#the different might seem minor and semantic but it does matter

[ceasarslegion]

Or yknow you could just not be fucking rude about what people do to put food on their table during an economic crisis. Especially when they're a total fucking stranger. This attitude isn't funny or cute when you do it to people you don't even know the name of. "Haha the job you do that pays your bills is stupid and cringe but I totally agree with your post op" can I like, help you?

[bloomyn]

phonetics ; kagami taiga

pairing: kagami taiga x f!reader

wc: 2.2k

synopsis: there’s something about three syllable sentences that worm their way into your heart.

featuring; minor unrequited love, grammar, other girls that aren’t you, bad characterization, a whole lot of being dumb, and a happy ending

-> i wrote this in two hours during my peer tutoring class please don’t murder me; i saw .5 seconds of him during the netflix trailer and busted the phattest emotional nut

This is how your story begins

You’re five and on the top of a slide, it’s sticky with sweat and electric on your skin but you can’t go down, not yet. There is no way you’re going to give the kid behind you the satisfaction, not until he says please. 

“Say. it.” you demand, your hands gripping the side of the slide tighter. the space between his eyebrows scrunch together, like an inchworm, the type you learned about in class only a few days ago. “just say it. it’s not that hard. only one syllable.”

Your mother would scold you for that sass, but she’s too far away to hear and quite frankly too far to see your current predicament. 

“No. see, that’s one syllable.”

And yes you know that violence is never the way, (that’s also what you learned about at your school, the same day as the inchworms), and that maybe there is a verbal way to resolve this agreement, but the thing is, your five year old brain is tired of using words. and so this is the part where you resort to fists, tiny fingers that gripped the side of the slide ball up slowly and then.

The sky is down. down? and no your hands aren’t on the slide they’re trying to brace your fall from down the slide and all you can see is a muddled red face before you hit the ground crying. 

→ 

Here’s the thing about parks, technically, technically, their public property. So that means, technically, technically, just about anyone can show up and play. It’s terrible. It’s especially terrible when the only person on the playground to play with is also the one that pushed down the slide (quite aggressively! you might add) only a week ago. If there was ever any violent tendencies that lay dormant in those tiny hands of yours they might as well have been awakened. 

But instead of fighting, or attempting to fight, someone who looks like they could be the kids mother ushers said kid in your direction. 

and instead of a “No.” being spit in your direction you get an, 

“I’m sorry. Three syllables, see. I said it.”

and a hesitant hug, awkward and gangly.

And so it begins. 

→ 

“If you’re going to be stupid like this I’m going to stop showing up.” you sigh, taking a seat on the bench, cringing at the scent of sweat and rubber. Beside you, a messy bundle of red hair lays splayed on the hard metal, a rough hand wiping the sweat out of his face. “Hello, is Kagami home? Or do I really have to stop showing up till you remember you need me. ”

A groan leaves his chapped lips and an arm extends across your lap. “ Did you bring it at least?”

You surrender the plastic bag, watching the steam rising from his body melt the ice. It’s disgustingly sensual and for a split second you can almost imagine what the girls interested in him think. Unfortunately they’ve never seen him like you have, bloody noses and sweat, black stains from the court staining his dirty clothes, and just going through middle school in general. It sends shivers up your arms. Gross. He pushes himself backwards, lifting his head up onto the hem of your skirt.

“You’re just so sweaty, all the time.” you sigh, wiping a handkerchief across his forehead.

The sight of the two of you is one to behold. 

It’s always been to Kagami at least, which is a surprise considering that the only things he really cares to look at anymore is game highlights and illicit magazines that he really only gets away with buying because of his height. To be fair it’s not like he really reads the magazines anyway, not without getting distracted, not without the guilt that comes with thinking of you, during, ah, certain periods of time. He’s gross, he knows, and here you are, walking a mile in the summer heat because his ankle was too dead to get ice and there’s no one to watch #2 if he leaves. (fucking Kuroko he swears)

He can see the soft outline of your jaw like this, laying down. He can see the way your tongue casually glosses over your lips and and the way it seems like you're blinking in slow motion, he can see your lashes gently brush your face when you blink. It’s a goddamn sickness. 

Now usually, when this happens, when this wave of amorous nausea fills his head he does what he’s best at, absolutely destroying the court. But in the few steam filled moments between his attempt to get up and realizing he has to get up or he might vomit hearts all over the floor, you’ve already pressed the palm of your hand into his shoulder.

“Don’t think you can get up, stupid. Your ankle looks like a purple yam for goodness sakes. Gross. ”

He’ll hold onto the spare bit of affection in your words till you give him more, which you will, because you’re like this. Stubborn and loving, and always seemingly annoyed with him. He won’t mind, he never does. 

→ 

It’s not until the end of third year that he realizes he does, he does mind. He minds all the damn time now. 

“Don’t complain now that I’m not giving you all my attention,” you had scolded, “You’re the one with a girlfriend Ka-chan.”

“You don’t even bring me ice anymore!”

A shitty retort indeed but, true nonetheless.

“Kagami,” you had warned, “It might not be a great idea for me to bring you stuff anymore. Think about your girlfriend! How is she going to feel, another woman bringing her boyfriend what he needs.”

There was no response back this time. In his defense, Lisa hated the smell of basketball, “it sticks to you!”

Which he thought she might’ve considered before confessing but, semantics. There was nothing wrong with Lisa, she might’ve been everything he looked for in a woman. Hot, decently smart, very, very good looking on his arm, and she loved the attention too. Except her lips were too sticky, and she hated the smell of the gym, and he could go on and on making up petty excuses because she wasn’t the one who demanded that he say “please” on the playground. 

(He’s just picky!) His brain argues!

It takes three more girls until he realizes they’re not you. 

→ 

There is a brief moment in time where you fall for Kagami Taiga. There is a moment so small it slivers past you in the form of iced plastic bags and steaming windows in the gym. But the moment isn’t so small that no one around you notices. It isn’t so small when your best friend goes through three different girlfriends in a moment that doesn’t even make it through a set of nails. Not one nail chips.

It’s an odd moment. Only, at the end of this moment, there is no return to normalcy, there is no getting over it, there is another one waiting for you to leave those chipped nails and iced plastic bags behind.

It starts with praise and glimmer pop of jealousy.

→

“Absolutely not.”

“ You can’t argue an opinion you can’t even have, Taiga.” It comes out nastier than you want and you kick yourself for it. He catches it, the grimace waiting on your face and the quiver in your eye. The two of you are waning, stuck to your respective places in his living room, movie paused. There is a chance you will cry, but a more realistic chance that this will end in useless fight, that the aching silence between the two of you will become your shield against a barrage of his angry glares. 

This might be the only chance you ever feel what it’s like when he’s in the zone, except you're not a five man team (with subs) , you’re a teenage girl with goddamn feelings. It’s the playground all over again, but this time you won’t be pushed.

“He’s a fucking player.” his voice raises at the end and the tense in your calf sharpens. “He’s a disgusting shitty haired player, how are you being so stupid right now?”

By the time he’s done he’s yelling. The two of you have argued sure, but never... not like this. 

“I’m allowed to be dumb sometimes!” you breathe, “ Look at you Taiga, how you are not the same as him? It takes you weeks, days, to get a new girl. How in the world are you even qualified to be talking to me about this.”

It takes half a second for his eyes to narrow, sharper than his looks and for a moment you stagger back. It takes even less time for you to grab your bag and leave. 

You’re not angry, not for the right reason. This boyfriend is going to end in heartbreak, it’s a given, even Kagami knows this. But you can’t help yourself, this might only be a blip in time, it won’t matter in a year right? It won’t matter when Kagami finds himself wrapped around another girl, too busy to even remember what day of the week it is. 

And it kills you. 

You’re killing him. 

There is never a moment where everything is clear, unless he’s playing one on one, but this isn’t him versus you. This is him versus himself, a freaky nightmare he only dreamt about in middle school; and you’re not someone he wins by dunking on. It’s the type of win where he has to lose a little bit of something too. The type of win that he’s been avoiding. 

→ 

Your house has been the same for years, flower boxes on the front porch, a few twigs on the lawn, less than a thousand steps from his own place, somewhere he could sleep walk to. It’s never bothered you, he was your best friend, how could you complain about living so close?

Well, you’re complaining now. 

“I’m sorry.”

His eyes are drilling into the ground, fingers fidgeting like a boy, like a child who’s never had to say sorry before. Even so, you love him, so you relent, allowing yourself to lean on the doorway, absolutely oozing casually (ty?) (ness?) You can’t think.

“Three syllables. Thanks.”

The visible sigh of relief warms your achy breaky heart and absolutely tears into your soul. The grip on your heart he holds falls loose, unveiling the mismatched pieces that you’ve been forcing together for years. And for a moment you feel weak to it. 

“ You should,” he starts, gnawing on his bottom lips this time, “be with who you want. So, I’m sorry.”

It’s exasperating, but even if it is, Kagami Taiga is the most stubborn man you know so these words no doubt are being pulled out like teeth and you love him all the same. 

→

To Kagami’s surprise (and disappointment), a year later you are still quite in love with the man you call your boyfriend. But to his own sick delight, the two of you are fighting (again).  

“So you’re here.”

You nod, pushing the door to his bedroom open and slipping yourself under his covers. If he was anyone but himself he might’ve looked down, seen what was going on and promptly collapsed onto his knees. But, willpower is a strong suite of his (thank god), so he takes a seat on the foot of the bed.

“ Kagami, you can say it.” you mumble from beneath his covers. At your words his eyebrows scrunch and his knuckles tighten around the blanket. You’re not provoking him, just asking for the honesty he carries on his shoulders. 

“Ah, well.”

You shift the blanket off, propping yourself against the headboard. It’s only then that he can see the old tear tracks down your face.

“ I’m glad you’re here ya know. With me. Here.”

The last part is a whisper, one you catch. 

One you can only sigh with.

“ You can’t say that Kagami.”

“It’s true.”

It feels like a lifetime has passed by the time you gather the courage to look up at him, up at those deep red eyes that give away every emotion that passes through him. You don’t think can hurt you, not anymore than he has. Not with the hands that have held you up and stuck bandages on your knees and not with the heart that cared for you so deeply. He wouldn’t dare. 

But the sun is setting between the two of you, and the radiant glow only illuminates your features. You have to remember that he is only man, only human, and humans are easily seduced into stupid things by the sun.

“ I love you.” 

The delicate words aren’t voluntary, nor are they forced. It’s the space inbetween that pushes someone in the right direction, whether they know it or not. 

“ Three syllables Taiga.”

He watches you untangle yourself from the bed and take your place beside him. Carefully, he drops his hand in your lap, palms up and clammy. Slowly, you place your hand in his, taking up the space between his fingers. 

“Four syllables. That’s what you get.” you shake, squeezing his fingers. 

It takes him about two seconds to understand what you mean.

And he does.

→ 

[aethelar]

The shooting star that careers through the night sky and crashes, quite spectacularly, into the muddy lake is not, in fact, a shooting star. The man that pushes open the emergency hatch and hauls himself, gasping and wheezing, onto the ruptured ship is not, in fact, a man. And the emergency response comm he aims at the stars and swears at in a harsh and alien language is not, in fact, working.

Graves would like very much to know which utter dipshit in Transfers had managed to screw up his warp jump quite this badly and whether Graves was allowed to throw them out of an airlock when he got back.

