This week Experientia joins our colleagues and peers in Minneapolis at EPIC 2016, the premier international gathering on ethnography and design in industry.
The theme for the conference this year is Pathmaking, emphasizing the power of ethnography to create transformative innovation, growth and strategic success for companies, industries and communities.
On the second day of the conference, Experientia collaborator Ciara Green will present a paper titled “Ethnography is the path-maker to better care: paving the way to a patient-centric healthcare model”. The paper is part of the session exploring the role of Ethnography on Organizations and Change.
Experientia’s paper presents a clear and flexible model for understanding the concept of patient-centricity. This model emerged from our own ethnographic work in healthcare contexts, and was tested and strengthened with a literature review and interviews with experts and thought leaders in the healthcare industry. Our model posits that patient-centric care should be Personalized, Hassle-free, Active, Collective and Transparent (PHACT). Hospitals, payers, clinicians, Pharma and MedTech divisions (among others) can use these pillars as a guide to drive their transition to patient-centricity. The underpinning principle for the PHACT model is that ethnographic inquiry is the necessary path-maker for each stakeholder to understand the best ways to implement and maintain these five pillars of patient-centric care in their particular healthcare context.
The full paper will be available soon in the conference proceedings, on Intelligences, Epic’s searchable archive of conference proceedings.
You can think of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG’s) as responsive graphics. SVG is an XML-based format that allows you to create an image by using defined tags and attributes. Your code will render an image that you can edit right in your code editor.
Here’s a sample SVG. If you look at its code, you’ll notice that it’s made up of tags and attributes, just like an HTML document. The whole thing is contained inside <svg> tag. First, there’s a <rect> tag with black strokes and white fill. And inside that, there’s an ellipse (almost a circle, but notice the ry and rx attributes) which is filled with red color.
We can use SVG on the web in two ways. We can use the SVG files as the src attribute of <img> tags. So, you can have <img src=”japan.svg”> like you would do with PNGs and JPEGs.
But, the more interesting case (in case you have noticed that the tags have an id attribute like HTML) is that we can directly paste the source of the SVG in a <div> inside our HTML. We can then style these divs like individual building blocks — or even groups of building blocks — the way we want. We can apply CSS, animations, or even add interactivity using JavaScript. This is what makes SVGs one of the most versatile and hottest element right now in HTML.
SVGs are infinitely scalable, responsive, have smaller file size, are future-proof for next-generation bazillion-pixel dense screens, and can be styled, animated and interacted with using known web technologies — namely CSS and JavaScript.
Notice that all these things were previously possible only with a Flash embed — which required a flash player and lots of specialized work. And there’s no love going around for Flash these days.
Vector vs Raster images
Raster images are made up of pixels to form a complete image. JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs are common raster image types. Almost all of the photos found on the web are raster images.
Raster images consist of a fixed number of pixels, so resizing them without effecting their resolution is not possible. You may have noticed that resizing most images gives them a grainy, and blurry look. That’s because of their fixed pixel count.
Here’s what happens when you zoom in on a raster image:
Vector images, on the other hand, are flexible and resolution-independent. They are constructed using geometric shapes — lines, rectangles, curves — or a sequence of commands. You can edit their attributes, such as color, fill, and outline.
One common use for vector images is icons and small icon animations. These will appear crisp, even on the highest density displays such as upcoming 4k smartphones.
Here’s what happens when you zoom in on a vector image:
SVG tags
<svg>
The <svg> tag embeds an SVG document inside the current document, HTML for instance. The tag has its own x and y coordinates, height and width, and its own unique id.
The <g> tag groups the elements together, and acts like a container for related graphic elements. A <g> element can even contain other <g> elements nested within it.
The <rect> element is an SVG basic shape representing a rectangle. The element can have various attributes, like coordinates, height, width, fill color, stroke color, and sharp or rounded corners.
The <path> element defines a path of coordinates for a shape. The code for path tag might seem cryptic, but don’t be intimidated. The following example code can be read like this: 1. “M150 o” — Move to (150,0)
2.”L75 200″ — Draw a line to (75,200) from last position (which was (150,0)
3. “L255 200” — Draw a line to (225,200) from last position (which was (75,200)
4. “Z” — Close the loop (draw to starting point)
You probably don’t need to learn this since the code for path can be generated in any SVG editor, but it’s cool to know.
