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design
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design
doug field
Segway CTO leaves to join Apple design team
Doug Field, described as "the driving force behind Segway" on the company's customer forums, is leaving Segway for Apple, where his role will be "a VP of product design" according to a Segway coworker. (Just nosy: If Field is not the VP of product design, but a VP, then how many vice presidents of product design does the company have?) A few years ago, Steve Jobs slammed the Segway as "this incredibly innovative machine but it looks very traditional," and challenged Field to design "things that would make you shit in your pants." Will Field make good on that? Video or it didn't happen, Doug.
startups
When they were babes: Web 2.0's humble paper origins
Aww, you guys, this is so cute. Making actual babies out of Web people didn't go so well, but these larval stage sketches of popular Web 2.0 sites before they spawned? Adorable. Look, Vimeo was a little funny looking even then! Taken as a whole, it kinda makes you want to pinch someone's Moleskine where it counts. Full-on prototyping-porn after the jump. More »
failanthropy
Gurbaksh Chahal to pretend to be poor, learn life lessons in new Fox reality show
Now we know why BlueLithium founder and short-time Yahoo employee Gurbaksh "G" Chahal decorated his $6.9 million penthouse with tacky animal skins and a cheap-looking chandelier. To look rich for middle America. Chalal is starring in a Fox "reality" show this fall called The Secret Millionaire. In it, G will live among poor people and pretend to be one of them. But before doing that, he'll have to convince Fox's audience at home he's used to living a fabulously wealthy lifestyle. Hence, the decorations, G's decorator tells us in an email defending his efforts. More »
job descriptions from the future
23andMe looking for designer comfortable with "vague" as directions
Designers, want to torture yourself in a contract position surrounded by smarmy, know-it-all PhDs who give you only the vaguest of instructions and expect you to master the intricacies of biotechnology overnight? Lured by the promise that you might one day get hired on full-time and get stock options at a company backed by Google and run by Google cofounder Sergey Brin's wife? Unbothered by the fact that the California Department of Public Health has just banned the company's service? Then, dear visual-thinking friends, this position for a graphic designer at 23andMe is for you! The job description: More »
design
Facebook's Wall comes down
Facebook has removed the "Wall" from its redesigned profiles. Early screenshots of the redesign featured a separate tab for the popular feature, but the latest shots show the Wall, where other users can leave comments on a profile, with the user's News Feed — now just called the "Feed." Users will be able to filter the Feed to see only Wall posts. Facebook-app developers, already exasperated by the redesign process, tell us they don't like the idea. Says one: "Mixing in 'X wrote on Y's FunWall" along with more personal messages from friends may deteriorate the quality of the new Wall/Feed feature as a whole." Put another way? Widgetmakers don't like losing their privileged position in the News Feed. Full screenshot of the new look, below. More »
design
Screenshots of MySpace's redesign, coming next week
Social network MySpace will go live with a site redesign sometime next week. Last night, the company unveiled screenshots. The changes aren't revolutionary. They are not supposed to be. When Fox Interactive began interviewing Web designers for the job last fall, they told the candidates the main goal was to match rival Facebook feature-for-feature. Screenshots, below. More »
design
The sudden appearance, in millions of browsers, of a new icon for Google was jarring to many users, though the change was slight — a capital "G" replaced by a lowercase "g". An E.E. Cummings-esque affectation? Perhaps, since the change was driven by overworked, underoccupied Google VP Marissa Mayer. She says she made her designers go through more 300 variations before settling on a lowercase blue "g". After putting her employees through the wringer, she's now outsourcing the mess to Google users But if you read Mayer's rules for an icon, though, you'll see she's set to reject anything but the one she chose. More »
Why Google wants to be small
The sudden appearance, in millions of browsers, of a new icon for Google was jarring to many users, though the change was slight — a capital "G" replaced by a lowercase "g". An E.E. Cummings-esque affectation? Perhaps, since the change was driven by overworked, underoccupied Google VP Marissa Mayer. She says she made her designers go through more 300 variations before settling on a lowercase blue "g". After putting her employees through the wringer, she's now outsourcing the mess to Google users But if you read Mayer's rules for an icon, though, you'll see she's set to reject anything but the one she chose. More »
design
The "heart" of Facebook's redesign
Facebook revealed its site redesign for reporters yesterday. Here Facebook product manager Mark Slee demonstrates the "Feed tab" what he calls the "heart of the Facebook's new profile."
