If you do creative arts, may it be graphic design, web design, or UI design, it’s easy to strive for perfection. You tweak them pixels and sacrifice sleep in order to achieve the glorious word perfection. If you are like me, you value the details and want things done thoroughly and polished. You want to get it “just right”.

But does perfection exist? It’s a bit abstract and perhaps read as a whimsy and irrelevant discussion, but yet I’m still pondering over the idea that perfection isn’t achievable by humans.

Perfection is subjective and not permanent

Take code as an example. There are many snippets which are said to be “perfect” and “beautiful”. They are regarded as prime examples of the genius features of <insert hipster programming language here>. But what about my idea of a perfect piece of code? We may not share the same idea of perfection.

Say the language designers add a nifty feature which makes this code snippet ugly and outdated. It’s not perfect anymore. Perfection, like fame, is transient and isn’t loyal to its host.

The eye of the beholder and creator

I mentioned different notions of perfection before. As with everything related to artsy subjects, perfection is subjective. It’s my opinion that it’s plain wrong to proclaim a piece of work perfect, since it’s only from your point of view (which however should be the only view that matters, but we’ll not getting into that now).

Should the author ever acknowledge his work’s perfection? Isn’t one suppose to always strive for further excellence and not stop at any limits?

“Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”

The quote above says Heaven is being perfect. It also mentions limits, which is exactly what an author creates when he or she states that “My work is perfect. I’m done”. Do you hear how dangerous that sounds? A piece of handcrafter art shouldn’t have limits.

Ego

I put too much pride and, inadvertently, too much ego into my work. Things took too long to create, and because of the amount of effort put into the work, significant changes, based on client feedback for example, were more difficult to stomach.

I want to highlight the “ego” part, which may diminish one’s judgement and neutrality. When you go for ultimate perfection it’s easy to take every critique … personally. As the quote says, every change (and there’s always going to be changes) could get bulky, cumbersome, and perhaps associated with a certain bitterness of the creator, since in his or her eyes the work is “perfect”.

An example. Some time ago I used “pixel perfect” grids and layouts for every web design mockup I created. Everything was perfectly aligned to the columns and baseline, and when the eventual changes came, it was a bit tricky to align everything correctly again. Of course it depends on the rigidity of the layout framework of your choice as well. But in my case I’ve started to work with more rough proportions and relative measures instead of column grids. It allows me to create more flexible and maintainable designs. But as always, it depends on the nature of the design.

We are all humans. Humans change their minds about things, and nothing is set in stone. If you constantly are changing your mind, how could perfection every be achieved if it’s altered regurarly? In that case, you’ve probably fooled yourself.

Everything above can be applied to human behaviour as well. We often hear “nobody is perfect”, which is indeed true. If nobody is perfect, how can anyone create works of perfection? Shouldn’t only perfect people be able to create perfection? Weird questions, but actually interesting.

Outro

Perfection can be looked upon as a state of mind – an ecosystem, a favourable turn of events, or simply a glass of water – pure, simple and humble. I like the idea of perfection as something that just is – something that I can’t put words on, but just exists (perhaps without any purpose at all).

In the end I think it’s important to always remember that perfection is just an abstract concept or synonym for something that’s stopped evolving – reached its limits.

Therefore, I don’t strive for perfection – I strive for excellence.

First, name one other thing in the world, he said, that is used by so many people and which is created entirely by hand? Stuff that is made by hand is hard to make, and even more hard to make well, and tends to be less sturdy than things made by machines.

I hadn’t thought of this either – how all code in the software we build is handcrafted. Read the post, its arguments are true and insightful.

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Our proposal: BDGT for iPhone

BDGT is an iPhone app which keeps track of daily transactions and will let you overlook your flow of money. In a simple and quick interface, you’re able to add a transaction, put it in a category, and you’re done. Boom. For now: in BDGT you specify a budget which always is present and shown for you.

The general idea for the app is to simplify people’s everyday home economy, and help you keeping track of the flow.

Feel free to visit bdgt.me and follow us on Twitter (@BDGTme), Facebook (BDGT), and Tumblr (blog.bdgt.me). Feel free to ask us anything or give feedback through any of these channels. Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter as well.

We hope to release further info, screenshots, and videos during the period until release.

Thank you!

If you’re doing the right amount of testing, there should be a good chance, whenever you kick off a test run, that your actions for the next hour will change depending on the results of the run. If you typically don’t change your actions based on the information from the tests, then the effort spent to write tests gathering that information was wasted.

David Heinemeier Hansson writes about sane amounts of software tests, which he ranted a bit about on Twitter today. I haven’t enough experience with tests yet, so I can’t give valid comments, but I’ve begun to understand what he and others are talking about thanks to a heavy focus on unit tests in a university course. Putting tons of time on writing tests instead of actual code seem insane to me, and David’s thoughts about having advice on what not to test seems legit to me (I recommend reading the comments on the Hacker News entry as well).