There are plenty of SVG editors available, like Adobe Illustrator, and Inkscape, which is free and open source. Since SVG files are plain-text XML, you could also hand-code one in a pinch.
For this example I’ll use a simple online editor where you can design SVGs without having to install anything.
First create a circle
2. Next add more circles and save the source code
CSS3 animations
SVGs can be animated by adding an id or a class to the SVG path in the code and then styling it in CSS3 like any other document. Below is an example of how SVGs can be animated.
CSS3 animation offers a variety of animation types that you can chose from. Line animation is another cool attribute of SVG.
For this next example, I wrote the text “Hi, I am Surbhi” using pen in the editor. Then I used CSS3 keyframes again to animate the stroke.
Notice that each path has a unique id. That is because the delay in the animation is important when animating a stroke with more than one word.
The <animate> tag animations
<animate> is an animation tag built into the SVG element itself. It defines how the attribute of an element changes from the initial value to the end value in the specified animation duration. This is used to animate properties that cannot be animated by CSS alone.
The common elements of the animate tag are color, motion, and transform.
The animate tag is nested inside the shape tag of the object that has to be animated. It does not work on the path coordinates, but only inside the object tags. Notice the additive attribute. It signifies that the animations do not override one another but instead work together at the same time.
Here’s an example of animating an SVG using the HTML5 animate tag:
JavaScript based animations and interactivity
Since SVG is just a document with tags, we can also use JavaScript to interact with individual elements of the SVGs by getting hold of their selectors (id or class).
Apart from vanilla JS, there are various JavaScript libraries available for animating and interacting with SVGs like Vivus.js, Snap.svg, RaphaelJS, and Velocity.js.
In the following example, I have used the Vivus.js library along with jQuery to achieve a line stroke animation.
Why not use SVGs for all images?
SVGs are mostly suited for images that can be constructed with few geometrical shapes and formulas. Though, in principle, you can convert anything like your photograph to SVG, the size of the image would be several megabytes, thus defeating the space-saving purpose of using SVGs. You’re better off using SVGs for icons, logos, and small animations.
from Sidebar http://sidebar.io/out?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.freecodecamp.com%2Fcss-positioning-explained-by-building-an-ice-cream-sundae-831cb884bfa9%23.63dqfy71v
Of all the influences from the past 100 years, the Bauhaus—the venerable art and design school founded in 1919—has had the most enduring impact on the world, from the modern products and furniture we buy, to the graphics we see, and the architecture we inhabit. Yet while scholars have pored over the school and deconstructed its teachings for decades, many untold stories still wait to be unearthed.
The new microsite is a valuable design resource that makes the pieces accessible to the entire world. It’s intended to be a portal into the Bauhaus’s work and a study tool to help inform further scholarship into the institution’s legacy and impact. (In fact, Bauhaus superfans take note: anyone can make an appointment to view any of the holdings first-hand, assuming that they’re not on loan.) Robert Wiesenberger, a curatorial fellow at the museum, developed the online collection, which involved making sense of the 32,000 Bauhaus-related pieces in the collection: categorizing, interpreting, and adding just enough context to orient visitors to the site.
“First and foremost, the Bauhaus was a school of art and design—and it was filled with contradiction,” Wiesenberger says. “I really wanted to surface objects and provide a little context. Since there are already shelves and shelves of books about the Bauhaus, I didn’t want to regurgitate a history; however, if the subject is new to someone, there’s a primer.”
We asked Wiesenberger to share a handful of unexpected design lessons to be gleaned from Bauhaus objects in the Harvard Art Museum’s collection.
In the age of unlimited digital storage, it’s easy to forget that purposeful documentation is important. It’s more than just taking a snapshot on your camera phone as an afterthought—it’s about annotation and being conscious of what you’re recording in notes so that you can trace the development of an idea.
