Disqus - Latest Comments for Sjors

Re: New Logo for Alpe d’HuZes

Sjors — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 08:52:10 -0000

Useful addition, not willing to give up the 6 lines probably killed the logo. The fingerprint idea "personal involvement" is very weak.

(the redesigned logo above has at least 5.5 mountain tops, so almost there...)

Re: Branded Interactions

Sjors — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 07:24:57 -0000

Webjam for Life!

Re: Branded Interactions

Sjors — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 04:33:42 -0000

Ha, nice read. Reminds me of this great presentation: http://www.cooper.com/journ... and this one http://www.slideshare.net/r...

Re: Land the Perfect UX Job in 2013 - UXmas - Wishing you a great experience through the festive season!

Sjors — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:08:46 -0000

Since a few people are mentioning it; Jason Mesut: http://betteruxportfolios.w... and I: http://notura.com/2011/04/5... have been collecting some examples of UX portfolios

Re: Prototyping without time, skill or money – @sjors at Leancamp London 2

Sjors — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:11:18 -0000

Based on some of the things mentioned in this presentation I created a tutorial on how to use photoshop to make quick prototypes:
http://notura.com/2012/03/c...

Re: http://jontysharples.tumblr.com/post/12783238278

Sjors — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:09:26 -0000

Thanks for your deep self investigation. I came to a different conclusion, on the front page are no folders, only 16 apps that I can reach in one click, some of them are most used, others I want to use more.

Here's a (for you probably unreadable blogpost, but check the screenshot) http://dutchproblogger.nl/b... a journalist who moved his distraction apps (facebook, email twitter) to a separate folder on the last page, and moved a note taking app to the direct access bar.

Icon organisation to force yourself in to a behaviour you want not that you have.

Re: Tame Your Roadmap

Sjors — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:28:31 -0000

Ok, let's split my comment in two:
1. I think Janna shared an amazing roadmap that is certainly very useful for planning up to 6 months ahead.

2. Maybe my opinion is slightly skewed by working at a startup, but all the features that were meant to be build 6 months from the creation of the roadmap never saw the light of day and were always replaced by projects that turned out to be much more urgent.
If you can predict that ahead, that how can you still plan for after 6 months? should you put them on the same roadmap but use more abstract descriptions? Should your roadmap take a log scale after nine months? How do you guys deal with that?

Re: Tame Your Roadmap

Sjors — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 08:56:45 -0000

I often wonder if the roadmap is the right metaphor, and if working with levels of abstraction (that you should validate) wouldn't be a better idea

for example:
10 years: connecting graduates and companies seamlessly
3 years: establish a community of enthousiast english, spanish and german students and the majority of the ftse 500 companies
1 year: an easy to set up, maintain and flexible platform that enables british students to connect with 20 british companies
3 months: a strong presents on facebook and 50.000 members
1 month: sign up process streamlined.

Don't you think that a roadmap of actual features becomes pretty much useless (and even dangerous) for a schedule further than 6 months ahead?

By using abstractions you create flexibility for the dev and design team to come up with the best solution available at the time of implementing and you're not forcing them to live up to some idea that you had a year ago when things were different. Whilst still being able to validate if you are actually on the right track to meet your vision and your target

Re: http://deoprichter.nl/post/5769374432

Sjors — Tue, 24 May 2011 04:49:21 -0000

Interessant stukje, zeker die ene Johan. Ik denk dat je het minder zwart wit moet zien als hij doet, maar dat hij zeker een punt heeft. Het probleem is dat je diensten erg moeilijk kunt vergelijken als ze gratis zijn, wellicht verdient Facebook $100 per jaar van jouw gegevens, terwijl je er $200 dollar aan waarde uit haalt, voor LinkedIn liggen die bedragen wellicht hoger. Maar je weet het niet. De zoektocht van gebruikers naar hoe hun social networks hun gegevens in geld omzetten lijkt me dus zeker niet verkeerd.

Re: http://deoprichter.nl/post/4337103573

Sjors — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:11:03 -0000

Wellicht kun je werken met een soort hollywood model, speciaal voor wat je wilt bereiken (in Hollywood een nieuwe film) richt je een bedrijf op en vervolgens ga je opzoek naar freelance personeel of kleine bedrijfjes (acteurs, project management, set-bouwers) om je doel te bereiken. Als het eenmaal gelukt is dan verkoop je de hele schil weer, iedereen krijgt een deel van de winst en is weer beschikbaar voor nieuwe projecten. Op deze manier kan iedereen altijd ondernemer zijn en blijven.

Re: UsabilityPost - Attachment to Physical Media

Sjors — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:40:11 -0000

I think you should separate this in two parts of physical media. The style and the interface. Style might be what makes your website different from another website, have a nice background, colourful header, who knows even bold typography. But interface is different, it's about giving depth to a text field, to give a gradient to a button because in the real world buttons also have depth, in the real world you can see shadows behind objects when they are overlapping. You can also see it in the new CSS3, a few of the new awesome features are especially there to have websites look more like the real world; rounded corners, shadows and gradients. But you won't find any 'effects' such as paper or wood in css3

ps. I'm not quite sure how I should define this split between interface and style, it's a bit like wordpress is still wordpress no matter which template is applied, but a template without the wordpress interface would be quite pointless..

Re: Nieuwe uitdaging! Nieuwe baan!

Sjors — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:45:35 -0000

Gefeliciteerd! ongelovelijk te bedenken dat er alweer vier jaar voorbij zijn! :)

Re: Flavors.me Design Blog

Sjors — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:16:51 -0000

Thanks for your post, I've been working on this topic for a while now, recently wrote a blogpost + slideshow on how you can best handle these things: http://svirsk.org/2010/04/d...

Re: Twitter Is The King of Social Sharing. Anyone Seen Digg?

