elijahastor

[elijahastor]

HAMBURGER MENU alternatives for mobile navigation

Hamburger menu alternatives. There are so many hamburger menu alternatives but for this blog I am only going to say what I think work’s best for a designer’s mobile navigation. 

I was reading an article titled hamburger menu alternatives for mobile navigation by Zoltan Kollin and I found it pretty amazing. Mr. Kollin was basically laying out all the different types of mobile navigations that I have ever seen in my life. 

Reading Mr. Kollin’s article made me think... “wow so many different types of mobile navigations and yet all these hugh companies chose different ones. Why?” That basically was my reoccurring thought. 

As I came to the end of Mr. Kollin’s article, his summation resolved my thought: There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for mobile navigation, it always depends on your product, on your users, and on the context. What works well for others might not work for you and vice versa. However, the foundation of every well designed navigation is information architecture – clear structure, priorities, and labels based on your users’ needs.

Although I cannot say this with conviction, as I look at various companies, I must confess that mobile navigation must be different because it really does depend on the product, the users, and the context. For each company, there mobile navigation must compliment there image, branding, and philosophy. 

If I had to chose which one would I use for mobile navigation, because I am a designer with a freakish creative bent, I would use the hamburger menu. 

I love tabs; hate more options. I hate long navigations, so I hate progressively collapsing and scrollable menus, but the funny thing is, I love drop down menus. 

Drop down menus that are short, simple and clean are beauty to me. As Mr. Kollin’s says “it serves as a page title and the downward arrow suggests that there’s a possibility to quickly switch to similar sections;” I love that.

At the end of the day, I still would go with the hamburger menu. I am simple. I love clean complex websites that are not enormous, and I believe with that the hamburger menu is great for that. 

Again, what works well for others might not work for you and vice versa, but in either case my creativity desires to be seen on my website and since it would be clean and simple the hamburger is my menu, but the drop down is great.

-DesignsNThoughts

[elijahastor]

The Internet’s Own Boy

“The Internet’s Own Boy”

Movie Notes:

Aaron Swartz, a very amazing young boy at first we we see his growing up. He was reading at young age. Some of the accomplishments he did was create ”The Info.org”. Aaron also helped work on the development of RSS; he saw things that were wrong and wanted to problem-solve and provide test-run solutions. That’s what was amazing about this guy as he was growing up. In addition, his personality was very strong; most people did not like him for that. What I saw was that his personality was very strong because he was a through thinker and had a ego that he new what he was talking about due to intensive thought and research. The unique personality and problem-solving mentality aligned him with the development of the specifications for creative common, which was basically saying: “here is what you can do with my media and what you cannot do with it; it essentially was protective legal creative rights so to speak. Aaron was incredible in all his tasks. He worked for Ideas from other people, he was a perfectionist and only wanted productivity. As for only seeking productivity, Aaron founded Reddit for all forms of News and Promotion to be given to the people. This was what I saw as the revealing of Aaron singular drive. Since a boy he loved learning and loved teaching but who would have know that this would become a passion to acquire all knowledge and want to give it to all people;  who would have known this would become his downfall. Aaron by Corporations rised to the top and saw there was a ceiling (limit) and did not like that. Thus went back down to what he thought was freedom or being a fresh entrepreneur, never an employee. He needed the entrepreneur freedoms in order to fulfill his passion. He never seemed to like constraint. His high was knowledge, and to tell him to settle down and use only one sector of knowledge was like putting him in a straightjacket, starving, with food all around him, and tell him he can only have one burger for the rest of his life; it is ludicrous. So now that he descending from the top of the hill what did he do? Well, Aaron went down and created an open library; seeking to bring public access to the public domain with no restraints nor charges. This lead to Aaron with numerous of men seeking access of court documents and so as to provide the information to the public for free. Aaron also did not like the fact that people cannot get access to scholarly journals. So again Aaron wanted people to have access to this information for free as well. Aaron wanted progressive activities to occur in America so Aaron wanted progressive politicians in government. Progressive politicians he knew would provide the legal framework he need to access all knowledge and give all knowledge. While although this was a dream and passion and goal, it by no means was legal, nor was in patient. Aaron wanted the people to have access to all knowledge for free. He hated the fact the one must pay for knowledge. To him, this is pure immorality. In order to be effective in his endeavor to provide knowledge to all he started engaging in illegal activity by stealing knowledge. Some say it is not stealing because it causes no harm. That statement is very narrow-minded. Anyway, Aaron could not wait, he did not want to. He started downloading knowledge into hard drives to be able to release this knowledge to all for free by breaking into a corps databased. This ultimately led to a conviction and prison. Although this is a very brief summary of Aaron, it still shows the driving passion this man had for freedom of knowledge and by freedom he meant free knowledge. I am not a progressive and I do not support progressive agendas like these. I think if I was a scientist and I was provided funding to make a discovery, the funder has the right to have partial or consented full rights to the finding. Or let’s say I was a scientist and have my own funded I should have the right to make a profit off of it. It is my life’ work and I should be feed for it. I also think within a capitalistic society I should within reasonable limit charge as I wish for my hard work. And finally it someone was to break into my home or even come into my own with consent and secretly take my files and documents I have stored away for safe-keeping, believe me and I know you know this does cause harm, both mentally and emotionally, thus physically in the long run. 

