Introducing Wanted

We at Want Magazine suffer from a sickness. It's an affliction-level obsession for appreciating, wanting and perhaps even lusting after products that embody love for the craft of design.

A product well-done, that telegraphs a solution with economy of resources, with legibility of value and balance of form...is a piece of art to our eyes.

To celebrate the art within the experience of products, we have stealthily created a new visual microblog adequately dubbed "Wanted" (http://wanted.wantmag.com)

In it you will see, in all its Retina Display glory (pictures are the same resolution as on a iPhone 4, our way of saying thanks to Apple for such a gorgeous display) a continuous stream of products we deem special in their form, their functionality, their archetypal beauty or their innovative ways.

Any product that moves us in one form or another...will be celebrated in Wanted.

The art of usable design: making a case

We hear "Design is not Art!" from user experience advocates all the time--as if the second were to be a lesser trait, something to avoid like the plague.
We think this allergic reaction stems from a desire to validate UX as a science, to elevate the discipline to a profession with measurable, predictable results (look at the job titles: "content engineer," "information architect"), and divest UX from the long-held confusion of non-practitioners that have considered design a matter of opinion, rather than expertise.

But we predict one day soon, when art will regain its deserving place as the key ingredient to good experience. When everybody has read a book on usability testing and everyone is trained on user-centered metrics, only the artists capable of conjuring added value in the form of memorable experiences, will regain their leadership place. "Art" is indeed as inscrutable as "quality" (exactly like Robert M. Pirsig deducted in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values) and it is probably so because it involves many human emotional variables that are hard to measure and replicate with accuracy.

Help Us Celebrate Desirable Design

Please feel free to subscribe and enjoy with us products that deserve attention, products that are important. If you have a Tumblr account, you can "follow" us and "reblog" whenever deserving.

If you think the effort is worthwhile, please recommend us to the Tumblr community by selecting the "Designers" audience at http://www.tumblr.com/directory/recommend/non-profit/wantmag

And finally: if you equally feel inspired by a product, a site, a place, play along with us! Submiting your infatuation here: http://wanted.wantmag.com/submit

 

Introducing WantMag's "UX Lovers'" T-shirts

We looked outside the box as well; at entertainment sites like
HomeStarRunner.com and touring rock bands (the latter of which I know more
about than I'd prefer to go into here). Both make a surprising percentage of
their revenue from merchandise.

But why would anyone want to buy Want Magazine merchandise? Sure, our logo
is a pleasure to look at, as are most of our staff. Even Dahveed. But you
don¹t want a t-shirt with my face on it. Do you?

So we thought about what the UX industry was lacking, and we think we found
it: a sense of humor. Granted, we've shared many a laugh with our
contemporaries. But the industry in general seems to take itself pretty
seriously.

We're using Zazzle for our shirts, which means that our profit margin is
slim. But half the fun is having these shirts out there. Take a look for
yourself!

Buy,

Ken Grobe
Managing Editor
Want Magazine

Introducing RELOAD-001

A quarterly online magazine? Yep.

Why? Glad you asked.

Mostly, it¹s because we¹re magazine fans from way back. Dahveed loved the immaculately designed RAYGUN (find me a designer that didn¹t), and I¹ll bet I still have a copy of MIGHT or MONDO 2000 somewhere in storage. I could go on and on about why a quarterly format has a chance...maybe in another post.

That said, We know the accepted wisdom for an online content entity is to release daily, or several times daily. Forging a relationship with the online reader/consumer is important. We get it.

Reload is our hat-tip to that sort of relationship-building. After a Release, we plan to knock out an extra bit of similarly themed content to remind you that we¹re around. If you like it, we hope you pass it along, and lead people to all the great interviews, essays, and other content over
which we¹ve slaved.

Reload will also incorporate a few other minor announcements we think you'll get a kick of...about which, more tomorrow.

MALCOLM WHO NOW?

While finishing up Release-001: The Engineering of Desire, one of my favorite figures in popular culture passed away. Malcolm McLaren came from the London rag trade armed with half a late-60s art school education and created one of the most pervasive cultural trends of the 20th century (Punk) and midwifed another (Hip-Hop). He was part P.T. Barnum, part Fagin from Oliver Twist, and a true architect of want.

Of course, what with co-launching a new magazine, wrangling a host of contributors, and getting a few hours of sleep, I simply couldn¹t find the time to research/write/rewrite the sort of piece I felt McLaren deserved.That is, until, now.

To wit: Anarchy in the UX: Engineering Desire the Malcolm McLaren Way.

Release-002 will be along before you know it. in the meantime, enjoy and share Reload-001.

Thanks for your kind attention,

Ken Grobe
Managing Editor
Want Magazine

Public thanks... And public apology

Dan Saffer & Peter Merholz... Last of the UX Lx Speaker series

Just as last week’s Peter Merholz (Founder/President of Adaptive Path) interview gave us a bunch of good insights on what experience is for him, this week we have Dan Saffer say his own piece and reveal some of his very own Kicker Studio's latest projects and interests (From touch devices to robots).

Sure, the quality of our video can be variable (We get better with every technical challenge) but the content within is mesmerizing...  Even if merely to gawk on the real people behind the books and ideas that shape the industry of User Experience.

