Aza Raskin

check out aza raskin's blog ( http://azarask.in ) he designed something similar while at mozilla called firefox panorama. here's one of his blog posts while conceiving it: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/panorama-search/ For some reason, it still felt too sluggish for me to use, plus I tend to just use virtual desktops and separate browser windows to group things.

The Tab Candy (http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/tabcandy/) feature is pretty cool. The big thing about Firefox is the Addons: FireBug, NoScript, Adblock Plus, and Pentadactyl (was known as Vimperator) all add up to a fantastic experience. With Firefox 4 I get the fantastic experience with something much closer to Chrome's speed and tab usability. I don't know if I would say Firefox 4 is quite there yet but it is much much closer.

One thing to keep in mind is that "graphic design" and "user interface engineering" tend to get conflated. They are not the same thing, but pretty closely related. I find that the best way to proceed is to design an "overall style" for the site first. That means, pick a color scheme, typography, and base layout according to the principles mentioned in other comments (e.g. CRAP). Thereafter, the problem becomes user-interface engineering (which, in turn, may lead you to change your design). I found this talk to be really helpful: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1952-i-gave-a-talk-on-ui-fundamentals-f… Also, +1 on The Non-Designer's Design Book. I've also found many useful articles here: http://www.azarask.in/blog/ In particular, http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/know_when_to_stop_designing_quantitati… and http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/how-to-critique-an-interface/

This is pretty fun. Purely for bragging, my best one: http://azarask.in/projects/algorithm-ink/#9c87c13e Has anybody else managed to get the tile directive to work? Or paths?

This is really quite cool. My best so far: http://azarask.in/projects/algorithm-ink/#0e7ff5ea (Edit: Nope, this is definitely it: http://azarask.in/projects/algorithm-ink/#29b97a74 ) I think I may implement a desktop version of this over the weekend -- would be pretty straightforward with SDL.

The actual posts (http://informationarchitects.jp/designing-firefox-32/ and http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/firefoxnext-tabs-on-the-side/) are much more insightful than this blogspam. The prjor suggests that the iTunes-style design could be more of a "default landing page" than an actual tab replacement and a way of uniting the sidebars together. I could live with that.

I'd love to see it on Reddit too. Not very difficult to implement with socialhistory.js (http://azarask.in/blog/post/socialhistoryjs/)

Exactly. Your revenue is a proof of your entrepreneurial skills and that's an asset worth exploiting :) Before considering the new CEO stop for the moment and think about the challenges your company is about to face (both right now as well as in a following year). Then analyze what exactly do you need to cope with each of them. I bet sometimes you'll need just an encouraging advice, sometimes filling the competence gaps with some learning and probably most of the time it'll be coaching (your post below about decisions that seem to be bad suggests that you might be in that phase of your development). Sure, transitioning to the managerial role isn't a piece of cake but also it isn't that hard if you really commit yourself to the work on own develoopment. For the beginning, you may find this post http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/psychological-pitfalls-and-lessons-of-… inspiring, as you're a designer too I guess. Good luck!

"Customer Development" is not the same as a having an effective "business model". I believe they should be treated differently. They will impact the product/service in differnt ways. Getting in front of (selling to) 1, 10 or even 100 customers, collect feedback, implement feedback is easy. Getting in front of (selling to) 1000, 10,000, 100,000 is hard if your business model does not scale. "Customer Development" is more "will they buy it" "bus dev" is more "how to best penetrate the market efficiently" "Bus Dev" will force you to change your product in ways you may never imagined, and these changes will not be realized from customer feedback. Customers do not care if you have an efficient b model. Make sure you are not solving the wrong problem see http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/the-wrong-problem/ While going through the customer feedback process I realized are b model sucked (it always bothered me). The article above inspired to me solve the right problem which has caused us to make a significant change to our offering.

This article suddenly becomes relevant again: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/does-google-censor-tiananmen-square-ho… :-) And this guy falls for it, even though it's pretty much spelled out in the search results shown what is going on. Even so, I found the following remark interesting: "It seems to me that removing Oracle from the Google search database would be an intentional tort and actionable under a variety of unfair business practice theories. Whether Google wants to admit it or not their search engine has become something of a public facility. As a result, arbitrarily and capriciously denying any individual or company access smacks of censorship and a high handedness that would result in the unilateral selection of winners and losers. With the power of Google they cannot be allowed to do something like this because if they can do it to Oracle they could do it to me or you or many others who would have little recourse." I wonder if that is true? If Google would actually decide to remove company X or word Y from their search results, would that be considered censorship under the law? Would it be illegal? One could argue that it's their data and they can show it, or not show it, whichever way they want.

