Design Tools and Environments, Not Artifacts
PeterMe is going off on designers who feel the need to control everything. It seems to me how customers customize and integrate designed stuff into their life is far more interesting than a static tchotchke. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’m drinking a ClueTrain smoothie for breakfast.)
PeterMe links to a fantastic post from Jeffrey Veen proclaiming interactive designers haven’t learned anything in the past 8 years. Why? Because we’re still building anti-interactive artifacts – Flash sites that waste everyone’s time Loading… and don’t encourage sharing by supporting smart URL strings, simple text copy & paste, or even familiar navigational controls. But I’ve said this all before when I listed my 5 Reasons Flash is a Bad Idea.
Interactive designers aren’t the only profession at fault here. Far too frequently, I see photos of building interiors or a newly finished urban settings – without people in it. Always makes me wonder why. Do people make it look bad? Was it not made for people? When in fact people are the whole reason we’re here.
5 Comments
Yep. ;o)
People making the buidlings look bad… You haven’t been to the state fair in a while have you???
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Right, and I just checked out the State Fair photos at MNSpeak.com also.
Yet I have to register with peterme.com in order to simply post a comment? I opted out and chose to post here. Does anyone have a good explanation for this, considering his “sandbox” analogy (which I completely agree with)?
Sony’s Imagestation (http://www.imagestation.com) is another offender, much like Ofoto. I have friends who sent me links to see pictures of their kids, and I had to set up a damn account to do it, and I’m somehow on their mailing list now. Flickr is nice, and also, for a cheap annual fee, a .mac account is a painfully simple way to go, plus you get other perks from Apple.
To clarify my .mac account statement, I’m not really comparing .mac to Flickr, or using it as an ideal. For people to build photo albums or post information, you still have to conform to some “controls” (paying annual fees for an account, etc.) but fortunately Apple isn’t forcing people to register or obtain an account to simply view your images or information.