Then the heavens open and Graves discovers that the delightful little planet in the middle of delightful fucking nowhere has a working water cycle, one that brings with it a great deal of cold, a side helping of misery, and a whopping dollop of wet.

Oh, and apparently when he crashed he broke several ribs, fried the electrical connections to his left knee, and rolled in a pile of broken glass. Grand.

He retreats into his broken spaceship and cannibalises a control panel to fix his knee. It… mostly works. That done, he digs through enough old textbooks to identify where he is (backwater, uncivilised, and uncontacted - glorious), what language he needs to program into the translator (there are a ridiculous number to choose from, more than any one planet should reasonably need; he goes for the first seven in the list and hopes that’s enough) and what basic field-notes he needs to add to his mental database (far too many, most of them gathered from a distance, at least half of them marked with question marks and sounding blatantly ridiculous). And, because he’s currently hurting and light-headed, he says screw it to health and safety and just uploads the whole lot at once. The resulting headache has him staggering into the wall, missing the wall and tumbling through the breach in the hull, flailing and half drowning his way through the lake, and fetching up somewhere on the bank. And he’s still getting rained on.

“Fuck this planet,” he coughs through a mouthful of lake-water, and faints.

He manages, somehow, to survive undrowned until morning and it’s Newt that finds him, sprawled unconscious in the mud. Well, Niffler that finds him, Newt that scrambles after Niffler and almost trips over him in the process, but that’s just semantics, really. Newt’s the one that asks, hesitantly, if he’s alive; when he doesn’t get a response, Newt’s the one that manhandles him into the case and cleans his wounds as best he can.

When Graves rejoins the land of the living, Newt’s the one who stutters to a halt, blushes lithium red, and throws a sheet his way while backtracking pronto out of the room.

“I’ll get clothes!” he squeaks from halfway up the suitcase ladder. “There’s food in the kitchen, see you soon, don’t let Niffler out thank you bye!”

Graves blinks. “Illgetclothes,” he repeats. “Thankyoubye.” Then, switching back to a more familiar language, “Identify and translate. Please.”

Whirr. Beep. Whirr whirr. Ding! English, the text across his vision reads. Activate real time translate Y/N

Feck it. The headache can’t get worse. “Activate,” he agrees. “Yes, that means yes. Yes. Activate - Y. I want the Y option.”

Activating real time translate. Target language: English. Please note minor vocal edits required for accurate pronunciation.

“Minor vocal what now - glerk.” Graves lifts a hand to his throat, frowning the disturbed and confused frown of someone who’s just had their voice box rearranged without sufficient warning. And, from the feel of it, the back of his throat as well. Maybe? He opens and closes his mouth a few times to get used to the new sensations. “That will never not be weird,” he mutters to himself. It comes out in English and translates itself back into real words by the time his ears pass it back to his brain and the double-overlap does exactly squat for his headache.

Graves predicts direly that he’s going to hate this planet and distracts himself by turning his attention to what’s around him.

The room is soft, muted colours with strongly yellow-orange tinted lighting. The basic set-up is surprisingly familiar - he doesn’t need the fieldnotes ticking over in the back of his mind to identify that he’s on a bed, or that the primary building material is some kind of local plant matter. The assorted objects strewn around the room are less familiar and Graves takes a minute to run through the new words that flash up for each one (chair is obvious, but what’s book or slippers and why does the door have handle is that the keypad? There’s no control panel on it, and this place really doesn’t look advanced enough for motion sensing so what?)

Bored with the room, he turns back to himself. He’s wearing a clean bandage, wrapped tight around his chest, and part of him wants to unravel it to see how his back is doing underneath. It hadn’t seemed so bad, but he had passed out so there was a potential that one of his internal systems was wonky; based on what he’d seen so far of the planet it was doubtful the Earth-inhabitant who found him had known how to fix them. On the other hand, he feels surprisingly fine for a ship-wreck survivor.

He rests a hand on the neatly tucked end of the dressing for a long moment before shaking his head. “Food,” he says instead. “Food, kitchen, no niffler.” They seem simple enough instructions to follow.

Error, the translator warns. No entry for “Niffler”. Update dictionary when possible.

Error, the fieldnotes warn. Nudity detected. Local customs require nudity to be dealt with before proceeding.

Graves groans.

It takes some trial and error to work out what, exactly, the nudity problem entails, but he finally narrows it down to his lower back and the tops of his legs. That sorted, he winds the sheet round his waist and shuffles his way out of the bedroom into what is either a kitchen or a health hazard, or quite possibly both. The field notes haven’t yet given him the intricate understanding of Earth culture he needs to tell the difference, but there’s something about the haphazard way pans and bottles and jars are stacked on the shelves that seems a bit unstable to him. He proceeds with caution.

After about five minutes of careful study he slumps down on a stool and confesses to himself that he has no idea what he’s looking for. The small four-legged creature that had followed him around the kitchen hauls herself onto the table and tips her head with a curious chirp, and Graves decides, somewhat desperately, that she looks like she might know.

“What,” he asks her, “What, precisely, is food?”

She chirps. It’s not English. Life wouldn’t be that simple.

“Identify,” Graves says tiredly. “Translate. Please.”

Language not supported. Download new language Y/N

“Screw it, why not.”

Four and a half minutes later, with a headache to rival a nova-shot hangover, Graves repeats his question.

Lots of things, the creature answers with a series of drawn out squeaks. Things that smell nice. Things that look nice. Things you want to eat.

Ah. Fuel. Graves reaches for the nearest bottle of thing that smells nice. He thinks. He doesn’t have much to compare it to, not of Earth smells, and it’s very different from anything he’s familiar with. It looks nice, that at least he’s more certain on, but wanting to eat is a stage he and the unfamiliar food-fuel haven’t yet reached in their relationship.

“Is this food?” he asks.

The creature wrinkles her nose. Not for me, she says, and Graves nearly puts it back - but Mummy eats strange things. It could be food.

Mummy, Graves assumes, is the blushing human. He squints at the bottle. It’s labelled, and it takes a second for the unfamiliar script to resolve itself into something Graves can read. Lavender, it says, which the fieldnotes classify as colour and plant. Graves squints further. How can a colour be bottled. Electromagnetic radiation doesn’t listen to cork stoppers. Are the fieldnotes sure about this.

Plant, the fieldnotes insist petulantly, and Graves allows that ‘colour’ may be a translation error - he’s stuffed a lot of data into his brain in the last eighteen hours, he can’t expect it all to go right. Plants, though. Plants are carbon. Carbon is a (primitive, but workable) energy source. Plants are probably food.

“Bottoms up,” he mumbles, and removes the stopper.

Lavender, he decides, is a bit dry, a bit difficult to swallow - and yes, he can now confirm that his throat has definitely been modified to speak English, he’s only glad it didn’t need further modification to speak the small creature’s squeaking language as well - but other than that, perfectly good enough. He toasts the creature with his bottle, and she makes a hopeful gesture at the door and asks if Graves is going out.

“Ah,” Graves guesses. “Niffler. Mummy said not to let you out.”

Mummy’s a killjoy, Niffler grumbles, and crawls her way into Graves lap to curl up and sulk. Graves shrugs; Mummy has also taken him in and, from the feel of his back, poured far too much time and effort into healing him. Even his hastily-repaired knee feels better. He’s happy enough to keep Niffler in the kitchen if that’s all Mummy asks in payment.

He’s two thirds of the way through the lavender by the time Newt returns.

“Hello?” Newt calls from somewhere down a corridor. “Are you in the - oh, hello, potions lab. That’s. That’s fine. Hello.”

Graves smiles. It feels awkward. Are smiles always awkward? Maybe he’ll ask Niffler later. “I found food,” he says, holding up the mostly empty bottle of dried lavender.

Newt manfully holds his tongue about potions ingredients and food and not really quite the same. “I found clothes,” he replies, holding out the bundle. Graves puts the lavender aside and stands up to take them, toppling Niffler to the floor as he does so.

Naturally, she digs in her claws and takes the sheet with her.

Newt eeps, bright red again as he all but throws the clothes at Graves. “Wasn’t sure about your size, hope you like them, do you want tea I’ll put the kettle on kitchen down the hall,” he babbles, and flees.

Graves stares at the empty doorway, completely bemused. “Mummy is odd,” he tells Niffler.

Well obviously, she grumps, wriggling backwards out of the sheet. He’s Mummy. It’s what he does.

Graves absorbs the new information while he struggles his way into the clothes. Unlike the sheet, they don’t seem willing to stay if he wraps them round, and there seem to be too many of them for the number of limbs he has. What, he wants to know, is wrong with skin-tight nano suits. Who thought clothes were a better idea and are they still alive for Graves to explain why exactly they’re not. “Fieldnotes,” he finally says. “Help?”

The fieldnotes give him a barrage of images. The translator helpfully annotates each one; petticoat, gauntlet, jumpsuit, scuba tank.

“Ok. Niffler. Clothes go how?”

She grumbles something about clothes being ridiculous (Graves privately agrees) but manages to talk him through the way Mummy wears clothes until they make some vague amount of sense.

Buttons, on the other hand, do not. Graves admits defeat and gives up. The trousers probably are the right size but without the buttons done up they hang low and almost falling off his hips; as for the shirt, Graves is lucky to have worked out the arm holes but he leaves the front open over his bandaged chest.

The belt, he abandons. No clue. Some sort of restraint, a collar of some kind? The fieldnotes suggest using it to tie his hands to a bedpost which seems highly counterproductive. He’ll ask later.

Niffler paws imperiously at his bare foot until he bends down and lets her climb to his shoulder. Get me a sugar cube, she demands. Mummy puts them in tea. I want one.

“More food?” Graves asks. Sugarcane the translator tells him is another plant, as is sugar beet but there doesn’t seem to be an entry for sugar cube.

You won’t like them, Niffler hurries to tell him. Kitchen is through that door.

Graves hums and follows. He suspects he may have to try a sugar cube for himself before he decides if he’ll like it or not.

“Hello Mummy,” he says politely as he comes into the kitchen.

Newt spins round with wide eyes, takes in Graves’ rather lax approach to getting dressed, and brandishes a teapot in distress.

Graves pauses and frowns, confused. He has clothes. He’s found the kitchen (it’s not much less of a hazard than the potions lab). He’s not yet let Niffler escape. He’s not sure what’s wrong, but Newt is bright red again, and all but hyperventilates as Graves steps nearer to cage him against the counter.

Error, the fieldnotes protest. Data suggests current breathing method is inefficient. Lack of oxygen fatal to earth residents.

“What are you doing,” Newt asks in a rushed, high pitched breath.

Graves presses their foreheads together. Newt’s skin feels hot against his, even moreso than their different biology can account for. Fever, the translator supplies worriedly. Sign of sickness and ill health. Then the fieldnotes chime in with increasing panic: Error: sickness leads to death. Reduce fever where possible.

“I’m helping,” Graves says out loud to all three of them, and modulates his skin temperature to be cool and soothing. It costs more energy than he’d hoped and it’s unnerving to see the proof of how weak he is, but when he leans back Newt’s sudden fever is gone.

He’s still flushed, and now his pupils are wide and his breathing has stopped altogether. The fieldnotes begin to bleep in distress but the translator shushes them. Earth phrase identified: take my breath away, it says soothingly, to which the fieldnotes start shrilling about giving it back. Graves deems him probably not in danger anymore and nods in satisfaction as he steps away.

“Better?” he asks.

