bkbleikamp

I'll echo everyone else here that has said a lot of websites and companies do have this.

But the reason not every one of them does is that it is extremely time consuming, takes a lot of thought, and you have to spend time enforcing the guidelines once they're created. If you're not committed to following them, it's a waste of time and money to define them.

Most start ups are worried about things other than logos and colors matching across multiple mediums (print, web, broadcast, etc.) because most web sites and web start ups only have one medium: the browser.

That graph has been on the page since before any class action lawsuits were filed.

Yelp's data would seem to indicate that users with a positive experience are more likely to write a review: http://www.yelp.com/press

Not actually that impressive, as Page Rank is an exponential scale.

http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2007/07/24/climbing-page-...

Yelp is hiring, http://yelp.com/jobs/

This isn't surprising - what percentage of Wikipedia users actually contribute to Wikipedia? Probably less than 10%. What percentage of users actually comment on Hacker News? Probably not very high (I don't know, though).

You don't need all your users to be active to have a useful or viable product.

Facebook is an edge case - they have a huge percentage of active users.

The term "Product Designer" is one that suits the web well.

In my opinion a product designer should be able to create visually appealing designs that are usable. They should have an understanding of user experience and HCI issues - but not necessarily be an expert or have a PhD in the fields. They should be able to prototype their designs in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and do some minor back end coding to get things working (they don't necessarily have to do this all the time, but they should have the ability to do so).

FWIW, this is what Facebook's product design team does (from my understanding of it, anyway)

Why not JavaScript? It requires no command line knowledge and runs in any modern browser. They can create games, easily install libraries or frameworks by including another JS file, etc.

The "deferred life plan" is one of the items I enjoyed thinking about in the book as well.

Also, I think people get really hung up on the title of "The Four Hour Work Week." Tim has explained before that he chose that title after running AdSense tests to see which possible titles people were interested in. The original title was "Selling Drugs for Fun and Profit" (a phrase he actually uses early in the book) because he ran a nutritional supplement company. I think the story is a retailer balked at the title, so he ran his test, and picked the winner.

Anyway, people seem to get hung up on that aspect of the book, but it's really about much more than that.

If you've never read the book Predictably Irrational there is an interesting chapter regarding a professor who performed an experiment with deadlines for his 3 papers due in the semester.

[simplified]

Class 1: Set your own deadlines Class 2: Strict deadlines from the professor Class 3: No deadlines

Guess who performed best? Strict deadlines.

[edit]

Also, I highly recommend the book : http://www.predictablyirrational.com/

http://raphaeljs.com/ - these charts look very nice

I mentioned him :) His personal site in subtraction.com

A couple that come to mind:

http://subtraction.com http://cubancouncil.com http://madebyelephant.com http://jasonsantamaria.com http://markboulton.co.uk http://hicksdesign.co.uk

The iPhone app is continuing, if it sucks he can always walk over to the desk of whoever is working on it and tell them why it sucks :)

As a designer, I've never found arrogance a good strategy to get people to agree with the reasons for my design.

Design, contrary to popular belief, is not that subjective - there are reasons and explanations for design decisions. Presenting them with arrogance without regard for another person's opinion is not a good way to get consensus. If you are talking to a business person, it is the designer's job to frame the decisions in a context that makes sense to them. Same with an engineer. Defend your decisions, but also know when you're wrong.

Apple wins because they hire great designers. The designers do 10 pixel perfect mock ups, then narrow it down to 3, and then defend and refine the best one. Do you really think the iPhone design was pushed forward by one arrogant designer who had no regard for the opinions of others on the team? It took years to get it to where it is today.

Is Dustin talented? Sure. But I know dozens of designers who could have produced the AA.com comp he did - it's easy to design without constraints.

Agreed, Grooveshark is the best music web app I've seen. Kicks Pandora's ass.

I agree with this. I think Facebook's design is great because it is:

* Consistent across the whole site (for the most part)

* Clean, there are no gradients or extra flashes

* Fast, they focus on things loading quickly and make the site feel as snappy as possible

I work on a giant Rails site that has over well over 5,000 lines of CSS – when you are working on custom promotions, dozens of dynamic pages, and accounting for user generated content the CSS files get long.

A lot of Nobel Peace prizes have been awarded for ideas more than results, so it is not unprecedented.

It's possible he has needed to stay for his stock to vest, right?

When I got access to Wave a few months ago, it was not possible to associate Gmail accounts with Wave at the time.

I am guessing that with the new rollout, they have made it possible.

I'd love an invite - ben.bleikamp@googlesfreeemail*service.com

Bill Gates had a trust fund because he had rich parents and grandparents. I don't know if he used any of it to fund the company, but he didn't need VC to buy groceries.

This post caused an absurd amount of controversy when it was originally posted. Is it really necessary to rehash all of it?

the backend is indeed java

Remember: the resumé only gets you an interview, the interview will get you the job.

Previous experience is usually most important. If you don't have it, volunteer to be a community leader somewhere (a forum?)

Short of experience, list things you've taught yourself (not necessarily computer related - did you teach yourself physics in your spare time? how to play the violin?). That will show your intelligence as well as a willingness to learn and grow.

Recommendations - if you know someone who says you're brilliant, work your ass off, or whatever, it will go a LONG way to getting you a job.

He also wrote an article at A List Apart on the same subject: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy/

We use Git, Lighthouse, and a self hosted wiki. We also all work in the same office.

I understand why IE6 is around – I have plenty of friends stuck on IE6 who can't easily use my personal site.

Note: Noah is awesome. Go work for him :) (he's almost single-handedly made me successful)