Mastodawn

https://unsung.aresluna.org/movie-review-koolhaas-houselife/

Marcin Wichary Jan 26

I will occasionally link to a post from the blog that I feel really good about, if you don’t mind!

From this morning, a review of the documentary Koolhaas Houselife, ostensibly having nothing to do with UX design:

Unsung

A microblog about software craft and quality

https://unsung.aresluna.org/we-can-go-deeper-by-patterning-inside-of-our-pattern/

Marcin Wichary Feb 2

A post about the pretty inspiring and strange software that is Strudel, sort of a command line/text editor for music. I want my CSS authoring to feel this way.

“We can go deeper by patterning inside of our pattern” – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

https://unsung.aresluna.org/how-to-shoot-a-screen-using-a-board-of-keys/

Marcin Wichary Feb 5

An appreciation of one tool that does screenshotting in a really interesting way, plus the history of how ⌘⇧3 and ⌘⇧4 ended up where they are.

How to shoot a screen using a board of keys – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

https://unsung.aresluna.org/this-sounds-completely-impractical-and-we-love-it/

Marcin Wichary Feb 10

I learned about this cool exhibit at ACMI in Melbourne today, and immediately had to write about it.

It simulates working at a help line for a videogame company in 1993, complete with fictitious games, and a physical 300-page binder of various documents. Amazing.

“This sounds completely impractical and we love it.” – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

https://unsung.aresluna.org/molly-guard-in-reverse/

Marcin Wichary Feb 12

I wrote a little bit about molly guards, or UI that protects you from other UI!†

I’m very curious if you have other examples I missed.

(† Not related to the street drug.)

Molly guard in reverse – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

Marcin Wichary Feb 16

In which I celebrate the craft of Flickr’s original, amazing URL scheme: https://unsung.aresluna.org/unsung-heroes-flickrs-urls-scheme/

Unsung heroes: Flickr’s URLs scheme – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

Marcin Wichary Feb 21

I don’t know if this is spicy (I honestly don’t even know what “spicy” means anymore on the internet), but wrote what I learned about making a bug process work for more people than just engineers: https://unsung.aresluna.org/how-to-make-sure-a-designer-never-files-a-bug-again/

How to make sure a designer never files a bug again – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

Marcin Wichary Feb 24

For my 150th (!) post, a look back at Apple’s breathing lights: https://unsung.aresluna.org/just-a-little-detail-that-wouldnt-sell-anything/

“Just a little detail that wouldn’t sell anything” – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

Carlos Noceda Riva Mar 2

Marcin Wichary

A little post about Beagle Bros, perhaps the most fun 1980s software company. https://unsung.aresluna.org/our-programs-are-fun-to-use/

“Our programs are fun to use.” – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

https://unsung.aresluna.org/software-proprioception/

Had fun listing all of these interfaces that are aware of the hardware’s dimensions or buttons or other physical properties, so they can do fun things with pointing to stuff.

Please send me more if you can think of them!

Software proprioception – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

John Gruber Mar 12

@mwichary Volume indicator on iOS that is aligned with the hardware volume buttons.

@gruber Thanks! This one is really nicely done mechanically, too.

(I just wish the slider itself wasn’t interactive on screen. I keep touching it by accident when putting the phone back in my pocket.)

petes_bread_eqn_xls Mar 12

@gruber @mwichary I can’t believe I didn’t realize why it appears there 🤦‍♂️

Michael Porter Mar 12

@mwichary Somewhat related, the ports on my MacBook are (mostly) aligned with the keycaps, so you don't need to look when you plug something in (power, two of the usb ports, HDMI). The second usb port on the left side isn’t, unfortunately - I guess the designers traded ease of use with space-saving.

@MichaelPorter I think it also would’ve looked bad from the side since the port widths are uneven.

Michael Porter Mar 12

@mwichary So you're thinking they went for consistent spacing between the ports? Looks like it. But when I’m using my computer I don't even see the sides of it. I do, on the other hand, often miss when I'm trying to plug something in to a port that isn't aligned. Those times, I wish they went for functionality over form.

@MichaelPorter Oh yeah, I’m 100% sure that’s what they did. If you survey Apple hardware, port spacing and gestalt are almost always immaculate.

@MichaelPorter I wish there was some way to indicate the ports from above, but that probably clashes with Apple’s minimalistic/stark approach.

A company like Nothing could probably have fun here.

