How to successfully educate your clients on web development

So many articles pits the designer against the client. My feeling about clients is that they are right, always, but you have to steer them in the direction of better design. Usually they will admit that they're not artists. But when it comes to representing their businesses they will have fierce determination that their viewpoints and aesthetics must be represented. It's one thing to do work for their home or office but their business is another thing entirely.  I believe they will listen to design criticism if it backed up with research, usually, moreso if you show them other sites that work well and they can see the difference.

DMMT Chapters 4-7

Most of the time when I read the pages from this book I feel like i am reading my own thoughts that someone else has taken the time time to write down. It's weird. The part about "Think of how frustrating it is when one of these conventions is broken (whenmagazines don’t put page numbers on advertising pages, for instance)" made me think about the Isthmus magazine and how hard that is to get around by pages. Most of the time the numbers are just too small to read and I don't feel like going to find some glasses because I'm sitting on the potty reading the article. That is really irritating that they can't use a larger font.

In Chapter 6 they talked about going to Sears and looking for a piece of equipment. When I go to stores most of the time I don't mind not being able to find what I'm looking for right away. Since I rarely have money to buy something I need going to a store is like an outing. Wandering around the stores gives me an opportunity to look at stuff and touch stuff that I usually don't give myself because I don't want temp myself with stuff I can't afford and so therefore don't need. If I have a little money to buy something I have fun imagining buying other stuff or imagining what kind of person it is that does buy that stuff.

However, if I'm helping my disabled sister buy stuff, and this happens fairly often, I do get irritated if we can't find what we're looking for quickly. When I'm shopping with her all of the focus is on her needs and getting them fulfilled. She has only so much energy to use for shopping and it needs to be put to good use. If she gets what she wants then there might be some time left over for me to wander, but usually not. She uses crutches with arm braces rather than a chair and so can't cover great distances or afford to have to go back and redo the trip. In this case, we always engage a store clerk. (It's weird, though, the clerks tend to give her more help when she's using the crutches as opposed to a wheelchair. almost as if with the chair she's not really actively there in their minds. I wonder if they see her as lazy because she's in the chair and I'm pushing it. They usually talk to me because I'm at eye level and I think it makes them uncomfortable to have to look down to talk to Julie. I'll bet this is why she hates using the chair and insists on the crutches. She gets more help and more respect. People see the pain in her expression and run to move stuff and find chairs for her to sit down. She generally gets much better service with the crutches.)

64-65 NY World's Fair FUTURAMA Ride Video

Too scary. Too bad the person(s) who wrote this couldn't have seen movies about to come out in a few years hence like "Bladerunner." Futuristic movies such as Bladerunner show the true sides of human nature not the frosting sweet altruistic ideology "technology is everything and oh so wonderful." Technology without limitations and regulations and conscience can go dangerously and severley array.

1960's Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple's Future

• Good design makes a product useful.

• Good design is aesthetic.

• Good design helps us to understand a product.

• Good design is unobtrusive.

• Good design is honest.

• Good design is durable.

• Good design is consequent to the last detail.

• Good design is concerned with the environment.

• Good design is as little design as possible.

The New Apple: It Doesn't Just Work

sigh!) Another article about lambs to the slaughter. Why do they think that everyone is on their wave length? Some people wait to buy things simply because they can't afford it. Others wait until they see an obvious need for it. Those that buy simply to have are sheep. Pure and simple and they get what they deserve.

Being Excited When Things Don't Suck

Pretty low bar if acceptance is that Twitter didn't collapse in on itself. Not a Twitter user. Can't see the excitement. But I have rejected them. I understand, basically, their function and I don't see a need in my life for it. You get what you get when you rush creationism or insist on product before they've been perfected or in some cases even tested. True art takes time. 

Four Links Site Architecture

The four links on site architecture: Good Website Architecture The Optimised Design Process... a good article, makes sense. Look forward to putting this to use in design process.

Zales Website Architecture, Inxight Tree--Look forward to an explanation of this.
Globe: Huh?

The Dark Social

The Dark Social. Oh, what an amazing thing, numbers and statistics that can't be quantified! Oh horrors for the marketing and advertising firms! But how glorious for the average internet user: visitors to sites that they can't get a handle on how to reuse! How wonderful that there are that many trackers of use gone puzzled! 

Probably the answer is in people (over the age of, let's say, 35) use the internet like a library and actually search for information that they need rather than being sucked into pop-ups!

WebDesign Movie

H T M L is the cockroach that is going to survive a nuclear winter.

Design isn't really about the bells and whistles. It's about serving people's needs. If the bells and whistles serve people's needs, then great, and if they don't they don't belong there.