Reflections on building software for, and with, people.

Form Follows Function

Form Follows Function is a delightful, growing series of experiments by Jongmin Kim, mainly involving the <canvas> element, designed to show off how HTML5 can accomplish some eye-popping effects the likes of which used to require Flash. (Though ironically, the creator’s website requires Flash to view.)

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Building the Future

I had a revelation a few years ago while thinking about Minority Report, specifically that scene in the beginning when Tom Cruise is interacting with the futuristic crime computer like the conductor of an orchestra. (If you haven’t seen it, Tom Cruise is in front of a translucent desktop full of media—documents, videos, images—which he manipulates with his hands in midair.) I realized that one day websites might work like this. Not that they necessarily should, but that they could. It suddenly seemed very silly to be looking for inspiration toward the top sites of last year, or even current trends. No ma’am, not when there was a future to be built.

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