Ephram Zerb

monome

Ephram Zerb — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:32:17 +0000

These monome devices, described as “adaptable, minimalist interfaces”, let you hack a grid of lights. The extreme design reduction liberates the device’s perceived potential. Adding any extra features to the device would be like replacing a blank canvas with a coloring book. The device is built by two people from the future, brian crabtree and kelli cain, where capitalization has long been regarded as superfluous decoration.

API as User Interface

Ephram Zerb — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:15:07 +0000

Moreover, an API is not about programming, data structures, or algorithms—an API is a user interface, just as much as a GUI. The user at the using end of the API is a programmer—that is, a human being.

– Michi Henning, API Design Matters

[via Jwatt]

Love / Hate, A / B

Ephram Zerb — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:59:01 +0000

I have a love / hate relationship with A / B tests. Leaning too hard on them to make design decisions can make for very anemic process. It encourages an incremental, guess-and-check approach that feels like a task better suited for an automaton. Even when isolating one variable, the results mainly speak to “what” had the effect on behavior, rather than the “why”. I’d rather be solving problems and taking bigger strokes. But you simply can’t argue with its place in the toolbelt, especially when seeing some of the results on ABTests.com

Node.js Overview

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:08:42 +0000

Simon Willison is genuinely excited:

That technology is Ryan Dahl’s Node. It’s the most exciting new project I’ve come across in quite a while.

At first glance, Node looks like yet another take on the idea of server-side JavaScript, but it’s a lot more interesting than that. It builds on JavaScript’s excellent support for event-based programming and uses it to create something that truly plays to the strengths of the language.

Basic Maths Wordpress Theme

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:32:25 +0000

Beautiful new theme from Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole. It’s full-featured and comes equipped with everything you’d expect in a theme (although probably don’t need). The best part, which I’ll undoubtably be stealing for some future project, is the presentation of the archives in the right-most sidebar.

Real Relationships Drive Contribution

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:00:02 +0000

The idea is that different types of online social relationships drive different levels of engagement. Whereas getting a lot of people to watch your youtube videos will encourage you to post more, you’re likely to get even a greater productivity boost if a lot of your actual friends favorite or comment on your videos.

Luke Wroblewski leaves it with a guess on why this is often the case:

So actual friends (real relationships) are more likely to encourage contribution. Perhaps we can blame this on the 0-1-2 effect which states that the probability of joining an activity when two friends have done it is significantly more than twice the probability of doing it when only one has done so.

Reconsidering Arial

Ephram Zerb — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:45:32 +0000

Jonathan Nicol does a nice job of visually demonstrating how Helvetica and Arial render at smaller sizes on a PC. My typical font stack has been Helvetica, followed by Arial; however, seeing Helvetica rendered at small sizes on a PC makes me reconsider that habit. The conclusion for me can be generalized as: use “Arial, Helvetica” for body copy and “Helvetica, Arial” for headings.

Clever Hans and Usability Tests

Ephram Zerb — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:36:17 +0000

Lukas Mathis retells a nice story that illustrates a hidden bias that can pollute a usability test.

Clever Hans, his horse, quickly learned to do a number of complex math calculations – the horse could add, subtract, multiply, divide, do date calculations, and even understand German. It would tap out the answers to any math question with its foot. It could even read and give the correct answers to questions written on a piece of paper.

Of course, when psychologist Oskar Pfungst investigated the horse, he quickly figured out what was happening. The horse didn’t understand German, couldn’t calculate, and couldn’t read. Instead, it responded to involuntary cues in the body language of Wilhelm von Osten, who, in turn, solved the math problems for his horse. Von Osten was completely unaware that he was providing these cues to the horse.

Craigslist Make-over

Ephram Zerb — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:13:40 +0000

Faux-redesigning Craigslist is like a right of passage for some designers. This time it’s officially sanctioned by a print publication, who put some top notch designers to the task. Of course, Khoi Vinh and team (Anh Dang + Paul Lau) just killed it, because they are part one of the best digital design teams in the industry (New York Times Digital). On the other side of the spectrum is Pentagram, who only mustered a gimmick, which is frustratingly appropriate in light of their web design pedigree.

Patterns in Social Design

Ephram Zerb — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:45:41 +0000

A good design pattern library acts as a dictionary, allowing one to be more expressive by making abstract concepts concrete. When you can ground concepts you can use them to build something greater than the sum of its parts. You can’t solve an algebra problem without the basic language of arithmetic, in the same way you can’t design a social system without a basic language of interactions that compose it. This wiki collection of social design patterns serves as a companion site for an upcoming O’Reilly book from Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone – and judging by the wiki, it should be a good one.