Jonathan Snook's Blog, page 19

Simplicity and Comfort

About a year ago, I came across this wonderful interview between Jack White and Conan O’Brien. The full interview is over an hour long but the first 10 minutes are filled with a number of wonderful points.

The first of those is simplicity. Jack White talks of his apprenticeship as an upholsterer and observing the minimum number of staples to consider something upholstered. Too few and the fabric would pull too much between the staples.

White went on to apply this approach to the White Stripes. He applied constraints of simplicity to inspire his ability to create music.

I often think about this in the context of web design and development. In design, I often feel that designers over-complicate the usability of an application in an attempt to achieve another kind of simplicity. In development, I often feel that developers over-complicate the development process with multiple frameworks, dependencies, and build tools to achieve another kind of simplicity.

With a world seemingly heading in one direction, I feel a little odd wanting to head in the other direction. As a designer, I like interfaces that are straightforward. I don’t want to remove every line or shadow or gradient. I like obvious. As a developer, I like having fewer levels of abstraction. (But recognize that I still use many levels of abstraction. Why is 5 levels okay but 7 isn’t? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

As Jack White says, sometimes this attempt at simplicity can come off as pretentious.

The second point was that of comfort. “Comfort can kill a creative impulse,” Conan says. This is where I’ve found myself. I’m comfortable. So, as Conan asks, “how do you create a situation where you’re not comfortable?”

Self-defined deadlines have never really worked well for me. It’s too easy to dismiss them. Conferences, for example, have unmissable deadlines. Work deliverables have deadlines. But it’s easy to dismiss personal deadlines. It’s easy to not move forward because I’m comfortable.

If I’m comfortable, how do I create a situation for me where I’m not comfortable? How do I get that hunger and motivation back?

Again as Conan says, it’s falling in love with hard work. Getting into the zone, or flow, is a wonderful place. I miss that place.

There are so many things that distract me from getting into the zone. Kids, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, to name a few. I can’t get rid of my kids but I can adjust how I spend my time on social media. I need to strengthen my productivity muscle. If writing is what I want to do then I’ll spend time every day writing. If coding is what I want to do then I’ll spend time every day coding.

It reminds me of shovelling snow after a big snowstorm. My kids look at it and find it daunting. They want to give up. But it gets done, one scoop at a time. I keep chipping away at it until it’s finally done. I am satisfied to see that clean driveway.

And just like that, I need to keep chipping away at my goals. I’ll make sure I can visualize my progress and I’ll be satisfied to see the final product.

Movement

It’s a new year. I’d like to say that this is a point at which I start reflecting on the past year and the year ahead but truth is, I’ve been introspective of where I am and what I’m doing for some time now. So much so that I’m starting to get sick of being in my head.

For me, 2015 was a transitional and emotional year, one that I’ve had a tough time putting into words. I’ve felt like a success and a failure all wrapped up in one. I saw the end of a job, a relationship, and a passion for web development. My desire to write had little spark to it. On the flip side, I saw my financial fortunes soar. Money buys happiness, right?

2015 became the year where I decided to reinvest in myself.

Seven years ago, I was at my heaviest weight of 285 lbs and I started taking steps to lose weight. After a year of portion control and exercise, I was down to about 240. But I flatlined. A move back to the suburbs meant I was walking less and driving more. The weight started to climb back up. By the end of last summer, I was up to 268. That wasn’t where I wanted to be.

In September, I decided to get a trainer and make a year long plan to hit my goal of 200 once and for all. In the 4 months since I’ve started, I’ve lost 20 lbs. My travel schedule was very hectic. I was too easily tempted by the free drinks and fatty foods offered by most conferences. And yet I’m still mostly on target. Go figure.

I decided to take a break from conferences for the first half of 2016. This is time that I want to use to focus on being a better me. I want to hit up the conferences in September having hit my goal of 200. (Fingers crossed.)

In 2016, I also want to rekindle my passion for the web. I’d love to finally finish rewriting SMACSS. I have other books I’d like to write. I have products I’d like to build. I’d like to blog more! I’d like to get my site redesigned. I want to produce instead of just consume.

I’d like to be a person I can be proud of.

To do that, this year’s theme will be Movement. Physically and mentally, I want movement. I want progress. It’s time to stop living in my head.

Just One Cable

When I bought the 12" MacBook, I waited for Apple to release its own monitor that had a single USB-C connector that would feed power, display, and act as USB hub for my MacBook. This is, by far, my ideal situation.

Alas, such a monitor doesn’t exist—neither Apple nor, by my research, has anybody released such a thing.

So, I bought a new widescreen monitor for home. The 34” LG 21:9 curved ultrawide. On my desk, it looks lovely. The biggest selling feature for me was that it lets you plug in two monitors at the same time. The idea of plugging in my home and work laptop into the same monitor and easily switch between the two sounded like a decent enough tradeoff.

The whole experience, however, has just been aggravating.

