steve kwan user experience designer

Don't you just hate asynchronous CPIP message failures?

(July 29th, 2006 - 8:04PM)

I got the following error message while trying to check my grades on BCIT's online student service site.

What a helpful error message.

When developing software, it's so important to provide helpful error messages, but very few engineers actually take the time to provide users with effective feedback. Of course, I'm the last person who should get on a soapbox about this - I know I've made that mistake - so I'll just end my complaining now.

Crazy trespassing Asians

(July 27th, 2006 - 11:22PM)

There's a plum tree in my backyard. My roommate discovered a pack of Asians (A gaggle of Asians? A murder of Asians?) in the backyard picking plums from the tree. Turns out they are the former owners of the house - as of three years ago.

When my roommate caught them, they said, "Oh, we're so sorry! We're so sorry!" By the way, that's one of my pet peeves: when people say they're sorry and they obviously aren't. "We pre-meditated a plan to intentionally trespass on your property to steal fruit, but now that you've caught us, we're very very sorry!"

My roommate told them it was okay because we never eat the plums (good thing I wasn't the one who caught them, or they would have had it). As soon as my roommate told them it was okay, another four Asians mysteriously appeared out of the woodwork and helped the picking.

Look. I know Asians are cheap. But dudes, seriously. There's a mini-mall about a dozen blocks from my house. Rather than break the law to trespass and steal, would it kill you to spend four bucks and buy some plums?

Fun with recruiters

(July 26th, 2006 - 10:53PM)

I'm not sure why it happened so suddenly, but about a year ago I started getting solicitations from recruiters. Apparently they're finding my résumé on my blog. At first I was extremely flattered. Headhunters actively pursuing me! Wow! But then I realized that they were just Googling SOFTWARE ENGINEER RESUME AJAX and contacting the results. My initial flattery has subsided into a state of mild amusement every time I get such a request.

Last week, I received one such request. Most of the time I'd just reply with yay or nay, but this time I decided to have some fun. Here's the e-mail I received.

Hi,

This is with reference to your resume which I had found on the net.

I currently have a permanent full time position for a UI Designer with my client who is based out of San Jose, CA.

Requirements:

Blah blah blah.

If you are interested, kindly send me your updated resume as soon as possible. Would be good to know your salary expectations too!

Thanks,

So-and-so

And here was my response.

Hey So-and-so,

Thanks for your interest. I'm very interested in this position. Please see my attached revised résumé for more details.

I attached this document as my updated résumé. For the Word impaired, this is what you're missing:

The funniest part? The next day, So-and-so called me three times asking for an interview! I didn't answer, and have no plans to respond.

Must...update...frequently...

(July 26th, 2006 - 10:38PM)

Sorry for my laziness. I'll try to update more frequently.

John Hodgman on Net Neutrality

(July 20th, 2006 - 11:02PM)

A must see.

Google Accessible Search

(July 20th, 2006 - 3:21PM)

Check out Google Labs' new invention, Google Accessible Search.

It's like Google, but it ranks your pages higher if they meet accessibility guidelines. Could this be the way of the future? If you don't think Web standards and accessibility are important, maybe you'd better think again. Soon even unimpaired users may be deterred from your site if it's inaccessible.

I never thought I'd say this, but you should all buy the new Jessica Simpson single

(July 20th, 2006 - 3:14)

The music industry is experimenting with legal MP3 distribution. If you buy the new Jessica Simpson single from Yahoo! Music, you'll get a customized MP3 without any DRM limitations. It costs $1.99, or twice as much as iTunes.

Even if you hate Jessica Simpson, I highly recommend you consider buying this song to show the RIAA that you support this idea.

Happy birthday, Richard!

(July 19th, 2006 - 8:31AM)

FIN

Review: Prey

(July 19th, 2006 - 12:33AM)

Natives vs Aliens.

(4 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: If you liked Quake 4, you'll like Prey.

