Homework

I'm the hunkered-down recluse these days, gearing up for new classes, catching up on hospital work.

Thinking ahead to my next DemocracyLab meeting, I'm pleased and intrigued by this Google TechTalk entitled "Don't Make Me Click" by design scientist Aza Raskin. He lectures about how to design less annoying interfaces by avoiding "the seduction of interaction" (9:00).

I'd call it Tufte School in some ways.

Guido asks a question at the end, about needing a pattern language or working toolkit for implementing these simple, minimalist or "zen" (I'd add "quaker") front ends. We need a Julia Child of interfaces to come forward, with some fairly bulletproof recipes, so web designers aren't always making the same silly mistakes.

Also, Adrian Rossiter continues to produce some fine mathcasts. I recently transcribed his Jitterbug Torus to a YouTube-compatible format, with permission:

Another Portland BarCamp is coming soon, will probably swing by, maybe catch an exotic language session (and/or lead one on J?).