MoHoyt.com » Design

They make steel. They wear suits.

Moses Hoyt — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:00:51 +0000

They make steel. They wear suits. They have blue carpet tiles. They make steel.

- http://eatbigfish.com/subject/culture/stimulus-state
Absolutely fantastic insight from Rupert Millington via eatbigfish.

eatbigfish is one of the most fundamentally fascinating places out there. You have no idea how happy I was when I first discovered them…

Field Notes

Moses Hoyt — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 17:05:47 +0000

Field Notes have been on my radar for a long time. Frankly, they just look awesome. The throwback design and quality in which they’re put together is great. All thanks to Draplin Design Co (and Coudal Partners). I almost managed to go to Aaron Draplin’s talk last Tuesday in London (as I imagined it would have been incredible (this was then confirmed)), but I had other plans in the form of a birthday party…

Anyway, I went ahead and finally bought some. Specifically the Red Blooded edition (a future special edition?). The cover is letterpressed awesomeness. Enjoy.

Businessy (sic) Books…

Moses Hoyt — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:06:04 +0000

So my recent readings on my Kindle, and my plans for future readings on my Kindle have all currently been strangely in the topic of business-like/entrepreneurial books. Many of them autobiographical in the sense of the business being talked/written about. I find these fascinating, mainly for the inspiration and enthusiasm that they ignite in me. I figured I should probably compile a list at some point of the ones that I’ve read, and how great they are, and the ones that I’m yet to read and so on, just to keep a record of sorts. If you think of any obvious titles that might be missing, then let me know. I’m always eager to discover new reads.

The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss – I discovered this through his profile in the New Yorker (which, by the way, is fascinating and can be found here). It’s great to read, as is his 2nd book, The Four Hour Body, and I’m totally looking forward to his new one, which will be the flagship of Amazon’s publishing venture.
Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson – This was mentioned in the New Yorker profile on Ferriss, and is in my to read list, currently waiting on my Kindle for some attention.
Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard – Again, from the same New Yorker article, but I’ve pretty much finished this one. It’s a great read, exciting and insightful.
Rework, Jason Fried – I’ve been recommending this book to friends after using some 37signals products and reading how great a company they are (and how great this book is), despite never reading it. Suffice to say it’s on my list and it’s a matter of time.
The Lean Startup, Eric Ries – I read the intro to this in Inc. (which I would wholeheartedly suggest keeping up with), and then picked it up once again in the Harvard Coop book store, began reading it, and then wondered where I’d read it before. It’s a pretty great book, I’m about halfway, check it out.
Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh – It’s all about Zappos, and the tales behind its founding and culture. Really fun stuff and particularly enjoyable.
In The Plex, Steven Levy – Google. Enough said. I enjoyed his book on Hackers, and his pieces in Wired. This is on my to read.
Pour Your Heart Into It and Onward, Howard Schultz – being a former Starbucks employee I should really have read these, I’ve read the first 1/3 or so of Pour… and I like it so far.
The Rare Find, George Anders – It’s a pretty new book, I only really heard about it today, but as with others, it’s on the list.
The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman – It’s really fun and appeals to my engineering mind. Not the newest book, but it’s still very relevant.
The Big Short, Michael Lewis – He’s pretty much my favourite author (along with Gladwell), and this book is part of the reason (though not anywhere near as much as Moneyball or The Blind Side). His articles in Vanity Fair on the European Economic messes are spot on, and his new book will be on my Kindle soon.
A Book Apart books, Various authors – These cover a range of topics, primarily web design and strategy, but they’re concise, useful and there’s always new ones appearing. Have a look.

Beyond this, which is only a limited selection so far (prepare for it to expand in the near future), then I read Inc. magazine, Wired and (if I have time) Harvard Business Review. There’s a lot of good ideas hidden in there.

