Dialog Box

Just as The Onion lampoons newspapers from USA Today to the ‘free weeklies,’ and The Onion Radio News reports poke fun at the conventions of its medium, a new Onion video venture, the Onion News Network has arrived (link opens in iTunes) with a delicious deadpan that goes beyond teasing newsmakers and the stories of the day, and wittily satirizes the flaws of today’s overwrought television news broadcasts.

If its first few video podcasts are any indication, this will definitely be worth subscribing to.

Wonderful discussion of software interface efficiency, starting with

• Tantek Çelik’s “Three Hypotheses of Human Interface Design“
then remarkably good discussion and expanded ideas with
• John Gruber’s “Deal With It“
and some followup thoughts some analysis of feeling efficient versus being efficient with
• Gruber’s “A Few ‘Deal With It’ Follow-Up Points“
Hat tip, of course, to the always-relevant Daring Fireball

I love stories.

Stories are what make us human. They are the foundation of community and of continuity. They connect us, teach us, comfort us. We each tell stories. Small stories. Big stories. We yearn to tell stories. Some of us don’t think consciously about it, but we do it all the time. Telling stories, listening to others’ stories. It is the basis of culture. Any culture.

We communicate through stories. I like to think about communications. To study communications is largely to observe how we format those stories — the protocols we follow, the methods we employ, the ways we preserve stories for future generations.

(more…)

While it won’t (yet) replace Photoshop, an impressive new web app is in the beta stages, called Picnik. Definitely worth a look, if for no other reason than to admire the desktop-like function of this web-based app. Is this what the future of applications will look like? (Or the future of Photoshop, at least?)

Greetings! Welcome to the Dialog Box blog.

I hope this blog will grow into a source of interesting information related to human interface design and the philosophical nature of our interactions with computers and other emerging technology. I plan to post some of my own thoughts, accompanied by a heaping dose of my favorite stories and posts from around the internet as related to this topic.

Please comment and trackback and let me (and any other readers) know your thoughts, ideas, and favorite links.

This site is an experiment in the possibilities of the internet, and I’m always open to change, so please don’t hesitate to make requests and suggestions, either.

So, welcome! I hope we can enjoy this journey together and come out better for having made it. Onward!