Jorge Arango

I bought this book in the early 80’s, when I was a neophyte video game programmer trying to squeeze as much performance as possible from the Microsoft BASIC that came bundled with the TRS-80 Color Computers. I was looking for a book that taught programming techniques (sprites, bit blitting, etc.), and Crawford’s book was not exactly what I was looking for. I set it aside for the time being.

As I matured, however, I started reading TAoCGD with a more open mind and realized that here I had an amazing resource that taught conceptual design, as opposed to pure technique. It quickly became one of my favorite books in the world, and it remains, along with Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, one of the books that has most influenced my development as a designer. (In the broadest sense; as an architecture student in the early 90’s, I proposed to the dean of our school that TAoCGD be adopted as a first-year architectural design text. What was I thinking?!)

TAoCGD has been out of print for a long time, but now you can read it in electronic format. Some of the concepts have not weathered well, but the conceptual approach is still valid.

Continue Reading

Jakob Nielsen: “To save costs, some companies are outsourcing Web projects to countries with cheap labor. Unfortunately, these countries lack strong usability traditions and their developers have limited access—if any—to good usability data from the target users.”

Continue Reading

The Center for Digital Storytelling teaches you the basics of interactive documentary work. I would really like to participate in their workshop.

Continue Reading

In the same way that traditional architects design and coordinate the construction of buildings, web architects design and coordinate the development of web applications. These computer applications are incredibly complex mixtures of disparate systems that include databases, application servers, backup and security components, networking, etc. The end result is a site that can solve the needs of business: to sell products and services online, and to better serve the needs of the company’s customers.

-more->

The principles involved in designing buildings are not very different from those present in the web application design process. These applications must be designed around the needs of the people that will be using them, just as a building must be designed around the needs of its occupants. After all, doorknobs are placed 3 feet from the floor because this is where most people’s hands are. The design of these things is not done arbitrarily. The design of a website’s navigation—or even arcana like the flow of data from forms to databases and back—should be no different.

Web application design, like building design, requires a firm grasp of the technologies involved. In the case of building design, these technologies include the structural properties of materials, the functioning of electrical systems, an understanding of mechanics, plumbing, etc. In the case of web applications, the technologies include the language and structuring of databases, the TCP/IP protocol, the HTML language, and many others. In both cases, it helps to be a generalist. It also helps to be a voracious learner, as the technologies are in constant flux.

One thing, however, remains constant: people must be able to use them. If not, they whither away like so many dilapidated slums. It is the web architect’s role to ensure that this does not happen.

Continue Reading