Poohbers Blog

A designer who loves Miso Salmon.

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Back Then, The Movie Palace Experience

“In the days of the movie palace, the building itself was actually a key part of the experience. By entering the palace, you were literally transported away from your mundane world and into a grand escape. Everything was much bigger, better, and grander than anything else you would experience in the ordinary world.”

Back Then, The Movie Palace Experience

Even though today’s movie theaters are not as grand, I still get this feeling.

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Tumblr has a pretty cool interaction for sticking a video to the bottom of the page while you are scrolling through your feed.

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I love how Storehouse lets you go "back" by scrolling out of the story from the top or bottom.

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I've been meaning to post this since the event on September 9th, but oh well. Even though Apple had a lot of issues with the live video stream, I thought the design of their live stream page was really interesting.

The way the video shrinks down and stays fixed in a header bar while scrolling was really well done. It allowed me to keep watching while looking through other things on the page. I kept scrolling over and over to see that effect.

I wonder if they will use something like this again. I hope so.

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How to mirror your iPhone with a lightning USB cable in OS X Yosemite

Patrick Wong shared a great new feature is OS X Yosemite:

If you’re on OS X Yosemite, you can now easily create screen captures and mirror your iOS device to your computer using your Lightning USB cable and QuickTime. This is super useful for presenting live demos of your app or prototypes without having to worry about your wi-fi connection, which is often an issue with other mirroring apps.

I'm excited to use this one.

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Inside Pinterest

For now advertising is Pinterest’s only revenue line. But it requires only the tiniest leap to conjure a scenario in which the company acts as middleman for the hundreds of thousands of retailers already showcasing their wares on its platform. “The next step will be how do we make it really easy for you to go out and buy that ring or take that trip,” says Silbermann. This is Amazon’s turf, but Facebook and Twitter have been making incursions, with both companies conducting tests of “Buy” buttons for frictionless shopping. Pinterest, though, has natural advantages in e-commerce, with independent research showing its users are more likely to share product links and make big purchases than users of other social platforms.

Forbes

Man, Pinterest is good.

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Mobile & Multi-Device Design: Lessons Learned

Luke Wroblewski wrote an excellent book on the lessons he has learned designing for mobile. I highly recommend checking it out.

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Pantone beer packaging

Yum! Check them all out

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Blloon Identity

Really charming identity work from EdenSpiekermann for Blloon. Under Consideration has a nice write up on it.

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Independent, but not alone

At NSConference, Craig Hockenberry gives an excellent talk on the value of working with designers. I love devs who value designers :)

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Ev Williams interview

Kevin Rose has a good interview with Ev Williams. He talks about his early career, Blogger, Twitter, and Medium. I like Ev. Good way to spend an hour.

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iPhone 6 screens demystified

PaintCode clearly explains how graphics are rendered on the new iPhone 6 and 6+ displays. So so so helpful.

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The Long Game

There is a great 2 part video essay on our misconceptions about creativity and success.

The premise is, we label people as “geniuses” without truly understanding how they got there. Most “geniuses” had to go through some difficult years of learning and failures. With the current idolization of young people starting companies, and becoming rich and successful, I find this to be reassuring. It’s another way. It shows that you didn’t miss the boat because you are 30+ years old. Practice and persistence can result in good things.

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So Bill Gates has this idea for a history class...

"Most kids experience school as one damn course after another; there’s nothing to build connections between the courses that they take,” says Bob Bain, a professor of history and education at the University of Michigan and an adviser to the Big History Project, who has helped devise much of the curriculum. “The average kid has no way to make sense between what happens with their first-period World History class and their second-period algebra class, third-period gym class, fourth-period literature — it’s all disconnected. It’s like if I were to give you a jigsaw puzzle and throw 500 pieces on the table and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m not going to show you the box top as to how they fit together.’ ”

via NYTimes

Education needs more experiments like this.

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TV is increasingly for old people

The Washington Post has an interesting article on how the age of TV views is going up.

For younger audiences, control over when and where they watch has driven the trend away from traditional television. Live television viewing was down 13 percent for all ages except for viewers 55 years and older, who are steadily watching their shows at their scheduled broadcast time.

For me, this rings true. I haven’t had cable for almost a year, and it’s been great. Between my iPhone, iPad, iMac, and Apple TV I have access to a ton of content which I can watch when and wherever I like. Instead of paying for cable, I pay for Netflix, Hulu, and things on iTunes.

This next part is weird:

At the Code/Media Series: New York on Thursday, ESPN President John Skipper said the company is experimenting with partnerships with Dish and new online products to lure younger viewers.

And he’s part of one camp that believes young professionals and students will eventually become cable subscribers.

“We suspect they will trade up,” Skipper said.

Really? You think people born and raised on the Internet will eventually grow into cable subscribers? All the data in this article contradicts that statement. Unless cable changes it’s current business model, I don’t see how it will survive.

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The PRD is dead, long live the prototype!

Zurb has a good post about how they are finding prototypes more efficient than Product Requirement Documents:

Documents become less relevant as the team moves forward with the product. A successful team will prototype early and replace their abstract documents with clear and tangible customer feedback.

PRDs are a new experience for me, but I find them to be a waste of time. They constrain you into thinking of every scenario and feature before you even begin. That's impossible. Worst of all, the PRD quickly becomes an out-dated document once you run into your first problem. Referencing an out-dated document is bad for everyone.

Prototyping is a much more efficient way to work. It gives you a much more realistic view of what the product could be. You get a good feel of flows and visual style, all while constantly iterating.

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What Is a Card?

This is a departure from the convention of clicking on a link and being taken to its destination, familiar to us from years of using web pages. In a third party card, the content is embedded in the card itself so that it can be experienced wherever a user might encounter that card.

via Khoi Vinh

I find cards to the most interesting part of design right now.