“Newt,” Newt blurts (semi-aquatic, pond dwelling, small creature similar in size to a finger), which is an odd thing to answer with, but then he goes on to clarify, “My name is Newt.”

He lies, Niffler says. His name is Mummy. Don’t believe him.

Newt seems a lot larger than a finger, but he was near a lake when he found Graves so Graves elects to ignore Niffler in this. “My name is unpronounceable on your planet and may vibrate your vocal chords to shreds if you tried,” he says to Newt. “But I don’t mind if you call me Graves.”

Newt stares for a long moment. “Ok,” he finally says. “Graves. Ok. Vibrate my - ok, that’s. Ok.”

Graves smiles, and, potentially, it’s less awkward than before. Maybe. Graves is working on it.

Niffler pokes him in the ear and comes dangerously close to short circuiting his auditory processors. Sugar cubes, she reminds him.

Graves scans the table for something Mummy puts in tea and solemnly hands her a teaspoon.

It’s ok, she says, patting his hand. You’ll learn.

[lunamanar]

Off-the-Cuff First-impressions Review: Trials of Mana

I got Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana in the mail today and am surprised by just how excited I am about it. After the admittedly predictable letdowns of the Secret of Mana “remake” and the FFVIII “remaster,” not to mention the iOS revision of the former, you’d think I’d be jaded at this point. 

But! FFVII remake is Actually Good, and so far it looks like Trials of Mana is, while certainly lower budget, also Actually Good. The voice acting is kinda meh, but not bad enough to detract from the game in my opinion, and considering they are working with SNES-era scripts (the dialogue is 99% word-for-word the same as the more recent translation of the original SD3 game, so it’s going to be a bit stilted anyway) it’s really not bad at all. 

Besides, the actual meat of the game--the world, character and monster design, and the gameplay--is extremely solid and I have had very little trouble acclimating to it. It’s fun to play, it feels good to run around and explore the world and the battles are both very simplistic in a way that is familiar to an old fart like me and very satisfying in the way they function. One of the biggest weaknesses the original game had was absolutely horrendous input lag in some areas due to 1. the sheer size of the loaded map section, such as Rolante/Laurant, 2. The number of on-screen instructions the SNES had to process during battles, particularly during fights where you had massive sprites taking up the entire screen (the awful awful wall-guardian “Genova” [harhar] is probably the single hardest boss in the game purely due to input lag/drops; when you attack an enemy, even assuming your weapon swings when you tell it to, and that’s a big ‘if,’ the monster you are attacking is actually in a state which is several frames ahead of whatever state it visually appears to be in on-screen, making it extremely difficult to time your attacks properly to both defend and do optimal damage to what should have been a relatively minor “miniboss” fight). Trials of Mana, on the other hand, has none of those problems, simply thanks to more modern technology. So far every fight I’ve engaged in has been smooth and responsive as well as very visually appealing.

And wow is this game pretty. It’s not the most amazing example of the best graphical advances in gaming history, to be sure, but I genuinely don’t think that matters, as it’s still beautifully detailed and really does look like they took the original graphics and magicked them into more modern models. The re-imaginings of each area and monster are very faithful to both the aesthetic and the layout of the original design while at the same creatively expanding on them; I've had no trouble finding my way around familiar maps or identifying the bestiary, but I have found a lot of added depth to them, such as the ability to jump down on rooftops and find hidden nooks that were just static backdrops or otherwise out of sight in the original. The areas are more layered and interactive, but very importantly, nothing is missing. Not even the dogs and cats, who still bark and meow at you if you talk to them. I feel like I’m being allowed to see and explore the original maps from angles I didn’t have access to in the past. It really makes the 16-year-old in me unbelievably happy, to be able to finally, actually see and do these things I could only wish for back then. For people who have never played it, it’s probably a very pretty, if otherwise unremarkable experience, but for me it’s the granting of a wish I’ve had for a long time, but never expected to happen. 

Similarly, I think a lot of people will look at the plot for this game and go, “...what?” Because it really doesn’t seem to have been changed at all from the SNES version, aside from a few little tweaks to the dialogue here and there to ease the transition between some sections or correct for differences in game mechanics (of which there are only a few; again, this is definitely a remake--it remains the same game with the same mechanics at its core). This can lead to some pretty awkward interactions between characters, and at times it seems pretty clear that the voice actors weren’t given a lot of direction about the context of their lines. It’s not a bad story, but it’s a very simply told one, and feels more like it’s targeting 12~16 year-olds (which it probably is, to be fair) who might not care so much about nitpicking the semantics of the plot and character motivations. Which is to say, most of the characters who are not main protagonists or villains are painfully cardboard-flat. They do what they do and say what they say because it advances the plot for them to do and say those things. Elliot falls for a “trick” that I’m pretty sure most 4-year-olds would see through. The Bad Guys are 1-dimensionally evil, wanting to either destroy or take over the world, with the possible exception of Lugar and Koren who have slightly more complicated “I’m your rival” reasons. That leaves the complexity up to the protagonists to shoulder, and while I haven’t played that far into the game yet, thus far is is beat-for-beat and shot-for-shot the same as the original, so I expect that character-building will be left largely up to the player to mentally write in, especially since the game features light/dark class-changes as a feature of its progression. (I do kiiiind of hope that your choice in class changes has a more material effect on the ending’s outcome, but I think that might be asking a bit too much from a remake of this sort.) But the somewhat archaic plot and character arcs are not surprising and for me don’t take away any of the game’s charm. Nikita is still the best, the shop owners still dance inexplicably, the fact you can play a werewolf is badass, rabites are still cute, Don Perignon is still kind of a jerk. I’m very nervous/excited to get Busukaboo and Flammie and hope they’ll be as much fun now as they were then. And the whole world is so damn pretty, I’m just glad to be there. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the music. I’m not sure how much of a hand Hiroki Kikuta actually had in this remake, but the synth-orchestral arrangements of his originals are excellent so far. They’re both accessible/adaptable to the game’s sudden scene transitions (”Nuclear Fusion” starts and ends just as cleanly) while being a richer version of the themes, keeping close to the original sound while making better use of all the instruments that the SNES just wasn’t capable of emulating well. It blends very well with the rest of the game and I hope that continues to be true. 

I do have nitpicks; while I know it’s a popular mechanic, I don’t like the “shift-lock” sort of dash using the left analog stick as both directional and a button. I think the camera controls are solid, but I do wish there wan a toggle-option to have the camera just follow over your shoulder wherever you run until you either run into a battle or turn it off. The character models don’t seem especially affected by anything except the most intense/pervasive lighting and sometimes feel oddly out of place, like I’m watching one of those old movies where an animated character comes into the Real World. Some of the monster designs seem cute-ified more than I’d like. And I can’t help but think that if the game can be this nice as a third-tier title for SE, what could it have been if they’d but the resources behind it that they obviously did with FF7? I understand why they didn’t, but it’s hard not to wonder what it could have been if they had.  Seiken Densetsu is one of the most fraught series in the history of home video games and the fact that it’s even still around is something of a miracle, in my opinion. After the last...four?...titles following Legend of Mana, and the disappointment that was SD2′s (second!) remake, I really didn’t go into Trials of Mana with high hopes. I have been really, honestly pleasantly surprised. Even if you’re a diehard old-schooler who really doesn’t like modern JRPGs, if you have any nostalgia left for this series, you should give this one a go. I think it translated really well to 3D models, and what little it loses in the switch, it makes up for in playability. It’s not hard to pick up, it’s easy on the eyes and ears, it’s less grind-y than the original, and it doesn’t try to be more than what it is. I’ll probably always prefer the original, of course; there are too many memories attached to it for me, too many things that were groundbreaking at the time that are now old news or completely obsolete nowadays, and the new game certainly doesn’t push any modern boundaries. But it’s worth checking out, and especially if you’ve spent 20 years feeling let down by the Mana series, this might actually be the game you were hoping for, albeit maybe a decade late. 

[bigskydreaming]

LOL so I’m gonna say something that a lot of people are gonna HATE, because of what it does to the usually preferred canons or headcanons of how Dick goes to live with Bruce after his parents die.

But there is one more reason that I prefer the juvie origin for Dick, beyond what I’ve said in the past, and its that....

There is no possible way for Dick to go straight to living with a single billionaire in his early twenties RIGHT after his parents died, or even just a week or two after that....unless Bruce abused the FUCK out of the system himself, in order to get Dick in his house.

And I don’t see any reason why Bruce would go to the lengths of bribes or calling in ‘favors’ that would be needed to expedite the OBSCENE amount of bureaucratic red tape he would need to navigate before any judge would let him become a minor’s sole guardian - especially considering he undoubtedly had no paperwork or had undergone any of the interviews or visitations or hoops demanded of prospective foster parents BEFORE they take in their first kid....

Unless he really truly had reason to believe that every viable alternative to him greasing the wheels like he HAD to have, in order to get Dick there with any kind of swiftness.....like, I honestly don’t see a mid-twenties Bruce Wayne, with his myriad of issues and his own self-image, honestly thinking that he’s SUCH a better candidate for taking care of this traumatized eight year old kid that he’s going to cut any corner he possibly can to speed up the process....unless he was utterly convinced the alternatives were so much worse.

Like say, if he found out that the system had decided the best thing for Dick was to be tossed into juvie.

I mean....the process for fostering a kid, becoming a legal guardian, ANY which way you go about that....its not as simple as just, signing a few papers. No matter WHO you are, UNLESS you leverage that ‘who you are’ bit to get people to step on the gas to a degree far beyond anything they’re supposed to allow. 

It takes TIME. 

And even in scenarios wherein Bruce takes Dick in as a kind of witness protection while Zucco is on the loose - first off, that’s far more unrealistic than even the juvie take because like....the police HAVE protocols for that sort of thing. They don’t just hand over a kid to the first civilian who steps up and volunteers.

Honestly, the canons and headcanons where Bruce just ‘arranges’ for Dick to come stay with him almost immediately after his parents’ murder....like, they honestly skeeve me even more than the juvie thing, because of how matter of fact people are about it? Y’know? Like nobody seems to see anything wrong with the idea that a billionaire just, with zero prior experience or qualifications just says “oh I’ll take this boy home with me” and everybody goes “yes sir, well you’re a billionaire so if you want him, you got him,” like....it treats Dick like a toy. That’s not how things work, and its not how things SHOULD work....and most importantly IMO, I can’t fathom Bruce thinking that he’s the best option for Dick to such a degree that he’d break all the rules in order to get custody that fast. For that matter, if he really could arrange all that, in spite of the way the process is supposed to go, then shouldn’t it beg the question “why couldn’t Bruce pull similar strings to ensure Dick could stay with the circus, the people there who clearly loved him and wanted him to stay?”

And honestly, I kinda feel like the way people have reduced that whole process to the shorthand of “well Bruce is the good guy and we know with the benefit of hindsight that he’s Dick’s dad in every way that counts, so of course Dick has to end up living with him, so why NOT quicken the process to just a few days”....like, I feel like that actually contributes a lot, albeit unintentionally, to this tendency to take Dick for granted both in universe and out of universe, because it lends this air of like...’only the destination matters, the end result.’ Which is usually how Dick gets screwed in most cases....because people only ever look at the end result of his stories, the last position he ends up with...and completely fail to consider any of the steps in between that happened along the way, and all the things that might have happened alongside each of those steps, that lends important context to his final position in a given story.

