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Extremely local species are itemized species seen at our homes: on the actual property, or in the air above it. (Across the street doesn’t count!) I began by itemizing species seen at our house in Copperas Cove, Texas, and later expanded the project to include our home in Renton, Washington.
Why does this matter? Because as search engines and other information trawlers grapple with more and more content, the ability to parse and understand that content continues to become more and more important.
My husband and I watched the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on TV, curious and hopeful. Along the way, I checked in on different media coverage, including the New York Times’ live blogging of the event. The blogging was sarcastic and impatient, but I was less upset with snide remarks than with what wasn’t said.
The New York Times, along with NPR, ABC, and others, refused to allow reporters to attend the non-partisan rally for sanity, on the grounds they might appear partisan. Such is the sanity of the media. But when the media elides criticism of itself without showing the elision (via “…” or some-such), that’s pretty low. My respect for the paper of record has plummeted in just one day.
Here’s the bit I’m talking about:
2:50 P.M. | Now, a Moment of Sincerity
“What exactly was this?” Mr. Stewart asks. “This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith. Or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.”
“Not being able to be able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate.”
A sharp eye might catch the end quote marks on the first paragraph, but that’s the only clue that a significant rant against the media has just been left out. I commented with the missing words (below), and they posted the comment, which is good.
Under “now, a moment of sincerity” (which by the way, implies the rest was not sincere, an implication I don’t believe), you completely skip the rant against the press and media, without showing the elision. You leave in the bit that shows the importance of the press (“the press is our immune system”) – but below are the words that every news media outlet should take to heart, (with the end and beginning of the two paragraphs you provide above, for context).
“…And we can have animus and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24-hour, politico-pundit, perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. [Applause.] The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen – or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire [Laughter] – and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous flaming ant epidemic.
“If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. [Applause] There are terrorists, and racists, and Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to be able to distinguish…”
I’ve always argued that there is no “perfect” design—either the context changes its usefulness, or the design can be improved in some way. (Hence my philosophy of evolutional UX.) No matter how good you are, there’s always something to learn.
I’m not completely sold on this idea, but I like the approach. I think using a lightened and desaturated orange line would work better than a dashed line–the spaces between dashes create optical effects. I’d also label each line directly, instead of having a separate key.
It may possibly be overkill, but I also changed the data point markers: the NPP marker is square, the CO2 markers, both inverted and actual, are round.
Devin Coldewey had a fascinating suggestion on UXMag: turn the URL field into an active breadcrumb field. It’s a wonderful idea, but it ignores the usefulness of the URL bar for bots, and for those sites still showing the actual URL (most), it’s a helpful clue to visitors: yes, I really am on the site to which I thought I was linking.
But Coldewey’s concept, transforming part of the browser into something offering new functionality, was inspired, as was the bread crumb suggestion. So here’s what I proposed:
I love the concept. But if we’re going to re-conceptualize portions of the browser, why not the browser title area? You might do the following:
–Leave the URL in the URL bar. It’s an important place to verify you are where you think you linked, and this is helpful for bots as well.
–Add functionality to the title bar to link to breadcrumbs. It’s already good SEO for titles to go from specific to broad, e.g.:
Steller’s Jay | Family Corvidae | All About Birds
So, we could add functionality with links, where a browser with title breadcrumb capability will turn those into links, and a browser without will merely read them as a title. The code could simply check browser version, and if breadcrumb title f(x) were true, it would display the above as links, thusly:
There is just one tiny problem with all this – there is currently little experimental evidence to back up M-theory. In other words, a leading scientist is making a sweeping public statement on the existence of God based on his faith in an unsubstantiated theory.
I could see why Johnston was concerned. A BBC video, linked in the Physics World post, had this in the descriptive text:
Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said that he sees no necessity for God in the creation of the universe and that philosophy is dead.
Things like this just make me shake my head. Hawking is so, so brilliant, but perhaps not very wise.
Johnston’s concern was driven by the possible adverse effect such pronouncements could have on science:
Physicists need the backing of the British public to ensure that the funding cuts don’t hit them disproportionately. This could be very difficult if the public think that most physicists spend their time arguing about what unproven theories say about the existence of God.