> I work for someone that will pick apart your every idea and make sure you are solving the right problem. Caveat: One may have to reframe the problem to really solve it http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/the-wrong-problem/ | https://archive.is/uLlkx

Basically, tab-napping[1] for TTYs. [1] http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/a-new-type-of-phishing-attack/

TL;DR: The real problem to solve is the time to iterate. I think it's a straw man argument. An unfair comparison. Buildings & bridges etc have been designed and improved for literally thousands of years. Software is a half a century old. Aza Raskin's blog piece about human powered flight which bubbled up on HN has always stuck with me[0]. "The problem is we don't understand the problem". [0]: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/the-wrong-problem/

Aza Raskin made an in browser version of this a few years back: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/contextfreejs-algorithm-ink-making-art…

Beautiful story, but when think about the details it may misleading. If the only object or the judgment criteria of the quantity way is quantity, and without any deliberate practice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Deliberate_pra… why the students finally not just only develop a way to produce high quantity product? It's not the same way MacCready solve Henry Kremer's problem (http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/the-wrong-problem/), although looks similar.

Don't start a company because you like coding, Aza Raskin summed it up nicely for designers but same hold trues for programmers (http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/psychological-pitfalls-and-lessons-of-… Working for a startup has been a good source of learning new skills for me but as the author notes can be hazardous to the rest of your life...

Aza Raskin's "Algorithm Ink" project is pretty easy browser-based tool to work with. http://azarask.in/projects/algorithm-ink/#f9ed4e9b and http://azarask.in/projects/algorithm-ink/#e8ff0b8c for example. Click the "edit" button at the top to see how it's done.

Reminds me very strongly of a simpler (and in my opinion more elegant) notation that I have been using for a long time: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/collaboration_made_simple_with_bracket…

One reason may be tabnapping. The risk was described by Aza Raskin while he was at Mozilla. http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/a-new-type-of-phishing-attack/

Reminds me of this: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/a-new-type-of-phishing-attack/ (the demo of it is a bit outdated)

This reminds me the "Privacy icons" project. Aza raskin wrote about it : http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/ Basically, next to the terms of use, easily identifiable icons are displayed. Something like Creative Commons did for licenses.

Right on! ... Quote: The man who invented the Macintosh and misnamed what should be the “typefaces” menu the “fonts” menu. He never forgave himself for his incorrect usage of English. ~ Aza Rasking (source: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/my-father-final-gift/)

Mozilla was working on a solution to this some time ago (back when Aza was still with Mozilla, early 2010 is the latest date in the linked design doc): http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/identity-in-the-browser-firefox/ From the document he links to it seems more like a fancy password manager that handles session cookies too with the idea of standardizing account management. Not necessarily a lofty vision but certainly something helpful and interesting (albeit seemingly dead now).

Aza Raskin has written about the Home button before: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/the-problem-with-home/ And other iPhone buttons, too: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/in_my_recent_article_about/

Fair enough: at least they're trying to add some usability to their privacy policy [1], but for Zynga that was a game designing underachievement. I actually felt a bit lectured there! :-) [1] If you haven't yet, check out http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/ (Privacy Icons).

Are you somehow involved in the project? I think that the approach is not so easy to understand for end users, but it can be considered as a starting point for further improvement. I'm in touch with Aza Raskin too, who released these beautiful privacy icons: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/

Also FYI, Aza left the Mozilla project to start up something called "Massive Health", here's his blog post about the new business: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/leaving-mozilla/.

Anyone in a position to allow a platform to get serious traction isn't going to give that control up and anyone that isn't can't make a system with enough traction. InfoCard is surprisingly non-evil, and I also think Firefox is ideally placed to work on this (oh look, here's the solution: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/identity-in-the-browser-firefox/ ), but they don't seem to care enough.

by using browser history leaking...you can! http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/socialhistoryjs/ This will be plugged in future browsers though...its already blocked in chrome

So do I. To summarize the reasons: 1. Most apps (as you said) don't support it 2. The apps that I switch back and forth between are not the ones that support it 3. There is no alternative to keeping the app open when you exit (see: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/the-problem-with-home/) 4. There is no easy way to close all the apps at once. Everyone I know has to manually go through each app and close them, just as you said. 5. No one has ever fully addressed the issue. I'd like to see some tech people (or even John Gruber) explain their take on the seemingly useless feature.