Like this idea that well Dick has to end up with Bruce, that’s the part that matters, so its not really all that important how or why.....I feel like that really has a lot to do with how it so often gets just accepted at face value that Dick’s the one in the wrong for keeping his distance from Bruce at later points in life, or for leaving the manor, or for digging in his heels with stuff....because it all loops back into this mindset that “everyone knows Bruce loves Dick, the best place for Dick is in the manor with Bruce, ergo, everything else - like how he comes to live with Bruce or his reasons for storming out of the manor - are semantics, irrelevant details, etc.”

Except...they’re not.

And so again, as an example like....you can’t really just cut out the entire process of Dick coming to live with Bruce...because it really, truly, EXTREMELY doesn’t make SENSE for Bruce to get custody that fast without having SOME kind of leverage.....and it similarly doesn’t make SENSE for him to think he’s so clearly the most qualified person to take in this traumatized kid (no matter how much he empathized with him), that he would circumvent the system he USUALLY is so militaristic about upholding as much as he possibly can, while still being a vigilante. And that last bit sure doesn’t feel in character for Bruce, from that particular angle.

UNLESS.

Unless he’d discovered the system had MASSIVELY FUCKED UP with Dick, and he no longer trusted it with him whatsoever....and so THEN he took matters into his own hands, and did whatever necessary to get custody of Dick ASAP - realistically helped along by the MASSIVE leverage Bruce would have had at his disposal if he threatened to publicize what they’d done to this eight year old orphan.

THAT, to me, feels far more realistic, and far more in character for Bruce....and it at no point takes for granted any of Dick’s own personal journey along the way, or renders it irrelevant or an unnecessary detail.

Idk, maybe its just me, but I’ve always been super uncomfortable with the level of detail fandom puts into fleshing out Jason and Tim’s backstories (and with precedent established by his taking in Dick, any of his later kids would have had very expedited custody arrangements....but that makes it MORE likely that the FIRST kid and the process of gaining custody of him would include hoops that later kids’ stories wouldn’t), while at the same time, hollowing out Dick’s origin story to a barebones outline of ‘well his parents died and then this and this happened and then he lived with Bruce and became Robin and happily ever after until he hit his teenage years and developed an attitude problem.’

Like, there’s just something very....unsettling about how much fandom has romanticized the idea that this billionaire with a quite frankly TERRIBLE public reputation, like this is a guy who has DEDICATED himself to appearing totally irresponsible as far as the rest of the world can tell.....and just....being like ‘oh hey, no big deal about this guy of all guys just being like hey I see you have an eight year old orphan there, howzabout I take him off your hands for you’...and fandom’s like....swoon. Y’know? I mean yes, WE know Bruce is a superhero, WE know that years of cute Batman and Robin and father and son bonding would lie ahead of those two after that.....but...ANY scenario in which Gotham is like....yeah we see no problems with just letting Brucie Wayne take a traumatized orphan home to live in his big old manor with him....like..yeah. 

I mean, even as I’m typing this out, I’m thinking that yeah, there is something to be said for streamlining the process in the name of escapism, so that there’s a smoother, easier transition for this poor kid and he doesn’t have to go through so much.....BUT like at the same time, its one thing when we’re talking cute fluff stories and others when the angst is clearly a focal point of the story and yet the story STILL romanticizes this....Daddy Warbucks swoops in to save little Orphan Annie and like, this is definitively treated as like....nobody should be raising objections to this or being like wait a second....

Because the latter feels less like its being done in the name of escapism and more, like....in that sense I was talking about where it all loops back to how often Dick gets reduced to a prop within his own narratives like...things happen because they HAVE to happen, not because like....he’s a person going through things that inform the choices he makes and the things that happen from there, yknow?

Or maybe its one of those things where its like....I feel like that story is one that’s meant for a different time, at this point? Like, there WAS a time when the billionaire swooping in to take the poor orphan off to live in a manor was the kind of escapism people were looking for, but we do live in a different time now where I think most of us would agree like...wait, a decision that big deserves more than being treated like the billionaire just stops in to shop around for an orphan to accessorize with, kinda?

Idk, I feel like I’m not explaining this well, the precise reasons this disturbs me so much, which is why I’ve never posted about this particular angle before, but its been on my mind a lot lately, so maybe it makes more sense than I think it does here? LOL.

*Shrugs* Idk, I just honestly do feel in the long run and in the big picture, Dick’s personhood is ironically better preserved in the scenario where he was definitively stripped of it by an uncaring system and thrown into the last place he should’ve been....with Bruce then, upon discovering this, moving heaven and hell to see that personhood or awareness of personhood, more accurately, restored to Dick, no matter what it took, even if he had to do it himself. Because again, I also think that there’s a heeeeell of a lot of hubris in Bruce thinking that he was equipped to care for this kid right off the bat....and its not even that I don’t think he is (because I think Bruce really was a good father to Dick in their early years, and the majority of their problems arose later, when Bruce was unable to reconcile that this kid he’d once thought himself so alike to was growing into a man with his own ideas and choices that Bruce couldn’t understand or relate to). 

Again, I think its more that I don’t truly see BRUCE actually having that degree of confidence that he’s truly a good fit for taking care of Dick, not being more worried that all his issues and his focus as Batman would be a deterrent....unless he had an external kick in the ass that made him feel like no, I don’t trust this job to anyone else at this point, so I HAVE to be up to the task myself, its that simple.

[terramythos]

Review: Vicious by V. E. Schwab (Villains #1) (REREAD)

Length: 364 pages. 

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, Superheroes, Revenge Narrative, Dark, Time Jumps, Perspective Shifts, Third-Person, Great Characters, Duology

Warning(s): Graphic violence and torture. One of the main characters is just straight up genocidal. There is a very dubious consent scene later in the novel (non-explicit). Child death (sort of?). This is like, a gray versus black morality kind of story, so don’t read it if that isn’t your thing?

My Rating: 8.5 / 10

My Summary:

Victor and Eli, two genius college roommates at the top of their game, come up with a hypothesis for their senior project— that near-death experiences sometimes result in superpowers. However, when they test their theory, things go terribly awry, and both are left forever changed. Victor finds himself with the ability to manipulate pain. Eli becomes functionally immortal. And with a body count behind both young men, they transform from best friends into bitter enemies. 

Ten years later, Victor escapes from prison. Cunning and manipulative, Victor has had a decade to contemplate revenge against the man who put him there— Eli. When he finds an injured 12-year-old girl on the side of the road, he discovers Eli has spent the last decade systematically murdering EOs— people with supernatural abilities. Sydney, who can raise the dead, is the one of the few to escape. 

With the help of Sydney and his former cellmate Mitch, Victor begins to enact his revenge. But it’s only a matter of time before Victor and Eli finish what they started ten years ago…

But these words people threw around— humans, monsters, heroes, villains— to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human. The difference between Victor and Eli, he suspected, wasn’t their opinion on EOs. It was their reaction to them. Eli seemed intent to slaughter them, but Victor didn’t see why a useful skill should be destroyed just because of its origin. EOs were weapons, yes, but weapons with minds and wills and bodies, things that could be bent and twisted and broken and used.

Vicious is an interesting book to reread because, while the book itself hasn’t changed, the context behind it has. When I read this back in 2016 it was a standalone novel, originally published in 2013. Now I’m rereading it specifically because there is an unexpected sequel (Vengeful, 2018), and I wanted a refresher before jumping into it. Second, maybe a more minor detail— this book is homoerotic as hell, and I remember wondering if it was intentional on a first read. Now that Schwab recently came out as gay, I’m thinking it probably was, which makes it all the more entertaining.  

It’s also interesting to see how much Schwab’s writing has changed over time. Originally, I read Vicious, enjoyed it, then decided to read her big fantasy series Shades of Magic, and… Well, let’s just say *that* ended up being one of my favorite trilogies ever. Whoops? But in many ways I feel my enjoyment of Shades of Magic overshadowed Vicious. I enjoyed this book, but honestly I kind of forgot about it even though it was the first one I read. That was another reason to revisit it; while I might not like it as much as Shades of Magic, it’s still plenty good.

Before I do a deep dive into the book, I think it’s important to discuss the structure. Vicious basically has two stories— one in the past, and one in the present. The first half mostly focuses on the past, while the second half mostly focuses on the present. “Mostly” is important here— the story is very anachronistic. This serves to heighten the drama; we learn about Victor and Eli’s past relationship, then get a glimpse of just how corrupted and different it is in the present day, and of course wonder what got them to this point. While I feel it’s easy to do time and perspective jumps poorly, the chapters themselves are pretty short, so I never felt disconnected from any particular plot thread. The pacing was always solid. If anything I found this novel pretty easy to read, because I could tackle just a few chapters at a time yet make significant progress in the story.

Vicious is, without a doubt, character-driven. People with superpowers exist— called ExtraOrdinary people (EOs)— and said powers develop in a unique way. Other than that there’s nothing super special about the setting. And aside from the interesting structure, the story is pretty standard. But the characters themselves are fascinating and by far the strongest point of the novel. The main focus is obviously on Victor and Eli, and how they serve as foils to one another. Both are arrogant and straight-up terrible people, but the way they see the world differs greatly, and that’s ultimately what separates the “hero” of the story (Victor) from the villain (Eli). Gray versus black morality, hooray!

Seeing the initial relationship between the two leads and how it sours and twists over time is quite interesting. At first Eli seems to be the most level-headed of the two, but as the story develops you learn how fanatical and unhinged he really is. Dude just straight up embraces genocide after a point. Meanwhile, Victor is clearly a vindictive and selfish dick from the get-go, yet as Eli’s true nature shows, seems much less terrible by comparison. The story is sometimes a bit on-the-nose with the whole hero vs villain thing and how the two defy usual expectations, but it is still interesting to realize you’re genuinely rooting for Victor. Despite everything he’s a pretty likable character.

Aside from Victor and Eli, there are three supporting characters who substantially affect the story. Preteen Sydney gets the most screentime, and with Mitch (Victor’s bodyguard/hacker/cellmate) serves as the humanizing part of the story. Victor even seems to sort of care for the two! Though how much of that is genuine attachment versus just finding them useful is debatable. There’s a super twisted found family vibe with the trio which starts to form near the end (they adopt an undead dog and everything!). On the antagonistic side of things, we have Serena, Sydney’s older sister, who has the power to compel others. She’s pretty terrifying, and has her own twisted motivations for helping Eli. At times she’s honestly more unsettling than he is.

One of my main complaints about Vicious when I first read it was *just* as I started to really dig the side characters, their relationships, and their developments… the novel ended. Yes, Sydney gets significant development through the story. But Mitch and Serena get shafted. We only really get to know them toward the end of the novel with backstory dumps or a handful of perspective chapters. A lot of the novel’s real estate centers on Victor and Eli’s past, and while I think that’s an integral part of the novel, it feels like something is missing. At the time I thought this novel either needed to be longer or it needed a sequel. Well, now it has one of those things, so it will be interesting to see what Vengeful does with the characters.  

Thematically and philosophically there’s some interesting stuff going on. The hero vs villain thing is the most obvious, and as I mentioned gets pretty direct at times. But one idea I found interesting to consider is what happens to the souls of ExtraOrdinary people. It’s initially stated as fact that EOs lose a part of themselves when they die and return. They’re different, changed in a way they can’t quite describe. And for most of the novel this seems to be true. Victor and Eli both become twisted, detached people, obsessed with their own perceptions of reality. The two realize they should feel or think certain things and simply… don’t. Both attribute it to the fact they died and came back “wrong”. But the more we learn about both characters, the more we realize they were pretty much like that all along. The idea that people lose something doesn’t really hold up when you examine Sydney, who turns into a stronger and more vibrant person after coming back. It’s an interesting realization, because it highlights just how wrong Eli’s actions are.

