New nail – art added

Purple nails with a flower and initials of my school.

Purple nails with a flower and initials of my school.

I painted on my nails with initials of my school to celebrate the end of my graduate program. These are temporary, and I may take them off after graduation!

New nail – purple

Purple nails!

Purple nails!

In preparation for a commencement, I changed my nails yesterday to pure purple that matches with the color of my university logo. Put rose stickers to add some love =)

Facebook Fail

Facebook tweaked their design again on Thursday. This time I could not resist but to say one word: FAIL. I personally do not mind having some “UI enhancements (Tech Crunch)” if the changes are subtle and minor. I will calm down and sip a cup of English tea even if my profile menu moved from top to left with weird icons or if 1/4 of the page was occupied by ridiculous ads. But I want to ask Mr. Zuckerberg about the log out button.

How do you LOG OUT from here?

How do you LOG OUT from here?

I came to the newly-designed Facebook page today (see above picture). I was surprised by the change, but didn’t freak out until I decided to log out.

How do I get out from here?

I found no log out button. Apparently, Mr. Zuckerberg wants me to stay on FB forever.

fbfail1

It was hidden. You have to click on "Account" to get out.

After some effort, I found a hidden log out button (see above picture). Seriously, isn’t a log out button one of the most basic and critical navigation features for Websites? With this hidden log out button, I declare the new FB design the major failure. I want my old FB back.

Portfolio site redesign

juridesign.com version 2.0

juridesign.com version 2.0

I’m in the process of re-designing my portfolio site at www.juridesign.com. I’ve released the first version today. I will be tweaking and retouching the pages from now. I wanted to release it before things start getting crazy with a thesis project, classes and an internship.

Now it’s time to debug…

Comments are welcome.

Whitney Museum’s new website

Whitney Museum's new website

Whitney Museum's new website

I was reading one of blog articles by Mark Hurst at Good Experience, and found that the Whitney Museum has recently launched a new website. I love the fact that they put the “Visit” section prominently on the landing page. They made this section AJAX-based (like Google’s Gmail) that allows dynamic interaction, so visitors can get information without reloading a page or jumping to another page. It’s great.

One issue, which I think is so critical, is the choice of white text on black background. Is Whitney a funeral company? The landing page looks acceptable, because there are more images than text. But when I go to “Get Involved” page, for example, the black and white contrast kills my eyes and takes over my attention that I cannot focus on anything else. I hope the website’s color palette is a temporary experiment or something specific to one of exhibitions. I will come back to the site in a month or so to see if they changed the color.

Designer’s tools for iPhone UI design

I’ve been designing a mock up UI(user interface) for a browser-based app for iPhone for the past few days as part of my final projects at ITP. I’ve pretty much ruined my sketchbook for drawing a bunch of layout and wireframes. I found several interesting resources for designing iPhone specific UIs. Whether I use them or not, I decided to post here for future reference.

For those who are too lazy to draw buttons and lines…there’s an “iPhone Stencil Kit” for $17.95!

iPhone Stencil Kit sample picture

iPhone Stencil Kit sample picture

Of course, there’s a sweet Photoshop GUI, which I’m using right now.

iPhone GUI, Photoshop file

iPhone GUI, Photoshop file

If you need a conceptual stuff, there’s an essay by John Gruber about how to make your UI “iPhone-like”.

And lastly, if you’re talking about information design there’s no way you can ignore Edward Tufte. Here’s his video talking about the user experience on iPhone.

The New Yorker’s cover for Halloween

I was reading an article on boingboing about an incredible illustration by Chris Ware for The New Yorker magazine, and I had to post this to my blog.

It’s beautiful. Here’s a link to the article: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/27/chris-wares-new-york.html

Chris Wares New Yorker cover

Chris Ware's New Yorker cover