Mr eel
Your Futuristic Concept Sucks Because It Will Never Get Made
Will all my feed subscriptions and nigh obsessive net-trawlin’ I get plenty of opportunity to eyeball all sorts of concepts. Although I’m not much of a rev-head, I especially enjoy looking at car concepts. It gives me that day-dreamy feeling I used to get as a kid whenever I was watching Beyond 2000 or reading Sci-Fi.
Every industry likes to get it’s concepts out in public. Intel have some new PC concepts. Seiko has a watch concept using e-paper. Jeep have a totally far out 4×4. And so on.
I’m starting to develop a feeling of love and hate towards all these things. I love ideas and adventurousness of a lot of these concepts. The crazy far-outness. The idea that I might one day get my fiddly fingers on ‘em.
I hate the fact that most of them will never get made. The more I think about it, the more I feel like the whole idea of concepts sucks. It’s like these companies just wanna fuck with you. Because you know by the time it’s been market researched, group-tested and critiqued by dozens of tiny business minds, it’s either not gonna be made at all or it turns out totally different — and much more boring.
I’m starting to appreciate Apple’s approach a lot more. The waiting might put the fan boys and girls knickers into a twist, but you know that when Apple finally shows a product it’s the real deal. You can go buy that sucker if you really feel like it.
Where Music Critics Get It Wrong
I’ve bagged music criticism on this here blog before, but like a good little pedant I-just-can’t-let-go. I was reading this article about John Peel’s top 20 albums and I came across this wonderful quote from Steve Albini.
“John Peel said something that I thought was really profound. He said when he gets a record from somebody and he doesn’t like it, he assumes that it’s his problem and that the band would not have made that record if there wasn’t something valuable about it.”
Too fucking right man! That’s basically where I think most criticism fucks up. Trying to make your likes or dislikes someone else’s problem.
Your iPod is Out of Date (Apparently)
I stumbled over a link to an article describing why your ipod will be out of date in a year. I’ve got a choice quote just below.
“For 2006 is to be the year of the Ultimate Gadget, when the phone, music player, camera, organiser, games machine, and pretty much everything apart from the kitchen sink, is crammed into one attractive, effective and easy-to-use package.”
Well, there are a couple of points to be made. Firstly, for some, having an iPod is not so much about disk space or convenience, so much as it is about lifestyle. That’s the thing about branding, it can convince you to stick with something even when there are supposedly more advanced products. If there is one thing the iPod has it’s a strong brand.
Secondly, for all it’s secondary functions, an iPod is a music player first and foremost and it does a bloody good job. That’s a really crucial point. Most mobile phones now days have all sorts of additional features, but don’t necessarily have a good implementation. I can’t see the situation getting any better.
“…attractive, effective and easy-to-use package.” HAW HAW HAW! Most mobile phones look like crap, especially when you stick it next to something nice like an iPod or a PSP. Easy-to-use is certainly debatable. Clicking through sub-menus, fiddling with little tiny joysticks, trying to press little tiny buttons with your fingernails, coz apparently only pixies use mobile phones now days. Bleh! Mobile phone manufacturers have a hell of a long way to go! This whole convergence malarky is only gonna make things worse.
I think there is a definite opportunity for a phone manufacturer to develop a device that rolls all sorts of functions into one package, but I think it’s awhile before we see anything that gets it just right.
In the meantime be prepared for lots of fiddly junk. Hooray!
If I Was Responsible for the Amen Break…
I would be the proudest son of a bitch on earth. Coz as over-used as it is; it fuckin’ rules.
Nice little doco about the break here.
Banking Web Apps Suck
In my dealings with various banking institutions I’ve had a chance to use various web forms and applications to communicate with said money-sucking-scum-bags.
I’ve not found a single one with what I would consider a good web experience. Badly worded, confusingly set-out, requesting all sorts of extraneous detail and just plain broken (i.e. it won’t work in anything other than Internet Exploder). Just for kicks I thought I might critique one particular banking web app, since it’s the one I’m forced to use most often.
I’m looking at you Bank SA! It’s pretty rare for me to go into a bank branch to do any banking. I prefer to do it via the net. Generally much quicker. Not without pain however. Bank SA’s net-banking is totally arse. Let me count the ways…
It Opens in a Pop-up
Way to go! Security conscious indeed. If the site is in a pop-up, there is no way for customers to verify that they are actually at their bank’s website by looking at the URL, since it’s hidden. This is practically screaming out for a phishing attack. Malicious so-and-sos can easily fool folk into entering financial details it to a faked bank site and the users are unlikely to be suspicious of the pop-up. After all, it’s what the bank uses all the time.
It’s a Java Applet
Do I really have to explain this one? Ok, Java applets in browsers are slow, ugly, require a huge plugin and are themselves generally larger than an equivalent app made with plain HTML. Plus as I use a Mac, the interface for Bank SA’s fancy java web-app is b0rked. Scrambled controls mashed all over the screen. Lovely.
Tacked On Features
There are a lot of features that have obviously been tacked on. For example, adding the details for a third-party account — I may want to regularly transfer money to a particular account. This is done via a pop-up. Yay! Another window! This should be integrated into the Java applet, but you see, it is big and nasty and they’re afraid to touch it incase they break it. Using um… HTML would make this a bajillion times easier. As an added bonus, you are asked to log out of the system after you have added an account. Otherwise… it won’t turn up in the applet! HA HA HA HA HA *sob*.
Drop-down Menus
Most of the functions in the app are hidden in drop-down menus. I don’t think this is a bad decision actually. There are a lot of options and drop-downs are a good way to keep them on-page without cluttering things up. Since this is an app, people are likely to use it frequently. Familiarity means you can make somethings a little less obvious. The problems come in when you consider the fact that the drop-downs are actually attached to buttons. That is so brain-dead I… See? I’m lost for words.
Generally Crap Design
This really deserves a post all of it’s own. In fact I think I could do more than one. Ha. Anyhow, a quick run-down; confusing use of widgets, un-clear labeling, badly organised options (un-related stuff bunched together) and an essentially crap, messy and plain un-professional app.
What about credibility? If this app was my first contact with the Bank I honestly wouldn’t deal with them. It screams ‘rickety and un-reliable’.
So, I’ve been thinking… what would the ideal Banking web-app be like?