“Most of what we know of the Bauhaus’s output is from the photographs taken at the school,” Wiesenberger says. “The architecture changed, suffered damage, or was destroyed; though many of the products were intended for mass production, they often only ever existed as one-off prototypes or in limited quantities and have been lost along the way. Luckily, some Bauhäusler—the term for people attending and working at the Bauhaus—captured the school’s work photographically, both for artistic reasons and to help the Bauhaus commercialize what was made there.”
“The most brilliant of these artists was Lucia Moholy, the wife of Lázsló Moholy-Nagy, whose precise, dead-on depictions of objects are still some of the most-circulated images from the school. Yet even so-called ‘objective’ documentation is not neutral, either: Many decisions are made behind the camera, and Lucia’s name was effaced from the historical record in part by Walter Gropius, with whom she entrusted her negatives when she fled Germany.”
Few of us are diligent diarists; however keeping track of everything can help designers today—and in the future. If it weren’t for Lucia Moholy and her obsessive photography, we wouldn’t have as much knowledge of the Bauhaus since many of the physical objects are lost.
Everyone loves a rager, even the serious rationalists at the Bauhaus.
“The Bauhaus famously threw incredible parties,” Wiesenberger says. “For the ‘Metal Party’ in 1929, guests clad in shiny homemade costumes slid in on a chute beneath mirrored orbs hanging from the ceiling. Oskar Schlemmer’s stage workshop, and the metal workshop run by Marianne Brandt, were especially active in the planning. But it wasn’t all just fun and games: Walter Gropius, the school’s director, knew that parties were essential in letting off considerable steam for hard-working and often conflicting Bauhäusler, as the school was full of big personalities with big ideas who often locked horns. Parties helped everyone remember they were part of the same team.”
Design is rarely a solo endeavor and team-building can go a long way in helping to facilitate the conversations that may lead to a creative breakthrough.
“It’s kind of an avant-garde disco ball, designed to create kaleidoscopic colored light effects,” Wiesenberger says. “But this, one of the Hungarian Constructivist’s proudest achievements, didn’t emerge from his head fully formed. Rather, he claims that the idea began its gestation in 1922, and it went through multiple versions before its first exhibition in Paris in 1930. But he wasn’t finished with it then, either, and he made many later alterations to optimize its ‘light-modulating’ effects, for example, substituting in matte or glossy pieces of metal.”
“The Light Prop was a new kind of art, made without the artist’s hand, and industrially fabricated like Minimalist art would be in the 1960s. Moholy-Nagy worked with two engineers to design and construct the device, which was built with funding from Germany’s AEG corporation. His name does not appear anywhere on it, but one engineer’s name, Otto Ball, does. Like Marcel Breuer’s iconic tubular steel club chair, which was first prototyped by a plumber, Moholy-Nagy, the ‘universal artist,’ still knew when to call on outside help.”
Just as Breuer and Moholy-Nagy looked to experts from different trades to fuel innovation, designers of today can stand to be open to collaboration from other fields rather than walling themselves off in their respective industries.
Contemporary design is notorious for established rules and having a base in function, research, testing, and strategy. Fantasy, as superfluous as it sounds, has a place, too.
“Paul Klee, born in Switzerland but seemingly from another planet, wasn’t an obvious choice as an instructor at the Bauhaus, a school dedicated to pragmatic design and building,” Wiesenberger says. “Of course the Bauhaus wasn’t always this way, and was founded on utopian ideals and the legacy of German expressionism, but Klee’s continued presence there—for a decade he taught form and color to entering students—was essential to the school’s character well after it dedicated itself to a ‘union of art and technology.’ Klee’s playful drawings channeled nature, poetry, architecture, music, and even magic—Apparatus for the Magnetic Treatment of Plants references the 18th century pseudoscientific idea of animal magnetism while lightly satirizing the machine. Klee enjoyed the reputation of a mystic—though he was certainly a rationalist—and his operating on an entirely different plane from the school’s functional program only enriched students’ experience at the Bauhaus.”
Perhaps the most poignant lesson: while today’s designers have access to advanced tools and materials, everyday surroundings and economy can fuel the next great idea.
