Written by David Charney
Posted: May 26, 2008 (3 months ago) | 0 comments
Hey all. I am happy to announce cd2, the new Chicago Designers & Developers User Group.
cd2 is dedicated to bridging the gap between design & development to improve the user experience and user-centered design. Function meets design in this group as we focus on creativity as it relates to design and development processes and the collaboration between the two.
If you are interested, we ask that you visit our site at www.cd2ug.org and let us know what you would like to see in the group. We will be posting more information soon detailing the group and our first meeting.
Written by David Charney
Posted: April 13, 2008 (4 months, 2 weeks ago) | 3 comments
Could I please get a show of hands - who has ever sent an email and forgot to attach the coveted file that was the overall point of the email itself? Both of my hands are up. How am I typing with both hands up? Wild.
Anyway, as a business owner and developer, I know that looking competent to a prospect or client is very important and while forgetting to attach their proposal, a wireframe, a deliverable, or a picture of the cutest dog that you found on digg or reddit may seem like a small thing, it could put a little doubt in your abilities. So I have a suggestion. I tend to use Thunderbird and Google Mail so I am going to direct this idea towards those great developers of these apps because if Yahoo Mail or someone else does this it (selfishly) doesn’t do much for me. Your applications seem to do a million things when I hit that send button. They check to see if I have a subject written, they check my spelling, they in some cases check my type of attachment and then say Whoa! You can’t send an exe through our system fool!
I would like to see one more check when my email gets sent. I want you to look for the words “attached” and “attachment” (and whatever other brilliant words that do the job) and if the word be there and there be no attachment, pop-up one of those hilarious reminders that says “We noticed you used the words attachment but do not have any files attached. Would you like to attach a file?” Options: Hell yes. Hell no.
And of course, throw a check box in the setup so it can be an option. I would hate to piss off some guy named Wally Attachmenthousen. And thus concludes my user experience based rant of the day. You guys rock. Thanks for listening.
Written by David Charney
Posted: July 3, 2007 (1 year, 1 month ago) | 0 comments
This is my first public service announcement!
Okay, if you ask my [many] friends to name something I don’t like, sooner or later they will mention how often I complain about those horrible dealer license plate frames you see on 70.3% (statistics created randomly by myself) of cars. Often times these plates will say “McMally’s Auto Showroom! (555) 123-4567″ or “Tenderton Tenderton Tenderton – Auto Emporium! Near the Zoo!”. I really, really don’t like these things. Why? Because they lower the visual quality of everything around them. Have you ever seen one of those in a well done car commercial or in a conceptual design for a new car? No because they suck, they are stupid, and I hate them. I know ‘hate’ is a strong word and that is why I am using it.
It is time for all of us to put aside our differences and join together. These license plate ads are a growing problem. We need to find screwdrivers, go out outside, remove them, and throw them away (or stab them in the heart with a wooden stake, or burn them).
Living in the Chicago area I constantly see cars all shapes, sizes, and price tags with these ugly license plate dealer advertisements. The most annoying to me is when I see an $80,000 BMW drive by with a $1 plastic license plate frame that reads “Falloway’s BMW Hotspot!”. Ugghhh. You have just lowered the cost of your car and cars around you. You might as well attach a lawn gnome to your hood. If anything, the car dealerships should pay you to advertise for them. You are a moving billboard. My friend and I recently saw a car that actually broke part of their license plate frame off so they could get a new yearly sticker on the plate. Removing the frame must have been way too time consuming for them. You are all good people… Don’t let the Man win this battle.
Now there are a lot of you who buy personalized license plate frames for your cars and, while many are still pretty ugly, I have no problem with you making your own decision in displaying something you want. This is against the stupid monster dealer ads. So please, PLEASE, spread the word to remove them before I burst into flames and burn down everything in my path. Make this world a better place for us, our children, and our children’s children… Say NO to dealer license plate frames!
Written by David Charney
Posted: January 16, 2007 (1 year, 7 months ago) | 0 comments
This is going to be a short one. I often hear people in my industry (and many industries) chatting about clients and how the client is being difficult, confusing, and stupid. I hear people saying “The client just has no idea how it works!”… Makes sense they don’t, doesn’t it? We are the pros, not them. We should be working with them up front to help them understand what deadlines mean to us and the processes that can help streamline the development of the project. Why doesn’t the client understand that if they want a small change it could cause a lot of rework? Probably because they were not told this. We never say to ourselves “Oh you should have seen how stupid I was trying to understand my Client’s industry!”… Lead them in the right direction and don’t take them for granted. I just hear this to much and had to rant.
