The code of life

So much of life involves decoding. This occurred to me as I was working on a Web project and having to look at the code, make little tweaks to it and then look at the result in a browser. And often, a small tweak would have a huge impact. Others times I'd make several changes and see no results. But gradually as I worked with the code it became clearer what effect certain changes would have. So...Isn't that really what we're doing all day -- deciphering experiences and verbal and non-verbal communications and making little adjustments based on the part we understand with the goal of improving our understanding of the "code" so what we see in the "browser" is more like what we imagined? We're usually doing it intuitively so we don't notice. This is not meant to trivialize life or take the art or love out of it...just an interesting way to look at it that, for me, is a good way to step back when things aren't quite going the way you'd like. Some people say "it's only a movie." I say "it's just code." The good thing is you can edit code...all you can do with a movie is watch.

What design really is

The key quality or function of design is to connect people with ideas and experiences that can transform their lives. To regard it simply as how things look is a limited view. It's impossible to design without understanding who the people are for whom you are designing and what outcome is desired. Without a handle on that, you're really just decorating. That's not to say there's anything wrong with decorating, but don't mistake it for design. Design needs to be thought of in greater terms than the visual. In many cases, especially on the Web, the visual is simply the medium through which the design is experienced. In other words, design is a whole system of which the visual is only a part.

Why I don't blog anymore

People ask me if I'm still blogging ( "yo, you still blogging?"). See the comment on the previous post if you don't believe me. OK, I admit, it's been a while. I AM still blogging if only in my mind as I'm in meetings, or driving to work or drifting off to sleep...you see, I'm very busy these days with my regular work and a couple "special projects" at work. That's when they say "can you carve out a little time?" and you of course can't pass up a cool project...like figuring out some CSS stuff (Cascading Style Sheets). Then they say, "can you carve out a little MORE time?" and it turns out to be MORE time than the first request, but again, so cool you can't pass it up...like a redesign of something. So, after the work is done, it often comes down to a choice of blogging or running; blogging or hiking; blogging or those silly things called household chores; blooging 0r time with family or friends. Most of the time I choose the latter options. Tonight (lucky for you, reader) I chose both (I just finished running around the Charles River because it finally stopped raining for the moment). What I really need is a way to dictate my blog-thoughts to a person or a machine who will then faithfully make them appear here. Too often, blogging seems like a self-indulgent, running-off-at-the-keyboard sort of thing. It's the 2006 equivalent of what I used to do in the 1990s -- I'd sit in cafes or coffeehouses and write endlessly about whatever was on my mind on these really nice notebooks called Rhino-something (spiral-bound, off white paper with a good feel to it and little flecks of something) with Uniball pens--usually black. Ah yes...it was so therapeutic...at least I thought so at the time...but then later I started thinking it was more self-hypnotic because I actually started to pay more attention to what I was writing than actually living. So I stopped along about 2002...no more writing...just living. The difference between blogging and writing in those journals is that a blog is visible to the entire world. Old journals are visible to nobody...not even to me. They're in boxes under other boxes. I think they're actually under a box of old license plates (that's another entry someday). And when I read them I think, wow, what was I thinking, and I can sort of pat myself on the back for being so much wiser and enlightened now. (A friend of mine had the opposite experience...she said upon reading a journal from twenty years before that she could have written the same thing the DAY before...talk about scary!) My greatest fear about blogging is that somebody will read this and say: hmm...another self-absorbed nincompoop (I swear I've never used that word before and probably never will again, but it seemed just the thing here). Or some prospective employer or client with an amazing project, will, after being thrilled with every other aspect of my credentials, take a look at my blog and say, "Wow, that was a close call...get those resumes out of the trash!" (Or more like, "Forward me those emails again" I mean really, who sends resumes anymore?!) OK, so I DO still blog, if sporadically. I think I've proven that.