Archive for the ‘ Miscellaneous’ Category

Puns and The Art of (Dis)Enchantment

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Last weekend I started reading The Art of Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki. I’d heard a lot about this book (and Guy) in general, so had fairly high expectations for it. The book is just as the title suggests: how to enchant people, either personally or with a product and so on.

From the outset, to be honest, I found it hard to really understand the hype. It’s by no means a bad book, but just not as — well, “enchanting” as one would expect. But I kept going, until I hit this point: speaking about the concept of being a “mensch” (based on the Yiddish expression for being beyond just a human), Kawasaki ends an anecdote about actor James Garner with these words:

…in other words, Garner was saying, “Don’t menschion it”.

Ugh. Really Guy? I instinctively slammed the book shut at that point. A book on enchantment had actually made me feel so disenchanted I slammed it shut because of an appallingly cheesy pun. For me, the book’s credibility had just vanished.

But aren’t all puns appalling and cheesy?

By coincidence, shortly after reading that pun, I saw this wonderful video from comedian Rich Hall:

I’m not cuing the video to the pun: watch the whole thing, you won’t regret it — it’s genius (but the pun is at 2:19 if you can’t wait or missed it).

Rich Hall’s pun? Now that’s enchanting and funny.

Humour is a powerful thing. Even with design. Google is a great example: the “I’m feeling lucky” button through to many Google Doodles. Twitter’s Fail Whale is another great example. It can lower the tone, relax and even amuse people in otherwise frustrating situations.

But it’s a dangerous approach: if the fail whale wasn’t so cute, it might not work. And this is the problem with puns: they are the riskiest form of humour. I disagree that they’re the lowest form of wit: instead I think they’re hardest form of wit to execute. For every Rich Hall that makes a genuinely funny one, there’s a thousand terrible ones being made by your uncle and member of senior management no one likes.

So sorry Guy, but for me you’re now in the same category of wit as the latter two examples.

I think I’ll move on to my next book.

SXSW 2012: The submission is in

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

I enjoyed my first SXSW so much this year that I decided to take the plunge and submit a panel idea.

SXSW

I’ve entitled the proposal ‘Global UX: beyond language, location and culture‘. I’m hoping to impart some of the UX and design knowledge I’ve learnt over the years from working at a multi-language media outlet (BBC World Service) along with a few of my other design passions: from general usability through to my obsession with seeing the end of flags being used to represent languages.

So, check it out, and if you like the sound of it, give it a vote!

Flags and languages just don’t work

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

I always find it quite insulting when the United States flag gets used as an icon for ‘English’. Technically it shouldn’t even be the British flag, but really the English flag. But you don’t often see that do you?

Steam screenshot

And considering there are more Portuguese speakers in Brazil than Portugal, why not show the Brazil flag for Portuguese (if you’re being consistent with the use of the US flag).

Or… just don’t use flags to illustrate language. Ever.

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut is off to the big Breakfast of Champions in the sky.

44.0 KBPS

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

Alas, I’m on dialup. It’s been so long. I must say, when the modem connection sounds piped out of my laptop, I nearly shed a tear.

Almost.

Broadband come back!!

Now Brought to You From London!

Sunday, February 5th, 2006

That’s right. As of Friday the 3rd of February, 2006, our new home is West London. The holiday is over; from Singapore to Munich we had a ball through eight countries. Now it’s time to find a job!

I was very slack updating this site along the way; Angela was handling the journal writing more than adequately for both of us (rather spectacularly, actually). However, I did managed to upload a fair few photos to Flickr along the way (with surprising ease in even backwaters of South East Asia) – I’ll upload plenty more when I get the chance.

Brand Impact in New Orleans

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Looking at some of the horrific photos coming out of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, this photo from the BBC struck me. Why? Not because of the screaming women and the seemingly reticent National Guard, but because of the Burberry bag. (more…)

Global Swatches

Wednesday, August 17th, 2005

Andy Clarke has written about some very nice colour tables he’s derived from some photos he took recently in France.

There was some interesting conversation on the post about geography/culture influencing colour and style, particuarly from Molly Holzschlag. Following Andy’s examples I thought I’d put some of my favourite travel photos through for the hell of it.
(more…)

Lego Envy – Brickfest 2005

Wednesday, August 17th, 2005

Wired News has an article on Brickfest 2005 with some amazing photos of what some “grown ups” have created with Lego.

I would have spent thousands of hours playing with Lego as a kid, and it really is one of the few toys that was as fun as it was practical. I think a lot of the problem solving skills I have now were pushed along by all those hours building spaceships, aircraft & whatever else I could think of. (more…)

Firefox Pop Ups

Monday, August 8th, 2005

For a while I’ve noticed a few pop up ads slipping through Firefox’s usually excellent blocker control. Some have even attempted to sell me Crazy Frog ringtones. It seems Flash (and other plugins) can bypass the usual blocking process, however Pete Bevin has worked out a way to stop Flash doing this, so no more pop ups… for a while, anyway.