“Ruth Asawa, a California-born Japanese-American artist, who learned drawing in a Japanese internment camp, went to Black Mountain College to study with former Bauhaus master Josef Albers,” Wiesenberger says. “Without money for art supplies—like Albers had been in his student days in Weimar—Asawa exemplified her mentor’s credo, of ‘minimal means, maximum effect.’ Like all students at Black Mountain, Asawa worked on campus to help the school run: While posted in the laundry room, she made rubber stamp drawings on newsprint. This one repeats the text ‘Double Sheet’— a double-meaning of both linen size and the folded-over newspaper format. This exemplifies Albers’s lessons of radical economy, transparency, positive and negative space, and the meandering patterns he gave as assignments. As a kind of typographic textile, these works anticipate Asawa’s more famous hanging wire sculptures.”
As we grapple with the need to be more resource efficient, the simplest things might end up having the greatest potential.
C4 has just entered what some may argue is a crowded space for prototyping tools. They are admitting that up front and asserting that “the market is still ripe for innovation… and the gap remains wide open”.
They describe C4 Studio as “a new class of motion design for mobile. Built for Designers and Developers, C4 Studio lets you easily animate designs and generate production-ready code that a developer can use right away”.
Sketch files can be imported directly within the app. It offers a timeline style UI, but seems to have a clever feature called “State Machine Animation” that focuses on Start and End states in your Sketch artboards that it then can use to automatically create a tween animation with smart transition effects. The timeline can then be hand-tweaked as desired. The other major feature it promises is “a sophisticated code export system that allows you to generate views, controllers and even full Xcode projects”.
See their Alpha announcement for a list of key features, all supported by Video demonstrations. Overall, when this goes live, it looks like it we’ll have another useful option to consider for prototyping our Sketch designs
For most of us, our first experience with career advice comes from one source: our parents. As we go through life, the people who have the most interest in the direction we take with our careers continue to be those who are closest to us, like our significant others, friends, mentors, and professors.
Yet, in my experience as a career coach, I can tell you that the tips (and yes, pressure) that come from loved ones can be some of the worst, particularly when it comes to that big-picture question of, “What should I be doing with my life?” Here are two big reasons why.
My mom switched from teaching to accounting about a decade into her professional life. It was a wonderful move for her, and she has had a high level of satisfaction and success with this second career path. Based on this experience, my well-intentioned parents pointed me toward accounting, with the idea that it would also be a great fit for me. (It wasn’t.)
I’ve seen too many people experience something similar—someone they love keeps pouring on suggestions that have absolutely nothing to do with what they want for their careers:
Why would you want to go back to work after having kids when you don’t have to?
You’ll get bored of that subject matter after a year!
Working so many hours always leads to burnout!
In each case, the guidance had more to do with the person providing it than the person receiving it. Just ask that new mom who truly wanted to get back to a job she loved, the social media marketer who still finds the work really compelling, or the individual who thrives on long hours at this point in his career.
The truth is: People are different. Maybe your parent or mentor or would personally hate whatever choice you’re making—but that doesn’t mean you will. If someone keeps questioning your choice or hammering his or her advice, it’s okay to say, “I really appreciate you taking the time to share your personal experience with me. I’ve carefully considered my options, and I’m really excited about this choice. I’d love to hear more about [change the subject].”
Most people have a natural desire to protect the people they love. This instinct is highly beneficial around small children, who, if left to their own devices, could walk into traffic without looking or play with matches. But you’re not a small child; you’re an adult who is putting himself or herself out there.
Developing a well-fitting career path often involves putting some skin in the game, being willing to face rejection or failure, making mistakes, and learning along the way. In other words, a great career path will mean getting hurt at times, so that you can learn important lesson. Advice that stems from an attempt to protect you from this natural (and sometimes painful) progression of career development is well-meaning, but ultimately flawed. It can wind up doing more harm than good.
For example, one of my clients was instructed to pursue government work solely on the basis of the perceived stability of the positions. But she was someone who thrived on creativity and wilted at the idea of bureaucracy, so this was not the culture for her.
One way to deal with this kind of advice is to thank your nearest and dearest for caring so deeply, and then remind him or her that no job is 100% safe. Moreover, if you work in a field you really have no interest in, you’re less likely to want to put in the time and effort necessary to advance. Finally, remind him or her that even if you work somewhere that isn’t right for you, you’ll still benefit from the experience.
