Showing posts with label chaotic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chaotic. Show all posts
Too many passwords!
When a website forces me to use upper case, lower case, numbers, and symbols in my password...
via 9gag
"Would you really take a game such as this so seriously?"
With 800,000 copies sold, Takeshi's Challenge is by no means an unknown game.
But, it was still a very niche game in the grand scheme of things and it never went any further than being released for Famicom in Japan (which is probably why you've never heard of it).
Japanese personality Kitano - Beat Takeshi to his fans - is a comedian, actor, writer, director, chat show host... he's best known for the insane gameshow Takeshi's Castle (and also as the teacher in the movie Battle Royale), but there are few mediums that haven't known his touch (the Japan Times once referred to him as "the king of all media"). It was just as Takeshi's Castle launched in Japan in 1986 that Takeshi began to dabble in video games.
Kitano originally claimed that the idea for the game came to him while drunk in a bar. The box says it all: "This game is made by a man who hates video games". The only advice given to prospective players? "Common sense is dangerous."
Watching people talk about this game with a mystical, utterly bemused recounting of how it came to be developed is utterly brilliant. Watching the game being played is ever better.
But, it was still a very niche game in the grand scheme of things and it never went any further than being released for Famicom in Japan (which is probably why you've never heard of it).
Japanese personality Kitano - Beat Takeshi to his fans - is a comedian, actor, writer, director, chat show host... he's best known for the insane gameshow Takeshi's Castle (and also as the teacher in the movie Battle Royale), but there are few mediums that haven't known his touch (the Japan Times once referred to him as "the king of all media"). It was just as Takeshi's Castle launched in Japan in 1986 that Takeshi began to dabble in video games.
Kitano originally claimed that the idea for the game came to him while drunk in a bar. The box says it all: "This game is made by a man who hates video games". The only advice given to prospective players? "Common sense is dangerous."
Watching people talk about this game with a mystical, utterly bemused recounting of how it came to be developed is utterly brilliant. Watching the game being played is ever better.
Youtube user experience fails
In this fantastic video from YouTube user NanoBite, titled YouTube is a Completely Functional Site Programmed by Competent People, the latest interface design is picked apart and revealed to show some pretty fundamental flaws in the user experience design.
What's great about this video is that it runs like the highlights reel from a usability testing session and shows you exactly the type of thing that happens when those that build an online service get so comfortable with using it that they forget to think of their users who may not know all the intricacies of the design.
What's great about this video is that it runs like the highlights reel from a usability testing session and shows you exactly the type of thing that happens when those that build an online service get so comfortable with using it that they forget to think of their users who may not know all the intricacies of the design.
Automated Telephone Menus
If you have ever had the misfortune of encountering an automated telephone menu then you will already know exactly how terrible the user experience is on these things.
If you haven't here's how they work: rather than talking to a real person you are played a recording of a person introducing the service you have just called up (the recording has been edited and compressed so much that it sounds like a robot voice). The user is expected to select their options by timing their response precisely and pitched perfectly. The voice recognition software is often incredibly flawed at best, and the resulting user experience is enough to put you off ever
This brilliant recording demonstrates just how frustrating automated telephone menus can be:
A fantastic parody of an automated telephone menu is here by the Fonejacker:
If you haven't here's how they work: rather than talking to a real person you are played a recording of a person introducing the service you have just called up (the recording has been edited and compressed so much that it sounds like a robot voice). The user is expected to select their options by timing their response precisely and pitched perfectly. The voice recognition software is often incredibly flawed at best, and the resulting user experience is enough to put you off ever
This brilliant recording demonstrates just how frustrating automated telephone menus can be:
A fantastic parody of an automated telephone menu is here by the Fonejacker:
Usability testing with DMX
"What is a Google?" asks rapper DMX as he is gently introduced to the web on a laptop.
How to Rank #1 on Google - By Matt Cutts
Funny mash up video of Matt Cutts giving advice on how to rank number 1 on Google search.
Live Webcast Fail
This epic fail on a live webcast is brilliant. Reminiscent of the movie Inception, the host of this webcast tries to click to see a live stream of himself running the webcast..
How to not handle negative commentary online
In a rare opportunity to observe a social media train wreck in real time, I have provided some commentary on today's now infamous Sapient Nitro video:
In time, today's online activity will form part of several case studies on how not to handle a PR stunt gone wrong.
This was one of the first articles on the subject and it points fun at the video but misses some pretty vital questions to what happened this morning.
http://wallblog.co.uk/2011/11/15/how-not-to-make-an-agency-promotional-video-ii-by-sapient/
Sure, the video is ridiculously terrible. Sure, it got absolutely slated online but this was mostly by the industry, and mostly on Twitter to a predominantly UK audience - which is unfortunate given the video was not correctly credited and clearly was not produced by the Sapient UK office.