design
The look of Facebook, past, present, and future
Facebook will update its profile design in the next couple of weeks, a change rendered momentous if only by the millions who have known no other interface to their obsession. Below, check out the new look. Then compare it to Facebook profile designs from a past as distant as 2005. You remember the time, right? It was before Facebook's spammy apps, before the stalker-friendly News Feed, and before they let in all the jailbait high-schoolers. Come, journey with us into the lost youth of Mark Zuckerberg. More »
design
Screenshots of Facebook's new design and all the old ones too
Facebook released screenshots of its soon-to-be updated redesign today. Of note: The social network's designers moved the applications menu and search bar to the top of the screen. Banner ads will move to the right of layout, leaving the left mostly blank. Because we know change is hard, we've embedded screenshots of Facebook's older designs below. More »
10 worst workspaces
What's so bad about Mozilla's Toronto workspace? Besides the fluorescent lighting, the colorless white walls and the folding tables, the worst thing about Mozilla's Toronto workspace is how we're sure management would improve it. With corporate graffiti, company logos and too many colors. That was management's trick at Facebook and look where readers ranked it in our poll on tech's ten worst workspaces — as tech's second-worst workspace, just after Mozilla. Check out the full list, below.
More »
Tech's worst workspace: Mozilla
What's so bad about Mozilla's Toronto workspace? Besides the fluorescent lighting, the colorless white walls and the folding tables, the worst thing about Mozilla's Toronto workspace is how we're sure management would improve it. With corporate graffiti, company logos and too many colors. That was management's trick at Facebook and look where readers ranked it in our poll on tech's ten worst workspaces — as tech's second-worst workspace, just after Mozilla. Check out the full list, below.
More »
10 worst workspaces
After reviewing our post "The 10 worst workspaces in tech," commenter AdmNaismith described Facebook's office, pictured above, as "foggy, dank, dim, and utterly depressing." Commenter mothra1 hated Yahoo's New York offices more: "They suck! Lifeless and impersonal. Kinda like the douchebags who still actually work there." Meanwhile, Adobe apologist BlairHapjo told us we "clearly didn't get past Adobe's lobby," and the rest of the office features "Aeron chairs, real offices (with doors!), big picture windows." For us, the worst offices we found on Office Snapshots and elsewhere were the the ones that try too hard to seem Internet-hip, like Jajah and Google. Now it's time to settle the disputes. Below, vote for your least favorite and help us rank tech's 10 most dismal places to work:
More »
Rank tech's 10 worst workspaces
After reviewing our post "The 10 worst workspaces in tech," commenter AdmNaismith described Facebook's office, pictured above, as "foggy, dank, dim, and utterly depressing." Commenter mothra1 hated Yahoo's New York offices more: "They suck! Lifeless and impersonal. Kinda like the douchebags who still actually work there." Meanwhile, Adobe apologist BlairHapjo told us we "clearly didn't get past Adobe's lobby," and the rest of the office features "Aeron chairs, real offices (with doors!), big picture windows." For us, the worst offices we found on Office Snapshots and elsewhere were the the ones that try too hard to seem Internet-hip, like Jajah and Google. Now it's time to settle the disputes. Below, vote for your least favorite and help us rank tech's 10 most dismal places to work:
More »
cubicle culture
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
More »
The 10 worst workspaces in tech
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
More »
design
A good place for a Yahoo-less Microsoft to start: Pick a brand and stick to it
If buying Facebook doesn't work out, Microsoft plans to compete on the Web by growing "organically." Bill Gates said that means search advancements, more marketing and lots of meetings. Lots of meetings. But here's what those meetings ought to be about: unifying Microsoft's online branding. Check out the screenshots of Microsoft's Web designs below. Nabbed by LiveSide, ReadWriteWeb's Josh Catone points out they contain "four different search boxes, two different Live.com "orb" logos (in four different sizes), and six different header backgrounds." More »
search
Yahoo moves logo around -- that'll fend off Microsoft
Yahoo has redesigned its homepage slightly, shifting its logo from the left of the search box to a spot directly above. That central location is more traditional for the company, and emphasizes the streamlined, Google-like search box. (The same search layout has been available at search.yahoo.com for a while.) The design does make it easier to search, but we don't think it'll make Steve Ballmer increase his bid. Click through to see a history of Yahoo homepages. More »
Famed — and famously unproductive — interaction theorist Joy Mountford was not the only designer let go from Yahoo this week. Her entire "Design Innovation Team," known in Sunnyvale as yHaus, was let go. Which makes sense. While designers love innovation, consumers usually reject it.
design
On a day when Sunnyvale is bleeding the royal hue, it's good to know how Google avoided a purple logo. Designer Ruth Kedar went through numerous rainbow-hued iterations before ending up with today's simple logo. [Wired News]
Why Google's not purple
On a day when Sunnyvale is bleeding the royal hue, it's good to know how Google avoided a purple logo. Designer Ruth Kedar went through numerous rainbow-hued iterations before ending up with today's simple logo. [Wired News]
