ohryan.ca

A Web Developer in Winnipeg

  • Windows 8 Review

    Windows 8 Review

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    Last week Microsoft Canada invited me to a hands-on demo with Windows 8 and their Surface RT tablet. The demo consisted of a hotel room, 3 Microsoft PR People – the business guy, the soccer mom and the xbox guy – and all the Windows hardware they could “fit in one suitcase” (they mentioned that a number of times, as if packing a suitcase was some amazing feat).

    By now, I’m sure most of you have read a Windows 8 review or two. So I’ll keep this brief, I’m going to go over a few areas that stood out to me.

    Unfortunately, they were not able to lend me a review unit, so this review will have to be based on a 7 day old memory.

    Unique

    Live Tiles

    The new Windows 8 “start screen” (pictured above) is made up of a series of re-sizable, re-positionable “live tiles.” Live tiles are the single most distinguishing feature of Windows 8, they are the blocky user-interface elements that tie the operating system together across devices. Windows Phones have live tiles, the tablet and desktop implementations have live tiles and the xbox has adopted a UI the resembles live tiles somewhat.

    I’m going to be honest, live tiles make icons looks old fashioned. Live tiles are constantly updating with new data from the internet: the weather app shows you an up to date forecast, the “people” app shows you icons of your friends who’ve recently posted an update to any (any!) social network, the news app gives you breaking news, you get the idea. There is simple no way to accomplish this with your standard 32×32 iOS or desktop app, Android’s gadgets are a step in the right direction. But I have to say, I think Microsoft is on to something.

    “Optimized for thumbs”

    Windows 8 seems to be designed to function best on a tablet in landscape mode. I suspect Microsoft sees this as a distinguishing feature in-and-of-itself, when compared side by side with other tablet OSes which are designed for portrait view. The soccer mom rep really emphasized that Windows 8 is “optimized for thumbs” (as if it were an un-marketed catchphrase). Much like the Blackberry playbook, Windows 8 attaches gestures to the edges of the screen. The right edge brings up cross-app search, universal “sharing”, the start button, device and start screen settings. The left gesture cycles through open app. I’m mentioning this as a unique feature, not necessarily a good one. These edge of screen swipe gestures always strike me as a little clunky.

    Picture Unlock

    Instead of setting an alpha-numeric, Windows 8 allows you to customize your login background imagine, which you then use as a reference for tracing a “password”. For example, the music guy had his a photograph of his hotrod, he traced around the headlights and left fender to unlock the device. I’m always fascinated by the length manufacturers have to go to get avoid patent infringement. I’m not really sure what sort of affect this will have on actual security – positive or negative.

    Pinning

    I think that’s what they called it. Windows 8 is designed around full-screen apps. All apps open to take up the entire screen. This has some fairly obvious workflow implications, as Jacob Neilsen mentioned this sort of takes away from the whole “Windows” idea. Some apps – like MSN message – don’t really make sense as full screen apps.

    To get around this, you’re able to “pin” apps to the left 1/3rd of the screen. When you execute a gesture the current active window becomes “pinned” app switches from a landscape view, to portrait and sit on the screen while you have other apps open. In my limited use, I wasn’t really able to gauge how practical this would be in actual use.

    The Good

    There is not a lot of good.

    The main thing that really struck me was the integration of previously disparate Microsoft brands. They are re-focusing their music, video and game/app stores under the Windows 8 brand. No more “Windows Live Messenger email” and “Xbox 360 game store.” Like an AppleID, everything is tied to a Windows ID. All of your store purchases are available on any Windows 8 device you own. This sort of integration is table stakes for any OS in 2012 – it’s good to see Microsoft finally catching up.

    Xbox presents the most interesting aspect of the unified store. You can buy a cross-platform game like Angry Birds and instantly have access to it on your Windows Phone, Surface and xbox. Presumably full-fledged Xbox games are able to have Windows Phone compatible mini-games. Genius.

    Oh, and Windows Music.

    Microsoft have managed to cobble together a competitor for Rdio and Spotify. For $9.99 you get access to 30 million song across all Windows devices including xbox (though you’ll have to have a $60/yr “gold” account to access the service on your xbox).

    The Really Bad

    The Desktop App

    All legacy apps and non-native Windows 8 applications run inside (what Microsoft is branding) the “desktop app.” As far as I can tell, this is the Windows 7 desktop, minus a start button. It behaves very simliar to every version of Windows we’ve seen in the past 17 years since Windows 95 – in fact, it looks pretty similar to Windows 95, only bubblier. According to the PR reps the desktop app is for “productivity,” whatever that means. On a traditional desktop PC, desktop app is a good option for desktop users who will undoubtedly need to run legacy apps, or who may have a hard time using and adjusting to the radical new “start screen” UI.

    Unfortunately, on tablet hardware, the desktop app utterly destroys the user experience. I inadvertently asked the rep to show me task manager (which is oddly linked on the “log out” screen), upon loading task manager the Surface hiccups into the desktop app…I nearly vomited in my mouth, suddenly a reasonably nice tablet experience was interrupted by this antiquated GUI.

    BTW, Microsoft Office for Windows 8 runs in the desktop app.

