December 12, 2018

Supporting Firefox

With the news about Edge switching to a foundation using Chromium a lot of the conversation has centered on browser engines slipping into something of a monoculture. I believe these fears are coming from a good place – a monoculture certainly is not desirable, and a persistent challenge from competitors keeps tech at its best. Compounding this news was also a link floating around stating that Mozilla Firefox was staring at a market share of below 9%. What gives me pause, however, is that much of the advocacy for Firefox seems to stem from the fact that it’s not Chrome. The pure logic of such a strategy is clear, but is it particularly convincing as a technique?

Speaking more broadly for a moment, we as a society apply a lot of pressure on people to do stuff – to save the planet, and make the world a better place, and all the rest of it. Much of it is advocated through what I would describe as almost ‘fear-based’ language – kind of “do x or y will happen” type scenarios. To be fair, much of it is set up that way. There’s no real selfish benefit to e.g recycling, its pretty much about the altruism. In fact, if you read the news, the stakes are pretty high it would seem. For me, the conversation around Firefox strays too close to these heavy ultimatums. I think this kind of conversation is naturally fatiguing, and creates a particularly negative means of ushering new users into the platform – almost as hostages, rather than excited participants.

It’s time we analyse what Firefox does better than Chrome, and sing those praises. For instance, it’s arguably easier to avoid tracking with Firefox if that’s your speed. I’m sure there are other things – does Firefox beat Chrome out for speed? Or is it better featured in some areas? Perhaps Firefox is lacking things; I’ve been using WebSockets a lot recently, and Chrome’s frame-by-frame view of a WebSocket connection is invaluable. As far as I’m aware, Firefox doesn’t have this (yet). These aren’t concrete suggestions, but maybe ideas of where the conversation can go.

I think about Chrome’s usurping of Internet Explorer (IE), and I wonder (antitrust and all aside) would Chrome have usurped IE if it wasn’t for IE stagnating? I remember when I was younger and jumped ship to Chrome – personally, it wasn’t about using Chrome because it wasn’t IE, it was about Chrome beating IE in a foot race and offering me a clean user experience.

Firefox is a fantastic browser, and the need to grow its market share is more pressing than ever. By making people excited to use Firefox rather than wary of using Chrome, I believe we can more effectively galvanise support for Firefox, and improve the health of the browser ‘market’ all round.

December 11, 2018

What the f*ck is Moca?

So if you live in Vietnam and use Grab, you’re probably aware that they recently ditched GrabPay (their internal payment gateway) for a 3rd party, Vietnamese based solution. While that didn’t come as a surprise since they were pressured by our government for a while already, what did come as a surprise is their choice of provider: Moca.

I thought for sure they were misspelling Momo or something, as it stands they are the largest digital wallet app in Vietnam as we speak, and is an obvious choice if you’re looking for a service like that. Surely Grab, a multi billion dollar company wouldn’t choose a non established name right? But nah, they gonna go with Moca, a name most people have never even heard before in their life. But that’s ok, competition is always good for the end users, provided that the competition is, well, competitive. Let’s go ahead and check them out. A quick google search bring me to their homepage:
image
What the fuck is this shit? The English website is damn near empty, with nothing but an address and a Facebook Fan Page plugin. It’s amazing how that logo still managed to clip some of the minimal amount of content this page has
Ok that’s a little alarming. But surely you can’t judge a mobile app by the absolutely pitiful look of their desktop website. So let’s fire up Grab and check out the real thing:
dumb moca
Ok what the fuck is this shit? You ask me for my name, I enter my name, then you validate it as a motherfucking pin? What the living fuck is wrong with you? Hire a fucking UX person, hire a fucking QA team. You want to build a product, get a fucking team to build a product. Jesus fucking Christ.
Sorry for this rant again. I’m okay with beta software being buggy, I’m very much not ok with production software that millions people use on a daily basis being buggy.
December 11, 2018

What is that sexy font Google uses in all their products?

So as I was watching the official announcement of Flutter 1.0, I once again notice that all of their typographic designs used in their product used that same font: Product Sans. It’s slick, I have to have it.

Unfortunately the only thing that Google has on its official website is basically a short message saying  ‘Nah, you can’t have it, mofo’

But in all my years as a graphic designer, I’ve never let something as trivial as a licensing statement from a multi-billion dollar company deter me from trying to get my sticky fingers on the font.

