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Immersive Content and Usability

So little time, so many wonderful, evergreen titles. The A Book Apart library for people who design, write, and code ... in coffee mug format.

As the lines between our physical and digital surroundings continue to blur, it’s more important than ever to design usable and accessible content for our ever-expanding array of contexts.

In 2021, A Book Apart and I were delighted to bring you Preston So’s Voice Content and Usability, the definitive book on voice content, and A Book Apart’s first voice title.

Now, in 2023, we’re thrilled to present Preston’s brilliant follow-up, Immersive Content and Usability, coming April 18.

Armed with this book, you’ll create incisive and inclusive user-centered experiences across augmented, extended, and virtual realities, transforming the physical world into an exciting new canvas for content.

Pre-order now! https://abookapart.com/products/immersive-content-and-usability

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Design industry tweets twitter

Twitter Blues

Before the present owner, I was a Twitter Blue customer, because I always pay for software—to support its creators and help prevent it from disappearing, as so many great websites and platforms have done over the years. 

It wasn’t about the Twitter Blue pro features, to be honest, because they were few and inessential.

For instance, the ability to unsend a tweet for 30 seconds turned out to be more of an annoyance than an asset. Its value could be replicated without the feature, simply by taking a few seconds to reread your post before hitting Send. Most of the time, the feature felt to me like an annoying delay before every tweet went up.

And as Twitter compulsion is closely connected to the dopamine hit of instant gratification—voila! your thought is out there in the world, quick as the firing of a synapse!—waiting 30 seconds soon came to feel like a drag on the experience, not a benefit worth paying for. Like a cigarette that takes thirty seconds to deliver nicotine when you drag on it.

Nevertheless, as long as I had the income to do so, I would have continued to pay, simply to help Twitter keep going.

Because we’ve all seen what happens to beloved platforms after they run for too long on fumes. Investors grab lifeboats. Founders sell to a new owner who rapidly enshittifies the platform. Or the product disappears. Or it lingers as an under-resourced shadow of its former self, like a loved one with a tragically wasting disease. (Something I know far too much about.)

Besides: Twitter, as a town square, was important. Leaving its future health to the mercies of subscription models and advertising was risky enough.

Just as, despite the many obstacles to true representative democracy that threaten my country, it remains my sacred duty to vote, so too—as a user and fellow creator—did it feel like my duty to vote for Twitter’s continued existence with my wallet. (Again, acknowledging the privilege of having employment and at least a modicum of disposable income.) 

I won’t rehash the history of the new regime’s dangerous decisions and confounding errors of judgement—and that’s putting it charitably. Or share my anxieties about the Beloved Platform turning into a red-pilled fuckfest of racist, sexist pile-ons. 

Even when a longtime web acquaintance persuaded the new owner to “democratize” the blue checkmark by charging for it (and we’ll skip that history, which is still in progress, as well), I kept using Twitter, kept paying my Twitter Blue dues, and kept hoping for the best.

Even as brilliant people with vital jobs got kicked out by the thousands. Even when respected friends and colleagues abandoned Twitter like it was a room that smelled of corpses. Even when each day’s freshly absurd Twitter news cycle conjured disbelief worthy of U.S. Election Night 2016.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” I whispered to myself.

“I’ll hang in there,” I said.

As if continuing to use Twitter was some bizarre loyalty test to the platform itself, and not to the ideas and human beings that drove it. Like loyalty to a friend who drives his car into trees while drunk. “I’m not going to abandon him now, he needs help.”

Here comes the punchline: one day Twitter emailed me to say that my Twitter Blue account was being discontinued, but I would soon have the opportunity to pay for an exciting *new* version of Twitter Blue.

Then Twitter emailed me inviting me to roll over my credit card so as to become a member of the new Twitter Blue. Which made me wonder: do I continue to go by the principle of paying for software I use, even when I disapprove of the direction in which a new owner is taking the platform? Or do I register my dislike of that direction by refusing to pay, even if it accelerates the death of the platform? (Whereas I was still hoping for the platform to survive and right itself, no pun intended.)

In the end, and I know I’ll lose many of you here, I decided to keep paying. And now the promised punchline: Twitter was unable to accept my credit card, and the subscription failed. 

I tried for maybe 30 minutes.

I’ve successfully used software for over 30 years, and I’ve written a few things about UX and web design and development, so I generally have some idea of what I’m doing when I interact with internet content, and I also know that shopping carts are supposed to work. They’re not supposed to make users think. They’re supposed to make it easy to pay, whether you actually need the product or not.

