How do you hold a self-critique?

So here I go practising these critique methods on 3 inspiring designs within the Communication Arts – Webpicks http://www.commarts.com/webpicks/

Photographer Fredrik Clement

http://www.fredrikclement.com/ Instead of hiding them behind a complex interface, the developer of this minimal site placed the images front-and-center in a gratifying full-screen display.

As a photographer’s portfolio, this website does a fantastic job in how it shows the photos unobstructed by interface elements and completely full-screen. A thumbnail film strip appears at the bottom edge of the screen, and contact information slides into view overlaying the top half when the pointer approaches. Left and right sides will preview adjacent images and they’ll slide into view when clicked. It is a simple and highly effective approach to the goal of such a project, and a most appropriate design for the intended audience.

Storyville Coffee Company

http://www.storyville.com/ This site introduces a new, available-only-on-the-Internet, coffee bean retailer. Storyville, equally passionate about perfectly roasted beans and independent artists, conveys its obsession with both in a collective, interactive experience. The continuity of the design aesthetic makes it a flawless brand experience from start to finish.

Visually gorgeous, the site is a highly polished sales project that appeals to coffee drinkers chained to their broadband internet – more customers than you might think. The transition animations, photography and videos, simple and clean layouts, colour scheme, and shop facility all blend together to cohesively complete the experience for caffeine consumers.

USHMM: Propaganda

http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/ In January 2009, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened a special exhibition titled State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, that examines how the Nazis used propaganda to sway millions with their vision for a new Germany. Reflecting the museum’s efforts to keep the Holocaust and its lessons a topic of public discourse, it encourages people to think about how to recognize and respond to propaganda, to understand the potential consequences of it and provokes discussion about responding to hate speech and propaganda today.
Instead of presenting the exhibition in précis, the Web site is a further exploration of themes. It invites interaction with select content enabling visitors to explore the subject, its legacy and its implications in today’s world.
The materials are presented in a range of formats (artifacts, books, documents, moving images, sound recordings, etcetera) and logically organised into themes, a timeline, an artifacts gallery and resources, making it interesting and easy to find important information. The online forums and polls make a perfect platform for interactive expression. As an educational resource, the lessons and exercises are well referenced. The principle of exploring, as defined in the site’s by-line, allows users to move through the material at their own pace. The cohesive red, white, and black colours together with muted colour drawings, paintings and posters, and black and white video footage, are all excellently combined, enhancing the mood and feel for the target users. The only drawback I can find is that some secondary navigation items are elusive and / or buried. The video gallery, for example, contains a lot more than just 1 video, but it is accessed via a link on the front page titled Watch video about the exhibition.

And now for 3 less glamorous online designs, and why I think they’re poor…
First of all, like anyone with more than half a brain, I googled for bad website design and I’m mighty glad that I did. Being the youngest of 4 boys, there are many things in life I learned with somewhat less embarrassment because of my brothers – thanks guys! This same ethos is echoed over at Web Pages That Suck,

Looking at bad web site design is valuable because it gives us the opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes without having to make them ourselves. Winston Churchill once said, All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.

Take Churchill’s quote literally, that is, learn from the mistakes of all men!

Fabric Land

http://www.fabricland.co.uk/ The only positive comment I can make is that the navigation in the left frame is basically alphabetical. (Is “basically” good enough? If I were single, would I want to date someone who is “basically” a woman?)
The most important HTML tag — TITLE — is the search-engine-hating “New Page 1.” They shouldn’t feel bad about this gaffe. There are only 5,310,000 other pages on the web that use “New Page 1″ [as their title].
Hideous colours that mean nothing to the visitor; insulting instructions and abusive tone with words in all capital letters; redundant information (SINCE 2000 [9 YEARS]); animated .gif images that serve no purpose but irritate; blurry and stretched out of proportions photos of staff are very low quality and also seem out of place as the first item of the main content; JPEG compression killed the company name (logo?) banner; the marketing copy – if you actually bother to read it – is absolute rubbish; text links like “click to look” are just the beginning of the countless usability issues; the list goes on and on…

