I am a slow speaker, I know I am but once many years ago this was really brought into focus when I was trying to teach a friend how to ride a drop handlebar bicycle. She fell off at the point that I had said “take your hands off the lower part of the handlebars” and never got to hear me say “slowly, one at a time and move them to the top of the bars”. She survived (we didn’t). The point was that the communication clearly failed.

Why Mining

Frequently I hear people say things like “I need a website” or “I need an A4 brochure”. Rather foolishly some might say, I usually engage in a bit of Why-Mining by asking “why?”

To aid communication the emphasis is on the why not the mining. Why-mining is an effective although slightly annoying tool. Quite simply people frequently tend to already hold many of the answers that they seek, they just need someone to stand in front of them and ask them “why?”

“I need a four page A4 brochure”
“Why?”
“Because my competitor has one”
“Why does it need to be A4?”
“Because thats what they always are?
“Why do you need four pages?”
“Dunno”

Eventually you will get to bedrock and even if this bedrock is “I don’t know”, that will be a good place to start.

The bottom line is that what we at DesignCredo are trying to find out is what is the customer’s story, the unique thing that they are trying to communicate to others.

Form Follows Function

Yes there are standards, paper size, press size, envelope size, but surely the function of a piece of print is to communicate a message, some information, your story, whatever that is. The same goes for websites or any other communication aid. Most websites offer an entry point and frequently a contact point. And yes your story may be similar to your competitors but hopefully it will be a bit different and that difference will be your selling point. And your story may fit neatly on one, two, four pages but it might not.

My Daddy Plays With Apples

Ask most children what their parents do and you won’t get much sense from them. When young I thought my father was in a jazz band when he in fact flew in aeroplanes. But then I thought that the man who came round to sell insurance was Lee Kuan Yew the prime-minister of Singapore where we lived when I was five.

The problem is that if one asks many adults what they do one may struggle to get much more in the way of sense from them. This is frequently the first great stumbling block when designing websites. Good people, able people, talented people often struggle to be able to say what they or their businesses actually do.

Initially I found this surprising but now I seem to have become somewhat resigned to it, I expect it to happen, I frequently pre-warn customers,

“You will reach a point where your new website asks questions about what you do”.

In truth there is a lot of trust needed between the client and the designer, quite often searching questions will need to be asked in order to get the website right. The designer really needs to know the ins and outs of your business in order to get the site working well. It is relatively easy to create a website. It is a much more considered piece of work to get the website to communicate the appropriate message.

Don’t Stop Me Now

Further to this websites need to be forward looking. It isn’t good enough to design a website for now, it will date horribly. In order to make your site future-proof you will need to trust your designer enough to share your plans and of course you will need to be able to articulate these.

DesignCredo specialise in WordPress sites. The appeal of these blog-sites is that they put the customer back in control. We offer expertise in setting the site up creating the look and extending the functionality of the site whether it is improving the PubSubHubbub capabilities or improving the SEO setup of the site. We have a lot of experience in making sites work effectively for search engines, we have faith in the WordPress platform. In addition we will probably encourage you to become more active in social networking, particularly Twitter. We expect content to be searchable on Google within seconds and minutes, we will help make your site perform.

However this means that ultimately our customers share the responsibility for making the sites work well. For us this is a good thing. Good businesses are thriving organic things that constantly develop. Why shouldn’t their websites be too?

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No Flash Here

Well I’ve just been to the Apple shop in Exeter, you know, the place with the impromptu Post Office style queuing area outside? All the more incongruous for it’s lack of waiting people other than the gaggle of previously imprinted pensioners with their paperwork at the ready.

A sudden moment of awkwardness as I attempt to enter the shop, is it invitation only? Oh god, the public shame of not being invited again. From the door, in spite of the “T-shirted One’s” interjection, I could see my quarry, the iPad. There was one free, it was mine to iNvestigate.

First impressions, exactly as I had imagined and it has to be said that this is a great achievement in itself, but first,

A disclaimer: I use macs daily, but I don’t have an iPhone and to be honest, I don’t know if I would, my e71 does a job. I have access to an old iPod but don’t use it either. I do carry my MacBook Pro around a lot and use it.

Back to the iPad, you pick it up and use it, end of…

That maybe needs more consideration but it is the truth and for me this is the beauty of Apple products. Looking around a huge range of people, young and old iPlaying. The man next to me was showing one to his young child in a papoose, the old woman at the end trying to fit her top-up card in one to pay the ‘leccy.

