Comment Feed for brian.shapiro

Re: Ping 23: Yahoo Partnership, Wave launches, Win7 for testers & Amazon milk ratings

brian.shapiro — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:30:16 GMT

Foy is such a funny last name.

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Windows Scenic Animation Overview

brian.shapiro — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:51:59 GMT

hak,

So what, its also similar to animation in WPF, and Microsoft got that started before Core Animation. The difference is that when Microsoft started they decided to do it through a managed library.

Maybe Microsoft should have done things this way to begin with, but anyone implying Microsoft is copying Apple is being a little dishonest about it, I think.

The original vision for Longhorn was a pie in the sky idea that every app would be using the managed API

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: WPF Effects Library

brian.shapiro — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:11:15 GMT

These are cool, but I wish someone released a library with pixelshader effects more designed for UI elements. Most of these effects wouldn't be routinely used in UI design. For starters, I'd like a good replacement for the Outerglow bitmap effect, and I'd also like a few other types of glow effects, like those mimicking the ones you see on the taskbar. Im sure there are others I could think of also. I don't know how to do HLSL yet myself.

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Singularity IV: Return of the UI

brian.shapiro — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:33:59 GMT

KevinB wrote:

Just watching it here now, very cool.

I notice in the dir listing that it is much more than a flat filesystem, you have listings for chan (channels?) and mem (memory?? very cool), very unix/powershell.

the items marked with 'mem' seem to be normal data files, as opposed to things like directories. one of the items marked 'chan' was 'conout'..

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Alan Cooper - Questions after his keynote

brian.shapiro — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 18:08:29 GMT

I haven't read everything Alan Cooper said, or seen the quote in context, but I'll say this:

Its true that some users will give you input that is misguided or not helpful and they think something will be good that would actually turn out bad,

Many users have the understanding of design and programming that that the actual designers do, whether they actually can program or just instinctively understand the issues involved.

Its the same thing with kindergarteners and their teachers, its very possible for there to be a child who can pose a challenge to a teacher, whether because he is particularly smart and can point something out, or because he just doesn't fit the teachers expectation forces the teacher to address issues that the child wants to be addressed.

Move beyond the kindergartener and teacher analogy and look to college student/college professor where this is more pronounced. Often students at this level are intelligent and understanding enough that, even without years of experience, and knowledge of particular facts and details, they could understand certain things, including the larger picture, better than their teachers.

Its also possible for someone who is not an accredited expert in a field to have better intuition than someone who is an accredited expert. Psychologists, lawyers, politicians, theorists, (software designers) etc., all have access to the same information everyone else does. Outside the experts is usually where geniuses any given field come from, though you don't need to be a genius to have some worthwhile understanding. Geniuses in a field usually are able to articulate all of the dissatisfaction and doubt that people outside the field had but were unable to put in the right terms. Experts in the field may have no real insight and just be working as hacks, doing what they think users want based on what they've learned; and may sometimes have even less clue on what to do than the users.

You don't assume people who haven't been given some degree, or spent as many years doing design as you, or knows all of the minute details of the Windows API and programming in C++ are clueless.

If you go back to talking about the software industry, even if some users have as much understanding as the designers, not all do---but all users might have some particular thing they understand better, or at the least some issue they have that the designer has to pay attention to--because their issues with their software don't always come out of stupidity but real problems. Even if those users can't encapsulate what the real problem is with their software or they can't encapsulate what the solution should be, at the bottom of their complaint or suggestion is usually something real that needs to be looked at.

In the end, not only should designers understand the users, but understand what the user says they want, and why they say they want it, to understand how to create the software. And often times what they say they want is actually what they want. Designers should never dismiss what users say they want, if they find the user wrong, they should be able to convince the user in some way why they're wrong. If they can't do that, they can't deliver a good product.

Maybe Alan Cooper is simplifying things when he makes that statement out of context. But thats exactly something I'm sick of, making simplistically bold statements.

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Otto Berkes - Origami's Architect gives first look at Ultramobile PCs

brian.shapiro — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:56:06 GMT

Karim wrote:

Battery life is just one factor.