How to ruin an app…

Moses Hoyt — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:27:33 +0000

This could alternatively be titled ‘How can iOS and AppStore design ruin perfectly good apps’. I feel bad about writing this, but I’m writing this for a reason, and frankly this is in a similar light to a lot of the new Skype for Mac criticism. The application in question here is Awaken, by Embraceware, what I considered to be the best of the alarm clock applications.

I think a lot of the new Skype criticism, especially that from Lukas Mathis, centres around the fact that the UI has changed, both making it difficult for regular and professional users of the program (who before used to tile the windows to support multiple conversations etc.) and for casual users (who just got used to the last interface and are now faced with a whole new kettle of fish). The change in Awaken is similar in some respects, the interface has changed from a ‘conforming explicitly with the HIG’ kind of style (see this excellent talk by Gruber for more info) to essentially an iOS app ported to Mac, using the iOS standard icons, switches and colour schemes. Frankly it’s not the fact that the UI has changed so boldly that annoys me, that on its own would be interesting (the new UI is rather striking), it’s the fact that the program has changed so much, breaking some of the little intricacies that made it better than similar apps. Let’s look at this in more detail.

On the previous style of Awaken (looking at version 4.0.20 here, which was generally very similar to the preceding versions), the standard interface looked a lot like this:

Notice the use of the ‘standard’ 10.5/10.6 title bar and generally consistent (with the OS UI) buttons, checkboxes and text (even the ‘cog’ icon symbolising the traditional one button mouse’s right click features, taken straight (and rightfully so according to the HIG) from OS X). Furthermore when editing a given alarm, the action can be completed in a number of ways, double clicking, hitting return, going to Alarms > Edit Alarm, or through the ‘cog’ icon. As before, very traditional and conforming. Doing so, brings up this screen to change or add an alarm.

As before, all elements of this are uniform and consistent with the OS UI. There’s a touch of confusion with the setting of the volumes of the alarm, as they’re not present, but then again they’re all in the preferences. I think the best bit here however is the play button. It may not work as expected to some people, and frankly it shouldn’t necessarily have a play symbol on it, but rather preview or something similar (at the end of the day the meaning is essentially implicit), but it previews exactly what happens when the alarm goes off. Click it and get transported to iTunes where your playlist of choice will start playing. Simple. Even when the alarm is playing, the interface is alarmingly (no pun intended) consistent and understandable.

There’s perhaps a little inconsistency with the interesting blue button ‘Stop Alarm’, and the previous and next track buttons, but all in all, it’s pretty simple and standard. Notice the album art and track info graciously taken from your iTunes, and displayed simply in the Awaken interface whilst all the music playing is handled by iTunes.

Furthermore, little things in this version of the program that were worth noting are the fact that by just having the program open, and the little box in the preferences that says ‘Wake Mac from sleep’ ticked, your Mac will successfully wake up when required, nothing else needed. Additionally one could install Awaken Helper, an additional app to wake up and open Awaken at alarm time, if you had perhaps forgotten to keep it open. However this was one of those little menubar cluttering apps, that you had to keep open all the time for it to work, when you could just make Awaken was open when you were going to need it. I always felt that it was a little pointless….

Now with the new design, it’s all rather different. Admittedly I was a little excited when I realised that there was an update, and that there may be some cool new features, and I was initially pleased, though slightly surprised when I saw it. This is from Awaken 5.0.1.

First off, there are a number of differences. The whole UI has been uphauled and simplified. Half the buttons have disappeared, the light grey titlebar has gone, and all in all it looks a lot more like an iOS app. It’s also a fair amount simpler to look at, but at the same time harder to use. To access the alarms you’ve set, you have to go to the alarm section (in many ways the buttons along the bottom are just like those from an iOS device), where it will display all your alarms, a lot like this.

