Businesses need a story. Not a traditional one with a beginning, middle and end (at least not an end you would ever plan), but a path with a clear storyline.

One of the reasons Apple has so many fans, is that every big announcement they make extends their story in a clear manner. For example, early this year they announced an improvement to their Apple TV box making it easy to rent movies over the internet without a computer. More content and easier to get. Prior to that they offered the original Apple TV with movies to buy. And prior to that we had the development of the iPod and the iTunes store. So in the future we can expect them to make more products which make it easy to buy lots of media and watch it on our various Apple products.

Their story is clear and predictable. Yet there is also a sense of mystery; we don't really know how they will achieve this goal.

About four months ago I did not have a clear story for Humte. I had a vague concept of where it was heading but as far as a concrete storyline was concerned my ideas were muddied. I'd completed a goal, but not yet dreamed the next one.

So I kept this problem in the back of my mind for a couple of months, daydreamed and talked about my business with various people. Eventually a clear plot materialised. And now I have a plan for the next twelve months or so to take my business to the next stage. A stage that flows naturally from the first.

Of course, I won't spoil the story now.

This free ebook is a delightful and concise read. Although the whole book is good, a couple of sections really jumped out at me (impressive in such a small book).

The first was the vivid image that gave the book (and the author's business) its name 'The Business Brickyard'. The story (which I will not spoil here) follows a theme I have heard many times before, but I enjoyed how this particular story played out. The image it painted is a vivid and simple metaphor for the importance of getting the basics correct; one I'm sure to remember.

The second of these stand out sections was on getting paid quick, even if you risk losing important customers because of your demand. 'We are not a bank' is a simple phrase that I will also remember.

Really, though, the whole book is packed with great content. Much of it I've heard before but never so concise, but there are also a couple of new ideas as well nuances on old ideas.

In a couple of sections, the brevity did make the advice seem incomplete. Creating a one-page snapshot of my business, for example, would be wonderful, but I'm not sure how I would put that together so that it updated automatically. However, having the idea is good enough for now. I'm sure I'll work it out.

The other bonus is that the book is illustrated by Kevin Cornell. I like his work very much.

Your Business Brickyard

As a new member of Toastmasters I'm learning the art of public speaking. I'm a total beginner, but that's okay because I have been given a structured path to improvement.

Making effective telephone calls, however, is a skill I need to improve much more urgently. For this, however, I do not have a pathway that will help me improve this skill.

To rectify this, I have decided that at the end of every call I will look for one good thing I did and one element I can improve on.

Today, I made a call which I had planned in advance. This gave some structure and focus to the call and made sure I covered everything I wanted to talk about. However, I did not complete my plan. There were a couple of dates I was going to look up ahead of time but I never got around to it. So my next call will be planned properly.

PicLens is a browser add-on which allows photo galleries (including Flickr and Google image search) to be viewed in a three-dimensional display.

Apart from looking rather neat, it is proving to be an excellent interface for searching through images on the web. One benefit of the 3D view is that it allows you to zoom so that you can see a single image fill the screen, many smaller images together, or any size in between. Another nice feature is that a single click on the image, will load the full resolution image without changing the view. However, in my opinion, the number one feature is its progressive downloads; instead of clicking on a 'next' link to view another page of images, thumbnails simply load as you move to the right. It has made image searching so much faster for me.

The 3D desktop is a relatively new movement and generally gets an 'oh cool' type of response, but there are few 3D user interfaces that I've found to be really helpful. My favourite 3D application prior to PicLens was Google Earth. Overall, Google Earth provides a wonderful experience, but it has one important issue that keeps me from ever using it: it's a hassle to open up. It's only a minor barrier, but enough of a barrier to mean I use the simpler Google Maps in my browser instead.

fig 1: Hover over an image in google image search and a little play icon appears on the image, informing you that this page supports PicLens. Clicking the icon takes you into the 3D view (fig 2).

Lenspic does not have this issue.

First, it runs in the browser and opens instantly. Load times are a huge barrier when the actual task is a very quick one, so this is a huge plus.

