Main differences between Vera and Verdana fonts, wich both look - almost - exactly the same under windows:
Verdana in Uppercase is slightly wider
"Holes" in letter, like in "P", are completely round in Vera whereas the straight line creates a break in the edge of the "hole" in verdana - Which looks far more stylish in Vera
Uppercase "Q" are straight in Vera and curved in Verdana - Which, again, looks more stylish in Vera Lowercase "y" have the same difference, but Vera and Verdana inverted - strange...
Lowercase "j" and uppercase "I" and "J" are quite "serifed" in Verdana and not in Vera - and that, for a general purpose screen font is quite ennoying in Vera, because it is far less readeable (but less stylish;) )
I reckon because of the readeablility of "i" and "j", I'll stick to Verdana
I'm still amazed how much the two fonts look alike.
Anyway, their results are biased by the fact that their tests are conceived to favor their model of back button.
It is not guaranteed that any web surfer would want to navigate like this. (not even considering tabbed browsing)
More precisely, two approaches are possible :
Regular, stack based, back button, which inmplies a "radiating" browsing model (sort of portal-based). This model strongly favors Apple's snap-back approach.
That is : While browsing, I come across a "radiating point", or an info-portal like/. or the main page of a site, offering many links. I follow one of the link, which may or not be relevant. Only if it is not wish I to got back to the former portal a browse another link.
New, temporal based, back button, whiwh implied a more linear browsing, mainly because the complete history stack is erased by branching to another link.
I don't think the new proposed approach is very effective, nor is it intuitive.
Why don't they try to run their first test (ask if it possible to go back to a certain page using the back button) to see if their students understand the second model better that the first ?
What about testing the second model using a satisfaction survey after, say, one week of regular web browsing test ?
Obviously this article is quite interresting, and the fact that the back button has far more used that any other a good starting point for optimization, but it may not be the right answer...
A very nice comic takes place in a similar highway across the North Pole (Gipsy by Marini):
The C3C : The Cirumpolar 3-Continental. While the northern hemisphere, undergoing a small ice age, was stating its most northern regions getting colder every year, the south hemisphere was facing the terrible consequences of a huge whole southern of the ozone layer.
Governments had to resign themselves to limitating strongly the world air traffic, fearing that entire populations would be decimated by skin cancer. In this context of great climatic and environmental anxiety that was born the Circumpolar 3-Continental (C3C), an immense highway able to serve all 3 continents - Eurasia, Africa and America - and to replace air freight by road freight.
The C3C bypasses the arctic ocean and joins Paris to New York, via terrestrian road with connexions to Beijing and Rio of Janeiro. The three transsiberian branches of the Highway join in Zigansk, on the polar circle, in the heart of Siberia, left to anarchy and hunger for more than ten years.
But, in my opinion, it is a mistake to mix artificially art and technology. Technology is a mean, wheras art is a purpose. They have connections, like everything else.
In fact, art has, by nature, nothing to deal with technology. The essence of art is just to be art, whereas technology is at the service of other aims, functionalities for instance, and some of these can - of course - be art.
From this point on, the involvement of technology as a new mean to produce art, is interresting, but, in my opinion, it already reaches its limits. For instance : Websites ! Technology allows to produce beautiful content, that can go further than the regular painting in ways of interaction, evolution, and so on. But, only looking in the enormous amount of not so interrrsting productions (i.e. crap) that can be found on the Net, gives an idea of the danger to confuse, or to merge, art and technology.
Contemporary art is the product of pure talent and hard work. Technology can be useful as a media to this production, but it is only at the service of art.
Therefore, I think that marketing so-called art and technology is pointless.
The only thing I am sure of, is that real creation is really hard to find nowadays, even more as means to produce and broadcasst anything are easy to use.
WebArt is not dead, but it risks to be lost in the chaos of the Web.
I remember reading long ago about organic molecules being able to "switch" between two polarized states under the influence if an outer electronic field. This was supposed to be a future for nano registries...
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.virtualdj.com
Quite impressing...
now for my .02$
:
...