Genicap

http://www.genicap.com/ This company is supposed to offer a pretty nice plugin for Adobe Illustrator; however, I have searched their site for 30 minutes and cannot find out how I can buy a copy. There is no search feature. The navigation SUCKS. It is chock full of technobabble. All in all, one of the worse sites I have seen for a big company.
Annoyance is one word I would use to describe it. Aggravation is another! The pages of the site seem to have a ridiculously long loading time. The copy reads like a mish-mash of a geometry textbook, quotes from Buckminster Fuller and Steve Jobs, and some drivel from an acid junky. The body copy is a JPEG image rendering it rather unusable! The hiding of page URLs via misusing frames, prevents visitors from bookmarking anything but the redundant splash page with Mystery Meat Navigation. I’ve also wasted a lot of time on this website and still have no idea what the point of it is. I think this one angered me most because on the surface it is deceivingly good looking with a sense of balance and unity. User frustration is the only result of this shocking website.

HavenWorks.com

http://www.havenworks.com/ When someone sees this site, their reaction is the same as my reaction when I first saw it — What the Heck?
Even on my giant screen, this website still has a horizontal scroll bar, let alone an incredibly tall vertical one. First reactions aside, the layout is a jumbled mess of columns and rows that even an effort to make a bad HTML table layout couldn’t achieve. Second, the colours are competing with each other, rather than complementing, and the human eye doesn’t know where to begin. Semantic confusion results from the choice of colours, and inconsistency in the size and typeface of fonts. Usability issues are profound, and I bet if you stare at it just long enough you will actually vomit or faint.

So, do the World Wide Web a favour before you beat down the path of creating more cyber-garbage. Thoroughly go through the Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015 and follow Churchill’s advice, learn from them.

Some of our students used to think Australia Day is April Fool’s Day! Finishing work on Friday afternoon, we tasted a sizzlin’ lunch, tested the Blue Mountain coffee in the newly discovered campus cafe, and toasted to our survival of another week, (ignore that the bus driver nearly killed us, starting to drive away as we alighted!)

Easter was next on the calendar, and our crew were doubtful the bunny would find us here in the big smoke. More likely a dragon would. In true Aussie style, a little holiday was planned, and we headed for the seaside town of QingDao. Our train had obviously been updated with a wonderful TV and no volume control. The “find a hotel” project got derailed as our stomachs began to rumble.

Last Thursday night I enjoyed dinner with 1 of China’s top 5 people, a meal of the top 3 dishes ordered from the restaurant’s top 10 list. Time for a little variety, there’s only so much great Chinese food one can handle. The posh hotel buffet lunch certainly filled our bellies. Just one more choc-coated marshmallow stick for the road…

An evening stroll along the pier to walk off the lunch kilos. There are hints of St Kilda pier and for the first time in ages, I think of home…

With 3 Chinese kids, I played some hacky sack out front of the St Michael’s church on Easter Sunday morning. Mornings in China start from 6AM for me! Somehow it’s easy for others to get up and practise their tai-chi, a sword version, fan dancing, and similar physical activities at the crack of dawn. I spotted an elderly man practising his thrusting – use it or lose it, that’s his motto!

Fruitless shopping is a popular past-time for many locals. I have to admit, I’ve joined in, but like most males, my shopping is exclusively results oriented. The latest success was an incense burner and a few sticks. At long last, my days of showering with drains stinking of sewer stench are over!

It was on the return train to Jinan when I encountered a re-occurrence of my worst nightmare. Along with the No spitting and the Don’t throw dirty things on the floor signs, it appears the No smoking sign is the only ignorable one. The volume of cigarette consumption in the small, enclosed public space, was more than enough to make me sick. It sent my head reeling, filled my lungs with crap and tore my throat and nasal passages to shreds.

Smokers’ Paradise
Cigarette smoking is widespread among men in China… Most Chinese people do not seem to be at all worried about the links between smoking and health problems. It is very hard to escape from other people’s cigarettes in restaurants.

I am more sensitive to filthy air than I wish. Particularly when I am eating, it is so uncomfortable, I am on the lookout for smoke free venues. More so, my option of children in the future is being hijacked. I used to be worried about radiation half-lives from living in Hiroshima for a year. Then I read this from The Age website.

