Andy Budd from ClearLeft joins Tim for a discussion about Silverback, a guerilla usability testing application for Macintosh computers. Andy also informs us about the upcoming UX London conference to be held in May of this year. You can find information about Silverback at www.SilverbackApp.com You can find information about the UX London conference at http://2010.uxlondon.com/

Serena Rosenhan and her husband, Blair, join Tim for a critique of the Betty Crocker BC-1957 waffle iron. Part one of this episode is a very informal, out-of-the-box usability test recorded live in the Rosenhan kitchen on a sunny Saturday morning as Serena and Blair cooked brunch for Tim.

Part two, which occurs around 42 minutes into the episode, was recorded several months later when Serena had used the waffle iron again and could join Tim via phone for a “longitudinal review” as we like to do here on Design Critique. Even something as simple as a waffle iron has numerous areas of needed improvement or, in the case of the vertical storage ability of this unit, areas of impressive innovation.

Colin from Canada returns to discuss his three iterations for the Design Critique  blog page redesign. Because this project is not “real” in a commercial sense, we tried three iterations with increasing levels of client involvement just to see how the designs might differ.
Design 1 was purely from Colin’s perspective as a listener to the show, wth no involvement from Tim.
Design 2 was derived from Colin’s interview questions that he’d normally ask an actual client.
Design 3 included Tim’s general vision of what he wants in the new page design, plus Colin’s executing the details.

Remember to see episode DC654a for the PDF file of Colin’s three designs, or look at them on Colin’s own website at
http://www.finkle.ca/firebrand/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/DesignCritiqueBlogPage-3Designs.jpg

Listener Tom from Maryland asks some very important questions about hackintoshing, end-user license agreements, and the poorly implemented and supported EFI-X module.

The “Why Does Apple Allow Personal Hackintoshes” article is at
http://www.applematters.com/article/why-does-apple-allow-personal-hackintoshes/

The “It’s time to bring the EULA madness to an end!” editorial is at
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=5783

Here’s the image file for Colin’s three iterations of the new Design Critique blog page design. You will need to view this file before or while you listen to episode 65b.

NOTE: Click the button Listen Now to view the PDF of Colin’s three design compositions. Not really “listening” but in this episode, the design mockups are the “podcast” content.

Hi everyone, the wine glasses Michael Graves told us about in episode 61 from this past August are now finished. You can see them next to bottles of [Yellow Tail] wine in the photo accompanying this blog posting, and also I have put them into the episode art for DC61 alongside the images of Michael Graves hand mixer from Target.
For the next several weeks you can bid on several sets of these limited edition wine glasses at eBay. Proceeds benefit the American Association of Museums.
To hear our interview with Michael Graves, scroll down the page to episode 61, or check the podcast feed, or click this link:
http://www.designcritique.biz/podcasts/4th-anniversary-episode-talking-design-with-michael-graves-and-tony-hron/

Simon Barnard from Bafflegab Productions (formerly Cosmic Hobo Productions) joins Tim Keirnan and Chad Esselink to discuss the design of The Scarifyers audio adventures as heard on BBC 7. Combining old time radio detective and horror stories with X-Files mystery and dry English humor, The Scarifyers have been “saving Great Britain since 1936”–sometimes in spite of themselves. How does the script, the music, the artwork, and the acting come together to create the experience?

You can find The Scarifyers at
www.Bafflegab.co.uk

You can learn about Nicholas Courtney (Inspector Lionheart) at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Courtney

You can learn about Terry Molloy (Professor Dunning) at
http://www.terrymolloy.co.uk/

Learn about Hugo Pratt’s historical fiction at
http://cortomaltese.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Pratt

Jeremy Keith from Clearleft discusses his session at 2008’s UI13 conference called Ajax Design Considerations that Tim attended. What do UX professionals need to know about Ajax to best make use of it in websites and web applications? And why is Jeremy’s title at Clearleft currently “Lineman for the County”?

You can find Clearleft at
http://clearleft.com/

Check out the 2009 dConstruct conference at
http://2009.dconstruct.org/

UI14 is coming this November and you can learn more about it at
http://www.uie.com/events/uiconf/2009/

The Wikipedia entry for Jimmy Webb’s classic song “Wichita Lineman” is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_Lineman

Doug Jung joins Tim for a discussion of the Macintosh they built with the EFI-X V1 boot processing unit. The product enables the building of your own custom Macintosh and works somewhat as advertised, but reputed poor durability and consistently poor customer service from Art Studios Entertainment Media ruin what could have been a terrific customer experience. We even have a Fawlty Towers clip to illustrate ASEM’s customer service style.

You can find pictures of the V1 at the symbolically unusable EFI-X website on
www.efi-x.com
(we’re so disgusted with EFI-X that we won’t directly link to them, you’ll have to type the address manually)

Unfortunately, you must register on the efi-x.com forums to read the complaints customers are having with the unit’s fragile nature and ASEM’s astounding indifference to the many valid criticisms of the product.

To read alternate, and in our opinion more accurate, information about the EFI-X V1 and V1.1, and to find possible alternatives, go to
www.efixusers.com

Email from listener Alan closes the episode.

For the 4th anniversary episode of Design Critique, Michael Graves and Tony Hron from the Michael Graves Design Group join Timothy Keirnan to discuss product design:

* The wine glasses that [yellow tail] wines commissioned Michael Graves to make for their new wine[tails] mixed drinks. Pix will be at the show’s blog page as soon as they are released.

* Tim’s Hamilton Beach 6-Speed Hand Mixer, a part of the Michael Graves Design collection at Target stores. Pix are at the blog page now, DesignCritique.net.

* General design discussion.

* Designing for accessibility in a world that still does not value universal design as it should.

Tim closes the episode with some listener feedback and his own reflections on doing the show for the past four years.

The press release for the wine glasses is at
http://www.pitchengine.com/free-release.php?id=35057

Michael Graves’ firms are at
http://www.michaelgraves.com/

Wikipedia entry about Mr. Graves, focusing more on his architecture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Graves

Michael Graves designs at Target:
http://www.target.com/b/ref=sc_iw_r_1_0?node=1060502

The [yellow tail] website is
http://www.discoveryellowtail.com

The [yellow tail] twitter address is
http://twitter.com/yellowtail_usa

Listener Alan’s review site for iPod Touch/iPhone apps for young children is
http://atouchoflearning.com/

When the final photos of the wine glasses we talked about are available, they will appear in the artwork for this episode.

Thanks for listening for the past four years, folks. Write a review of the show on iTunes if you’d like to help us celebrate.

Colin Finkle from www.finkle.ca returns to discuss redesigning the blog page for the show. This episode is the sequel to DC56, and you might want to hear that one first before hearing this one.
In this second part of the series, Tim (in the role of client) tells Colin (in the role of consultant) what he envisions for the new blog page. Based on this episode, Colin will create a third mockup to display in a future episode along with the “client-free” mockups done by Colin on his own.
Amidst the discussion, Tim rants against those who disdain a typeface even though context may justify its use for a specific goal. Since when did joining form with function become unfashionable? Should design teams allow some elitist snobs’ whims of fashion dictate what typefaces should and should not be used for a purpose?