It’s natural for those closest to us to have opinions about our career decisions. Just remember that at the end of the day it’s your life. You’re the one who actually deals with the consequences and benefits of any given career choice. With that in mind, your opinion is the one that matters most.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Muse and is reprinted with permission.
from Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/3063162/hit-the-ground-running/you-should-probably-ignore-you-friends-and-familys-career-advice?partner=rss
Scrolling through my social media feed, I noticed a college friend’s photograph of his son’s dormitory. My friend and I had been thick as thieves during our undergraduate years, and now his son was leaving home, and roughly the age his father was when he and I first met.
Suddenly, I was hit with a wave of regret.
We hadn’t seen each other in years, even though we live roughly an hour apart. I don’t really know his children well, and he doesn’t know mine. Over the years, when one of us reached out to the other, we were always busy with work, soccer practices, music lessons, or other commitments. “Next time for sure,” we’d say as we postponed. At one time in our lives, I thought we’d be close pals forever and our children would carry on the next generation of our friendship. It didn’t work out that way.
With a full roster of work, family, friends, and other obligations—not to mention trying to make time to stay healthy and have an occasional moment or two alone—it can be tough to fit in all the things we want and need to do. As we try to keep all of those commitments, it’s not uncommon to form habits and take shortcuts that let us fit more into the day. We may stay at our desks longer, forego vacations, or crowd out time for family and friends.
But what kind of consequences do those decisions have in the long run? Possibly big ones, experts say. Here are some key things you may be doing now that you’ll likely regret in a decade or more.
Many people have relationship regrets, whether they’re related to friends or romantic partners, says Gail Saltz, MD, an associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of Medicine. The relationship road not taken is a big source of regret among people she sees. Career-focused romantic partners may find themselves either living in different areas or faced with one partner making a sacrifice to be with the other.
“Given the day and age we’re living in now, many, many people feel they shouldn’t have to do that for someone else, and so they don’t,” she says. Later, they may have the great career, but regret that they didn’t try harder to make the relationship work, she says.
While lost friendships are often considered unimportant compared to romantic partners, their loss can be just as painful and regrettable, says Neal Roese, PhD, a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and author of If Only: How to Turn Regret Into Opportunity.
When you put in too many hours at work and let those friendships drift away, you’re setting yourself up for regret. Roese has coauthored several studies on regrets and their causes and says that not making time to maintain friendships is a big one, especially because it can be harder to make new deep friendships later in life. This is especially true at work, where friendships with colleagues can boost both happiness and productivity.
It’s easy to end up sitting at your desk all day or blow off working out because you’re tired when you get home. However, failing to make time for regular exercise can affect everything from your overall health to your creativity. As we get older, establishing a regular exercise habit is even more important.
A March 2016 study in the online issue of Neurology found that regular exercise can slow brain aging by as much as 10 years. Saltz says that many people know better, but don’t heed the potential consequences of their actions when they’re younger. “It’s a firmly rooted early belief that I’m invincible, or I’ll be young forever, or these issues of later just don’t pertain to me,” she says.
Similarly, Saltz says compiling a routine health history—including check-ups and routine testing such as blood pressure, cholesterol, and others—is important in the long run. If you’re not compiling a health history and, when possible, sharing health concerns and history with a medical professional, you risk missing important warning signs. Many treatments are time-limited, and early detection can make a big difference in outcomes, she says.
There’s even evidence that prolonged stress can predispose people to mental illness. Wingo says it’s important to find ways to mitigate that stress before it causes damage.
“Sit down—by yourself, with a therapist, self-help group, etc.—and list every single stressor,” Wingo advises. Then make a conscious effort, the way you would if you were going on a diet or quitting smoking, to eliminate what stressors you can, she says. Adopt stress-relieving habits like meditation, exercise, and other practices that are helpful to relieve stress.
Whether it’s fear of not making enough money, disapproval from others, or other concerns, many people let fear rule when it comes to making decisions, which is a common source of regret, says Hal Shorey, PhD, associate professor in the Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology at Widener University.
