Emily Chang - Blog

It's the weekend and I'm going through my digital archives and files again. I know, it's an obsession. While I definitely output a lot to the web and the social sites I use, there's always an exponentially increasing amount of digital data that I'm collecting on my computer and storage devices. The more I collect on my hard drives, the less fluid I'm feeling. So, I'm plan to start a process I've done before - transferring everything I create or collect from on my many hard drives to my site, including notes, designs, references, observations, art, writing, photographs, videos and screenshots... a living archive of personal ephemera. Read more...

After spending the last two years as eHub, obsessively profiling and trying out almost every web application that's come out, I've decided to try something different from a new perspective. I just launched PicoCool, a site that's dedicated to bringing you tiny and obscure content from the world of peer media, social networks and subcultures. Read more...

Ever since I started using Twitter, Tumblr, and Stikkit, it seems I haven't been able to finish a blog post. Instead, I'm just Twittering, collecting, reading, posting: generally zipping through the electronic universe leaving a varied trail of my activities and thoughts. Read more...

As I was designing for a client web application today, I kept living through John Maeda's first law of simplicity: thoughtful reduction. The goal was to design a new comments system for parts of the site so members were more likely to leave little notes for each other. In order to make it fun and easy, we wanted to reduce the person's input to as few clicks as possible, but with enough expression that she would want to click it. Read more...

I'm still thinking about simplicity/minimalism vs. experiential and emotional experiences. If memory is strongly attributed to adrenaline, then shouldn't we design for optimal emotional attachment? Or, do we design so it's "so simple" that you don't have to think about it? Read more...

The best way to present or analyze a design would be to record the desktop of an entire design cycle so that people (users, clients, developers, customers, etc.) can see the entire process that led up to the final prototype. Today's designer works in a varied environment between screengrabs, layout, code, browser, chat: a hybrid approach with a process that's fluid and hyperreal. I've yet to see a true representation of the design process. Maybe I'll try to document a design lifecycle using recorded desktop video. Might run into size limitations. Read more...

Came across these two Chinese proverbs tonight while looking through old notes. Read more...

In our accelerated culture, I can think of a particular Devo song and have it downloaded from a music site within seconds. This instant gratification is in contrast to other desires: eg. the slow food movement, craft, longevity. Read more...

In mathematics, the highest measure of a mathematical forumal is to have internal elegance. I think the same is true for web apps and design. Read more...

Many of the trends we've been seeing in Web 2.0 aren't limited to the internet, as much the Valley likes to think so :) Ideas that arise from subcultures do so for a reason. Sometimes because one person rises up to claim it, but more often because a collective group of people are feeling and observing the same cultural climate. Read more...

Recent posts have been expressing why people don't like using social software, or believe it's just a passing fad. Since I disagree, I've made a short list of why I do use social software, and why I think the social aspects of our digital interactions will only increase not decrease. Read more...