Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
Sometimes the blunderbuss works…
> Dear ##########
> Given the vociferousness of your argument and clarity we shan't again build a site in flash – if we use flash it would be sited in an HTML based site and we shall always as we did with the main site have a large font no graphics page available. I thank you for your forthrightness and your knowledge of LIFT as an organisation that cares very deeply about accessibility.
> With many thanks for the care and time you have taken
###########
Ok a brief introduction to get people up to speed. Miles and me were planning on going to the Lawrence Lessig lecture last Thursday. So we went to the Lift 2004 site which contained all the information about the event. However we hit a impressively atrocious all-Flash site
. The site drove us mad. So we both wrote seperate emails to the publicly funded LIFT. Mine has not been acted on at all while miles has got a lot futher. The situation is now LIFT have passed miles email on to the designers who built the site. This is the last email sent from Miles. And I would like to say now I'm am shocked and ashamed to be part of an industry where people lie, are lazy and break laws with public money…
Thanks for your email, ##. I have a feeling I'm engaged in a multilateral discussion, which I am taking as giving me license to address an anonymous third party in a “frank and fair” manner, without being overly concerned about hurting the feelings of the “transmission medium”. If I am mistaken in this, please accept my apologies in advance.
Sadly the response does not address any of the concerns I raised. In fact, it looks like a stock answer on the assumption that I am some kind of anti-Flash zealot. I am not an anti-Flash zealot.
Flash has its uses, and a legitimate place on the Web. The response alludes to one (wrapping media in order to achieve a “universal codec”), which is an epiphenomenal rather than core benefit. An example of a _core_ benefit could be Flash's use as a lightweight, graphics-oriented, almost ubiquitous, programming language, cleaner, faster, and more compact than Java, and better able to deliver rich interactivity for, say, online games, than crash-prone Java ever could.
> We used java script to enable roll overs – as we have done on the main site. The use of flash was conscious and we felt it would not serve as a deterrent since 94% of internet users have flash installed – I do take very seriously this issue of the resizing the window, and would certainly not approve that in future.
This is not true. JavaScript is not used on the site to enable rollovers. As most of the site is Flash, there is no need for rollovers. On the “Launch” page, the JavaScript is used to resize the window of the Flash site. In the Flash site, the JavaScript is used as a browser-detection routine to nag users to install a Flash player, and to handle the Close action in the top left of the screen. There is also a popup window handler to launch and display a centred popup window. What this is for is a mystery to me.
The 94% of Internet users have Flash installed argument is a specious argument in this case. It is as relevant to claim that 94% of |nternet users have Cyrillic fonts installed so the site should be written in Russian. I will develop this thesis below.
> A short film made by Societas Raffaello Sanzio can be viewed on the site, it is built in flash since to have used Windows Media Player would have not worked for users accessing the site from MACS.
As I acknowledge, this is a perfectly good justification for Flash – though the reasoning you present is flawed. It is not, however, a justification for building the entire site in Flash. After all, the short film is one small part of the site, not the site in its entirety or its raison d'être (which is, on the contrary, to present information to the public about LIFT 2004). There is no reason why the film couldn't have been wrapped in Flash and embedded in an otherwise HTML site.
However, since you begin your argument with the claim that because 94% of Internet users have Flash (though, you neglect to say, probably not Flash 6 or above – which the site demands) installed, the decision to use Flash is justified, allow me a digression on this point.
Apple claims to have a 4% share of the personal computer market. That means 96% of the market does _not_ use Macs. Of the 4% who use Macs, given their typical profile, at least half must have downloaded and installed the Windows Media Play for Mac OS (I did – others can too!). As you are likely to be ignoring Linux users in your 94% claim, that means 98% of Internet users can view Windows Media Files, and 96% can view them on their native platform – so, what possible justification is there for wrapping Windows Media Files in Flash – as you actually exclude more users (94% is smaller than 98%) that way? Could it be, perhaps, that some of the “creatives” use Macs, and wouldn't want to feel left out?
> We endeavoured to create a site that offered information but also expressed the nature of the artists work.
