From: Gleanings
To: workerbees
Subject: Gleanings: light and fluffy
OPENING THANG
To soften the blow of monday, check out apropos of nothing– ton of stuff there.
As if you don’t get enough out of gleanings, I added a bunch of links to the articles collection.
http://eleganthack.com/articles/index.html
New rant on personal sites in the blog
http://eleganthack.com/blog/index.html
IA & DESIGN MATTERS
A while ago george wrote this interesting piece for A List Apart:
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/failure/
it’s been up long enough now to engender some interesting debate.
http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/list.cfm?forum=64&collapse=1
I especially enjoyed the first one, though it showed to me that I’m not sure designers and usability people can ever communicate (or designers and coders, actually). The world views of these folks were just so radically different.
The Narrative Web
“Crafting a narrative web:To succeed profoundly, Bernstein says, websites must go beyond usability and design, deeply engaging readers by turning their journeys through the site into rich, memorable, narrative experiences. His thought-provoking comments make a lot of sense to us. ”
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/narrative/
Das Bot: To Boldly Go Where Everyone Else Will Probably End Up…Eventually
“Our human search engine explores the margins of web design ”
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/0,1819,3708,00.html
“MORE THAN LEGIBLE: on links that readers don’t want to follow ” (via noisebetweenstations.com)
http://www.markbernstein.org/talks/HT00.html
A Clash Between Game and Narrative (via hypertextkitchen.com)
Juul writes that:
“The thesis presents a strong position on the relation between games and narratives; that they are extremely different phenomena that do not mix well. It also features:
-Discussion on the possible use of narratology and hypertext theory for examining games.
-An examination of the relation between the player and game
-Readings of Witness, Doom II, Myst, and The Last Express.
http://www.jesperjuul.dk/thesis/
USABILITY MATTERS
Interface Usability in Flash
“Merien’s tutorial shows how to use Flash as a tool for creating straightforward, serviceable, functioning Web sites.”
http://www.iboost.com/build/software/flash/10046.htm
NEWS & COMMENTARY
“It’s really unfair that after we artificially inflated the economy, ran most of the arts organizations out of town and put our trust in a sock puppet we didn’t even get rich.
Perhaps it’s just the tone of the article, but to hold a dot-com pity party in the middle of the Mission seems just a wee bit on the distasteful side. ” from biggerhand.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/dot_life/newsid_1280000/1280073.stm
relentlessly curious and cheerful, she has an interesting collection of links and commentary…
http://www.dynagirl.com/blog.shtml
APROPOS OF NOTHING
matt sends
“it’s a toaster that accesses the net to get a weather report then toasts the weather symbols into your daily bread!!!!”
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~dt97rrs/dev_viva.html
an interesting interview with director of Memento
http://freshair.npr.org/dayFA.cfm?display=day&todayDate=03%2F29%2F2001
mark points to this. many f9lks have told me it’s hte scariest book they’ve ever read.
http://www.houseofleaves.co.uk/
haughy points at this. it’s wonderful
http://www.brushstroke.tv/jasmine.html
ev points at this:
“Just a few years ago, American condom manufacturers were trying to sell condoms like parachutes: You wouldn’t jump out of a plane without one, would you? (Trojan print ad, circa 1996) Only recently have condom manufacturers begun to realize a key fact that had been previously overlooked: Condoms are about sex and sex is supposed to feel good…”
http://www.condomania.com/
I spent a half hour yesterday just reading about people’s hobbies when they were kids. Thanks kottke…
http://www.kottke.org/notes/0104.html#010417
Ever wonder how to make a Big mac at home? or a Taco Bell Mexican Pizza?
http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/recipes.htm