Author: Ryan

A study by UK Driving Standards Agency found that 40,863 women failed their driving test due to a “lack of control”while in reverse—only 18,798 men failed for the same reason. Case closed, right? Men are superior drivers. Well, not so fast…

About 94 percent of all crashes involving death or bodily harm involve male drivers. Women tend to be better than men at centering their vehicles while in reverse—3 percent of women can do it properly, compared to only 25 percent of men. Women are even 27 percent less likely than men to cause auto accidents. Men are more prone than women to receive the following violations: reckless driving, DUI, seatbelt violations, speeding, failure to yield, and stop sign/signal violation. Men are also more likely to drive 25 mph over the speed limit and get on the roof of a moving car—no respectable lady would ever do such a thing, right? The most aggressive drivers are men between ages 17-35. Men honk their horns three times faster than women when drivers ahead do not move on a green light. Unfortunately for men, they have more crashes due to driving violations that tend to be more deliberate and risky.

So, case closed. Women are actually the superior drivers. Well, hold up there for a minute. Women are actually more likely to use a cell phone while driving, and 20 percent of all women have admitted to (many are probably lying) putting on makeup while driving. Women also have more crashes than men as a result of lapses in judgment while driving.

The truth of the matter is that both men and women have dangerous flaws when it comes to driving. Men are more agressive (but more decisive). Women are more careless (but also more restrained). What’s your take on this? Please share in the comments! If you need more information to reach a verdict, check out the infographic below:

courtesy of: Shift Insurance.

It’s important to decorate your living space so that it feels like home, whatever you want home to be like. Even if you spend most of your time in a camper van you can still add storage space and make it feel roomy and inviting. The following top 5 campers have really cool interior designs that you can incorporate into your own camper van.

1. A Double Duty Kitchen

Even when residing in a camper van you can still have a working kitchen. This kitchen allows users to store their stove in its special drawer when they are done using it. Items such as a tea kettle can be placed in the sink and the sink can be covered up to add much needed counter space.

2. Up High Storage Bins

These bins are a great example of van racking and are a great way to store little items such as toiletries or even undergarments. You can put ceiling high shelving up yourself and get storage bins to match the overall theme of your interior. To keep the bins from moving around when you are traveling, attach a piece of Velcro to the shelf and the bin to easily and inexpensively keep it in place.

3. Door Storage Shelves

Doors with shelves attached are a great place to store items. Shelves can be placed on the door and the items that are stored can be easily accessed whether the doors are open or closed. Things like dishtowels or kitchen accessories are the perfect items to store on shelves that are on doors. Just make sure that the placement of the shelves still allows you to access the door’s handle and locks.

4. Fun Decor

The easiest way to make a camper van feel like home is to add a fun decor. You can reupholster bench seats yourself and add matching pillows as well. Don’t forget to add a skid resistant rug to the flooring and curtains that will complement the overall interior. You can even put pictures up if you attach them to the wall securely. To make the camper van look bigger, consider using light or pastel colors that give the allusion of the space actually being larger than it is.

5. Customized Bed

You can fit a bed into your camper van by getting creative. Simply attach a bed approximately 3 feet from the ceiling to leave several feet below it for storage. You can even attach a small TV to the wall towards the front of your bed so that it feels like a bedroom.

Over the years Audi has been known for it’s luxurious cars. Audi was founded in a time when cars were only available to the very wealthy and only seen as a luxury item and status symbol. Unlike Ford in America, they were not concerned with making automobiles available and practical for everyone, they were concerned with luxury.

Even though Audi was found in Germany, their luxurious cars have become increasingly popular in the United States. Sales in recent years have soared as more and more people are experiencing the luxury and power of an Audi.

Want to learn more about the history of Audi’s luxurious cars? Check out the infographic below presented by The Auto Gallery.

Audi Luxury Through The Years Infographic from TheAutoGalleryAudi.com

I think there’s a benefit to being one of six people that no one knew. No VCs would return our calls and we were broke and bootstrapping it and operating under the radar so we could focus on the most important things: the product, the users, what we were building. There’s all this noise, the tech-crunch, which you have to tune out if you want to build a good product. None of that stuff is additive; it all takes away from building a product.

—Caterina Fake on developing in obscurity.

I teach the way that I wish I was taught.

—Sal Khan, Khan Academy

A couple weeks ago I gave a talk at the MFA in Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. The video for the talk and Q&A session is online now. When Liz Danzico invited me to speak at the SVA, I thought it would fit the university setting to share some theory behind our design process at 37signals.

One book that heavily influenced my approach to design is Christopher Alexander’s Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Many designers cite the book as an influence, but few really explain what it’s about or teach how to apply the ideas in everyday work. So I took the opportunity to explain the key points of the book and show how we use Alexander’s model to do design at 37signals.

Here’s the video of the talk:

Some of the screenshots are hard to see around 38:30. Check the images below if you’d like to see those screens more clearly.