I've been excited about Prey ever since I saw the trailer. It's a trippy first-person shooter based on the Doom 3 engine. You play as Tommy, a disgruntled Cherokee youth whose life is turned upside down when he, his girlfriend and his grandpa are abducted by aliens.

You can tell that Prey's developers were really desperate to innovate in the somewhat stale FPS genre. They've introduced a lot of neat tricks, some of which are fun, and some of which are disappointing. Here are my thoughts.

Things I liked about Prey

• You play as a Cherokee. I can't overemphasize how cool that is. I don't think I've ever seen a game with a Native protagonist. The game doesn't pull any punches; Tommy really does seem like a restless youth. The game begins with him beating up two white guys in a bar. As the game progresses, Tommy accepts his culture and becomes a better warrior for it.
• The storyline is pretty strong for an FPS. I suppose that it's not completely original, but it works well for the game and draws you in.
• The portals. If you've read about Prey, then you know what I'm talking about. You'll encounter portals that take you from one area to another. Sure, games have had portals before, but not like this. You can walk right through one portal to another seamlessly. No load times. In fact, you can even see through and shoot through portals. A very nice effect.
• The nifty spatial tricks, like walking on walls and ceilings. Trippy.
• The innovative weapons. Prey departs from the standard pistol/shotgun/SMG fare that you get in so many other games. Your weapons are definitely alien in nature. They're all distinctly different and fun to use. In some games, the weapons are all basic point-and-shoot guns, some of which are more useful than others. But in Prey, a lot of care has been taken to ensure that all the weapons have a distinct feel, and that they're all useful. There's one exception: the wrench. I'll discuss this later.
• It has some of the best level design I've seen in years. A lot of other reviews have ragged on Prey for being a corridor shooter. Don't believe it. There are certainly some corridor crawls in the game, but there's a lot of diversity.
• The voice acting is quite strong overall - but it does have some rough spots.

Things I didn't like about Prey

• It's really short. According to the Prey's game clock, I beat it in less than six hours. Episodic games like SiN: Episodes and Half-Life 2: Episode One were almost as long.
• There's some great plot advancement early in the game, some more late in the game, and the space in between is pretty much pointless.
• The logic puzzles are extremely redundant, and most can be solved using the same basic tricks.
• The Death Walk. This is probably the most controversial part of Prey. You can't die in this game, and by that I don't mean it's easy. I mean you simply cannot die. It's impossible. When you run out of health or fall off a cliff, you "Death Walk," which is reminiscient of hunting in Oregon Trail. After a few seconds of this, you're back in the game. I suppose the intent here is to acknowledge the fact that you never really die in FPS games, because you can just quick load. Still, the fact that you're invincible really makes the game feel one-sided.
• For all the fantastic spatial tricks, the combat and gameplay are a tad shallow.
• The Spirit Walk feature, which allows you to leave your body and walk to places you couldn't otherwise go, is underutilized. Also, when in Spirit Mode you're armed with a bow that I didn't find that useful.
• Your first weapon is a wrench. It's not uncommon for FPS games to provide the player with a melee weapon that they can use in case they run out of ammo. However, in Prey your first real weapon is a rifle with unlimited ammo. So why do I need the wrench?
• You spend far too much of the game flying around in an idiotic exoskeleton.

The Steve Kwan dot com business plan

(July 11th, 2006 - 8:23PM)

1. Trademark the term "Web 3.0".
2. Lie in wait for several years until Web 3.0 becomes a common buzzword.
3. Do a Google search for "Web 3.0" and sue the owners of each resulting website for trademark infringement.
4. Buy a boat.

A comprehensive and accurate explanation of the Internet, courtesy of Ted Stevens

(July 11th, 2006 - 7:02PM)

In an attempt to provide clarification during a Net Neutrality debate, US Senator Ted Stevens issued a brilliant analogy of the Internet. It's like a series of tubes.