Now it becomes even more apparent how iOS like this is. Never before iPhones and iPod touches would you see the faux sliding on/off switches and the ‘>’ arrows (of which the functionality is lost on the Mac (what happened to double clicking)). I almost feel like I could swipe sideways across it to delete alarms (sadly I can’t). It also shows less information than before, now you have no idea when the next alarm is (you can click the date to give you a countdown however), or what playlists/actions alarms will trigger. Slightly annoying. However this isn’t the main issue with me. When I updated the software, I assumed (boldly) that it would function similarly to the previous one. Much to my dismay the next morning when my MacBook did not wake at alarm time to sound the alarm. What a shame. Apparently (after just a little delving in the preferences) that feature had been removed from Awaken and given to Awaken Helper (talk about modularity). So now I needed to have Awaken Helper run all the time for alarms to go off. Great. Just what I didn’t like about the previous version. Next big niggle coming up here, but first off, have a look at the great (no sarcasm here) alarm screen.

Personally I think it looks better than the last one. It’s more clear what is going on. You can see the album art nice and big, the track info, and even the buttons (now that they don’t even have to remote resemble OS X UI buttons) are clearer. Good effort.

But wait! Try pressing pause on iTunes to stop the music temporarily, or even change the music and you might realise that iTunes isn’t even playing music. In face Awaken has taken over all control of the music playback. Interesting. So now you can have two applications playing from the same library, at different times, all just because you pressed ‘play/pause’ on your keyboard to stop your alarm. I think this is really a step backwards. Admittedly it stops any issue from occurring where an update to iTunes will break the compatibility with Awaken, which has happened in the past I seem to remember, (but then again controlling iTunes from a separate app is fairly straightforward if it’s anything like Applescript), and all the new music playback code must have taken a while to write, test and implement. It also makes the whole thing a little less modular, much unlike the Helper app idea. Personally I think it’s a bit of a weird decision. However there’s probably a few reasons why:

Mac App store submissions may not like you using certain libraries (which I believe is what they used before) to control iTunes.
It may have been similar code to the iOS version of the software, and as such may have been easy to port.

However still, it seems silly to implement a whole new way of playing alarms when the last one worked perfectly.

So anyway, I feel like I should wind up this whole mini discussion of the changing UI and workings of Awaken with a little bit of a summary, and my suggestions on how possibly to improve the new interface.

The advantages of the new Awaken interface I see as being:

Looks sharper – More shiny, and eminently more lickable.
More iOS like – This might not be an advantage, but it makes it simple for iOS migrators to easily use the app.
Version 5 is smaller (somehow!).

And the disadvantages:

Awaken Helper – Why oh why do I have to use this stupid little app in addition to Awaken to make it function!
iTunes non-integration – It worked so much better before, why change it.
More iOS like – This isn’t an iPhone, this is for a Mac, people can double click, and mouse cursors aren’t stubby like fingers. Let the UI reflect that.
Any reference to Awaken Helper is fairly well hidden – It mentions it once in the preferences (you do have to look though).
Why the unnecessary animation with the window fade in? – Try using exposé (all windows) with Awaken 5 open. It doesn’t even show up, just a black space where it should be. Probably worth fixing, and not worth it just for the animation.

And my thoughts on potential improvements:

Bring back the actual iTunes integration – It seems so much more obvious to users if the music comes from iTunes
Do away with Awaken Helper – Allow Awaken to (do as it says on the tin and) wake up your Mac, suggest users set it to auto open at login. Keep it small and light so it can always be running.
Find a compromise between the iOS UI and the old style UI – The iOS UI is great, but only on iOS devices. It has it’s limitations, and some tasks can be accomplished better with a mouse.

I’m interested to hear other opinions on the subject. Leave a comment, let me know…

Update: I’ve gone back to using version 4. So much better and a joy to use.

Branding: Conundrum

Moses Hoyt — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:31:03 +0000

Preliminary designs for the corporate branding of a new upscale nouvelle cuisine restaurant situated in the centre of Cambridge.

Client-wise, the aim of the branding is establish Conundrum as a fresh exciting new place to eat. A simple two-tonal design was preferred by the client, but with preference for a striking colour as the primary focus. The tails on the letters, particularly the C allow for a simplistic, yet recognisable, logo and is further expanded on throughout the branding.