In the end I think it boils down to a healthy balance, as with everything else in life.

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What I mean is how you are able to use Messages on a Mac on your desk, then suddenly decide to move over to Messages the iPad in the couch. Got to run? Bring your iPhone along. What’s cool is the fact that you’re able to continue the conversation from wherever you left off, on any of these devices.

Most social media services that have apps for the three big markets (desktop, tablet, mobile) are doing the same thing. It’s not over after closing Facebook or Twitter on your computer – carry on what you were doing from your phone instead¹. Services like iCloud and Dropbox make it incredibly easy to switch between devices. Apple’s iBooks is available only for the iPhone and iPad, but still manage to create a “begin where you left off” feeling, thanks to the syncing of bookmarks. The Music app, along with iTunes on the desktop, is cool since I’m able to continue listening on a podcast on my iPad right where I left off. Instapaper is a prime example as well.

You could call it device independency, since the content doesn’t depend on a certain device in order to function or show properly. I find it really cool to see apps and web sites just magically adapt to a different device and still let me access the content. The otherwise hard lines between devices are starting to blur out when it comes to content.

When building stuff, in my case websites, I think it’s important to have this in mind when doing responsive design. How people move between devices, and what users want to do with the website on each device. This is getting important since we’ve got more and more devices (and screen sizes!) to build for.

When true device independency is achieved, it’s really a tremendous joy to use a product. Let me float smoothly and seamlessly between devices while using your product, and I’ll be happy.

1. However, many timeline based services as Twitter still have to fix the “begin where I left off” issue – to sync the last read item when switching devices. Tweetmarker has solved this for tweets.

If you’re looking for a designer who can come up with your identity, design your site, create UIs with great user experience for your web and mobile apps, and on top of that code his or her work in HTML/CSS (and why not throw in Javascript in the mix!), then I’m sorry to inform you that you’re hunting unicorns.

Follow the linked article above and read about why startups today can’t find decent designers. Further down the article I think the author pinpoints two issues:

• Companies want “unicorn designers/developers”, “ninjas”, or “rockstars”, or <insert corny brogrammer term here>.
• Their demands are set too high. Let younger guys and girls in.

There are two sides of the designer-developer hybrid part. In the web world front-end code and design are so close together these days, and I think it’s wrong and a mistake to focus on only one of those two. Sure: you could get by, but wouldn’t it be boring not to be able to implement your own designs? Or never be able to create something nice for your own without, say Twitter’s Bootstrap?

In the native world where the “front-end” code generally is a bit heavier and hard-core, I can see how designers really are designers, and developers are developers (if you can do both: awesome!). Personally I think it’s easier to do both code and design in the web world.

The article says there are few “unicorn” designers/developers, e.g. hybrids. For me it’s a matter of interest and a never ending thirst of knowledge: I want to learn advanced Javascript patterns as I read about typography and grid techniques.

Unicorns do exist! How to become one? Never stop moving. If you are one? Consider yourself lucky, and start choosing your next employer with care.

Also, read the Hacker News comments on the linked article. I’ve also written related posts about designer-developer hybrids:

• Generalist specialists
• Staying hungry and evolving with new technologies

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The cloud is getting more mature. Dropbox was for me the first service which gave me a “Whoa” moment. Having files around on your harddrive, and visible in a web interface, and automatically synced to any other computers (there were no devices back then) was huge. Apple’s iCloud is becoming an invisible way of syncing user data and files. MobileMe was quite a misstep, but it’s clear that Apple is going for iCloud at full speed now. With iCloud, files “just exist” – you don’t even have to “sync” them (however, I prefer the use of the term for now). Google is okay at syncing stuff, but Apple’s way of syncing contacts and calendar events feels better to use with Apple’s eco system. Sure, Google’s stuff is widely supported by other services, but I remember things have always felt a bit hacky to perform (once I had to switch language to English in order to sync multiple Google calendars to my iPhone).

My view on “syncing” and “cloud computing” is all about safety, in the sense of that “I can put this file here and be sure of that I’ll be able to access it from any other device”. That was what Dropbox did: I was in a hurry and put a document in my Dropbox, and could safely continue with it from another computer. With iCloud, I’m able to write text in one app (currently iA Writer) and trust iCloud to make it show up on my iPad and iPhone¹. In my daily life, manually syncing everything would be a huge pain. I gather a lot of information every day in lectures, meetings, and group projects. Making everything available to me and everybody else just wouldn’t work without Dropbox, Google Docs, Basecamp, GitHub, et al.

