da Scriffles

Design should be a compulsory subject. (Scriff-File 238)

I've gained a new appreciation of the importance and difficulty of design as I've wrestled with digital design problems over the past few years.
These days I marvel at the little flatpack I can assemble into a cute little filing cabinet.
I look at the manholes in the busways and think "Wow, someone had to think of how maintenance would be done in the bus tunnel."
I look at a html page and think "Wow!"
"WOW!"
I see the structure, I pick up some phrases, I so want to read the document but the next thought is "No!"
It's a problem for me.
One of my major goals is to learn how to make a WordPress blog myself.
I keep making bookmarks and putting it off. I've been putting it off for three months now.

It took me months to master the simplest html - it was like learning shorthand all over again.
It took years to learn Flash, mainly because I didn't have access to the program - and then I was confronted with Design!
I've learned to make do.
I do what I can, accept any advice that might be forthcoming but given my shortcomings and the constraints of time - if it works I'm happy.
I know "It's just like that record player."
It plays records, CDs and FM radio and you can make MP3s off records.
But the layout of function buttons is quirky and it takes long way round.
The Power Button is where I expect the eject button to be.
Push "Power on" and it defaults to the CD player.
The CD player has to initialize before the function button works to flip to the record player or radio.
The CD eject button is up one from the other CD buttons.
What the heck was the designer thinking?
All the toil!
Am I mad? I'm grasping for things far beyond my reach.
Can I do better?

I'm going to a master class by tomorrow by Information Architects Tokyo CEO Oliver Reichenstein who has a pretty impressive CV.
It's a X Media Lab workshop on News and the Spectrum of User Experience - he's also speaking at the XML Media Update for 2010.

The reason this former newspaper journalist started thinking digital is because she heard Richard Titus, the co-founder of Schematic speak at the Screen Producers of Australia Association's conference in 2004-2005.

Titus, formerly the BBC's Controller of Future Media and the Controller of User Experience and Design is now the CEO of Associated Northcliffe Digital.
I'm really looking forward to hearing what he has to say this time.

When I first heard him speak future trends (TiVo) and long tails (Amazon), I didn't know what a content management system was and I had no desire at all to learn programming - I was interested in writing.

I taught myself Photoshop in between migrating a ton of content under tight nightly deadlines.
I took leave to attend Flash courses which I paid for.
I listened to Australian business people producing mobi-sodes and webi-sodes talk at AFTRS and SPAA Fringe.
I continue to learn and at the same time I'm trying to figure out writing I'm trying to figure out design.
So I'm baulking at programming.
It's so unforgiving. One little " out of place and KAPUT.

This is so not right in my way of thinking.
But then is this the kind of thinking that leads to doom?
I'm thinking of the former general manager of Chile's Mint who lost his job after the Mint issued thousands of 50 peso coins with the name of the country spelt: C-H-I-I-E instead of CHILE.

Discover the H-code with Uma Thurman's dad. Scriff File 241

Got a letter in the post this week which wasn't a household bill.
The 5th Annual Conference on Happiness and Its Causes is on in Sydney in May.
And Edward de Bono, Dr Robert Thurman (that's Uma's dad), Naomi Wolf (Author of The Beauty Myth), Hugh Mackay - even Natasha Stott Despoja (the former leader of the Democrats) are speaking about how are we to live.
It's a great question. I was thinking about this as I flew over my beautiful city at night.
Flying over Brisbane always makes me happy and sad - because you see all the sprawling chaos.

At night, all you see are roads and buildings and electric lights.
All the electricity being burned on a Saturday night just for security purposes in empty warehouses.
Lovely to gaze down upon. All taken for granted. But can we afford it?

The financial woes pressing down on world economies are tied up with scarcity - the scarcity of bare necessities.
If people aren't working - there's less taxes, less money for health and infrastructure.

Everybody's tied up with details on the ground too busy to pull back and see the big picture.
Maybe this conference would be a great opportunity to do just that.

Happiness seems to be a recurring theme for me at the moment.
Coca-Cola is also seeking to associate itself with Happiness.
I went through the motions of creating a digital campaign which I had intended to enter in the Content 360 competition that MIPTV.

MIPTV is the famous Cannes (as in South of France) annual gathering of the world's TV industry for a huge trade show - if you want to buy or sell TV to the world this is where you come.
But in recent years they've been interested in digital content and this year Coca-Cola and the ad agency Ogilvy lay down the challenge to create an idea for branded content that engages teenagers: a TV show, a web movie series, a mobile application.
I came up with: Discover the H-code.
The code for Happiness.

But I didn't submit it because it really disturbed me.
It was like I was Anakin Skywalker flirting with the dark side.
And in the end I abandoned the project - I could not turn.

This whole concept of branded entertainment is something I've been interested in for a while in story design.
At the Media 2010 conference last Friday I listened to the aspirations of top companies in this regard:
Richard Titus, CEO of Britain's Associated Northcliffe Digital, is a very clever and creative man.
He's been at the forefront of digital media since the beginning.
He has his people now creating a single user profile for their customers across the group which includes The Daily Mail newspaper, jobsite and many other data and content businesses.

If you look for a job on their jobsite website they can cross reference the data they have when you start looking for real estate on their other website and they build a whole profile on you.
It's not new - everyone's doing it.
And they do want to install a prompt to pop up and allow you to edit the profile on you - if you wish.

The reason they want to know all about you is so they can "create an experience to delight the customer" in order to sell you stuff.
In other words it's all ADVERTISING - making a world that fits you like a glove, allaying all your fears so that you feel comfortable with buying stuff - their stuff.
Much more powerful advertising than we've ever seen before.

Now, if people are fully aware of what's going on and they can factor that into their thinking (ie they are educated and the process is transparent) then that seems fine.
But if we're marketing to teenagers who just go along for the ride (like the slug humans in Wall-E who spend their lives glued to screens and consuming) that's not fine.
It's not so much about government regulation as it is about education and awareness.
It's like technology is moving so much faster than governments, education and a lot of parents - who are probably even more vulnerable than their digitally literate children.
Don't take my word for it go to talk to an informed pediatrician who deals with kids whose lives have been jumbled by media consumption:
i-Kids: Children & the Media

Happiness is tied up with social and digital media these days: the mobile phone, the internet, Facebook.
We need to look at ALL the angles.
Just like big business is doing.

What do you think?