Take laptops, for example. For a long time, vendors did not make laptops that used "desktop" CPUs (i.e. non-mobile parts) because they thought the same as you: who's going to want a laptop that has no "SpeedStep" or mobile power management? It's going to be hot, heavy, and because the CPU is always going at 100%, it's going to have next to no battery life.

Well, as it turns out there was a demand for those laptops once they were made. Why? Because they were cheap. Once the price dropped past a certain point, people apparently decided they would just deal with the low battery life, high heat & heavy weight.

Karim not everyone who buys a notebook wants to carry it to the park and use it on park benches or use it on his bed with the power supply unplugged. I have a desktop replacement notebook, I want a notebook so its semi-portable, so I can take it with me when I travel, so I can bring it to libraries with a scanner, etc. In all cases I take it with me and plug it in somewhere else. I assume people who buy low-end notebooks with low battery life care about the same thing, and don't need it running on batteries most of the time.

The only market for a mini-tablet is one where you can carry it around without having to plug it in.

Otherwise its not worth getting. People won't want to replace their notebooks, they'll want to get something to complement it that has mobile capabilities.

I'll repeat why I haven't bought a tablet, evne though I'd like the functionality: I'm paying more for a less powerful notebook, that would substitute for another notebook. Plus I would only use the tablet functions 5% of the time. With a device like Origami it would be nice to be $500 but if its $1000 its not so critical if it has high battery life. If you can have a device like this with high battery life and is portable, its still a good price range, as something to buy in addition to your notebook/desktop. Otherwise its not worth getting. Thats why battery life is critical.

I also seriously believe that what Microsoft should be looking at this as is finding a marketable form for a tablet pc. I don't think current full sized tablet pcs will really take off in any major way, I think they need a design like this.

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Otto Berkes - Origami's Architect gives first look at Ultramobile PCs

brian.shapiro — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:37:25 GMT

Karim wrote:

So finally the wraps come off...

Biggest disappointment is the resolution. It's basically a Tablet PC with 800 x 480 resolution. The hardware scaling will help, but... at the end of the day it's still stuffing 10 pounds of stuff in a 5-pound bag... Having 1024 x 768 on the VGA output will help: you can plug it into a monitor, use a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse and get some work done.

Why do you want everything looking extremely tiny on a mobile device? Especially when its touch/pen based? Higher resulution makes sense if you're talking about scalable GUIs like those promised with Vista/XAML. But I don't want a tiny crowded interface on a mini-tablet, which is what you would get on XP with high resolutions

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Seventeen Minutes With Bill

brian.shapiro — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 23:41:08 GMT

leighsword,

i wear eyeglasses. im not really interested in laser eye surgery, because my vision has stopped deteriorating, i don't mind wearing glasses (for many reasons i like it), and there are risks even if they are minimal with surgery

btw, bill gates should really improve his posture i mean its one thing not to have perfect posture but his is really bad

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Seventeen Minutes With Bill

brian.shapiro — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 03:01:26 GMT

I wish Microsoft execs would give each of its teams projects on related to other pgorams :

ie:

Ask the Office team how they would change Windows as an OS if they could design it

or,

Ask the Windows team how they would change Office as a suite if they could design it

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: IE 7: What's new in Beta 2 Preview

brian.shapiro — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:37:48 GMT

moofish,

the entire favorites system should be tag based, imo (not necssarily killing folders in doing that). maybe they're planning that with the vista version.

and preferably some way to incorporate some type of live favorites into the UI. i have internet bookmarks on del.icio.us , and in firefox, i can turn that into a link based menu. it still doesn't work that well though, and no firefox extensions really make it work well. but if microsoft can get something like this to work with IE7 then they will have at least one great advantage over firefox.

it would also be nice if the save dialog box for images and files in general had right there input boxes for the files metadata and tags. hopefully they will work this into Vista common dialog box, and the Vista version of IE.

im a little disappointed that theyre separating internet explorer from windows explorer interface wise (no more folder sidebar for instance) because ithought it was a good bedrock. im also disappointed some of the changes mean killing the idea of a search sidebar, which was not implented in the best way but could be improved to be.

and i'll restate, i find aesthetic problems with parts of the interface and the icons, which is a problem i have with vista too.