I could see how it could make my life easier and in the brief time that iPlayed with iT, I genuinely could see how it may have a place in a busy life. The Calendar App looks fantastic and the touch screen, interaction is great. The videos looked doable for personal viewing, while I was stood there a woman next to me was in a quandary about whether to buy one or two, this dilemma may be instructive.

No Flash in the Pad

I have recently highlighted Steve Jobs’ feelings about Flash. the iPad is where this issue will bite.

Some time ago I made the call not to go the Flash route with website design.

Another disclaimer: Flash offers some incredibly appealing and rich experiences.

However I am firmly in the camp of those who skip the Flash intro on websites. I also find that once the Flash card has been played it loses its fascination. Ultimately though Flash isn’t terribly accessible on websites and not very search engine friendly. If you have Flash on your website it won’t iPad well, I know, my Design Credo site uses it to display the images. The WP-Cumulus tag cloud on this site doesn’t iPad which is a shame because people love it. Ultimately I suspect the iPad may create more attitude change in the professional web design world than the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) has.

Gentle Saturday morning breakfasts, coffee, croissant and papers have now become coffee, croissants and RSS feeds on the laptop and the iPad will find it’s place nicely here until it gets lost in the pile of papers and accidentally thrown across the reconstituted flooring. I know I shouldn’t say this but as the spectre of Twitter Poo becomes more apparent I suspect the iPood schoolboy joke will become more of a reality.

Which leads me to my lasting impression in the Apple shop, the army of T-shirted ones keeping the screens clean.

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I remember with sadness the demise of Macromedia, there were strong products in the collection: Fireworks (always cranky), Dreamweaver, Freehand and of course Flash.

I have been appalled at the behaviour of Dreamweaver CS4 on a Mac but continue to use it. InDesign is a powerful tool, it has been good to give Quark some competition. However I can’t honestly say that CS4 has impressed.

Below are Steve Jobs’ conclusions about Flash from an extensive letter on the Apple site.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

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When I was first there I was a student. At college we used very early Apple Macs in the labs and the adventurous were word processing their work. There were no mobile phones, no internet, and no email. The Photographer’s Gallery (where I am now) was near Leicester Square, whereas it is now just off Oxford Street.

Walking round London some things change a lot but others seem not to at all. Earlier I had a double expresso in The Bar Italia in Soho. The Gaggia machine was ‘old school’, hand pulled, refreshingly quiet whilst still making exceptional coffee. On the large screen TV, Murray was getting through to the semi-finals in the Australian Open much to the enjoyment of the Italian and Eastern European staff. Take the screen out and the setting would have been difficult to date, maybe the clothes would give the game away.

Some things change, some things stay the same, some things should change, but stay the same.

We Are The People Who Try

I am just coming out of a intense week or so of website building. The customer wanted something a bit different, saw the way the Apple presents previews of images and said I want that. I now know how to make that happen on a website. As Fahti the swimmer says, “we are the people who try”. I can’t think of a period of my life when I have done so much learning, independent learning, the ultimate aim of the education system. The information is out there, accessible (subject to cautious analysing and filtration of course). There is a huge generosity of spirit too, with people wanting to share ideas and knowledge. This is a good thing (I think) but very different to twenty years ago.

The other day I spoke to someone who only recently learnt how to cut and paste on her computer. This may seem strange but she has always used Macs where there is a long history of drag and drop. She has always just pulled what she wanted from one document and dragged it straight on to another. Macs have always had a very visual appeal, there is a strong visual metaphor and I suspect that for this reason they appeal to very different people. I am always surprised when I hear people complain about how difficult macs are to get to grips with, for me at least they seem very intuitive. However when I attended a night class that used the Windows platform I felt like a complete and utter numpty. Whatever though the Mac Vs PC seems to get to peoples’ core.

In my house now I regularly have a number of computers, currently a Mac G3(BW) desktop, a G3 Pismo PowerBook, a G4(DA), a G4 MacMini (my FTP server) and a Unibody MacBook Pro. This tally sometimes swells when two other current MacBooks come to visit as well as my son’s Toshiba PC. Apart from the G3 they all work, the only reason the G3 doesn’t is because I sold the processor. Oh there is one more, maybe the most important, I have an old Dell laptop, with a German keyboard.

So they all work, the ten year old Pismo is used by the children, it’s rather slow now but hey? But what of the Dell, what’s that all about?

