Ideation Limitation

I find that I suffer from Ideation Limitation.  That is, that when I have an idea for something I immediately run it through my mind’s filter and usually within a few moments discard it as something that ‘surely people would never use’… leading me to the conclusion, so why would I build it?

The crux of this syndrome is the “surely people would never use” part.  More specifically, the problem is that “people”, are not me.  I think coding a site to upload some photos, automate them into a simple slideshow is a no brainer.  Your mom on the other hand thinks that’s about the most fan-futon-tastic thing ever.  She and all the ladies in her card group use it religiously; sharing photos of their baby grandchildren drooling and gnawing on the dogs chew toys.  Who knew.

Working in the web gives me an unhealthy filter for potential ideas.  Is it because I’m smarter than everyone else?  Probably. (Ha!) Actually, it makes me rather stupid.  I thought Twitter was a stupid idea.  Who would use a service like that? (Insert another Ha! here)

Bottom line is, I need to start thinking outside of my own filters.  I need to get into the mindset of the 400 million plus users who think that Facebook is awesome, and start building sites/apps for them.  There will likely always be a segment that finds your site/app useful, even if you’re not actually a part of that segment.

Friday Futon - Rental

Sometimes I wish my last name was Rental.  Maybe something like Richard Rental, RR.  That way when I played monopoly, it would just be assumed that I would own all the railroads; because between you and I, the railroads are totally where the money is at.

Anyways, if my last name was Rental, and I was say, a snow skier, I would put my last name on my skis; just in case they got stolen — kinda like your mom still does on all your t-shirts.  So when I’d be up on the mountain, people would look down at my skis and think that I was riding on rented skis, and then they would probably make fun of me.  But, then, right after they tried some lame trick off the rock by the chair lift on that double black diamond, I’d come flying by them, hit the jump do a hi-ho triple psycho (nod to Band of Skulls) and nail it right in front of their girlfriends.

Then I’d just nod back at them, and say, Rental.  Richard Rental.

Yeah Yeah, Progressive Enhancement

I admit it, I think “progressive enhancement” is for lazy developers.  I have a personal goal that every site I work on looks the same in every browser that my client’s customers use.  It’s not that far fetched an idea, and one that is supported by some of the best web shops that exist today.  

Then, I get a phone call and a client asks specifically for a “progressively enhanced” site.  I nodded silently during the call, all the while thinking, I’ll still build it for every browser.  Later in the week as I reviewed my notes from the client call, I made a decision.  If this client is savvy enough to ask for progressive enhancement, then I might as well try my hand at it.  Hear me when I say this goes against everything in my being.  The little people inside of me that operate the kick-butt machine that is Noah (you should see me on the bball court [@twatson, @ryanirelan, @simmy]) were screaming and kicking at the very thought of such a violation.

The site design called for some rounded corners and some drop shadow.  I found the http://border-radius.com site to come in quite handy for generating cross browser code.  (Does anyone else find that ironic, that even though these browsers support CSS3, they still can’t agree on a syntax?) A little bit of the box-shadow (again with the multiple syntax) and the site was actually looking pretty identical to the PSD.  

I fired up IE and braced myself for the sure to be ugly implementation, and was pleasantly surprised that the design degraded gracefully without the rounded corners or the drop shadow.  (That is most likely because one of the best designers you and I know did it, so that helps.)  There were actually no IE changes that needed to be made.  I thought about adding a javascript implementation of the rounded corners, but again I withheld because that wasn’t what the client had asked for.

Looking back now, it was incredibly easy to build out a rather complex site using CSS3.  Like, really easy.  Not having to build bulletproof rounded corner divs with drop shadow saves quite a bit of time.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was more enjoyable, because to me, all front end development is enjoyable, but it was definitely a fun, eye-opening experience of what the future holds for web developers.  

So, perhaps my stance has changed on progressive enhancement.  Maybe it’s not for the lazy rather for the forward thinkers.  Either way, I’m still going to be coding all of my projects for the browsers that my client’s customers use.

