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Hello, due to irreconcilable differences between me and the wordpress interface this blog has been moved to http://ausefulrecord.tumblr.com/

Blind spot

While looking up links on the topic of green and sustainable design, I came up across some disturbing facts. For example, the fact that Apple, as a company, rates pretty low on several environmental ratings, including the Greenlist from Greenpeace, and Scorecard from Climate Counts.

Climate Counts rates Apple at 11/100 on a scale that measures climate footprint, efforts to reduce impact on global warming, support for progressive climate legislation, and public disclosure over climate-related actions – a score that is well behind companies such as Motorola, Sony, and Nokia.

I received a bad case of cognitive dissonance when I read the Scorecards verdict on Apple: ”STUCK – A choice to avoid for the climate conscious consumer. This company is not yet taking meaningful action on climate change.“

I think of every single article I have read over the iPhone; all the the press and the buzz and the wow. And not a single word of it referred to climate or sustainability issues. Funnily enough, there HAVE been improvements in the “greeness” of the iphone, but noone is really talking about it. We are more interested in the slick new interface, the price, missing bluetooth functionality, and the way this wonderful little hunk of electronics is revolutionizing the mobile industry.

They (public relations, media, bloggers…) are not telling us about responsible design, and we are not asking about it.

Why not?

Write for software as if you were a person

The documentation specialist and I had a nice discussion this week about the ‘tone’ of text in our software and documents. We would like to set a standard. Should we be friendly but professional? Should we be more buddy buddy like some of the web apps out there? Then how do we deal with languages were there is a formal ‘you’ and an informal ‘you.’ Of course, we want to keep the text we use as simple and direct as possible so as not to clutter the interface or our users lives…etc.

When we asked the opinion of our manager, however, he said something quite wonderful: “Our software and help should sound like one of our support staff was there helping the user.”

This made me smile immediately. “Yes!” I said, making a strange happy fist movement, “That is exactly how we should write it!”

We still have to work out the details of couse, but it helps to have such a benchmark to work from. Developing software and interfaces we sometimes get so caught up in the details and logic behind what is happening, when all the time a more personable and holistic view can make everything so much simpler and better .