I always enjoy the research before the design phase starts. It’s a time when ideals are formed, before the technical and budgetary restrictions of the project have been assigned. Just like college is the idealistic time before your career makes you cynical about the compromises that ensue in the real world, the research is the Ralph Nader while the implementation is the Al Gore.

While performing some community research for a project at work I recently dug into Meetup.com, a site that enjoyed a publicity boost from Howard Dean’s grassroot supporters and the media coverage that followed. There’s also recent blogger linkage due to new Movable Type meetups.

Before Dean’s boon, I’d gone there to look for a Portuguese community in Seattle. There are interested people from Brazil and Portugal and those eager to meet with native speakers, but there’s little to do on the site other than sign up for the next potential meeting. There’s no way to see if they’ve met in the past or to exchange messages with others signed up on the list. How amazingly frustrating — Meetup offers no way to correspond with users, individually or en masse, to establish a rapport before walking blindly into a room of strangers. You can see them there, but can’t contact them. This is particularly problematic when no one person wants to step up to be the host. Instead, some users post links in their profiles to other Yahoo forums and external sites—a very haphazard way of maintaining user interest.

There could also be better user profiles—why not show what other meetups users belong to, if they choose to share; show agendas and reports of last meetings including number of participants, and if the meeting has a serious agenda, what was accomplished. I can see that Meetup is about real-life meetings, but to have restricted contact with other members until the meeting seems to be a leap that many people aren’t willing to take.

Midday, downtown, a woman is walking down the street. A man in a 1980s Cadillac drives up slowly, pulls over and yells to the woman in a thick Russian accent, “That looks like the ass of my ex-wife. Ex-wife, get in the car.” She smiles, rolls her eyes, gets in the car.

I recently led an effort at work to make our URL structure more logical. The purpose was to allow our URLs to offer more information about the linked page before users clicked and also to reflect the site structure through the URLs. In usability testing months ago I noticed that some users would click on the logo to return to the homepage—a common enough behavior—but were unsure this actually returned them to the homepage. The uncertainty was due, understandably, to the fact that the homepage URL wasn’t a simple protocol and domain (http://domain.com), but instead had a lot of unnecessary key-value gobbledygook that followed. Even typing in the simple homepage URL would redirect to this unfriendly URL. This was clearly broken, and there was no evidence as strong as watching this same uncertainty occur again and again in each users’ own idiosyncratic way.

In an effort to practice what I preach, last night I did some housecleaning on Contact Sheet. First, I changed the permalink filenames into meaningful, readable slugs. Rather than using an arbitraty number such as 0000117.html, the filename should reveal easy-to-associate clues about the content, like friendly_urls_site_maintenance.html. This is done in Movable Type by using the “dirify” option which loosely turns the entry title into the file name.

Next, I organized the article directory structure by date to make it easier to browse down a level and view entries by day or month. I’m guessing I’m not the only one that edits URLs in the address bar as a shortcut to navigation. MT doesn’t easily allow you to view by year and that’s fairly useless anyway, so it bumps you down to the complete archives if you try to view by year. Including the date in the directory structure or slug also tells the user how timely a piece of content is without having to click.

These changes likely duplicated my complete set of RSS entries in most RSS readers since it changed all entries’ permalinks. The old URLs will still work, they just won’t be updated with comments that are added after the changes were made last night. Had I known how to set these features up from the beginning I would have—changing URLs of content is never a good thing. If this were a professional revenue-generating site, I would insist on redirects. It is not, and I offer my sympathy.

What does any of this have to do with design? Well, it has little do to with graphic design and everything to do with information design. If users know any incremental information about a link, especially when obscurely referenced in an embedded fashion like so, they’ll be that much more likely to find some relevance and click. (Notice the hypocricsy in the last Jakob Neilsen link, even though he talks about domain names and not complete URLs as claimed.) In my case, users will know the date and approximate title of the linked entry in Contact Sheet.

Update
To configure Movable Type like I’ve described above, you can manipulate the directory structure by choosing Weblog Config, then Archiving, and make sure the boxes are checked next to Individual, Daily & Monthly. Then fill in the Archive File Template field like so:

Individual: <$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/%d/"$><$MTEntryTitle dirify="1"$>.html
Daily: <$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/%d/index.html"$>
Monthly: <$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/index.html"$>

Instead of freely accepting e-mails like every other address, you now must state whether you agree or disagree with President Bush, in addition to completing steps on nine pages of a complex form before sending an electronic mail (now called a courriel in France, perhaps getting back for our “freedom fries” debacle) to the White House, reports the NY Times. The URL is down this A.M.

