Author: thisduck

designing for debt

The TTC is currently (and has been for a while) running ads for debt management. There are two companies that are running their ads, CreditCanada.com and InChargeCanada.ca. Let’s compare.

Starting with the subway adverts:

Credit Canada

Credit Canada Subway Advertisement

This is an awesome ad. Large clear font, extremely legible, perfect spacing. The hook is the ad copy, “like hell money doesn’t buy happiness”. This literally compels you to look below and get more details. The details are also clear. Motto/slogan, followed by website, followed by phone number. Done. Message sent, message understood.

They have a number of these on the subway cars, and each one had a different ad copy, one of them reads, “Rags to?” . It’s clever, it makes you think, and once you have, you know someone else put thought into it.

In Charge Canada

*apologies for the picture below, it was taken by my phone camera. I need a spiffy camera like the one that was used to take the picture above.

In Charge Canada Subway Advert

There is so much that is wrong with this, I don’t know where to begin.

Let’s start with the distribution of information. It’s all crammed in. The spacing is awful, there is no breathing room. The mini paragraph is useless, because it’s small and hard to read. Also because it has no flow, the capitalized and bold words are used way too much, breaking the rhythm of the sentences. If your sentences require this much emphasis, they’re probably wrong.

The background color is too close to the empty lighting cover in the back, this doesn’t help draw any attention to the ad.

There are pictures of people. Big Mistake. At least in my opinion. Because I’m thinking, “ah so that’s what people who were in debt look like”. And if they are the same race or the same type of person as me, I wouldn’t be too pleased. Who do you put there? White people? Black people? Brown people? seriously, keep people pictures out of debt ads, or at the very least cleverly cover their identities.

The next part I really really hate. There are mini-flyers hanging off the ad that people are supposed to rip off so they can remember the phone number and the website and other details. First of all, the ad is so bad that they realized they should probably have some physical take away for people. Thanks, but do you really want me to get up, walk up to a terrible debt management ad and rip off your mini-flyer in front of all these people?

“Oh haha, yes, this isn’t for me, oh no no, this is for a friend, she’s addicted to gambling”.

Ummm… no. Get a better ad copy so that people remember your ad without having to exert too much effort, not to mention face possible public embarrassment. You should be grateful that someone even bothered to look at your ad.

Slogans

InCharge: Debt Solutions

CreditCanada: Debt is Manageable

Sigh, yet once again. CreditCanada completely nailed it, their slogan gives you hope, it’s as if someone is talking directly to you. InCharge’s sounds like corporate drivel, like “Web-based Solutions” what does that even mean?

Websites

It’s interesting how the design philosophies of each company is not only reflected in their subway advertisements, but also in the design of their website. InCharge is all crammed up as well, while CreditCanada is lean, clean and very well spaced out.

I land on the InCharge website and I think to myself, “what? what should I do next?”. When I land on the CreditCanada website I think, “hmmm… I want to find out more about X, and gee look, I know exactly where to click to find it”.

InCharge is too image heavy, while CreditCanada is text heavy, which is great for search engines. Taking a look at the code, InCharge is table based, while CreditCanada is using proper CSS based layouts. HTML validation shows CreditCanada to have 5 errors (minor things, really), InCharge has over 60 errors.

InCharge was way too many menu options, and the side bar on the right distracts from the content. CreditCanada has excellent consistency in the pages, and has a simple side menu.

Think about it, if you’re in debt and you visit one of these sites. If you visit CreditCanada, it seems open, lots of room to relax and breathe, and you can use that since you’re in debt and all. InCharge, however, you feel more cramped and uneasy.

If you had to choose a company to help you get out of debt, who would you choose?

the design of things

I love good design, good design makes me happy. Design encompasses a whole lot though. There is graphic design, costume design, software design. etc… Pretty much everything is designed in some form or another. There’s aesthetic design and there’s design for usability. Take craigslist.org for example, not so good in the aesthetic department, but it serves its purpose so well and is very usable, information is well organized (this is also design) and easy to find.

Great design requires great thought. So much work, planning, constraints and issues. Colors, spacing, font, words, flow, patterns… so much.
Overall, I’m not too great a designer (hopefully except for software design), but I admire good design. But most important of all, I consume design.  When I see something, I’ll quickly develop an opinion about its design.

I’ll use this ‘design of things’ category to comment on… wait for it… the design of things. All sorts of things: physical products (e.g. mp3 players), tv commercials, ad copies, logos, websites etc.

Should be fun.

tujhse naaraaz nahi zindagi

Facebook removed the “is” from their status. So I figured I would do my msn thing where I tag a line from a song along side my name. But since this is f8, they allow you to post things, and youtube has moving pictures for most of the songs I’d come up with. I figured, let’s post the song.

