7 Portfolio Tricks That Will Land You A Job

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/7-portfolio-tricks-that-will-land-you-a-job.html
Read more...

Think outside the box

Chinese designer Daizi Zheng created a range of healthy snacks packaged to look like drugs and junk food, including these blueberries in a blister pack. Called Stereotype, the project includes carrot sticks packaged like cigarettes and celery sticks in a french fry carton.

Stereotype is about helping people eat more healthier through their everyday habits. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), unhealthy diet is amongst one of the leading causes of the major non-communicable diseases. Can design encourage people to rethink their relationship with healthy food to gain a balanced diet?



http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/sterotype_packaging_by_daizi_zheng_15672.asp?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+core77%2Fblog+%28Core77.com%27s+design+blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Read more...

Temple Grandin

amazing... learned through group UX week debrief meeting... really wish I was there to watch her preso! It's very inspiring even when I heard it the 2nd handed version.
Read more...

UX Week 2009 - Day 4

Yes, I only went to day 4... so here is my notes:

Matt Webb on "Design is in Your Hands"

Fanufacture: Getting your fans to make your product. A quote I from on this [Infovore]: “Fans” act as an intermediate layer between the product and a mass market: they evangelise and amplify it. If you want to make a pun out of it, you could call them middle fan-agement. They take a product and enthuse about it to a wider audience; crowdsourced marketing, if you like.

Prototyping - You can't tell how well something will work until it's in your sweaty palm!

Innovation in small steps - else, you might risk overwhelming your users with the new "paradigms." Be selective!

David Merrill on "Cookie scale computers and other phsycal approaches to computing"

Traditionally, computering is done in a way that user use limited learned (and sometimes unnature) motions to interact with the objects appears on the monitors. It dominates our attention to one task at a time. Mobile device has test its phsycial size limitation, by making it pocket size that closely resembled to a candy bar. The limitation is no long technical but because it has reached the nearly smallest size that human can interact with the content on the small screens yet maintain a reasonable readability. David Merrill & MIT Media lab purposed new way of computing by having the user interact with computers in the real physical environment. It not only allow computers to become even smaller and human can interact with the devices using the familar gestures of everyday life. Thanks to April's TED video: Siftables : [Siftables on TED]

Brian Cronin & Natasha Alani on Mobile Literacy

The mental model that we are using in United States sometimes cannot be transferrable across different cultures. Some of the mental models we adapated as computer users, when transferred to mobile devices, it seems reasonable... however, it doesn't make sense to the people who skip computer and straight to mobile devices (which is common in 3rd world countries, and potentially future generation of tech users?)

Not much note on John Peterson on Public Architecture(it feels like a result of ethnographic study - even though they didn't have the actual study) & Robin Hunicke on WildFlower: The UX of game/play(use gaming into designs - create this sense of buddy, helper, etc even outside the games).

''''Scott Snibbe on Social Immersive Media

Scott Snibble showed us many video clip of his past projects. It's basically using our entire body (or shadow) as an engaging object with components on the screen or other people (a.k.a social). This can be presented as an art, an educational tool, or just an illustration. It is effective way to attract attention comparing to the traditional information slides.

Jesse James Garrett on The state of User Experience (not much notes, but basically he was talking about how perception, action, cognition, and emotion are all intertwine into user experience. Each category has its capabilities, constraint, and context that affects users to interact.)
Read more...

工研院"紙喇叭" 名廠也得認輸!-Yahoo!奇摩新聞

Proud to be Taiwanese series ;)!

工研院研發新產品紙喇叭，不但耗電量低，而且音質還非常好，打敗國際大廠，獲得美國年度科技創新獎。MP3一接上 接頭，音樂就從喇叭流洩而出，不過這個喇叭很不一樣，扁扁的形狀，從側面看幾乎跟厚紙板一樣薄，這是工研院最新研發的產品，神奇的喇叭上面有許多小孔，其 實就是超微小喇叭，整張紙喇叭，比50元硬幣厚度還要薄，而且非常軟，不管怎麼折、怎麼捲都可以，聲音完全不失真，還獲得了華爾街日報的年度科技創新獎！

這款可以彎曲的超薄音響喇叭，在比賽中可是打敗了惠普、摩托羅拉等大廠，未來準備技術轉移，進行量產，可以當壁紙，也能放在安全帽裡聽音樂，成為另外一個台灣之光。

Read more...

Design: environmental & neat

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/05/07/wattcher-by-marcel-wanders-studio/

This will be super useful in my house. The place I stay is pretty old. Sometimes, without paying attention of the electricity usage, 跳電 occurs. So, we have an unwritten rule in the house: before you start to blow dry your hair, LISTEN!! And, sometimes, I have the rush when I "got" the right to use my hair dryer; and opposite rush when I hear the dryer goes on in the other room while I reach for mine.

