The Flicker Blog and Podcast

What did I tell you! Gaz is here and we have indeed drunk huge amounts of delicious Stella Artois!

It’s been a pretty productive night - ‘Key Dumb‘ the counterpart to ‘Dumb Key’ that we’re working on is going very well indeed.

At the moment, we think it’s possibly the best thing that we’ve done to date. But then, we always think that when things are going well. Whenever we’re working on tracks, they always have this honeymoon phase. More often than not - in the cold light of morning, there are plenty of things to remedy.

Funny thing about this blogging lark - the more that goes on in your life, the less time you have to write about it. Actually, this week’s not exactly been crammed with exciting events. It’s just involved an awful lot of writing (and clearly not here). I’m hopeful that I will continue to find the time to write here on a regular basis - but it’s not likely to be daily.

I spent most of last weekend working on a new track called “Dumb Key” which sounds to my now weary ears, pretty unusual compared to our normal stuff. As ever, I find the whole process rewarding but draining. The nature of the music production software we use (or is it my nature?) tends to involve looping small elements over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

After a couple of days of this you really do feel that a part of your brain has been worn down by the continuing march of sounds across it. Simple activities (like socialising) become quite hard until you’ve reset your brain with a good nights’ sleep.

The point I’m making here is that last weekend was very busy, and tiring (seeing Mazi on Sunday night didn’t help). This week’s also been crammed - spent much of my free time working on the application for a course at work which a has a pretty competitive selection process. Clearly a different type of writing to that which I’d do here (why is it so hard to write about the positive aspects of oneself?) but writing nonetheless. And very time consuming. So here I am, making excuses to myself for not posting more frequently!

Tonight, Gareth will be down to work on more music with me. I predict another tiring weekend involving the consumption of much Stella Artois. Hopefully, it’ll be a productive one. I’m really keen to try and get more stuff out the door and signed (as ever). The release of Demon Tweaks has reminded me that if you generate any kind of buzz, you need to sustain it. Otherwise, it’s more click than buzz.

Random thought #001 - Cycling home the other night I wondered why the indicators and hazard lights on cars are one and the same? To be able to recognise that a car has it’s hazards on, you need visibility of both sides of the car. In London, that’s pretty rare. So, whilst pushing through the driving rain on a cold, wet February evening I wonder “Is that car about to pull out in front of me, or is he unloading?”

Should keep this short - I’m so tired!

Last night was a late one. Went to the AKA Bar to catch Mazi play. Had a very enjoyable night, which happened to top off a weekend of heavy boozing. I’m paying for it today however.

It actually ended up being a great end to a very positive weekend. On Friday, Demon Tweaks got a great review in DJ Magazine. On Sunday, Mazi tells me he’s really into Little Bit, and wants to sign it! All in all, not bad as weekends go!

We had Louise’s friend Jen around tonight, and have drunk far too much wine.
Ended up having drunken, rambling conversations about success, and how it’s achieved.
Louise mentioned some teaching that forbids the use of the word sorry. Obviously, the thrust of this was about presenting a confident, un-repentant, self to the world, and that hesitance made your peers lose their confidence in your abilities/leadership…Whatever.

Reluctantly, I had to acknowledge that being good at something isn’t anything like sufficient. It’s often better (or at least more successful) to be bad, but overrun with self-confidence. I’d imagine that this is a theme that will re-occur on this blog (if it continues!) - it’s hardly original. Nonetheless, it’s an issue that troubles me. Repeatedly.

I’m the most paranoid person I know, yet I genuinely believe I have some worth. My frustration at less-able persons achieving success forces me to confront some rather poignant issues. Do I begrudge them their success because I feel I deserve it more? Or do I begrudge it them because it’s undeserved?

And all of this talk of refusing to apologise. It’s all good and well (or is it?) when discussed among management consultants. But, what if everyone assumed this stance? Clearly, society depends upon the submissive, passive and dominant components. If the mix varied too much, things would fall apart.

Clearly, this could go on and on.
More power to the humble - kind of.

Maybe it’s because it’s a Monday, and I’m tired and grumpy. Today, as a result of discussions I’ve been involved in, I’ve felt a little frustrated. Hopefully, documenting it here will help me make sense of the root of this frustration (which I believe to be the consideration of style before content).

Frequently, I witness (and get involved in) discussions about minor details of a site’s design. This is often frustrating, because energy needs to (or could be) spent on bigger issues. I’m not saying that such detailed observations are not valid, but that they are often observations of a symptom - and treating them does not cure the disease. Worse still, treating things at this level can often have unforeseen, and problematic side effects.