“tujhse naaraaz” came to mind, it’s funny though because I never really heard or understood the lyrics of that song, beyond the first two lines. So when I thought of it, I only thought of the starting of the song, something to put in as a status. But the song is so good, that anyone can connect to it. Because it’s so… real, and the emotion it draws is real.

I copy/pasted a translation on facebook, but I don’t think it was adequate. So here’s a re-attempt, in simplified dummy adnan words. I mean, who uses the word astonished in normal conversation? Although, feel totally free to correct/improve.

My English translation:

tujhse naaraaz hahin zindagi hairan hoon main
I am not upset with you, life… I am surprised

tere masoom sawaalon se pareshan hoon main
by your innocent questions… I am worried
(although, I would prefer this read: “your innocent questions worry me”)

jeene ke liye sochaa hi nahin dard sambhaalne honge
I never thought, that for me to live, I would have to bear such pains

muskuraye to muskurane ke karz utaarne honge
that for me to smile, I would have to pay a debt for smiling
(note: this is an important distinction here, not “take on a debt” but to “pay off a debt”)

muskuraye kabhi to lagta hai jaise hothon pe karz rakha hai
and when I do smile, it feels as if I have placed this debt upon my lips

beautiful still.

It’s awesome, because when I posted the song it got responses from folk who don’t understand the language, that is something I didn’t expect at all. Emotion does truly transcend language. Methinks I shall try and post a song each day. Which ends up sounding like a new year’s resolution.

It’s interesting, how things are connected. Given the time of the year, in conversations with anjum, it reminded me about my “new year’s resolution” from last year. Hah, I’m not sure if over the year I was able to accomplish those two goals. I think I’ve talked ever so slightly less, but not noticeably smiled a whole lot more. I try/tried though.

It is also interesting how it connects to the newunion (will yasmine blog about it already!). Because some of us have issues/difficulties with smiling. Definitely, in ways, a little dead inside. Just a little.

It’s also interesting how the song connects the thought of smiling to a debt that needs to be paid, and how that connects to money and happiness, and how that connects to the creditcanada.com ads on the TTC subway. Much the discussion during the newunion.

Although I will still contend that the currency of debt in the song is not cash money. I think the song attributes a certain burden/heavyness to smiling, and thus we smile less on an overall scale, or at least in front of a camera. As if for smiling there is a cost that will need to be paid, and so when you even think about smiling, you would have to consider those costs.

Smiling should, however, be free (as in speech and as in beer).

But really, what are the costs of smiling? what are its returns?

🙂

CouchDB

This news makes me happy. It means you can bake your cake, eat it, and share it too. I’m being completely bowled over by the power of free (as in speech) software. Awesomeness.

Good for you Damien. I’m also in love with the CouchDB logo:

CouchDB logo

I’ve been meaning to mess around with CouchDB, the whole document based database with Lucene based full-text search intrigues me much. Not to mention the JSON and REST interface. “relax”… I think I just might.


performing personality

I am an introvert. If I were to take a snapshot of me right now, I’d have me confused, I would be unsure, in fact, I would be sure that I was an extrovert.

I’m very shy with new people. But they wouldn’t know it, I think I’d have them fooled. Hmmm… some folk would recognize me for an introvert, but I gather most would not. I’m sometimes even shy with people I’ve known for a while.

It’s not as bad when you type and communicate over the web, IM, and email. It’s the spoken word that scares me.

There is such an immense and intense battle within, that I have to win each time, as I transform thought into spoken words. And this just for normal conversations. When I am on stage performing a skit, at a podium during a debate or in front of a crowd doing magic, it is like a war of nuclear proportions inside of me.

The more passionate I am about something the more difficult I find to get my message through. Even under normal times, I will start to stutter, start to spew out incomprehensible sentences. Such a fight and struggle just to say a few simple sane words. It’s as if that split moment starts to crumble right before me, the moment passes outside of the realm of my control. Yet, somehow I breathe and somehow I survive.

Then why is it so difficult the second time around?

I barely use the phone, I don’t like using the phone. Phone calls require talking – spoken words.

It wouldn’t be surprising if a lot of the performers out there were also extreme introverts. I’m definitely not unique in what I go through, so I wonder how people do it. I don’t create moments, I find myself in a moment and go along for the ride.

Sigh… breathe… okay.

So I found this personality test (no sign up or sign in required), which I thought was interesting not because of the gadgetry but because of the detailed nature of the questioning. It doesn’t ask you whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert, it does an assessment based on your answers. There is also a PersonalDNA Facebook application.