There’s also a whole deal regarding God and spirituality vs science. Eli justifies nearly everything he does in the name of God, whereas Victor is an atheist— but the extent to which this affects things is a definite gray area. There are some uncanny coincidences in the story (like Victor discovering Sydney) that would be bad writing… except the characters notice it happening. On multiple occasions Victor notes that if God or Fate exists, it seems to be siding with him, not Eli. Even the formation of ExtraOrdinary abilities is bizarre. One gets superpowers based on their final thoughts and feelings? That’s so decidedly unscientific, especially from something that starts as a science experiment, that it really sticks out to me. Is there more to this dichotomy? I guess we’ll see if the sequel explores it more.

There are some small details I really like, but I think my favorite is the blackout poetry thing. There’s just something interesting and really funny about Victor defacing his famous parents’ self-help books. He mentions it’s one of the best gifts he got in prison, and it’s also one of the first things he does when he gets out. Probably the funniest part in the whole story is an intense chase scene where Victor is trying to escape someone through an unfamiliar house. He spots a Vale book on a shelf, and pauses EVERYTHING to just grab it and throw it out the window, then returns to the scene as if nothing happened. It’s just such an unnecessary detail that might have ended up on the cutting room floor but I honestly lost my shit laughing.

The ending is also viscerally satisfying. So much stuff ties together well. While the novel is about Victor and Eli and (ultimately) Victor’s revenge, you don’t actually learn much about his plan until it happens. A lot of lines and actions read differently in context of the ending, which is always something I like in a story.

(And here’s a totally skippable aside— *is* there some connection between this series and Monsters of Verity? The latter is a young adult duology by Schwab, which I read and reviewed here and here. But the first book has an opening quote from Victor. Hell, it’s part of the quote I picked for this review. They don’t seem to be in the same universe but… maybe they are? It’s just such a goddamn weird choice to quote a “V. Vale” at the beginning of an unrelated series. Maybe Vengeful has an explanation? Maybe Schwab just really liked that whole monsters vs humans line? I have no idea.)

Anyway, yeah, that’s Vicious! It’s certainly a fun one to read. The writing is punchy and easy to get through. The conflict between Victor and Eli is very well written and compelling. And, as I mentioned, the characters are the strong point (in my opinion, anyway), so if you enjoy character-driven media I definitely recommend it. Just note my caveat about some of the character development. Skip it if you’re one of those people bothered by Bad People Doing Bad Things In Fiction or think portraying Bad People Doing Bad Things is somehow Endorsing Bad Things. If dark stories aren’t your thing you definitely won’t enjoy this one. There are some aspects of the story that I feel could have been smoother or done differently, most of which I touch on in the review. I think Schwab has improved a lot since writing it, which is one reason I’m excited that my next read is the 2018 sequel.

[academyguide]

By Mick MichaelsThe Cosmick View: Hello, and welcome to The Cosmick View/MBM Ten Pounder! Thanks for taking some time to chat with us! Novacrow: Thanks for having us! CV: Describe your definition of the band’s sound and style and how does that definition uniquely describe the music?Novacrow: Our sound is an eclectic blend of heavy music, industrial soundscapes, and erotic imagery. All of which is overshadowed by a tongue in cheek attitude and a relentless need for validation and attention. CV: Today, everyone talks about artist and audience connection. Is such a level of connection actually achievable for an artist and if so, how have you made the connection to your fans?Novacrow: We definitely connect more to our fans when we see them in person at our shows – either mid performance or just hanging around in the venue. Maintaining that connection on a regular basis whilst you’re not touring is a bit harder. That said, we try and make the most of social media and make it work for us by being our usual goofy selves and our fans seem to really respond to that. CV: Is fan interaction an important part of the band’s inner culture?Novacrow: It really depends on what you’re trying to achieve and what your goal is. For us, the most important thing is to create music that means something to us and that we love, so it’s important for us not to feel burdened by expectations from fans. And that’s why we’ve fostered a fan base that is ready to expect anything from us, giving us the freedom to do whatever we want with our music. We’ve paradoxically created a situation where the fan’s interaction is important to us because it doesn’t matter. CV: Can a band truly interact with its fans and still maintain a level of personal privacy without crossing the line and giving up their “personal space” in your opinion?Novacrow: Sure. I think most people are respectful of the artists they like, but like anything there’s a small minority of people that give the rest of the fans a bad name, and those guys suck. But if you’re willing to set a time and place for fans before or after your shows to interact with them a bit, most people will respect that and leave you alone for the rest of the time. CV: Is music, and its value, viewed differently around the world in your opinion?  If so, what do you see as the biggest difference in such multiple views among various cultures?Novacrow: On a personal level, I think music affects everyone the same regardless of culture. As far as value goes, Spotify is accessible from all over the world isn’t it? What changes most I think is the live culture. For the past few years there was definitely an over-saturation in the live music scene here in Liverpool where we’re based, so it was hard to get people to come to shows because there was so much happening that people got bored. But if you go somewhere where live shows are less common, then they tend to value those events much more. CV: Do you feel that a band that has an international appeal, will tend to connect more so to American audiences? Would they be more enticed or intrigued to see the band over indigenous acts because of the foreign flavor?Novacrow: Eh, there might be a bit of a novelty to seeing a foreign band, and a slight exclusive element to it…as it’s less likely they’ll be performing nearby anytime soon, but that’s as far as it goes I think.CV: Has modern-day digital technology made everyone an artist on some level in your opinion? Have the actual lines of what really is an artist been blurred?Novacrow: Do you make art? If so, pat yourself on the back because you’re an artist! You might not be a successful one, but you’re still by definition an artist. Anybody arguing that would be arguing semantics at this point, and nobody’s got time for that. CV: How would you describe the difference between an artist who follows trends and one who sets them?Novacrow: Uh…one follows trends and the other sets them. Guess which one does which. CV: Has music overall been splintered into too many

sub-genres in an effort to appease fan tastes in your opinion? And has such fan appeasements, in actuality, weakened music’s impact as a whole by dividing audiences?Novacrow: Nah, the music comes first and THEN people categorize it into genres. The reason there are so many different genres is because there’s so much different music being made, and I think that’s great. And genres can help foster a specific scene, which can help bands to grow and thrive. CV: What can fans expect to see coming next from you?Novacrow: Well, our debut album ‘Look At Me Now’ will be released NEXT WEEK! So from the 30th of September onwards, we expect the world to change for the better and for us to be rolling in cash. We’ll be getting back to touring the UK, we’re currently planning a giant album launch, and hopefully this time next year we’ll be writing some new music. Who knows, the world is our oyster at the moment! CV: Thanks again for taking some time and talking. It is greatly appreciated.Novacrow: You’re welcome! Check out Novacrow at: Website: www.novacrowofficial.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/novacrowofficial Instagram: www.instagram.com/novacrowbandYouTube: www.youtube.com/c/kittysyntheticaTikTok: www.tiktok.com/@novacrowofficialSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QTW1bpe8NbGOg9F9fmV47?si=gRHo0xckQJucCvHeG7lhQw    Like The Cosmick View on Facebook at: The Cosmick VoiceMusic, Talk & Nothing But Businesswww.thecosmickvoice.com www.anchor.fm/the-cosmick-voiceMy name is Mick Michaels...I'm an artist, music fan, songwriter, producer, show host, dreamer and guitarist for the traditional Heavy Metal band Corners of Sanctuary. Writing has always been a creative outlet for me; what I couldn't say in speech, I was able to do with the written word.  Writing has given me a voice and a way for me to create on a multitude of platforms including music and song, articles, independent screenplays, books and now, artist interviews. The Cosmick View is an opportunity to raise the bar and showcase artists in a positive and inspirational light. For me, it's another out-of-this-world adventure.Pamela Aloia: Author, Energy Healer, TeacherSpiritual Counseling and Sessions Availablewww.pamelaaloia.comMarch Baby MediaPublishing, PR and Promotions                                                         Want to see your logo here? Contact The Cosmick View for details and rates. Source link

[standardchironian]

Topicalization and the Indefinite

So say you wanted to talk about reading, but you weren’t sure what was being read. Your friend asked about Jisá, and you want to tell him she’s reading; your friend knows better than to bother Jisá when she’s reading, so he will then drop the matter. Early on we explained that the subject (i.e., the absolutive case) is always definite--so how do you get around that? Well you could break out your trusty antipassive, sure! Our pal Jisá is definitely definite.

(1) twlé xedwá Jisá twl -é  xedwá  Jisá do  -f  read     Jisá Jisá is reading

Unfortunately it doesn’t click for your friend that Jisá is particularly busy, and you quite kindly want to stop your mutual friend from fouling her mood. It’s not just that she’s reading, but rather she’s skimming any one of the many journals and articles she’s using for her thesis, and we shouldn’t interrupt her. An ideal strategy here is today’s topic: topicalization!

Of course Centauri need to talk about indefinite things sometimes just like anyone else. The subject is definite, but what we can do is pull the word from subject position and stick it in front. This is a focusing method that identifies the given word or phrase as the topic of discourse, even if for just one sentence. Since SC is non-pro-drop, however, we have to leave something behind as subject, and there’s a special dummy pronoun just for that.

(2) glíf ívllám, xedwáf hlí Jisá glí        -f   ívllám, xedwá -f   hlí      Jisá INDEF -m article, read    -m EXPL Jisá Jisá is reading an article

(3) glíf ívllám, xedwáb hlí Jisá glí        -f   ívllám, xedwá -b   hlí      Jisá INDEF -m article, read    -PL EXPL Jisá Jisá is reading (some) articles

With this strategy we have managed to communicate that Jisá is reading and what Jisá is reading. Since not only is it the case that we aren’t sure which article she’s reading but also that our friend isn’t familiar with the article we’re talking about, this is exactly the kind of situation that finds use for topicalization. Two reinforcing circumstances pressure the use of a topic here: 1) the patient of the verb is indefinite, and 2) we’re introducing a new discursive focus between us and our friend.

So, how does the grammar work? When you topicalize the subject, you stick hlí in its place as a dummy pronoun. This word doesn’t really have any semantic meaning, but it fills a syntactic role. Think of it in “it is raining” in English. Once the subject is in front, since it’s no longer in the proper place to act in absolutive case, we need to give it a determiner. Above, we chose glí. As a minor note, by convention we put a comma after the topic to mirror analogous punctuation in native orthography. Otherwise though, the grammar and word order is essentially the same as what you’ve learned previously. Remember the determiner agrees by gender with its head, and the verb agrees with the topicalized subject, including number! It’s also worth pointing out the topic can have any determiner, but we’ve highlighted glí since we’re solving the problem of an indefinite subject.

Here are some more examples to illustrate the correct form.