THIS potentially allows me to see, if the line can hold up to 2 dryers :).
Read more...

Design: Trendy and environmental

If I have a house, a good decent size of house, I will consider this




nice trendy and environmental divider. You can get them here.
Read more...

Design: Handy :)

Read more...

On / Off Toggle

I remember when I first started design, I always have trouble to come up a good digital representation of on / off switch.... Ok, I still have the trouble. It's really hard to show what's "on" now - you can show "on is pressed in" but is that really feel like it's on?

Today I encounter TV.com's lights on | off button.


First, it has the instant feedback... thanks to Ajax. The page flip between White and Black, with some (bad) delay. Second, doesn't matter what you press, it switches.

It didn't solve the issue from its root, but I felt it's a good recover from users' mistake. ONLY.... with that delay... I toggled many times before I finally landed on the Lights ON stage.

Read more...

Facebook V2

Facebook has released another portfolio redesign. As many people said, it's more like the first one, however, the applications are more hidden. I agreed! I don't see my applications anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes, that's a good thing for the application developers. I used to have a habit of "spring cleaning." I went in my profile from time to time (especially the first version - that's called that version 2007). I moved those I didn't interact on regular basis to the bottom of the page, and removed those I don't care anymore applications out of my profile. I believe, I believe the companies behind the applications will no longer receive my information.

Soon, version 2008 came, I don't see my applications anymore. I only go applications that I "think" of: Poker game, then Playfish applications. Even that... is a bit too much. Good that they have "shortcut" at the bottom of the page. I totally just use those space and only work with those applications. I rarely touch any other application. Just leave them on my app pages.

Now, 2009 comes! I almost use facebook like multimedia twitter. I don't even look for the application. And I felt, the "highlight" on the right hand sides are things I once cared: those already earned my eyeball once / twice / three times. To a point, it's no longer a highlight to me~ However, ads are now in between my "highlights." It blended into what supposely be my "surprise" of the day~ Resulting, I dont' really want to read beyond my first highlight.

Also, I like the multimedia twitter aka status page. It combined the wall content and status. I actually like the "Like" link. However, with the revision in 2009 portfile facelift... sigh~ it tries wayyyy too hard to invite me to give my comment. I dont' like that feeling. Maybe I am a "cleaning freak" type of user. I want to "go through" my page and clean all the "blank spaces."

but now.. sigh~ it's a bit psychologically messy for me. I see too many "my icons." Might just be me. But... it ticks me.
Read more...

大陸尋奇 & 公道杯

星期六傍晚 這裡的中文台就會撥大陸尋奇
雖然只是老片子拿出來播
但是對我來說還是充滿了新的知識!

每一次看到同樣的主播 聽到同樣的音樂
就會想到小時候跟外公一起看電視
痾~~~ 其實是我在看 外公在睡~~~
當然也沒有轉台的餘地 :-p

ANYWAY.... 大陸尋奇是一個很好 background TV
雖然小時後看電視就看電視
沒有邊看電視邊上網或做別的事情的習慣

今天 節目中講到新疆的制酒文化
講到了一個東西
叫做公道杯
還蠻讚的設計
你如果到酒到超過龍頭的話
就會像洗手台水滿過那個洞洞一樣
他就會流出去
超讚的設計!!!

公道杯清代青花製品。杯中央立一老頭，人體內有一空心瓷管，管下通杯底的小孔；管的上口相當於老人胸前的黑痣高度。老頭體下與杯底連接處留有一孔，向杯內註 水時，若水位低於瓷管上口，水不會漏出；當水位超過瓷管上口，水即通過杯底的漏水孔漏光。這種漏水杯民間稱“公道杯”，系根據物理學上的虹吸原理製成。據 說古時人們曾用公道杯對付貪酒者，斟酒如超過高度，則會全部漏光

Read more...

10 Tools for Evaluating Web Design Accessibility

http://sixrevisions.com/web-standards/accessibility_testtools/

1. Firefox Accessibility Extension

2. aDesigner

3. EvalAccess

4. WebAnywhere

5. Web Accessibility Inspector

6. Vischeck

7. Accessibility Color Wheel

8. Colour Contrast Analyser

9. TAW Web Accessibility Test

10. Web Accessibility Toolbar

Read more...

My Album cover idea for Address Book

I had this idea a while back. I designed it but no time and immediately technology available.
O well, at least it's still NOT BUILT.


Check out this person's post: http://www.techau.tv/blog/?p=513
Read more...