;) )
Main differences between Vera and Verdana fonts, wich both look - almost - exactly the same under windows
Verdana in Uppercase is slightly wider
"Holes" in letter, like in "P", are completely round in Vera whereas the straight line creates a break in the edge of the "hole" in verdana - Which looks far more stylish in Vera
Uppercase "Q" are straight in Vera and curved in Verdana - Which, again, looks more stylish in Vera
Lowercase "y" have the same difference, but Vera and Verdana inverted - strange
Lowercase "j" and uppercase "I" and "J" are quite "serifed" in Verdana and not in Vera - and that, for a general purpose screen font is quite ennoying in Vera, because it is far less readeable (but less stylish
I reckon because of the readeablility of "i" and "j", I'll stick to Verdana
I'm still amazed how much the two fonts look alike.
It is not guaranteed that any web surfer would want to navigate like this. (not even considering tabbed browsing) More precisely, two approaches are possible :
-
Regular, stack based, back button, which inmplies a "radiating" browsing model (sort of portal-based). This model strongly favors Apple's snap-back approach.
/. or the main page of a site, offering many links. I follow one of the link, which may or not be relevant. Only if it is not wish I to got back to the former portal a browse another link.
-
New, temporal based, back button, whiwh implied a more linear browsing, mainly because the complete history stack is erased by branching to another link.
I don't think the new proposed approach is very effective, nor is it intuitive.That is : While browsing, I come across a "radiating point", or an info-portal like
Why don't they try to run their first test (ask if it possible to go back to a certain page using the back button) to see if their students understand the second model better that the first ?
What about testing the second model using a satisfaction survey after, say, one week of regular web browsing test ?
Obviously this article is quite interresting, and the fact that the back button has far more used that any other a good starting point for optimization, but it may not be the right answer...
A very nice comic takes place in a similar highway across the North Pole (Gipsy by Marini) :
& ie =UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=c3C+gipsy
The C3C : The Cirumpolar 3-Continental.
While the northern hemisphere, undergoing a small ice age, was stating its most northern regions getting colder every year, the south hemisphere was facing the terrible consequences of a huge whole southern of the ozone layer.
Governments had to resign themselves to limitating strongly the world air traffic, fearing that entire populations would be decimated by skin cancer. In this context of great climatic and environmental anxiety that was born the Circumpolar 3-Continental (C3C), an immense highway able to serve all 3 continents - Eurasia, Africa and America - and to replace air freight by road freight.
The C3C bypasses the arctic ocean and joins Paris to New York, via terrestrian road with connexions to Beijing and Rio of Janeiro. The three transsiberian branches of the Highway join in Zigansk, on the polar circle, in the heart of Siberia, left to anarchy and hunger for more than ten years.
Look here for some images
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient
My 2 cents...
The overall ideas mentioned in this article are quite right : there IS a need for a major step forward for user interfaces.
Do you guys know any way of getting involved ?
Any real open source project going on on this subject ??
(besides designing some crappy bells and whistles skins for whatever window-like OS or software)
Any ideas welcome.
Pol
Are there any star wars (tm) condoms. So I can pull out my saber saber.
(-1 Troll ?)
You are right.
But, in my opinion, it is a mistake to mix artificially art and technology. Technology is a mean, wheras art is a purpose. They have connections, like everything else.
Art is content, Technology is a container.
I'm sorry but that is pure techno-bullshit...
In fact, art has, by nature, nothing to deal with technology. The essence of art is just to be art, whereas technology is at the service of other aims, functionalities for instance, and some of these can - of course - be art.
From this point on, the involvement of technology as a new mean to produce art, is interresting, but, in my opinion, it already reaches its limits. For instance : Websites ! Technology allows to produce beautiful content, that can go further than the regular painting in ways of interaction, evolution, and so on. But, only looking in the enormous amount of not so interrrsting productions (i.e. crap) that can be found on the Net, gives an idea of the danger to confuse, or to merge, art and technology.
Contemporary art is the product of pure talent and hard work. Technology can be useful as a media to this production, but it is only at the service of art.
Therefore, I think that marketing so-called art and technology is pointless.
The only thing I am sure of, is that real creation is really hard to find nowadays, even more as means to produce and broadcasst anything are easy to use.
WebArt is not dead, but it risks to be lost in the chaos of the Web.
www.atomixmp3.com... Looks strange, but it really does the stuff.
What about organic computers ??
I remember reading long ago about organic molecules being able to "switch" between two polarized states under the influence if an outer electronic field. This was supposed to be a future for nano registries...