This project, Want Magazine, is already proving a worthwhile endeavor to us, the people making it. Despite the many hours invested putting it together, we feel we get more than we give... And so it encourages us to keep on building a channel for all these relevant voices.

Beyond our May 15th premiere, we are already interviewing the next batch of experience-makers. You will not be dissapointed. Yet more goodness awaits!

New From WantMag: The #linkraid

We at Want Magazine read tons of 'em. And more often than not, we find great
information worth sharing via Twitter.

Most sites and blogs with a one post worth reading, have multiple posts just
as good. A sound assumption, right?

But therein lies the problem with Twitter. One tweet in your feed can get
buried pretty easily. Multiple links from the same site look might look like
lazy curation.

But face it. Odds are if you like one post from a site, you'll like others.
Take http://wantmag.com for example (after May 15) if you don't believe me.

So we had an idea: let's turn multiple retweets into an event: a "raid" of
that site's links, if you will.

Each Monday, around noon PST, @wantmag will run 5 or so tweets in a row,
each showcasing a recent and/or outstanding link from a particular site,
each with the #linkraid hashtag. We hope the multiple-post, "event" nature
of the 'raid will enable the site to stay on your radar, as it deserves to.

We've done two of them already, and our third, showcasing Frog Design's blog
can be found over at http://www.twitter.com/wantmag . You can find those
tweets via the #linkraid hashtag. Or just go here:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23linkraid

Just another fine service provided you by the attractive folks at Want
Magazine. T-minus five days to launch!

Cheers,

Ken Grobe
Managing Editor
Want Magazine

Do tease me bro!

Ah yes, we keep on teasing you... In the hopes of seduction taking place.

1. Tweet the heck out of our site. More visitors would fill our analytics (and our hearts), and someday make potential advertisers become more willing to sponsor our content. Tell friends and family. That is why you have implemented social tools overload (Facebook it, Digg it, Buzz it, you name it)
2. Submit your email for the final release notification. This will allow us to send you a 1-time reminder... as well as an opt-in choice to be part of our future community.
3. Become a Fan/Like our Facebook page and follow our Twitter feed. Not only they are a great way to keep you posted on upcoming content, but in the case of Facebook it is also a useful tool for us to get some interesting demographics on our audience so we can tailor future content.

Different fonts for different WANTs

Everybody has their different organizing tricks. And as an editor, you can
imagine I deal with a lot of text. A LOT.

Take WANT Magazine, Release 001, making its debut May 15. We conducted six
live interviews with some of the leading lights in the UX industry. Each
interview came out to 20-30 pages of transcript. Which I'm still combing
through and turning up gems of UX insight. But I digress.

Since WANT_001 has a central theme, "The Engineering of Want," we had a
handful of questions that we asked of each of our subjects. The big-picture
thought being, "Won't it be interesting to see how different
people answer the same question?"

And it is interesting, as the public will find out on 5/15.

Provided, of course, that while juggling multiple 30-page interview
transcripts, I don't accidentally mix up the answers while cutting and
pasting.

Which I didn't, thanks to my brilliant system: Fonts!

I assigned to each interviewee a different font, so that when pasting
multiple viewpoints into a doc, I didn't confuse them. I now have several
docs that look like I took dictation from Sybil Dorsett.

Mind you, I did not choose my fonts lightly. I chose ones that best
represented the gentlemen I interviewed. Jakob Nielsen: a font that
represented a career that went back to pre-web days. Bill Scott: striking,
but with a bit of classic serif to it. Dan Saffer...well, he was my only
arbitrary one. I did him first so I just left his in my MS Word default.
Nothing personal, Dan!

Above, you can see the guys and the fonts I assigned them. Let me know if
you think I'm on point with these!

Teaser is ON

New Managing Editor

Today I have exciting news: Ken Grobe is signing-up as Editor-In-Chief
of Want Magazine.

Ken was the number one candidate on my short list for this important
role, and after a few exchanges of pre-emptive correspondence,
yesterday we brainstormed and finally agreed upon his collaboration
over coffee.

I am convinced that Ken will bring a distinctive personality to the
magazine and a unique voice to our content...which, in the case of
Want, are crucial ingredients. He¹ll be the gatekeeper of copy style &
tone and will guide future staff writers and contributing editors to
fill our News, Opinions, and Products silos with the best possible
content. He¹ll also handle the more standard editorial tasks of
assigning articles, editing copy, and cracking the whip on lazy
freelancers. You want to write for Want? Talk to him.

The magazine will nurture an active point-of-view in the UX space, and
Ken is well-known for strong opinions and a sense of showmanship that
I hope Want inherits to set new standards in the space of experience
design.

Ken is also brings a well-honed sense of social communities and social
media, as well as a taste for radical (even disruptive) entertaining
content. A perfect match for the attitude-infused leanings of Want!

He¹s an award-winning copywriter, and a published author. More
recently, Ken ran the community and blog of Ask.com and is a recurrent
contributor to Examiner.com.

Ken also has sidelines in comics publishing and comedy, and currently
writes for San Francisco¹s best-known sketch comedy company, Killing
My Lobster. His sordid past includes stints in a VILLAGE VOICE-praised
comedy/rock band, and as a contestant on THE GONG SHOW. Ask him about
it sometime.

I must say that an important piece of the Want Magazine puzzle just
fell into place!

Ken, welcome to the ride.