FRVNT, A Long Time Coming

Well, this has been a long time coming, but FRVNT is now in private beta.  I plan on writing a lot more about this process, but not right now.  If you’re interested, invites will be going out as soon as next week.  Follow @frvnt on Twitter, or use the Signup page to notify us that you’re interested.

Many thanks to Sir Phil Coffman who’s beautiful design hangs nicely on the frame of this site.

Friday Futon - 15 Minutes Into The Future

If I was all rich and famous, and had access to crazy things like that time travel device that Tom Cruise uses, I would probably launch myself about 15 minutes ahead, 15 minutes into the future.

Think of the epic-ness of such a move.  I know, right?!  In the future, I could look back and do all kinds of crazy junk, of course the obvious, make sure that I took the steak off the grill before I burned that $12 dollar filet.  But there are other things too.  Like making sure that killer face melting solo I just ripped on your mom, in her church sunday school class, was in the right key.

Perhaps most important of all however, would be to jump to June 28, 1997.  So, that’s not in the future… so I would have to jump back, then jump forward.  (A lot of technical crap that even you kids who know jQuery real good like, couldn’t comprehend; you’ll just have to take my word for it.)  Anyways, I would go back to the Tyson-Holyfield match and I would be there ringside, yelling at Holyfield that Tyson was gonna chew off his ear.  Now that I think about it, he probably wouldn’t hear me, given the size of the arena and all those crazy ladies cheering for Iron Mike; so this plan likely wouldn’t work.  I’d just be there back in time, but in the future watching Tyson take a bite of Holyfield, and saying to myself: “I knew that was going to happen.”

Things Feel Like 2003/2004

I may be off on my years, but things in our little community of designers and developers is really starting to feel like 2003/2004.  Those years had a sense of community that was both encouraging and inspiring, something that made you proud to be a member.  People were blogging long form (imagine that), online publications like Stylegala reviewed and featured great websites, A List Apart (seemed to be breaking new standards related HTML/CSS/JS techniques every few weeks.  If you were a web nerd, like myself, as I said, it was inspiring times.

Enter 2007/2008 and the community takes a daily dump with the latest “CSS Gallery” site.  We were reduced to browsing our version of porn, glossy buttons and semantic code.  We didn’t talk any more, we didn’t discover and selflessly publish new ideas and techniques, we didn’t critique and encourage our peers; we browsed lists of lists,  consumed, yet didn’t produce, we lost the plot.

On the other side of this story, we have today.  Ideas are buzzing, communities like Dribbble are emerging,  community exercises are developing and many more that I’m aware of, are coming soon.  It’s exciting times.  Things feel like 2003/2004.

Friday Futon - Carpet Designers

I just can’t stop thinking about the folks who design carpet patterns.  Think of the ego they must have. I bet the conversations at the yearly Carpet Designer By Carpet West Festival goes something like this:

Some dude: ”Yeah, I did the carpet in the Oval Office. (snicker)  What have you done?”
Some other dude: ”(Gulp) I did the local 24 Hour Fitness”
Some dude: ”Right, right.  Oh hey, there’s Tina Thread! You know she came up with the sliding stitch technique right?  That crap is all over the place now. Dayam.”

I wonder if they obsess over the finer details, thread counts, accessibility, junk like that.  Or if they have a site like, www.carrrpet.com where they show previews of their new carpet designs, and let others drool over them. Do you think they even consider durability in their design?  I mean, do they bitch and moan over the fact that shoe manufacturers aren’t sticking with the standards, and allowing rogue soles on their precious carpet?!? I’m sure there are blogs dedicated to the hatred of Red Wing boots.  That junk will straight up shred any carpet design in no time.

Man, carpet designers are such divas.

Friday Futon - Stevie Ray Juan

I had this dream last night.  About this mexican guitar slinger named Stevie Ray Juan.  Then I thought, I wonder if I could recreate Cameron Moll’s beautiful Colosseo print, using only Comic Sans and CSS 3.  That’s as far as I got with this Stevie Ray Juan thing.  But you gotta admit, that name is kinda funny.