Since its release in January, 2009, NetMRI 3.0 has been well received by customers. Jay Ennis, Executive VP of Product Development at Netcordia, points to the user interface designed in partnership with PixelMEDIA. “… the new UI has helped us connect with customers,” says Ennis, “Wow” is a common reaction…” At the same time, Netcordia is solidifying its position in the competitive software industry and is capturing the attention of key media leaders like Red Herring, which recently named Netcordia to its annual Red Herring 100 list of America’s most promising technology companies.

A User-centered, Visual Approach
Netcordia’s NetMRI 3.0 improves the product’s Network Configuration and Change Management capabilities by providing multiple views of the network and every device connected to it, and then showing the effects of local changes on interdependent network initiatives. New diagnostic capabilities also help IT managers assess the potential impact of even the smallest changes to a network.

The new NetMRI 3.0 user interface features dashboards to
help IT managers track top problems and troubled devices, 
monitor trends, and identify the most important risks. click to enlarge

“I went to a customer six months ago and he said he loved the product, but he pulled a notebook out of a drawer and showed me all the steps he had to take to get to the feature he wanted,” said Yama Habibzai, product marketing director for Netcordia. “Over the course of the last few years, we’ve added more and more to this product. It was time to think about using a more visual approach to streamline the overall product experience for users at all levels.”

Gathering and incorporating user feedback was a key element in our approach. The Web-based interface consolidates core functionality into a set of dashboards, offering IT managers a fast, at-a-glance visualization of network performance. The dashboards show changes over time and the topology status view shows users exactly where a change took place. A combination view overlays both network health and policy compliance statuses on top of the topology map. The tabbed interface allows users to toggle quickly between different views of the network.

The redesigned NetMRI 3.0 user interface triages complex tasks into bite-size pieces. click to enlarge

When an issue is identified, users can drill down quickly using a system of logically organized “accordion” menus that replace the folder structure of previous versions and competing products. With a product as feature-rich as NetMRI 3.0, a well designed user interface helps customers maximize their return on investment by taking full advantage of everything the product has to offer.

“The new version is much better and very easy to navigate,” said Tod Isaacson, manager of network services at Loyola Marymount University. “Now, you can see several different screens at once that you had to hunt for in the past. I will use a lot more stuff that I didn’t know was there in the past because it’s now easier to find.”

For more information
Founded in 2000, Netcordia is a leading provider of network automation software to the world’s most complex and mission-critical networks. For more information, visit www.netcordia.com

Note: This video is part of our Let’s Talk series of staff perspectives. You can check out more perspectives on our Vimeo Channel.

You may have heard that Target.com and the National Federation of the Blind agreed to a $6,000,000.00 settlement and rigid, scheduled audits for having an inaccessible site.  As a result, many organizations may want to begin investigating their options for an audit to evaluate the accessibility of their own product(s) or web properties… 

I am of the belief that the single largest demographic to be empowered by the growth and power of the internet are the disabled. The power to explore, experience and purchase goods and services combined with the feeling of belonging within the online social framework is awe inspiring. The things one can now do within the home or bedside is something that is beyond description. I speak from experience as the father of a child with Cerebal Palsy that has affected his speech, motor skills and mobility. The computer is his equalizer and the internet is his playground.

Sadly however, at least in the states, there has not been a widespread effort to insure that accessiblity is “baked in” to the tens of millions of well-travelled web properties and communities out there. True, there are the Americans with Disability Act and 508 Compliance, as guidelines, but there’s still a lot of room for interpetation.

So. What’s all this mean? In the UK accessibility has been law for quite some time, but it’s rarely enforced. In the States I suspect there will be a renewed interest in making sure that organizations are designing for everyone. And with this type of event now being on the books it sets a precedent in the States. One that everyone should pay attention to.

It’s also important to note that this was a settlement. As published in one of the news links below:

Target did not admit wrongdoing under the settlement. The retailer said it has improved the Web site since the lawsuit was filed.

“We believe [the Web site] is accessible and compliant with all applicable laws, but that there are improvements that could be made,” said Lena Michaud, a Target spokesman.”

You can read a couple decent articles on the ruling here and here.

If you’re a webmaster or just technically inclined, you can get a quick 411 by downloading a screen reader, or shutting off CSS and JavaScript… to see what ya get.  For starters.  You may also want to start planning for accessibility. Surely you’re in the heat of designing/developing/delivering something? It’s not just good, it’s good business.