More specifically, I have witnessed discussions about unique cosmetic treatments that are given to objects (dependant upon the section of the site they reside in). I’m writing this to try and clarify (and hopefully justify) my negative feelings:

a) The creation of (arguably unnecessary) work for the designer

b) The increased likelihood of errors - where once existed a straight road, there’s now a fork

c) A large site needs fewer variables, not more. Any sighted person can tell black from white, but ask them to differentiate between numerous shades of grey and your success rate will fall off. Obviously, I’m not against systems of organising, or creating hierarchies - but I do think that the success of such systems diminishes as variables grow.

d) This method of working assumes that artefacts are created on a per-section and not per-site basis. There may be such occasions where the distinctions aren’t so clear and, as a result, a variant of the artefact now needs to be made for the rest of the site. Two versions of the same thing - not one good reason.

As designers, we need to ask why these variables need to exist - not why they look better than their counterparts. I suspect that issues like this often arise because a designer (or design team) are unhappy with a system that exists, not because they feel a visual distinction is required.

Instead of addressing the issue of the system (which may not be possible/practical) a locally acceptable variant is created that allows the team involved to feel proud of the work they have achieved. This work may be world class, and a clear improvement on the rest of the site. However, it has also created one more variant that undermines consistency - and provides a defence to those parties who don’t want to follow guidelines. If one party is allowed to create a variant, why can’t the others?

I’ve seen this time and time again - successful, well thought out systems crumbling rapidly as more and more people take it upon themselves to ‘modify’ their part of the offering to their own tastes. The decline increases exponentially!

As designers, we naturally want to make things better. I feel that our energies are better channelled into problem solving and improving the unified whole, than inventing new ways of dressing up what is, essentially the same content.

Mackie, Tip=Cold, Ring=Hot. Samson, Tip=Hot, Ring=Cold

So that’s it! Been messing with my soldering iron trying to sort out an irritating crackle on my monitoring setup, and discovered that one of the leads was causing a channel to run out of phase. All along, I thought I was imagining that one of them lacked impact! I don’t know if this is indicative of my fine hearing, or an exposition of how bad it is (being as it took so long for me to realise).

If this post has a point, I guess it’s that even highly irritating problems can have positive repercussions.

Well - 3 days to go until the official release of Demon Tweaks on Gourmet.
There’s been some very positive feedback for it so far - let’s hope that the sales reflect that!

Two recent photographs that would probably look good on record sleeves

Woke up ridiculously early this morning with several things on my mind. My first thoughts were of this blog (kid with a new toy I guess).

Seconds later, I recalled Dan Hill’s ‘Insanely great, or just good enough?’ piece on Apple and their design strategy. In outline, he suggests that because Apple products are designed with little user tampering possible - that an adaptive design process is at the back of the engineers minds, and that Apple expects users to trust them to do what’s right.

In particular, he discusses the recent iPod Battery furore, and how what was seen as a design classic, has become sullied as a result of disgruntled users wanting to know why it has to be so hard to replace a battery. What was on my mind was whether this was an oversight on Apple’s part or a conscious decision (I suspect the latter). The view that Apple seek perfection in their designs suddenly becomes questionable - this particular issue suggests quite the opposite.

There’s no question that at the time of release, Apple products may seem akin to perfection to the buying public. I’m sure Apple never views them as such however - at the time of any launch, subsequent models are already lined up. Built in obsolescence is what keeps any company so profitable. Despite the seemingly noble (user centred) intentions, Apple exists to make money, and they can’t do that by shipping perfect product that no one need upgrade.

If Apple were to make the iPod truly adaptable, they may well improve the product, but would limit future sales too. As a user wishing to upgrade my iPod, the most desirable part to update (to add usefulness rather than sustaining life) would of course, be a larger hard drive. More than any other tweak, this could affect sales of subsequent models. I’m sure that none of these things are oversights - but business decisions. I think Apple hints at a perfection, but intentionally keeps it out of reach. How else do they sustain and fuel user desire?

Comparing the adaptive design of a virtual object to a physical one raises some interesting questions. At what point do incremental changes you’ve made to a virtual product effectively constitute a wholly new offering? In the virtual world, there’s no significant cost to replacing everything as part of an ongoing design ‘refit’. It could also be argued that a new model of iPod exists as a result of an adaptive design process, rather than in spite of it. Would the inclusion of ‘a removable panel, flush to the back of the casing but with a fingernail-sized catch for release’ demonstrate this? In fact, the virtual consumer is also expected to ditch a perfectly serviceable piece of software for a newer model - Photoshop 6 - 7 for instance. Granted, in this case the old verion doesn’t ‘fade away’ and force the issue. My point is that an adaptive design process isn’t excluded by (or necessarily related to) a marketing one. Incremental change happens to most products - the variable is the pricing model.

I do find these ideas very interesting, and I’m often seduced by the consideration given to the Apple Products (hockey-puck mice and CD eject buttons that only appear on the keyboard excluded) that could constitute a quest for perfection. I also happen to think that Apple is just as cynical and business minded as Microsoft. Sure, they use “design” to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace - but whenever they make a sale, they’ve already one eye on the next one. The notion of an adaptive design process is, to me, akin to Darwinism. Any product will, over time, adapt and (theoretically) be improved upon. In a capitalist society, this remains true, but you’ll pay for those poseable thumbs.