(4) glís meng, recé hlí twá ftené glí        -s meng, rec  -é  hlí      tw    -á  ftené INDEF -f  letter,  write-f  EXPL DEF-m  person the person is writing a letter

(5) glís fl’bem, citbe hlí twá xímán glí        -s  fl’bem,   cit     -be hlí       tw   -á  xímán INDEF -f   clothes, wash-PL EXPL DEF-m human the human is washing some clothes

We started off looking for a way to show an indefinite patient, and that led us to topicalization, but there are other reasons to topicalize as well. Pulling a constituent to the front can always be used as a rhetorical device to guide discursive focus. In such uses, the choice to topicalize really comes down to style, register, custom, etc. To paint in broad strokes, someone may topicalize something that is newly mentioned, especially when it will continue to be relevant or when the speaker doesn’t think the listener is necessarily very familiar with it. The Standard Chironian used internationally is often used this way. However, some native dialects only use the strategy of topicalization for one or two of its potential functions.

When the Topic Is Required

While international SC can use topicalization as a rhetorical device, it is required in three distinct uses. The first is similar to its rhetorical use and indicates contrast. When something defies expectations, when you contradict someone else, or when you say two or more things that contrast each other, you have to use topicalization as a rule of SC pragmatics.

The second required use is related to the first and involves negation. The standard or default way to mark negative polarity in SC is to mark it on the absolutive subject. Since negation happens on determiners, you have to extract the subject as the topic in order to give it a determiner. There is potential for significant nuance in negative polarity in SC, which will be covered in an upcoming post, but we had to introduce topicalization before teaching negation.

(6) hlhríf ftené, dllf qadlvlt hlhrí         -f  ftené,     dll             -f  qadlvlt that.DIST-m person, have.INAL-m child that person has a child

(7) hlhríhlá ftené, twlá dll hlí hlhrí        -hl      -á ftené,    twl-á  dll              hlí that.DIST-NEG-m person, do-m have.INAL EXPL that person does not

The third required use of topicalization has a different origin from the other two and might seem less intuitive for some learners. When the absolutive subject of an unergative verb is inanimate, i.e., cannot be interpreted as having any volition with which to do an action, it must be presented as the topic. What does that mean? Well, an unergative verb in SC is any verb which cannot legally take an ergative argument. Such verbs are intransitive and usually but not necessarily have an agent-like noun for an absolutive subject: think “go,” “laugh,” and “stand”. Only a minority of verbs in SC are unergative, and the list of ones you’ll encounter in regular use with inanimate subjects is fairly short.

(8) twé sef, jllengé hlí tw -é sef, jlleng-é hlí the-f rain, go    -f  EXPL it is raining

(9) twé lleget, ceglé hlí tw -é lleget, cegl-é hlí the-f  light,  glow-f  EXPL the light [source] is glowing

Compare:

(10) ceglá ftené cegl -á  ftené glow-m person the person is glowing

It’s not about making a conscious judgement call on whether the subject actually had any say in the action (no one knows why the person is glowing!) but rather simply following the correct syntactic pattern when the subject is inanimate. In an earlier stage of the language, there was a real distinction based on intentionality, but that isn’t preserved in modern SC.

The grammar involved in topicalizing isn’t too complicated, but as you can see it’s a vital part of SC, especially when it comes to larger discourse and negation. Mastering topicalization will make your SC sound much more fluid and natural!

[insteadhere]

A post in which I somewhat unexpectedly go on a rant in an attempt to think through things

So I ended up digging into the Margaret Atwood tweets which led me not only to some badly written scientific american blog posts with 0 actual argument (I will have to dissect those at some point as a piece of ‘scientific-adjacent’ writing) but also lead me to this video by Jamie and Shaaba which Margaret Atwood recommends (I will note that I have seen quite a few of Jamie’s videos over the past years in my attempt to have a better sense of trans experience).

I really do appreciate their efforts to present ‘both points of view’—however, what bothers me is that  they fail to grapple with the most central disagreement between the ‘two sides’, and even fail to acknowledge it.

Basically, right at the beginning of the video, they make a strong claim about “gender identity being a real thing” (while mocking the GC perspective for ‘not hearing this’ and simply continuing to argue that ‘biological sex is a real thing,’ which also signals the fact that they just don’t seem to get the issue here). This then follows:

Shaaba: Trans inclusionists know that biological sex exists. They just also know that gender identity exists as well. For most people in the world, like me, you know you’re a woman, like I do up here, and my biological sex if female. It aligns. 

Jamie: But for a small minority of people, they know they’re a man, like me, but their bodies don’t match, and that’s what makes us trans. Trans men are men. Their assigned biological sex is female, but their gender identity is man. Trans women are women. Their assigned biological sex is male, but their gender identity is woman. And non-binary people are non-binary. Their assigned biological sex could be male or female, but their gender identity doesn’t match. Shaaba...

Shaba: yeah?

Jamie: If your body suddenly disappeared and you were just a floating head, would you still be a woman?

Shaba: Yup.

Jamie: This is gender identity. Forgetting your internal plumbing, it’s what you know you are up here.

What is happening here is that they are taking as a given the central point of disagreement. If you start your argument from the assumption that gender identity is some sort of thing everyone is born with, you’re not really presenting the debate.  Pretty everything else in the video is a corollary of this assumption, including the rebuttals of gender critical concerns about the role gender roles, discrimination, homophobia etc might play in transition, as well as how the trans-narrative can shape people’s own understanding of their struggles and identity. The claim that gender identity is something you just are and know is repeated, the innateness of gender identity is heavily implied and transitioning is framed as a need and not  choice, let alone a simple ‘wish’ (there’s also some pretty absurd semantic games in that move, too).

I think many GC people that I know of are accepting of the fact that there are some people who have a (to others incomprehensible) discomfort with their sexed body, and that no other approach other than medical intervention and a transition can alleviate that discomfort. Still, it is important to ask and understand why that discomfort is there and if it can be alleviated in a different way that might be less risky than life-long hormones and surgeries. (and my sense is, this has been the shared main perspective until not that long ago)

But this isn’t really the subject of the debate—when the trans inclusionists (to go with Shaaba and Jamies term) discuss what being trans is, they don’t discuss extreme discomfort with one’s sexed body, they discuss ‘knowing’ that one is a man or a woman, as somehow separate from the body.

Now GC people have been trying for years to really understand what is meant here, because it makes little sense. 

Let’s take a different case of immutable biological reality, and I know its imperfect but it’s difficult to find a good not-charged comparison. (and hey, height is actually a good old spectrum, while tall people are generally favored over short people, not to mention discrimination against people with dwarfism). 

I am some 5′3″ (160 cm) tall. What would it mean if I said that I just know I am actually a 5′11″ (180 cm) tall person?

My experience of myself and the world around me is shaped by my height—different grocery stores shelves are at my eye level, I look up at people more than I look down at them, and people treat me as weaker and less threatening and maybe even younger than they would if i were taller. I often feel really awful about my height and spent most of my young life desperately wanting and wishing to grow taller, to the point of looking up surgeries that could add a couple of inches to my frame. What would it mean for me to be a ‘tall person’ in a ‘short person’s body? What would it mean for me to just ‘know’ my height even if I was a floating head? And if I went to a professional telling them I am a lot shorter than I really feel, what would it mean if there was a ready made path for me to get surgery and pharmaceuticals to grow taller? And if I could watch video after video of people who followed those paths and are now really happy (tall!) people? 

How do we know that we don’t all have a height-identity and while most people’s actual height and inner sense of their height aligns, it does not for some people? We would then ask ‘what doesn’t it really mean to be a ‘tall person’ (as opposed to somebody whose body is of a certain height) and what does it mean to be a ‘short person’? Does it have to do with how short and tall people are perceived? Like ‘short people’ are more vulnerable and more passive, and ‘tall people’ are more confident and aggressive? But isn’t that just weird stereotypes that people (both short and tall) have been wrestling against? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just find a way to come to terms with and lead a flourishing life with the body that you have?

Some would say, then, ‘this is conversion therapy, it is bad!’ But these comparisons to sexual orientation conversion therapy are misplaced. In terms of homosexuality, there is the contrast between changing the person (conversion therapy, ) and changing society in order to let the person be as they are without any intervention. A separate thing would be having supportive therapy to minimize distress while society is changing. So I would argue that  changing my height is more akin to conversion therapy as it is intervening on me as a person, as opposed to trying to understanding why I might be ‘feeling tall’ and, if necessary, changing society so I can lead a ‘tall person life’(whatever that might be) in my short body.

Now if this whole example sounds absurd, it’s because it is. And that is how a lot of discussions of gender identity sound to gender critical feminists. And what makes it even worse in terms of gender is that stakes are much higher (no pun intended) and stereotypes much more powerful.

If we want to  find some common ground, and if we want to envision a kind of future that will be better for everyone, we need to debate and understand the basic assumptions, and their corollaries.

We cannot simply make a claim that ‘gender identity’ is an innate thing everyone has  pretty much without empirical data as that makes it an ideological, not a factual claim. It’s clear that we will need to grapple with this so we need to determine

what is ‘gender identity’? 

is it innate?

how many people have it?

why do some people’s gender identities align with their bodies and others’ do not.

It is unclear how we could really study any of these, especially if ‘gender identity’ is simply a contemporary idiom for speaking about parts of our selves  that have to do with sex and gender (that is identification with one’s social ascribed gender role). As such, it would be highly susceptible to environmental influences and might simply be a ‘transient construct’ filling a particular cultural niche (c. Ian Hacking’s transient mental illness).  But we need to seriously address these questions, and we need to be able to do so without accusations of invalidating people or perpetrating violence against them.

How we talk about things, how we name things makes a difference, which is of central concern to critical feminists. Often when we see people talking about ‘gender identity’ it sounds more like they’re talking about a sense of self/personality that aligns more with one set of stereotypes than the other, which to us is obviously problematic. And if the main cultural narrative about gender-non conformity (societally produce issue) is that of being trans (a matter of individual) than people who are gender non-conforming will be more likely to understand themselves as trans (I would argue that ’trans’ is a human, not a natural category, and it does not exists outside or without our narratives about it. this is yet another very basic things on which there seems to be disagreement. I will highlight that ‘human’ categories are no less real, but they behave differently from natural categories)

This all matters if we are to imagine some sort of a future we can all agree on, because I think we can  all agree on the fact that we want the world to be a different place, and who knows, maybe we actually share a vision and we do not even know because we don’t talk about it.

As a thought experiment, let’s assume that most people are agender, in that most people do not have a deep innate sense of their gender—I know I don’t, so maybe I am just projecting, but let’s just roll with it for the thought experiment’s sake. It might also make the most sense in terms of ‘gender is a’ spectrum, maybe not a bell curve but, you have ‘trans’ on one tail and ‘gender identity aligned with the same sex’ on the other tail and the majority of people in the more undefined middle with some cis skew? Or maybe it’s a man-woman normal distribution. I don’t think it’s that far-fetched because I think most ‘cis’ people (based on my conversations with cis people in my life) would say, for example ‘I am a man because I am male’ and if you told them ‘well being male doesn’t mean you are a man’ than they would say ‘I am not sure what being ‘man’ is then, but I guess it would mean I am not necessarily a man’. I don’t have any data on this because I cannot find any, and I’ve tried really hard.

I would be an agender female, for example, and part of my struggle would be that the world keeps reading me as a ‘woman’ because of my female-looking body. I just want to be a person and have nothing with whatever ‘woman’ might entail. What I really want is for people to stop assuming things about me based on my sex. This is exactly what GC feminists want. 