Some of your considerations may include:

• What is our accessibility status for a potential customer or user that is disabled?
• Are we at legal risk for inaccessibility?
• What is the best process for us to make our site/product accessible?
• Will an inaccessible site/product hurt your market potential?
• What are the trends?  What are industry leaders doing about website and product accessibility?
• What is the W3C (the web standards body) doing to support us?
• Where does mobile come into play here?

If you have questions, or want to strike up a dialog on the topic give me a ring. It’s coming, and it’s needed. The question is one of leading or following. Which one will you do?

Peace. -t

Fast forward to today and the Rubik’s Cube is back, and with a new tagline – “You CAN Do the Rubik’s Cube“. This change in approach is a friendlier challenge – one of encouragement. And it’s supported  by a robust campaign to introduce the Rubik’s Cube into schools, summer programs, youth organizations and after-school programs, to start.

I was introduced to the program through my role as a Trustee for Mayhew, a non-profit organization that works with at-risk New Hampshire boys 10-12 years old. They were gifted two kits for use during the summer program on the island. A few counselors took the charge of first solving the cube via the guide, and the kids were then encouraged to take the challenge on during their free time throughout the day. 

What makes this new “You CAN Do the Rubiks Cube” program so special is the support it comes with; these kits contain a handful of cubes, sign-out sheets (designed for cube re-use), a poster, stickers, activities, a medal and a bunch of Solution Guides.  The key is the Solution Guide, which is a mix of a few of the more popular techniques for solving the puzzle, merged into an easy to use kid-friendly guide.  

With a cube, the guide (which you can download) and 2 to 4 hours of peace and quiet you can learn to solve the cube. For me, a parent of 3 toddlers, I spent about 15-20 minutes a day for a week.

Now, if you’d done this as a kid, not a big deal. But if you hadn’t – it’s a great challenge and a rewarding feeling.  Once solved it becomes a challenge of speed … and who knows – maybe you’ll hit a competition or two. The current world record is just a smidge over 7.5 seconds.

The amazing part of this program, in addition to the educational and empowerment benefits to kids, teachers and youth advocates alike, is the support. They’ve posted these materials online – the solution guide, sign-out sheet, activities and more. There are also plans for an online community around the program. 

So, for those of us that never quite solved it, spend 10 bucks on a cube, download the guide and get to it. Once you’ve solved it teach a kid or three. 

Peace. -t

I read earlier this year that 2007 was the year of Social, and 2008 is the year of Mobile. Holy crap. Are you serious? What happened to Web 2.0? Or is that now Enterprise 2.0, because anything that finally makes it into the enterprise took so long we needed a new name? I think we can thank Gartner for that – the new names for the stuff that needs some new focus.

And where is Next Generation Internet (NGI), or is that Web 3.0 (yes, I’m being a little sarcastic)? You think O’Reilly thought coining Web 2.0 would be such a wildfire. It’s like we’re starving for something to attach to. Anything. And the open source movement; at one time thought of as a trend too. Props to that movement. We’re glad see that it was not. We rely heavily on open source tools here at PixelMEDIA, like Subversion, Trac and WordPress to name just a few.

How about Googlzon? Anyone heard that little gem yet? If you’ve been to an Enterprise 2.0 conference you may have. Gartner – your freaking people out. Stop it. And AJAX, oh ya, gotta get me some of that. Jesse James Garrett coined that term, and for good use, a few years back. I’ve met Jesse, and have a book from him. Brilliant man, and a great firm, those Adaptive Path folks.

Regarding AJAX – I was on a call recently with a group that wanted their site “ajax-enabled”. When I probed as to the reasoning there was a long silence. They knew it could do cool stuff, and they wanted to be cooler. Cool huh?

The funny part of that statement is that AJAX is an incredibly powerful tool. Look at Google Maps. It’s like a potters wheel though – in the hands of a professional one can create amazing pieces. Otherwise, well, those of us with kids probably have an ashtray that won’t hold cigarettes. It’s like that. Mantleware. Something to show the in-laws. Which is fine, because smoking is bad.

So many of these trends (and there are dozens more I’ve not mentioned) are just now making their way into the enterprise. And by enterprise I don’t mean the fortune 100, the progressive brands, or ‘trendy’ consumer goods, I mean the meat of businesses – the $10M to $500M folks – you know, the one’s that are the most freaked out, yet stand to reap the greatest rewards from these advances.