But I think the smartest UI decision for PicLens was to provide a contextual link on websites that support it. If you do a Google image search, for example, you are likely to click on one of the images in order to view the full image. As you do so, a little play-icon will appear on the image reminding you that you can view these results in PicLens (see fig 1). Click that icon and you are transported into 3D mode.

It's an absolutely brilliant design decision because it helps form the habit of using the add-on. If a user has to think about using a new feature by going to a menu or clicking in a toolbar, they are less likely to start using it. But when you insert the new feature into the user's normal workflow, the habit of using it gets formed without trial.

fig 2: The PicLens three-dimensional view.

If Google Earth was as seamless, I would be using it a whole lot more.

Drupal already has a module to add support to a website (though I've not tried it yet).

I recently started looking for networking resources (that's networking with people not networking computers).

So far I've been disappointed by my options. What I'm after is just a place where business people gather to meet other business people. But what I'm finding is exclusive networking clubs; clubs that allow only one member per job type. That means if I joined, no other web developers would be allowed to join the same club. Therein lies the exclusivity.

The basic idea is that every member carries around a bunch of business cards for their various networking friends. When they come across people who need the services of someone in their network, they recommend that someone and hand out the card.

I hate stuff like this. Fine, I understand that they qualify the people who join up and make sure they are up to standard. But people are still recommending another business based on their membership to their group. It's not natural.

I'm not interested in joining a group where I don't have to deal with competition. I don't want to join a group where people remember me because I qualified to join their clique. I don't, in fact, want to join a group at all. All I want to do is meet people and have enjoyable and interesting conversations about business.

Zebra striping provides a visual guide for the eye as it scans along a row in a table; helping avoid confusion with adjacent rows. But there's more than one way to skin a zebra...

Do we need it at all?

As a quick aside, there was recently an article by Jessica Enders on A List Apart describing the results of a study into the effectiveness of zebra striping. As someone pursuing a degree in psychology this is right up my alley, so I found it somewhat interesting. However, it is worth noting that conclusions built on a single study are rarely that conclusive (especially initial studies since they tend to have flaws in their design). Conclusions that we can actually make use of tend to happen over the course of a series of experiments. This is one reason why main-stream-media science reporting is usually so awful. So take it for what it is.

One thing the study does reinforce is that we really don't need zebra striping on every table. Narrow tables, for example, don't require them since the fovea can take in the whole row without scanning. In contrast, tables with missing data may have a greater requirement for it since the text no longer acts as such a clear visual guide.

Wide Stripes

Zebra striping typically alternates the stripes on every row. However, each row tends to be pretty small in terms of height, so scanning is still relatively slow. The tightness of the stripes also draws more attention to itself causing us to shift to the more dominant colour. (fig 1)

fig 1: Striping on every row gives the eye a narrow track to run down.

An alternative is to stripe on every three rows. This gives us a much larger band for our eye to stay within so we should be able to scan quicker. Three is an optimal number because it provides us with an additional guide: a row is either at the top, middle or bottom of the zebra band. (fig 2)

fig 2: Striping on every third row gives a much larger track. Orientation on the individual row is further aided by recognising that the row is either at the top, middle or bottom of this track.

False meaning

One potential issue here is that the stripes create groups. Some may look for meaning in this grouping, believing it to be more than just a visual guide.

For this reason, in cases where there are natural groups, it may be best to stripe according to these.

One design I have seen is an inconsistent striping pattern. For example, 3 rows grey, 2 white, 3 grey, etc. This always leads me to look for groups that don't actually exist, so I suggest keeping it consistent.

Turns out I'm not socially dynamic enough to do something as simple as ask for help. This has to change.

When I was at school I used to hate working in groups because I knew I could do a better job than anyone else. This was just my opinion and arrogance, but it stopped me from being effective when we were forced to do group work.

When I got to university I discovered group work was absolutely brilliant. I could get so much more done; achieve so much more. Even if I could have done the work better than anyone else (I couldn't) I didn't have time to do it anyway. And by learning each person's strengths and what motivated them, that work became ten times better.

I know this. I've just forgotten to practice it. Why am I not seeking help when I could really use it? What am I trying to prove?

When working at home all the time it is, of course, easy to isolate one's self all the time. But this is still my fault.