NOTHING IS FREE! DO WE UNDERSTAND THIS CHILDREN!

-DesignsNThoughts

[elijahastor]

What is The Elephant in The Digital Room?

We live in a day an time in which we are increasingly becoming addict to digital media. Of course I would argue there are many factors that make such a claim valid, nevertheless, the third two prominent causes to such addiction of digital media I would say is due to first external technology, which includes mobile/portable devices, hyper-real graphics, and illuminating screens. The second is due t internal technology which includes, the Internet and it mass information overspills, global networking, and multi-notification/news/event platforms.

Of course I do not want to step out of subject but I must input my own thoughts of what I see is The Elephant in The Digital Room before I state what that Elephant is said to be. That is not to say that I am inaccurate but only to emphasize that what I have stated is of my own perception and research and not based off the collected knowledge of other, in particular: Robert McChesney.

Moving forward, in the book title Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy by Robert W. McChesney it states “In the United States, Europe, much of the rest of the world, one need not have a teenage child to understand that “social networks have become ubiquitous, necessary, and addictive.””

This book is a source of telling you all what I think is The Elephant in The Digital Room? which according to McChesney and I, we both perceive it to be the same in part. I say in part, well, because I did not touch everything he did.

So what is The Elephant? To be straight forward, brief, and to the point I believe The Internet is the Elephant in The Digital Room. Now I know I am surface typing and not getting into depth as to why it is but I will say in our day and age The Internet is increasingly becoming the preferred means of information, communication, and entertainment and if continued in this progressive pattern it will replace face-to-face, blood and flesh, physical relationships for information, oral communication and/or live entertainment, and will become the dominate and most used form of information, communication and entertainment. 

This is by no means contrary to McChesney’s thinking. And I would most assuredly concur that this is is exactly where we are going. Not only do I say The Internet is The Elephant in The Digital room but I will in summary say The Elephant is so massive that is swallowing us all so that there will be no other platform where one would go for information, communication, and entertainment but a digital platform.

After reading this book instead of changing my thesis, it only cemented it and actually provided more depth to my perception of digital media.

McChesney points out how there are two dominate views of The Elephant. One is The Celebrants and the other is The Skeptics. The Celebrants celebrate the Elephant and consider it their dream and ideal means of a utopian world, while The Skeptics see The Elephant as a concern, a deep-seated concern and are viewed as contains, and curmudgeons. 

I do not want to be either. While I do not discourage The Elephant, I will by no means Encourage it to be dominate. 

However, before I close I would say that what separates me from McChesney is that it seems as if McChesney thinks The Elephant in The Digital Room in actual Capitalism. This is where I would not agree so while McChesney may say the effects of the internet are the same I do not believe we have the same Elephant.  Capitalism is not the Elephant in the Digital Room, it is indeed the creator of The Digital Room. However what I will say is the Elephant in the room is The Internet. Oh and by the way the Internet is only The Elephant because we have made it to be that, as Capitalism has given us The Digital Room to be free, sorta speak.

-DesignsNThoughts

[elijahastor]

Q&A ON THE INTERNET

What do you think had the most influence in development of Internet and why? (Government or Academia or Commerce or Cultural force)

I Think the government, academia, and commerce had the most influence in the development of the internet simultaneously and I say that because in late 1966 Roberts went to DARPA to develop the computer network concept and quickly put together his plan for the "ARPANET", publishing it in 1967. At the sam time there was also a paper on a packet network concept from the UK by Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury of NPL. Scantlebury told Roberts about the NPL work as well as that of Paul Baran and others at RAND. The RAND group had written a paper on packet switching networks for secure voice in the military in 1964. It happened that the work at MIT (1961-1967), at RAND (1962-1965), and at NPL (1964-1967) had all proceeded in parallel without any of the researchers knowing about the other work. This although does not clearly state how academia and commerce is involved, we can clearly see the government was seeking its's development for military purposes.      

