Nordic Design - A Design blog by Alex Lillo

Last posts

Migrating a Xbox Live account (or at least trying to)

24 / Jan / 2012

I have an issue with my Xbox LIVE account. I signed up with their service years ago when I was living in Spain. Then I moved to the UK, but for Microsoft I still live in Spain. Apparently you can’t move countries. It’s like an unthinkable idea. Why would you like to move to another place?

Anyway, it was quite annoying to have my Xbox 360 half in English (system language) and half in Spanish (as soon as I sign in to my LIVE account). But hey, there’s worst things in the world.

Then Microsoft launched the Xbox apps. I was quite excited about them, as now I could catch-up on my favourite shows, without changing cables, all directly in my TV. Easy peasy.

But hold on a second. You live in Spain! (damn you Microsoft, I don’t!). So you can’t download the 4oD, Demand5, etc apps. You’re only allowed to download the Spanish ones. And oh, now that I check, actually your ip comes from outside Spain, which means I can’t deliver you this content.

In summary, I’m quite pissed off with Microsoft. Their new apps are great, but not for a Gold account customer like me (4 years in a row now).

I’ve send another complain asking them to migrate my account, but I know what is going to be their answer. No. That’s agains the rules.

Published in: ,

Comments

* * *

Wonderland: The Real Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

24 / Jan / 2012

Wonderland

I love planes. Actually I do love everything that flies. And I came from a country that makes all the possible and impossible efforts to avoid its citizens to enjoy the sky, Spain. Where getting a pilot license its utterly expensive and there’s stupid regulations everywhere to make your life impossible.

But for what I’ve seen, UK is flying friendly. There’s hundreds of smalls airfields. Flying clubs. Dozens of Air Shows in summer. Of course they got the Battle of Britain, so it’s normal that British are proud of the RAF and learn to love planes.

Even though, I still get surprised every time I watch a TV programme about aviation. Civil, militar, historic… it’s quite easy to find one.

And I love that a programme about microlights enthusiasts flying a rally is filmed around the passion and the human histories, and not about oh look at that odd people doing weird things.

If you like aviation, don’t miss Wonderland, Episode 4 on the BBC iPlayer.

Published in: ,

Comments

* * *

Crop images in Omnigragffle

23 / Jan / 2012

Omnigraffle is a great wireframing software, but it has some drawbacks. One of them is not being able to crop images. Well, there’s a solution for that.

Thanks to my colleague Jakub I’ve found a script that allow us to crop an image with another object. Instructions and file can be found on this forum thread, but I’ll add some extra steps to clarify.

How to install the script

  1. First you have to activate the Script menu. But the AppleScript Utility that says the forum doesn’t exist anymore. You have to open the AppleScript Editor, go to its Preferences and activate Show Script menu in menu bar.
  2. (Optional) Personally I prefer having the application scripts at the top, rather than the bottom.
  3. Time to open Omnigraffle. You should see the scripts icon in the menu bar. Open it and select Open OmniGraffle Pro Scripts Folder.
  4. Move the uncompressed script file to that folder.
  5. You’re now ready to crop! Just select the image to crop and the shape you’re going to use to crop it, go to the scripts menu and you’ll find Crop image. Select and that’s it!

Installing Omnigraffle scripts to crop images

Hope you find it useful. Thanks to Bill Van Hecke and Lizard who created the script, and if you have any question about how to use it feel free to ask in the comments.

Published in: ,

Comments

* * *

The blog redesign, step by step

20 / Oct / 2011

As part as the blog update I want to do an exercise: share the process, step by step.

I see it not only as a way to get back to a writing routine, but also to assure that I follow the right design methodology, without skipping steps. Something quite common in my past redesigns, I have to say.

I’ll go through the process of conceptual design, setting certain requirements, creating the initial idea, developing wireframes and visual design for, finally, code it.


UX process


I want to follow a content first, responsive web design approach. Ideally it would help me to define a responsive UX methodology.

We’re used to design fixed layouts, create variations, annotate them and deliver a beautiful set of A3 or A4 wireframes. Although most of the steps are unaffected, the responsive approach requires more wireframes and a lot more testing, if we want to deliver the best experience.

Hopefully, I’ll have something to write every 1 or 2 weeks. That means I don’t plan to launch the new website until 2012 but, let’s be honest, I don’t spend that much time working on it at home. A men has to enjoy his life too.

Any suggestions will be much appreciated, of course.
Stay tuned, I hope you’ll find it interesting.

Published in: ,

Any comments?

