Category: design-and-ideas

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.

http://www.3-23.com