"If we enter a large, high-ceilinged hall, the secret state of our lives changes; as it changes as we enter a very small, low-ceilinged room, and as it changes if we enter a cloister with a fountain, palm trees and rose bushes. But it also changes if we find ourselves faced with an obscure piece of furniture made up of numerous drawers whose content we do not know; and it changes, too, if there is a painting of the Madonna on the wardrobe doors, or if the wardrobe is made of plain white plastic laminate.
The presence of design changes the more or less secret, more or less bearable subject of existence."

Foreword of "Prova d'autore", Martine Bedin
Translated from italian by Jonathan Hurt
Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Bordeaux, 2003

Définir le métier de webdesigner à des personnes étrangères à cette industrie est une entreprise hasardeuse pour celui qui s'y lance. Graphisme, typographie, communication, sémiologie, syntaxes informatiques et autres activités s'y invitent, rendant les contours de cette association de compétences bien difficiles à cerner. La maudite question m'a été posée récemment et la discussion qui s'en est suivie n'a pas réussi à dissiper les brumes baignant le webdesign dans la tête des deux-trois curieux. Jusqu'à l'évocation d'un site en particulier : voyages-sncf.com. Voilà un site que la plupart des Français en âge de commander un billet de train ont pu utiliser, et qui visiblement ne laisse personne indifférent. Certes, râler est chez nous un sport national, mais les souvenirs laissés par ce site ne sont pas pour ainsi dire plaisants. Ce fût cependant un terrain connu très approprié à l'explication de mes occupations professionnelles.

As anyone who's interested in Apple products and interface design, I came across a lot of views, wishes and predictions about the new forthcoming Apple product known for now as the tablet.
But I didn't see any mention of handwriting recognition as a feature, even to argue why it wouldn't be an option. It's just as if the "who wants a stylus ?" from the iPhone intro had wiped the idea all along. For a device that has been designed to be operated with a single hand, it makes perfect sense. For a bigger one you'd need both hands: one to hold it, one to interact with the touch screen. The idea of a stylus as an input device (along with the multitouch input) does seem less out of context, as far as ergonomics go.

The first thought I had about this iPhone app's screenshot was, as many : "hammer, please".
But it's not pure villainy, just excessive sensitivity, and there are some logical facts backing this gut feeling, one of them being : this design mixes 2D and 3D features without any meaningful intentions regarding this dichotomy. It even seems to have no understanding of this dichotomy at all, which is even worse. But the beautiful thing about a mess is that you can only do better. Here are some comments which will hopefully help in this sense.

Pretty much every OSX and Apple apps UIs share this common analogy : they don't display a rendering of a flat, 2D, printed surface, but it shows an arrangement of items that can be described with height, material and texture proprieties. All these simulated 3D objects react to a single (or a single set of) light source, consistently from one screen to another. Every Apple designed iPhone app lives under a softbox giving this fat glossy reflection on top of the iTunes/AppStore/Sms/... buttons, and a more diffuse gradient on top of the Notes button, for example. You can visit every apps on your mac and imagine how it would look like if you turned these lights off. Not that it would turn you on, but it goes a long way to express how consistent the MacOSX UI is.

ℱ version française.

Going for a coffee this afternoon, I saw a fancy cyclist standing still on his two wheels only, waiting for his turn at the red light. He stood like this, without moving an inch for a good 30 seconds : well done, champ.

This had me thinking that in fact, being able to gain equilibrium on two turning wheels is quite striking, as mundane as it can be for us today. On our dear western society technological achievements timeline, the appearance of the bicycle* is oddly late, compared to tremendously more complex concepts that came to us before that.

See, the men who knew there was hydrogen in the sun (Angström, 1861), knew the speed of light (Foucault, 1850), communicated through a telegraph (Morse, 1844), understood the gravity phenomenon (Newton, 1687) and who were 5 years close to discover the automobile didn't know what it was to pedal and move forward at the same time.

Imagine the confusion and awe in Voltaire's or Benjamin Franklin's mind if they had been overtook by a bike while on their morning walk.

* the one with a chain drive, introduced around 1880, not the crotch-cruncher known as the Draisine that appeared in 1818.

Movie still : Jour de fête by Jacques Tati.

The intent behind this site's content arrangement was to put the articles in the fore front while dimming the navigation links. The fact [1] is that most readers come here to read one and only article, rather than browse through number of pages. Optimizing the readability of the articles then seemed to be more important than providing a quick and easy way to navigate the site's content. It might be an error, but it's a compromise I thought was worth to implement and observe.

Sure, you can't fully experience a great feature film watching it on a mobile device, you'd miss a lot of the emotions a movie can convey. But having the ability to read videos on the go can be great for other purposes than entertainment and art consumption, like getting informed or learning some skills.

Every piece of his work I know of is a lesson ; what a sad thing to learn that the source has gone dry on monday.