Michael Porter Mar 12

@mwichary I'm thinking they have to make their phones a little smaller 😄

Niki Tonsky Mar 12

@mwichary Preview opens A4 PDFs at physical sizes

Paweł Grzybek Mar 12

@nikitonsky @mwichary wowwoowow this is cool ! I didn’t know about it.

@pawelgrzybek @nikitonsky Ugh, that’s such a better example than my Simulator example.

@pawelgrzybek @nikitonsky It even has all these options I never saw before.

Niki Tonsky Mar 12

@mwichary @pawelgrzybek me neither! I can set it to always open in Single Page, finally!

David Friedman Mar 12

@mwichary Screens at gas stations point you to the hardware buttons you need to push

@ironicsans Oh yeah, I have that in the post! Except it’s ATMs haha

David Friedman Mar 12

@mwichary I confess that's what made me think of the gas stations! :)

@ironicsans Ah! Good point. To me they’re the same because of the UI similarities, but maybe that’s just how my brain works haha.

Magnus Ahltorp Mar 13

@mwichary @ironicsans So softbuttons count? I would definitely not include those in ”fun things”. They are almost always a necessary evil because of less than stellar design.

@ahltorp @ironicsans Check out the blog post!

Magnus Ahltorp Mar 13

@mwichary I will as soon as I get to a computer, it bugged out on my phone several times.

@ahltorp What’s your phone/browser? 🙏

shork Mar 12

@mwichary idk if it's in AOSP or just on Pixels but the phone screen lights up from the source of the unlock, if you touch the screen (or the fingerprint sensor) it's a circular wave from that location, if you lift the phone it originates from the bottom of the screen etc. It even supported the back fingerprint sensor on older devices back when they did the Material You redesign

@noiob Thanks, although that all feels relatively generic maybe? That doesn’t feel like the software needs to know about hardware for any of this – but lmk if I’m misunderstanding it.

shork Mar 12

@mwichary well, it needs to know where the lock button is, or the back fingerprint reader back when that was a thing

@noiob Ah, ok. I didn’t connect it to the lock button. Thanks!

Austin Mar 12

@mwichary didn’t see you post a link to it, but I didn’t know command T did that in slack. I think of cmd T as the “font picker” shortcut. I use cmd K in slack for the same purpose that T does

Manu Mar 12

@mwichary my first thought was the Playdate. Im not near mine at the moment, but here’s an example image I found online

@manutastic Oh, yes! I also wonder if my SteamDeck is doing some interesting things.

Lukas Mar 13

@mwichary More of a negative one, but still fits the theme, I guess: Car infotainment systems not showing the correct color of the car they're installed in.

I've yet to find a car that gets this right ;(

@karotte Thanks! I remember MKBHD or maybe Doug DeMuro praising one car for that, but I don’t remember which one it was.

John Faulkenbury Mar 13

@mwichary @karotte BMW i4 gets it right.

medium rare bird Mar 13

@mwichary this is descriptive rather than indicative/spatial, but systemd's /etc/machine-info has a "CHASSIS" field that indicates what kind of form-factor a Linux machine has: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/machine-info.html

machine-info

@migratory Thanks!

Trammell Hudson Mar 13

@mwichary James Moylan invented the "point to, don't describe" indicator for car's gas gauge https://www.jalopnik.com/2061179/inventor-little-arrow-what-side-fuel-filler-is-on-dies/

The Inventor Of The Little Arrow That Tells You What Side The Fuel Filler Is On Has Died

The idea came to Moylan on a rainy day in April 1986 when he hopped in one of Ford's employee fleet cars to drive to a meeting at another building.

Jalopnik

@th Thanks! We had fun with it the other day: https://unsung.aresluna.org/the-moylan-arrow-of-software/

The Moylan Arrow of software – Unsung

A blog about software craft and quality

Jon Mar 13

@th @mwichary what a way to be remembered

Redmer Mar 14

@mwichary re the Siri animation, it can also emanate from the bottom mic, when you activate it with 'Hey, Siri'

Marcin Wichary Mar 15

@redmer Thanks!

Hugo Mills Mar 16

@mwichary You show an example of a text-mode UI on an HP machine. On the HP 150, the screen was a touch-screen (IR beams crossing it), so the helpful function-key based menu at the bottom of the screen was *also* directly touchable.

The menus were *deep*, too. Each one at the top level opened a new bar of 8 options. Those could go down four or five levels in some cases.

yuubi Mar 2

@mwichary the apple colors/ascii chart/peeks/pokes/pointers poster (double sided) was included with at least a couple of their disks. i don't remember seeing it for sale separately.

@yuubi Thanks!

@mwichary I remember them fondly. Great stuff!