jamin.org

A recent comment led me to Sketchcast.com, a tool that allows you to draw and record what you’re drawing, with the idea that the visualizations can help you communicate your ideas.

As a designer who is always open to new methods of visualization and communication of ideas, I set up an account and created the following, based on a diagram from How Designers Think.

Pretty neat, eh?

As you noticed, it was difficult to keep my lines straight. While this is due to the mouse being a less than ideal drawing tool, it detracts from the effectiveness of the resulting visualization.

But why wouldn’t I just create a static image to show the result?

Also, since this is essentially a virtual whiteboard, I asked myself why do we use whiteboards? How important it is during design sessions that the participants see the person perform the task of creating the visualization? Or is using a whiteboard about collaboration, rapid visualization, and iteration? I suspect it’s a combination. Watching someone draw does help everyone else see and understand their thought process. But can this work online where the thought process of what is being drawn is already contrived?

Granted, I did not take advantage of the sound recording aspect of Sketchcast. So perhaps if I were explaining something and drawing at the same time, the tool would be more useful.

While it has problems, it’s a notable effort. Makes me wonder if there are any collaborative online whiteboards that let remote groups create ad hoc visualizations and notes. It would be great to record the iterative process and use colors for each participant. Perhaps a such a whiteboard could also address the issue of one person controlling the board.

On Friday I went to Microsoft’s Express Yourself event in San Francisco. Five design firms competed to solve a “real-world design problem” using Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology and Expression Suite of design tools.

Silverlight is the alleged “flash killer” that I had never heard of. I blame graduate school for my ignorance. But perhaps it’s because no one uses it.

The five design firms were:

• AKQA
• Ascentium
• Avenue A / Razorfish
• IndustryNext
• Vertigo Software

The firms were judged by a designer each from Adaptive Path, Yahoo, and eBay. Andrew Crow was the judge from AP. (Read what he had to say going in.)

The firms received the problem three days in advance. The real-world problem was to create an online community that would be cool enough for kids to want to participate in but where adults could have control over what their kids could access.

I thought the challenge was dumb and unrealistic. But whatever, because it’s not like the firms were going to do any research to confirm this.

But what’s worse is that the solutions themselves barely addressed the problem, if at all. They were visually unappealing and otherwise unimpressive. And none looked like anything new or like anything that demonstrated the power of Silverlight at all. Seriously, I have no idea what Silverlight offers based on the competition.

The standout moment for me was when Razorfish took the stage and completely failed to deliver. After bumbling about for a good 30 seconds, the presenter finally said something like, “I have to be honest, that’s all we’ve got.” It was ridiculous and embarrassing.

The judges had a difficult time deciding between awful, bad, laughable, embarrassing, and mediocre. They went with the latter, which was so memorable that I forget who won.

At least there was free booze. Thank you Microsoft.

The end of the semester sucked up all my time. And while that was going on, my comments got corrupted. When I tried fixing that late one night (or early one morning, depending on your perspective), I only succeeded in breaking the site more so that I could not access the admin section. Hence, no posts.

The good news is, it’s fixed! The bad news is, I lost a couple months of comments because I don’t back up too often.

I’ve got a million things I could write about, like CHI, Motorola, Info Vis, my seminar 2 paper, the end of the semester and my first year in general, going to San Francisco on Sunday, but I am still busy.

Did I mention I’m going to San Francisco on Sunday?

The short news is after flying into San Fran, I’m meeting up with my brother in Yosemite and then hanging out with him for the week before I start at Adaptive Path. I still don’t have a place to live, as not being there has really hurt my prospects. But I’ll figure something out, right?

At any rate, I’m still alive, done with school, and moving on to another adventure. Stay tuned.

I finished my resume, but it’s not online. It was sent to companies that will be coming to the school of design’s job fair. Also, I have yet to update my online portfolio. I hope to find time to do that soon. But I don’t know when I’ll find time.

The Emergence team got some time at the school’s faculty meeting this morning. We introduced ourselves as a gesture to facilitate better awareness of and involvement with the conference. We’ve made some headway on a theme, but haven’t nailed it yet. We hope to figure it out by the end of this week. We’re also working on an identity system.

I met with one of my clients tonight (ITNS) to go over my availability for work in the future. Basically, I said I could not do any large projects. I’m still going to do some consulting and maintenance. I’m probably an idiot for doing that.

My neighbors decided to not turn on their heat, even though it’s 8 degrees out. Their pipes froze. Now my pipes are frozen. Try living without water for a day.

Before the Thanksgiving break, Kristin Hughes, who is currently teaching my graduate typography class, asked me to help her put up a placeholder website for Fitwits.

I don’t really know what it is: I didn’t have time to ask. But I built it, and thought it was cool she asked me.