I read the following by Richard Branson earlier today:

I had never really been in business before – other than the usual schoolboy schemes of the lemonade stall variety – but I knew enough to know that no man is an island. We all need someone to act as a counterbalance to our weaknesses and work off our strengths. Sometimes it's one person, sometimes it's a team, all of whom bring their unique talents and abilities to the table. Your family is often your network of support – and my advice to a budding entrepreneur would always be: listen to your family, accept their help, don't dismiss them out of hand.

_{Richard Branson in Screw It, Let's Do It. Expanded. Lessons in Life and Business (2007) Virgin Books Ltd. p14.}

I've always had the intention of one day forming a company, employing some great people and getting back to team work. But why am I waiting?

Just because I'm currently freelancing doesn't mean other people should not be involved.

I shall begin by asking my parent's for their help and advice.

Yves Behar at TED:

What I realised then is they didn't really want to change the legacy stuff. They didn't want to change the insides. They were really looking for us, the designers, to create the skins. To sort of put the outside, to put some pretty stuff outside of the box.

And I didn't want to be a colourist. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be a stylist in this way.

And here is the full presentation...

Once again I'm entering scary but very exciting waters.

In fact for most of today – as I began to work out how to implement my plan – I've been full of nervous energy. I'll certainly be stretching myself in the months to come because I have to learn to conquer my worst skill.

Sales.

The last sales job I had was selling shoes. And I sucked at it. My technique went a little like this:

Customer: I'll take them!
Me: Are you sure? They don't quite fit properly and they're not real leather.
Customer: No, they're fine, thank you.
Me: See how they slip at the back? That'll give you blisters if you walk in them for any length of time.
Customer: H..
Customer: Why don't you try that new store up the road? Much higher quality.

And to be fair, it was much higher quality at the store up the road. Our store was buying cheaper and more cheaper goods and nobody wanted them. (Sure, I admit I probably didn't help matters).

The moral of the story is I can't help being honest.

About a year ago, I almost certainly had the skills necessary to be making a living from developing websites. But if I tried selling myself a year ago my sales pitch would probably have been: 'I can create you a slightly above average site'.

Since then, I've become a little obsessed with the subject of web development, design and programming. I shifted my focus away from getting a steady stream of work and put it squarely on learning to be better. I'm not sure how healthy it is to work seven days a week, but I'm pretty sure I've learnt a healthy amount about web development in that time.

It's time to see if sales is easier when you truly believe in what you have to sell.

On a recent trip to the London Underground I found myself searching a map for my bearings. What I needed was a 'you are here' pin pointer, but the complex underground map did not provide one.

Today, I started thinking about how the map could best accommodate this symbol.

The one big criteria here is that we don't simplify the rest of the map, since we need that information. This swiftly removes many options for providing a symbol. Colour, for example, can not be used to highlight the pointer since the map already heavily utilises so many colours. Any big arrows or such like would also cause issues since we don't want to cover any station names or parts of the track.

The circle

I opted for a semi-transparent circle which holds the current location at its centre. The transparency ensures that no important information gets covered up, and we forgo any useless 'you are here' text which would cause clarity issues with this design.

A circle is particularly clear because everything else on the map uses straight lines. The only other circles (or indeed circular shapes) on the map are small symbols such as the one for interchange stations. On a treasure map an 'X' might mark the spot; this would be a superior choice since that map would contain fewer straight lines. The key here is contrast: to make something stand out, some dimension of it has to be different from the rest of the design.

fig 1: A circle provides contrast against so many straight lines, and therefore stands out. However, it also exacerbates the existing information-pollution issue.

Issues

So have I improved on the design of the map? No. There are two problems.

One: despite what I said above about not wanting to alter the original map, the original map could do with a clean-up operation. It is full of pointless information junk that distracts more than it informs. This is probably a consequence of designing the display with too little regard for context and the user.

Designing with little consideration for context is the second problem. In my alteration I have simply taken a single viewpoint (my own during an isolated incident). I have also not considered how it would work when printed large and hung on a wall in the station.

But that takes time, and I have at least demonstrated my point about contrast.