About breakfast cereal, they are made for the boys, girls and calorie-aware ladies. Why not for men? For courageous men who have to work hard every day!
Is it because men never change and keep eating the boy-cereal? Does it prove that boys will be boys? Otherwise, why not?
I need to say it! I can’t hold it! I need to get it off my chest.
Before I insult anyone or sound like a pretentious web-know-it-all:
I’ve been guilty of doing some amateur information architecture and in that time I made many mistakes (believe me, there are pro’s who almost killed me for that). I love to be able to make mistakes, they deliver their own insights and ideas. So, let me be clear about this, I’m all about experimenting and playing around with novel concepts but their is a time to look back and learn from what we’ve done.
As the title suggests my rant is about tagclouds (or weighted lists). Like many others I was seduced by these cool looking things and being an enthusiastic person I used them. But some time ago I started realizing something about them and I seem to be on my own about it.
They’re a lazy solution and cheap-ass excuse for a navigation!
Never use them if you want your users to navigate though your tags. Really, check your analytics, people rarely use it.
I love the concept of weighted tags but the difference in size makes the tags very hard to read or scan, try it, it gives you migraines.
There are many other ways to navigate tags. What about oldskool alphabetical dropdowns + numbers to show the amount of items? I’m sure those rich-interface-flex-guru-types also have some great alternatives.
Using them to make your website look 2.0 is also not done (I’m not going into the 2.0-look thing, that could be a rant on it’s own). FYI, they have been around for some time now and they lost all of their novelty value, it’s as hip and bold like wearing jeans in church these days. At least try to do something new and make new mistakes.
I have to admit, they’re not all bad. They’re great to quickly “feel” the subjects on a blog or other sites that have no fixed topic. Having one for that reason is OK, (and while it’s there the tags might as well be clickable). Just know that no person in their right mind really “navigates” on these random-topic sites.
Anyway, a tag cloud is a data visualization thing, not a navigation thing.
This is what you see when you want to watch a Robot Chicken episode online from outside the United States. (or)
The best you-can’t-watch message I’ve see so far.
Nice! The Startrek movieposters and wallpapers have arrived and with it comes our first look at Zachary Quinto as Spock for the not-so-new-but-new movie. This is one of five posters the others are here.
It’s just too bad we still have to wait some more before the movie gets released, but fortunately it is going to get a global premiere and we’ll have it in Belgium on May 6th, 2009. (2 days before the states!)
I just hope to get my hands on some sweet premiere tickets.. All help is welcome.
IDD! Had to move back east because of Monday… from Houston to Reykjavik. Hope to be in London by tomorrow.
No so unrelated: I also discovered that the most common delay on a snooze button is a very catholic 9 minutes (not 10).
Another girlgeek dinner means another speaker and this time it was me. Bnox asked me to come and talk about paleo-fururism. Not that I’m an expert on that subject but I guess she thought my love for science-fiction and all things futuristic was good enough.
The only link I had with paleo futursm was the blog by Matt Novak. Lucky for me the guy has collected lots of material over the years and owns by now the biggest and most interesting website in this field. Matt was also so kind to help me out with the keynote.
I started making a really serious and theoretical presentation but just a few hours before the happening I decided to make another one. One that wouldn’t take to much of the girls time and was more fun so I made it on what futurists thought about girls. I was glad I did this because that one was way more fun, the audience was amused and didn’t get bored. Unfortunately I managed to insult one blond with a joke (for which I’m sorry).
It was big fun to do and a very cool subject to research. If you want to know more about it visit the blog or try Matts booktip: 1999: Our hopeful Future by Victor Cohn. Slides after the Read the rest of this entry »
A few months ago I visited FITC in Amsterdam and Toronto. The whole event was fun but what bothered me was the way most of the sessions started, “Sorry, I’ll be using powerpoint slides”.
Altho almost all the speakers used this most of them thought it was a very uncool thing to do. Slides don’t feel right.
This vibe was perfectly picked up by adobe evangelist and Toronto keynote speaker Mike Downey. He didn’t need to apologize, no, he didn’t use powerpoint or keynote to make slides. He made them in AIR, the crowd liked it. I however, I just saw another kind of slides.
But what’s wrong with slides? These days we need them more frequently to sell, share idea’s, explain concepts… There’s noting wrong with slides, it’s something else.
EriK Natzke, for example had his presentation build in flash (I think). It allowed him to jump in and out, go back and forward insert more files, go deeper into stuff… The presentation had a treestructure just like you would expect from a simple site. Not linear at all.
It made me think on how I’ve been presenting all these years and how difficult it is to make a good keynote. The software is childsplay but the hardest thing is to put a concept in a linear story that can be understood by your client or audience. It’s always a lucky guess…
A good concept isn’t a linear thing and this is why I would like to put my slides in a mindmap structure. This way I only need to think of my approach on how to present it but i’m not stuck in a one-line story. If the audience responds differently I can adapt easily and tell my story in a way that fit’s them best.
Keynotes and powerpoint haven’t really evolved and I don’t think Iwork or Office will do that soon. From time to time we see new software to make slides like sliderocket and 280slides but next to using cloudcomputing they don’t do anything new.
I wish adobe would take on the challenge to build a great slide-machine, revolutionize the way we make and use keynotes. Not a keynote with more functions but something more flexible and dimensional. It’ll be more easy for us to visualize our stuff and allow us to present in a more interactive way.
I think Adobe is able to make the slide cool again… They’re missing it in their catalog and a big amount stuff that is made with adobe software is sold with slides. There is no shame in slides.
Yes? Than you’ll be glad to hear that the 6th season of the Last Comic Standing (”Idol” for stand up comedians) started a week ago. The first episode was great and gave me the feeling that we’ll see some more great stuff.
Unlike the Belgian version of the show you can watch this one for free and whenever you want. (help)
Thanks to the girl at Game Mania who saved me her last Mario Kart Wii I was able to play this highly anticipated game, all weekend.
I’m sure most reviews of this game will be very positive (video review), the game is fun and has enough variation. It’s easy to get started, anyone can play. But once you get to know the characters, their rides (now also with bikes) and practice some skills like drifting and stunts (new too) you will be flying down (yes, it goes that fast) those wacky race circuits like a real pro. Combine this with a neighbor and the classic slapstick chaos of hitting each other and you are in for an allnighter.
Another great thing in the game is the music, just like Super Mario Galaxy the game seems to purr and roar depending on how hard you’re playing it.
Also new is is the Mario Kart Wii channel. This allows you to race and battle online. I still have to test this feature. The only thing iI’ve been doing is racing against the ghost data of others (data records of their races), it’s very addictive and perfect to train your racing skills.
The only thing I still need is some more wii friends to battle or race with. Invite me, my kart-code is 4167 4630 5897. (For others who don’t kart you can also connect via 8743 2571 5346 1923). Once you’ve invited me please send me a mail (peter at gmail dot com) with your code so I can do my part. I know, the whole online thing on this game (and the wii in general) is fairly complicated but don’t let it ruin our hours of cyberfun. Hope to meet you there…
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