Perhaps I am becoming a little reflective as my 20s come to an end, however reading through my posts since my last birthday makes me realize, with pride, how much life has evolved. As well as moving I have switched jobs not once, but twice. My 28th birthday seems like a long time ago.

Before I changed jobs I was in the middle of a series of posts that were very dependent on my workplace environment at the time. The sudden stop halfway through is bothering me however I am working on reformatting them slightly and may pick back up in a few months.

This years Towel Day graphics are now live. Instead of producing one graphics in all of the various sizes, instead I uploaded the high resolution versions of the images and produced two new images with help from local photographers.

I have begun to see them out and about in the world and I am truly loving it. It actually gives me a new idea for the twitter competition for next year.

More Towel Day

Towel Day 2013 “Mostly Harmless”

Photo by Steven Balubar

Step 01:

Press this button to follow @TravisAvery on Twitter!

Step 02:

Press this button to tweet a Towel Day message to your followers!

Then You’re Done!

Just follow these two simple steps and I will send you a Direct Message within 48 hours with links to the Towel Day 2011, Twitter Exclusive Wallpaper.

If your tweets are private, then I won’t be able to see them. Sorry.

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Towel Day 2013 “Perfectly Normal Paranoia”

Photo by Michael Saavedra

Step 01:

Press this button to follow @TravisAvery on Twitter!

Step 02:

Press this button to tweet a Towel Day message to your followers!

Then You’re Done!

Just follow these two simple steps and I will send you a Direct Message within 48 hours with links to the Towel Day 2011, Twitter Exclusive Wallpaper.

If your tweets are private, then I won’t be able to see them. Sorry.

More Towel Day

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More Towel Day

It took me a while to find a table that I liked, and unfortunately once I finally did find one it turns out it had been discontinued. Luckily the only thing that I really needed was the table post and was able to order the part over the phone. I was going to need a larger table anyway, so it was therefore it actually works out better that I could order the parts separately.

After finding a lovely 36 inch round pine table top, I stained, varnished, and attached it with fantastic results. I have a strong hatred for particle board for many different reasons, however natural wood offers a natural richness of both color and texture.

I purposefully used pine because of the nature of that wood it is extremely rough and knotty, and once I stained and varnished the surface I did a minimum amount of sanding in order to keep that nature of the wood intact.

I wanted there to be an almost rustic look to the desk, but more importantly however is having that texture. As humans we want things to be perfect smooth clean, however I believe that having a completely clean and sterile environment doesn’t offer you anything. Having that spot on your desk that you scratch at, or that place that is worn down where you rub your finger, adds a subtle character that you will never be able to replicate.

After a week on a standing workstation I can honestly say I like it. I have more energy, I feel more focused, I am not as tired. However we shall see what tune I sing after a few weeks of this.

I believe color theory is extremely important. There are proven physical and psychological effects that different hues have on people.

The problem I have is more one of interpretation. There have been countless studies on this subject, however I have never seen a single one where the cause and effect doesn’t seem, to my anyway, to be forced. Most of them try and attach a set of emotional adjectives to different colors or color pallets. We as humans have too wide a gamut of emotions for colors to be that simple.

Variations of different colors mean something drastically different depending on someones culture heritage. Even within the same country different colors could mean different this depending on your demographic and/or socioeconomic position.

What we can do is study the direct physical effects of color use that information to allow designers to use colors based on what effect they are trying to achieve. Instead of emotion, we should measure heart rate, blood flow, pupal dilation, sweat, brain activity, breathing rate, etc. We then need a larger variety of tests in order to measure a extensive variation of purposes, such as productivity, health, cognitive function, information retention, etc. We also need to do the exact same test over a vast span of time with varied demographics at different countries all over the world.

I doubt a study of this magnitude will ever be done on to my satisfaction. However to be fair this study may already exist, and I may just be ignorant. At the end of the day, even with this level of information we as Designers need to be able to take this data and throw it all out the window; sometimes taking the risk is more important.

There is actually bit of controversy surrounding the legitimacy of issues involving Compact Florescent Tubes, as most of the underlying causes of them have been reduced to the point of being completely undetectable by the human eye. The problem I have with completely dismissing them is that recently we have discovered that there is still unnoticeable affect on people. Under long term conditions poor quality lighting can actually affect a wide range of physical and mental health problems. In my scenario, headaches, eye strain, and even slight depression, all of which get progressively worse over time.

Unless you are able to somehow convince your company to spend the money to install sky lights in their building and then use only halogen bulbs, there is no way to completely eliminate these problems. There are always ways to improve them; you can find florescent lighting options that will decrease the risk of these problems.

Keep a look out for Full Spectrum Bulbs, although this has become a bit of a marketing term and many bulbs that are labeled as Full Spectrum are not. The bulb’s Color Temperature should be less than 5000K and more than 3000K, with a little over 4000K being optimal. The higher the Color Rendering Index the better, but I would aim for a rating of 80 or more. Last but certainly not least is the flickering effect, and unfortunately this is the hardest to figure out because nobody really advertises it. You want something in the higher ranges, preferably 60 kHz or more.

