Gleanings: Just my type

OPENING THANG Still busy, though I am occasionally sneaking off to add a blog entry here and there. […]

OPENING THANG

Still busy, though I am occasionally sneaking off to add a blog entry here and there. I finally solved the a-list mystery, thanks to Anil. Check out the blog for the story.

Now I need something new to obsess about. I’m thinking it might be typography…

I love type. I think I feel about type the way hetmen feel about women. I don’t understand it, am incredibly drawn to it, fascinated by it, can stare at lovely type for hours…. I download font after font only to choke when the time comes to use them, and I end up choosing Tahoma over and over again (no, I can’t explain my weird Tahoma fetish) for print and Verdana online. I suppose it’s time to look for a typography class.

Some recent type-sites I’ve been exploring

netstar

and netstar’s freshfont

Lines & Splines http://www.linesandsplines.com/

And Chad writes:

“before I fall asleep, here is the beautiful weblog I promised:

http://www.textism.com/

and here are two great examinations of typography:

http://www.textism.com/writing/

http://www.textism.com/textfaces/

DESIGN MATTERS

tired of the 216 and need more colors? get more crayons

http://morecrayons.com

the return of psychedelia (via metafilter.com)

http://www.larrycarlson.com/

mefi

Hobo Signs (via giantant.com/antenna/)

hobo signs

The iconic language of the hobo

IA MATTERS

RE: Cory Doctorow. (via tomalak.org)

“The idea is that you have a folder on your desktop, you put some things in it you like, and it will fill up with things that you’ll probably like. It figures out what you’ll probably like by finding peers in the network who have taste similar to you and telling you what they think is good.” dude!

read article

BLOG OF THE DAY

In that “html chic” category of cool designs + lots of humorous little insights accompanying the links.

http://www.loxosceles.org/

USABILITY MATTERS

Statistical Research: Pop-ups more noticeable and more annoying

“Internet users are far more likely to notice pop-up ads than banners,

but they are even more likely to be annoyed by the pop-up ads.”

read article

Business 2.0: Better Data Brings Better Sales. (via tomalak.org)

Jakob Nielsen. B-to-B sites often try to get away with approximate pricing, because of the assumption that the two companies will meet in person to negotiate. Even so, users still like detailed price information that discloses how much each feature or option will cost.

MARKETING MATTERS

Darwin Magazine: Do You Really Need a Customer Czar? (via tomalak.org)

“Some top execs can’t imagine life without a CCO; skeptics contend that for many organizations, creating another seat at the boardroom table could very well be a recipe for disaster. Does your company need a CCO? Or is this a management fad you’ll want to take a pass on?”

read article

TECH MATTERS

prepackaged css layouts. via kirk (morecrayons.com)

BlueRobot’s Layout Reservoir has some elegant examples of CSS layouts:

read article

Glish.com has some cool layouts too:

read article

As does the Noodle Incident:

read article

Noodle is dropdead gorgeous, btw…

NEWS & COMMENTARY

Some of dot-com jobless having fun

“Valerie Hoecke, at age 28 already a weary veteran of the dot-com world, is now focusing her time and energy on something new: rock climbing.” Go Val!

Spam vengeance feels oddly satisfying; a simple click costs spam software companies from a few pennies to a few dollars.
read article

CommerceNet: Most ecommerce firms outsource work

“Almost three-quarters of ecommerce-enabled companies are currently

outsourcing, or planning to outsource, parts of their work.”

read article

APROPOS OF NOTHING

thank god for geocities.

asian prince

AND FINALLY

Adam of V-2 writes:

“Excellent, and I mean AMAZING, article in James Gleick’s “Best American Science Writing 2000.” It’s not available online (believe me, I looked), but it’s worth picking up the book for. (Anyway, the book also has a piece by *The Onion*, so you know you can’t go wrong.)

The article in question is called “When Doctors Makes Mistakes,” by Atul Gawande, and while it sounds like a FOX TV special, it is a compassionate and surprisingly deep inquiry into task and failure analysis where “failure” is literally a matter of life and death.

Gawande deals with “latent errors” built into systems which assume human infallibility, cascades of trivial errors in complex systems leading to systemic failure, critical-incident analysis, and the search for the elusive sixth sigma of quality.

It’s not IA precisely, but just exactly ’cause it comes at IA-centric issues perpendicularly, it sheds some innaresting light on our concerns. It’s fascinating to see, for example, how long it took relatively trivial human-factors insights to be accepted even in truly mission-critical areas like anesthesiology. And anesthesiology adopted these insights far ahead of the rest of the medical/surgical profession!

Anyway, I think it’s worth a shout-out to your readers…

Plus, as you know, v-2.org has been nominated for a Chrysler Design Award, further information regarding which may be found at

http://www.chryslerdesignawards.com

I am of course near-mute with gratitude and amazement.”

Congrats Adam!