design – gcmouli.com

Tab Order in LinkedIn Post Commenting

I just commented on a post on LinkedIn. I found a minor UI nit. This kind of bugged me and in fact, made me lose data once. Let me elaborate.

When I want to comment on a post, I click inside the comment box and start typing. So far so good, and it looks like below.

Now when you are done typing up the post, if you are a heavy keyboard user like me, on seeing the above order of the buttons, I would tab twice. You would expect one tab to get to the Cancel button and another to get to the Comment button.

But nope, that does not happen.

LinkedIn engineers, in the pursuit of productivity, I guess, have reversed the order. First tab goes to the Comment button and the second tab goes to the Cancel button.

And if you are a heavy (and impatient) keyboard user like me, you would have done a double tab and hit enter too. What does this do? Cancel all that you have typed and clears the comment slate. Woah! Yes, and thats how I lost my text comment. I had to type it all over again.

LinkedIn — please fix this !!

Knolling

Knolling is the practice of organizing objects in parallel or at 90° angles. The term has been popularized by artist Tom Sachs; he picked it up from Andrew Kromelowwhen both were working at Frank Gehry’s furniture fabrication shop. Gehry was designing chairs for furniture company Knoll, and Kromelow would arrange unused tools in a manner similar to Knoll furniture. Hence, knolling.

[link]

Design in India

Design in India is catching up. I happened to read this article on a designer from India, who has designed this great artefact that helps labourers to transport heavy weights. This is very heartening to see.

Read the article here.
(img source – same article above)

A 1000 No’s for a single Yes

Does resonate with what Apple believes in.

(via daringfireball)

PillPack – Another Great Ideo Idea

Another super idea from Ideo – the design firm. Basic premise is to help folks take their medicines correctly at the right dosage at the right times. Without having to sort through medicines by yourself and figure what to take in the morning, afternoon, or night, pillpack works with your prescription and gives you these small tearable pouches with the date and time printed on them. You just tear the appropriate pouch and take the pills in the pouch. Nice. Another real world problem solved.

(via fastcodesign)

The pencil gets a redesign

One Japanese designer solves a simple problem that all of us face. After sharpening the pencil more and more, we are a point, where the pencil becomes so small that we are unable to hold the small nub and write effectively. The solution – the graphite ends after a certain length.

Still dont get it. See this clever hack in pictures here. [link]

Turn your window into a power outlet

Wow. Just read this in Fast.co. This is still in concept stage. But if someone ever makes this, I want one. Please Please. A mindbogglingly simple solution. And its portable too.

Just see these images below and wow yourself.

(click to enlarge)

Read the full article here.

All images from the same URL above.

Beautiful Branding – Puma

Came across this beautiful bill board. You should note a few things – the shoe takes center stage. The story takes center stage. The Nature of Performance takes center stage. You get to see the name of the shoe only in a few tactfully hidden places – “Available at the PUMA Store”. And the ubiquitous puma jumping symbol. Beautiful. That is branding.

Not sure if Puma has always been like this, or they have been learning about Nike. Nike is even more manic about this. You would see a sportsman or sportswoman wearing the shoe and excelling. And the Nike swoosh symbol in the footnote. Some ads would not even have the word Nike. It would just have the Nike swoosh symbol.

For more Nike ads, you should look here -> http://pinterest.com/pin/169870217167015064/

Feedly

Since the beloved Google Reader died, I have been using feedly. It is amazing to see how quickly Feedly has been innovating so that the Google Reader immigrants are appeased. The first set of fixes gave an option to make the feed view much denser – much like the Google Reader. This must have made most of the immigrants happy. The next fix was to get the feed list to the left of the page – again to make it look very much like Google reader.

The latest fix that hit me today is the one that I am going to scream in joy about. This is not quite to mimic google reader, but something that has just been designed so tastefully.

I have the feed to be displayed as tiles. I click on the tiles and I get the article, and the escape and it shrinks back to the tile. I scroll down the page looking at the interesting tiles. And when the stories are over, what do I get?

That blows my mind. Yes, I am done with the feed. Click on the big grey check mark, and it becomes a beautiful green for a second, and feedly marked all the stories in the feed as read. And moves on to the next feed. Just beautiful. Thanks feedly.

Design is everywhere

Yes. Everywhere. Even in your tea bag pouch.

Have you noticed the small cut in your tea bag pouch that is provided so that you can tear open the bag easily? When you face the front of the tea bag, it is on the right side.

Except for left handed people, this is actually not the ‘convenient’ side to tear. Without thinking we turn over the side and tear from left to right (using our right hand).

Do you now notice that, when you do the above action, the instructions on how to brew your tea is staring at you ! That is design.