Jonathan D’mello

I like Twitter. It’s a handy app. Keeps you in touch with people, keeps you up-to-date, good marketing tool, who could ask for more?

BUT…

I like following a lot of people. Around 112 as of writing this. OK, I know that relatively that’s not a lot of people to follow. I know there are people following well over a 1000 people. But that’s just it. I cant have a conversation with more than a 1000 people. And I’m not even talking about conversing simultaneously here.

My problem is that I’m actually losing out on conversations with people I know because of all the damn twoise!

What! You don’t know what twoise is? How could you? I just invented it.

Twitter + Noise = Twoise

Twoise is the static, random tweets you get from once interesting people you chose to follow but now you realise they serve no purpose. Twoise is the really interesting person you met at a conference whose tweets consist of nothing more than good morning, good night and all other greeting throughout the day. Twoise is @guykawasaki a.k.a. Spamasaki posting link after link to a site with a crazy story and also a link to alltop.

You get the basic idea, yes?

Now to be perfectly clear, I’m NOT blaming Twitter or any user for this. I understand that with Twitter a person can say whatever they want to and you have a choice to listen or not. For me Twitter is about conversations and from now on it going to stay that way. I’m not saying I’ll never follow more than 100 people again. Just that I will never follow 1000 people.

Sorry @guykawasaki for the dig. You’re a cool dude but I’m unfollowing you!

A few months ago, I was on a flight from Bangalore back home to Bombay after some RadioVeRVe work. When the plane took off, the usual seatbelt/tray table announcement was broadcast. The same message was announced again just before touchdown. And this was when I noticed a something weird.

I’m used to seeing flight attendants walking up and down the aisles checking passengers before and after the tray table/seat belt message had been broad cast. So used to seeing them that just barely realised what web designers and flight attendants have in common.

In many user tests, I’ve noticed that people completely disregard hints while filling in forms. So when validating a form you need to draw attention to the specific field(s) that they missed out. On board the plane, the exact same thing was happening. A few passengers completely disregarded the tray table/seat-belt announcement. The flight attendants had to go up and down the aisles and “validate” that the passengers had moved their tray tables to the upright position and fastened their seat belts.

How many times do we ignore messages that could actually help us instead of hinder us? Next time you notice a helpful hint, pay attention. It might just save your life!

Was listening to Bob Marley today. Seems relevant all of a sudden. Here are some verses that I like.

Burnin’ & Lootin’

This morning I woke up in a curfew;
O God, I was a prisoner, too - yeah!
Could not recognize the faces standing over me;
They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality. eh!

How many rivers do we have to cross,
Before we can talk to the boss? eh!
All that we got, it seems we have lost;
We must have really paid the cost.

Concrete Jungle

No sun will shine in my day today;
The high yellow moon wont come out to play:
I said darkness has covered my light,
and the stage my day into night, yeah.
Where is the love to be found?
Wont someone tell me?
cause my life must be somewhere to be found -
Instead of concrete jungle,
Where the living is harder.

War

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned -
Everywhere is war -
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a mans skin.

Me say war

Redemption Song

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;

None but ourselves can free our minds.

The title of this post just happened to be the song that was playing while writing it.

Inspiration is good. But the recent explosion of CSS and web design galleries has me spending valuable time looking through half a dozen sites looking for the latest design trends and new ideas. I am actually overloaded with inspiration!

Now I’ve heard of Information Anxiety. It refers to stress caused by the an overload or lack of information. I think the same applies to inspiration. So I’ve taken the definition of Information overload from Usability First and just replaced the word information with inspiration :-P.

Inspiration Anxiety: Stress caused by the inability to access or understand the inspiration you need, caused by inspiration overload, lack of clear organization to inspiration, insufficient inspiration, excessively difficult presentation of inspiration, etc.

From the Microsoft Design Center culture page.

What makes the iPod so compelling? It’s a beautiful and sensual consumer product, and Apple’s attention to the out-of-box and multi-channel experiences make its value much greater than the sum of its parts. But Apple also gave customers the iTunes Music Store. The music store, combined with the other innovations, made the iPod a platform that saved time and enabled choice. It was a series of innovations borne of product innovation, supply chain optimization, customer experience, service, and design, and much like the simple human-machine interfaces of the late 80s and early 90s, the iPod is a delightful way to interface with technology.

No mention of the Zune. Says alot about the designers in Microsoft!

Of course the next paragraph is about the XBox360.