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: IE 7: What's new in Beta 2 Preview

brian.shapiro — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:30:01 GMT

ShadowChaser wrote:

Minh wrote:

BruceMorgan wrote:

Minh wrote: What information does Phishing Filter send to Microsoft?

When you use Phishing Filter to check websites automatically or manually, the address of the website you are visiting will be sent to Microsoft, together with some standard information from your computer such as IP address, browser type, and Phishing Filter version number.

---

Now, why does MS want my IP to see if a site is a phishing site or not?

Think about it for a second.

All HTTP based traffic includes the IP address. You can't browse to any website without disclosing your IP.

The requesting IP address is not used in the evaluation of the site.

Can we be confirmed that MS is NOT recording my IP?

Edit: More from the help file--
Microsoft will not use the information it receives to personally identify you. For more information about what information is sent and how it is used, see the Internet Explorer privacy statement.

OK. Good. Just that there's a lot of things to be paranoid about lately.

I agree - I don't believe Microsoft would use this tool for harm, on purpose. Just imagine the bad press!

My concern is US Law. Microsoft has *NO CHOICE* if the US Government decides to monitor the URLs of every IE user in the entire world. Microsoft is bound by US Law.

shadowchaser,

bad press affects elected officials also. too bad our government is corrupt, so we have lack of trust in our elected officials (because of corruption, part of the blame can go back to corporations also).

i'm not worrying at all personally, i don't believe any widespread harm will happen because of this, there are still enough elements in society that are vigilant against abuse. (still we need to work to make the political process more transparent and open to avoid worries like this.)

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: IE 7: What's new in Beta 2 Preview

brian.shapiro — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:34:19 GMT

buggy things that have bothered me so far:

you can have two history sidebars open. click on the arrow to the right of the forward button, click on history. then click on the favorites center and the history button, then dock it to the side. silly, huh?

put in a URL for a local address, and it will always open it in a new browser window, and if you have firefox as your default browser, it will open it in firefox. why work this way?

there seems to be a problem with this reply to webpage, when i type the page scrolls up, which is annoying.

.....

i still think the icons (and vista icons generally) are a little garish as are the two back/forward buttons side by side. its good that the interface is simplified but it also looks cluttered as if theyre trying to put too much in a small space

....

i haven't tested yet, but i'm hoping IE7 has support for 'inline-block'. if it does (which firefox doesn't except through a proprietary hack *ahem*), screw firefox.

....

oh yea, and when live bookmarks is developed, i hope there is a nice way to integrate it into the browser interface. if you could view RSS feeds like you view favorites, and then just have an RSS feed for live bookmarks, that would take care of that.

(i always wished search sidebar had been improved btw, instead of everyone moving to search toolbar boxes)

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Cleartype Team - Typography in Windows Vista

brian.shapiro — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 23:51:09 GMT

As interesting as the discussion of how different mediums influence the aesthetics of typefaces; I'm interested in the idea of a font that looks good both in print and on screen. From what I've tried the best example of this is Frutiger Linotype. I'm wondering what the typography thinks along this line, and how to design typefaces to meet this type of standard.

I'm also wondering what people think of the font by Emgire, Filosofia. Its not my favorite font for print or on screen text, but its my favorite serif font for design purposes.

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Shishir Mehrotra - WinFS beta 1 team meeting

brian.shapiro — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 05:27:16 GMT

rjdohnert wrote:

Great job Scoble, I like the videos the way they are. It takes enough time to download them as it is. I have one question tho, if you guys keep offering Windows Vista features for Windows XP, whats the incentive to upgrade to Windows Vista? Dont get me wrong, Im happy about you guys backporting.

for one example; as i understand, even though avalon will be backported to xp, the desktop compositor, wgf, will still be only be working in longhorn, so avalon will work much better in longhorn. (someone tell me if i'm wrong).

also its obvious just all of the longhorn features through subsystems like avalon, indigo, and winfs, will be more directly available and usable by longhorn's new interface and new general api, which will be designed around them. so you get simple things like a breadcrumb bar in explorer.

the backporting is mainly for compatibility purposes and for developer purposes i think.