* * *

Bringing the blog back to life

04 / Oct / 2011

It’s been one year since the last time I wrote on this blog. One year in a new country, a new city, agency and language. All in all, a quite intense experience.

Now, a little bit more settled and confident, I feel the need to retake one of my past ideas, merging my normal blog (this one) with my Tumblr. Living together in harmony under a single Nordic Design header.

Given the fact that I live in the UK, and that I still have to improve my English skills, I’m going (try) to write all the contents in English. I think it’s what makes more sense now. Sorry if there is still anyone wishing to read my silly posts and not understanding the Queen’s language.

Accordingly the blog will receive a theme redesign soon, including an interim English-version.

As I did previously, I’ll write mostly about what happens in my daily basis, what I found interesting around, and eventually I’ll try to include something related with UX or Design in general. Some photography will be included too, as I’m learning to use my DSLR.

In the meantime, a reminder of how to subscribe to my blogs:

Published in: ,

Comentarios [4]

* * *

Usabilidad en GNOME

12 / Oct / 2010

Me a gustado este post de Pedro Laguna sobre los problemas de usabilidad en GNOME. No solo porque las reflexiones sean acertadas, sino porque vienen de un ingeniero informatico preocupado al 150% en la seguridad, no en interfaces de usuario, UX, usabilidad, etc.

Son los gritos de un usuario que ve las cosas como deberian ser (simples y obvias), cuando los desarrolladores siguen ignorandonos y haciendo sus UI como les da la gana.

Published in: ,

Comentarios

* * *

Cambiando de casa

07 / Oct / 2010

Por si alguno todavia sigue por aqui y se pregunta que hara este hombre que no escribe en la vida?, la respuesta no es que haya perdido el interes, es que me he mudado a Tumblr.

Necesitaba un lugar donde renovarme, escribir entradas cortas, reenviar imagenes, videos, etc., algo mas agil. Ademas tenia que ser en ingles (o algo parecido xD ), por lo que preferia inaugurar algo nuevo.

En el futuro quiero que sea el tumblr el que alimente este blog, guardando todas las entradas existentes en una seccion aparte. Pero ahora mismo no tengo ni idea de como hacerlo, asi que seguiran caminos distintos.

Asi que ya lo sabeis, si alguno quiere seguirme me encontrara aqui:
http://nordicdesign.tumblr.com/

Voy a cambiar mi feedburner para que apunte al nuevo blog, asi que espero que para los que esteis apuntados via RSS el cambio sea transparente.

PD. Perdon por la falta de tildes y otras carencias ortograficas, estoy con un teclado ingles.

Published in: ,

Comentarios

* * *

Aplicaciones para prototipar en un iPad

22 / Jun / 2010

¿Es un tablet el dispositivo adecuado para crear prototipos? Personalmente tengo mis dudas de poder definir correctamente una interfaz sin un ratón, pero todo puede depender del uso que se le quiera dar. Para un primer contacto con el cliente, para pensar ideas mientras estas en el taxi/tren/avión puede ser una buena opción.

Desde luego las compañías ya se están poniendo las pilas, y hay disponibles varias aplicaciones para bocetar/prototipar en el iPad:

Os dejo con un video del iMockups que muestra muy bien el tipo de cosas para las que sería útil un tablet.

Published in: ,

Comentarios

* * *

Si no puedes hacer algo bien, hazlo en 3D

18 / Jun / 2010

Es lo que pienso de toda esta fiebre del 3D

if you can't make it good, make it 3D

Vía FFFFOUND

Published in: ,

Comentarios

* * *

Guía de estilo de la Generalitat de Catalunya para las redes sociales

17 / Jun / 2010

No es habitual encontrar administraciones que estén al día en el uso de Internet en general, y de las redes sociales en particular. Cuando trabajas con ellas es normal encontrar reticiencias, pensamientos anticuados y poco abiertos de mente frente un presente cambiante.

Nunca he trabajado con la Generalitat de Catalunya, pero siempre me ha parecido que deben tener un buen equipo de profesionales, viendo muchas de las cosas de su sitio web gencat.cat.

Ahora publica una Guía de usos y estilo en las redes sociales. Todo un esfuerzo digno de elogio para estar al día en el mundo donde se mueven los ciudadanos, que al fin y al cabo es para quienes trabajan.

Vía #oGov

Published in: ,

Comentarios

* * *

Anterior

Search

RSS Icon Subscribe via RSS

Categories

What's on

2004-2012 - Alex Lillo. Publicado bajo Licencia CreativeCommons. Mantenido con textpattern. RSS icon