First, I discovered that to do the half-screen resolution (1720x1440 instead of 3440x1440), I’d need to get a custom monitor profile. El Capitan restricts the ability to do this and I had to restart the OS into Restore to run a terminal command to disable protections to install the new monitor profile. I have to do this on both laptops.

Next, the monitor only has two USB ports. That takes care of my USB mic and my external keyboard. But what if I want to plug in an external hard drive? my iPhone or iPad? Or anything else? Enter USB hub.

So now I have cables plugged into the monitor, plugged into a USB hub, plugged into an adapter, plugged into my MacBook, and power from my laptop to the power bar, and power from the USB hub to the power bar.

And because it’s not an Apple display, neither the volume controls nor the brightness controls on the keyboard work.

Lastly, the monitor doesn’t have a built-in camera. Skype, Hangouts, or FaceTime will require me to open up my laptop (I like clamshell!) or do it on another device. Or plug in a web cam into another USB port. Sigh.

Suffice it to say, I’m feeling kinda meh about this whole thing. Maybe this wasn’t the monitor I wanted. (Although I do love having all of this screen real estate!)

Review of Responsive Design: Patterns & Principles

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a technical book but I felt I had to make an exception for Ethan Marcotte, who recently released Responsive Design: Patterns & Principles.

Marcotte is, of course, most well known for his prior book, Responsive Web Design, which helped bring the concepts of media query oriented fluid design to the forefront of our industry.

This recent A Book Apart is a great extension on that, diving into four specific components of site design: navigation; images and videos; advertising; and the grid.

Each topic is delved into with an appropriate amount of depth with enough humour to make a possibly dry subject entertaining.

Throughout the book, Marcotte remarks on the shift from designing pages to designing systems and uses the four components along with plenty of industry examples to demonstrate how to possibly handle this shift in your projects.

My only complaint is that Marcotte may not have gone far enough in tackling how to handle going responsive with complex systems. Maybe a third book should be written! (Ethan, hint hint.)

Review of Responsive Design: Patterns & Principles

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a technical book but I felt I had to make an exception for Ethan Marcotte, who recently released Responsive Design: Patterns & Principles.

Marcotte is, of course, most well known for his prior book, Responsive Web Design, which helped bring the concepts of media query oriented fluid design to the forefront of our industry.

This recent A Book Apart is a great extension on that, diving into four specific components of site design: navigation; images and videos; advertising; and the grid.

Each topic is delved into with an appropriate amount of depth with enough humour to make a possibly dry subject entertaining.

Throughout the book, Marcotte remarks on the shift from designing pages to designing systems and uses the four components along with plenty of industry examples to demonstrate how to possibly handle this shift in your projects.

My only complaint is that Marcotte may not have gone far enough in tackling how to handle going responsive with complex systems. Maybe a third book should be written! (Ethan, hint hint.)

Not good enough

It’s easy to say how somebody isn’t living up to your expectations. I fail to live up to my own expectations of myself on a nearly daily basis.

When it comes to web development, it’s easy to pick apart a site and complain about how it could’ve been done better.

“Your site isn’t accessible enough.”

“Your site isn’t fast enough.”

“Your site isn’t designed well enough.”

People sometimes take shortcuts, due to temporary laziness or time constraints. People sometimes do the best job they know how to. There are often constraints that we’re simply unaware of.

We start somewhere and then we work on getting better. It’s easy to discount how far we’ve come by constantly being focused on how much further we have to go.

One web site that I enjoy is Accessibility Wins, curated by Marcy Sutton. She chose to focus on the positives instead of the negatives.

In looking over how I’ve behaved in the past, I recognize my own behaviour as tinged with negativity. It’s something that I’m working on to improve, to be more positive. I’ll fail repeatedly. And tomorrow, I’ll work on failing less often.

There’s no such thing as a perfect web site. There’s no such thing as the perfect person. And that’s okay. Tomorrow will be a little bit better.

Overnight Success

Nobody has ever accused me of being an overnight success but I still really enjoyed this video from Gary Vaynerchuk. In it, he describes all the work he put into becoming “an overnight success”. The years of learning and executing and making videos before things began to take off.

I recently read an interview of Christoph Waltz. A delightful interview and again, the subject of becoming an overnight success came up after having spent 30 years working as an actor before starring in his award-winning role in Inglorious Basterds.

Was he ever tempted to jack in the acting and find a new line of work? “Funnily enough, my wife did raise that point. She raised it repeatedly. Very encouragingly, she said, ‘Oh, you could do anything. You’re so talented. Why do this?’” Waltz laughs mirthlessly. “I took offence. To say the least.”

Perseverance has definitely been the key for both Vaynerchuk and Waltz. Is that all it is? Do we just keep working at it until success strikes?

It’s easy to look at the success stories and think that must be all there is to it. Yet, so many people put in the hard work and still struggle. They’ll struggle until the day they die.

