26 of 365 - Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
26 of 365 – Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Good control design in a system allows for the ease of use for new users (beginners) or complex, customizable use by seasoned users (experts). A new or inexperienced user of a system will benefit from fewer options, and a simple interface, where an expert user benefits from a customizable, flexible interface that offers more direct access to the functions they use most. Some systems, such as public kiosks, should assume that most users will be new ones, since anyone with ability in that same environment probably has a more dedicated interface to use than the kiosk, e.g. an employee computer.
In this illustration, I’m showing how I designed control on a consulting project using WordPress by offering an interface with both beginner and expert controls.
A nighttime rocket launch (Photo credit: lemasney)
Relaunching 365sketches
I think that perhaps the greatest design work I’ve ever done was for the 365 Sketches project formerly at http://365sketches.org. I did it for 3 years between 2009 and 2012, with a one year break. You can see the best work from that project at the portfolio page. The concept is simple:
One design a day, using open source software.
It helped me to learn how to use Inkscape thoroughly, build an audience, develop my design, layout and typography skills, develop a portfolio, and get feedback and advice from stakeholders like you.
I will do a few things differently this time. I’ll screencast (record my screen to show the method) more often. I’ll be more explicit in my exposition. I’ll use and show classic design principles. I’ll use Drupal to develop the collection as a very clean portfolio version, while using WordPress, here, for the details. Both will be located here on lemasney.com, and I will likely migrate the existing content from 365 to this site as a category.
Healthy Berries are Good Food for Health (Photo credit: epSos.de)
“Sharing Food Virtually: an Introduction to Food Blogging
DATE/TIME: Oct 7 2013 – 7:00pm – 8:30pm
LOCATION: Technology Center
In this session, John LeMasney will show you how to use WordPress to share photos, video, recipes, reviews and other information about your passion for food. A delight in eating, talking about food, and sharing information about food are required, and some experience with websites is suggested, but not required. Come and learn how to start conversations online about food, nutrition, eating, and deliciousness.
Skill level: Intermediate” ~ Sharing Food Virtually: an Introduction to Food Blogging | Princeton Public Library –
Hi, all. There’s a lot going on this week, and I wanted to make you aware of some of the offerings and events that might help you. Also, you can always click on the link at the bottom of my site to see what classes and other public offerings I am taking part in. For the sake of simplicity, you can visit the link here: Upcoming talks with LeMasney Consulting
First, tonight at 7:30 to 8:30, I’m offering the first of a two-week class for free on WordPress at Princeton Public Library in the Tech Center. In the class, we go over the benefits of using WordPress to publish, discover how to get started, and next week we have a follow-up that allows you to share what you are doing. We learn about pages, posts, plugins, asides, statistics, sharing and more. Please visit!
Tonight I’ll be speaking with Brian Kelley about Technology and Art. Tomorrow I’ll be speaking with Sean Piotrowski about Customer Service. I usually advertise these on Facebook, but archives and podcasts are available. Probably the best way to get those is by subscribing to my YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/lemasney
I’m teaching a class on Tuesday nights at Rider University on Media and Technology for Organizations, and while registration for the class is complete, I’d love to sit with you and share what I’m teaching and learning there. If you’d like to sit down, consider grabbing a spot on my schedule at and remember that the first hour of a new consulting relationship is always free.
On Wednesday, I’ll be visiting the Mary Jacobs Memorial Library to talk about using Android. In the class, we’ll discover how to make the most of the popular mobile platform, why you should consider it if you are using something else, the benefits and differences of the platform and more. Mary Jacobs Memorial Library is at 64 Washington St. Rocky Hill, NJ 08553
Next week, in addition to the second WordPress class, I’ll be starting my classes at the Princeton Adult School, including creating a site, graphic design, personal and organizational branding, and photomanipulation. Visit their site to register: http://www.ssreg.com/princeton/classes/results.asp?string=lemasney
I hope that we get a chance to visit this week and in upcoming weeks, and thanks, as always, for your support!
Location: Princeton Public Library Technology Center
Interested in creating your own blog? In this two-part course, social media and technology expert, John LeMasney will teach how to start and manage a blog for free through WordPress. Prior web design experience is not needed. Session 2 will be held on Tuesday, May 21.
I made the image above using a web-based service (pimptheface.com) based on the police sketch artist’s toolkit called identikit. I have an undergraduate degree in the fine arts. I have done many self portraits. None has exactly this look, feel, or tone. None was as easy or quick to make. This looks like a police sketch and carries a lot of interpretive content related to that idea. There is a lot of value in that. Some might say “but it’s not yours” or “it’s cookie cutter”. My response is that for this particular application, that was the point. One should not dismiss services or tools when the result is the right result.
I wanted to talk a bit about my consulting experience on clients and predetermined feelings about originality, ability, and creativity.
Often when I first consult with someone I’ll ask the questions below to get some sense of what they are trying to do. If a client says that they want a web presence that they can update, and they want it up next week, I will invariably respond with WordPress or Drupal as a solution, depending on the number of pages and other factors of complexity that they need to have on the site.
I try not to expect the response “Oh, I don’t want a blog”, but that is usually what I hear. The problem with the response is a bias against blogging: commonality, simplicity, and a lack of creativity and effort. The engine itself is not predetermined to produce uncreative, unoriginal content. When they say, “well, I don’t want it to look like a blog”, I explain that the look and feel of the site is completely customizable and extensible, and that the reason that you see so many blogs that have the same look and feel is because the work of proper theme choice and customization has not been done. I try to explain that creativity, originality, and effort are all possible with these solutions, and that the words, images, video and other media that you produce and share are what will tell your viewers. A lot of my work in web development starts with convincing clients about the potential success of the solution. I have also often suggested Facebook, Google Plus, or Tumblr as the entirety of one’s web presence. It’s the content, and the audience’s reception to that content, not the platform, that determines success. I offer the following questions to help you to start to think about what the purpose of your design is.
What are you trying to do? In other words, are you trying to get the word out? Are you trying to learn something new? Are you trying to get more customers? Are you trying to reinforce brand? Are you trying to change your audience? Those questions, more so than what do you want to use to do it, are the important ones, and will lead us to a solution that meets those needs. Do we need to beat a new path or reinvent the wheel to do that?
What is your best result? What does success look like? If you are trying to get more customers, how many more do you want? If you are trying to sell more plates of food, how many more will it take for you to see value for effort? If we have a goal, we can work towards that goal, track it, and know when we’ve accomplished it. Now, what is the best way to go about that?
What are you an expert at, and how do you carry out your success there? If you are a successful multiple restaurateur, what gets people to come in? Is it the food? The ambiance? The site? The service? All of the above? In what ways will that help us to decide the directions we take with your project? If we treat your design project the same way that we treat a new dish or new restaurant, you will have a better sense of the choices you should make to make success there too. The solution we choose in graphic design or technology choice should please you as a successful new dish would.
What is it that makes your service, product, or organization unique? If you are doing something in your work that is also done by 20 others, why would they choose you over someone else? If I’m already at Wal-Mart, or CVS, and they do the same thing you do, and I have to go through the register here, what about your service is going to make someone say “I’d prefer to do this at Joe’s”? Answering this question tells us what we need to emphasize in our project, but if you don’t have a good answer for this, you might want to look at another business.
What is your brand? As always, we want to know what it is that you are trying to underline about what you do. We want to have alignment between what you believe about your organization and what your customers and potential customers believe about you. What design choices, technology choices, and marketing choices do we make to do that?
Interested in these questions? The answers are even better! I’m at lemasney@gmail.com
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Lunch & Learn: John LeMasney – 10 things you should know about Android and the Nexus 7.
