Daniel Hardy

My first Apple puchase

Well I finally bit the bullet and purchased an Apple product. I know it is hard to believe that someone who is such a technology geek and an interaction designer is just now getting around to purchasing an iPod.

In the short time I have owned the Apple iPod Touch I must admit that the user experience is unrivaled in its market. This isn’t to say that it is perfect, far from it. Apple does an extraordinary job of hand shaping the user experience from end to end. They seem to think of almost everything.

This extreme molding of the experience comes at a cost that most people never discuss. Apple controls every detail of every product they offer and they are not afraid of limiting the user’s ability to edit or modify the product to their taste.

In my opinion this is an ugly mark against against an exemplary user experience. As a user’s knowledge grows, so does their desire to “own” the product. By this I mean, that when a user becomes comfortable with how something works they often want to customize it to their taste. This can be something small like a theme or something larger like configuring obscure features or setting default behavior through out an application.

By limiting the user’s ability to personalize the product, Apple limits the user’s ability to grow to their fullest potential. It also limits their products ability to reach it’s maximum potential as user’s may not find the resolution to the problem their are seeking answers for.

Perhaps my view is a little biased because I like Linux’s Kool-Aid a little more than Apple’s. What do you think?

Google Hosted Services

Do you own a domain? Wish you could use Gmail for your email but retain that great address…. Well you can! If you act now you too could become a member of Google’s Hosted Service plan for the astonishing price of FREE!

Apparently sometime back Google quietly started offering a hosted service for people who wish to use their services but do so under their own domain name. This entry level plan which includes several great applications is free.

For this amazing price you get chat services, email, calendar, docs and more. The great part is that it is all based off your domain! No more yourname@gmail.com. Instead it will be you@yourdomain.com.

To get started visit Google Apps For Your Domain select the business one and sign up for a free “Standard Account”.  Be warned it does take a bit of work to get it all up an running.  You will be required to change your domains MX records and create a couple of CNAMEs for ease of access.  The great part is that Google will figure out what regestrar your domain is with and give you detailed instructions for just them.

Overall it can all be setup in a couple of min.

idea #412: Ubuntu Lite

Ubuntu recently released a new website that allows users to submit and vote on various ideas for the future of the OS.

To join the community I decided I would submit something I have wanted for along time, “Ubuntu Lite”. Read more about it at Ubuntu Brainstorm idea#412: Ubuntu Lite and while you are there be sure to give it a vote ;)

[Update] Blacklisted by Microsoft

I recently wrote a post discussing the strange behavior of Live.com.  It appears that the search results for “Daniel Hardy” have changed again at live.com.  They have returned to there original state.

This really makes me wish I would have taken a screen shot.

Digg’s new look

Digg.com has recently unveiled its new look and it sure is a “humdinger.” There are some good points like inline images and a more prominent bury button but overall I believe it is a step backwards in both graphic and interaction design.

On the graphics side the biggest mistake in my opinion is the failure to define a base font size. This means that the size is dictated by the default browser configuration, something that most people never change. For Windows Firefox users the default size is 16pt which is typically a little large for Web text. This gives the entire site a cartoon look. I understand that this might have been done for accessibility reason but there are other alternatives that would have allowed for a better controlled experience.

From the interaction standpoint many of the common feature such as digging, commenting, and burying have remained mostly unchanged. Personally I think the big failure here is the integration of video into the front page. This forced a redesign of the navigation which until now was excellent. In fact I have pitched similar designs and people recognized the similarities and even referred to it as “Digg style navigation.” While the new design maintains many of the elements of the previous it has added a drop-down menu system accessed through multifunction buttons. This can be confusing to casual consumers. With each click you may end up with different results.

Overall I think the previous design is better than this current iteration. Sure there are some interesting additions but I think they are really just feature fluff. I look forward to seeing how the public sees the new changes.

[Update] I just found this post. It looks like there might be other problems with the new Digg.com redesign.