As an agency Sapient aren't mental, they didn't lose their minds, this was an innocent PR stunt from an award winning agency that was misread by its audience. Sapient could have easily allowed the negative commentary to flow freely and positioned the video as a tongue-in-cheek promo piece that was not meant to be taken too seriously (which is exactly what it is). If they had done that then they would have benefitted from trending on Twitter and looking like an agency that has no qualms with poking a bit of fun at themselves.
However, as soon as they started heavily moderating negative comments on Facebook and Youtube, they created a beast. The backlash was so strong that they were backed further and further into a corner (negative comments were pulled within a minute of being posted and the conversation swiftly moved from the moderated Facebook and Youtube pages to the unmoderated Twitter where it soon trended) until they resorted to pulling the video offline altogether.
In terms of damage control this was already far too late and Youtube account HelloYouCreatives had already ripped the video and put it back online for the benefit of referencing it in articles and enabling free commentary. As quoted from their blog, "we've re-hosted it as we believe that people should be free to comment."
Meanwhile, a twitter account has been set up as a way of trying to limit the damage and open a conversation. But this was too late in terms of people already viewing, posting their comments, and then watching them being deleted, and then reposting negative feedback about a brand that was ineffectively trying to control the freedom of speech online.
As poor as the video effort is, what is totally shocking is the complete incompetency and naivety with which Sapient Nitro handled the resulting commentary. As soon as they decided to moderate negative comments, they were doomed. Why was this not accelerated up the ranks to an experienced staff member who knew how to handle things? You cannot create a video about a digital agency and then expect to try and control feedback from the digital industry. Furthermore, you cannot push anything into a social space and then control the commentary on it - there is no longer a conversation and deleting comments has the same effect as shouting at everyone until they stop talking in ways you don't like.
An absolutely schoolboy error from Sapient Nitro, and an incredibly unfortunate one given that the activity of one branch of a global agency represents the agency as a whole. They're going to have to work hard to pull themselves out of this funk and it's a lesson to all global agencies to connect their online presence in a lot tighter and more reactionary way.
In time, today's online activity will form part of several case studies on how not to handle a PR stunt gone wrong.
This was one of the first articles on the subject and it points fun at the video but misses some pretty vital questions to what happened this morning.
http://wallblog.co.uk/2011/11/15/how-not-to-make-an-agency-promotional-video-ii-by-sapient/
Sure, the video is ridiculously terrible. Sure, it got absolutely slated online but this was mostly by the industry, and mostly on Twitter to a predominantly UK audience - which is unfortunate given the video was not correctly credited and clearly was not produced by the Sapient UK office.
As an agency Sapient aren't mental, they didn't lose their minds, this was an innocent PR stunt from an award winning agency that was misread by its audience. Sapient could have easily allowed the negative commentary to flow freely and positioned the video as a tongue-in-cheek promo piece that was not meant to be taken too seriously (which is exactly what it is). If they had done that then they would have benefitted from trending on Twitter and looking like an agency that has no qualms with poking a bit of fun at themselves.
However, as soon as they started heavily moderating negative comments on Facebook and Youtube, they created a beast. The backlash was so strong that they were backed further and further into a corner (negative comments were pulled within a minute of being posted and the conversation swiftly moved from the moderated Facebook and Youtube pages to the unmoderated Twitter where it soon trended) until they resorted to pulling the video offline altogether.
In terms of damage control this was already far too late and Youtube account HelloYouCreatives had already ripped the video and put it back online for the benefit of referencing it in articles and enabling free commentary. As quoted from their blog, "we've re-hosted it as we believe that people should be free to comment."
Meanwhile, a twitter account has been set up as a way of trying to limit the damage and open a conversation. But this was too late in terms of people already viewing, posting their comments, and then watching them being deleted, and then reposting negative feedback about a brand that was ineffectively trying to control the freedom of speech online.
As poor as the video effort is, what is totally shocking is the complete incompetency and naivety with which Sapient Nitro handled the resulting commentary. As soon as they decided to moderate negative comments, they were doomed. Why was this not accelerated up the ranks to an experienced staff member who knew how to handle things? You cannot create a video about a digital agency and then expect to try and control feedback from the digital industry. Furthermore, you cannot push anything into a social space and then control the commentary on it - there is no longer a conversation and deleting comments has the same effect as shouting at everyone until they stop talking in ways you don't like.
An absolutely schoolboy error from Sapient Nitro, and an incredibly unfortunate one given that the activity of one branch of a global agency represents the agency as a whole. They're going to have to work hard to pull themselves out of this funk and it's a lesson to all global agencies to connect their online presence in a lot tighter and more reactionary way.