Infertility increasing in China: report
April 9, 2007 – 6:19PM
Pollution, stress, smoking and multiple abortions are all leading to a rise in infertility in China, which may affect up to one-tenth of Chinese couples, Xinhua news agency says.

I spent Monday as sick as a dog, just laying about. Back at work on Tuesday with a horrible case of the flu and the students are filling up the toilets with cigarette butts and burning up all the oxygen in the already tainted air. Can you fault them when they are merely following the model of their school dean?

In my job, the office isn’t always the office. Sometimes its a cinema, a cafe, a sound studio, a winery, a news printer, a gallery, a museum, a bowling alley… I have to admit, teaching English rocks! Check this out for just a few reasons to like work:

• with my previous class, we went out for coffee and yacked about soccer and watched Bend it like Beckham
• in my class at Victoria University we are studying films, so we get to watch movies as part of the course! (Last Friday we saw Gorillas in the mist)
• sometimes we listen to music, like Cat Stevens (unfortunately not his best song)Cat Stevens – Father and son
• at Melbourne University our class excursion ended up with wine tasting at the Rochford winery
• students brought a rich chocolate cake to class for my birthday last Monday

  

To top it all off, next month I will be taking up an invitation to work in China! Nothing has been confirmed yet but the details so far sound pretty good to me: a free return flight, free travel insurance, free accommodation, 1 week of holidays between the two blocks of 6 weeks. So stay tuned and catch me hanging out in Shandong province. I wonder if I can wear Chacos on hot days… [wp_geo_map]

And whatever you do, don’t work too hard!

Hi everyone,
Please remember to bring a plate of yummy food (it can be anything, so long as it tastes good) and whatever you want to drink (we have plenty of water!) Also, the way the weather is looking, it might pay to bring your warm clothes. See you at our house! Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning! Time to open the presents. Kate of course received a game of Postie Kate! Gill received the penguins cup, and I have started wearing my new Union Jack boxers.

Afternoon feasting began shortly after everyone arrived. In a spookily similar fashion to last Christmas, this year we spent the day with international friends and one of Kate’s family members. Last year it was her brother Matthieu, this year it’s 100% Gill, the flamenco dancing, kangaroo-ears wearing, often shopping and always fun loving mum of Kate.

chucking Christmas chocolate on Vimeo

Lots of eating, drinking, talking, playing games and staying in out of the freezing cold wind, hail and rain, filled a wonderful day with cheer, merriness, great company and a good time.

I must admit I was quite chuffed at the screening of my Japan – a year in the life slide show. It was brilliant to see many friends again who have inspired me and often joined up for our adventurous journeys together. We didn’t have cinema seating, but Mark rounded up the projector for the big screen effect and Tim’s burly 5.1 sound system definitely cranked out the soundtrack.

Our little theatrette has been re-converted to our lounge room and the coffee table back in place, soon to be smothered with an inspiring and beautiful book.

Legends of the Dragon is a photography project profiling the fabulous corners of Asia.

A few of my pic’s are being published in the second book of Dragon’s Playground. If your coffee table is lacking in lustre just now, check out this salubrious next edition when it arrives… soon.

A blessing in disguise or just my usual inappropriate spending? After helping out my auntie last weekend, she helped me remember the good days. Great, now I can hear a Jerry Maguire quote running around in my head. While I was in Japan, she had taken care of (perhaps a little too much) my acquired espresso machine. After the work was done, she gave the little caffeine contraption back to me.

Back home the beast spluttered out a few final cups before giving up the ghost. Burning the grinds in our stove-top percolator is easier done than said. Same goes for spilling boiling black liquid all over the kitchen and anything, and anyone, in its way. Occupational Health and Safety would have shut down our operation long ago if they caught a whiff of the scorched bean mess.

Today I lashed out and ignored the onslaught of upcoming bills. With the recent piddly amount of paying work I have done, I spent the lot in one foul swoop on a replacement espresso machine. Out with the old (dead) and in with the new.

I crossed my fingers that the wiring in our old house would handle one more electrical appliance… Yay! Anyone for a cuppa?