In a way this is how the web really should work. Up until now, the devices of the internet have been big, clunky computers. Same kind of input, interaction and display ratios. Now, the member of the web includes tablets and smartphones: why shouldn’t my data be available for them to access? This is in line with the philosphy of responsive web design. It’s interesting to watch the web make computers and devices barely “consumers” of data. They’re not thin clients, but heavy clients in the sense that more work is done on the client and the server just syncs everything.

The cloud is a buzz word, sure, but perhaps because it’s important. Over the air sync has moved from being a gimmick, a “feature”, to something you would expect from a service. Don’t lock my data in if you don’t have to! Let me access it from whatever screen I want to! Let me know it’s safe to just throw in my stuff in this bucket, and have it showing up when I open the bucket next time.

1. There’s no web interface for iCloud stuff (yet), but the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion will have a deep iCloud intergration. Screenshots from the developer preview show an iCloud file manager à la Finder.

I’m indeed interested in reading about new techniques and ways of setting up new web projects as smooth as possible, but as I’ve “grown older” I haven’t tried out every obscure boilerplate out there. They say Hell is other people’s code, and it’s indeed true with HTML and CSS. Those technologies are a huge part of what I do, and some frameworks and boilerplates feels awkward to use. It’s a different case with backend code libraries, which act like black boxes where you use to interface with something.

To me, a boilerplate for a project should be personal and tailored. I’ve before made the mistake of using my own huge boilerplate which included the latest and greatest HTML5 templates, CSS framework written in SCSS, and some custom Javascript fixes. Everytime I started off a new project I had to change, remove or add stuff. No project is thus the same.

Nowadays I add stuff (polyfills, shims, fixes, Javascript) as I go – when I need it.

I actually don’t like Twitter’s Bootstrap at all

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The hippie is free and you are free. The hippie hasn’t shut down the big chains, but that isn’t his goal. His goal is to sleep at night, comfortable that he has made choices compatible with his personal beliefs and that he has given other people the freedom to make choices compatible with their own personal beliefs.

I can think of no greater definition of freedom.

A gem. I love the ending paragraph quoted above.

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Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

What to say about this ground breaking article by Mr. Marcotte? Well, it will surely go down in the annals to our grandchildren as the one article that spawned a shift in paradigms. I remember when I first read it: I found the result very cool, but it took some effort for me to wrap my head around the techniques (the source code). Nevertheless, responsive web design is now a global “movement” (or whatever) which is becoming a standard way of building web sites among respected designers and developers. Thanks Ethan!

The secret law of page harmony by Alex Charchar

http://retinart.net/graphic-design/secret-law-of-page-harmony/

I could have just linked to Retinart.net, which is where Alex Charchar writes deep and thoughtful articles about graphic design, typography, and layout. They are inspiring and do what a good article should do: grow a seed of thought in its reader. The secret law of page harmony is especially a good read, since it made me think about layout, modules, and ratios in a new way.

Rethinking CSS grids by Mark Boulton

http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/rethinking-css-grids

Mark Boulton (the King of Grids) is writing about how he should model a new grid module in CSS, i.e. how the syntax of defining columns, gutters and everything should work. Mr. Boulton is also writing a book on grid systems for the web, as well as releasing a tool – Gridset – for working with grids online.

The design of HTML5 by Jeremy Keith

http://adactio.com/articles/1704/

A transcription of one of Jeremy Keith’s great talks. Recommended.

To hell with bad devices: Responsive web design and web standards by Marc Drummond

http://marcdrummond.com/web-standards/2011/06/20/hell-bad-devices-responsive-web-design-and-web-standards

Essential reading about responsive web design, mobile, and all.

Native vs. web apps by Faruk Ateş

http://farukat.es/journal/2011/03/537-native-vs-web-apps

Ambitious post which sums up the “Native vs. web apps” discussion quite well. I have come to the opinion that web apps should not try to mimic native apps in everything. Creating a native looking iOS for instance, will force you to squeeze water from a rock in order to duplicate every UI detail in the OS’s look and feel, which took Apple themselves a good period of time (and they wrote it in native code!). I’m talking about view transitions, touch responsiveness, and general UX. You just know when you are using a web app which is trying so hard to be native. Please don’t. Use the web’s strengths, and make web apps that are built for the web.

The graphing calculator story by Ron Avitzur

http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

A post about an undercover project inside Apple (!), which is very interesting.

Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14 by Derek Sivers

http://sivers.org/tom-williams

A story about strong will, entrepreneurship, and that anything really is possible.

Perhaps I have forgotten some of the gems I have read, but in that case I will update this post. It’s tricky to go back in time and try to remember all the good stuff you have read. I really should try start using a link collecting service …