In designing the branding, the main focus was on the simplicity, and establishing a modern, yet funky (and in some respects young and fresh) look. Archer (H&FJ) is used as the primary typeface, with a fair few of the weights being used throughout. Its clean cut elegance resounds well for this task, giving both the menu and the business cards a modern and classy vibe.

Conundrum Signage - The main sign, prominently displaying the logo.

Conundrum Alternative Signage - Similar, but more in depth signage to be displayed in the foyer.

Conundrum Menu - An example menu from the restaurant.

Conundrum Business Cards

Conundrum Napkin Graphic

Packaging Simplification

Moses Hoyt — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:15:42 +0000

Ritz Packaging Simplification

I had some time and after seeing this fantastic article from Antrepo I decided that I should try it myself. Simplification makes such a difference to some packaging. Anyway, I might try and do some more if I get a chance.

An incoherent UI is not going to get you anywhere… (Part 1)

Moses Hoyt — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:37:00 +0000

The basis of a UI should enable a user (specified by the ‘U’ in UI) to interact with a computer or similar device in a fashion which enables the user to control and assess the state of the system. This, these days on most computers and media players etc., is done through an interface (the ‘I’ part in UI). While it doesn’t have to be easy and coherent for a human to understand, having it understandable and useful is generally an advantage. What I mean is going out of your way to make it more difficult and less understandable to use is not generally a good thing!

Then again, usability is a very relative thing. In the same way that speaking Catalan to a person fluent in English (with no knowledge of Catalan by the way) means nothing, the usability of a product primarily aimed at English speakers could mean absolutely nothing to someone speaking Catalan. The same applies within a UI, not all end users of a product are going to be the same, not everyone thinks alike (great minds do apparently though!). A world renowned professor in gene sequencing technology is much more likely to understand a gene sequencing machine than an accountant. In this case though, the differences between the two people (assuming they are from roughly the same background and understand the same language) are as a result of what they’ve learnt or done with their lives – the accountant could learn how to operate the gene sequencing machine if he/she wanted. Yes, it would require some effort most likely, but compare that with the previous example, involving language boundaries. In this case, the difference is much more inherent. In order to work the gene sequencing machine, a native Catalan speaker would have to firstly understand English, and then learn how to operate the gene sequencing machine, a considerably steeper learning curve, one which most likely would not be worthwhile just to learn how to use a gene sequencing machine. The point that arises here is thus, there are two such differences in levels of not-understanding. These are an inherent difference related to language or huge cultural boundaries, and a learned difference, one that is a difference only because of occupation or lifestyle.

So in creating a successful UI (in successful I mean universally understandable), another way is needed to communicate the status of the system or the meanings of any control surfaces to the user. This is commonly accomplished with icons. Icons, essentially small pictures (or graphical entities), should allow interfaces to become fairly universal. Good icons should satisfy two main criteria, a) They shouldn’t be language specific (the French shouldn’t have one image for a drawing tool and the German’s another in order for them to both understand the concept) and b) They should be immediately obvious and recognisable (a pen should signify some kind of drawing tool, a scissors some sort of cutting tool…).

Though icons are infinitely usable in the right scenarios, there are some things that cannot be replaced easily by pictures. A menu bar on a computer OS generally requires some form of text in it to understand, as does a user manual (though with a sufficiently understandable UI, the user manual should only need to explain non-explicitly obvious things). For example, looking at the menu bar in an application, the File, Edit, View etc. items really need to be in text so to speak. In my opinion, using icons in place would decrease the usability of that feature as there would be too many icons to understand each ones’ meaning. How would you represent the menu item ‘Fix Broken Text’? It would be like a game of Pictionary. What about the menu item ‘Update Field’? You could have a picture of a field and something which represents updating, but what happens in a language other than English, the word for field (as in a farmer’s field) may not be the same as a computer field. In these scenarios, a degree of localization would be required, which is understandable.

To be continued…