But even Jakob Neilsen has jumped in for some easy press, “It’s probably designed deliberately to cut down on their e-mail.”

They’re talking about my wife. That’s her, the leverager.

We’re happy to have Account Executive Susana Cascais on our team, not only because she’s fluent in five languages, including her native Portuguese, but because she’s versed in communicating our clients’ brands effectively in all media. While working for worldwide agencies in Portugal for eight years, Susana’s strategic planning and guidance helped leverage such brands as Sony Playstation, Seagrams, Parmalat, Nivea, and Mercedes Benz. She also helped her agency win a Gold Lion in Cannes. Now, in addition to providing marketing expertise to clients like Microsoft Business Solutions, Susana will be a big help when it comes to ordering from foreign menus.

The reading of many excellent design blogs in the last six months has made me curious once again about what was going on over in Mac-land, something that happens every few years. I’ve found that the reasons I’ve been turned off to the Mac in the past are, in descending order:

1. An excruciatingly bad experience at my first design job where I had to use an outdated PowerPC that crashed ten times a day.
2. Status quo: My current software & skill set are honed for the PC. A lot of the Mac interface seems like it’s sacrificed far too much funciton for form (e.g., you often have to use the mouse instead of tabbing through forms, unless third-party software is installed).
3. I like to use what users use. Since the majority of my work is for the web, I’d always lived by the belief that you should experience the site the same way your users do, to optimize your work for that common platform/browser combination. The flip side is that when you use the minority product, you’re catching all the other bugs no one else at work sees.
4. Expense. Any way you slice it, the Mac is more expensive.
5. XP is as good as OS X. This almost seems like an odd time to use the Mac when virtually every tool the graphic designer needs is available for Windows. My limited amount of print work never requires the mention of a Mac. And for the software design cycles, Windows is now far more mature than OS X.
6. Mac user smugness. I’ve always been turned off by the holier-than-thou attitude (and I’ve only seen it from the Mac side, since I’ve always sat on the Windows side). I’ve never been that religious about my OS choice, or cared enough to flame the opposing camp. After all, it’s the finished work that counts. But even Apple introduces proprietary audio formats, competes against its closest allies, awards outrageous bonuses to its billionaire CEO. The difference is, Apple outspends marketing dollars (per revenue) to put a pretty face on an otherwise typical corporate machine.

But there are many valid reasons to re-evaluate my OS use:

1. However corporate, Apple is not Microsoft, the most tactless software company in existence (except for maybe one other).
2. Mac OS X uses UNIX. The chances of me re-evaluating OS 9 were pretty slim. But now, with all of those underlying UNIX features…
3. Most designers use it… what am I missing here?

In typical fashion, I’m jumping on the bandwagon years after it first breezed by. I got my hands on an old G4 tower, made a trip to the Bellevue Apple Store to buy another stick o’ RAM, and promptly installed Jaguar, Apple Developer Tools and FINK. So far, I like it. It’s the same Mhz/RAM as my XP machine, but for some reason it’s much slower. I’m quite sick of staring at that rainbow-pinwheel-hourglass while the computer thinks about my last click.

As I already mentioned, my biggest complaint at this early writing is the reliance on the god damn mouse. Alright, Apple may have been the first to introduce widespread mouse use, but do we have to use it for every dialogue window?

I’m also not impressed by the brushed metal or photo-realistic icons. I’m partial to more digitized icons (when designing for the screen, I enjoy working on a pixel level, as opposed to scalable photo icons) and prefer a desktop that actually has less visual personality, so there’s less conflict with the work you’re actually doing. And I still find it hard to tell what applications I have open. But many of these complaints will fade as I familarize myself more and start using design tools on OS X to do real work.

I became a vegetarian twelve years ago, on July 11, 1991. In this time I’ve noticed a thing or two about vegetarians and their vegetarianism. There seems to be a cycle that many vegetarians go through in their attitudes towards their chosen lifestyle. For those who stick with it over the long haul, it goes something like this:

