notes from the zen kitchen

05/27/2011 - 9:27am
In Which I vent with Leisa Reichelt, on UX and Drupal
by: Dani Nordin

It was a dewy, slightly drizzly day on the Internets. I was on my third latte. 

Serenaded by the sounds of a bustling coffee shop in Prague, I chatted over Skype with Leisa Reichelt, part of the UX team that is responsible for the overhaul of both Drupal.org and Drupal 7. What follows is a rather incomplete summary of our conversation, which centered around the challenges inherent in doing, communicating and selling quality UX work. 

 

The best UX design comes from collaborative effort, not working in a silo.

Traditional “...

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01/17/2011 - 9:47pm
Letting go of Facebook friends: It's Not You, It's Me.
by: Dani Nordin

The more time you spend in social media - or maybe, the more time *I* spend in social media - the more I notice how much time it takes to keep up with everything. As such, I've developed certain strategies to deal with the onslaught, including putting my activity on various sites into specific contexts.

Twitter, for example, is a bit of a free for all - it blends personal and professional, informative and entertaining. It's where I have no problem making "internet friends" with people I've just met, or barely know. It's also where I put myself in front of people I admire - leaders in the communities that I consider myself a part of.

Facebook, by contrast, has become...

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11/29/2010 - 11:06am
The difference between a logo and a brand; or, why design is like dating
by: Dani Nordin

Recently, I got an e-mail from a fellow designer asking me (and a few other friends in the design community) to answer three seemingly simple questions:

 

  • What is the logo?
  • What is the identity?
  • What is the brand?

 

One would think that, as a designer who has built her career on knowing the difference among these three, that there would be an easy answer to this. Interestingly, even among seasoned designers, this is a tricky question to answer in a soundbite-sized format, neatly organized into bullet points.

Logo and identity are often used interchangeably, but the key distinction is that a company's logo is just...

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09/15/2010 - 6:08pm
Crowdsourcing vs. Cheap Logo Sites
by: Dani Nordin

This afternoon, I got into a bit of a heated Twitter debate with logo guru (and online buddy) Jeff Fisher. The debate centered around the idea of "crowdsourcing," which Jeff uses to refer to sites like 99designs, LogoWorks, etc. Jeff believes, quite rightly, that these sites result in ineffective work that does a serious disservice to the client. To quote him,

"Too often [the] process fails to effectively include participation of end-user | client | organization | cause."

"Crowdsourcing is so often about simply voting for 'prettiest' without considering concepts, [i.e.] client's real needs...

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08/16/2010 - 7:40pm
Why recipe sites shouldn't be in Flash
by: Dani Nordin

It is, officially, canning and pickling season. Every year for the last four, I've spent most weekends in August canning a variety of pickles, salsas and other nummies to preserve the massive amount of produce that comes out of New England in late summer. One of my favorite recipes is from Hubert Keller's terrific show on PBS, and it's a sweet pickle with a bunch of different summer veggies. I discovered this one last year and made about a half dozen pints with the last of my farm share. I have yet to bring it somewhere where it doesn't disappear five minutes after it's opened.

Recently, a friend of mine had an abundance of zucchini (like you do) and wondered what to do...

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06/04/2010 - 1:40pm
Web Design: getting down to what's really important
by: Dani Nordin
Over the last few years, I've woken up almost every day with insane neck pain. I've tried a bunch of different solutions for this: yoga, chiropractic, massage, and so many new pillows (some quite expensive) that my fiancé Nick frequently jokes about my “pillow quiver” - the two Tempurpedic pillows that I switch through every night depending on what position I'm in.

For those who don't remember the Sobikawa pillow, it is a Japanese pillow that is filled with buckwheat husks. The idea is similar to memory foam, but with one key exception: the husks actually conform to your shape and stay there, making sure that your neck is...

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04/02/2010 - 4:00pm
Beyond Taste: A Critical Conversation About Food
by: Leah Graves

On March 23 I attended a panel discussion at Babson College in Wellesley Massachusetts. The event was organized by a collective of students passionate about sustainability and the food industry. They are working to empower consumers in their future decisions about food.

Here is the list of panelists:

  • Eric Becker. Chief Investment Officer for Client Yield Asset Management. Works on investments in the emerging movement for the Slow Money movement.
  • Willow Bush. Co-leader...
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03/24/2010 - 12:52pm
Behaviorgraphics Humanize the Social Web
by: Dani Nordin

Social Technographics were designed to help businesses engage in social media with a more human approach, catering to individuals where, when, and how they are participating and contributing to the social Web. According to Forrester research…

Many companies approach social computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed – a blog here, a podcast there – to achieve a marketing goal.  But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to...

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03/04/2010 - 1:30pm
Perspective: Why No Business Should Be Involved In Online Social Networking
by: Dani Nordin

The problem is that for the last couple of years, experts have continuously preached that the success of a business is dependant on participating in online social networking.  They will try to convince you that you need a Facebook page, that you need to regularly update your Linked In profile, that you should post articles to a myriad of resource sites, and of course let the world know you are doing all this by Twittering at least 5 times a week.

What every expert has forgotten to share with you (or just don’t know to) is that this is not social networking....

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02/25/2010 - 6:00pm
"ivory towers" vs. conscious capitalism: Pr*ttySh*tty interviews Paula Scher, and the (green) fur flies.
by: Dani Nordin
Today, I had the pleasure of reading an interview with Paula Scher about the state of modern design, and lessons learned from her 40-plus-year career as a designer. All was good until I read this bit:
Many talented young designers today have abandoned their roles as improvers of the general visual environment. Many only want to work on cultural work, or not-for-profit work, or on projects they perceive as “good-for-society” which may have a high profile within the design milieu, but don’t really reach ordinary people. These designers are afraid to get involved in...
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