Trying my hand at writing
So I've assigned myself the task of writing itineraries for all the top destinations in the country. Shouldn't be too hard right? One a week, maybe about 50 top spots. I'll be finished within a year. Too easy.
I'm currently sitting at number eight. These take way longer to write than I thought!
Not the places I know well, they're more about what to leave out. It's the ones I hardly know, places like Dunedin where I've only visited as a boy. Sure, I remember being dragged up the world's steepest street and dragged through a beer factory, but an entertaining and informative itinerary this doth not make.
To make up for these shortcomings and the fact I can't travel to all these spots (though I wish I could), I need to improvise. It's quite an art to take mundane "Top Ten Must See" suggestions and crafting an interesting tail of discovery out of them. Something international travellers may enjoy.
I'm pretty new to this copywriting malarcky, so the writing takes time. Maybe this will never change, but I don't mind - it's rather fun.
Knocked the bastard off
We came, we saw, we conquered and raised $20,000 NZD for World Child Cancer in the process. Bloody tough yacka this mountain climbing, but a truelly memorable and humbling experience.
I also found out first-hand how brutal altitude sickness is. Imagine your worst ever hangover, combined with dysentry. Now add in that it only gets worse the higher you get - that's it in a nutshell. It's the toughest examination of my mental and physical strength I've experienced. I passed this particular test, but geez it was touch 'n' go. We were practically deadmen walking by the time we returned to basecamp.
The amazing part though is that as tough as it was, it was equally euphoric. The kind of euphoria that makes a grown man cry. As I did.
Some powerful crack that.
Mt Kilimanjaro - we're coming to get ya!
It's all in the name of charity. We're three eager fullas looking to do something very difficult and raise a shitload of cash for children with cancer in Africa in the process.
It’s felt like a journey getting to this point. We’ve had late night calls with World Child Cancer, searched and found the cheapest possible flights to Tanzania, designed and built this website, paid our climbing registrations and started high-intensity training programs – in reality we’ve barely scratched the surface.
In nine short months we’ve got to be ready to climb the highest peak in Africa and raise a mountain of money while we’re doing it.
The motivation is simple.
In some African nations the survival rate for children fighting cancer is 10% – at best. This is compared to 80% in high income countries.
There are few specially trained professionals capable of diagnosing and treating this illness in Africa. This has lead to a heartbreaking reality for many – that childhood cancer is too difficult to cure. This shouldn’t be the case.
According to World Child Cancer this disease can be curable even in the poorest countries. It’s possible to save the lives of 50% – 60% of children with easily treatable malignancies with relatively simple, inexpensive drugs and procedures that have been known to doctors for decades.
I’ve never been to Africa and I can’t pretend to know what the stark reality of life is like there, but when I see images of these poor kids I can’t help relate them back to my own – who I worry about on a daily basis. I worry about them even with our first world sanitation, ample food and free doctors visits. My Lily and Louie aren’t any different to those born in less fortunate circumstances. They all have mums and dads, brothers and sisters that love them very much and worry about them too. No child deserves to be given up on. We can help.
At the end of the day we’re three novices climbing a very daunting mountain to raise funds to help these kids. Motivation will never be an issue for us.
There's a missing ingredient in UX methodologies: Soul
Soul adds the spark, point of difference, memorability and creativity to our work. Without it you have a meal with no taste, sure it fills you up, gives you what you need, but do you want to come back for more?
We need more creativity.
But isn't creative thinking all part of the UX process? Sure. There's a creative process involved in small doses of different UX aspects, but they aren't the common driving force behind decisions. Take this scenario, a customer wants their beautifully designed brochure to be replicated on the web. The UX designer proposes a single page with tabs between the content. Each content section will have a main title, intro text, main graphic and maybe a pullout quote.
Sound good? Yup, ticks all the boxes. Easy to build, light code and semantically correct.
Now the obvious downside here is it doesn't have anywhere near the same impact as the printed brochure. In fact every page looks identical, with the same visual hierarchy and nothing unique or memorable to intrigue the viewer about the content.
Now I'm not suggesting we abandon all patterns for the sake of page uniqueness, that would be unsustainable and an utter mess. However isn't there room to add a slice of the life the brochure delivered? Similar patterns kept but different treatments, each helping encapsulate the contents essence and in turn giving a life and soul to the site.
Why the hell not?
By all means get your frameworks down, establish your patterns and follow your UX methodologies. These are your boundaries - just leave time to add the flavour, the niceties and Soul.
EL VY is mint
Park Run, Buggy's and Jet Packs
To be honest I do try and sneak out sometimes. It's early on a Saturday and I'm the only one dressed, but as soon as they wake I've got no regrets. It's pure excitement from Louie and Lily, they never get dressed so quickly.
I only take one at time, as the weight would be too much for the beaten up old buggy. There's even some ragtag modifications so that their feet don't rest on the front wheel and act like brakes. We scramble to the start line and try and find the right spot for us: maybe a person back from the quicks in the front row. The starts are always fast but we tend to start catching up after about 100 meters. It can be tough getting past groups of runners when you're pushing a buggy, you weave and surge through closing gaps, conscious of ankles but needing to keep the pace up.
After 500 meters the field has opened up and you can run your own race. Getting through the first km quickly is key with a buggy, because the next 1.5km is where the hills start and feel yourself being reeled in by the runners behind you. Lily normally asks why I'm walking around this point, I assure her I'm not through gasping breaths.
Seeing the leaders coming back around the bend is always interesting. I wish I could see the tv replay of how the finish transpires, but checking out the online results later that day gives a good indication of the tussles involved.
The downhill leg is where things get fun with the kids. I've told them the buggy has a special jet pack which they have to activate by pushing two buttons at exactly the right time. I let them know when it's charged - coincidently when a steeper downhill is approaching - and we blast off. I run as fast as I can, and yes, I make jet noises. It must seem pretty bizarre to those around me, but it gets the kids involved and feeling they've got influence with the end result too.
Post finish we usually stick around for a quick chat with the other runners until the holes in our stomachs send us home for our well earned breakfast... and to refuel the jet packs for next weekend.
Choosing complimentary colours
While I work predominately in a technology based environment I still take inspiration from nature.
I love the complex balance between symmetry and chaos in the environment. There's also a special harmony with the colours. Nature finds a way of allowing a mish-mash of colours to pleasantly interact with each other... it just feels right and reassuring.
That’s what good design is trying to achieve. You want people to feel comfortable with you, to trust you. It all starts with the look and feel. Of course, you need more than a few pretty pictures to make this happen, but it’s the first building block and one you have to get right.
A great little tip I picked up off fellow web designer Dan Cederman. Take an outdoor photo (think natural colour and contrast), open it in Photoshop then mosiac it up.
You're left with a great selection of complementary colours that would work great on a website. It's a good little starting point and a method I use a lot.
