Dept. of Minor Observations
A repository of bulletins, field reports, working papers, and notices concerning small thoughts, odd details, internet archaeology, abandoned drafts, and gentle critiques of modern digital culture. Items are classified, stamped, and filed accordingly.
On the persistence of the loading spinner
The loading spinner has become the universal symbol of a deferred form of hope. Unlike its predecessor, the progress bar, the spinner commits to nothing specific — no hint of duration, no point of completion, not even effort. It just rotates, endlessly suggesting that something is happening somewhere, for someone (maybe you), for resolution at some indeterminate point in the near future.
We all accept this. We have made it our screensaver. We have made it our mantra. The spinner does not promise delivery - it just promises that there is some sort of process happening, even if it is just the process of your own waiting. It is the most honest interface element ever designed.
Second bulletin on confirmation dialogs
Revised following initial publication.
The Department's original position held that confirmation dialogs served a protective function. To provide a brief pause before an irreversible action. This position is revised in light of accumulated evidence.
Current position: the confirmation dialog has become a ritual of compliance rather than a mechanism of protection. You have learned to click "Yes, I'm sure" without reading anything. The system now asks without expecting any other answer. Both parties then carry on regardless.
The dialog remains. The confirmation is gone. What persists is the form of caution without its substance. The Department finds this, on reflection, to be a reasonable description of many things.
On the archaeology of old personal websites
The Wayback Machine preserves them all. Personal websites from the late 1990s and early 2000s, with their tiled backgrounds images, visitor counters and "Under Construction" GIFs that offer a hinted view of the future that never quite arrived.
What strikes the contemporary visitor is not the aesthetic — even though the aesthetic is indeed striking — but the deep-seated sincerity. These were pages about things people actually cared about, it ranged from their cat and their band to their strong opinions about a television programme. There was no strategy. There was no audience. There was just a person with something they wanted to say and even technical knowledge to put it down in HTML.
The Department is not suggesting we return to tiled backgrounds. The Department is asking where did the sincerity go and can it be recovered without the table-based layout.
On menus that are now QR codes in restaurants
The laminated menu was a permanent object. It accumulated stains and
small tears and the occasional sticker with a handwritten amendment in biro on top. It could be
read without power. It could be handed to a child. It could be studied
at length without performing the act of studying it.
The QR menu loads, or does not load, depending on the strength of signal, battery life and functioning websites. It
refreshes. It requires both hands. It cannot be propped against the
condiments while one eats.
The Department does not oppose progress in restaurant technology. The
Department is noting that the laminated menu solved several problems
that are now, once again, not solved.
On the digital thing that has replaced the other digital thing
A partial record, kept for institutional memory..
The blog gave way to the platform. The platform gave way to the feed.
The forum gave way to the thread. The thread gave way to the reply.
The website gave way to the profile. The email newsletter returned,
having briefly given way to the notification, which gave way to the
alert, which everyone turned off.
The Department is not offering any argument about quality or progress.
This is a list. Lists of this kind will be useful in approximately
fifteen years, when someone will describe a current format as entirely
new and the list will be available for consultation. And then a reconsideration of their observation.
On software that remembers your preferences and then doesn't
Every application that can be configured promises to remember your
preferences. Some keep this promise. Others remember preferences for a
period of months and then, following an update, return to defaults
with no explanation.
We re-configure the application. The preferences are saved.
Some time later, they are gone again.
This is not a technical failure. It is experienced as
a character trait. The software is forgetful, in ways we can all
be forgetful, and in ways that seem almost
personal.
The Department notes that this attribution of character to
software is both irrational and entirely understandable.
On instructions that assume a previous step was completed
Step four of many instruction manuals, help documents, and setup
guides assumes that step three was successfully completed. Step three
assumed the same of step two. Step two assumed that the person has already arrived with
the preconditions that the instructions did not think to specify because,
to the person who wrote them, those conditions were simply the world around them.
The gap is not negligence. It is the gap between already knowing how to do
something and knowing what it is like to not know how to do something.
These are different cognitive positions, and moving between them is much
harder than it appears.
The Department notes this is always a problem in the transfer of
knowledge, and is not confined to instruction manuals. And we leave the
observation there.
On the phrase "We value your privacy"
The sentence "we value your privacy" appears at the top of documents
whose entire purpose is to describe the circumstances under which
a respect for privacy will not apply. It is, in this sense, a form of valediction rather
than a policy — a last farewell note to the thing it claims to protect.
The Department has noted that no organisation has ever published a
document beginning "we do not particularly value your privacy". The
absence of this kind of document is, in itself, informative.
Third Bulletin: On Helvetica
Revised following correspondence.
The Department's earlier position — that Helvetica's ubiquity
represented a kind of typographic surrender — has been moderated.
Revised position: Helvetica is not a neutral choice. No typeface is a
neutral choice. Helvetica signals modernity, institutional confidence,
and a studied reluctance to call attention to itself — which is itself
a form of calling attention to itself. This is the choice of a typeface that says "we
have not chosen a typeface" is among the most deliberate of typeface choices
available.
The Department's concern about ubiquity stands. The characterisation
of it as a form of surrender is fully withdrawn.
On things that are still the same website
A partial inventory of websites that have been "completely redesigned"
and remain, in all essential respects, the same website.
The site that moved its navigation from the top to the left and called
this a significant transformation. The site that replaced its blue buttons with
slightly darker blue buttons and announced a new era in transparency. The site that
enlarged its hero image and described this as a shift in strategic
direction.
The Department is not opposed to redesign. It is welcomed. The Department is noting
that the announcement of redesign often precedes the redesign itself
by a considerable interval, and sometimes an announcement replaces the need for a redesign entirely.