Wave to Google: The Google Wave

I love my google. And therefore, with the newest launch of beta "Google Wave," I couldn't wait to play with it. However, I guess the word beta should have been a harbinger of the demise of the wave. The concept is clever and wholesome – Google masters basically invented a program that allows regular people like us to interact with each other in real time on the internet, thus bringing us further away from human contact. I kid, but really, that's how it works. Just like Gmail was in its beta stages, one needs to be invited to be able to use Google Wave. Once everyone's on, we all can "wave" and send documents, go online, have video conversations, all at the same time. I'm still trying to figure it out, but Google describes the wave as "an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."


I will say I was initially and am still very disappointed with the design of Google Wave. For a company that prides itself on ingénue, Google Wave really didn't impress. The navigation and headers were very much like Gmail and although it came with a very thorough tutorial, I still felt let down by the whole application itself. But then again, it is in its early stages. I'm sure the Google masters will find a new way to stump us all.

A website in which user interaction is critical is www.GarageBand.com For those of you who are not familiar with GarageBand, it is a site for independent musicians to share their music and music lovers in search of new artists. The user is expected to comment on the music provided in order to win contests, have their own music played, etc. I like their concept, but I think their design in some ways inhibits user-friendliness.

For instance, the page displayed up top is reached by clicking on the "musicians only" tab. I find this particular page to be off-putting to the user. The majority of the page is taken over by advertisements. In a small box to the left are all the places a musician will want to go in order to be successful on GarageBand. Located towards the bottom are a couple boxes listing the review of the day and advice from professionals. GarageBand relies mostly on user interaction therefore, they may want to consider hierarchy in their design.

In my opinion, GarageBand is minimal in its design. It has basic organization, a bit of color, easy to find tabs, and is quite easy to navigate. But it is boring. Sometimes the pages look too similar to the advertisements that overwhelm the page. However, their home page is useful. There is a clear sense of hierarchy, organization, and user-friendly interaction displayed. They just didn't convey that throughout the rest of the site.

What do you think? Anyone use GarageBand?

Reaction to Lupton's "Thinking WIth Type"

I never really thought too much about typeface until reading Ellen Lupton's "Thinking With Type." The world of type, for me anyway, is pretty much limited to Times New Roman. However, after reading Lupton it has become clear that typeface does much more than just create words or a logotype on a piece of paper. We are bombarded on a daily basis by typeface. Often times, unbeknownst to us, we form connections and emotional value to them.

For instance the Coca-Cola logo is known all over the world. It has changed over time sometimes even depending on the holiday. The one thing that has remained since 1886 is the logotype. The typeface that Coca-Cola uses is known as Spencerian script. It was developed in the mid 19th century based on a form of formal writing that was popular in the United States at the time (see www.logoblog.org for more information). I think I can safely say that if any of us saw any other word put in the Spencerian script, we would automatically think of Coca-Cola.

I suppose that it is quite easy to take typography for granted. After reading Lupton I think it will be really hard to ignore the impact it really has. The first part of the book Letter, offers the historical background of typefaces. I found it interesting they originated from calligraphy and how it serves as a functional basis for design.