Highrise history	Options behind a link	A new link to notify	Embedded notification form

The talk was followed by a Q&A session. The Q&A touches on customer feedback, design vs. evolutionary selection and trusting your intuition.

Here are some things to check out if you liked the talk.

• Notes on the Synthesis of Form – The book by Christopher Alexander.
• An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design – An early article I wrote on Alexander’s technique when I first ran into it in 2004.
• Domain-Driven Design by Eric Evans – Mentioned at the end of the talk.
• UI Fundamentals for Programmers – A talk I gave at WindyCityRails in Chicago.

I’d love to know if people are interested in this material. Post a comment here or write me at ryan at 37signals dot com with your thoughts.

I recently spent a couple weeks in Japan, which is an amazing place for designers. There were thoughtful details everywhere I went. One example is the custom alarm clock in my Tokyo hotel (the Courtyard Marriott in Ginza).

This alarm is beautifully simple. There are only three buttons: decrement alarm time, increment alarm time, and on/off. The bottom row of buttons control the lighting of the room. (The white cable is from my iPhone charger, not part of the alarm).

I really like how the alarm time isn’t hidden behind a mode. The alarm time appears beside the current time in orange LED whenever the alarm is on. It doesn’t replace the current time, so you don’t have to track which mode is active. The two times look different from each other. The orange letters also give confirmation that the alarm is in fact set (which can be a concern when you rely on an unfamiliar device to wake you up).

When the increment/decrement buttons are held, the current time disappears to focus on the alarm time.

One of my favorite details is something you can’t see in these photos. The alarm is a solid brick of metal. It’s black and heavy, with no branding or seams visible anywhere. Solid, unobtrusive, and perfectly optimized—that’s a good design.

The fact that I set little store by certain postulates (often deemed to be fundamental) of our present-day biology the reader will have discovered and I have not endeavored to conceal.

—D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson in the epilogue of On Growth and Form.

A little sketching is an exploration. A lot of sketching is a procrastination.

There’s gotta be something good you can say when the cops pull you over, right?

Ad agency Mullen chose to focus on Zappos’ famous customer service for their new ad campaign. The twist is, behind the puppets and comedy are recordings of actual customer service calls. Mullen’s making of video explains how they basically pranked Zappos to get the audio for the ads. The results are funny, fresh, and true to the experience of calling Zappos. Awesome stuff.

I walked into a Sprint store today to check out the Palm Pixi. AT&T has been bad enough lately that, while I’m not ready to chuck the iPhone, I’m at least growing curious. Unfortunately “walking in” is about all I could do.

Every smartphone in the Sprint store was locked under glass cabinets. The untouchable phone displays were covered in fake screenshot stickers. Two weary looking gentlemen in polo shirts manned the back counter and a queue of six customers (shoppers?) aimlessly paced the floor, waiting for something to happen.

It took about 30 seconds to realize there was nothing to gain from my store visit. After a quick round to be sure I didn’t miss a demo unit somewhere, I turned back to the street. Is this typical of Sprint stores?

Compare this experience to the Apple store. iPhones and iPods are less than six feet away from the entrance door. All you have to do is reach out and grab one. Salespeople meander around you, instead of you around them. A total Apple newbie can go from curious to salivating in about 90 seconds in that environment.

Can you imagine if Apple locked their products under glass cabinets? Or put stickers with screenshots over their displays? Who makes these decisions?

I’m excited to give a talk at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I’m going to walk through Christopher Alexander’s design theory and explain how to apply it to everyday web app UI work. Alexander’s book Notes on the Synthesis of Form had a huge influence on me early in my career at 37signals. It’s going to be a lot of fun to share key points from that book with an audience for the first time. I hope you can come out to see it.

Where:
MFA Interaction Design Department
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City

When:
Wednesday, April 7
6:30-8:30PM

See the event page at the SVA’s MFA in Interaction Design program to RSVP.

UPDATE: The talk is now sold-out.

Top notch UI copywriting from Wufoo.

The thing [our clients] bring to the table is this extensive knowledge of their domain. The thing that we [software designers] bring to the table is the clarity that we think with. I don’t think our primary thing we bring to the table is our technical competence, although we need that. We need to be good enough to know how to do the implementation. But the thing that we bring that’s really critical to the process is we think sharply. We are able to abstract and we are able to define things crisply.

—Another one from Eric Evans, but good stuff is good stuff. This time from Putting the model to work.

If you can’t understand it, you can’t change it.

—Eric Evans on code and the reasons for thoughtful modeling. From his talk What I’ve learned about DDD since the book.

[Computing is] a place where you don’t have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It’s a place where you can still be an artisan. People are willing to pay you if you’re any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.

—Alan Kay in 1972

Anil Dash on the real-time audience

When you are in an audience you see other people around you and there’s a social magic there. People band together, get excited, and things happen. Anil Dash thinks this reveals an opportunity on the increasingly “real time” web. How would sites or web apps be different if you could see who else is there with you in each moment?