My eyes jumped from the headline to the picture without
reading the opening paragraph. ( Good design )
First reactions to the piece were:
a) Giraffe with greater capacity for output than input.
b) There do not appear to be any oil marks from use
c) It would be interesting to know how the millimeters of each open end
The words “Seen real” made me think of “Scene reel” which
is not altogether inaccurate given the context. I am sure some
artchat afficianado will claim a new discipline of “Scene real”
just to merge the two and sound abstract.
Can’t wait to see the rest of the article.
One minor note on the McLean and Freed article, is it 10 MB
or closer to 1 MB.
GOOGLE SEARCH
10 million bits per second in MB per second
10 million (bits per second) = 1.1920929 MB per second
Back in the days when I did product reviews, the product manager and designer would pitch their forthcoming
product
to me–and only later let me see and review their work on the product. Some managers would recount reasons for
interface and hardware decisions, the limits they were working under, the product release date, the delicate feelings of
their design staff, the names of other consultants who had worked on the product, the corporate politics involved, their
admiration for my books, and so on. Before this went on very long, I would say something like this: “I can be more
helpful to you by remaining naive and uninformed, by providing you with a fresh look.” My private unspoken thoughts
were “No damn pitch, just let me quietly look and play with the product myself. You’ve been designing for months now
under the direct control of your pitch words, but my eyes should not also be under that same control.”
Thus I would try to (1) have images of the product sent to me in advance so I could look, unmolested, the product
over, (2) give my deliberately naive review onsite, (3) listen to the product manager’s response, and (4) make
suggestions after my eyes had been recalibrated by the product manager’s information. Such reasonableness is not
easy since everyone, even a product manager, is very sensitive to criticism. Furthermore, I tend to be quite direct. And I
really dislike bad design and sloppy thinking. I am, however, expressively enthusiastic about excellent work and would
try to use such work as examples to other product managers within the same company.
Prior to undertaking this policy, I found that some product managers would give very skilled and knowing pitches,
which did, in fact, seem affect my seeing. (Or maybe great products cause great pitches.The relevant example is Steve
Jobs.) Under my no-prior-pitch policy, I was more likely to say something stupid or irrelevant, but also more likely to
say something fresh, to make off-the-wall and possibly helpful analogies, and to provide the sort of advice that can
only come from outsiders.
One danger of the no-prior-pitch policy is that external reviewers will simply repeat their own favorite recipes, babble
on about how they would have designed the product 20 years ago, and rehearse old anecdotes–all lacking in
relevance to the product review at hand. In short, consultants give their standard pitch.
So it is the responsibility of the consultant to see with fresh eyes. I usually tend to point out small, particular problems
that illustrate the larger issues in a product review. This microscopic approach does let clients know that I have
actually looked at the product with at least some care. (This method also suggests that they should look at their work
with similar microscopic care.) Also there are deep endemic problems in much of corporate product design that may
well deserve treatment by the consultant’s favorite recipes. After all, the main reason that particular consultants are
called in for a product review is because of their good recipes.
mind a couple of times over the last few
days and it brings a smile each time.
What could I use it do? Would it slip off
the nut? Would I hang it on a nail or a hook?
Would I hang it through the eye? Ouch! Would
I wince? It has been fun thinking about it while
trying to remain a comfortable distance from any
sort of pitch-like thinking. That said, I keep
coming back to the giraffe so I seem to have
pitched myself. Oops.
Concerning the essay and the layout; it is intersting
to see that Ad Reinhardt gets a mention next to his
drawing but the others do not. Would a subtle heading
vertically aligned at the precise moment of need
such as:
HAMLET, Act III, Scene II William Shakespeare
help the sidenote stand alone as a tool for ease of
reference (like the style your other recent books)
in a easier way than the small arrow currently achieves?
Likewise, a little more information about the
Wallace Stevens poem might be also helpful to the
casual reader.Is there a quiet reference to, “Not Ideas about the Thing
but the Thing Itself”?
It will be interesting to see if this links up with the
thread on Grand truths about human behaviour where both a priori and a posteriori thinking aloud is allowed
Tchad points to some page-design issues growing out of my try at an oblong format. The longer horizontal run helps
carry the sculpture images very well in the rest of the essay, but the shape is not so good, at the least the way I’ve
sketched it out here, for text with extract.
The references to Stevens, Shakespeare, and others are, alas, on a separate page showing sources, copyright matters,
and permissions.
Several small changes and a correction are posted in the version now shown at the top of the thread.
A more prosaic application of these concepts, from a presentation I viewed earlier this year. True story:
A gaggle of marketers proposed to introduce a new product on a large bank’s website. They went through the usual corporate drills to have their idea approved: business cases, presentations, meetings, etc. They could not convince the corporate lawyers that the product would satsify regulatory or legal requirements. Many carefully-reasoned arguments for proceeding were proposed, many discussions about the business concepts occurred, to no avail: the lawyers were convinced that the concept could not be realized as described.
So the marketers built it anyway, as honestly as they could and without suspect over-simplification, and went back to the lawyers with their design. “Look here: this is what we were talking about. This is what we want to do.” No presentations, no business cases, no carefully reasoned arguments. Just “look at this.“
All of the many words exchanged didn’t matter anymore. The lawyers saw what was proposed, grew excited about what they were seeing on a monitor, and the success of the product in the financial services industry has become both well-known and much imitated.
My eyes jumped from the headline to the picture without
reading the opening paragraph. ( Good design )
First reactions to the piece were:
a) Giraffe with greater capacity for output than input.
b) There do not appear to be any oil marks from use
c) It would be interesting to know how the millimeters of each open end
The words “Seen real” made me think of “Scene reel” which
is not altogether inaccurate given the context. I am sure some
artchat afficianado will claim a new discipline of “Scene real”
just to merge the two and sound abstract.