We push this further, maybe we end up with a whole slew of people identifying as ‘agender’ and maybe even using they pronouns to communicate that. And you would then end up with smaller numbers of people on the ends of the spectrum, strongly identifying with their sex or the opposite sex, and maybe using their preferred sex pronouns to indicate that. People who feel a strong discomfort with their sexed bodies despite less intrusive interventions physically transition to a body they feel more comfortable with.  Some of them are maybe also agender, others have a strong sense of their gender. In most contexts their transition doesn’t matter, and in those in which it does they clearly acknowledge that they’ve undergone sex transition because it matters in those contexts.

But then things have to change again. It makes less sense to discuss men and women anymore, especially when majority of the population are agender males or females, though we still use ‘male’ and ‘female’ in matters when biological differences matter (health, menstrual products, pregnancy, sports). ‘Man’ and ‘woman’ might likely take on more and more extreme meanings as they are detached from biological sex, and fewer and fewer people opt to identify as ‘man’ or ‘woman’ because their sense of self does not necessarily align with the sense of those words. Ultimately everyone is they, everyone is agender, we are constantly talking about ‘males’ and ‘females’ to discuss different parts of the population with different needs. We are kind of back at square one, though hopefully with less gender stereotyping. 

Notice how this is the future that GC feminists are working towards, but we got there through the notion of gender identity ( with a bit of a detour?)

Maybe I am getting it wrong, maybe gendered identity is something else altogether, but I am still unable to grasp what it’s supposed to be (like many GC feminists), and the ‘trans inclusionists’ are consistently failing to engage this question in a systematic and reasoned way, despite it being the central question.

[eternal-echoes]

WN: Mr. Chesterton, did you not support the creation of an independent Jewish state?

GKC: Yes, I did.

WN: I agree that the Jewish people should have a homeland. But, white people should have a homeland too …

GKC: One moment. You’re conflating two different things. “Jewish” is an ethnicity. A real national identity. “White” is a racial term. White is a linguistic construct.

WN: No it’s not. It’s a genetic reality.

GKC: Are the Irish white?

WN: Yes. Of course.

GKC: Are Jews white?

WN: Well, that depends on who you ask. Genetically, they are. But, they have a distinct ethnic identity …

GKC: As do the Irish, the Italians, the French, the English, the Polish, the Russians, the Romanians,the Estonians, the Scots, the Dutch …

WN: No. They are bound together as members of a greater white world. They have similar genetics and a common identity and all of those people can look at one another and know they are white in the same way a black man from Morocco can look at a black South African and feel a similar kinship.

GKC: There have been countless times the English and French have looked each other in the eye and tried to kill one another. Haven’t you read any European history? Or any Shakespeare? Henry V centers on the battle at Agincourt where the English slaughtered the French. Shortly after I died, there was a Second World War where the English fought the Germans. England, France, and Germany are different nations with different peoples and different cultures.

WN: What matters is that they are white. If you flood France with Moroccans, it won’t be France any more.

GKC: If you flood France with Englishmen, it won’t be France anymore.

WN: Would you rather live in a mono-racial country or a multi-racial country?

GKC: I’d prefer to live in a Christian country.

WN: No. Suspend God for a moment …

GKC: It’s hard to suspend someone who is omnipotent.

WN: Imagine God doesn’t exist …

GKC: To imagine creation without a creator is impossible. You might as well say “Imagine a detailed painting that was painted by no one,” or “imagine a builder-less building.” Everything man thinks is referential to existence, and existence is logical. Even in the most corybantic parts of man’s imagination, two and two still make four. He cannot imagine two and two making five. To ask me to imagine a creator-less creation is to ask me to imagine two and two making five. This is something I cannot do. A musician named Lennon once said, “Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try.” I’ve tried. It’s not easy.

WN: All right! Fine! All things being equal, would you rather live in a mono-racial country or a multi-racial country?

GKC: I’d rather live in my home, England.

WN: Why?

GKC: I love my home.

WN: Why?

GKC: Because it’s mine.

WN:  Why is it yours?

GKC:  I was born there. I lived there. I’d die for it. And, I did what I could to preserve its culture.

WN: By “culture”, you mean whiteness.

GKC: No. “By culture”… I mean culture.

WN: But race dictates culture.

GKC: France, Germany, and England all have different cultures, but they also have what you would call the same race.

WN: But French culture is much closer to English culture, than say Chinese.

GKC: Yes. That is true.

WN: And race accounts for the significant cultural difference.

GKC: Not so. “If the Church had not entered the world then, it seems probable that Europe would be now very much what Asia is now. Something may be allowed for a real difference of race and environment … But after all we talk about the changeless East very largely because it has not suffered the great change.” The Cross. (“The Escape from Paganism,” The Everlasting Man)

WN: What did the cross change in the West that set it apart from the East?

GKC: Tone and proportion. If the cross hadn’t happened “the tone and proportion of all these things, and especially the proportion of good and evil things, would be in the unchanged West what they are in the changeless East.” (“The Escape from Paganism”)

WN: Even if there is truth to that, you cannot have culture without race.

GKC: No. You cannot have culture without cult. The faith is what matters. Especially when comparing the eternal east with the young west.

WN: Just think of England.  The people speak a common language, they dress a certain way, they celebrate certain holidays, and they have certain heroes who are all white. England is white.

GKC: No. England is English.

WN: And “English” means white.

GKC:  “Mere jingo self-contentment is commonest among those who have some pedantic reason for their patriotism. The worst jingoes do not love England, but a theory of England. If we love England for being an empire, we may overrate the success with which she [ruled India]. But if we love it only for being a nation, we can face all events: for it would be a nation even if [India] ruled us.” (“The Flag of the World,” Orthodoxy)

WN:  This is completely unreasonable.

GKC:  That’s the point. We love things without a reason. Love is unreasonable.

WN:  This is not natural.

GKC:  Nay, it is supernatural! Glad we could find common ground!

WN: Okay. Look here, mono-racial places are less violent than multi-racial places. It’s that simple …

GKC: Is it? Haiti is almost completely mono-racial. Would you rather live in Manhattan or Haiti? Bosnia is mono-racial. How’d you like to live there?

WN: You’re picking outliers. You’re not addressing the larger question. Are people products of nature or nurture? I say nature.

GKC: Do you believe it is ethical to judge a man based on the color of his skin?

WN: (looking defiantly at Chesterton) I think it is practical and we all do it.

GKC: Why is it practical?

WN: Because man is largely a product of his genetics. Environment does enter the picture, but to a much lesser extent.

GKC: A great statesman came about in the United States long after I died. He said, “We ought to judge a man by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin.” He was a Protestant but that sentiment is especially Catholic. It presupposes free will. The reason it is bad to judge a man by his race is because he has free will. And so, we should assess him by the things he chooses to do and the philosophy he holds …

WN: All right. But, when you’re walking down the street at night, you don’t have the approaching stranger’s history or record at hand.

GKC: But, is it good or evil to judge him based on the color of his skin?

WN: It is practical.

GKC: Not what I asked.

WN: We need to move beyond good and evil.

GKC: (Chuckling) Oh, not Nietzsche …

WN: Yes, Nietzsche!  He was a bold and strong thinker.

GKC: “No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet.” (“The Eternal Revolution,” Orthodoxy)

WN: How so?  Give me an example.

GKC: “He said, ‘beyond good and evil,’ because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or, ‘more evil than good and evil.’ Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense.” (“The Eternal Revolution”)

WN: (laughing heartily) This is peak Christian Universalism. It is adorable!

GKC: But, is it good or evil?

WN: We must move beyond good and evil.

GKC: What is good? And, why is good so good?

WN: These are semantical word games. They mean nothing.

GKC: Would you say they are “good” semantical word games?

WN: You play with words while your people, white people, face extinction.

GKC: What do you mean?

WN: I mean there is a white genocide. White people are being outbred and outnumbered in their own countries.

GKC: You call this a genocide?

WN: Yes!

GKC: And, you want to stop it?

WN: Yes!

GKC: Why?

WN: As a white man, I have interests. As a people, the whites have interests.

GKC: Do all races have interests?

WN: Of course.

GKC: Should the interests of all races be respected?

WN: All indigenous peoples should be respected. All peoples should have a homeland.

GKC: If I were to say that I don’t respect the interests of your people … furthermore, if I were to support the elimination of “your people”…

WN: That would be evil, because…

GKC: Evil!  We move beyond it, and back towards it.

WN: I misspoke. I believe it would be against my interests.

GKC: If I were a black man from Morocco, should I respect your group’s interests?

WN: What is your point?

GKC: My point is, you have an ethos. You haven’t progressed, or regressed, or run past, or jumped over, or walked by, or … moved beyond good and evil.

WN: Oh no.  I’m not making an appeal to ethics; I’m making an appeal to strength. The “other” won’t accept your ethics. The barbarians at the gate do not care about your logic and abstract arguments. All they know is that you are not them. They don’t know that you’re Catholic or smart or witty. They know that you’re a fat old white man. And, they know you’re the “other” and you are a potential threat. The question is, who has the whip hand? The majority does. In a democracy, the majority has the votes and thus the political power. We need to maintain our strength. We need to be a majority where we live.

GKC: Why?

WN: I do not want to live as a minority.

GKC: Why not?

WN: Historically, being a racial minority is very difficult. You get oppressed, ostracized, discriminated against, and treated unfairly.

GKC: By whom?

WN: The majority. The majority always holds the whip hand over the minority. The question is: which are you? It’s not a matter of good or bad, right or wrong. It’s a matter of strength. “History is a slaughter bench,” as Nietzsche said. Will you be the one getting slaughtered, or the one doing the slaughtering? The hordes of dark peoples coming to England do not understand logical arguments, they understand strength.

GKC: Most people don’t understand logical arguments. Most French and Germans don’t …

WN: They are still our people. They are white.

GKC: No. They’re French and German.

WN: Not to a black African. He looks at them and only sees white people.

GKC: (Rolling his eyes) What did the French see when they looked across the field at the English soldiers at Agincourt? White brethren … who wanted to kill them?

WN: (Ignoring GKC)  When all institutions have broken down, when the state has fallen, and men are left to their own devices … What side does he take? He takes his own side, he sides with his own kind, other blacks. What binds men together and creates order in a country?

GKC: The Holy. A sense of the sacred and divine.

WN:  No. Race.  Men of the same race reach an understanding: “I won’t hit you, if you won’t hit me.”  You can’t have that social compact in a multi-racial society. And, that agreement is how morality began …

GKC: “Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, ‘I will not hit you if you do not hit me’; there is no trace of such a transaction. There is a trace of both men having said, ‘We must not hit each other in the holy place.’ They gained their morality by guarding their religion.” (“The Flag of the World,” Orthodoxy)

WN: What is your point?

GKC: Communities need a sense of the divine in order to have a true sense of place. Biological differences exist among all men, but when earnestly contemplating the divine all men are brought to the same level, to their knees. When we contemplate the final judgment, these biological differences melt away and we realize that “the mere man on two legs, as such, should be felt as something more heartbreaking than any music and more startling than any caricature.” (“Ethics of Elfland,” Orthodoxy)

WN: But, in matters of life and death, people don’t think that way. They run to their racial brothers and sisters.

GKC: Are you sure? Consider America: when a natural disaster strikes, Americans aid those in their nearest vicinity and then they aid others farther off. First their families, then their neighbors, and then others in their town. Americans understand that “Death is more tragic, even than death by starvation.” (“Ethics of Elfland,” Orthodoxy)  Watch when a hurricane hits. You won’t see racial tribalism. You’ll see something closer to subsidiarity. They love their home simply because it is theirs and they’ve always been a religious people. They don’t have ‘blood and soil,’ but soil and soul. The Americans don’t have a sense of race, they have a sense of place.