So here we are:

Could this be Google Sans?
November 26, 2018

The best way to install and manage your fonts (even without admin rights)

If you’re a font hoarder like me, you’re likely to have a folder somewhere in your cloud drive that has hundreds of thousands of TTFs, OTFs. However, the process of installing fonts had always been a daunting one.

Normally, on Linux, the poor UX ideology means you have to resort to the terminal to get things done, a most unituitive way. On Windows,you can just type the word ‘Fonts’ in the Run dialog and get access to the font folder, while it’s not ideal, it’s still far better UX than OS X and Linux. However, on Windows, there’s one major obstacle, you need admin right to get access to the system font folder. At least on OS X and Linux, you can install the fonts locally.

Historically, people had to resort to a dirty workaround, that is to install PortableApps.com. It’s a messy hack as this app wasn’t specifically designed for this purpose.

Thankfully now we have a more elegant solution.

Read More

November 19, 2018

Path of Tencent

So recently I sent an email to Grinding Gear Games regarding recovering an old guild that me and my friends created 4 years ago. It was a lengthy email explaining my situation. I was very disappointed when it was declined, not because my request wasn’t granted, but because the response I got was a generic response that was most likely generated by a bot. Back in the old days, any request sent to their support address was handled by actual human beings, and the whole experience feel human.

Now all I got are these trashy, automated responses

I used to think being bought out by Tencent was actually good for GGG’s future, boy, was I wrong. No wonder why people call this game Path of Chinos these days

#sad

November 10, 2018

Zeplin Desktop client for Linux

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, we now have an excellent tool for screen design to work on right there on Linux. But what about design handoff? With Figma, normally you have 2 choices for handoff: one is Avocode, the other is Zeplin. Most people would prefer Zeplin since Avocode is a subscription based abomination. But there’s one problem for Linux screen designer: Zeplin does not have a desktop client for Linux. Now this isn’t much of an issue like other softwares because they have a webapp, but you can’t integrate Figma with the webapp, unfortunately.

After looking around, I realize Zeplin, like many other great web-based apps, was built on top of the execellnt ElectronJS framework, that means porting it is fairly trivial. After murking around, I came up with this, let me know if it works:

Download zeplin-linux-x64.tar.gz

Made with nativefier

So now that we’ve managed to make desktop client for both Figma and Linux, it should be trivial to integrate them right? Well not really, turns out the folks over at Figma currently only has the integration option enabled for their Windows and Mac client. If you’re a designer working on Linux right now, and need Figma & Zeplin integration, consider spamming their support blog for this feature. I mean, we did that hard part, creating the desktop clients for them, right? All they need to do now is enable integration between the 2 apps.

November 6, 2018

Sites with Bad UX Ep01

Skype:

• Chat screen disabled while the app load latest message.
What the actual fuck, I just want to scroll up like 3 lines to copy a phone number that I forgot to jot down, motherfucker. Why I have to wait for the latest message to load?
• Instance of the app embedded in Franz or Station won’t be able to view full sized image unless you have Skype Web logged in AND get this, open in a tab in your browser! Who the stupid fuck thought it’s a good idea?

Microsoft:

• Toast message uses an arrows instead of the timeless cross symbol, holy motherfuckingshit, one of the biggest tech companies in the world and still couldn’t afford a single UX designer.
• If you use Windows 10 you know they come with a malware masquerading as an AV called Windows Defender. Since it’s an OS-bundled malware, it’s worse than other malwares in that it cannot be removed, only temporarily disabled. Just like their stupid motherfucking Update prompts (I guess, because I’ve never personally been bothered by one of those prompts before, but I’ve seen people raging about it on the Interwebs)

Read More

October 30, 2018

Installing Figma client on Deepin Linux 15.7 Desktop

Grab install.sh from this Github and just run it.

It’s that simple, really. This is why the opensource community is great. The Figma team had failed to create a native Linux desktop app for over 2 years (which is still nothing compare to Google on their promise to launch a Google Drive client for Linux), and yet an unknown individual managed to do it in his/her spare time.

Why would you need a desktop app when Figma works in your browser, you ask? Here’s a hint: Native Font! I mean Figma did a great job integrating Google Fonts in their app (I figure that would be sufficient for 90% web-related design work). But any real designer would have to have their own font collection, and not being able to use it in their favorite design tool is just bad design.

