I want to talk about flat design when we talk about a word such as ‘ Flatland” and “information representation”, the same as the passage” Escaping Flatland”said, we display information in a two-dimension world.  The whole passage is talking about flatland as a way of information displaying.

And in the field of design , recently we have a contradiction about difference between skeumorphism and flat design, especially after Apple released their new iOS7 icon design.  In my prospective, I’d like to regard the interface design of iOS7 as a improvement based on two reason:  one is the skeuomorphic UIs for apple products in the past are commonly mistaken for “realist”.  Secondly, flat design for new version of the UIs is an efficient information representation.

At the beginning, let’s look at the the calendar in apple’s product design, I don’t think it was a good design not because it is skeumorphism, but because it is overly designed. If we choose  2 of Dieter Rams’ “ten principles for good design” we get:

1. Good design is unobtrusive

2. Good design is as little design as possible

And we can see that  icon design before ios7  the each detail representation  of texture, shading is witha care and precise of designed. Apple has done a great skeumorphism in icon design since they start to using the users graphic interface first, all of those iphoto , trash bin icon design are perfectly good example of real life elements making a difference.

However , there are some bad example like apps of iCalendar  on Mac and Find Friends application on iphone ,  they are  overly design example  for the sake of skeumorphorsm. the whole interface design just try to remind us of the real world and provided tons of  useless visionary information like those calendar grid，and those fake leather stitching.  I agree to the  opinion as same as the author said in <<Escaping Flatland >>:’ It is all right to decorate construction but never construct decoration.’

Additionally, I think flat design is a good way of information representation. Flat design is an more abstract way of information representation . Flat design does not change skeumorphism or on the side against the skeumorphism.  it merely reduces the textures used to their bare essence. It’s a new philosophy of simplicity , clarity and honest of material in users interface.

In the new icon design in Calendar icon in IOS7,  we won’t see single element we familiar with or see anything remind us of a real calendar or texture in real world. It isn’t that concrete anymore.  However when we see the number and date, we can understand it easily that is a icon for calendar.   Let’s  return to those fascinating idea what the author proposed in the passage of <<The Power of The Representation>>: ” A good representation captures the essential elements of the event, deliberately leaving out the rest.”     What’s more, look back at the story  the author demonstrate in the passage: People may use a pencil to represent a car , but it does not have the correct size or mass. It couldn’t show how fast a car can run, but it adds  dramatically to the person’s power to describe the event. It  enable people  to people understand a event they’ve never seen in a good way. So I think this is a same powerful way of information representation as flat design does.  Though flat design is more abstract information represent way than skeumorphism, but it brings no burden of information surplus.  And yes, the critical trick to get the abstraction right,  is to represent the important aspects and not the unimportant.

Escaping flatland

From this article, I learned that a good information design must have three elements: high quality maps which combine substance, statistics and design; diverse details which enable readers to understand the main idea in shortest time; several layers of close reading combined with an overview data from engineering surveys. Otherwise, the whole data display can turn into a chartjunk which is inaccurate, exaggerate and has little to do with the main content. I think this article is very useful especially in data visualization.

Power of representation

There is an old Chinese saying that “The palest ink is better than the best memory” which indicates how limited our memory is. By using some cognitive artifacts like experiential and reflective artifacts in representation, we can strengthen our mental power and be smarter. Experiential artifacts are easy for us to understand, however, reflective ones are not, because they require a lot of mental procedure. From this article, I learned that how powerful representation is, and what elements make a representation good. And I was totally agree with the sentence that “There is no single format can ever be correct for all purpose.” because in order to consider what type of representation we use, we need to think about the role of our readers, the purpose of our representation and the task to be performed. Also, I was very surprised when he said “numbers are really not natural, they are reflective tools, not experiential ones”, I mean, we see and deal with numbers everyday, I don’t think numbers are reflective. And then I realized I was wrong, as he said “it takes years of study in childhood to become proficient at arithmetic”. And maybe this is the reason why common sense and logic are often wrong.

Facebook redesign

What are we talking about When we talk about facebook ? Or severely than all，social network.
The first things I am thinking about is information subscription, the whole information operating system.For example when I log in the facebook page, we actually have trapped in a information waterfall, The photos,status of our friend just swarm into our sight, and we just don’t know which part of the information is most valuable information to us.

If I could propose some idea for facebook redesign , it should be the information operating system. The users of facebook should have a larger privilage to classify their own personal information subscription. Firstly , we should classfied each type of the information in the news feed. For example if I want to see more news about design area , I can have a key to set up my subscription system, then the information filled in my screen will be mainly about design.

