anything. I actually like my Blackberry Pearl’s browser because it ignores CSS and displays text versions of sites that are easy to read and navigate quickly. (also, I hope there’s a Gmail app coming soon for the iPhone, I’m not even going to use the default email client)

I’ve been a strong proponent of web standards since first being introduced to them back in 2000 by Jefrey Zeldman. I started discussing standards on my local mailing list, then on my blog, and finally at conferences and events. I even wrote a book on the subject.

Over the last seven years I’ve seen web standards go from relative obscurity to industry best practice. Browser support is now extremely good, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a job advert for a front-end developer that didn’t require a thorough knowledge of CSS. We no longer talk about them with such fervour on our blogs or at web conferences, preferring to talk about design, typography or user experience instead. Like all good standards, they have started to become invisible.

This invisibility is partly due to their widespread adoption. However it is also down to their slow rate of change. A few years ago we were seeing new CSS techniques appearing almost weekly, as developers tried to push the boundaries. However we’ve now reached a plateau with what can be achieved with the existing technologies, and need to look towards the future. Towards the people building the next generation of web standards.

The W3C has come under quite a bit of criticism of late for the slow development of CSS3, the wrong direction it took with XHTML2.0, and the mess it made with WCAG2.0. High profile developers have called into question everything from the organisational structure and decision making process through to the lack of transparency and the way it engages with the wider community.

To help address these issues, several people have set out on their own paths with greater or lesser success. As a response to the bloated and unworkable XHTML2.0 specification, the WHATWG set out to create something more relevant for today’s web application developers. Operating as a benevolent dictatorship, the WHAT working group was open to the views of the community, while managing to avoid getting bogged down in endless political discussions. While I’m not sure the model could work for other projects, the results have been pretty impressive. The working group has now become an official W3C working group, and the draft specification has been renamed HTML5.

Unlike other W3C working groups, anybody can join the official mailing list as an “invited expert”. From what I understand the list is very highly trafficked, and the technical level of the discussion is quite difficult to follow by your average web developer. However this willingness to engage seems to be baring fruit, and many of the less palatable ideas like reserved class names have been dropped. Apart from the working groups insistence on keeping the font element, everything else I’ve seen has been pretty impressive so far. In a recent post, Ian Hickson suggested maybe doing the same for CSS.

Taking a different approach was Joe Clark and his WCAG Samurai. A relatively secretive group of individuals, the Samurai were tasked with amending the existing web content accessibility guidelines. These guidelines were written a very long time ago and have been showing their age for years. With WCAG2.0 in development hell at the time, amending the existing spec seemed like a very sensible idea. The resulting guidelines have recently been published along with two “blind” peer reviews. While I doubt WCAG1.0 +Samurai will ever become an official guideline, it makes a lot of sense on first examination and I applaud Joe for his persistence and hard work.

I’m not sure if WCAG1.0 +Samurai has had any affect on the official accessibility working group, but they seem to have addressed most of the original concerns with WCAG2.0 which is very positive.

My own personal bugbear is CSS3. We’ve been waiting for CSS3 now for seven years, and while some of the modules are nearing completion, others may never see the light of day. I’ve listened to a lot of the arguments why CSS3 is taking so long, and I do understand. It is a very complicated project being developed primarily by volunteers, so is bound to take time. One of the most illuminating articles on the subject comes from invited expert, Elika Etemad, and is well worth a read.

I recently proposed an interim specification called CSS2.2 which would include all the CSS3 selectors, properties and values that had at least one existing browser implementation. This would include things like multiple background images, border images, border radius, web fonts, text shadows, box shadows and multi column layout.

By concentrating on already implemented features, this should be a relatively easy specification to produce. The documentation has already been written for CSS3, and the test cases and implementations are in place. Any extra work that needs to be done on these new features will need to be done for CSS3 anyway, so it seems like the job is more editorial than technical. Unless I’m missing something crucial it should be as simple as transposing these new features into the completed CSS2.1 spec and creating a new point release.

This interim spec would then give browser vendors something to aim for, and provide developers with the features we need to innovate. We could then start thinking about what new, as yet to be implemented features we’d like to see in a future point release. This would make the whole standards process much more iterative and get the popular or easily implemented features out in the wild faster.

