I just had the misfortune of experiencing what it’s like to be a little too simple with your designs: I nearly went deaf. No worries–everything is okay, I can hear. But for that half a second that the volume was what appeared to be at the highest, my ears are in pain.

You see, on a Mac, changing the volume level precisely is not afforded in the keyboard. As a baseline, I like for all my applications to be on max volume, and then adjust the system accordingly. But when I use the keyboard to adjust my volume, it adjusts in notches, so often times I want a volume level that exists in between the notches that are offered.

Well, I’ve been teased at work for not using the OS volume control that can be found in the taskbar in the upper right. So, I used it, and guess what?

THERE ARE NO INDICATORS OF WHAT MAX OR MIN IS.

It might be obvious to some people that a knob being at the “lower” end means “lowest,” and a knob at the higher end means “highest,” but it wasn’t obvious to me; after all, direction is relative, and I ALWAYS go from top to bottom as my lowest to highest on controls. I’m not really sure where I got it from, but there ya go.

So imagine the fury I felt when I accidentally damaged my eardrums for that half second, thinking that the top is lowest volume.

For the record, I may have been an idiot to think that the volume would go from lowest to highest (top to bottom); however, there are NO indicators on the volume control to indicate where the volume levels are! The icon for volume is at the top, setting it as (to me, anyway) the baseline for minimum volume. I’m pretty sure that if the volume bar existed above the volume icon instead, I wouldn’t have made the same mistake.

This is when simple can be too simple; if something like volume control doesn’t have the proper indicators to prevent people from second guessing its function, it can cause serious harm, like it just did to me.

EDIT: It was brought to my attention that the soundwaves on the volume icon changes as you go higher, but it takes an extraordinary amount of volume change in order to see one wave added. BAD DESIGN, APPLE. And painful, too :\

No, really. I mean, we all do.

But the kind of issues I’m talking about isn’t the kind you’re thinking. I’m not saying I’ve got emotional baggage or psychological problems (though I’m sure that’s somewhat debatable); I’m saying I have a lot of issues I care deeply about, causes that I am sometimes perhaps a little too passionate about.

Really, what it comes down to is that I expect everyone to know everything about everything. It’s an unfair expectation, but I’m always surprised when people tell me they’re not aware. And then I rejoice (ever so momentarily) for that chance to educate someone about something, whether it’s concerning gay rights, open internet, ethical consumer choices, or video game-related issues. But sometimes, I forget that I should backpedal a bit and consider the consequences of what I say. I always believe in what I say, and I always pick and choose my words very carefully, especially when discussing these things with people to whom I am not close.

Therefore, in my earnest to fully research a topic and to read as much as I can about it, my partner in class and I have decided on something we’re both uninformed about, but are aware of–cocoa beans. I will be posting our research and thoughts on this topic, as well as sketches, drafts and final works. Hopefully it will be just as educating for you (the anonymous reader) as it will be for us!

As a seasoned (ha, who am I kidding? Five years of career experience doesn’t necessarily make me seasoned) web designer, I often interact with designers whose backgrounds are always print-based. They’re used to stability and freedom; but most importantly, they love the control that comes with print–the control of the colors, the inks, the paper, the way in which anyone would experience the finished product.

I have the opposite experience; my design practices only root in the web—a highly subjective medium, one that constantly shifts and changes according to the means with which the user is accessing the experience. I thrive in functionality and beautiful code, and often designed around functionality and technical execution, rather than with what I often refer to as “unicorns and rainbows”—the idea of a design with no limit of possibilities, that anything can and will happen (which I absolutely loathe, but that’s neither here nor there).

Naturally, when embarking upon this journey that is Advertising Art Direction, a class I’m currently taking, I’ve found myself reflecting on these matters as they relate to interactive design. I have yet to work with an interactive art director, but it makes me think about the decisions I have made and would make in the future with regards to how a website/interactive experience should feel and behave.

I will be posting those thoughts here, as well as my findings for examples of interesting art direction in interactive design, although the focus of the class is more on traditional media.

How could anyone write an afterword if there is no foreword/prologue/plot, I don’t know, but I’m about to attempt this wizardry on this ill-kept blog.

What really inspired me to pick up the pen—I mean, open my blog’s WordPress dashboard—isn’t just the fact that I just attended An Event Apart in Seattle, but that this experience was a completely different experience from the last time I attended AEA. It was to be expected; it’s been almost five years since then.

I’m not going to write about what I learned on a technical level (you can see that from A Feed Apart); rather, I wanted to write about something more personal than just devious applications of CSS3 and best practices for content strategy. I want to write about what I experienced emotionally, and what a personal trip this had been for me.
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