Note: if for some reason the install script fails, you can always download a premade AppImage for Figma from the same Github

October 29, 2018

Essential things to get things done in Linux (2019 edition)

Ok I’m gonna give an honest list of the best software to use in each category in MY unbiased experience. What I mean by unbiased is that I will pick a software base solely on the overall user experience that it provides (functionality AND aesthetic), REGARDLESS of whether it’s Free software or not. Most other list will either be sponsored or heavily biased toward free software, and since there’s only one or two decent software in each category, you’ll end up seeing pretty much the same list over and over again, year in and year out.

It’s not that I don’t support free software, quite the contrary I’m actually a huge supporter of free software (why else would a graphic designer like me use Linux as his primary working platform). But I’m also aware that for a platform like Linux to gain traction in the end-user market, it needs support from software developers. Yes, all of them, even proprietary software. After all, you can only reasonably expect a program to function correctly if the developer behind it has the incentive to make it better.

Onto the list, my choices are based on the following criterias: function, aesthetic, and performance.

  • Function means it has to get the thing it was designed for done, that’s the baseline.
  • Aesthetic means it has to have a well designed interface. This is, for the longest time, the weakest point in most opensource software. Obviously it’s not as important as Function but IMO still a far more important aspect to software than most people give it credit for. A well design UI/UX will boost your productivity by a wide margin.
  • Performance means the software have to perform at its best on Linux, meaning no emulated Windows or OS X App, VMs are out of the table also. That doesn’t mean the app have to be native, mind you. It’s 2018, I will also gladly choose app created with web technologies like Figma or Vectr, granted that it runs consistently on Linux just as it does on any other platform.

 

Here we go

 

  1. Best Linux Distro: Deepin OS

List that are Freeassed will tell you about Ubuntu, Mint or Fedora

I’ve used quite a lot of different distros in my time. Off the top of my head, I’ve used Ubuntu, Mint, elementaryOS, Majaro, Arch, Fedora, Zorin. You can see there’s no Gentoo, Red Hat or CentOS in my line up. That’s because I’m not a power Linux user, I only choose distros that boast userfriendliness, aimed at the end user, with pretty interfaces. And judging by the criterias, Deepin OS takes the trophy.

I remember some 15-16 years ago, when Vietkey Linux – the first ‘Vietnamese’ operating system hit the mass. Yes it was simply a reskin of Red Hat, with little change under the hood, but it got me into liking the platform. Back then, the UI of Linux in general, compares to its contemporary counterpart Windows XP, was nothing short of a massive pile of steaming garbage. And then Ubuntu came along with its sweet streamlined interface and Compiz-powered effects. I was completely blown away.

Fast forward 16 years later, when pretty much everything on the market more or less has a good UI, I didn’t expect to get that sensation again, but then I did, when I installed Deepin OS.

To be honest, my expectation for the distro was low, mostly due to my previous experience with a Chinese distro called Red Flag Linux, yes I do realize the irony of the name. But the Deepin experience wasn’t like Red Flag, but more like MIUI. It’s clean, it’s fresh, packed with little touches that indicates there was involvement from real UI/UX/IxD designers. Unlike most Chinese product, Deepin didn’t feel like a copied and pasted product, because it’s not. The overall user experience is very pleasant (except for the setting sidebar, I mean, who brilliant UX designer was it that think people want the settings they’re changing to disappear everytime they click outside the window?)

Overall. I rate this a 10/10, the first time I ever rate a distro this high. Meaning this is a mature product, complete and ready to compete with the likes of Windows and Mac. It’s currently my production platform.

 

  1. Best Office Suite: WPS Office

List that are Freeassed will tell you about OpenOffice and LibreOffice.

Yet another software from China, by now some people must be think I might be a commie. Well I actually am, but that’s not why I choose WPS Office. I choose it simply because it is THE best office suite for Linux, in every way. LibreOffice is based on OpenOffice, this massive pile of Java code that is both fugly and sluggish. WPS on the other hand is responsive, good looking, has great compatibility (it saves as microsoft file format instead of its own), AND portability (1GB of cloud storage means you can access your file anywhere, anytime instead of worrying about forgetting to hit Ctrl-S.

Overall, the only reason why WPS hadn’t dominate the Linux office world yet is because a lot of people still use Office for idealistic reasons rather than focusing on productivity reason (and also, many people don’t trust Chinese softwares, much less storing sensitive files on their cloud). They are all valid reason, but for me, WPS is the office suite of choice.

