KonzeptioNerd

What’s Wrong With arpeggiata.com?

L’arpeggiata are an early music ensamble, lead by lutist and harpist Christina Pluhar (no relation to Erika, I was told). To sample their music, go Amazon, iTunes or to their surprisingly contemporary website.

The website is aesthetic and atmospheric, with lots of content (text, images, video), e-commerce integration, and a busy forum (that’s really a guestbook, [...]

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Long Journey

Frankfurt’s Senckenberg Museum have extended their latest display extravaganza Safari zum Urmenschen till August 15. Reason enough to recap my visit of a few weeks ago.
Safari zum Urmenschen - Die Geschichte der Menschheit entdecken, erforschen, erleben (Safari to the prehistoric man - discover, explore, experience the history of mankind) follows in the footsteps of last [...]

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They must be kidding me

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IPad Keyboard Live Test

Alright, Guss. i’m writing this on a real-Life iPad. Benefits of vorging Inn an international Network Agency… We got One Sent over from. Hicago for tesitng.
So, I’m Witting in the easy chair in our office, Full lean-back Mode, iPad on my knees in prtrait Mode. Keyboard Sound on - nie Feedback. What you See here [...]

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Sechzig Grad

Probably the next thing after diet-blogs: book-writing-blogs. Sechzig Grad is probably not the only example of book-written-in-blogfor-cum-blogging-about-writing-blog (or, more generally, of self-motivation-by-publication-blogs).

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More fun with ASCII-ads

Sweet. (Hint: check the URL) (No longer there? Check for video here.)
On the downside:

You can no longer copy the URL.
This is the most unconspicious ad-space I can currently think of. OK, there’s unaccounted for movement in the peripheral field of vision, but so there is on the bottom right (animated wold-map teaser). And the form [...]

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Bottle business - how user testing might have saved my shirt

If you’re familiar with German meeting rooms, you probably know the single serving Granini juice bottle that are often part of the catering: stubby little glass bottles with wide necks and nubbed bodies. There’s a typical gesture to drinking Granini from those small bottles. Grab the neck with your right hand. Place your thumb firmly [...]

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Useful Week, London

I am (well, was) in London for Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Week and there’s no Wireless in the conference room. There’s not even electricity. I failed to charge my MacBook during the first night, but even if I had, my batteries wouldn’t last through eight hours of structured note taking. Then again, with airport off, they [...]

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Everything is Miscellaneous

David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Disorder makes a great tandem read to Norbert Bolz’s bang design and Bruce Sterling’s Shaping Things. Weinberger, too, is dealing with things gone out of control. But when items break out of their traditional categories, Weinberger gets all excited and fired up.

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Usability and Sociability

Jenny Preece’s Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability (2000) is rather reminiscent of Amy Jo Kim’s Community Building on the Web: a large volume (about 400 pages), generous spacing, amiable line drawings. Preece is a useful complement to Kim: where the latter bases her observations on wide-ranging community experience, the former accesses current research, especially [...]

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