Well, I use it to test websites (to destruction). You see, it is old and slow, but uses the much loathed IE6 browser. IE6 is still used by around 10% of users but unfortunately it is no longer compliant with current web standards. This means that in order to get a website to work on this browser designers will have to design in a number of hacks and workarounds. This invariably means that a compromise has to be made either to the visual appeal or the functionality and yes I realise that these two should be inherently linked. So, when it is testing time, yes it is lovely to see how good the site looks on the Mac but unfortunately much as I love them the truth is that Safari accounts for 3.4% of the (browser) market, and as such the hopeless old IE6 with all of its failings will be the window that three times more people will use.

The good news is that 46% of people will use Firefox which is a pretty good browser. Increasingly design companies are dropping support for non-complient browsers. You can get a WordPress plugin to display a large gaudy banner if the viewer is using IE6. Somewhat devilishly this plugin can be set to crash IE6 although I haven’t felt the need to be so annoying on this site.

Some grow old gracefully and get a bit slower with age whereas others get really a little too grumpy for words.

A couple of days after this post the BBC reported that “Google has begun to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6, the browser identified as the weak link in a cyber attack on the search engine.” (more)

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SAAB 900 T16s

Recently, on Top Gear, James May said that he quite liked SAABs, in part because he felt that people who drove them were ‘interesting’. This left me with a slight smug glow, I have had a few SAABs, four actually and drive one now. I’ve also had three Volvos, three Moto Guzzis, and three BMW K Series motorbikes. For those with the slightest interest in this a picture will be developing, of brand loyalty, perhaps an interest in design maybe safety too. For others I will be coming across as a ‘bit of a yawner’.

Having recently spent some time looking for a new car with my partner, I am sad to say that anyone buying a current SAAB is beyond interesting (by some degree) and well into the new category called ‘Of Clinical Interest’. It was bad enough when SAABs started wearing Dame Edna Everage glasses, but who ever thought that re-branding them as little Cadillacs was a good idea? Oh yes General Motors did. At the time of writing SAAB’s future is tenuous to say the least.

Prototype NG 900 SAAB

Of course I realise that my car shares the underpinnings of an old Vauxhall Cavalier but despite what people say the GM 900s were actually rather good and for someone like me they offer a lot of car for not much money. It has been and continues to be a good car although it uses far too much fuel. At the time when I bought it though it was one of a handful of affordable cars that offered speed, space and three proper seat-belts in the back.

I see no great reason to sell the car although I wish it would use less fuel. It does most of what I need and, as Mr May’s colleague Mr Clarkson once accurately predicted, as a SAAB driver I have a little too much linen in my wardrobe. My son often comments on how the car seems right for me. I am interested to know the bigger picture with regards to the Scrapage Scheme, does it make environmental sense to scrap a perfectly viable car?

NG 900 SAAB

Anyway, I like cars, particularly older ones, but I don’t often look round garages until recently since K has been looking for a new one.

Initially she had wondered about a BMW Z3, we went to the local BM dealer but they didn’t have any. I went into the showroom and kicked the rear tire, the salesman got the joke, I explained it to K later. We looked at the One Series which ticked many boxes. However to my eyes it looked like it had already been in an accident, as Clarkson said;

The BMW, however, is just plain ugly. It may have the double headlamps and the kidney grille and the Hofmeister kink, but viewed as a whole it looks like a van….And it’s why I’m choosing the words for my conclusion with even more care than usual. So here goes. The 1-series is crap

The simple truth is that there isn’t much out there to excite, cars seem to be designed for people who watch X Factor a little too much. Yes we did venture into the local Aston dealership (to look at an A3) and yes I would, but I can’t so I won’t.

Along the line we looked at Audi A3s and briefly toyed with the idea of an old style TT. Ultimately there was nothing exciting about much of what we looked at, nothing that appealed at a human, emotional level as well as providing a practical workable solution. The TT came close however the Audi salesman declined to even attempt to show us an A3. Perhaps the clinical Audi thing had destroyed all enthusiasm. I suspect that the lovely showroom with it’s suite of iMacs running Windows told the true tale, even with the right ingredients the flavour is sometimes lacking.

500 Abarth Esseesse

A smile was achieved in the FIAT showroom, in fact the 500 raised a big smile from both of us. We had previously looked at an Arbarth in the Park Lane showroom. Fun. Sorry no that should be FUN!!!

Unfortunately it seemed that there were quite a few people looking to share the fun, and the waiting list took the wind out of our sails here. The salesman was pleasant, the showroom showed an interest in design and there were no Apples running Windows. There was a PC built into the 500 display which allowed you to design your own. Unfortunately it crashed as we attempted to.