My point is a simple one; what seems old to many is new to most, especially in the context of the B2B space. To jump on a trend is OK, but do so with caution, as most of them were largely immature in their prime of media coverage, relatively unproven, and expensive. Sound ideas will always win, and it’s how you choose to use these ideas that define your success, not if you use them. I have clients that are just starting to embrace the supposed trends of old; like social software, web 2.0, and to some extent, using the web to it’s fullest potential within their businesses. Mobile, which we do a ton of, is still an aspiration for most folks.

For some of us, the proving period is measured in years not weeks. It’s not when you embrace the tools that makes you successful, it’s how. My goal is to recommend what I think produces the best outcome, and not what gets the most press. At times that may mean flying in the face of hype for the greater good of the business. It’s worked for nearly 18 years. I suspect it’ll work for another 18.

Peace. -t

The movement is really quite quiet, with little steps here and there – on the people side it’s items like fewer lights (bulbs in and on), mugs not paper cups, car-pooling, 2-up double sided printing (I love that), less printing, making notebooks from scrap paper (of which there is lots), shutting monitors and desk lighting off, and a company plan for dry cleaning with a “green products” company. Small steps. But steps. Nothing drastic, but sustainable. Not a diet, but a lifestyle change. Very cool.

On the IT side there are some great strides being made as well. What I like to call big impact items. For one we’re moving to laptops; whereas we’ve typically had desktops for hardcore design, development and editing. The question there is about batteries — do they offset the power savings? We’re also virtualizing with VMWare and iSCSI SAN (more on the benefits of this in a later post) – so thank you Dell for purchasing Equallogic. We’re doing this in the office and within our hosting facilities (where we manage >600 applications and web properties for our clients). We’re also building our own machines for the conference rooms (we have 11) and as-needed desktops. They’re amazing little machines too, and about the size of a external DVD drive – and it’s a quad core with 4GB of RAM.

That’s just the start for us. We will do more. And this should go beyond us at work and become more of an “everyone, everyplace, everyday” sort of thing, no?.

The larger goal, of course, is to be less of a burden on the environment and our local communities. And with energy costs on a steep curve upward, it helps to reduce costs too. Bonus. On a personal note, I have three boys, all under 5, and I can’t help but wonder what they’ll inherit.

As a design studio, however, the challenge is far greater; finding a way to help clients think differently about how design can have a positive social and environmental impact. That’s the mountain. We don’t design physical product per se, but we design things that run on those products–and shouldn’t we be concerned about the sustainability of our contributions? If you can help me figure that one out, I’m all ears.

As a company, our progress will be measured in the small steps we take every day to better ourselves. It goes beyond being ‘green,’ to just being better people, a better organization, and a better partner to our clients. And for our clients who are in the “green” space, of which there are many, how can we help them evangelize their contributions? We’re working on that too.

The odd part of this post is that I never really meant it to be one. It was just a collection of notes I had on my desk and in a notebook from a Conference I attended in SanFran this past April (MX Conference – more on that later). There was an interesting “green” session called The Designers Accord (which is also an organization) put on by an Adaptive Path staffer Brian Cronin. His story started with a question from a prospect: Are you Green? It was innocent sounding, but powerful.

Brian talked through this at length within his firm. Oddly enough, the question caught them off guard, in a good way: How do you answer that, really? Did they mean as people, as a company, or both? Are we good or good intentioned? And carbon neutrality?

The session was packed with much dialog about what this question may mean to designers like us, as designers of things. Brian showed a lot of great examples of sustainable and not so sustainable design; for instance, we all know plastic packaging sucks right? Ever buy an iPhone accessory or two and find yourself hunting for a machete. And for what? Once open, we throw it out? Sad. And that was just one example. Any idea how many iPhone accessories were bought, last month? This past weekend?

He also showed us the future of packaging: recyclable, sustainable, and easy to open. Imagine that — a great user experience, and sustainable. He continued for another 30 minutes, asking the big questions they asked themselves, openly sharing their experience with an audience of 200 executives and design leaders from around the world. What could we do? What should we be doing? Where are the bounds? What responsibilities do we have as designers and design firms to ensure that we’re employing sustainable design principles? And that is when I was introduced to the Designers Accord. And it got me thinking, and writing, and making some changes and wondering – what else?

So, if you made it this far I’ll have to assume you dig it, the topic that is. So please help us do more. Let’s work together, wherever you are, and share ideas. Suggestions welcomed.

Peace. -t

However… it was not a flawless launch. There was a last minute freak out moment. You know what I mean — you’re ready. You’ve looked at everything ten times, some twenty.

