03.19.14 |
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A lot of design and development insights in this Gigaom post by Janko Roettgers. Fascinating to see the Netflix team debate image weight so heavily:
However, the team ran into a significant issue when it began to build out the final UI for consumers in the third quarter of 2013, just months before it was scheduled to launch. It discovered that lower-end Blu-ray players and streaming boxes couldn’t handle WebP decoding on the fly, or at least not as smoothly as Netflix would like them to. That’s why the team decided to still serve JPEGs to cheap consumer electronics devices by default, but send WebP images to game consoles and other more powerful machines…
…The goal was to find that sweet spot where images look great but still load quickly, and transitions are smooth — something Netflix internally calls a “recipe” for image encoding. It was a time of constant fine-tuning, a time when even something as minuscule as a 150ms delay during an image transition warranted further tweaks. “You will feel that,” insisted McCarthy.
Chasing down page weight and experimenting with multiple platforms? There’s a lot in common here with web development workflows.
03.18.14 |
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The Verge’s Nilay Patel writes a compelling editorial on why the internet needs stronger government oversight in the lack of virtually zero meaningful competition among internet providers. Essential tech reading.
02.24.14 |
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Designer Brandon Kowitz:
It feels great to launch fast. But launching also makes future changes much harder. So if you can invest a little energy to learn early, and then fix problems before launch, it ends up saving you a tremendous amount of time later. It also reduces the risk that you’ll launch something truly bad and get stuck backpedaling for weeks.
So replace the startup dogma of “launch early and often” with “learn early and often.” For me, it opened my mind to all the different kinds of ways startups can learn, and how valuable user research can be to the core mission of any startup.
02.11.14 |
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Travis Miller writing on Medium:
You would think this goes without saying, but one of the stigmas designers and developers have in our industry, no matter how low they may be down the experience list, is that we tend to be full of ourselves. You don’t have to be a headline speaker to give some advice. If someone needs help, help them out. Don’t be a jerk.
01.31.14 |
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I have a habit of installing quirky screensavers on my Macs as a throwback to an earlier era. But with my latest Macbook Air I fell in line with the default settings sans screensaver, dissatisfied with what was out there. That all changed when I saw this screensaver by designer Robert Padbury, developed by Steve Streza. It’s a twist on the iOS7 lock screen with options for white on black or black on white typography. It’s minimal and extremely elegant.
01.28.14 |
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Tested’s Will Smith gave the Xbox One a second chance as a universal remote after a negative run last month:
As far as I can tell, Microsoft hasn’t changed anything with the way the TV functionality works since the Xbox One’s launch, but my behavior has changed. I use the TiVo remote to navigate to whatever I want to watch, but if I need to pause, play, or even fast forward whlie I’m watching something I use the basic voice commands. “Xbox Pause” and “Xbox Play” are reliable and work well, even though using the voice commands for more complex tasks remains maddening.
But it looks like there’s some serious power concerns that may keep him from using the setup over the long run.
01.27.14 |
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I find a surprising number of otherwise skilled web developers that still have trepidation around the command line. I’m no expert myself, but a few of the basics, especially pertaining to grep, can really do wonders when you’re in a pinch in the middle of a development session.
Mark Bates has written a excellent book on the subject; I’ve already read the first two chapters and like what I’ve read. It’s easy to follow along and comprehensive. You can read the entire book contents online or purchase an ebook, screencasts, or a physical copy.
01.23.14 |
Gaming |
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Microsoft promotes the Xbox One as an all-in-one solution for your living room needs: gaming, film, cable TV, even home exercise. But the Xbox One leans on convergence to a fault. It’s a console whose overstuffed feature set, for now, has left it vulnerable on both price and its user interface. While core gamers kept sales strong over the holidays I’m concerned that the console will have a rough future with a mainstream audience.
Its convergence problems start with its $500 price tag. Devices that already carry the same feature set of core streaming services (e.g. Netflix, Hulu Plus) as the Xbox One are $100 or less. Granted, the Xbox One adds on high end gaming, voice and gesture UI integration along with limited cable TV control, but those additions for $400 are a hard sell for everyday consumers. And I doubt we’ll see a price drop anytime soon; the console requires high-end expensive gaming hardware to compete with Sony’s PS4 over next gen gaming. The Kinect, one of the Xbox’s purported main innovations, drives the price higher. Microsoft tacks on additional fees as well: a $60/year Xbox Live subscription is required for most functionality, a policy unheard of on competing tech devices like the PS4 or Roku.
Convergence across diverse activities also adds complexity to the Xbox One’s UI, an extra hurdle for mainstream adoption. Just compare the console’s preferred interaction method – voice – against interaction on competing media and tech devices. From my own testing, Xbox One voice commands largely work. But it still feels like a feature trying to find its footing; about 20% of the time I have to repeat myself or a command takes me in an unwanted direction.
80% reliability is a good start, but that’s 15% short of what it should be given the competition’s astounding performance. Consider the 1 to 1 touch interaction on a modern iOS or stock Android smartphone or tablet. Or the tried and true keyboard and mouse inputs on a desktop or laptop. Even buttons on a remote control for the cable box. These aforementioned devices “just work.” Granted, Microsoft’s voice technology is new and will improve, and there’s a game controller for backup navigation. But historically users outside a tech or gaming enthusiast base show little patience for new input technologies that work unreliably.
Then there’s added Xbox One functionality that’s puzzling. Things like:
- “Snapping” an application like a web page or Skype alongside the right side of the screen seems like it would be used in a rare scenario.
- Minority Report style Kinect gestures to move around the UI that are slow and awkward.
- A Windows 8-like interface that’s visually striking, but occasionally confusing with a menu of very similarly sized and colored boxes doing different things.
Microsoft would argue that ambition takes time and that the Xbox One’s rough patches will be smoothed over soon. And I want the Xbox One to succeed; strong competition from Microsoft’s console leads to better technology from Sony, Nintendo, Apple and Google. However, other living room tech isn’t standing still. Rumors suggest the next Apple TV iteration will be ambitious. Sony’s PS4 runs select multi-platform games at higher resolutions with a more straightforward, gaming focused UI, which could appeal to the core gaming market. Drive can only take a console so far; with Microsoft’s missteps on price and UI, it’s unclear if the company can deliver on its promise.
01.22.14 |
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Front end developer and author Nicholas Zakas:
The things I look for in a front-end engineer have little to do with traditional computer science concepts. I’ve written before about what makes a good front-end engineer and how to interview front-end engineers, and generally I still agree with everything I wrote in those articles. I want enthusiasm and passion for the web, and understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and more importantly, how to use them together to create a solution to a problem.
01.09.14 |
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I’ve been a fan of Will Smith and the whole Tested crew for a while. And Will tells it exactly like it is from his first day on the CES show floor:
It’s an endemic problem at this show–the vast majority of products being shown here are absolute garbage. I’m talking about products that no one in their right mind could want.