Instead of taking healthy risks and following their passions or intuition, some people worry that they won’t meet certain standards they, or others, have for themselves and instead make choices that aren’t really right for them. Such fear-based decision making can also lead to ethical issues, which Shorey has seen with his students:
My first management job, and this happens with a lot of my grads, they’re making good money for the first time in their lives, and they think to themselves, “Oh my goodness, I’ve arrived.” Then they’ll be asked to do things professionally that they may think are unethical, or they might be asked to do things professionally that go against their own knowledge of leadership and the right way to do things. Because they’re too concerned about losing the job, they go along with it and conform.
Shorey says that almost inevitably leads to regret.
Of course, it’s not possible to map out a strategy for a regret-free life, and some regrets are bigger than others. However, Roese says that paying attention to the areas where research shows us most people have regrets can help us be more mindful about our choices.
Looking for ways to “have your cake and eat it, too” can help. Nurture friendships at work. Make time for important people in your life. Take care of your health. Being aware of your own values system and what matters to you can also help you make more regret-free decisions, he says.
Says Roese:
Some regrets we just get over. We rationalize or explain them away. But other things linger. I think that the key question that a lot of people like to talk about these days is, let’s say you’ve reached the end of your life, or maybe you’re on your deathbed. What are your deathbed regrets? If you look at these, there might be a recipe for how better to live your life.
from Co.Labs https://www.fastcompany.com/3062962/6-things-you-may-be-doing-that-youll-seriously-regret-in-10-years?partner=rss
Disclaimer: these features are in QA and not yet released.
Considering the nature of people search, filtering by parameters other than first and last name is crucial. ‘John Smith’ doesn’t really help you find who you’re looking for, but a 36 year old John Smith in Pasadena, CA, related to a Susan is damn specific, and will inform you quickly if we have the data you want.
Hidden ➞ Visible
Our Advanced Search (AS) was hard to find. Small blue text beneath the map read ‘Show All Filters,’ which was an imperfect solution to the requirement that we maintain a list of clickable states (for SEO reasons), and that list be visible “abovethefold”. The states are, in a sense, filters, but they are very specific and essentially a dead end without other filters.
We moved AS into a dedicated module which is always visible on desktop, and has a floating button on mobile. This provided obvious, persistent access to our most powerful search tool. Mobile search became a full-screen takeover, with the understanding that users would be in a binary situation: modifying query parameters, or browsing results. Supporting both on a small screen is futile.
Implicit ➞ Explicit
We abandoned the expectation that users are experts. Anyone should be able to figure out how to use AS, even if it’s their first time visiting.
We added an explicit title that explains what AS does. An added benefit is that it provides additional visual differentiation for that section in the left panel.
We removed the behavior that would submit the form when users stopped typing, or tabbed/clicked to a new input. Now nothing changes until the user explicitly clicks “Search Spokeo” or hits Enter.
Clicking an age range used to toggle and submit immediately. No longer! Click ages on and off to your heart’s content before hitting that submit button.
Added bonus: the locations list got a title that explains its value.
Wall ➞ Sections
Opening the filters was overwhelming! Scanning the inputs was nearly impossible. Location inputs are directly related to each other, as are relative first/last name, but Phone and Email inputs were adjacent and independent.
Separating AS into logical sections fixed these problems and reduced the cognitive work for users. Each section can be considered independently, instead of the form appearing as a daunting task. Phone and Email suddenly make more sense in the context of “Contact info.”
Ambiguous ➞ Guided
The City, State input was confusing because once a State was entered, users didn’t know they could edit it to enter a City, State combination. Users could also enter a City, State combo that returned zero results, leading to an empty state.
We changed these to native dropdowns, where the list of states only reflects states with results, and the city dropdown is only available once a state is chosen. The city dropdown also updates whenever a new state is chosen, and only provides available cities from the chosen state.
We removed the Street input, which required too-accurate, and often unavailable, information.
Cramped ➞ Rows
Street and City, State inputs were originally adjacent to follow the design pattern of the following inputs, not because those particular parameters should logically be side by side. In fact, for most forms (think shopping checkout) they’re most commonly placed on multiple lines. “Street” is also ambiguous, because we were actually expecting a full address, not just a street name.