In contrast, Seth Godin wrote a book called The Dip. He talks about how people persevere when they shouldn’t. “Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.”

Sometimes something is a dead-end. The trick is knowing when it’s going to be a dead-end and when a little more perseverance will pay off.

I’d like to think that I can tell a good idea from a bad one, a good app from a bad one, but as I was once told, I’m “right slightly more often than a coin toss.”

Maybe in the end it is just a matter of luck.

What does success look like?

Brooklyn Beta was a lovely conference for five years running. My favourite part of the conference was the time between sessions where I could talk to all the great people in attendance. When BB announced a Reunion meetup, I jumped at the chance. Yes, I hopped on a plane, and rented a nice AirBnB place to spend a few hours with thoughtful people.

I was not disappointed. (I was hungover but that’s another story.)

As I walked in the door of the Royal Palms, we were asked to fill out name tags. Along with our name, we were to write down what we’d like to talk about.

My question: “What does success look like?”

And so I asked people that very question throughout the evening.

Some people didn’t have an answer. (I don’t.) Some people would shift their focus of what they work on. Others would stop working altogether.

There’s some appeal to playing video games, watching movies, and really just doing what I want when I want. I’d still want to do something, though, and without the constraint of needing to pay the bills, I fear that there would be little to push me to actually get anything done. (Few people want to do the last 20%.)

So, I pose this question to you, dear reader: What does success look like to you? What do you do once you have it?

My Second Mid-Life Crisis

Over 6 years ago, I separated from my then wife, choosing to live a separate path—albeit an overlapping path as we co-parent our two boys. This was my first crisis. Now, years later, I find myself struggling with something different.

Growing up, seeing what those around me did, I saw a familiar pattern: you work hard and consistently until your 60s and hope to have enough saved up to support you through retirement. This is what I’ve seen my mom do. It’s what I’ve seen my friends’ parents do. It’s what I see my friends doing now.

Of course, along the way, there are hiccups. Little hills and valleys. The hills are exciting as a sudden influx of cash eases the burden; the valleys are distressing as I struggle to make ends meet.

Working freelance had lots of peaks and valleys but, at the time, I was married and the second income helped smooth the edges out. It made things manageable.

Some say divorce is the easy way out but I didn’t find it particular easy. The emotional and financial cost grew quickly. But it was the only way I could think of to get to somewhere better.

Guilt and other factors from the divorce put me in a difficult place financially. Despite a recently acquired full-time job that paid well, I still struggled to make ends meet. I was paying half a mortgage on a place I didn’t live in, rent for my own place, and child support.

I was on the verge of bankruptcy.

It was a weird place to find myself. I was getting paid over $100k a year and struggling to make ends meet. I made it through that deep trough, in no small part thanks to the help of my mom and Kitt.

From there, it was a slow climb out. I divested myself of any savings I had, refinanced, and built a plan to get out of debt. At my worst, I was $60k in debt and no assets. I didn’t own a house, I was leasing a car, and my budget was at its limit.

Things began to ease up. I moved into a cheaper place. Daycare costs dropped as the boys went on to school. And more room in my budget opened up as debt was paid off.

At the same time, my career began to speed up. A job at Yahoo!, writing a successful book, working at Shopify, and the numerous conferences and workshops amongst it all.

I bought a car and was able to put a down payment on a nice house. I have savings and investments and the real possibility of retiring early—for whatever retiring actually means.

And it is here that I’ve found myself in the middle of my next personal crisis. I am successful. That thing that we work hard to get to has been attained. And I find myself asking “what’s next?” What is that next goal I should be working towards? What will push me to be excited to get up in the morning?

It’s not just money. It’s also interest. That which filled me with excitement has become routine.

I feel like I’m in a holding pattern waiting for the universe to present an answer at my feet. Realistically, I know that’s unlikely to happen. My crisis is requiring a bit more soul-searching. It will take some time, yet, to get my momentum back.

But damn if I don’t just want to buy a red convertible and drive off into the sunset.

Truncat...

“If there’s more than 200 characters, we’ll put an ellipsis and add a Read More link.”

And then you click on that Read More link and, well, you’re underwhelmed that it only showed three more words. If there were only three more words, why not just show them!

As a developer, it’s really easy to see a spec like “no more than 2 lines” and do something like this:

if ( content.length > 200 ) {
return content.substring(0,200) + “…”;
}

A better experience, though, might be to only truncate when text is exceedingly long and truncate back to a short amount.

if ( content.length > 300 ) {
return content.substring(0,200) + “…”;
}

I haven’t actually scientifically tested this and I’d be curious to see how this would perform. The drawback to this scenario is that if you actually want to always clamp to the same certain number of lines then this won’t really work since some lines would be longer if they fit between the 200 and 300 character range (or whatever range you specified).

It’d work better for longer swaths of text, say four of five lines in length since the variability there would be less noticeable — especially if shown along with one, two, and three lines of text. (e.g. a Facebook feed.)

Anyways…