Challis Hodge’s UXblog

I just did a search on “Joi Ito” and got this as the first link. In fact, all the links on the page had a redirection component in the result links. Normally, Google gives the link to the website directly. Looks like they may now be starting to track clickthroughs. I repeated the search on a few other keywords, and I didn’t find it again, so I guess it is one of those Google experiments.

Have you also noticed this? What could be Google’s gameplan behind this?

“Conferences like HITS make me nervous because I fear that folks (particularly students, who were very much in attendance) think that life is about innovation, and then will be needlessly disappointed when they enter the real world and find out that the bulk of their time is spent shoring up poorly planned solutions.” [Peter Merholz]

I find this to be a problem that has existed in academia for a long time. My experience as a student, practicioner and an academic have allowed me to see how important it is for design students to understand the real world. When I’m in the classroom teaching, this is the single most important thing I feel I can offer my students.

I design most of my projects around a designer (student) / client (professor) relationship. I always leave room for the students to stretch the boundaries, push the limits and innovate where they will. At the same time I’m making it perfectly clear what will be expected of them in the real world. They don’t always like it, but I believe they’re better designers for it.

We should all call on our design schools and institutions to teach our future designers about the real practice of design. Innovation is important and we mustn’t give up the freedom to push boundaries in the classroom. Still we are doing a disservice to all when we graduate designers with the wrong expectations about the roles they will play in the real world!

Web Design Practices is a site devoted to helping designers understand what design practices are currently in use on the Web�and aims to gather research about the usability of commonly-employed design practices.

The badges at Pop!Tech were wee interactive computers called nTags. When engaged in conversation with someone, you could choose to send your contact information to that person, see what that person is interested in (based on your interests), get recommendations on people that they have met that you should meet, and generally augment (or hamper) networking. [post is at kottke.org]

Marc Rettig and I have been talking about doing this for years. I’m glad someone finally made it happen. Doesn’t seem like the results were that great though. Anyone else have a different opinion?

The $290 billion sales industry is dominated by 7-Eleven. Its strategy to remain top dog: coffee. 7-Eleven derives about 5 percent of its $10 billion yearly sales from its coffee operations, according to Merrill Lynch analyst Mark Husson. The Dallas-based company, which operates about 5,800 stores in the U.S. and 19,000 more worldwide, announced that its stores’ coffee stations are getting an upscale makeover. At 7-Eleven’s new “hot beverage stations,” customers will have a choice of more than 1,300 combinations. A minimum of five varieties of coffee, four flavored syrups, seven different tea bags, five toppings, creamers, sweeteners and all types of milk will be available at each station.

Take a moment and think of the three brands that are most meaningful to you. Brands you value. Brands you identify with. Just let those names and logos pop into your mind. I bet none of them were the company you work for. Okay, it’s a trick question - but seriously, what does it mean if the brands we work for aren’t deeply meaningful to us? It means we need to work harder at making them so.

Max Kisman: In a paper bag, I save all kinds of small objects, which somehow make me think of letters or otherwise intreguing symbols. Cardboard hands for gloves holders, plastic bread bag clips. hinges, can openers, spark plugs, wooden ice cream sticks or ice cream spoons, nails, file separators, fishing weights, and so on.

Shapes, now out of context, which have lost their meaning. They are orphans of an forgotten language.

The WE LOVE YOUR font is an experimental set of characters derived from my 1986 TYP/Typografisch Papier contribution “What every Dutch boy carries in his pockets”, an alphabet composed of small found objects.

The home telephone numbers of 11 top executives of the Direct Marketing Association — which has waged a bitter court battle to kill a proposed federal no-call list — are on the new federal registry, making them off-limits to those annoying early evening sales calls. The Hartford Courant found the numbers of the DMA employees, and chief executives from two large telemarketing companies, among the 50 million numbers on the Federal Trade Commission’s anti-telemarketing do-not-call list. The DMA executives who have apparently signed up to protect their own privacy did so even as their organization waged a legal campaign to prevent federal regulators from protecting the privacy of millions of other Americans.

Maybe they’re just researching the process of signing up ;-)