Top marks to FIAT for trying though, top marks.

Now, I have already declared my liking for Scandinavian design, not to everyone’s taste I’m sure ut often more subtle than the alternatives. Hassleblads are a long-standing love of mine and there is something totally unique about them. Most people think of Volvos as big boxy things and to be honest there is a lot of sense to an estate formed from boxes.

1973 Volvo P1800ES

However, along the line there have been some absolute gems from the company, as anyone who remembers Simon Templar (The Saint) in his Volvo P1800 will already know. Better still for some (ie me!) is the later Volvo P1800 ES. I love estates and this has to be one of the coolest of cool.

Along the line styling cues from this car have reappeared in Volvo’s lineage notably the little 480 and now the C30.

Volvo 3CC (3-Seat Concept Car) 2004 Hybrid Car

.

Volvo C30 design sketches 2

This leads us to the end of the search, a neat little Volvo C30-2.0D. Even Volvo say you will either love it or hate it, it’s clearly not going to suit everyone but Volvo are making offers that are hard to refuse at the moment. How about £5000 for a ’96 Pug 306? Quite aside from the hard to refuse offer I like it, but then I like Marmite too. I like it because it isn’t mainstream, it won’t suit everyone but the people who it will suit will love it. It has next to no boot and only four seats but the seats all work and if you are carrying a couple of people they fold flat in the back. I did try to get in the back of the TT, and failed.

C30 Interior

Although the C30 isn’t a radical design statement it clearly refers to Volvo’s design history and at least shows interest. Inside it is comfortable there are interesting design approaches, the central instruments epitomise what I look for in Scandanavian design. Quite simply it is a nice place to be which is not too much too hope for.

Volvo C30 design sketches 1

I for one am pleased that occasionally companies push the boat out a bit, take a risk and come up with something even a bit different.

Sometimes companies really, really take a leap of faith. Recently I saw a Renault Avantime in Topsham. This, perhaps not unreasonably, will be a rare sighting, but for me at least a very welcome one. Vive la différence.

Renault Avantime 2002

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Cappuccino, another thing that wouldn’t pass the Grandpa test; tea certainly, coffee if you were a bit racy, but cappuccino no way. There are three good cappuccinos to he had in Exeter, Lutzy’s (Portuguese not Italian), Espresso. The Boston Tea Party and the latter is where I am, surrounded by people, a surprising number of whom are working, many on WiFi enabled laptops.

Across the way is a man who I spoke with the other day when we shared a table, he had a number of books about adult learning and psychology and said that he enjoyed working amongst people.

Many years ago when people first started talking about the ‘computer revolution’ there was a suggestion that everyone would work from home and would not need to leave the house. Well, that hasn’t quite happened but, for those of us who can work in such a way, can I suggest that whilst this has it’s benefits frequently it sucks. People need people, not all he time but people need people.

So back to the café.
It’s a large room and a range of people. On my table there is a Spanish speaking man with a large MacBook Pro open, he has two friends on the next table one with a white MacBook and one with a Compaq and a small dog, shall we call it two dogs then? The man would appear to be Gustavo Duarte, I have just inadvertently tried to Bluetooth him.

Psychological learning man has just smiled a satisfied smile at his laptop and is now typing something into an HTC type phone whilst preparing to leave. I suggested to him recently that it might be an interesting project to record the output of the endeavours in this room. The last time I was here I managed to get the collapse/expand boxes working on this website.

It’s not all techie stuff though, there are people with pens, books, folders or just plain discussion.

I’m sure there are many councils around the country that have tremendous startup initiatives for small businesses, with easy in – easy out terms for office space. However there has to be a case for a large room full of rickety tables and chairs and free public WiFi.
Strangely I am not aware that the local mediaish centre has WiFi, it’s not overly receptive to children either.

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A pleasant chat with the local Community Fake Police Support Officer Lady (stern but fair), this evening. My son has been digging a BMX track out of the banking in the car park of the local village hall. He stands accused of removing mud from the hall and taking it in a wheelbarrow down the lane to the local cricket pitch, where there is another BMX creation. He was struggling to hide his disdain for the suggestion that he would be so stupid as to transport wheelbarrow loads of mud 400 meters or so for the fun of it. Ah, the fun of the small village.

Granny (a short, one legged Scot) made great steamed dumplings though. I am not aware that they got any better or worse for the lack of intervention of the Moulinex. Scraping the mixing bowl, peeling the muslin, like a big haggis but fun.

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