Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't Lose

I'm currently working my way through Friday Night Lights.

And it's amazing.



Just that.

Less Babyfoot is More

( this is a reprint of something I wrote for another blog on 12/27/07 )

More Foosball is less, and how it applies to User Experience

My cube neighbor Jenn, who is not in UE but who is still pretty cool anyway, tells me that the Canadians and French call foosball a word that translates out to "baby-foot" in English.

Presumably this is because foosball is a baby version of soccer, a miniaturization. For those of you living on desert islands and reading this blog through your Kindles, foosball is a table top version of soccer for two players where each player tries to score goals by spinning multiple handles and yelling loudly, just like the real game. Here in UE West we have a sort of group area decorated by furniture raided from Sears of Christmas Past, as well as several baby-foot tables. We had two, yesterday we got another one.

That makes three baby-foot tables, for the math challenged. And we don't call them baby-foot tables, of course. We call them foosball tables. And on an extremely busy Foosball Day we use one of them, a couple times. Having three tables in the same small space seems a bit excessive.

Meet a need

It’s possible someone thought “well, people like foosball; our one table is going over well, lets put more down there.” Or maybe it was a matter of Someone Important deciding that for true happiness, our unit needed three tables. Or perhaps the solution was meant for scale; at some point in the future, we might –need- three tables. Then again, maybe we just have a surplus of tables… and like my mom never wanting to throw anything out, we jam them into 2G’s common area on the assumption that we’ll need them someday. Like that old sweater, or a margarine bowl you automatically wash and save.

The thing is, we really don’t need three foosball tables. They languish, taking up space so that ironically it’s tough just to play on just the one table. If we only had the one table, and by some bizarre chance more than two people wanted to play at one time, then maybe they’d have to wait five minutes for their turn to turn the handles and yell. But this never happens, and I’ve been here nine months. I think one table would meet our need just fine.

More is less

I am pretty sure no one has ever put these next words together in a sentence before… we should certainly be careful not to put three foosball tables into our web experience.

What I mean is everything we do on our site should address a need, something we can concretely speak to. We have a pretty dense web environment, from the Home page to the Thank You at the end of checkout. It can be tempting to put something in because we might have a need down the road. Or because they’re doing it over Somewhere Cool. Or just because.

This helps lead to a cluttered environment, a confused visual or task hierarchy and people using none of our cool widgets, even though we have plenty of them. More is definitely not always better. We should take care to remember that more foosball is less.

Now where did I put that sweater…? And that margarine bowl. Hmmmmm.

just like that

I just made an interesting connection... I've been making many of them, lately. But this one has to do with more metaphysical subject matter.

At the moment, I happen to be sick. Not down-and-dirty sick, but definitely in a place wher not much else is physically important, other than taking it easy and letting the Keflex and pathogen in my system duke it out. When I do this, I read most of the time, or watch marathon TV.

I just got a new book today... in fact, the doorbell of the UPS dude/tte woke me up. So my choice seemed made.

Anyway. I had an early insight about a week ago, and you might laugh at me... after you hear it, you'll go "duh", but I reasoned it out, and it's relevant. If someone is sleeping, saying their name is not helpful in waking them up. Eventually, if you say it enough and say it loudly, the other person will probably wake up.

Odds are the sleeper will remember it as maybe they were aware of someone saying their name, and eventually they figured out that it wasn't incorporated dream stuff... it was the real world, waking them up. We incorporate a lot, but one thing we can't really incorporate is "dude you're sleeping, dreaming, but now it's time to wake up."

It occurred to me this would work perfectly, adn I might not have to repeat it or increase the volume. To some extent, the sleeper is aware of whats going on around them; the name-only thing provides no context, and gets woven in to the fabric of what's going on, unrecognized. Speaking the words, a simple phrase, about what's going on is ininitely more effective.

I tested this on Hemp this weekend. First Idid my little control test... the name getting louder and louder. No dice, Hemp slept. Then I tried my one calm, low phrase. Hemp, you're sleeping. I need you to wake up for a second.

Instantly his eyes shot open.

I need to do it more, with and without the name thing first, but anecdotally, my initial impressions are good.

Anyway, I'm reading about metaphysics and the afterlife at this moment. I see a lot of similarities between what the current athor I'm reading describes as the state of many individuals just after death, and sleepy people here. They're a bit hard to reach, but a firm set of instructions or heartfelt set of impressions they can wrap themselves up in and act on is usually enough to blow away the fog.

Lots more here, but I want to read on. The sleep state is very similar to the just-passed state ( well, on the other side, at least ) as well as how we perceive things here during our lives.

How many times have I heard that phrase... people going through life asleep? It seems easy enough, but I am starting to gain an actual knowledge of it, instead of an intellectual insight.

More later.

first in a series

I first noticed your eyes the day we met, the day we touched.

They met mine, and I swam. I took long strokes in that green.

It's a green I can see... a green I can appreciate, a green I love. When I am asked to think of a color for some silly reason or another, the shade of green that is your eyes is what comes to my mind, always. I wonder if that plays on my face. No one ever guesses right.

I first noticed your eyes the day we met. I have been noticing them every single day since then. In person, or in my mind's eye.

Your eyes are the first thing I noticed about you, the first distinct, discreet bit apart from the whole that I took note of. They were the first visual thing I experienced after I got that amazing tinge from our connection, they are the only thing I can see when we lay close to one another.

You have the most beautiful eyes of anyone I've ever loved, hands down.

File system

How many enterprises could benefit from a standard, tweakable file system pattern? I know the one I currently work for could.

At the moment, the company I contract to keeps all the files my unit uses organized via the directory/folder model, on shared drives. Not very changeable or scalable.

What if you could develop a more standard one that many different enterprises or industries could use? I might use a wiki, with descending layers of complexity so that a start up with one server could use a version of it, and a full-on enterprise of thousands could use it as well.

Information architects note. It could be developed open-source, refined over time, and given away. Other versions could be tweaked and sold, as could consultant services.

Just thinking out loud, here.

pattern library

It occurs to me that many different sized biz entities could benefit from having a pattern library; that is, a repository of patterns they consistently reuse. In my own profession, these might be design patterns... interface widgets, components, pages or patterns. Documenting these for easy ref and re-use... by the designers, creative, or implementing developers might be kinda handy.

I'd use a wiki; create standard page templates. Refine it open-source and distribute it for free. Sell services as an implementation consultant.

Housing Problems

problem... more houses left vacant by the mortgage crisis are being vandalized; copper aluminum and brass stripped out. What to do?

banks could offer short term ( week to week? ) leases for people to move in there. For $100 a month ( plus utilities. Or maybe just -FREE- plus utilities? ) a house could be a temp alternative to a costly apartment; the house would be occupied and deter crime or damage. Banks could recoup some of the money paid out to former residents as ransom, and keep loss costs lower.

Hmmmmm. Must think more about this.