Another gem from his speech:

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

(Original post on Wired)

That's right. Ted Steven's staff sent him an Internet, which was delayed because it got tangled up with your YouTube streaming.

So that's how it's done!

(July 7th, 2006 - 1:18PM)

HTML Engineering

(July 7th, 2006 - 12:29AM)

Not too long ago, my roommate told me he was going to learn Web design. After reading about HTML tags for half an hour, he was prancing around the house and calling himself a genius for "mastering" it so fast.

I remember being there. When I first got into HTML, I thought it was so ridiculously simple. But of course, I now know that there's much more to Web design than what you can learn in your first month.

I think that all aspiring Web developers go through several natural stages of progression in their careers. In the beginning, they think Web design is just about HTML. Then they learn about peripheral technologies like CSS and Server-Side Includes. But after a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, they learn that good Web design isn't about these technologies at all: it's about people. All that matters is the people who you are serving; the product you're making is just a means to an end.

I've come to the unlikely conclusion that Web design can be harder than software engineering. My background is in the latter - geeky stuff like C++ and Java. If you'd told me back in 2000 that building websites was harder than building software, I would have laughed. After all, how can something as simple as HTML be harder to handle than the complexities of C++? I can think of two reasons.

1. Software engineering draws primarily on computer science, and perhaps mathematics. But Web design draws on many disciplines, including cognitive science, graphic design, computer science, commerce, marketing, and business communications. It's relatively easy to find an expert in computer science, but good luck finding someone who's truly mastered half a dozen different disciplines.
2. Software engineering is ultimately about product development, whereas Web design is ultimately about people. I think this is starting to change as more software companies get into iterative and user-centred development, but for the time being software engineers don't require the same level of communications skills that Web designers do. Software engineers still work primarily with computers, while Web designers get much more interaction with clients. And as we all know, machines are much more predictable than human beings.

There was a time when I would have scoffed if someone called himself/herself an "HTML Engineer." Now, I'm not so sure. The technology may not be complex, but the other factors involved in Web design can make it closer to an engineering discpline than one would expect.

Review: Superman Returns

(July 4th, 2006 - 7:17PM)

My favorite part about Superman is that little hair curl thing.

(4 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: Superman Returns greatly exceeded all my expectations, and is my favorite summer blockbuster so far this year.

As soon as I saw the full-length trailer for Superman Returns, I wrote it off. It looked way too cheesy to be considered worthwhile - and yes, I know that Superman is kind of cheesy already, but there's a limit. Luckily, this was one of those cases where the trailer doesn't do the movie justice. Superman Returns is definitely worth your time.

Things I liked about Superman Returns:

• Brandon Routh was perfect for the Superman/Clark Kent role. He looks the part, which I suppose isn't that impressive. But he also manages to inject a bit of personality into the wooden role of Superman, which is quite impressive.
• The cinematography is excellent. I think that more than anything else, the visuals draw you into this movie and keep you captivated.
• Despite the fact that the film is around two and a half hours long, it doesn't feel like it's dragging on.
• Superman's costume looks great. This is an important point, because back in the day Christopher Reeve's spandex suit didn't make him look that heroic at all.
• Kumar is one of Lex Luthor's goons. I don't think Harold is in the movie.

Things I didn't like about Superman Returns:

• Kevin Spacey is underused. In Superman Returns, Lex Luthor is the most stereotypical bad guy you can imagine. He acts (and looks) like Dr. Evil. Having a weak bad guy isn't a huge problem here, because the main storyline is the love triangle between Superman, Lois Lane and her husband. The fact that Superman needs to stop an evil mastermind feels secondary. However, the movie still would have benefited from a little more attention to Lex Luthor's character.
• The plot is quite shallow. But considering that this is a Superman movie, I'm surprised it achieved the little depth it did. If this script appeared in any other movie I'd likely complain about it, but I don't think it's realistic to go into a Superman movie expecting brilliant screenplay.