You can't seriously expect me to believe _that_! The artists concerned are mainly involved in the domain of performance. Since the site is not video-rich (the most obvious way of translating performance directly to the Web), you have carried out a metaphoric expression of the nature of the artists' work. You therefore had absolute freedom to construct the metaphor, since you were not engaged in literal mapping. If you felt that Flash was the only way of making that metaphoric transposition, you have suffered one of the more significant creative failures in the recent history of design.
> It has been an interesting experiment – and LIFT has learnt a great deal from experimenting in this way. We are very grateful for comments received, both praise and criticism, since it will enable us to learn as an organisation, and hone our skills in using new media in dynamic and artistic ways whilst mindful of the principle need to offer clear navigation and clarity of information to the public.
I am endeavouring to treat “you” as an intelligent interlocutor. I would be grateful if “you” would extend the same courtesy to me. A 90s-style exercise in Flashturbation can only count as an experiment if you are experimenting in time-travel or nostalgia. LIFT is doing (I hope) neither.
Let me restate my concerns:
Flash is an inappropriate technology for delivering essentially narrative textual information over the web. It is inappropriate for 2 reasons.
One, Flash wraps textual content into a binary object, making an image of the text.
So, for example, if I wanted to copy something out of the site and paste it into an email to a friend – maybe to encourage them to attend an event – I could not. My friend would have to wade through the site, and may not find the event I was raving about, and so never attend. If I wanted to highlight an Artist's name, and search Google for more information about them, I could not. If I wanted to highlight a venue's address and get a map, its history, or details about assistive technologies offered for people with disabilities, I could not. In short, using Flash to convey narrative text you have failed to understand how the Web differs from print media in a, frankly, catastrophic way. You have created a site that neuters the Web, diminishes to the scale of your withered imagination. In so doing, you have undermined your brand, blinded your vision, and, quite possibly, lost ticket sales.
Two, Flash is not accessible to the partially sighted or visually impaired, and you offer no alternative to such users. In fact, your site is entirely useless for such people.
Excluding people with disabilities from an informational website is clearly bad. But maybe you shout “spastic” after paraplegic people, give the V to blind people, and hurl abuse behind the backs of deaf people. Maybe this makes you feel bold and edgy. Whatever. Legislators, in their wisdom, foresaw the meretricious 94% argument (94% of Internet users have Flash installed and are not blind), and made it illegal for public bodies to create inaccessible websites.
But maybe you smoke a spliff to unwind, and drop some Es whilst out clubbing, so breaking the law connects you with the 18-35 demographic. Whatever. The people working at the LIFT events made a real effort to ensure accessibility. Wheelchair access in the venues, sign-language interpreters: the business, exemplary stuff. They seem like nice young people – working hard into the night, maybe volunteers, probably on minimum wage, really taking care to ensure nobody is excluded.
And you conduct an “experiment” that shows you don't give a toss. Is accessibility off the brand-message? Do cripples cramp your style? Dare you face the people working on LIFT 2004 and tell them that? “We know how hard you're working to include everybody in LIFT 2004, so we built a website that excluded some of them. Man, that is so edgy, I'm on a precipice!”
> Please do pass on my gratitude to ####### for having provided such a comprehensive response and for his time and commitment in doing so.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Cheers
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Some progress from CSS 2.1 to CSS 3 is happening in the W3c.
Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 revision 1
This spec describes CSS 2.1, a revision of CSS 2 that removes rarely implemented features and adds a few new ones including media-specific style sheets, content positioning, table layout, features for internationalization and some properties related to user interface. It also fixes a few bugs in the CSS2 spec “the most important being a new definition of the height/width of absolutely positioned elements, more influence for HTML's 'style' attribute and a new calculation of the “clip” property”. Features removed iunclude text-shadow, display: marker, display: compact, and content: uri tag.
CSS Print Profile
This module “defines a subset of Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 [CSS2] and CSS3 module: Paged Media [PAGEMEDIA] specifically for printing to low-cost devices. It is designed for printing from mobile devices, where it is not feasible or desirable to install a printer-specific driver, and for situations were some variability between the device's view of the document and the formatting of the output is acceptable.”