Yet somehow—I wonder if it had to do with (illegally) firing most of the staff?—Twitter was not able to take my money.

The attempt to subscribe failed. Over and over. Perhaps it was my higher power telling me something. Perhaps it was my unconscious telling me something. But most likely, it was simple engineering and UX incompetence, caused by the removal of almost everyone at Twitter who knew what they were doing.

And the second punchline? I still have my blue checkmark. Which I’ve had since, like, 2006, or whenever the original Twitter first bestowed it. I guess because I’m of some small note in my field.

Of course, for all of having 322K followers, almost nobody sees my tweets, as the stats (and lack of engagement) plainly show me.

So either most of my 322K followers have abandoned the platform, or the algorithm works to minimize my footprint. And, theoretically, that latter situation would change if I paid Twitter the monthly $8—or, I believe it has gone up to $11, now, with price increases over time part of this week’s strategy to frighten folks into subscribing while they can still afford do so.

But I tried to give Twitter my money, even when I had Enormous Doubts that it was the right thing to do. And they simply wouldn’t take it. La de da. And for now I’m content to wait, peck my posts into the maw of the blind white whale, and see what changes next. 

Twitter Blue, Twitter Blues, Twitter blew it.

Categories
Design social media social networking software twitter

“A $44 billion version of MySpace.”

The beautiful Twitterific icon, designed by The Iconfactory. Rest in peace.

My longtime friend and former collaborative partner Craig Hockenberry bids a dignified adieu to Twitterific, Twitter, and his mom … and calls for a standards-based universal timeline. — The Shit Show

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Advocacy Archiving Browsers Community Design glamorous HTML industry javascript launches links Off My Lawn! people Publications Responsive Web Design Standards State of the Web Stories The Profession W3C Web Design Web Design History Web Standards Websites

He Built This City: The Return of Glenn Davis

You may not know his name, but he played a huge part in creating the web you take for granted today. 

As the first person to realize, way back in 1994, that the emerging web could be a playground, he created Cool Site of the Day as a single-focused blog dedicated to surfacing interesting sites, thereby demonstrating the web’s potential while creating its first viral content. (As an example, traffic from his followers, or, as we called them back then, readers, brought NASA’s web server to its knees.)

He co-founded The Web Standards Project, which succeeded in bringing standards to our browsers at a time when browser makers saw the web as a software market to be dominated, and not a precious commons to be nurtured.

He anticipated responsive web design by more than 20 years with his formulation of Liquid, Ice, and Jello as the three possible ways a designer could negotiate the need for meaningful layout vis-a-vis the unknowns of the user’s browsing environment.

He taught the web DHTML through his educational Project Cool Site. 

And then, like a handful of other vital contributors to the early web (e.g. Todd Fahrner and Dean Allen), he vanished from the scene he’d played so large a role in creating.

He’s ba-ack

Glenn Davis wasn’t always missed. Like many other creators of culture, he is autistic and can be abrasive and socially unclueful without realizing it. Before he was diagnosed, some people said Glenn was an a**hole—and some no doubt still will say that. I think of him as too big for any room that would have him. And I’m talking about him here because he is talking about himself (and the history of the early web) on his new website, Verevolf.

If you go there, start with the introduction, and, if it speaks to you, read his stories and consider sharing your own. That’s how we did it in the early days, and it’s still a fine way to do it—maybe even the best way.

I knew Glenn, I worked with him and a lot of other talented people on The Web Standards Project (you’re welcome!), and it’s my opinion that—if you’re interested in how the web got to be the web, or if you were around at the time and are curious about a fellow survivor—you might enjoy yourself.

Categories
Advertising client services Design glamorous industry

Fear of getting noticed

Back when I was in advertising, one of my team’s clients was a well-known Irish Airline. They could only afford an 1/8th-page ad in the travel section of the paper. But my partners and I didn’t think creativity was dependent on budget. We were determined to deliver great ads for them—ads that would make a viewer look, even though the ad was tiny and was surrounded by other ads.

So we created a standout campaign for them—the kind that would not simply be noticed, but would also make travel-focused consumers smile and encourage them to buy tickets.

We blew up our tiny layouts and mounted the enlargements on illustration board, for an impactful creative presentation when we met to show the client the work.