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Cleartype Team - Talking about new Fonts on Longhorn (Happy Birthday Video #4)

brian.shapiro — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 02:20:09 GMT

I think part of the reason that serif types are used for literary books is an aesthetic reason, because it looks more formal and crafted; while technical books often have sans serif types which are crisp and clear looking. The idea of using an OS themed with a serif type is strange to most people, and the idea of reading literature in sans serif is also strange. I'm sure there are also connected technical reasons for which font is easier in each situation--that is, if you are looking at a group of words only I think sans serif is more instantly readable; and its true what the typographers said that serif is easy to read in lines. I think though that these technical aspects are also connected to the aesthetic aspects, the type styles just seem to have different appropriateness to them, connected to the technical aspects.

By the way,---I've found Frutiger Linotype to be a font that already exists which looks good both on screen and in print.

One of my favorite type foundries is Emigre (www.emigre.com) -- look at the font Filosofia, its one of the most beautiful serif typefaces around. The Base 9/Base 12 are good technical fonts, and Base Monospace for code. Then of course FontFont (www.fontfont.com) has created some important fonts like Scala/Scala Sans.

I'm also recently interested in different styles of handwriting, if you look at each century in history there is change in handwriting styles; and its interesting the cultural and aesthetic reasons handwriting styles change

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Kam Vedbrat - What influenced the visual design of Longhorn?

brian.shapiro — Sun, 16 May 2004 21:04:00 GMT

No no no. I don't think its a good approach to design. I do design and art from time to time; and if you ask most designers/artists they will tell you that systematically engineering your design often fails compared to just relying on good taste and intuition. This doesn't mean you don't have design considerations. But I would suggest the person actually doing the design work only uses it loosely. The interview makes it sound as if there is some sort of strict calculus imposed on the designer.

I will be waiting for Aero, and hope it turns out well. So far, I'm not completely happy with what I see through the placeholder visual styles placed in the alpha builds. Although I thought Luna was a little bit toyish it has a lot of good elements to it. One way Longhorn seems to be moving away from Luna though is by making the icons more professional looking. But I think its gone too far, I don't like the Mac OSX icons either, because they are too realistic and not 'iconic' enough as icons should be. Also, I really dislike gimmicks like faux jewel surfaces in Jade or even the faux metal in OSX.

I think the Aero team should also watch the 3d ability of Longhorn and make sure not to make the interface based on it too gimmicky. People might be attracted to it at first, but I bet will grow tired of it as they use it for years. This means only using the 3d, shadows etc. in a way that is intuitive and not overkilling it.

Also try not to make things too 'fun' looking or force some 'fun' appeal on the user. That was one of the major problems with Windows ME. And one of the reasons people stll back away from OSX. Still, don't make it bland or styleless either

Also, I would argue that the default visual style in Longhorn be neutral in that it appeals to the most users; rather than just telling people that they can create their own style if they don't like it. This is because most applications will be designed for it, and most people will not bother changing it. This could also be solved by including a few visual styles with longhorn that appeal to a range of tastes. I personally would like something very minimal. And if the classic style is maintained it should be made to look well with the new features and not shoddy like it is in XP.

I hope in the end, Aero doesn't have any of the problems it appears it might have.

brian.shapiro

posted by brian.shapiro

Re: Chris Sells - Is it really true that you're working on a Longhorn version of Solitaire?

brian.shapiro — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 04:01:36 GMT

This is good. Though I hope there is someone at Microsoft working on adding small useful apps to Windows. A good example would be things that are in the Office suite which should be imported so they are OS-wide. Like the character map shortcuts for special characters so I could press ctrl-e-^ (i downloaded a freeware program which mimics some of the functionality), or the clipboard bar that has a list of clippings. All this would be easy to implement, I hope someone will work on it.

posted by brian.shapiro