Often times designers have little space to work with. Tablet computers have tiny screens.  Cell phones even smaller ones. As a metaphor and design practice, below is a story I wrote using exactly 55 words.

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Lesson One:

“I smashed cars,” Jose bragged.

Student-teacher Peter listened. He’s so poor. Born without a chance.

Principal Johnson startled Peter from his sympathetic lull.

“My windshield’s smashed. Heard anything?”

He trembled.

“No.”

Peter felt empowered letting Jose off.

He regretted it in the parking lot later. His first paycheck would have to repair his busted headlights.

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It took three hours to write this story. I spent 30 minutes coming up with the idea.  The first draft was 187 words.  I feel like some of the story is missing, but the exercise did teach me it is possible to say a lot in a small space.

On Sharp:

The “clippy” era of PC interface design evolution is an amuzing story. I would really have liked to see Microsoft Bob in action. Maybe it could be brought back to help people sift through the still obnoxious error messages that pop up in Windows Vista. Perhaps trying lessen the emotional impact of a computer crash, my favorite part of Vista is when something is “not responding” the whole screen fades into a cloudy gray as the user is left to gaze upon a task manager they cannot access. Computers should not have any error messages – kind or brutle – they should just work.  Moving over to OSX this past spring was a breath of fresh air as I rarely see error messages anymore.

On Sutherland – Games and story:

Since we are being nostalgic, I remember the old NES games – like Ninja Gaiden – that had long cinema scenes.  The 8-bit masterpieces that they were, they got old quickly as they interrupted the endless trial-and-error, die and continue video game style of the early 1990s.  But as the article says, now that video game technology and graphics have achieved HD realism, story is important as gamers long for more.  I apprieciated the comparisons to movies and plays as video games aren’t movies.  I also liked the addition to the old writer’s advice – show don’t tell.  Now games must “do, not show,” as gamers must become involved emotionally in the action.

On FEASP:

I like this emotional approach.  It not just for design, but for setting up a classroom culture:

As we approach the cusp of a completely wireless PC – with all peripheral devices connected through various waves on the radio spectrum—a look at the connective technology we currently have reveals one design we will be glad to abandon—the wired universal serial bus (USB).

To connect a flash drive, printer, scanner, portable hard drive or game controller, both PCs and Macs employ a standardized USB connection.  Gone are the days when the backs of computers were littered with many parallel, serial and game ports, computers for the last 8-10 years have between two and eight small, rectangular ports. All the same size and technology, these ports push out 5V of electricity and with most operating systems, allow users to plug and play their devices as the computer loads the required drivers in the background.  Even when the IEEE updated to USB 2.0, the new ports were backwards compatible.

However, one important design flaw remains.  The small, rectangular shape, exactly 1 cm wide by .5 cm tall, can only be inserted one way.  So when a user plug in his or her flash drive, they have a 50 percent chance they will fail and must flip it over and try the insertion once again.   Some devices have a USB symbol on the top, supposedly indicating “this direction up”, but when the USB port is vertical, the symbol is useless.

Other connecting devices, such as the Firewire 400, VGA, HDMI, DVI, Ethernet,  and telephone jack have specific shapes that are not symmetrical.  All a user needs to do is match the shape and a seamless connection is made.  The shape logically maps the direction for the user.  Thus, because of good design, the user’s task is made easier. With the USB connection, it is not until the user has jammed the device a quarter of the way into the port that “not-all-the-way” plugged in feedback is given to signal the user to take it out, flip it over and then plug it back in. This is especially troublesome when reaching behind a tower or underneath a dark desk or behind a large server.  The task of matching up a basic shape takes minutes and leads to frustration. Old keyboard and mice connections used to have the same problem—a circular plug that had to be inserted exactly one way.  With these devices, you have 359 degrees to make an error—with a chance that you would damage the pins inside the plug. Its funny that as USB replaced serial keyboard and mouse plugs, this problem was not entirely taken care of.

As wireless USB becomes mainstream in the next few years, these frustrations will become forgotten.  Let’s hope designers ensure the wireless handshake devices and computers must make is much simpler than its wired predecessor.