CSS3 Paged Media Module
This module “describes the page model that partitions a flow into pages. It builds on the CSS3 Box model module and introduces and defines the page model and paged media. It adds functionality for pagination, page margins, headers and footers, image orientation. Finally it extends generated content for the purpose of cross-references with page numbers.”
All this comes days after the W3C Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group posted the fifth public working draft of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2.
The moto which I subscribe to.
The interesting thing is that this guy also quotes the 5K awards as a real example of Creativity in constraints
. I also saw Stuart's presentation at the Doors 6 and actually met him afterwards.
Rushkoff stirs the content management pot at the feature.
Content Management is for losers. Young people may have discovered the dark truth about digital media: the person who wins the right to store a piece of data has actually won the booby prize.
Well done Rushkoff, I tend to agree with alot of the sense he talks… Been also keeping an eye on Theoretical PerspectivesRushkoff's online classroom. With that and danny boy you can get some really good ideas about interaction design…
In my post a couple days back, I emailed alot of leading heads of the internet about talking at the college. Well I'm pleased to say Richard Stallman has agreed to come talk in May.
I should be in the UK in May, so I could give a speech.
So simple and yet so amazing… This is going to be a huge event and I think there will not be enough space to house all the people who would like to hear him speak.
I've been writing emails and back and forth to some of the leading lights of the internet. Hoping to get them into college to do talks to students and staff.
Some of the people in my hit list include, Howard Rhiengold, Lawrence Lessig, Linus Torvalds, Jon Johansen, Richard Stallman, etc, etc… Hoping to add to the list when I actually recieve replies…
Ok I've recieved lots of auto-replies and a Authorize from mailblocks but the only person to really reply is Howard Rhiengold so far…
Ian —
Why don't you consider joining Brainstorms? That way, you'd have contect with others who share your interest — and you'd know when I might be in the UK. (No plans at present, but I usually make it to London every two or three years).
Here's info. Let me know if you are interested: http://www.rheingold.com/community.html
You are invited to the thirty-ninth AIGA Experience Design London meeting.
Your computer is broken!
We have been using the same graphical users interfaces for 20 years, since the Apple Macintosh (launched on 24 January 1984) killed the command line. Our tools today would have been easily recognisable by maverick genius Doug Engelbart in the 1960s, and the Xerox PARC fraternity of the 70s. Yet in the meantime we have applied computers to many more, and more complex, tasks including communication, information retrieval, collaboration and planning, and entertainment.
How does the design of GUIs need to evolve, where is this happening, and what can we learn from it? Where do we go beyond the desktop metaphor? And application-centric computing? How do we manage 1000s of files, message, and other data elements? What new input devices are appropriate?
Web design has learned from GUIs, and now GUIs are drawing on (and are often based on) Web technologies. (And although everyone has a view on Web design most people ignore the more important interface that they use every day.) Eventually Web design and GUI design will merge and we will need to absorb the deeper lessons GUI designers have learned over three decades.
We will look at the past, present and future of GUIs to lay the ground for an informed debate.
THE EVENT
– – – –
Presentation: The past of user interfaces
— Event chair Nico Macdonald will discuss the history of GUIs.
Presentation: The present of user interfaces
— Nikki Barton, Creative Director of Nykris Digital Design, will present her company's work on the Aqua and MacOS X versions of some of Microsoft's MacOS products. (Presenter biographies can be found on the group Web site.)
Presentation: The future of user interfaces
— Here we invite you to give a 3-4 minute presentation on a key user interface challenge or solution. If you would like to take part please say so in your RSVP (see below) and we will forward you presentation information.
DETAILS
– – – –
When:
Thursday 29 January, 6:30 for 7PM (until 9:00 PM)
Where:
The Design Council, 34 Bow Street, London WC2E 7DL
(opposite the Royal Opera House)
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/howtofindus/
RSVP:
mailto:RSVP@design-agenda.org.uk?Subject=AIGAExpDesLondon%20Jan%202004
There is no payment to attend. Attendance will be limited to 80 people.