Can’t wait to see the rest of the article.
One minor note on the McLean and Freed article, is it 10 MB
or closer to 1 MB.
GOOGLE SEARCH
10 million bits per second in MB per second
10 million (bits per second) = 1.1920929 MB per second
OPTIC NERVE
More about the McLean and Freed article on the speed of the optic nerve
https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002NC&topic_id=1
To be pedantic, it’d be 1.25 MB or 1.192 MiB (created to eliminate the ambiguity between base-2 prefixes and the SI base-10 prefixes), or even 10 Mb.
[From ET: My thanks to Tchad and to Greg Pfeil for pointing out my error. It is now Mb instead of MB in the essay above.]
Back in the days when I did product reviews, the product manager and designer would pitch their forthcoming
product
to me–and only later let me see and review their work on the product. Some managers would recount reasons for
interface and hardware decisions, the limits they were working under, the product release date, the delicate feelings of
their design staff, the names of other consultants who had worked on the product, the corporate politics involved, their
admiration for my books, and so on. Before this went on very long, I would say something like this: “I can be more
helpful to you by remaining naive and uninformed, by providing you with a fresh look.” My private unspoken thoughts
were “No damn pitch, just let me quietly look and play with the product myself. You’ve been designing for months now
under the direct control of your pitch words, but my eyes should not also be under that same control.”
Thus I would try to (1) have images of the product sent to me in advance so I could look, unmolested, the product
over, (2) give my deliberately naive review onsite, (3) listen to the product manager’s response, and (4) make
suggestions after my eyes had been recalibrated by the product manager’s information. Such reasonableness is not
easy since everyone, even a product manager, is very sensitive to criticism. Furthermore, I tend to be quite direct. And I
really dislike bad design and sloppy thinking. I am, however, expressively enthusiastic about excellent work and would
try to use such work as examples to other product managers within the same company.
Prior to undertaking this policy, I found that some product managers would give very skilled and knowing pitches,
which did, in fact, seem affect my seeing. (Or maybe great products cause great pitches.The relevant example is Steve
Jobs.) Under my no-prior-pitch policy, I was more likely to say something stupid or irrelevant, but also more likely to
say something fresh, to make off-the-wall and possibly helpful analogies, and to provide the sort of advice that can
only come from outsiders.
One danger of the no-prior-pitch policy is that external reviewers will simply repeat their own favorite recipes, babble
on about how they would have designed the product 20 years ago, and rehearse old anecdotes–all lacking in
relevance to the product review at hand. In short, consultants give their standard pitch.
So it is the responsibility of the consultant to see with fresh eyes. I usually tend to point out small, particular problems
that illustrate the larger issues in a product review. This microscopic approach does let clients know that I have
actually looked at the product with at least some care. (This method also suggests that they should look at their work
with similar microscopic care.) Also there are deep endemic problems in much of corporate product design that may
well deserve treatment by the consultant’s favorite recipes. After all, the main reason that particular consultants are
called in for a product review is because of their good recipes.
Here’s a consulting story relevant to the above.
Surely the no-pitch-just-let-me-look principle applies strongly to real estate agents, with their annoying,
presumptuous, and canned pitches:
The use of the second person is particularly insolent.
To avoid being pitched while being held captivity by tour guides and real estate agents, I just
walk away and look around on my own.
The abstract wrench piece has popped to
mind a couple of times over the last few
days and it brings a smile each time.
What could I use it do? Would it slip off
the nut? Would I hang it on a nail or a hook?
Would I hang it through the eye? Ouch! Would
I wince? It has been fun thinking about it while
trying to remain a comfortable distance from any
sort of pitch-like thinking. That said, I keep
coming back to the giraffe so I seem to have
pitched myself. Oops.
Concerning the essay and the layout; it is intersting
to see that Ad Reinhardt gets a mention next to his
drawing but the others do not. Would a subtle heading
vertically aligned at the precise moment of need
such as:
HAMLET, Act III, Scene II
William Shakespeare
help the sidenote stand alone as a tool for ease of
reference (like the style your other recent books)
in a easier way than the small arrow currently achieves?
Likewise, a little more information about the
Wallace Stevens poem might be also helpful to the
casual reader.Is there a quiet reference to,
“Not Ideas about the Thing
but the Thing Itself”?
It will be interesting to see if this links up with the
thread on Grand truths about human behaviour
where both a priori and a posteriori thinking aloud is allowed
There are more open-ended pieces here.
Tchad points to some page-design issues growing out of my try at an oblong format. The longer horizontal run helps
carry the sculpture images very well in the rest of the essay, but the shape is not so good, at the least the way I’ve
sketched it out here, for text with extract.
The references to Stevens, Shakespeare, and others are, alas, on a separate page showing sources, copyright matters,
and permissions.
Several small changes and a correction are posted in the version now shown at the top of the thread.
A more prosaic application of these concepts, from a presentation I viewed earlier this year. True story:
A gaggle of marketers proposed to introduce a new product on a large bank’s website. They went through the usual corporate drills to have their idea approved: business cases, presentations, meetings, etc. They could not convince the corporate lawyers that the product would satsify regulatory or legal requirements. Many carefully-reasoned arguments for proceeding were proposed, many discussions about the business concepts occurred, to no avail: the lawyers were convinced that the concept could not be realized as described.
So the marketers built it anyway, as honestly as they could and without suspect over-simplification, and went back to the lawyers with their design. “Look here: this is what we were talking about. This is what we want to do.” No presentations, no business cases, no carefully reasoned arguments. Just “look at this.“
All of the many words exchanged didn’t matter anymore. The lawyers saw what was proposed, grew excited about what they were seeing on a monitor, and the success of the product in the financial services industry has become both well-known and much imitated.