Double hacking
This video is pure gold. The description says it all really - "THEY SHOULD HAVE ENHANCED THE MATRIX DATAFRAME AND ZOOMED IN ON THE GUI UNIT BINARY FORM IMO"
Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop
The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from 'reality'. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.
via Keiichimatsuda
Ben Greenman’s Museum of Silly Charts
This post on silly charts is really funny. The rest of the blog is not bad either.
via http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/BenGreenman
Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad?
Great article on the poor usability of restaurant websites
The first thing that pops up when you visit the website of the San Francisco restaurant Fleur de Lys is a nearly full-screen animation of celebrity chef Hubert Keller's autograph. That makes sense—when I'm choosing a restaurant, the first thing I want to know is, Can the chef sign his name?
via http://www.slate.com/id/2301228/
The first thing that pops up when you visit the website of the San Francisco restaurant Fleur de Lys is a nearly full-screen animation of celebrity chef Hubert Keller's autograph. That makes sense—when I'm choosing a restaurant, the first thing I want to know is, Can the chef sign his name?
via http://www.slate.com/id/2301228/
The war between developers, designers, project managers.... aaand user experience
This was sent round at work today...
But I noticed that it was lacking the all-important User Experience section!
So, I fixed it.
But I noticed that it was lacking the all-important User Experience section!
So, I fixed it.
Aaron Koblin on visualizing humanity
Aaron Koblin, Creative Director of Google's Data Arts team, shares some of the many projects that he's worked on his recent TED talk (video below).
An interface can be a powerful narrative device, and as we collect more personally and socially relevant data, we have an opportunity and maybe even an obligation to maintain a humanity and tell some amazing stories as we explore and collaborate together.
An interface can be a powerful narrative device, and as we collect more personally and socially relevant data, we have an opportunity and maybe even an obligation to maintain a humanity and tell some amazing stories as we explore and collaborate together.
The Beauty of Maps
This film looks at the way cartography has changed and entered an age of digital map-making.
Denis Lawson explains how digital mapping is shaping the future, letting us see into virtual spaces and into the infinite unknowns of outer-space.
Each image is a breath-taking first look at the world today, showing the extent of human endeavour in the most beautiful ways possible.
Check out the youtube playlist here
and the interactive stuff here
The Internet, visualised
The Internet from Encyclopedia Pictura on Vimeo.
Animation that visualises the internet as a real place with all sorts of happenings and goings on. Quite a few people have tried to explain the online experience as more than viewing a series of interconnected pages, and I would say that this is one of the few that gets close to what the experience is like (for some at least).
via EncyclopediaPictura
Attention and Information
I'm hearing more and more about how people are worrying about the explosion of information that analysts and executives must consume, as well as the increasing variety of sources from which that information comes. However, I've always thought it's not the amount of information that's changing, it's how we filter it to find what's relevant.
This article from The Aporetic states:
"People often argue that we have too much information and too little attention; that this is a condition of being “modern.” But the opposite may be true: that attention is a human constant and that it constantly seeks new forms. Where there’s “surplus attention” we always come up with things to occupy it."
via The Aporetic
and Boston Globe
"I sometimes worry about my attention span, but not for long" - Herb Caen
Further reading into this subject has revealed that this is not a new problem, it is years old. It's procrastination in disguise, and it is incredibly addictive and slows us down.
"Always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy."
Further reading here
If you're concerned about how you consume information and how it might be changing your behaviours, I strongly recommend that you do nothing for 2 minutes.
Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow has written a fantastic Guardian article on this.
This article from The Aporetic states:
"People often argue that we have too much information and too little attention; that this is a condition of being “modern.” But the opposite may be true: that attention is a human constant and that it constantly seeks new forms. Where there’s “surplus attention” we always come up with things to occupy it."
via The Aporetic
and Boston Globe
"I sometimes worry about my attention span, but not for long" - Herb Caen
Further reading into this subject has revealed that this is not a new problem, it is years old. It's procrastination in disguise, and it is incredibly addictive and slows us down.
"Always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy."
Further reading here
If you're concerned about how you consume information and how it might be changing your behaviours, I strongly recommend that you do nothing for 2 minutes.
Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow has written a fantastic Guardian article on this.
It's busy in orbit
Since the advent of the space-age over five decades ago, more than thirty-five thousand man-made objects have been cataloged by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network. Nearly twenty-thousand of those objects remain in orbit today, ninety-four percent of which are non-functioning orbital debris. These figures do not include the hundreds-of-thousands of objects too small to be cataloged, but still large enough to pose a threat to approximately nine-hundred operational satellites in orbit around the Earth. In addition, collisions between debris objects could potentially lead to a continuously growing debris population, thus increasing the risk to operational satellites.
via SmartPlanet and Popsci
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