Being a Seattle newbie, I’m looking forward to exploring this beautiful (and rainy) city. One definite highlight I will not miss is the Pike Place Market, a 9-acre mix of local farmers, craftsmen and merchants overlooking the waterfront. Awesome.

My goals for the conference are simple - learn more stuff, meet more people and have more fun. Learning is definitely covered with the lectures, but there’s also a great wealth of knowledge in the other participants. Which leads me into my second goal - meet more people.

How Design recently had a top 10 list on their site about how to get the most out of your design conference. It’s full of some good advice and items that I’d probably forget to pack. However, I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t point #5, a handy dandy use for your name badge.

To pretend you know someone you’ve never met. Good icebreaker. Just don’t take it too far.

Let’s all imagine how a conversation like that would go. OK, I heard a slight chuckle. Now let’s imagine it after a few drinks. Wait for it. Wait for it. And…there it is. Good icebreaker? Please.

Anyway, I’m not going to promise anything. But I will do my best to post during the conference on the lectures, the people and most of all, the drunk people.

If you have any suggestions about what else to see in Seattle, please let me know. And if you’re going to be there, look me up. I promise I won’t pretend to know you.

• 800×600: 14%
• 1024×768: 54%
• Higher: 26%

Now keep in mind that this data is across the board use. Individual sites, demographics, industries, etc. will all vary from these numbers. And this is where the fun starts.
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You’ll find out…right after this brief message from Microsoft and Outlook 2007. “Outlook 2007: Setting email code back to 2002 since 2006″.

To many of us out there consistently fighting the daily onslaught of our inbox, the preview pane is the answer to our prayers. It allows us to view a portion of an email without the need to open it. This save us time and provides more information about the email before we make the decision to open or delete the message.

All of that is well and good for the user, but how do you design for it? Not only do you have to still consider the overall message that you’re convincing the recipient to read and ultimately take action on, but we have 25% of the space to do it in. Wait, there’s more. This precious 25% of space could be displayed horizontally or vertically, depending on the setting of the email application and the individual recipient. Having fun yet?

Okay, okay. Enough of the dramatic effect. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s just going to take more consideration and planning. You only have 2-4 inches to convince someone to open your email. Let’s explore how to do it.

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Now what kind of person would I be if I didn’t lower productivity levels even further? With your silent confirmation, I can state with confidence that I am actually that type of person. So, in that the spirit of slack, I give you… [drum roll, please] …the best cartoons of the 1990s. Well, at least to me.

Funny Stuff

• 2 Stupid Dogs - watch | watch | read
• Johnny Bravo - watch | watch | read
• Pinky and the Brain - watch | watch | read
• The Ren and Stimpy Show - watch | watch | read
• The Tick - watch | watch | read

Action Stuff

• Aeon Flux - watch | read
• Batman: The Animated Series - watch | watch | read
• The Maxx - watch | watch | read
• Spawn - watch | watch | read

For the nostalgic sap in all of us, I included cartoons that only aired in the 1990s and not the ones that are still on the air. Yes, we all know I’d love to include Family Guy and Ed, Edd n Eddy as well as many others.

Enjoy.

cartoons, 1990s, animation, television

…aiming to blur the boundaries between professional and user-generated content in a novel, fun and interactive format.”

For the sake of this post, let’s just agree to say “claiming” instead of “aiming” since it actually makes a lot more sense.

Here’s Wanderwall in a nutshell. Started by a London advertising executive, this site blends user-generated content with purchased advertising content and displays them in small graphical blocks spread across the page. As you roll over each of the images, a window opens up with a larger photo and a caption. And if you’re interested, click on it and away you go to that site, video clips, etc. There are 9 categories to choose from, including news, sport (apparently there’s only one sport), showbiz, men, women, celebrities - you get the picture.

An innovative interface where user-generated and advertising content is displayed in a uniquely visual and interactive way? Great, I’m in. That is, until you actually go the site.
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design, web, magazine, flash, media

From a design and business perspective, this is an engaging read on how your passions can inspire a brand and how your continuing dedication to and focus on those passions can lead to your success.

At a personal level, it’s another motivating “kick in the pants” to get out there and do what’s right for you. As Mike so elloquently put it:

Get in tune with what is relevant and useful in your corner of the world. Wake up your creativity. Summon your courage. Find your brand fit!

Enjoy.

But, I missed it. And talking about blogs with Burbanked on an almost daily basis made me miss it even more. So after much internal deliberation, I decided to return.

Now, at this point, I could easily fall into a humorous and sarcastic listing of the top 10 things I did on my non-blogging vacation. But I won’t. At least for this first post, I’ll keep it simple and to the point.

For those who have supported me in the past (view | view | view | view | view | view | view | view | view), I hope you return and once again enjoy reading and commenting on my entries as much as I enjoy writing them.

And for the others who may stumble upon this site for the first time, I hope you take away something from my web and interactive design experience and hopefully have a laugh or two in the process.

So now it begins - “Spectorbrain: Season Two” - as the great Gleason began time and time again…

And awaaaaaaaaaaay we go!

Welcome back.

Because we don’t know what is really important to us, everything seems important.

Because everything seems important, we have to do everything.

Other people, unfortunately, see us doing everything, so they expect us to do everything.

Doing everything keeps us so busy, we don’t have time to think about what is really important to us.

Earlier today, I had the distinct honor of showing a 2-year old and a 4-year old - a true representation of the target Toddler TV audience - the logos I chose for that original post. They excitedly identified, like most kids would, most of the logos with energetic chatter about the characters and storylines.

But then they pointed to three of the logos and asked one, innocent question:

What are these?

Much to their confusion and my pride, they were asking about

• The Backyardigans - voted worst in Emotion
• Dragon Tales - voted worst in Design
• Higglytown Heroes - voted worst in Representation and Overall

I gave them both a lollipop, a high-five and my business card. “Call me when you can drive, kid. I can always use a great designer.”

For the full review, please read (or re-read) “The Best and Worst Logos of Toddler TV“.

When Ask.com reinvented itself in February of 2006 - most visibly with the retirement of Jeeves - they introduced new technologies and features in the hopes of turning around one of the lowest ranked search engines. (For more information about these enhancements, read Richard MacManus’ well-informed post on the subject.)

One such feature, named “Binoculars“, allows the user to see a site preview by rolling over a, you guessed it, binocular icon. With the help of AJAX technology, this thumbnail image appears without refreshing the page. While it’s obviously a cool feature that’s intended set Ask.com apart from the competition, there are some usability and design issues that should be addressed.

I’m sorry to have to break it to all of my fellow web designers out there, but this pixilated 246×260 screenshot is now part of the user’s decision-making process. This also means that it should be part of our design process. Let’s explore how.

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