The great day came. The work was good, and we had rehearsed our presentation to perfection. We booked the conference room, had the client’s favorite snacks and beverages spread out when they arrived, and sold our little hearts out as we presented.

Silence.

The lead client blinked, cleared his throat, and finally said, in a thick Irish brogue:

“I’m afraid it’s far too clever for our needs. It calls too much attention to itself on the page,” he explained—as if getting a distracted newspaper reader to notice his company’s message was a bad thing.

The lead client asked us to set “Ireland $399” in bold type, stick a shamrock in one of the 9s, and call it a day.



Fear of getting noticed is a terrible thing. It’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Clickbait headlines get a deservedly bad rap in digital marketing, but you know what else should get a bad rap? Blind, boring, infinitely ignorable links and titles, that’s what.

Crafting messages that get noticed and acted upon by their intended audience—the people for whom you create your company’s digital products in the first place—isn’t a crime. It’s your job.


Hat tip to Mark Mazut and Tim Irwin, my fellow passengers on the above disaster. Bit o’ nostalgia for those who remember The Ad Graveyard.

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art art direction creativity Design Designers experience Illustration industry New York City NYC people Portfolios Startups Stories Web Design

Looking Back, Looking Ahead: artist Dan Licht

Illustration by Dan Licht: a scary cowboy smoking a stogie and sloshing his drink. His eyes are red and he looks like he's itching for a fight.
Illustration by Dan Licht
Illustration by Dan Licht.

In 1999, I had the good fortune to work alongside Dan Licht at an NYC digital startup called SenseNet, RIP. Back then, although still in his early 20s, Dan was already an accomplished art director and digital designer. Today he’s a fantastic comics illustrator, artist, and creative director. Check his recent art on Instagram and his client work at Daniel V. Licht dot com.

A heroic letter carrier is pictured sending letters on their way in this illustration by Dan Licht. The picture has a great deal of energy, and the action is all flying toward you, the viewer.
“Protect the U.S. Postal Service,” a 2020 illustration by Dan Licht.
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Advocacy automattic Blogs and Blogging Brands Community Design industry Own your content software Standards Web Design Web Standards wordpress

Enabling Folks to Express Themselves on the Web: State of the Word 2021

Screenshot of slide highlighting the four phases of WordPress Gutenberg.

Not only are we enabling folks to express themselves uniquely on the web, unlike the cookie cutter looks that all the social sites try to put you into. We’re doing it in a way which is standards-based, interoperable, based on open source, and increases the amount of freedom on the web.

—Matt Mullenweg, State of the Word 

In a live address, Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg

  • Introduces Openverse (an opt-in content commons);
  • Announces that WordPress’s beginner-friendly Learn.Wordpress.org is now available in 21 languages;
  • Philosophizes about Web3 and the “decentralized web” —which, despite big company colonization attempts, is really what the web has always been;
  • Extols the virtues of Open Source;
  • And more. 

Watch the 2021 #StateoftheWord annual keynote address on YouTube. It’s two hours long, so bring popcorn.

Selected Additional Reactions & Commentary

Hat tips to Chenda Ngak, Reyes Martínez, and Josepha Haden.

Categories
Design

#SpotifyWrapped

She’s Got It by The Leonard Simpson Duo; Mittrom by Mach-Hommy & Earl Sweatshirt; Open the Brain by Quelle Chris; Snake Oil Scientist by Marlowe; and Aunties Steak & Rice Hold the Cabbage by Camoflauge Monk (from Chopin Prelude in E Minor by Les Baxter). #SpotifyWrapped

Categories
Accessibility Best practices Blue Beanie Day Design W3C Web Design Web Standards

Blue Beanie Day 2021

Photo of astronaut David Bowman from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 wearing a blue beanie in support of web standards.

Blue Beanie Day in support of web standards is celebrated around the world on November 30. Hey, that’s today.

So how can you help? Glad you asked! Take a self-portrait wearing a blue beanie (toque, tuque, cap) and post it to your website and social media channels with the hashtag #BlueBeanieDay.

And for that extra extra, slap a blue beanie on your web and social media avatars, as well.

Do this on November 30 as a reminder to design accessible, web-standards-based websites 365 days a year. Thank you. Love you.

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An Event Apart Appearances art direction better-know-a-speaker books Career conferences Design Designers Education events Genius glamorous Illustration industry Interviews New York City NYC Off My Lawn! speaking Stories Surviving Teaching The Profession UX Web Design Web Design History work

My Night With Essl

Mike Essl and I discuss his portfolio.
Mike Essl and I discuss his portfolio on Night 2 of An Event Apart Online Together Fall Summit.

