Beneath Skin Deep

Home and Away: Iraq and Afghanistan War Casualties

Layla — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:06:47 +0000

There’s a CNN memorial interactive site that maps out the war casualties from all over the world for the Afghanistan and Iraq War.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html

Image Source: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/05/home_away_comparing_how_the_lives_of_troops_began_and_ended.html

It basically takes the data they have and provides the visual representation of it. It kind of reminded me of what I would probably see in a movie when there’s a disease outbreak spreading across the country. Each dot on the map on the right side represents the casualties in the specific locations. One can filter out certain demographics (age, location, date (month/year) ranges) to scope down what is being visualized on the screen. The bigger the dot, the more casualties were involved. Hovering over the dot, you can actually get the province / area name and the total number of casualties.

Clicking on it shows a profile of the individual including a description of their unit and a description of the incident of what happened or if more there was more than one individual, a name list of the casualties. On the left, it will then highlight on the map of the area(s) in the world where the individual(s) are originally from. The social part that CNN integrates into this is how one can share memories of the person by logging in and leaving their messages.

I found this a clever way in remembering soldiers who came together to fight this war allowing the possibility to actually have a perspective of where these soldiers are from and providing the connection in understanding their story. How do you feel about this?

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Layla — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:05:52 +0000

I remember when I was young one of the fairy tales I read was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. And I distinctly remember the magical mirror belonging to the evil queen where she would ask the mirror, “Mirror mirror on the wall. Who is the most beautiful of all?” I thought to myself how amazing it would be to have one so that I could ask more relevant questions to it.

Fast forward more than two decades later, the New York Times R&D Lab makes the magical mirror a reality. They developed a smart mirror they named REVEAL: a Personal Data Mirror. It is personalized to show a person’s health and it is even possible if the person would like to see the headlines while they brushed their teeth. They can even see the weather outside so that they could decide on what they should wear that is suitable. It’s awesome and now I am wondering how long will it be until it is made available commercially?

Reveal Project – Personal Data Mirror from NYT R&D on Vimeo.

Other Sources: http://tvvj.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/new-york-times-reveal-project-personal-data-mirror/

It Began With You

Layla — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 10:38:30 +0000

Maybe it’s karma back to bite me. When they told me that one day I will understand perhaps this is the one. They always say the first one will be the hardest but I don’t feel like it’s any better even when it’s not the first. The tears will still fall… The pain is not less painful… The emotional feelings still is overwhelming…

It all made sense that when I was coming back to Singapore was because I really wanted to see you. To leave and find how much I missed you was just a reminder of how happy I would be just to see you or even talk to you. It was all this that kept me going because you believed in me.

I don’t know how to stop loving you… I still wish sometimes that I could travel the world with you. You mean the world to me and I am happiest with you…

Rumour Has It

Layla — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:39:48 +0000

From Glee (Season 3, Episode 6)

Glee – 3×06 – Rumour Has It / Someone Like You Performance from teatralka on Vimeo.

“Bless your soul, you got your head in the clouds. She made a fool out of you and she’s bring you down. She made your heart melt but you’re cold to the core.” – Adele

Christina Perri

Layla — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:14:12 +0000

Current song that is stuck in my head… A Thousand Years. Reminds me the first time I saw you…

Other songs that are sung by Christina Perri:

Jar of Hearts

The Lonely

Reading or Scanning?

Layla — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:52:21 +0000

Back in April 2011, I wrote about how I was reading all over the place: on my laptop, iPad 2, twitter links, blogs, whitepapers, RSS feeds, and so forth. So I came across something interesting written by Jakob Nielsen saying that research conducted shows “79% of web users scan rather than read” providing explanations to the reasons in why this is so [1]. Three points were highlighted which I agree with the author.

The first is that if I read something online, I am more inclined to quickly move onto the next page or see some other pages. The reason behind this is that I would feel that I have been very unproductive. The second point would be that since now everyone online with a web page is competing to get a user’s attention, how does the user determine whether this is really the site they are looking for? From a designer’s perspective the colors and typography that gets chosen then becomes very important because this is what a user will see first. Even though we say that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, we are actually doing this unknowingly when we surf websites in attempting to find information [2].

According to McGovern (2008) [3] ”We don’t (even) scan a webpage but instead we scan only a particular block or section of it.” His studies show that areas of interest to a user is the left column where users expect to see the core navigation. For a huge range of products then it is expected the left and center columns would merge as one single block. The right block apparently has little or no view at all.

So I wonder if a designer highlights the right block with beautiful colors and specific call to actions, will the right block still have little or no views? I doubt so right because the eyes would immediately see the contrasting element of how different the right side is in comparison to the rest of the page. What do you think? Do you agree with any of the studies conducted?
[1] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html

[2] http://uxmyths.com/post/647473628/myth-people-read-on-the-web

[3] http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-10-06-block-reading.htm

Playlist November 7, 2011

Layla — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 07:18:03 +0000

Currently playing songs sang by Jason Chen (Posted by miniachilles)

王力宏 Wang Leehom 依然愛你 Still In Love With You

Bruno Mars – It Will Rain

Cobra Starship ft. Sabi – You Make Me Feel

JJLin “That’s What She Said” 她说

Quote THEM!

Layla — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 14:17:23 +0000

“One of the worst emotional tortures is to be ignored or misunderstood by someone you truly care about.”

Quote THEM!

Layla — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 09:31:14 +0000

“ You know I ain’t good at this stuff… These feelings pilin’ up won’t give me no rest. This might come out a little crazy, a little sideways, yeah maybe… I don’t know how long it’ll take me but I’ll do my best.”
- Blake Shelton in “Honey Bee” lyrics

Love You Like a Love Song

Layla — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:37:52 +0000

“There’s no way to describe what you do to me… I am hypnotized by your destiny. You are magical, lyrical, beautiful you are and I want you to know” - Selena Gomez’s lyrics taken from “Love You Like A Love Song”