Author: Rick Monro

Rick has led and managed design teams in agencies in Ireland, provided UX consultancy for both public and private sector clients and is currently Manager of UX Design at Contrast. He is also a syllabus consultant and lecturer for the Digital Marketing Institute and organiser of UX Belfast.

Categories
UX

The long wait for Boards of Canada

The BOC brothers

It’s around ten years since I first noticed the name “Boards of Canada” creeping in to designers’ discussion forums (ahh discussion forums, what a quaint idea). It seemed that BoC was the soundtrack of choice for any designer worth their salt in the heady days of the dot com boom.

I had dabbled with electronica before, but BoC opened my eyes and ears to a whole new world of avant garde IDM. Strange thing to say now, as BoC are so often seen as almost mainstream.

There has been very little since, with the exception perhaps of Proem and Ulrich Schnauss, that has made such an impression on me, left me feeling that I was listening to something new, fresh and unfettered. The vocal samples, the eerie atmospherics evoking vague childhood memories, all combined with the duo’s mischievous marketing giving them the aura more of a cult than a musical act, made listening to their music a mesmerising experience.

Within 18 months of discovering them, ‘Geogaddi‘ was released. I remember clearly wandering around Paris as part of a professional trip with IDI Ireland, listening to Geogaddi on a cassette Walkman, taking in its strange aural landscapes in the equally strange (to me) environment of the French capital.

But something went wrong. ‘The Campfire Headphase‘ took 3.5 years to emerge after Geogaddi. Apart from an EP in June 2006, BoC fans have now been waiting over 5 years for new material to arrive from Hexagon Sun. Not quite latter day Pink Floyd standards, but a huge period of anyone’s life.

I’m sure Marcus and Eoin are happily making a living from their work, but music consumption has moved on significantly in those 5 years. There was a time when I would have bought new BoC material without hesitation. Nowadays, I may just sample what is on offer before parting with hard-earned cash to buy it.

With artists such as Horizon Fire so ably scratching the itch of BoC fans (and for free), and Proem maintaining such a regular schedule of high quality output, I’m at the point where I almost don’t care whether anything appears from BoC again.

I don’t know how BoC see themselves now, but that must surely be the worst possible news for any musician who releases music commerically.

Categories
Design

Ogon wallet

Ogon

I’ve had an Ogon aluminium wallet for over 4 years now, and when the time comes to replace it – which shouldn’t be for some years yet – I’m going to get another one.

It feels great in the hand, it’s around the same size as an iPod (Classic), made of smooth aluminium, comes in a variety of colours and is – when it comes down to it – a beautifully executed piece of design.

The concept is based around the fact that our 21st century financial life (so far) is dominated by cards. The Ogon wallet holds around 10 credit cards comfortably and… that’s it. One key litmus test for a new gadget is if it creates change in your life or lifestyle; the Ogon has been instrumental in my stopping carrying cash. While you can fold up a tenner and tuck it in somewhere, it actually feels like cheating, spoiling the purity of the concept.

I’m tempted to buy a second wallet, in a different colour, but why bother? Why would I want to change my cards from wallet to wallet? I can’t remember what the shelf life of my old leather wallets was, but I’m pretty sure that 4 or 5 years was the limit. I’m going to hazard a guess that the Ogon will beat that hands down and I’ll also suggest that longevity is probably the biggest barrier to sales for the company.

The Ogon wallet is one of those little things that makes you feel better about using it. It inspires comments from anyone who notices it. It’s just feels right. I’m planning to hold on to my Ogon wallet for as long as possible… then I’ll get another one. Rinse and repeat.

Categories
Community Design

Deconstructing Build

A collection of circumstances prevented me from getting along to Build Conference this year, much to my shame. And while videos of all the events – main talks and fringe events – are available, I know from experience that nothing can replace just being there, with your peers, having your head sent into a spin by the words of those preeminent in their field.

Andy McMillan – Build’s architect – has put together what he calls a ‘hand-crafted’ web design conference. Post-event his head must have been spinning with the torrent of praise coming his way. The thought he put into it was evident at every turn, with no detail left untended to. He is but one man yet made all this happen, the likes of which is rarely seen in Belfast.

The event has become something much bigger than it arguably set out to be. With a heavy emphasis on fringe and social events, spread out over a week, and with a much broader appeal than its humble tagline suggests, Build is as close to a design festival as it gets. Although a web conference, the wider design community beats a path to Build’s door and the whole shebang is spread over a week. Speakers’ topics this year extended to typography and the design process, while fringe events pushed the ‘web design conference’ description beyond breaking point. This was a festival of design by any other name.

I’ve been around long enough to see at least one national design body try and fail to motivate successive generations of designers and engender a sense of community. Through Build (and a not insignificant amount of other activity such as Refresh Belfast) Andy has achieved it within a couple of short years. Build it and they will come indeed.

I don’t know Andy and have no idea what he has in mind for future years, but his seemingly endless drive will surely result another landmark event in 2011. For what it’s worth I hope Build retains its unique ‘belfastness’. I also hope it ditches it’s increasingly inappropriate “love us because we’re small” marketing bent. Those tickets aren’t cheap, and for good reason. This is a first class design event, worthy of the title of festival, and deserves to be enjoyed and lauded far far beyond the often clique-y world of online design.

Forget #buildconf. Next year’s Twitter hashtag should be #buildfest

Categories
Design Process

Changing the way we work

We’ve recently been working on a major project with a client whose main office is 100 miles away. While physical visits are not an issue, sometimes we want to build up momentum working, and ask the client for feedback on the way. To facilitate this, we’ve elected to use two online apps for different sides of the design process.

For interface design visuals we’ve been working with Onotate, built by the folks at Rumble Labs. We’ve been using the just-out-of-beta app for feedback and collaboration with up to 6 other reviewers and editors. Onotate shows interface designs in the relevant context – a web browser – and notes can be added by dragging cross-haris across the desired area of the screen.

On the other side of the process, HotGloo has been our weapon of choice for wireframing and interactive prototypes. A brilliant tool, it makes creating interactive prototypes a breeze and, like Onotate, it can accommodate feedback in the form of onscreen notes.

We’ve found a number of benefits to using these tools, which apply to both of them.

– They encourage brevity: the comment boxes are just the right size and discourage lengthy essays on particular point
– They encourage more immediate feedback: it’s simple for the reviewer to leave a comment there and then rather than have to switch to an email window and remember everything there
– They help keep debate transparent: with multiple reviewers, it’s often too easy for the real discussions to take place in multiple emails, or in some other ‘unofficial’ forum. Threads can be created there on the tool, and keeps everyone focussed.
– They save on confusion: If someone else has already made a point, another reviewer is unlikely to repeat it

We had only made moderate use of these tools before now; beyond this point though, there is a good chance that the way we work will have been permanently affected, very much for the better.

Gonna be some changes around here

Kinda. Sorta. Started tinkering today trying to knock a new WP template together for the blog. Putting up a temporary template in the meantime. Perhaps not the most advisable method – working on the live site – but I’m thinking the stakes aren’t exactly high :/

Could be a few false starts along the way, suffice to say the blog will be in a state of flux for a wee while.