I believe this is the one and only time I’ve ever actually read a licence agreement.
I just wanted to say; these things annoy the holy crap out of me. They’re meant to improve my user experience right? they do not.
These two remotes, by Apple (left, Apple TV) and Microsoft (right, Xbox 360), do approximately the same things with a few exceptions:
- The Microsoft remote uses two AA batteries that need to be replaced about every 6 months. The Apple remote uses a single CR2032 that has never needed to be replaced.
- The Apple remote has 6 buttons. The Microsoft remote has 46, only 15 of which are regularly used for media playback.
- The buttons on the Microsoft remote are backlit so you can see what they do in the dark. The Apple remote doesn’t have this feature because you never need to look at the buttons after the first minute of use.
- The Apple remote works from nearly any position in the room with approximate line-of-sight between itself and the front of the Apple TV. The Microsoft remote has the worst reception angle of any remote I’ve ever used (supposedly 90°, ±45°). Mine starts failing consistently at about 22° right of center at a distance of 8 feet, putting it right at the bottom of their specified total radius (~44°). It won’t even work from the right half of the couch.
This is a pretty good indicator of the two companies’ design philosophies and quality goals. And this isn’t even considering the software interface that each remote is respectively controlling.
How to Keep It Short and Simple
Yes! What they said. A handy checklist which I shall certainly be finding useful in the coming months.
"BEST VIEWED IN INTERNET EXPLORER ON A 15 INCH SQUARE SCREEN. UNDER ‘VIEW’ IN YOUR BROWSER WINDOW SET THE TEXT SIZE TO ‘LARGEST’. THIS IS ESSENTIAL FOR CORRECT PICTURE/TEXT ALIGNMENT"
— A website. Not every day you see that sort of crazy talk. (via ideasareshiny)
The latest improvements to Gmail labels were so so needed. I immediately started using labels properly, rather than just archiving everything because I couldn’t be bothered to do two clicks.
My dad is happy too - I recently switched him over from fastmail to gmail and he hasn’t been able to grasp the concept of labels at all. He wants to be able to organise his email the same way he always has. At least this will mean he can use labels as folders easily.
This navigation found at Five Runs immediately tells visitors what is most important on their site; their products and their blog.
Too often, every navigation option is given the same weight, even though some of them should be emphasized more than others. This is a simple change, but it can help guide new visitors to the most important parts of your site.
Found on my new favourite blog: dataviz. Click the image for an article about choosing the right colour for your brand.
Personally, I have always had more faith in companies which use blue, green or orange. Yellow is cheap and red is just showing off. NB: I would have said Yahoo was a red logo no?
The Lemonheads don’t believe that people exist outside of the US. I had to use a fake zip code to sign up to their mailing list. sad face.
Prezi’s “Transformation Zebra” tool, for manipulating elements such as photos or text, is really cool. It only takes a beat to figure out what each of the sections does; the central section for moving, the middle section for enlarging and the outside section for tilting. It’s simple, intuitive and pretty - much like the entire Prezi site.
Prezi is properly impressive. It’s a web application for creating presentations. I urge you to go see for yourself if you haven’t already. More info about it here.
Prezi makes the point that presentation slides are a remnant of technology that nobody uses anymore - slide projectors. It’s amazing to see such an innovative approach, that completely disregards the current, widely-accepted solution, to the problem of communicating information in a compelling manner.
Equally, the link to ‘personalised recommendations’ here isn’t, in fact, a link to ‘personalised recommendations’ at all. It should be the words ‘Sign In’ that are linked because the link goes to the ‘Sign In’ screen.