Another things I want to modified is privacy of the social network. Basically when we saw the photos or status of our friends we want to give feedback because human are naturally social animal.  And those conversation in the comment part are always based on a post by our friend. For example if my  family or closed friend  make comment on my below my post, and I don’t want other people see it , maybe I can edit the rights that who can see these comments, but not just hide the post from a certain scoial group.

Natural User Interfaces Are Not Natural

I  think this new passage is inspired me to think about what is most suitable way to interact with computer?  Today the touch screen had already replaced the physical buttons. I’m not sure the next generation knows anything about  what is the real “button”. What’s more , I think in the future , maybe we take a picture just by blink our eyes? And at that time may be there are more new problems and worries will appear, I don’t think there’s an end for new problems.

Therefore I don’t think we should worried too much about whether the natural users interface are indeed natural or not , but I think a good interaction behavior should involve in all six sense of our  human- being , maybe in the future we can interact by our eyes ears  mouth and some natural reaction which did by our body,  and yes may be there will be more problems appear. However, Let’s don’t worry about it, because design and technology is always about proposing questions , problem solving and not a final answer to everything.

Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network’s Plan to Dominate the Internet — and Keep Google Out

All of us can’t deny that Facebook is fast growing company and story of the facebook can be found nowhere, All the classic old-media hats are being worn by everyone. The Facebook Effect can create a sudden convergence of interest among people in a news story, a song, or a YouTube video. One day recently I had been working on this book and hadn’t paid any attention to the news. I happened to see that a friend’s News Feed read “reduction in price for 3.5%.” I would in the past have received that information from Yahoo News, or from radio or television.  Facebook have changed the way people to acquire message. I agree to the statement made by the facebook veteran”Facebook is an advanced communications network enabling myriad communication forms”, and looking forward to see how will it looks like ,  A communications system that includes people of all countries, all races, all religions, could not be a bad thing, could it?

The Web Means the End of Forgetting

It is seems like we are exposing in front of everybody about our daily life since internet was invented, but I think we still have rights  to decide” tweet it or not”, I am still insisting my opinion is that keep relaxed and hesitate to think that if we should post it or not. In addition, I also think the posts made by ourselves on internet more or less is about reinventing ourselves and rebuild ideal  impression to other people. That’s a part of the attributes of the web. Thus, just regard the web platform as a big screen, think about what you want to exhibit about yourself in a big screen before we share information about ourselves to internet.  Though the things like Facebook and twitter told us you are the producer of the context. But don’t just do what web want us to do.

Why the future doesn’t need us

Computer is becoming more and more intelligent, and it is indeed , we are willing to see that computer are becoming a efficient helper of our life.  However I am not agree to author’s opinion based on two reason.

Firstly, the author is worried about the if we give a high permission privilage of decision making to computers,  the whole intelligence system will be too smart to controlled by human being. Secondly,  he thought that majority of the computer system will be controlled by minority of the elite, and a mass of people will become a superfluous workforces.  We are no longer being needed.

However I think that, firstly the whole complicated computer system is built by us. What we need to worried about is our own attitude, we should regard computer as a tool but not replacement of ourselves.  Additionally, I think human being owns two gift which one is intelligence and another is emotion. I don’t think a icy machine could replace  us so easy. Finally, I don’t  think  that elite will have greater control over the masses of computer. Almost everyone owns computer today, we could built our personal website if we want, we could create a technology project only if we want. Everybody owns a computer now. We need a progress democratization of technology. Everyone should learn some knowledge of programing and the basic theory of computer running in order to know more about computer.  I think the future with a more accessible technology need everyone of us but not  elite.

My concept about the redesign is to make the home page looks more simplify, and let people feel more comfortable by using it. When I use the Facebook, I don’t really like the way they put our photos and status. The left and right side bars really occupy a lot of space, and this is the reason why the main content (place where we post our photos and status) looks so narrow. So what I’m going to do is to make these side bars “invisible”, they can only show up when your mouse reach the left or right edge of the page. I think this will make the page more “clean” and let people concentrate more on the content they saw on the screen.

Another problem I find is that when people post some really long images, and you want to leave a comment on them, you just can’t see the whole images,because the comment bar could block some part of the images. So I think, maybe this problem could be solved by moving the comment section to the right area of the photos. Also by doing this, people can leave a comment and looking at the photos at the same time.I remember once when I wrote a comment for a photo which my friends shared on the Facebook, I have to scroll up again and again to check if I wrote right about her photos.

I also want to do a little bit change about the chat bar, although it can be invisible when you close it, problem still comes when you chat with your friends. If you want to chat with a friend, you click the name shows on the chat bar, a dialog box will appears beside it. And if you want to chat with somebody else, another dialog box will appears too, eventually these dialog boxes are going to block the main content on the middle. I want to make the dialog box inside the chat bar, so you can chat with your friend and see the main content at the same time.