 

  1. Best raster graphic editor: Krita

List that are Freeassed will say it’s the GIMP

As one of the longest supporter of the GNU Image Manipulation Program, it makes me sad that the software had lagged so far behind. For a while, it was considered a Photoshop ‘alternative’, and some still calls it that, but we all know that’s not the case anymore. While the offering from Adobe has received a crapton of new features over the years due to their massive resources, our beloved GIMP still look and feel like the same guy we use 10 years ago. Even the image editor that comes with K-Office: Krita beat the GIMP in every aspects. Maybe it’s time we let it rest.

Krita on the other hands had seen massive improvements over the years. It now has the UI of a professional image editor, something that the GIMP couldn’t accomplished after decades of development.

 

  1. Best vector graphic editor: Gravit Designer

List that are Freeassed will say it’s Inkscape

Don’t get me wrong, Inkscape is a heavy contender. The gap between Inkscape and AI is far smaller than the gap between GIMP and PS. And yet I still have to choose a web based app over it due to its ease of use, its beautiful aesthetic, and portability (storing files on the cloud ftw!)

 

  1. Best screen design tool: Figma

List that are Freeassed will have no idea what it is.

Screen design tool is a new software segment, one that didn’t exist just a few years ago. I myself didn’t even know of their existence until Adobe released their Adobe XD a few years ago. Yes I know that was already pretty late since Adobe themselves were late to the game, XD hit the market as a response to Sketch’s popularity. Like I said in a previous blog post, I believe that despite its massive popularity, Sketch’s days are numbered, killed by free cross-platform tools like Adobe XD and Figma.

Figma is not the best screen design tool on Linux, nor it is the best screen design tool on the web. It is THE best screen design tool, across all platform, period. Everything you do, you do directly on the cloud, you don’t ever have to worry about hitting Ctrl+S ever again!

 

  1. Best 3D software package
October 29, 2018

Why Sketch will die in 2019

Sketch, Adobe XD, Figma. If you’re a screen designer of any calibre, surely you’ve heard of at least one of these tools. They’re currently the 3 biggest players in the screen design tool arena.

 

Sketch:

  • Pros:

– Features: being the oldest tool means it has a very healthy ecosystem with a plethora of plugins

  • Cons:

– Availability: being a Mac exclusive app means it’s only a matter of time before it’s erased from the market.

– Speed: Sketch is snappy when it comes to opening a file, but viewport stability decreases drastically when navigating around a large project.

– Price: like every other Mac apps, this shit cost money. If you’re a solo creator, this app is currently more expensive than the other 2 combined times infinity.

 

Adobe XD:

  • Pros:

– Adobe Ecosystem: being tied to the biggest creativity toolset on the market is a huge!

– Price: it used to cost money, but it’s free now (undoubted in an effort to accelerate the construction of Sketch’s coffin)

– Availability: Adobe has a bit more advantage over Sketch in term of platform availability, given that it works on both Windows and OS X. A common misconception is that the majority of the design community works on OS X, that’s only true in North America and Europe. If you count globally, you’ll see that most companies operating in the outsourcing sector (India, APAC) still uses Windows as the primary operating system. Some statistics currently put Sketch at over 70% dominance, but if you count the actual product output (which is huge in the outsourcing sector), I’d suspect that number would drop to somewhere around 30%.

  • Cons:

– Adobe Ecosystem: yes, this is both a pro and con for this nifty little app. Being part of a giant company like Adobe certainly has its perk, while we know Adobe has the resources needed to make Adobe a thing, whether or not those resources are allocated correctly is a different story. We all know there’s very little innovation left going on at Adobe, having dominated the market for so long. They’ve also killed off fantastic tools like Freehand and (gasp!) Fireworks!

– Availability consistency: apart from the fact that there’s still no client on Linux (which is not a huge deal, I say this as a designer who uses Linux, I know there’s not that many of us).

 

Figma:

  • Pros:

– Availability: Figma is the champion when it comes to platform availability. This tool is built with WebGL, with desktop wrapper for desktop use (like Slack). That means it works everywhere as long as you have a web browser (currently it’s THE screen designer of choice for designer working in Linux)

– Price: if you’re a solo creator, it’s completely free, there’s no limit on the number of project you can have in your account. They only charge if you want to add more than 2 editors to your project, which is completely reasonable.