I know he’s right. Personally, I find this situation both sad and frustrating. That science’s direction and funding can be at the whim of the public; that scientists and philosophers don’t speak of and to each other with respect; that willfully ignorant people end up pitting people of good will against each other (read the comments in any blog touching both science and religion)—this kind of particularly human screwball black comedy just seems, well, wrong. I know, I know—I’m not the only one.
I commented, of course. Here’s what I said, for what it’s worth (the comment was still in moderation as of this writing):
Personally, I wish science fell into the same category as infrastructure and education when it came to funding: a must-have, something without which a society cannot thrive.
I have no problem with Hawking or anyone else pronouncing on God or religion. They are scientists, so I take their opinions in this area to be that of lay people in the field, much as my opinion in it is. I’m not offended, but I do wish they would formulate such comments with more of a “it’s my opinion that [insert sweeping religious view here]” attitude.
The same goes for evangelicals and fundamentalists of any religion who proclaim their ignorance of science loudly and proudly. Please, take a moment to reflect. Surely a creative God would want his thinking creations to view his work accurately and clearly, and support an unflinching, honest appreciation and understanding of the universe? What artist doesn’t want their craft appreciated? Therefore, fund science! Promote it! Support it in the name of understanding the world God gave you clearly and without fear.
Accurate – watching a bar fill up gradually only to chug to a halt at around 90% can infuriate all but the most Zen. Worse still on the hair ripping scale are bars that fill up, only to empty and begin anew!
Responsive and smooth – the bar should be updated regularly to show that things are still working. This means that, on the web, we should update progress bars via Ajax rather than hefty page reloads. Research shows that a linear, consistent progress increase is better than the bar jerking around like a malfunctioning robot dancer.
Precise – the bar should show an estimate of time remaining, and perhaps other data such as percent or file size remaining so the user knows if he or she should start any long books in the interim.
Appropriate – before using a progress bar, consider carefully whether it is appropriate, both in terms of User Experience and technical feasibility.
I’d expand on this, and add that the progress bar is useful beyond the completion of a software task, but for personal accomplishments; “Am I there yet?” moments, if you will. For example, the LinkedIn progress bar prompts profile completeness.
The progress bar is actually a game element, which triggers the twin desires to both complete and compete. It’s invaluable in educational, social media, and other contexts. Like Seth Priebatsch of SCVNGRsaid, “Humans love progress bars. If you see a progress bar, you want to complete it.”
The same requirements apply that Davies suggests, but the nature of the progression dynamic changes. So, instead of time remaining, the user may have tasks remaining, or user-generated content, or a certain amount of time using the application or exploring the site. These progress bar milestones can themselves incorporate game elements, becoming a quest for users for which progress bar completion is only one of many rewards.
Apart from games themselves, game mechanics (or gamification) have been primarily used in the educational field, although it’s been spreading through interaction design since the nineties. Those interested in exploring the field, a good start is Clark Aldrich, a true guru at designing “serious games” and simulations.
The New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof put the fear of Islam into a historical context in his latest column, Is Islamophobia the new hysteria? He pointed out the many times U.S. citizens have rallied against various religious or national groups, using much of the same language used today when speaking about followers of Islam.
Sadly, many of the comments seem oblivious to his point, and actually repeat the very mistake he’s pointing out. So I had to comment myself:
Religions go in cycles. There was a time not too many centuries ago when Islam was a more tolerant religion than Christianity – when Jews sought refuge in places like Turkey to escape the Inquisition.
I keep reading comments that argue Islam is different from Christianity and Judaism because it is “political” and seeks to harm us. Clearly these people have forgotten that Christianity and Judaism have extremely active political elements in the U.S., and that there are many countries who presently have some flavor of Christianity as a state religion. Clearly they’ve forgotten the Christian element in Ireland’s decades of terrorism, or abortion clinic attacks, or the mostly Protestant KKK (mind, most Protestants do not support the KKK – but most KKK members believe a Christian God is on their side).
While the United States may pride itself on constitutional separation of church and state, the reality is very different, as we can see from the constant efforts by a vocal minority of U.S. Christians to inject their version of Christian concepts and language into law, government buildings, and schools.
I’m also a little disheartened by those claiming that religion as a whole is dangerous. People can be broken and dangerous with or without religion (e.g., Stalin was an atheist, KKK members are primarily Christian), and outstandingly good with or without religion (Desmond Tutu and Clarence Darrow). Danger occurs when people use any institution, be it church or state, to rationalize and cloak sloppy thinking and fear-driven bigotry.
