Chapter 42

In the process of developing documentation for LiveWhale, our new CMS, we have begun to record screencasts to demo LW’s features.  Often it’s easier to show than tell, when it comes to CMS features; a narrated demonstration lets us inject a little personality.  And it’s also a lot faster than writing out a how-to page (although we’ll have to have written documentation as well, it does seem to be the case that nobody will actually read it).

Our first effort, a screencast of LiveWhale’s news system, leaves much to be desired; it’s clear that we’re new at this.  It’s hard to figure out the right tone of voice (how much humor?  how fast?  etc.), and it took several takes to get through it without messing anything up.  (And we still had to edit the final product a bit.)  I’m sure it’s something we’ll continue to refine and improve as we continue developing LiveWhale’s documentation.

All of this is to say that I  just watched the most effective screencast demo I’ve seen in a long time, if not ever.

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Tags: livewhale, screencasts, the Googleverse

In the process of developing and refining our CMS, the question occasionally arises whether or not we should convert text inputs from format X to format Y.  These questions range from the innocuous and straightforward (should we convert curly quotes to straight quotes?  or vice versa?) to the more insidious (should we correct a misspelling?  should we move close quotes to outside a period?).  

On the one hand, it’s probably best to let users make mistakes, or format as they wish, and depend on human communication to clear things up— instead of trying to build in a bunch of extra structure designed to cover for mistakes.  It’s our view that the latter approach leads to bloated, overbuilt CMS systems that discourage accountability.  But at the same time, consistency and coherence of communication across a Web site is a really, really important thing— it is what distinguishes sites that serve as good vehicles for an institution’s messaging from sites that are just decorated Web pages.

We’re thinking about this right now because we are considering automatically converting the titles of news items in LiveWhale to Title Case.  The following three news headlines, though identical in content, send very different messages:

1.  White Whale Web Services to Release New Content Management System, Revolutionize CMS Industry
 

2.  White Whale Web Services to release new content management system, revolutionize CMS industry
 

3.  WHITE WHALE WEB SERVICES TO RELEASE NEW CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, REVOLUTIONIZE CMS INDUSTRY
 

Although there might be a justification for #3 in a particular Web design, it’s clear that you wouldn’t want a user to enter news headlines that way.  For one thing, caps are just hard to read in many contexts; but on top of that, it’s always easy to {text-transform:uppercase} if you need caps.  My general preference as a design snob would be for #2, but that’s clearly not common practice— as much as I enjoy headlines like this (or this), that style is much more common in European news than American.

It’s also the case that styles #1 and #2 look terrible next to each other:

• White Whale Web Services to Release New Content Management System, Revolutionize CMS Industry
• Other CMS providers cower in fear

So.  Should we let users do what they will, and enter headlines according to any system they prefer?  Or should we legislate something?  It seems pretty clear from the above examples that— at least in the particular case of news headlines— legislating is the way to go.  And if you’re going to require a particular format for headlines, it seems pretty clear that Title Case Is Your Only Option.

So what’s the best way to do it?

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Tags: code, livewhale, php, Title Case

… is Pixlr.  And despite the silly Web 2.0 name (what is it with these people?), based on a quick review it seems impressive.  Of course, those of us who depend on Photoshop are likely to be so deeply ingrained in the basic workings of PS that it would be torture to change; in my review of Pixlr I realized that I don’t know how to fill a selection without keyboard shortcuts.  But I can see a lot of ways it might come in handy… say, you can’t connect to the internet on your laptop, and have to make a quick change to a JPG comp from someone else’s computer before a meeting.  Who knows?  But it’s neat. Via 37signals.

Tags: change

Call it a pet peeve, but I find it very annoying to get e-mails like this:

In other words, a response to an email I’ve sent with only the reply “Thanks!”

Now, I know why these emails exist— to acknowledge receipt of my message.  But I trust the Web, and so I’m assuming it was received anyway— and whenever the email bell rings, and I see there’s a message from a client or business contact, I stop what I’m doing to open Mail and check it out, and whenever it’s a Thanks! I can’t help but feel a bit prickly, for having interrupted a creative stream for several seconds to find out something I already assumed.  I know it’s a little petty, but when you’re  juggling lots of tasks, a relatively content-free email like that seems superfluous and unnecessary.

Contrast this with an email I got a couple of days ago:

The effect an email like this has is completely different.  By adding just a few extra words to this quick thank-you message, the author let me know that the sentiment was truly sincere: that the letter I’d sent had a positive impact.  The difference is so minor— between spending three seconds on a response and spending ten seconds— but the resulting email really made my day.

So now I’m resolved to do a better job of writing thank-you messages myself; I’ll commit to spending 10-15 seconds elaborating why an email was particularly helpful, timely or informative. If I can’t make the time for an even marginally thoughtful or heartfelt response, I won’t clutter the mail servers of the world with a content-free return receipt.