In August 1968, after Roberts and the DARPA funded community had refined the overall structure and specifications for the ARPANET, an RFQ was released by DARPA for the development of one of the key components, the packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP's). The RFQ was won in December 1968 by a group headed by Frank Heart at Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN). By won I do not know what won means but the fact that DARPA was fully funded shows commerce does have some interest. Furthermore, as the BBN team worked on the IMP's with Bob Kahn playing a major role in the overall ARPANET architectural design, the network topology and economics were designed and optimized by Roberts working with Howard Frank and his team at Network Analysis Corporation. Which clearly indicates that commerce is playing a major role here. In addition and the network measurement system was prepared by Kleinrock's team at UCLA. Due to Kleinrock's early development of packet switching theory and his focus on analysis, design and measurement, his Network Measurement Center at UCLA was selected to be the first node on the ARPANET.     

Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory in July 1961 and the first book on the subject in 1964. Kleinrock convinced Roberts of the theoretical feasibility of communications using packets rather than circuits, which was a major step along the path towards computer networking. This shows how even at it's root or shall we say conception academia was the driving force, but not the only force. In conclusion, I must say due to the fact that both the work at MIT (1961-1967), at RAND (1962-1965), and at NPL (1964-1967) had all proceeded in parallel without any of the researchers knowing about the other work, proves that both commerce, government and academia where both pursuing the development of the Internet. The fact that they all came into union is providential, but nevertheless it occurred and thus, I would say that 3 forces where at work but one force (God) was superintendent over them all to give us the development of the internet.

 Name two most important technological breakthroughs in the history of Internet and why you think they are the most important.

In October 1972, Kahn organized a large, very successful demonstration of the ARPANET at the International Computer Communication Conference (ICCC). This was the first public demonstration of this new network technology to the public. It was also in 1972 that the initial "hot" application, electronic mail, was introduced. I believe these two technological developments where the most important breakthroughs in the history of the Internet. Why? Well, I would simply say: without ARPANET there is no host-to-host messaging and without the electronic mail there would never be possible the exchange of computer-stored messages by telecommunication. If these two had not come into fruition the Information Retriening Internet would never be possible nor enjoyed nor advanced to what it is now.

 Based on the history of Internet, where do you think the future of Internet is heading to and why?

The future of the internet is the future of the primary means of communication and entertainment. Why? This is why: "It is now changing to provide new services such as real time transport, in order to support, for example, audio and video streams. The availability of pervasive networking (i.e., the Internet) along with powerful affordable computing and communications in portable form (i.e., laptop computers, two-way pagers, PDAs, cellular phones), is making possible a new paradigm of nomadic computing and communications. This evolution will bring us new applications - Internet telephone and, slightly further out, Internet television. It is evolving to permit more sophisticated forms of pricing and cost recovery, a perhaps painful requirement in this commercial world. It is changing to accommodate yet another generation of underlying network technologies with different characteristics and requirements, e.g. broadband residential access and satellites. New modes of access and new forms of service will spawn new applications, which in turn will drive further evolution of the net itself." 

-DesignsNThoughts

[elijahastor]

As We Think so it Displays.

Wow. What I am about to say may be short, but I believe it is sufficient. While reading an article titled As we think by Vannevar Bush, I was on the front end confused. I could not understand what this man is talking about, but as I continued and continued, all previous statements coupled with present statements leading into latter statements I notice that the author is speak about technology. But wait, don't catch a breath yet! He is not just speaking on any pieces of technology but various technologies that when combined together they can have the ability if not to think like us but to think for us. 

In other words this author is speaking of a  technological advancement that would have our thoughts and store, organize, present, and magnify them. As I am coming to the close of the article and paying close attention to the details of his article I began to think and imagine and images began to surface to my mind. these images where images of a MacBook, finder app, google search and drive, memory chips, storage chips, voice recognition, voice typer, ebooks. 

My reader, what the author is talking about is a reality for us. Im sorry if this may sound stupid, but what the author is projecting to be able to become a reality is what is a reality for us: the MacBook or Laptop or Desktop (with the internet), whichever you wish to use, but I believe more a MacBook (with internet). Now to me, it is most advanced and the only piece of technology that has the fulfillment of every single thing the author mentioned. And this may shock you but in even more depth the MacBook doesn’t even fully capture this authors vision.

The very typing that I am doing right not in a way is a fulfillment of what he projected. Of course just a little aspect, but with such excitement I want to say even that. But if I had to narrow it down, it seems to me that the Internet on the MacBook is the fulfillment of what this author was talking about. I mean in a broad sense he has a vision of digital media period. And in a more specified ways, taking all details, in he is speaking of something close to the finder app, google search and drive, and amazon kindle together, so that is why I said a computer (with Internet) because it fulfills all specifications and entail his total vision plus more and minus some.

Everyone must read this article for themselves but, I want to finish this post off with some concluding remarks. In Bush’s article there is part of his vision that is in the works today and we have tasted it a little. And that is the working of Artificial Intelligence. I do not believe that a machine will be able to generates unprogrammed thoughts on it’s own, that is unique to humans, but I do believe that the process of having a machine provide the knowledge know to man by various means is when the authors vision will be fully fulfilled.

