4 posts tagged “bouquet”
So! I have this web app called bouquet that I use to post little pictures that represent what I'm doing with my life. It's like twitter using images, which I hate to say because I was working on this for ages before twitter.
Here's a picture of the front page right now. I overlaid little circles to explain what represents the newest activity and which one is the oldest. Notice that I have the most recent image on the left side.
This is the way I thought was right for about 9 months. But then I showed the app to a designer at work who immediately said "your 'earlier' link should be on the left, not the right". We discussed it for a few moments and he stressed the obvious precedent: because humans read left to right, the newest data should always be on the right. On a page with height, such as a page out of a book, the most recent content should be at the bottom right.
I was a touch embarrassed that I didn't notice such an obvious design violation so I redesigned the page to look like this:
But something didn't feel right. I know a lot of design is aesthetic judgement, but there is a lot of science as well. Best practices. Logic. And while this way seems more logical ("people read left to right, end of story") it just feels wrong to me. So I went looking for evidence and precedent.
At first, the blogs proved me wrong. Here's how powazek does it:
The prior article is on the left. The newer article is on the right. Every other blog that links to previous/next posts works this way, and it makes perfect sense. So why was I having such a hard time swallowing the idea that the new content had to go on the right?
I figured it out. Navigating forward and backward through pages is more natural left to right. But navigating through media is more natural when the latest thing is at the top left. Why? For the same reason. Don't you want the most recent data to be where you start reading? Apple thinks so:
Here I've listed my home folder, kept arranged by "date modified". And rather than shunting the most recently modified file ("Desktop") to the bottom right, where I may need to scroll down to see it, they've floated it to the top left. The most likely place my eye will look.
And this makes sense. Put the thing you're looking for most often (recently modified files) in the place you will look first. (top left) And while this turns the idea of "but people read left to right" on its head, it makes sense for sifting through data.
To verify, I checked out Flickr's approach and found they use both ways. While looking at a single photo, you are presented with two small photos representing the prior and the next photo. The prior photo is on the left, and the next photo is on the right. Just like blogs.
So I'm feeling pretty sure about this. When listing media, newest belongs on the top left. But I want to make sure. Have I cherry-picked this data? Is there some compelling counter-argument I should read? After all, Flickr also thinks tags should be space delimited, which clearly breaks English language convention. So maybe they (and Apple) are wrong about this too. I doubt it, but I'm all ears.
Unless I hear otherwise, I'm reverting bouquet now.
Last month, I wrote I Don't Care What You're Doing, I Care What You Did, which compared twitter to my newish app, bouquet. To recap, twitter asks what you're doing right now, turning twitter into a massive chatroom with your friends. bouquet asks what you did, which limits the number of daily posts. Plus it does it with graphics to help with data grouping. For example, if you see 3 soccer ball icons in a row on my page, you can easily understand that I've been playing a lot of soccer without having to read anything.
But while I love bouquet and would love more people to visit it and help me fill it with content, I'm not one of the twitter haters. I understand what they're doing and why it's cool. Even though I don't personally use it, or intend to.
I noticed a while back that people were communicating a lot of news to their friends with their IM away messages. Rather than the away message being "brb" or "working", it turned into "going to the DJ Shadow show tonight" or "so hungry, anyone for lunch?". It was a kind of life status, beamed out for anyone that was interested.
I also heard about per-user voicemail messages. They allow you to set one answering machine message for everyone, ("hi, I'm not here right now, leave a message") and then make custom messages for different friends, ("hey sally, I moved down the street to spanky's. $1 shots!"). Forget the old way of calling, leaving a message, and waiting to be called back. Just beam out what you're doing and get on with your life.
Twitter is the natural extension of this. They're creating friend-based dynamic chatrooms. I can add 10 people to my friend list, then say "party tonight at my place". I don't have to call everyone, I don't need to maintain RSVP lists, I can just beam it out and know my friends will get the message. The open API helps the content spread in the way most suitable to my friends, IM, email, phone, or website.
I wonder about data overload. If my friends each post one or two things a day, I can keep up easily. But as soon as people take the "what are you doing right now?" question too literally, and I have to wade through messages like "I hate daylight savings time", and "@taylor LOL!" and "ooo, shiny", I'm likely to get frustrated. I can't remove friends, because then I'd miss posts that have value, but I don't want to slog through crap either.
It would be nice of twitter could design in some sense of priority. I would use twitter if I knew that I'd only get messages that may, possibly, in some crazy alternate universe, apply to my life. But then the UI would become more complex, which takes away some of the fun. The addictive nature of twitter is that the barrier to entry is so low. But that's the very thing that could hobble twitter after the honeymoon period.
In summary, twitter is not a waste of space. But the barrier of entry is pretty low, unlike my tasty new app right over here that you should click on and have fun with because I need more data to play with. Thank you.
Twitter is site that asks "what are you doing right now?" It then shows you what others are doing, and gives you the option to track friends to see what they're doing. It's a cool idea, but it reads like a chatroom. Here's the front page right now:
/REPLY? d pfig thanks for the tip! less than 5 seconds ago from im
cerco di organizzare l'uscita per stasera... less than 20 seconds ago from web
Well...watching CSI and having a soar throat less than 20 seconds ago from web
study... less than 20 seconds ago from web
Oh god that was a lot of cachaca x half a minute ago from txt
;) half a minute ago from im
heart-shaped pancakes for the win half a minute ago from twitterrific
Agregada Taly half a minute ago from im
@ eio: colpa mia, chiedo scusa! half a minute ago from web
I started a similar idea last summer and I've been spending a lot of time on it recently. The key difference is Twitter asks what you're doing whereas bouquet asks what you've done. It's been interesting clicking through twitter to see what design decisions they've made, and where they've differed from mine.
A "Common Language" via Icons
I was obsessed with the idea of a common language, so you could see similarities with other people at a glance. The best approach I could think of was using 16x16 icons. It's a cool effect; on the weekend you see a lot more martini glasses and balloons, which represent "alcohol" and "socializing" respectively.
Inspiration and Motivation
I've been tracking myself on bouquet since July 4th, and I've noticed an interesting trend. Knowing that I will have to account for my day, I will sometimes do some chores so I can put up a "cleaning" icon instead of one lonely "tv" or "computer" icon. This has even worked in longer term ways, like joining a D&D group (geek!) and a soccer team, as well as trying to run more.
A Long Term Record
In technical terms, I like the idea of categorizing data to help the "common language" goal. But in a more personal sense, I love having a graphical representation of what I do with my life. It gets more useful the more I use it, and it can highlight interesting trends that I may not have recognized before. It'd be interesting to see a graph like this for 10 years ago, so using this app is like a gift for me 10 years from now.
Track Your Friends
Several friends and co-workers have signed up, so it leads to some cool conversations. "Hey Taylor, I didn't know you're in an indoor soccer league, great job on your goal!" or "Hey Jeff, you saw Children of Men too? What did you think?" This is especially cool if you have a friend that lives far away. When jetfuel went to Japan, I was able to see how his trip was progressing in bite sized chunks rather than him having to write an entire email or blog post.
No Stalking
Because you use bouquet after your activity has been completed, there's less of a security concern. Several people have pointed out that they are much more willing to type "Went to a small party at Jeff's" the next day than writing "Going to small party at Jeff's". Sometimes you don't want everyone (or even all your friends) to know your exact movements as they happen.
I have been having a lot of fun with bouquet. Envisioning a new product is always exciting for me. But now I need more users, so feel free to try it out if you're interested.