Reaction to the idea seems largely positive. Most of the developers I’ve spoken to welcome the idea of an interim specification, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear Hakon Lie promoting the concept at both Reboot and @media London. In fact, it seems to have provoked some interesting discussions inside Opera. I’ve also had people contact me suggesting we start up some kind of grassroots movement to promote the idea of CSS2.2 or even draft a specification ourselves. However specification writing is a complicated process that requires specialist skills, so is best left to the experts.

I’ve heard that reaction inside the CSS working group is mixed, but with a closed internal mailing list and little in the way of external communication, it is very difficult to tell what they are thinking. They recently launched a new blog to help improve communication, but the first post doesn’t fill me with confidence.

The argument I always hear from the W3C is, “if you want to get involved, you should join one of our public mailing lists”. However this seems more like an avoidance strategy than a real desire to communicate. The W3C must know that signing up to a high traffic technical mailing list provides just enough of a barrier to entry to put the majority of people off. I actually joined their CSS mailing list a few years back, but quickly left after every suggestion I made was brushed off with instructions to check the archive or read a three year old thread.

Mailing lists may still be popular amongst academia, but I think it shows a distinct lack of understanding about how people use the web these days. Rather than being critical about people posting their thoughts to their blogs, if the CSS working group really want to elicit feedback they should embrace the developer community. Do what the WHATWG does and set up watchlists for common terms like CSS3 or CSS2.2, post regularly to their blog and set up an official wiki. If the CSS working group really want feedback, they need to start by offering more transparency and make it easier for people to contribute.

Google handles search abuse reports on sites by compiling the submitted and discovered data, then adjusting their search algorithms to counter the identified abuse method next time around. This is an effective method of dealing with abuse and violations it seems -- the most practical method, anyway. As an example, abuse such as using the style sheet display property "none" to hide a slew of links was reported to or discovered by Google, and now their algorithms can identify this type of index-inducing violation and respond accordingly.

I would suggest that all of you find your “accordion” — that thing that makes you try out life’s little detours — and use it to practice your own random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. The rewards are astonishing.

– Joey DeVilla

So I sit here on the eve of the 2007 Worldwide Developer’s Conference, finding myself programming before my head hits the pillow. Actually, programming is what I’ve been doing on-and-off over the past few weeks, more-so than designing (for myself, I’ve been keeping busy otherwise). This is a topic I’ve covered in the past—striking that ever fluctuating balance between programmer and designer. It has once again graced the front of mind because of an undertaking that has been the focus of my programming energies. (Sounds really weird when I put it that way, but I’ll leave it.)

If you asked me I’d be making web applications when I thought up Revyver a year ago, you’d get my usual reaction — o_O? Taking a quick trip down memory lane once again, I only knew enough PHP to get me by when hacking my way through a WordPress theme. Actually, all the PHP I knew was template related, as that’s the extent that I had used it at Facebook.

However, that’s not the case anymore. I am developing an application. No, I’m not shitting you.

I’m quite happy to say that I’ve been captured and taken hostage by the agile development movement. Whether or not I’m using Django, Rails, CakePHP is not the issue at hand. Rather, it’s the fact that I’ve found a way to produce ideas in a way that doesn’t manage to confuse the hell out of me and doesn’t hit that threshold of “taking-so-much-time-that-I-get-discouraged-from-continuing.” I’ve been blessed with an ability to learn something quickly, although the drawback and balance to that is that I never seem to become an expert at anything. Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, you can say. It’s frustrating sometimes to be honest. I have this personality when it comes to work that I like to manage all aspects of a project, that’s my business side. Then you have my design side, my entrepreneurial idea generating side and finally this new programming side. It’s quite… much.

Brining the last article into play, you can mark all the times before today that I’ve said I’m a designer-programmer hybrid as irrelevant. Building this app, has been quite a challenge and a welcome one at that. Although, to any seasoned developer, it’s probably something that could be finished in the span of a few hours, hence why I won’t disclose much other than the fact that you’ll need a Wii with a certain game to use it. ;)

So to end the monologue, I’d like to pose a question. I saw some of my old co-workers talking about how hard it was to find a “designer slash programmer” types these days, playing off of the recent DesignerSlashModel parody. What has the experience been like for the designers amongst you learning programming or vice versa? Do you like the fact that you’re a hybrid? Or would you rather be a master-of-one?