I know, I know. Instagram again? Yes. I originally intended to pick a different app each time, but I find myself wanting this feature on a regular basis, so I just have to get it off my chest.
Instagram has a feature that’s pretty common among photo apps—tilt-shift. Now, tilt-shift is an advanced feature in the SLR world. TS lenses are typically used for architecture or interior photography to even the perspective and a good one will run you a solid $2 grand. Somewhat recently, tilt-shift became the hot new thing because it can make a landscape look like an HO-scale train set. As a result, every photo app added linear blur to fake the effect of tilt-shift.
The problem here is that every app has this advanced feature, but they all lack a pretty basic one—depth of field. Sure, you could do what I do and use the tilt-shift tool to emphasize the depth of field, but if you shoot any organically shaped subjects, it’s tough. That’s why I call for ‘depth of field drawing.’ The concept is simple. Using your finger, draw the area you want to blur. This way, you can produce a stronger depth of field around any shaped subject or subjects.
This post is the beginning of a series I referenced a few weeks back—UX I Want. Instead of just hoping or requesting the makers behind an app introduce a specific UX I want, I’m going to design and mock it for them. This way, they almost have to implement it, right?
I’m going to start things off easy and target Instagram. Here lies an app that lacks more features than I can shake a Wacom pen at. That said, Instagram has a very nice shorcut for liking a photo—just double tap it. The problem is that a second double tap does the unexpected and ‘likes’ the photo again. Since you can only ‘like’ a photo once, this means nothing—it’s a waste of a gesture.
For instances when you fumble your phone or scroll too fast, an accidental double tap might occur. Maybe you even have a change of heart. Sure, tapping the toggled ‘like’ button to unlike the photo would suffice, but to maintain a sense of consistency, the double tap gesture itself should be a toggle as well.
I love tools that improve the designer/developer workflow—GuideGuide does just that. Instead of wasting (probably valuable) time manually dragging each guide into place, you can enter your grid specs and GuideGuide will place each guide for you. You can also clear everything with a single click and create a grid in a specific area using the marquee tool. It’s clear that creator, Cameron McEfee, found Photoshop’s guide management lacking and decided to fix it on his own—a true maker mentality.
GuideGuide is completely free, but you should definitely donate. This tool is too good to give away.
Last week, Jen and I flew to New York in the hunt for an apartment before visiting family in PA. I received a tip of an available apartment the day before we left. Immediately, I scheduled a walkthrough with the landlord and nabbed the place. It is located in Carroll Gardens, a wonderful neighborhood on the west side of Brooklyn. We head back to NYC tomorrow to sign the lease and visit a few friends before returning to SF. After that, all we have to do is move.
When we moved from Baltimore to SF, we used Adobe’s moving company. This time, we’re trying something new by selling all our furniture and shipping everything else via USPS and Fedex. I’ve read quite a bit about this ‘strategy’ and most find it to be a much cheaper option. Shipping little by little throughout the month leading up to our flight sounds less stressful than an all-at-once plan of attack. USPS offers a service called Media Mail, which is a dirt-cheap way to ship books. All the rest will go with Fedex. I know they’ve been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, but I’ve never had any issues, so fingers-crossed. Next stop, New York!
We’re moving! At the end of January, Jen and I will head back east to live in NYC. For those wondering why, I think it’s obvious—Monday Night Football at 5:30. In all seriousness, we felt the need to be closer to family ever since moving out west. In NYC, family is just an hour long train ride away.
New York has always been a dream for us, and we can’t wait to call it home.
An app called Stamped launched earlier this week and immediately caught my eye. The concept of ‘stamping’ something you like didn’t wow me, but I did fall in love with the idea of personalizing yourself through a stamp color. Many apps and services these days rely solely on a username and avatar to distinguish users from one another. Because of this, signing up with a new network feels almost routine. When signing up with Stamped, however, I was caught off guard.
It’s not everyday you come across a color picker in a registration form. And the colors you choose carry a significant weight, representing you to others, all the while following you throughout the entire app—on the stamps, on the stamp button, even on embellishments like the horizontal rule of each profile. This experience makes me feel more connected to the app, like I contributed to the design in a small way.
Personalizing each user with their own stamp is strong and I can’t say I’ve seen this before. It’s a unique way of making the user feel comfortable without letting the customization get out of hand. Most of Stamped’s users won’t be designers, but by providing only two variables, it’s highly unlikely someone will pick a color combo that makes the app look bad. And that’s what we should strive for—give the user enough personality to feel a connection without risking degradation of the overall look.
Today, I noticed a Google Analytics widget on fellow co-worker and bearded friend Kurz’s screen. Considering the time it takes for me to check my site’s analytics, I knew I needed one. Though his is simple and to the point, I instead found GAget. It displays the exact info I’m after, contained in a beautiful UI, emphasizing the numbers that matters. If GAget gets one thing right, it’s to include the current day—one downside about the Google Analytics website that still boggles my mind.
Like the rest of the world, I find myself using mobile devices more and more. In the morning, I check Twitter on my iPhone, then I run through the RSS feeds on my laptop when I arrive at work. At night, when I’m working or writing posts, Jen is on the iPad, browsing her favorite websites. All three of these devices have different resolutions and, consequently, different viewing experiences unless the content adapts.
This past week, I spent a few days upgrading Destroy Today to handle these varying resolutions. Sure, I did this to ensure the site reads across all devices, but mostly, I wanted to learn how to do it. I plan to follow this up with a few posts on how to make your own site responsive. Keep an eye out.
I realized recently that I care more and more about household appliances the older I become. To that question, “If your house were burning, which one item would you take with you?”, I’d now say my Dyson vacuum. Everything’s in the cloud these days, so I no longer need my computer, and my cats dart out the door as soon as it’s opened. Getting back to the original purpose of this post, someone decided to reinvent the thermostat. The product is called Nest and it’s a beaut. Living in SF, I rarely have to change the thermostat, but when I do, it’s a nuisance—even using a “smart” thermostats. Instead of requiring you to explicitly set the wake/sleep time for each and every day, Nest learns how you live. Whenever you change it, Nest takes note. As a renter, I don’t see myself picking one up any time soon, but I’d love to see it in person.
I intercepted this video from a Twitter conversation between two Baltimore friends. It’s a hilarious and fun music video for Martin Brooks’ song “Golden Tree.” After watching it, I’m now dying to go home to rural Pennsylvania and ride my bike past all the cornfields. I haven’t tried riding no handed since I was a kid, but I imagine I could add a moves to the list.