Tags: email, thankyou

It’s tough to write copy or put together a design for something outside the realm of your knowledge. Though we pride ourselves on being elitist academic types, it does come up sometimes. (Jason once put a beautiful magnified photo of a virus in a sciences mockup. It turned out to be AIDS. Whoops! Lesson learned.)

Of course, internally, you would think that people would shout any questions across the room and notify each other of any mistakes. Tonya has gone from entirely non-geek to believably geeky in her time at White Whale, but when it comes to technical details in a proposal she always runs it by us developers to make sure her take on it is clear.

All this is to say I spotted this on the website of one of those razzmatazz web 2.0 startups:

(And no, Tonya won’t get this joke.)

Tags: audience, html, in-jokes

From the archives of Tales from Redesignland, one of Tonya’s favorite blogs:

The fact is, we aren’t claiming that LiveWhale does everything— that’s part of the point.  It does what its users need it to do.  

But maybe its successor, EpicWhale™, will make all other communication obsolete.

UPDATE: I don’t use Twitter enough to get the Fail Whale when it’s overloaded.  Now the comic makes much more sense!

Tags: comics, livewhale, the internets

I’m back from my perfect wedding weekend; thanks to any and all of our clients who waited patiently with their questions and needs while the last week or two of my life got hectic with preparation.  (And thanks too to the rest of WW, who did a great job running things in my absence.)  Although it was hard to leave Oz Farm, the site of our wedding, it’s nice to be back on the job.

One sad note during the weekend was the passing of Paul Newman; he died on September 26th, the day before our ceremony.  Although Oz Farm is off the grid and there’s no cell phone reception, the news spread slowly across the farm on Saturday.

Paul Newman was a great, admirable man in all sorts of ways, from his commitment to social justice to his lifelong and devoted marriage.  But he’s on White Whale’s radar because he was an alumni, frequent donor, and great friend to Kenyon College, whose site we redesigned earlier this year.  I was fortunate enough to be asked to design a homepage graphic to serve as a tribute, and it’s now live on the Kenyon homepage, along with a moving tribute page and a photo-by-photo description of the homepage graphic.   To create it, I paged through countless photos, which really gave me a sense of how long and how deeply Paul Newman has been a part of the American consciousness.  (The folks at Kenyon did the important work of securing all photo permissions, which I know was no picnic, given that since Paul’s passing copyrighted images have spread across the web without proper attribution.)

Tags: design, kenyon college, paul newman

To briefly digress from higher ed web development:

I’m getting married in a week.  (Thanks, I’m excited too!)  We have to get wedding insurance— something I’d never heard of— for our weekend-long wedding in the wilds of northern California.

Here is the list of exclusions in our policy:

Exclusions: Claims by Athletic Participants, War, Terrorism, Expected or Intended Injury, Sexual Abuse/Molestation, Asbestos, Nuclear Energy, Total Pollution, Fungi or Bacteria, Aircraft or Watercraft, Pyrotechnics, Employment Related Practices, Communicable Disease (Hepatitis, TSE, HIV, HTLV, or AIDS) Collapse of Temporary Structure, Lead Liability, Professional Liability, Use of Trampolines, Cheerleading Pyramids, Sale/Manufacture/Distribution of Athletic Equipment, Use of Saunas or Tanning Devices, Polo, Skin & Scuba Diving, Squash, Downhill Snow Skiing, Water Skiing, Whitewater Rafting, Bungee Jumping, Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing, Motorsports, Rodeo or any Equestrian Related Sports, Waterslides, Ballooning, Parachute Jumping, Luge, Tobogganing, Gymnastics, All Motor Sports, Violation of Telephone Consumer Protection Act or CAN-SPAM Act.

How can we be expected to have any fun at all if we can’t play squash or violate the CAN-SPAM act?

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Tags: asbestos, cheerleading pyramids, collapse of temporary structures, pyrotechnics, trampolines, waterslides

A post on the NY Times Bits blog points out that there are only so many social networking services any one person can keep up with on any given day.  I know this is certainly true in my case.  I’m always talking to clients about the relative importance of Web 2.0 and social networking tools to their higher-education concerns, but the fact is that I can barely keep our own blog updated, let alone check in on my Facebook page or remember to post chatty musings to Twitter.

Who are these people who maintain accounts with Tumblr, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, Mixxd, and CrowdVine— what do they do all day?  How do they get any work done?  

(OK, I made up Mixxd. But I think the others are real.)

Update: Tony from CrowdVine comments that CV’s network is transient— used primarily during conferences for attendees to let each other know which sessions are “hot.”  That’s a good point— it’s easy to understand how transient, explicitly function-oriented tools can be useful, and if CrowdVine’s efforts really are directed at serving temporary social networks like conferences, I wish them well.  It’s a good idea.

Tags: social networking, tech overload, web 2.0