Fluidesign Blog

Bring bad design to justice! Be a part of Design Police

I don’t have an iPhone and am unaware of any visual redesigns since this was published, but I think in general this video editorial is applicable in a lot of cases, including its case study for Apple’s general design strategy, where sometimes user-interface design prioritizes looks and associates that with a user-friendly design. Mr. Tufte in this video really sheds light on data resolution, and what it means to be simple while not being sparse. There ought to be no reason that constraints in the medium should affect the level of detail in the message.

As a frequent pedestrian, I am a user of the Los Angeles subway. (Ok, it’s called the metro, but this former New York resident cannot make the switch.)  Like most every civic structure in LA, the train stations are a masterpiece of design. High ceilings, open spaces, art installations and a different theme at each stop. It’s quite remarkable really and I suggest taking a ride. No one uses it but me it seems, so the view is never obstructed by passengers.

However, one very badly designed element at my local stop, Vermont/Sunset, bothers me each day. Let’s go to the photo and maybe you can guess.

Yes, I am Captain Obvious and it is the placement of the trash cans.

With a spacious passenger area, why would you have people dispose of refuge next to where they are seated? In fact, it’s not next to it’s actually placed along with passengers. 

How does this make passengers feel? What is the city saying about them? Or, is this a terrible oversight by the designer?

What do you think?

It turns out that you can do more through social networking than find a date or stalk your ex- who’d have thought! In fact, you can help real people all over the world lift themselves out of property through micro-loans.
Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to entrepreneurs in the developing world. The site is composed of two groups: entrepreneurs and lenders. Lenders request an amount for their loan (generally around a couple thousand dollars) and then several lenders contribute to that amount. In fact, the minimum loan is as low as $25.00.

One such lender is lawyer and author, John Kirkland who introduced me to the website. John is using the sales of his new book Love Letters of Great Men to fund Jasminka Salkievi’s clothing store in Bosnia, Mirza Sayaad’s grocery store in Afghanistan and several other in-need entrepreneurs.
This it truly the incarnation of the “fish you teach a man to fish” adage and a move towards positive interaction on the internet.

[sigh]…Back to the real world for me as I return from a long weekend in San Francisco at the Outside Lands music festival.

Of course, my main reason for the trip was the music – which was amazing, by the way (Radiohead, Wilco, Jack Johnson, Bon Iver…need I say more?) But as a designer, I can’t help but notice the visual aspects of my surroundings. There was certainly no shortage of visual stimuli at the festival to go along with the great music. So I thought I’d share some of my pictures here.

How design can save democracy is an excellent (yet still flawed in my opinion) demonstration of better ballot design created for the New York Times by AIGA’s Ric Grefé and Jessica Friedman Hewitt.

It’s amazing that after encountering countless issues with voting ballots, even the most basic design fundamentals (like oh, say “clear page design”) still aren’t in the vocabulary of our government officials. The US is full of communication experts and graphic designers who would be more than happy to resolve the problem, yet no one seems able to cut through the politics to address this as a non-partisan design issue.

Somehow, clear communication was addressed for nutrition labels, so why not ballots? It’s not rocket science.

While vacationing last week, I ran across this culinary oddity while shopping at a vegetable stand somewhere along California’s central coast. Foxworthy, a noted hunting enthusiast, has apparently branched out from agonizingly quipping game show host and comedian to full fledged meat purveyor.

Alas, I did not purchase the otherworldly meat; I just wasn’t in the mood for jerky right then. I sure could go for some now though…

While we’re on the topic of games, here’s an article that piqued my interest in the future of online gaming. I’ve never been a big fan of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or Second Life, but if gaming could be made to actually benefit your real world self, besides powerful thumbs or trigger-happy clicking fingers, then maybe, just maybe, our lives will be that much more fun.

Flash games can be an immersive form of promotion or dialogue. And, I learned they can be highly addictive. Here are a couple that really sucked me in-

This one is from designer Alan Outten, lives on his personal website and was created for Vodafone Magazine. It’s a kind of movable “Where’s Waldo” in which you have to locate the designer- who is the only figure that won’t scurry from the “Hi-tech gadgetry”. I love the pixel people and the techy mouse.

This next one is by controversial Italian creators, Molleindustria. The game here, McVideoGame, allows players to emulate the farms, feedlots, restaurants and corporate areas of McDonalds. There is no question as to Molleindustria’s statement on the fast-food mogul. And the gameplay is as addictive as the McDonalds brand can be.

who says you can’t be inspired by door hangers?