I have recently started listening to Pandora hoping to add to my weird music library of things I downloaded from Supernatural fanmixes, things that people sent me on mix cds when mix cds still existed, and things I bought cds of in high school when people still bought cds.
I carefully set up a few channels based on some of my very favorite songs and I learned two very important lessons:
1. Never set up a station based on Jar of Clay’s Flood unless you’re REALLY Christian. There is no option for this sounds really cool but I hate everything else they ever did.
2. Everything else on my playlists are either things I currently own or that I used to own but lost in one of my many laptop switches. I.e., I’ve already found and listened to all the music like the music I like.
Clearly I need to learn how to change my mind on Christian rock. That or become a computer science genius to improve Pandora’s algorithm.
It feels like everyone’s a bit behind right now. All my friends are scrambling around or looking at their to-do lists and sighing. It’s like somehow we all lost two weeks or so in there and are headlong into the rush that is Autumn falling into the holiday season.
I don’t think I’m alone in this but when I’m behind I become scatterbrained, running from one thing to another, never quite putting anything to bed. This weekend I’m going to sprawl out on the floor with a handful of colorful pens, my notebook, and a big cup of coffee and plan. It’s a little tricky; I book projects quickly so I’m never exactly sure when I’ll be in the field or not, so it’ll have to be the movable type of schedules.
I’m currently taking a UX class and my project is looking at how PhD students plan for the long term deadlines that can be years away. I can see a little bit of that in myself and I selfishly hope there will be some insights in there for me too.
I’d love to hear how you plan. Paper? Digital? Some sort of special ap or the world’s longest scroll of to-dos?
While catching up on the Daily Show a couple of days ago, we saw the above Samsung commercial over and over. It was overly long even the first time (it should end when the parents show up imho) and smelled of vinegar.
It was also particularly pertinent since we’d spent the last two weeks phone shopping while I also did some ethno work on the iPhone5 launch. I was up at 5am the day of the launch to talk to people in line before they got their phones. Needless to say, the line was nothing like the commercial. There was a quiet passion, an enjoyment of experiencing an “event”, detailed knowledge of what new advancements the phone had. People knew what they were doing and they were happy to do it.
For those who are Apple fans, so much of it is about the little details. Let’s talk screen size.
Issue: Wanting bigger screens for watching videos.
Other manufacturers: Yes! We will make you the biggest screen we can. Enjoy!
Apple: Okay, so you want a bigger screen but we also know that you want your thumb to cover the entire screen and to be able to shove your phone in your pocket. Let’s design it so we can get you the most screen while doing that. Not as big as other options? That’s okay.
Now not every consumer cares about that sort of thing. But everyone I’ve talked to or watched, Android and Apple owners alike, has subconsciously noticed it. While ethnoing, I noticed that people held iPhone 5s one of two ways. Either they cradled it in their hands like some sort of delicate bird* (with accompanying oohs on how light it was) or they firmly placed it in the web between thumb and finger and used it one handed. Everyone with the Galaxy held it up with one hand and poked at it with the other. There was just something about the two that led to such different behavior.
That’s one of the (many) reasons why qualitative data and UX are so important – design leads people to particular key behaviors that lead to consumer decisions and emotions. As people have more options and become even more picky about what to purchase, anticipating the intrinsic reactions becomes increasingly important when speaking to consumers in authentic and honest ways.
* I personally liked the feel of the Galaxy better than the 5 – it felt like a smooth river stone, where the 5 felt like all edges. Despite that, I’m still stalking the Apple store for a 5 because of all the other stuff.
I meant to take pictures, not of the wake which was beautiful but of her artwork. She was probably the most talented artist/craftsman that I’ve ever met and that’s saying a lot since I’m the daughter of Martha Stewart on crack.
I don’t think there’s anything that she couldn’t do. Need a latex otter mask? Got it. Last minute wedding dress? That too. Weird caricature of Nixon made out of wire and panty hose? Yup. The house was full of her artwork, sewing and pottery, paintings and even glass buttons. Her coworkers from the theater snuck stuff out of the costume vault to show. It was amazing; she was amazing.
There was so much art still left in her –she’d just taken up pottery again and sold a few pieces for charity over the summer.
I’m glad I got to meet her; I hate that she died of something that’s so treatable in early stages. I hate that she died.
I’m glad we drove 9 hours each way to be there, to see her artwork and to pick up bottles and plates the next day, to go for a distracting nature walk, that my husband learned about the ever disturbing Kum and Go gas station chain, even that we saw an entire city of people all wearing matching black and red Huskers clothes.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to wake up hours before normal, not for a run or an early morning EST conference call, but to drive west with my husband, though the skinny part of Illinois, the fat part of Iowa and into Nebraska. Hours of miles of flat Midwestern agriculture and the same again on Sunday.
We’re headed to a wake. My best friend’s mother – sweet and soft-spoken – died last week.
I don’t know what else to say besides that.
Despite having a family tree full of dead branches, I’ve only been to memorials and funerals for people I don’t really know. I know to wear navy blue or grey and not black and to bring food, but not how to mourn in front of others. I can help her through the long slog, the first holiday, the anniversary, but the wake? All I can do is hold her hand, ply her with food, and hope that it works.
During my raspberry pie breakfast, I kept hearing incesent beeping. Regular, long periods of honking. There’s been a lot of noise in the neighborhood recently – our train station is under construction – air horns, rumbling, and some honking, but this was… new.
Leaving my house I saw a line of young women with red signs at the elementary school across the street. Strike! After 10 days of warning and negotiation, the teachers of Chicago are out of the classroom and on the street.
Ride up the escalator. Walk down the stairs. Repeat for 20 minutes, until people start staring at me. All to try to get a picture of a Zoidberg sticker.
Aesthetic Snafu 