-DesignsNThoughts

[elijahastor]

Either We Program or Be Programmed

Coding is a unique task and by that I mean that it is one in which the person must be educated, passionate, and disciplined to engage in such a task. I call it unique because these three objectives for coding is not a norm we find and if we do find it, it was not easy for that person to do it.

As a designer I use code but I do not create code. I create designs via a program but never do I dig deep into creating a program. I had to learn how to use the program and very little on how to make a program.

By no means am I saying that design work is easy and coding is hard. If anything I believe both are hard (or both can be easy if you are educated, passionate, and disciplined), if one wants to maintain excellence, but what I do what to make sure I point out is that the majority of people in America rather be programmed than program. I am one of them. This is why I can say confidently that coding is unique.

In this blog post I want everyone to understand that coding is not only an option but an essential; it is the foundation for digital/computer activity. No one wants to be educated, passionate, and disciplined for coding anymore. Coding has become unique and sometimes loathsome to our culture, and this my friends has to change.

I am a designer, but I am dependent on the coder. If I have no code I have no design. Let’s go deeper! Coding is information and if we have no information we have no knowledge about or how to do anything. Information is everywhere. We develop from embryos into human because of “coding” (DNA/Information given). The earth does all that it does because of “coding” (Information giving). Everything needs a program in order to function and if we are going to do anything digital in the digital world (via a computer) we need coders.

For space, earth, human and animals, God has created the program. While numerous of people were acting in ignorance God showed Israel the program and then then all types of people He showed His program via Jesus so that we can know, use and even imitate His own program in a most glorious manner.

Roman Catholicism created a program that all had to follow in order to be with God, a false program, yet Martin Luther instead revealed God’s program to us again showing us the real way to be with God. Long story short, there are tons of programs out there that hide truth and realities propagating personal biases and stunting our growth and flourishing (of course that’s not what God did, but man), both in innovation and perfection. But unless we open these programs up for ourselves and see whats in them, we have no idea what we are doing or what to do. There are people trying to hide it but there are people that are not. Not only is there the possibility to know present codes/rules but there is as well the needed ability to code (create digital rules) ourselves and display our code to all, which I believe it a supreme way of reflect our Ultimate Coder. 

These are just a summary of my thoughts and honestly I am calling more people, specifically those engaging the field of virtual communication and digital media to invest in coding, both to know what is out there (understand code) and also to learn what is out there (code yourself). I am a designer (perfecter of innovations of rules), this is the path I have chosen to take, but before you choose a path and go to deep, consider coding (innovative ruling).

I am a user of code, but I seek to know what is out there and as of now all I can be is creative but with more knowledge of code my creativity will flourish devoid of ignorance. Yes I am not a coder (rule creator), but I want to understand them. So please let there be more creators, that in doing so together we can flourish.

It is even more harder to find creative creators besides our God to reflect our God. But when creations and creativity come together, the beauty is amazing. We can do it. I will start. Potential coders, don't give up.

So creators, I love you all, and may more come; we need you. Coding is Information/rules and we need them. We need creator not just users. God gave us information, and put it on display that we can understand and marvel in His work and in doing so be inspired to reflect His work and create ourselves and design our creations.

There are those that hide there programs, but God has not. Let’s follow Him, create code, use code, and most importantly display the code to all that new coders and user will rise simultaneously.

We need coder to make programs that never is devoid of the ability for people to use their agency to make codes themselves. Programs that always give people the opportunity to make inform chooses; programs that educate. Thank you Martin Luther for showing us God’s code and thank you Douglas Rushkoff for your book on creating code/programs.

-DesignsNThoughts

[elijahastor]

Should Designers Learn to Code?

I’ll just jump straight to the point and express my thoughts on this matter. First of all, due to the advancement of technology and the business of selling already functional websites on a website that generates websites for designers, that can edited and altered generated fully functional websites, there really is no need for designers to know how to professionally code in order to professional design websites. 

On the other hand a designer does not want to be totally ignorant of all concepts or at least the basic concepts of coding. Neither should a designer not know what in the world a coder is doing and what in the world a coder is typing.  I mean how then can the designer communicate in such a way that the coder can grasp there visions. 

Despite the fact that there are amazing coders out there that can understand baby language (lay-men language), a designer should still know the lingo and the potentials of coding. As a designer myself, I love creativity and with that creation capabilities. Not being able to code is a stunt to me, but with technology it is no sever barrier, it basically is no longer an issue. Nevertheless, only when I continual advance in the knowledge and basics of all forms art despite not specializing in it, can my/our specialized design visions, not only be realistic, but manifested most gloriously.

-DesignsNThoughts