Jon Tan's Profile

It's a stitch-up! Okay, okay, I concede. Seven things coming sometime soon (and I may even try to port this meme into the design fraternity).

Posted in /blog/2009/jan/seven-things.

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 at 08:02:01: Link

Hi Michael. What do you mean by a Unicode font? Do you mean fonts that include all 95,221 Unicode characters?

To answer you second question, as the article Chris linked to indicates, EOT and OTF can both have subsets depending on the unicode range required which can reduce the file size significantly. For example, to the 32KB (OTF) or 10KB (EOT) in the article.

Posted in /blog/2008/oct/font-linking.

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 at 04:19:37: Link

Thanks for the mention, Chris. I'm looking forward to the follow-up. I think the hard-won experience of web app security people can help the type and design communities avoid mistakes that have gone before, and understand how to move forward.

Posted in /blog/2008/oct/font-linking.

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 at 04:44:52: Link

It was great to be there, meet so many good people, and soak in the atmosphere (sometimes literally). Mint was a highlight! Next time out of the blocks I have a feeling our talk might prompt a few more discussions, especially given the very useful feedback from people. Thanks for hosting me Chris, I appreciate it.

Posted in /blog/2008/jul/oscon-wrapup.

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 at 09:52:07: Link

Thanks for posting this Chris. The only thing stopping a typophile like me using it is that lack of a Safari plugin (hint, hint, guys). :)

Posted in /blog/2008/may/openid-with-myvidoop.

Wed, 07 May 2008 at 19:02:35: Link

In principle, Chris' analysis is right. It's important to separate the UX issue from the outright security ones. Leaving URLs, and other possible development flaws aside, the issue that initially emerged here is of of user experience, or user expectations.

The definitions of security and privacy as Don has described are not necessarily congruent with the understanding of users. Add to that what seems like a genuine desire to give users finely granulated control over their content, and what you end up with is a degree of confusion. If that confusion leads to users choosing privacy/security settings that they didn't intend, it is a UX issue.

Without delving further in to the checks and balances within the interface, it's impossible to say how secure the user experience is. However, even with the extra form labels, there is obviously an issue of clarity, and perhaps one of decision validation. User testing would provide empirical evidence of any flaws, and allow better design decisions. If the finely granulated settings need to persist, then my recommendation would be revisiting a user centered design process as well as fixing the entirely separate programatical security problems, if they exist.

If nothing else, this example serves to demonstrate that user experience design is critical to security when users gate keep their own content.

Posted in /blog/2008/jan/security-and-user-experience.

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 at 10:13:22: Link

Nick, not only are you dead wrong, but your comment was also rude.

...half-assed reliance-on-authority screed

See my point? Chris was exploring Tim O'Reilly's idea of the Web as OS, quoting the Unix philosophy, then citing and linking to the same. He did a pretty good job of provoking some interesting thoughts, too. Was the entry really a screed? It is neither long, monotonous, or ranting. Did you actually read it? I ask because you seem really quick to judge, and have done so with complete inaccuracy.

Posted in /blog/2007/oct/the-internet-is-the-new-unix.

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 at 04:52:21: Link

The barrier to usage is just memorization...

Michael, I think that, in a way, that proves my point. Great user experience is about learning by exploration and play and minimizing the learning curve. This is at the core of the best Web applications today. I'm not sure if UNIX lends itself to that.

To use "UBIX" :) , all a person need memorize is how to push a few keys, hit enter and use a mouse. Trail and error takes over from that point and, most of all, it's (hopefully) designed to be fun. Is that true for UNIX?

For me, one of the missing pieces of the Web as OS is related to Nate's comment: Privacy, but also intellectual property. Amongst the score of user accounts, different data types and applications people use, there is not single simple way of managing the data, or porting it. I think that personal domain applications with high quality GUIs to manage the data, and open data formats to port it are the future.

This also seems consistent with the Web of All Things, that the W3C are working towards. As a consequence, I wonder how Yahoo, Amazon or Facebook would adapt to people owning and managing their own data, on their own domain and porting it to applications to use available tools as they see fit? Be fun to find out.

Posted in /blog/2007/oct/the-internet-is-the-new-unix.

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 at 10:57:26: Link

I think I spot a straw man from Valenz. My logic identifier is overclocking today. :)

Chris, I agree, and not least of all because to do a few things well, is much better than doing a lot of things poorly. However, UNIX is not a friendly place unless you've leaped over the high barrier to technical enlightenment. Maybe another way of looking at it is that the Internet is evolving into everypersons' UNIX. No longer the platform of the technically erudite; a ubiquitous OS: UBIX!

Posted in /blog/2007/oct/the-internet-is-the-new-unix.

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 at 06:36:15: Link

Good to hear from Alex how much work the guys are putting in. Immediacy is not so important to me, so the intermittent update lag to my phone in the UK is not an issue.

What I value above all else, are the glimpses into friend's lives that I would not ordinarily have. Twitter can paint great pictures in my head, and with a little selective friends management, delivers signal rather than noise almost all of the time.

It's coming to replace IM as the primary method of staying in touch over distance because of the passive, unobtrusive experience so the IRC analogy seems spot on, Chris.

Picture messaging a la Yappd would be welcome for my purposes then I wouldn't have to type at all, just point, click and push. :)

Posted in /blog/2007/oct/i-almost-get-twitter.

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 at 08:06:50: Link