1. Victims of the Totalitarian Regime — Once the vegetarian finally makes the commitment he is immediately repulsed by anyone who eats meat, for they are all part of the fascist machine. Vegetarian forgets he was eating meat just three weeks ago. This is a touchy period where the vegetarian contantly and combatively reassures himself that his decision was worth it.
2. Thanks, But No Thanks — Vegetarian grows more comfortable with his choice, but could do without the special treatment, as if he were a down with a case of gout, on a restricted diet fighting for life when family members point out on restaurant menus, with the best of intentions, “Oh, look, here’s something that you can eat. Did you see the Bombay Burrito? It’s vegetarian.” The vegetarian gently reminds all present for the 45th time that he can eat anything he likes, but chooses not to, thank you very much.
3. Porq: The Other Fake Meat — Vegetarian misses the old days and acts on sentimental childhood memories of the State Fair. Attend barbecues with fake animal parts. Buys vegetarian quorn dogs. Naysayers point out the hipocrisy; vegetarian eats what he wants, like everyone else.
4. Politically Tired — Vegetarian grows tired of engaging in political discussions regarding his choice, regarding it as a personal matter. “But God designed us to eat meat” prodding no longer elicits a two hour argument from the vegetarian [see #1].
5. Long Haul — Vegetarian finds peace with his decision. He fine tunes his outlook, somewhere between veganism and meat-eating, no longer a vegetarian to upholding principles or forge an identity by choosing particular foods over others. Vegetarian may be accepting of chicken stock, picking the pepperoni off the pizza, as long as the food doesn’t taste like meat. Other middle ground includes eating seafood (merely insects of the deep, after all) and becoming a Vegequarian or a Catholic Vegetarian. Strict vegans point out the hypocrisy; vegetarian eats what he wants, like everyone else.

Since the beginning of GW’s reign, and especially throughout the war, I’ve been hesitant to promote my nationality in any form. But for three weeks in July I can’t help but cheer for the Americans in the Tour de France. I’m not much of a sports fan, but cycling is different. It mixes sheer endurance of the individual with complex team strategies (and occassional in-team rivalries that Greg LeMond encoutered in 1985-86), and all the drama, gusto and gossip of a major European sporting event.

And cycling generally avoids the monetary hoopla and commercialism that has infected other mainstream sports. Cycling teams don’t coerce cities into spending billions on fancy stadiums — it welcomes everyone that wants to watch with a free ticket to the sidelines, especially the fans who dress up in bunny costumes and run alongside their favorite riders on the slow, grueling climbs. Nothing is off limits, and fan participation has remained a significant (if not dangerous) part of the event.

As someone who doesn’t subscribe to cable television I feed my fancy by rolling out of bed and reading the days’ race reports, with the stage freshly finished when I wake up in Pacific Time each morning. Here are some of the sites I visit to get my fix.

• Canal Le Tour — The official site of the Tour de France is the best site for comphrehensive Tour standings. And there are a lot of them — General Classification (overall standings) and stage standings for individual, team and five categories. But the 14 daily results are organized so it’s easy to find who won the stage and how Lance is doing in the overall (very well, thanks to a magnificent performance by the Posties in the team time trial on Wednesday) and a plethora of other data. The race map with detailed elevation profiles is available in static and Flash versions (the latter only in French). If I woke up early enough I could also read the play-by-play with live updates every few minutes.
• New York Times — the Times, my primary general purpose news source, has a Tour page that unnecessarily pops up the Interactive Tour page everytime you navigate there. I promptly close it because it’s the typical Flash nightmare — slow to realize mouse clicks, poor proprietary navigation, etc. But the coverage by Samuel Abt and other Times’ reporters contains excellent writing and covers human interest aspects of the tour such as what it’s like to be waiting on the sidelines and how the TV coverage works.
• VeloNews — The gold standard of pro cycling rags, VeloNews has the most comprehensive Tour coverage without needing to explain the basics for a mainstream audience, and no fancy interactive fluff needed to drum up interest — if you’re there, you already love cycling. Articles are arranged by stage so it’s easy to keep track of where you left off (something I have a hard time doing with the NYT). VeloNews also has writing contracts with USPS trainer Chris Carmichael and several riders. Nothing technologically fancy, just writing about bike racing.
• ESPN — A leading site in ball-centered sports, ESPN built out its Tour de France site to appeal to the general sports enthusiast. For some reason, the title of the page reads “ESPN - Olympic Sports - Tour de France” — cycling evidently always falls under olympic sports on the site (aren’t basketball, baseball, tennis and hockey also olympic sports?). The coverage is thin — in fact I hadn’t even thought to visit the ESPN site until I started writing this entry. The layout is good, but the updates are slow to arrive — nothing more than the statistical results for most stages. However, the map interactivity is among the best and has a nice elevation profile overlay, but only on mountain stages where it matters most. It’s the quickest to respond to clicks since it’s not bloated with features. I applaud it for its simplicity. And ESPN.com is also XHTML compliant.
• Bicycling Magazine — the be-all of bicycling magazines, Bicycling is known as a practical knowledge bicycling magazine for those who ride. It fits real Tour coverage between articles like 13 Rides Tough Enough to Change Your Life and The Best Champagne to Drink During the Tour de France. Has all the expected race results, interesting facts and contributing writers. Like VeloNews, their tour map is plain HTML on a regular page which makes it the easiest to read. But there’s something so 1997 about this site that doesn’t appeal to me.