    Soft Cover Keyboard

    It’s unusable.

    Conclusion

    I have very mixed feelings about Windows 8. Microsoft is doing a lot of things right. They’ve essentially built a responsive operating system that works well across different devices and screen configurations. Live tiles are a real step forward in UI. The brand unification, music streaming and app stores are long needed improvements.

    In other ways, it’s bad. The Live tile based start screen UI is going to alienate a lot of traditional desktop users, it simply doesn’t work well without touch input.

    If I was presently running Windows 7, I probably wouldn’t upgrade.

    If I was in the market for tablet, I would consider a Windows 8 device.

  • Seth Godin Teaches a Good Lesson About Design

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    [A guest post by Karam Debly]

    Through a friend, I learned that Seth Godin put out a call on his blog for developers to apply to build a mobile app.

    I wrote the following in my application.

    “I’m writing to tell you that I don’t think your blog, which i love, warrants an app.

    We believe strongly in responsive design and your site should be designed to look good on any platform.

    I have a hunch that if people are asking you for an app they are either responding to trends or telling you your site doesn’t look good on mobile devices and/or tablets.

    A solid designer should be trying to solve a problem, not building you shit you don’t need.”

    I wrote that quickly. Besides grammar, I would change the last sentence. Solid is vague, I mean responsible.

    I have since looked at his site and blog (I should’ve looked before I hit send, I can be impulsive). Both sites don’t work on common mobile and tablet screen resolutions.

    There’s a great lesson here.

    What do you tell a potential client who is asking for a proposal for something that you think is missing the problem in the first place? Even if that potential client is Seth Godin.

    I would ask the client to back up and describe the problem in more detail.

    Is the problem really that Seth Godin doesn’t have a mobile app? Or is that a symptom of the problem?

    The problem, in my humble opinion, is that his site doesn’t work on smaller screens. It’s very difficult to read. Mobile users aren’t tolerating pinch to zoom anymore. And they shouldn’t. Designers have built a better way to interact with a site on smaller screens.

    I think Mobile apps can be useful. It’s just that none of the other details he wrote warrant an app either. He’s not interested in monetization (Let’s be honest, that’s a big reason for mobile app development). The main feature for the app is that it displays articles from his RSS feed and links to sell his books. Oh, and share buttons for social media. These are all features that could be easily incorporated in a responsive site. There’s one vague requirement that I’m just going to interpret as “anything else you think would be cool” and leave it out of this.

    Seth doesn’t need a mobile app. He needs a new site. And a responsible design company would tell him that. I’m surprised he missed something this obvious. I’m also surprised that no one around him pointed out his mistake. However, I won’t be surprised that mobile app developers won’t mention that. They are responding to his call after all.

    Seth messed up, it happens. Don’t let your clients make the same mistake. They might end up blaming you. They should. You’re supposed to be the expert.

    P.S. I put TBD in the Budget field of my application.

  • Winnipeg is a Freelance Town

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    After being laid-off from my job as an interaction designer at Think Shift earlier this year, I exchanged some emo IMs with a good friend and former-Winnipegger. I told him that I was looking at getting into freelance full-time, to which he replied “Winnipeg is a freelance town.”

    He was right.

    I’ve spent the majority of my 10+ year career working as a remote freelancer. I’ve spent less time at “real jobs” in “real offices” than I have spent working in my “home office.” I took the interaction design job at Think Shift partially to see what I had been missing and partially because I believed the myth of job security.

    I’m sure some people would be unhappy working from home without co-workers or face-to-face interaction; and others would be inherently unhappy working for a boss in an office. I’m not one of those people. I don’t know whether I prefer one to the other. There are pros and cons to each. But most of these factors could be lumped into a “soft” category: offices have face-to-face interaction, group collaboration. Home offices have more time with families, optional clothing, shorter commutes, better coffee. With the exception of health benefits and different tax rules, none of major differences have much of an affect my bottom line. They don’t affect my ability to pay the bills, which after-all is the whole point of a job.

    When it comes to salary, “real jobs” in Winnipeg cannot compete with freelance. Based on my limited experience most Winnipeg employers live in a stereotypical Winnipeg bubble. They seem to worry endlessly about dealing with stereotypically “cheap” Winnipeg clients. They’re more likely to try to compete on price than quality and seek out clients who are more interested in price than quality (or vice versa, maybe it’s chicken and egg). Even the larger web shops seem hesitant (with typical Winnipeg insecurity) to compete for work nationally, let alone internationally. For all these reasons, Winnipeg web shops are completely unable to compete for salaries nationally.

    (And for the most part that’s seems to be OK with Winnipeggers.)

    The hourly rates I’m able to charge are completely unreasonable for any full-time salaried position in town – I know because I’ve had job placement agents (that’s the PC name for “headhunters” right?) tell me as much. At the same time, my rates are entirely acceptable to clients in larger markets. Local businesses are also willing to pay my rates because they are still significantly lower than the hourly rates a full on web shops needs to charge to pay the bills.

    Some of the most talented designers and developers I know run successful freelance businesses or work remotely for companies like Automattic,  Shopify (I believe Shopify has a local office now) and Black Pixel.