Herewith, a scene from last night’s interview with legendary web & book designer (and Dean of The Cooper Union School of Art) Mike Essl, who shared his portfolio, career highlights, early web design history, and more. Fun!

If you get a chance to meet, work with, or learn from Mike, take it. He’s brilliant, hilarious, warmly human, and one of the most creative people you’ll ever have the good fortune to know. 

Mike Essl

So ended Day 2 of An Event Apart Online Together Fall Summit 2021. Day 3 begins in less than two hours. You can still join us … or watch later On Demand.

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Design

Not one of us

Even people who didn’t get deathly ill. Who aren’t still struggling to recover. Who didn’t lose a loved one—or more than one. Who didn’t bear the brunt of it because of their race and class. Who didn’t lose a job because of it. 

Those who didn’t miss out on senior year. Or the play. Or the prom, quinceanera, or bat mitzvah. Those who didn’t sit alone for months. Didn’t shutter their family’s business. Didn’t die of a curable disease because the hospital was full. 

Even those who had enough to eat and someone to talk to. Who did not lose their homes. Those whose animals survived. 

Even the lucky ones who had internet access and books and music. And who, when a vaccine came along, had access to it, and were not dissuaded by madness.

Even the most privileged among us are living with trauma.

Not one of us has escaped. Not one is unchanged.

Take a moment to be gentle with yourself, and with all whom you encounter. Even the monsters are crying inside.

Categories
"Digital Curation" art direction creativity Design Desktops editorial Fun interface Layout links Microblogging music Nonsense social media software The Mind User Experience Weird

Rediscovering music

Apropos of nothing in particular, I present my all-time listening (first 5.25 rows) and more recent listening:

Drag slider: at left, my all-time listening; at right, more recent listening.

Because I’m weird that way: Sometimes I’ll listen extensively to a particular artist from my collection whom I might not have played in a while, simply to bump them higher in the mosaic or reposition them for a more pleasing composition.

If Spotify exposes you to new music, Last.fm helps remind you of great music in your existing collection that may have slipped your mind. (Not an advertisement. I use last.fm and get great pleasure from how it helps me discover and fuss with my music, as I once spent hours in the old days stacking and rearranging my LPs and tapes.)

And that’s how I stay out of the pool halls.


Public Service P.S: If you do decide to try last.fm, please, by all means, pay the small monthly subscription fee if you can. Doing so supports the under-resourced team that keeps the service going. It also removes the ads, making the site usable (the ads are a nightmare), and gives you the option to view your music as a visual grid, like those shown in my screenshots. The grid-view makes the site. It gives you, not just a visual record collection, but a visual artist collection, if you’ll allow the conceit. I love it.

An earlier version of this post also appears on my Facebook stream.

Categories
Design

Spring Summit 2021

In a few hours, we’ll kick off Day 1 of An Event Apart Online Together: Spring Summit, a three-day web design conference for front-end and UX professionals, starring fifteen extraordinary speakers. If you’ve signed up to join us, I look forward to learning and chatting with you. If you can’t attend, you’re welcome to follow along on Twitter via hashtag #AEAOT.

Speakers at An Event Apart Online Together Spring Summit 2021, a UX and front-end web design conference.

P.S. Be sure to check out our Speaker Resources for attendees (and folks following along).

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Best practices Browsers Code Design development Future-Friendly HTML Ideas industry Internship IXD Layout links Multi-Device Responsive Web Design software Standards State of the Web User Experience UX Web Design Web Design History Web Standards Websites

Saving Your Web Workflows with Prototyping

Our static tools and linear workflows aren’t the right fit for the flexible, diverse reality of today’s Web. Making prototyping a central element of your workflows will radically change how you approach problem solution and save you a lot of headaches – and money. But most importantly, you will be creating the right products and features in a way that resonates with the true nature of the Web. A discourse on processes, flexibility, the Web as a material, and how we build things.

Saving Your Web Workflows with Prototyping – Matthias Ott
Categories
A List Apart Code Design Web Design

Service Worker With A Smile

Jeremy Wagner’s “Now THAT’S What I Call Service Worker!” provides innovative techniques to harness the power of Progressive Web Apps with smaller HTML payloads and better performance for repeat visitors.

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