You cut over — feeling solid. You get two clicks in and hit an uh-oh. Holy crap. Your heart sinks and you break into an instant sweat. Wicked funny. Two little gotchas. WTF.

All was not lost though. Super Teece and his muscle, Jeff and Rich, flew in and tore through a new template in about 2 minutes while we addressed another ‘oh shat’ discovery. A few clicks, we’re done, and we split for the holiday weekend.

The vision for the site was to focus on the work, add a personal style, and be more social. The short time line was used to force conversation and decisions. We had a ball and worked very well together, guided by a creative brief, a prototype (e.g. – wire(d)frames) and a question; what does being more social mean.

Was it social media, as in community social, or just being more social, as in a bunch of friends socializing. We agreed that “being more social” meant a hallway convo and a look you in the eye sort of feeling. We mashed up a design from the round one comp’s, using one as the core and plucking items from each of the other concepts.

With development on board we just let it flow; letting the team manage the vitals, talk openly, and trust that all the pieces will simply drop in place, at some point, in the future. And they did. It was super hairy. They jammed. Nice job folks.

I’m super proud of the team. We spent 3 weeks in June, with full project loads, and produced a nice piece. It’s us. The good and the goob. If you know me you’ll easily spot my copy. It’s super loose.

Peace. -t

I’ve got many thousands of hours into this program; and this company, PixelMEDIA, was largely built on the back of Director.

We started as an interactive media company in 1994 – where our tag was actually ‘interactive multimedia solutions’. Demo diskettes, trade show presentations, interactive CD’s, and eLearning… all was possible. And I even designed at least half of them, and programmed another half (yes, laugh it up, it’s true. I wrote many thousands of lines of Lingo – prepped many thousands of screens of modeling, and animation and interfaces – I did – ask Erik.).

I started using Director in 1992 at Cabletron Systems. Every demo diskette, tradeshow piece and CD was done in Director. There was no Flash; there were no “mature web tools”. And Director ruled the era as Flash has the last several years. But Flash has it’s drawbacks and challenges.

Now I know what your thinking; why? Why unearth what the newer generation of designers and developers consider a relic. I mean – seriously; to some it’s sort of the rotary phone of it’s time. A one time amazing innovation, but may not so much anymore. Or maybe it’s the bag-phone? It depends on your age I guess.

Well, clearly that is no longer the case – as Adobe, in all it’s wisdom has brought it back. They too realized a huge void in the tools space; and have recently launched Adobe Director 11. And who are we to question Adobe? As they have consistently provided the tools we’ve used to build an industry on. Well done Adobe.
Peace. -t

So I of course explored last night; thinking what is it? A new word for the same old shat, or something truly different? And if it is different, how different, and how does it compare with what we’re familiar with today, or is that not fair to ask? NUI is actually pronounced ‘new’ – so maybe someone’s thought real hard about this, being new that is.

And on my journey through the Google-riffic linkage bounty I re-realize that MS Surface was an exploration into this area – this method of interacting with a system naturally, as we do with anything in life – with physical engagement.

So yes, it’s a real thing, that is not actually all that new. And Bill thinks it’s “what’s next”. This exploration into quality design – like Apple did with the iPhone. Like the Wii did for game consoles. Last year. I state this somewhat sarcastically because it is not as new as Bill’s mention will make it sound, and much R&D has been done in this area. It’s simply not well known, and not well applied. Yet.

And in my bumbling I came across something from NUI (remember, that group…) – someone hacked a Wii for an interesting “Minority Report” style proof of concept. You will of course have to imagine a bit, but it’s there. Really. If the video is not there – it’s in the listing – called “Tracking Fingers with Wii Remote”. I peronsally found the Wii demonstration interesting. Some teenager is going to shock us soon.

And still further into my course, thinking Surface, iPhone and Wii type stuff – I happen upon a couple students that have created their own version of Surface, yet different, and incredibly interesting. If your into that sort of thing check out their Blog. They’re also up on NUI (check out their video on NUI “telly channel”).

My question this whole time was one of categorization – is this truly something new, this feeling of ‘natural interactions’, or is this some subset of Interaction Design (IxD), and part of our evolving understanding of how people WANT to interact with DIGITAL THINGS? I dunno yet.

But… I know someone that does — Dan Saffer over at Adaptive Path is writing a book on this very topic; Designing Gestural interfaces. Very cool. Check out his support site and look for the book the fall of 20008.

Peace. -t