I’ve noticed over the years that all cycling becomes more pleasureable when the tour is underway. When you can link each hill on your commute to work with a particular Tour climb, you just go faster and feel better. While the Postal Service is climbing up Alp d’ Huez on Sunday, I’ll be doing my final training ride for RAMROD, a 155 mile ride around Mt. Rainier on July 31st, where I’m sure I’ll have the tour in mind plenty.

Adobe wrote in March on a since removed page that it prefers PCs for Photoshop, After Effects and Illustrator, showing that on “equal” machines, the PC outperformed the Mac. Apple responded and stood by their original claim that the Mac is faster.

Then on Monday Adobe announced that they’re dropping Premiere for the Mac. This is major news, but justified since Apple continues to compete against its most loyal software vendors. Final Cut Pro being Mac’s video editing program that competes with Premiere and the new Font Book usurping Suitcase (as problematic as Suitcase has been), being two of the most recent examples. It’s only going to make inter-office file-trading harder, compatibility issues more frustrating. This is not a Mac vs. Windows argument — I simply don’t want to live in a world where there’s an Adobe Photoshop (PSD) format and a Mac photo-editing format, a Quark format and a Mac layout format. OS/2 lost the desktop market because it wasn’t interoperable with the status quo. Thinking too differently is going to make the Mac even more obscure. This isn’t a new argument of course, but this week’s Premiere announcement is disappointing and adds new fodder for the “Apple is dead” pundits.

An office-wide e-mail that was just sent out:

Good afternoon, there was a package left in the outgoing mail bin on the 15th floor, yesterday 7/08/03. Additional information is needed in order to ship this package. Please see the mailroom manager for additional information.

recipients name: Gandhi M
destination: India

They evidently need the recipient’s last name. If it was “Zsa Zsa, Malibu,” I could understand.

We just returned from a tromp through the Midwest paying visits to friends and relatives sorely missed. Our final evening treated us with a fierce thunderstorm — blowing down trees and knocking out power lines — that put the fireworks displays to shame.

The trip was a reminder of how distant I am from the place I grew up, from the thick humidity and stifling temperature extremes, ridiculously large trucks, smeared fireflies on windshields and the constant chirping of locusts that you forget are there until they’re not. Also, the ham that comes on a “vegetarian” pizza (how charming), the mass dumping of perfectly good drinking water on imported grass to keep it green, chatty waitressing, and especially, the wide open landscapes of the great plains that make you feel claustrophobic when you return to the Northwest, where there’s a tree sticking in your face every time you turn around. I miss it all, but would never want it back.

Looking at graduate design school programs, I’ve been surprised by all of the nasty web sites. In the bigger liberal arts schools, it’s hard enough just to find the design program. Is it within the Art department? Is it a separate college? Should I take this graduate programs link?

I’m particularly surprised with the major schools with long histories that specialize in design showing such a bad face online. In no particular order, here are some of my experiences, with RISD coming out well ahead of the pack.

University of Washington — There is a small amount of information on each of many separate pages. If you want to print the cirriculum, for example, you end up printing 25 pages that are 1/5 filled.

Yale — nearly impossible to find the design program either by navigation or search. The scant material that is available online is optimized for neither on screen nor printed viewing.

Cranbrook — this thing is a train wreck and an embarassment to the school. A progression of pop-ups give you no sense of place. After ten minutes of frustration I couldn’t find out if they even have a graduate program. Impossible to navigate; an utter failure in design.

University of Cincinnati — for a large liberal arts school, this design program was the easiest to find within the school’s bigger web site. When you dig deep enough, you get on-screen PDFs. Great for printing, but there should be another layer optimized for the web. Also, the School of Design microsite doesn’t give you the sense that this has been substantial player in the history of American graphic design, which is has.

RISD — the best web experience of any I tried — from the beginning the visitor gets the sense that this is a serious design institution. I have a few nits about the resized pop-up window (why can’t they design a site that doesn’t take over my browser?). All information I needed was well-optimized for web and print reading.

CalArts — An attractive, straightforward design that is made for the web. Easy to navigate and it does a good job of showcasing the school’s strengths. That is, until you get to the Design School microsite which is a dizzying Flash tornado that tells you nothing. The Cirriculum link doesn’t even work.