It’s not what you believe, it’s what you do with your belief.
James Hrynyshyn, a science journalist, pointed out on the Class M blog that a recent climate research graph was poorly designed.
The paper, Drought-Induced Reduction in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 2000 Through 2009, demonstrated that anomalous CO2 and anomalous NPP (net primary production, described by Robert Simmon of NASA’s Earth Observatory as “a measure of the amount of carbon a plant takes from the atmosphere and uses to grow”) were negatively correlated. In other words, not only was increased CO2 not acting as “plant food,” it was undermining NPP overall.
In order to demonstrate just how strong this correlation was, the researchers inverted CO2 emissions on their graph:
Click for larger image.
As Hrynyshyn pointed out, this could readily lead to misunderstanding by non-scientists (or the occasional absent-minded scientist) to appear as though the CO2 anomaly was positively correlated to the NPP anomaly, instead of the opposite. That would be a significant misunderstanding, and in a politically controversial area such as climate change, a serious problem.
Robert Simmon, of NASA’s Earth Observatory, provided an alternative graph, clearly demonstrating the negative correlation:
Click for larger image.
But if I understand this correctly, the original graph had a useful purpose, it just went about it poorly. The point of the original graph was not to mislead about the positive/negative aspect of the correlation, but to demonstrate the strong level of correlation. This is a useful visualization in the right context, you just can’t do it by itself.
So why not add a third line? Something which showed the actual anomalous NPP and CO2 numbers with differently colored solid lines, as shown in the 2nd version, and added a clearly different third line (perhaps dotted, but in the same color as the CO2 to associate them), labeled CO2 (Inverted to demonstrate absolute correlation).
Click for larger image.
If you show the actual numbers clearly, then equally clearly distinguish the inversion, you can make both points without misleading, or allowing your graph to be misused.
Note: I commented this suggestion to the Earth Observatory post, and David Powell, another commentator, expressed concern the line could still be misunderstood. Powell wrote, “people would assume that a third line meant a third set of data and not just the same data plotted differently.” To show how I think it’s possible to avoid that, I created this example, which I think clearly distinguishes the inversion from the actual data.
Simplicity in design is not a goal but a tool. The goal is the need of the moment: to sell a product, to express an opinion, to teach a concept, to entertain. While elegance and optimal function in design frequently overlaps with simplicity, there are times that simplicity is not only not possible but hurts usability. Yet many designers do not understand this, and over the years, I’ve seen the desire to “keep it simple, stupid,” lead to poor UX.
I was therefore glad to see Francisco Inchauste’s well-thought, longer version of Einstein’s “as simple as possible, but no simpler” remark.
From the column:
As an interactive designer, my first instinct is to simplify things. There is beauty in a clean and functional interface. But through experience I’ve found that sometimes I can’t remove every piece of complexity in an application. The complexity may be unavoidably inherent to the workflow and tasks that need to be performed, or in the density of the information that needs to present. By balancing complexity and what the user needs, I have been able to continue to create successful user experiences.
This was written in response to Ross Douthat’s call for Americans to stop enabling M. Night Shyamalan. We all love him, we all want him to create another wonderful movie, and his lukewarm box office response is not enough to push him to abandon his current approach and do that. A complete flop, Mr. Douthat reasons, will be the rock bottom necessary before Mr. Shyamalan can begin true change.
He may be right. This prompted me to share my personal theory on Mr. Shyamalan. It’s also my personal theory on how to get the best idea, whether you’re writing a story, designing a test, or figuring out the best user-centered taxonomy for a site.
I love Shyamalan’s writing, I love his directing, I love his characters. What I don’t love is how he makes all of the above subservient to an idea that forces them into unnatural, un-storylike forms.
My theory on Mr. Shyamalan: he’s been letting themes take too much control of the story. It’s like the recently-evangelized musician who thinks removing a bad lyric about Jesus is somehow betraying Jesus—instead of thinking that writing the best song possible is a better form of praise. Or the recently-transformed-by-therapy writer whose characters all act in the best interests of each other’s mental health. I believe Shyamalan becomes enthralled by an idea, and the idea drives the story, the writing, and the directing.