Sjors — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:20:56 -0000

Do you have any stats on the actual use of the share buttons on TNW? Just saw the StumbleUpon button back? Twitter seems to be a winner by far..

Re: Why Is Every App A Game? The Badgeification Of The Internet

Sjors — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:30:58 -0000

One of the reasons that we are thinking about building game elements in the site design, is to kick start usage. Games have clear rules, clear goals and clear rewards. We are aware that games might only keep people engaged for a little, but it might bring them high enough on the learning curve, that they'll actually start to see the real benefits of the application. Anyone ever tried out this game? http://www.officelabs.com/r...

Re: Why You Shouldn’t ‘Launch’ Your Start-Up

Sjors — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:56:03 -0000

Nice observation, my main argument against it would be that it's lots and lot's of fun to build smooth looking pages with only a sign up to be notified field on it - kinda the 2010 version of the splash page. And of-course the feeling that you belong to a super secret elite club.

Re: Flavors.me Design Blog

Sjors — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:06:26 -0000

By giving people the feeling that they are in control, without giving them total control.

People are on your side, they want to make pretty things without messing things up, they are however no professional designers, so you should not abandon your own responsibility to protect them from them selves.

As the expression that goes around these days states: "don't aim for to 'wow' your visitors, aim for them to state 'yes that makes sense'"

Re: Flavors.me Design Blog

Sjors — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:29:29 -0000

Hi, thanks for your post, I've included you in the linklist of my flickr set on style editors: http://www.flickr.com/photo...

Have you seen kickapps? they seem to do something similar to you?

Re: Would you choose to live a great life or achieve great things?

Sjors — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:24:08 -0000

Maybe my point is that very likely the devil will never show up, and you will just mildly suffer like everyone else.

Dostoevsky has a nice paragraph on this topic: "One of these luckless men...is the guardian angel of his family, maintains by his labour outsiders as well as his own kindred, and yet can never be at rest all of his life! The thought that he has so well fulfilled his duties is no comfort or consolation to him; on the contrary, it irritates him. 'This is what I've wasted all my life on,' he says; 'this is what has fettered me, hand and foot; this is what has hindered me from doing something great! Had it not been for this, I should certainly have discovered -- gunpowder or America, I don't know precisely what, but I would certainly have discovered it!' What is most characteristic of these gentlemen is that they can never find out for certain what it is they are destined to discover and what they are within an ace of discovering. But their sufferings, their longings for what was to be discovered, would have sufficed for a Columbus or a Galileo."

(Part IV, Chapter 1, page 433)

Re: Would you choose to live a great life or achieve great things?

Sjors — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:10:54 -0000

Maybe you could restate the question as 'What is the price you are willing to pay to achieve great things" Would you give up your house, your family, your friends, your health.

Second; what is a great achievement? Is that health and safety for your family, and industrial breakthrough, enormous wealth, the best book ever written? (And how great is a great achievement)

And third what motivates you to strive for such an achievement. A miserable childhood, a life in poverty and hunger or a hunger for recognition.

If you are right, than depending on in which culture you ask these questions the answer would vary.

Thus-far I'm most familiar with the western approach, and only vaguely familiar with the Russian notion of constant suffering. I'll do my best to understand more of those :)

Re: Would you choose to live a great life or achieve great things?

Sjors — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:46:55 -0000

thanks for your comment.
Don't you think that the societies of which you speak that prefer option two, that option is preferred because of economical and basic survival instinct. But indeed it's an interesting idea that in a society where 'the good life' of option one is so easily available, many people keep on searching for a deeper meaning to contribute.

As I was thinking, do you think it's useful to split off the great artists from the great professionals? Judging by the suicide rates, it takes a lot more to be a great artist than it takes to be a great professional. And maybe you could be more clear on how great the contribution is to society. Are we talking here about a contribution so great that only one in a million brings it, or more on the scale of 1 in 1000, or if you claim that it's the favourite career path for entire societies 1 in 2?

Re: Would you choose to live a great life or achieve great things?

Sjors — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:50:41 -0000

I don't think that option two can be picked given the free choice. I think people who go for option two are 'created'. To go for option two you need an internal motivation that goes beyond rationality and also against basic human needs such as love, safety and care. I think that self-doubt is a key ingredient, and a decent amount of suffering also helps. You could probably do some statistical research by finding a list of the 50 greatest authors of the 20th century and the way they've come to an end.

Maybe you can also look at motivation. What motivates some to go for option one is not that hard, it's just always doing the things that 'society' set's out to be the right things to do. But if you could ever find out what motivates group two, than we could revolutionize the world. If you have some time you could read outliers by Malcom Gladwell he discusses some of these points.

My favourite theory is that 4 years Siberia make you a better writer, or the other infamous quote "Miserable childhood leads to royalties"

Re: Would you choose to live a great life or achieve great things?

Sjors — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:13:57 -0000

Quite like this topic, of-course no-one in their 'right' mind would go for option two, yet the world has known many great artist, who delivered extreme value and joy to the world but felt forced to take their live on a young age. For me in a way they are statistical exceptions, people who have a terrible live and find in stimulating to create great art. The sad story ofcourse is that many people end up in choice two, but never achieve anything.

Now for some good news, there is quite a handful of legendary designers, architects, businessmen who's both contributed to society And had a relatively happy life. The trick is probably to stay away from the arts.

Re: Is The @Superphones Twitter Account For Real?

Sjors — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:07:54 -0000

Did you just write a whole post arguing why you shouldn't pay attention to a twitter account with 19 followers, and than still hit the publish button? You sure know how to create a hype! :)

Re: I’m making an etsy account in the hopes that some... - somewhat strangely strange.

Sjors — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:10:49 -0000

Do it! :)