A week ago, a friend of mine, Ricardo Melo, told me he wanted to interview me regarding a tweet I posted. What? An interview? I said. But I put the weird feeling aside and agreed to do it. It was more like a good conversation you’d have at a bar. But online. With no drinks. Well, I know I wasn’t drinking, can’t be sure about him. No strangers nearby either. That changes things, but what had more impact was the medium. I tend to suck at IM, always typing a load of really short sentences as my minds makes progress. And in this case, thinking a lot more before typing. It was different. But really enjoyable.

We talk about making a choice to make things our own way, and in which ways that goes on to change you and give you a lesson about yourself. It was very personal, but these are the kind of things about myself that I have no problem talking about. It still feels like a private just-you-and-me-here-talking thing. Even if it goes online afterwards. I wish I had better conversations like this more often, but I tend to believe that most of credit in a conversation goes to the party that sets the tone and topic by asking the questions. Good questions beget good answers. I need to learn how to do it better.

It started OK, maybe a bit cold, but then the ideas in my head started to feel like excited particles in a chemical reaction, and the conversation gets a lot better. I wish we could this more often. With drinks. In a bar.

I used to draw pictures and there are many that wish I would still draw pictures. Maybe I will. Probably. But, I have a new job. It is to make these words. There are those that say that by not making these pictures, I am devaluing myself, that I am some how running away from the thing that made them like my work in the first place. They’re right in saying that I’ve abandoned making images for a little bit, but I am not running away: I am running towards.

Replace words and pictures with other kinds of creative work. Still applies.

It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past. This list is me talking to a previous version of myself.

I like these kind of things. Some slap you in the face, some make you nod in oh-yes-I-have-been-there-too agreement. Most of all, they make you think (if you’re willing to). Like Austin says, your mileage may vary.

Print it, Instapaper it, but please don’t miss it.

One can’t go too deep in a stunted format. But still, it kind of feels like writing because my fingers are flying, there is that sound of the keyboard, that row of letters getting longer, that momentum of the cursor pushing right. But, it’s not the same as lengthier writing, because it doesn’t necessarily take us anywhere.

Frank is trying to tell me something.

The Manual is a new limited-run print magazine published three times a year. Each issue will have six substantial, beautifully illustrated feature articles, along with additional rich and unexpected bonuses. Challenging, contemplative, playful, and visionary, the articles focus on bringing a greater depth and maturity to our craft and profession: design on the web.

However, you won’t find markup and code, tutorials, and galleries in The Manual. This magazine, heart and soul, will have a different role: it’s the discourse about design online that many of us have been yearning for, that gives the subject the respect it deserves, challenging all of us, as an industry, to set a much higher standard.

Andy McMillan, of Build fame, is starting a print-only magazine and funding the first issue through Kickstarter. This is good for the web, and if you care about it, consider supporting the project.

Aza Raskin posted a sad but beautiful heart touching story about the last gift his father gave him:

Three days before he passed, Jef had an accident. He needed to use the restroom, so—stooped under his arm—I supported his weight as he hobble to his business. There was something quietly unsettling about escorting my father to a toilet that had been taller than me when we first moved into the house twenty years earlier. I sat him down, walked out, and closed the door. Moments later, a crash jolted the house. I slammed the door open. The metallic smell of water fresh from a pipe whipped my nose and water flooded the floor. The toilet was dislocated from its base like an arm from its socket, and lodged between the toilet and the wall was my father. Despite his size, he looked small and meager. He stared up at me with eyes full of innocent surprise. Why am I on the floor, they asked? Why am I wet? The shocked curiosity in his wide-open eyes is the single most haunting image I have of my father. In the dark space between closing my eyes and falling asleep, that image sometimes steals in and taints me. When it does, there is no help for it. I have to get out of bed and go for a run. Otherwise, sleep will be overshadowed by those confused, guileless eyes.

I’ve always had a deep respect and admiration for Aza Raskin. I’ve used Enso before I knew who he was, but then Mozilla started coming up with interesting experiments, all coming from this Raskin guy. I’ve never been a fan of Mozilla’s main applications but I admire his work a lot because he never seems afraid of experimentation and play — the father of invention. Plus, his blog is a very interesting compendium of well-thought and well-written pieces on various aspects of UX Design, be it the tabs on the side or the problems with Alt-Tab.

Back when I started caring more about users and getting more serious about learning UX Design, I found about another Raskin, who started the Macinstosh project at Apple, invented click-and-drag and first coined the term Information Appliance. Jef Raskin — Aza’s father — was that man. The more I learn about him, the more I believe that his influence as designer and inventor will never fade away from us. That’s particularly evident as a great influence of Aza’s work and writing.

Aza, thank you for sharing this much about Jef. He would most certainly be proud.

A collection of wonderful little details in UI design that you may never even noticed, but when you do, you start appreciating the designer’s work a lot more. Plus, they often link to a blog post with more rationale behind the design decisions. Now I know how wonderful Google Chrome’s tab-closing behavior really is.

The day after winning three awards at the .net Awards 2010, Zeldman writes:

Our industry needs real design discussion, peer review, and recognition. I believe in the .net Awards, as their partnership with A List Apart attests. They are the best our industry has.

They are. I just think they’re not good enough. Then Zeldman continues talking to his friend who thinks he should not accept awards:

I appreciate the purity of your point of view, and I recognize it as a discussion point, not an attack. We are friends, and you’re a gent. Maybe I am wrong. But I’m beginning to think we don’t need no awards, we need good awards. And when good work wins, it inspires more good work.

I don’t agree 100% with Oliver Reichenstein, but that’s another discussion. Maybe I’m wrong and Zeldman is right and we need awards after all, because Joe Business gets them, but as long as they’re good. As of today, I don’t think the .net Awards reached that point yet.

I’m just glad that important individuals like Zeldman and Reichenstein are starting to discuss these matters. It’s good for our community. It’s good for the web.