Please only RSVP if you are likely to be able to attend.
Please email all enquiries to this address, not the Design Council.
NEXT EVENT
– – – –
Our February event is likely to focus on gaming and interaction design.
Quick note to point out that my students blogs are now live and kicking over at http://80.177.26.60/blojsom/blog/interaction_one. This is its temporary place for now. Feel free to comment about anything they write. I hope to provide the same to the 2nd year interaction designers too very soon…http://80.177.26.60/blojsom/blog/interaction_two
Lucas sent me a email with pictures he took while at the weather project by Olafur Eliasson. I was so impressed by the whole idea, that I'm going to visit it some time soon. Maybe Monday after the conference talk would be a light end to the day. I'm glad to see more interesting physical design like this.
http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/slashdot2/3/#c6013 – Left a post on alistapart about the problem with newer browsers such as Internet Explorer on PocketPC2003 and Smartphone2003. They show the CSS even if you use the @import trick. But I have not tried the CSS 2.1 mediatype thing yet. Would be fanatasic if it works.
As most of you know, I entered the built for the future – reuseit contest. I didnt do too badly as I spent 1hour on the css and used cubicgardens css as a base. But I've now recieved feedback from the judges on why I got the marks I got. At the same time I would like to say thanks to the Judges and specially Bob Sawyer. Maybe next time I'll spend more time on the design.
With that, here are the judges' comments: ==================== Too plain and bloggy (not in a good way though). Not enough contrast on the link text colour and I'm fairly sure Jakob would have expected the link text to be underlined. Sorry. ------------------------------ The simplicity of the color scheme is nice, but I found the layout lacking in organization. ------------------------------ suffers from similar problems original has -- poor separation of content. yeah, there's the left column, but within the 2 columns, it's tough to see where the different sections are. (IE5/mac os9.2) ------------------------------ One word: Yuck! Although based on my favorite color, the design of this site is immature and lacks a focus on the user, the primary message Nielsen provides those who read his work. It needs lots of work to become anything of value to a real world user. The site designer should also remember many people print Jakob's content and post it on bulletin boards, outside of office cubicles, etc. This entry does not print well. The site appears to render adequately in IE 5.1.7 for Mac OS. ------------------------------ I like your choice of steel gray--very easy on the eyes, but the links do not contrast enough. The top box is too tall and you need more leading before "news." Your focus is on "search" -- reminds me of Google. ------------------------------ An interesting take to go with light text on dark for the site, but you have a lack of support for resolutions lower than roughly 1000px or so which is a big usability no no. ------------------------------ ouch. this doesn't layout properly in mac ie5.1.7, it is just one column. dull colors, low contrast between link color and background. ------------------------------ ====================
Too early for comments at the moment. But yeah should have done a print style sheet and spent more time on design.
chris sanderson from the future laboratory – http://www.thefuturelaboratory.com. Came to college today in a lecture arranged by Fashion for the whole college. So of course I'm live blogging this as he talks
First part involved a talk about the 3 points bellow.
Yeah quite good, nothing new and product and fashion driven. He answered my question about ip quite well with mentions about ip and copyleft. Before that he made references to social software after one of my students asked about how the internet affects all what he was talking about.
All the other questions afterwards were pretty lame and more about products and branding rather than the higher level concepts. Need to check out this viewpoint magazine, sounds like wallpaper with slightly more brains.
I love the fact that he believes the GM battle is over, which drops the audience into complete slience. But he explained himself really well by explaining the fact that monsanto was setup as charity. And is retrospect, someone could have applied GM else where before moving to food. Say for example GM body parts, etc. Which is fair enough and quite smart because he also got his little comment about how people who dont want GM are old fuddie duddies.
Then he went into a slight rant about how he hated Apple and if it was up to him he would systematicly destroy
his G4 and Apple the company. I have to agree with him that Apple are a very good marketing company which people desire, but the rest of it is a joke. Caused some of my interaction design students to shuffle and look around a bit.
I will need to get a copy of the pdf he was presenting, the book of light.