I heard that the killer surprise in Sixth Sense was an afterthought. This is how good ideas show up—you follow the story/research/whatever faithfully, and have faith the best idea, or juxtaposition of ideas, will present itself as a result. Clinging to *an* idea throughout the process reduces the chance that the *best* idea—the one rooted in your fullest understanding of story, characters, data, concept—will emerge.
The best way to explore a theme in a story is to establish the situation, and let it play itself out in a means true to the characters. Your concept or theme will emerge much more naturally, and people will be much more engaged.
The New York Times covered Congressman Joe Barton’s apology to BP for our asking them to pay for their damages, and then his retraction. I commented, and so far 114 readers have recommended – a new record (previously it was 14). To put that in perspective, though, the most-recommended comment is sitting on 332 recommendations.
I know, it’s not all about me, but I like the illusion of validation.
As a native Texan, I am sadly more and more embarrassed by certain factions in the state I love. Let’s hope that this makes all politicians think twice before favoring a rapacious foreign company over the people of the U.S., and the environment of which we are all stewards.
A ll over the world on Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 UTC, photographers took shots wherever they were. Some were planned, some not (there are rainbows, etc., that could not be arranged).
The New York Times has gathered it all into a global gallery – stacks of photos reaching out to the sky, browsable by stack. Beautiful images, and once again, beautiful UX from the New York Times.
My response to a LinkedIn UX Professionals question, Why they don’t like to spend or invest in the User Experience tasks?
My personal experience has been that ignorance is the largest barrier to UX implementation. While there are many exceptions, too often do developers, marketers, executive management, or others with a large level of control over UX strategy and tactical development feel that user experience is simply “common sense.” They believe that they are users, and therefore they have insight into the process. This is natural.
It’s the responsibility of UX professionals to educate them and evangelize the value of user experience. (Though it’s nice if you can get executive support, it’s frequently not there.) At my current company, I approached this from several angles:
I held one-on-one meetings with stakeholders and others, seeking to understand their needs and start a conversation about possible UX solutions.
I wrote and presented brown bags, open to all, on subjects like Why Taxonomy Matters: Taxonomy and the User Experience, in order to promote understanding of UX and its considerations.
I introduced concepts designed to make people think more from the user perspective. For example, like many sites we’re interested in user-generated content. I expanded this to user-generated experience (a concept I’d already developed from previous social media work and user analysis), and measured/discussed user-generated activity. The point, of course, was that thinking about user activity required thinking about user flow and perspective. Eventually key stakeholders were talking about UGA as a matter of course, and we even discovered ways to convert some UGA into UGC.
This was successful enough that UX became a standard consideration in not just design, but product strategy. It is of course beyond your control what others do with your information – but you have to provide it!
People understand success. Show your co-workers and management how UX solves their problems. Provide numbers, using performance indicators that matter to your audience. Present before/after case studies. Remember to focus on solutions, not problems (never show a problem for which you don’t have a suggested solution). In short, provide the best possible user experience for your internal customers.
Update
Ahmed Kamal, the person who posed the question, responded positively to my comment:
Alex O’Neal, I raise my hat! I appreciate it really! your comments are really touching, reflecting a real long experience, comprehensive and concluding the problem and how to solve it!!
Recent research reported in Scientific American shows that for some people, mother’s milk may promote a higher IQ. That’s all very well and good, but it was this paragraph that had me skipping with joy:
As for the study’s implications on the nature / nurture debate, Linda Gottfredson, a professor of education at the University of Delaware, says that a person’s DNA is not really a blueprint, as it is commonly portrayed. “[Genes] are more like playbooks,” she says. “It’s not nature or nurture, but your genes operate frequently by making you more susceptible or less susceptible to certain environmental conditions.”
I find this a beautiful example of stepping away from the tyranny of dichotomy (I’ve been saying “nature and nurture” since high school). One of my pet peeves is either-or conceptualizing being applied to more complex discussions. Such black-and-white, right-or-wrong pigeon holing erodes critical thought.
Julia Rubiner of Editorial Emergency wrote a great follow-up to her article, Stop Abbreviation Abuse Now! (to which I replied ). It’s a nice article, and not just because Rubiner called me her “favorite taxonomist” in it ;–)