Phone and Email being adjacent was a form-over-function design choice, which we sought to remedy. Relative first and last name kinda makes sense, but there’s no strong reason for it.
Now, each input gets its own row. Simple, effective, and visually less oppressive. All sections being simultaneously opened is an unlikely case, and ultimately the user’s decision. Fortunately, this flexible design allows this behavior without any negative consequences. We don’t make assumptions about how they will use Advanced Search.
Mobile behavior
A persistent problem we’ve had to deal with is maintaining crucial functionality in a left panel which disappears on mobile. Having the left panel is a hard product requirement, and we discovered an elegant solution to provide access to the Advanced Search panel on mobile.
Previously, the Advanced Search panel was always open, and appeared before the results list. Users who didn’t scroll down wouldn’t know that they could just browse, if they had no more information to provide.
By providing a floating button at the bottom of the page, we allow users to browse, and access filters at any point in their browsing experience. For example, if they scroll through 30 results and realize their search is futile, they can quickly access Advanced Search and refine their query.
General related cleanup
We added filter “chips” beneath the primary page title. These reflect the exact query that produce the results, and allow an easy way to remove any given parameter.
Our data shows that the map isn’t engaged with, but having it present is a strict product requirement. We reduced the size, providing more space for relevant content/tools.
The left panel width was flexible, with a hard minimum at 330px. Why ever allow it to take up more space, if everything fits and works at the smaller size? From now on it’s always narrow.
For SEO reasons, we must have a clickable list of locations. However, that list doesn’t have to be so prominent. We modified our React component to only show the first 10 locations, with an option for the user to ‘show more.’
On the horizon/what we’d like to do in the future
First and last name should not be required to search. Finding a person should be initiated with any available information (e.g. relative and phone number).
Allow entering a city without a state/
Mixed content list, where we can show name, address, social, phone, and historical records all in one list, with options to toggle returned types.
from uxdesign.cc – User Experience Design – Medium https://uxdesign.cc/death-to-complexity-how-we-simplified-advanced-search-a9ab2940acf0?source=rss—-138adf9c44c—4
Furniture designer Alexandre Chapelin (previously) wows us again with this new pair of tables that mimic a cross-section of an underwater reef. The Saint Martin-based artist uses natural stone encased in a translucent blue resin to “bring the ocean into your living room.” You can see more views of the new tables on Instagram. (via Colossal Submissions)
from Colossal http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/08/new-cut-stone-tables-encased-in-resin-mimic-an-ocean-reef/
I met an entrepreneur last week with an amazing command of technology history. He spoke about the way the Xerox Alto has influenced graphical design over the past forty years. I learned a lot. For this first computer’s monitor has a portrait orientation, not a landscape orientation? His knowledge of history provides him a huge competitive advantage because he understands why things have evolved a certain way and the assumptions that underpinned previous decisions.
I remember when I started at Google, I had lots of ideas about how to improve things, and I made many naive suggestions. I had a vision for how how email should evolve and Marissa Mayer sent me to meet a few people within the company. One engineering leader patiently listened to all the ideas I spewed. When I had finished, he asked me a question. “Why do you think your ideas haven’t been implemented before? Do you think it’s because you’re the first person with the idea or could it be another reason?” And he was right. I thought, vaingloriously, that I had been the first one with the idea.
He wasn’t discouraging me from ideating or promoting my ideas. Rather, he was inviting me to understand the history and the context for why things are the way they are today.
When we diligenced Looker, I only really understood Lloyd’s ingenuity when we spoke to industry experts who shared the industry’s history. They explained traditional business intelligence systems had been designed when storing one gigabyte cost $10,000 . The system architects of the day designed their systems assuming storage was prohibitively expensive. Today, it costs about a cent.
The fundamental cost assumption critical to the system design is no longer valid. Lloyd recognized that this key tenet of BI system design had become outdated and architected a new system that capitalized on this change.
That’s the benefit of knowing and understanding history: understanding the assumptions that led to the status quo and being able to seize the opportunity when one of those assumptions no longer holds.
from on Tomasz Tunguz http://www.tomtunguz.com/technology-history/