The best that I have been able to find on the market is the Philips TL 950 Compact Florescent Tube. Although the Color Temperature of 5000K is a little cooler than I would like, I haven’t been able to find a better florescent bulb on the market. Philips seems to me to be leading the market right now in quality lighting.

At the end of the day, Halogen is going to be produce the best quality light, and you can also get a small halogen lamp and place it at your desk.

Going back to my first job as a Designer I had a very similar environment, however at one point I was asked to help with re-designing the office environment for a much more creative department. I immediately dove nose first into research; taking a look beyond standard studies analyzing their base research, afterwards all of it was immediately thrown out for standard cubicles.

This is where my professional slogan was born: “They put me into a cubicle and told me to think outside of the box.”

I did however learn from that experience; things that challenged my interpretation of creativity. I also felt that some of principles are not exclusive to creative individuals; fostering an environment that supports cognitive function and productivity tended to increase creative thinking. The things in life that I found that are most important to an environment are light texture color and space.

Since then there have I have seen several studies which I feel support what I came up with in several different sectors including education and health.

Which brings me back to the reality I live in today; what do I do to improve my current working environment? To achieve this I wanted three things; a standing workstation, improved quality of light, and a more vibrant color scheme.

In the coming weeks it is my plan to follow with you on how I accomplished all three of these things within a strictly controlled corporate environment.

I think it is important to understand what adding analog metaphors within a digital device means and whether or not it is used effectively.

What does the term mean? / Where did it come from? The way the term itself is used today is incorrect. A skeuomorph is an physical ornament on an object. For example; wood paneling on cars. How is it being used today? We use it to describe analog solution on digital interfaces. For example a; leather with stitched binding with paper on a digital calendar.

So then the question should be asked; what do you define as a good/bad example?

Good examples are things that can help someone to understand interactions. For example: Pressing a button should behave realistically. Textures should make elements appear more tactile for touch interaction. Animations or transitions can help to keep a user oriented. The layout of object should should be familiar.

Form without function makes for bad Skeuomorphic Designs, especially if that it behaves unrealistically. Things that appear stitched to other objects but behave independently. Light sources that appear to be coming from nowhere. Mixing to many different material analogies. Impossible Physics.

Skeuomorphism can potentially be a good thing if it’s used in moderation in order to communicate function, however if it is being used merely as an arbitrary pattern, it becomes kitsch or gimmicky.

The first thing to think of is how an individual text input functions. A label should disappear when you being typing in that form field, not when the user first clicks on them, and if you clear out the text box then the label needs to re-appear.

Authentication is key to good form usability. If you are using inline labels make sure that have a complete solution for authentication. If there is an error, make sure it is worded very simply and should usually try and re-state the field label itself. Errors should always appear before submit, preferably as soon as the user stops typing, and it needs to appear next to the field that it is referencing.

If you have a lot of information then keep it contextual; group together fields that make sense and in that circumstance definitely label those groups. Make sure to keep information in a format that makes sense to a user. If it is an address, make sure it looks like an address.

There needs to be clear visual cues to the user which field they currently have selected. Labels need to be large, easy to read, and there needs to be a difference between the text the user has entered and the ghosted text. Iconography can help this, however only on small form fields, otherwise you run the risk of being distracting. Only use one column layouts for forms – this gives the user a flow that they can read and comprehend, there are too many different ways for a user to interoperate multiple columned forms. Fields that are not required should not even be shown.

I contemplated not writing anything on this subject. The articles I have read that make the arguments against inline form labels are logical, well thought out, and correctly researched, with fantastic examples. My post has none of those qualities. It is merely an observation based on my own studies, experiments, and experience. The one problem that I have is that people make the statement that designers generally just make assumptions, which in and of itself is a very large and often times incorrect assumption. When I take a risk on a design, I get feedback from peers, and test and research it throughly before implementation. Then once completed I take a look at the metrics and search for user feedback.

I will be the first to agree that a common mistake I see from junior designers is making complicated forms inline without thinking. However another mistake I commonly see among seasoned usability experts is over explaining simple concepts. In fear of confusing the user, you often times end up confusing them more by giving them too much information. To be fair, this is of course a huge assumption on my part as well. However, a wider range of people are using modern technology than they were even three or four years ago, and I believe that in part we have some of these simplified interface elements to thank for this.

I feel like we have missed the point of a widget is supposed to be; a small but complete all-in-one product in itself. A good widget should be both self-contained and complete. The original meaning of the word is supposed to refer to an abstract unit of production. Ultimately the functionality of a widget is castrated until it becomes a static read-only representation of a real product; a fancy bookmark.

I believe that a widget should hold a function. Unlike some of my other editorials this isn’t a call to stop making widgets. We need to stop making crappy widgets.