[ask-ironbeak]

AWISE

Hey all!

After an EXTREMELY LONG HIATUS, I am back in the habit of writing an illustrating for Ironbeak’s Journal again. So where are the new entries? Well, this week, they are actually ... the old entries. I’ve been doing some editing of art and writing on the first 30 or so entries to bring them in line with the style of the more recent ones (the ones where I’ve actually planned out what I’m doing in advance and have a better handle on what Ironbeak looks and sounds like).

And I’ll be continuing to edit art and text through tomorrow.

Most of the text edits are minor, but I wanted to assure anyone who’s rereading and has a really good memory that they aren’t going crazy. The only major overhaul of an entry occurred with Log 20: The Reading Room, which is now quite a bit different to bring it in line with the lore I’ve decided on for the Glitch.

Here’s the old version for your enjoyment (or not--I always wanted to redo this one cause it bothered me, lol).

Log 20: The Reading Room

      "Mr. Vanderbuilt--" I said, rising from my seat, as he entered the Reading Room.     "Please, just Vander." He spoke in Glitch, but dropped the conversational expressives in favor of greater intonation, as I did. His voice was hoarse without the audio filters running. It sounded as though he was still smiling beneath what I now knew was a helmet.     "A pun," I said lamely.     "I took it as my pseudonym when I first arrived here. That was almost thirty  years ago." He removed his metal head and set it gently upon a desk, then turned to face me. This was my first look at an Apex in the flesh. Even in the dark, it was clear he cut his own hair.     The reading room was cozy and warm, with three couches encircling a low, round table, and several desks messily crammed with writing utensils. On the wall appeared to be the library's reserve collection of artwork. Mr. Vanderbuilt Vander lit an oil lamp on the desk beside his false head, and we both took a seat.

    "When word gets around that your beacon summoned the Penguins, there's going to be a lot of distrust coming your way," he said.     "You know?"     "Of course I know. Some of us even saw the ship as it descended. But none of the townsfolk has ever actually seen a Penguin ship. A few may have read about them, as I do have a book or two on the topic. But it won’t be until Dosskey spreads the word that most folks here will get the news. And that's when your status as the Friendly Foreigner may erode a bit.” He put his ironclad feet up on the table. "There are already a few who don't take kindly to your presence. Maybe you've noticed. They think you'll corrupt the youth, put harmful ideas about space travel in their head."     "I know nobody from this town has flown since ... well, since it was founded, that much was clear as soon as I started asking around for ship repairs. But--harmful ideas? Really?"     "This town was founded by Outcasts. As you well know, having borrowed Founding Forges last week. You did read it, didn't you?"     "Well ... yes, I did. But ... not in full. I admit, I found the book on sellomander biology to be a little more captivating."     "Having seen your illustrations, I figured you might. But I'll fill you in." Vander stood and began to pace the room, hands behind his back, like a professor giving a lecture.

    "Do you know what an Outcast is?"     "I didn’t know there would be a test," I said, and he responded with an appreciative laugh. "I know the Glitch on Avos were ejected from Glitch society for whatever reasons. But for a lot of them, it happened generations back. Space travel must have brought those to the Alpha Hamal system just as it brought those to Avos."     "Yes. There are quite a few independent colonies in the galaxy. But traditional Glitch society is a sort of feudal collectivism. In its truest form, every member of society is intimately connected via a massive neural network called a Hivemind. Serverside, thankfully, has no such thing. If it did, I would have no chance of passing as an ordinary citizen.     Serverside does, however, closely ahere to the same collectivist culture in which most Glitch are comfortable. Those that stray from traditionalist values of work ethic, family values, simple living ... let me put it this way: despite being a direct example of extremely advanced technology, the Glitch themselves are Luddites. It’s not in their nature to explore, but they will out of necessity. And more often than not, those who are cast out are most apt to survive elsewhere."     "So they excommunicate people for what, studying engineering?"     "Exactly that. Mechanical though they are, Glitch are not robots. But they didn't evolve like you or I. They were created, and they were programmed. Legend has it that they were created to enact some sort of grand social simulation. The truth is hard to uncover, because those of the original Glitch civilizations don't believe they are acting on programming at all." He sounded like he was rambling. Perhaps he’d been waiting to talk to someone about this for a long time.     "But ... they program their own children,” I said. “When they’re created, or what have you. Even if they believe the code to be as fundamental as DNA ... surely they must realize that there was a ... prime mover?"     "Ha, aptly said. But that's just it. The Kluex priesthood--would they have you believe that your existence is the result of evolutionary happenstance? That the whole Avian race is just a byproduct of its surroundings, and that a few mundane twists of environment or inheritance might have had a different race rise to sentience on Avos? Of course not. It is for the Glitch as it is for many of your people: their existence was divinely foretold. What many have tried to explain to them is hardwired by their creators, they believe to be divinely inspired."     Considering the fantastical mythology I’d grown up with, the difference between divine creators and mundane inventors seemed like semantics. Still, I asked, “And you think it's their programming that causes them to remain technologically primitive?"     "I do. But some Glitch break the mold. Like genetic mutants, they often benefit from their unique abilities. They are aware that their fellows appear to be stuck in the feudal era, and they seek to surpass it. Most Outcasts have an innate fascination with astronomy, space travel, and alien cultures. And they're almost always persecuted for it."     "Even in a town like this? So recently founded by space travelers? You don't really think Serverside would ostracize someone just for an interest in space travel, do you?"

    "I know they already have,” he answered. "Outcasts simply don't do well in traditional Glitch societies. Usually, sudden self-awareness is brought on by an injury. Occasionally, it is present from birth. Even more rarely is it inherited. The Founders of Serverside, I think, were hoping that if they brought together enough Outcasts, that they could hand it down from generation to generation.

    But many Glitch colonies suffer similar fates. Though the founders did their best to build and program their children, they could not fight nature.” As a biologist, I couldn’t help a derisive snort. Vander paused to shoot me a you know what I meant glare before continuing. “By bringing so many Glitch together in this community, the Founders have most likely doomed them to repeat history."     "Are you saying the Glitch can't ... evolve, socially?"     "I don't know. But when this town was founded just a few hundred years ago, it was by all accounts a peaceful anarchy. Not lawless, mind you ... but no formal judicial system existed for nearly a hundred years. Now Serverside is a democracy, and there have been talks for decades of holding a mayoral election. How long do you think it will be before they have a king?"     "I'm no political scientist, but it seems just as likely that this is a natural progression of government. Any sentient race could have walked down the path you're describing."     "Maybe so. But I have been living in this town and curating its history for quite some time now. To me, the pattern is clear: the townsfolk are growing more fond of a traditional lifestyle every day. Even Dosskey's interest in guns is seen as questionable."     "Can't they be ... deprogrammed, somehow?"     "Attempts have been made by the Glitch themselves to create a Better Glitch. The experimentors found that tampering with the software--even slightly--had dire consequences. I'm sure you read about that in 'Mistakes to Avoid,' eh?     "I did. It wasn't specific on the consequences, but it was fairly heavy-handed about following the instruction manual, yes. I assumed it was a matter of tradition."     "And so it is, my good fellow. But you may unravel that mystery soon enough."

[putris-et-mulier]

What are your thoughts on people who identify as a gender that is affected by their mental illness, like for example, schizogender?

The difficulty here is that there are many philosophies on what both disability and gender is. 

If one were to argue that gender identity is inherent, that you are born with a particular gender identity, then the case of nature versus nurture leaves nature victorious. You have to look at disability as a medical model in this case, not a social one.

In the medical model of disability not being straight and/or cis makes you a minority in certain neurological aspects. So someone diagnosed with autism is as disabled as someone diagnosed with homosexuality.

If that’s insulting to any of you you might want to consider your preconceptions about disability. Sexual and gender illnesses have been removed from the DSM which is essentially the medical Bible. Unless you fit within the parameters listed in that book you will not ascend to appropriate healthcare.

Key point:

Having a gender or sexual illness is offensive and the mere suggestion that these identities are medical disabilities is offensive because being disabled is offensive. Many people considered mentally ill also find it offensive that people refer to the way their body works naturally as an illness. People with physical disabilities tend not to have a problem with their conditions being referred to as an illness but the difference isn’t semantics, having a physical disability means never being able to differentiate yourself from you in the concept people have of your disability. In the case of mental disabilities using words like illness perpetuate the idea that those types of disabled people have a deteriorating condition that makes it just a matter of time before they break and do something violent.

Language like this is powerful considering people use it by accusing others of having mental disabilities to invalidate their position.

Does Donald Trump seem disabled to you? He’s one of the most privileged people in the world and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone that’s held that position, or one similar, that wouldn’t be considered neurologically divergent.

A diagnosis is a word used to describe a range of conditions which is why you will hear people say things about autism being on a spectrum; autism is not something you have, it’s your nature. It doesn’t mean you have a lack of ability, it means you have a lack of profitable ability.

Take Prof. Mary Temple Grandin who specializes in animal science for example, she is autistic and disabled in many social capacities but these neurological functions we refer to as autistic also set her apart as a genius specifically because it gives her a unique perception of the world. The privilege she has because her perceptions are considered valuable is a conditional gift. 

Her work has made the industrial farming industry a lot of money because her “illness”  has enabled her to create over 60 peer reviewed scientific papers that have been revolutionary in many markets.

Many people who are blind do not consider themselves disabled but we have a similar example in Dr. Wanda Diaz Merced who specializes in astrophysics and as an assistance tool she created a telescope that doesn’t receive images but the sound waves that supernovas and solar flares give off.

It was discovered that all of those who came before her were disabled because they relied on vision. 

She is revolutionizing many fields of science with her discoveries by studying the wavelengths of gamma rays instead of basing her research on the way space looks.

The arts and culture itself have always been created and cultivated by what are consider disabled people. It is no coincidence that the LGBT™ community are praised for their contributions to art and that community was a substantial population in what was the disabled community until 1973.

[douglassmiith]

How To Test A Design Concept For Effectiveness

About The Author

Paul is a leader in conversion rate optimisation and user experience design thinking. He has over 25 years experience working with clients such as Doctors … More about Paul …

Getting a client or stakeholder to approve a design concept can be challenging. However, testing can make it easier, as well as ensuring you have the right solution.

Most of us are reasonably comfortable with the idea of carrying out usability testing on a website or prototype. We don’t always get the opportunity, but most people accept that it is a good idea.

However, when it comes to a design concept, opinion is more divided. Some designers feel it undermines their role, a view that seems to be somewhat backed up by the famous “Forty Shades of Blue” episode, where Google tested which one of forty shades of blue to use for link color.

Google undermined the role of the designer by placing an overwhelming emphasis on testing. (Large preview)

It is a position I can sympathize with, and testing certainly doesn’t tell us everything. For example, it cannot come up with the right solution, only judge a design that already exists. Neither is the kind of obsessional testing demonstrated by Google healthy for morale, or most companies bottom line.

That said, in this post, I want to explore some of the advantages testing design concepts can provide to us as designers, and demonstrate that we can do it cheaply and without slowing down the delivery of the overall project.

Let’s begin by asking why a designer might favor testing of their design concepts.

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Why You Should Embrace Testing Design Concepts

Every designer has stories of being caught in revision hell. Endlessly tweaking colors and adjusting layout in the hopes of finally getting sign off from the client.

It’s not always like that, but every project is a gamble. Will the client, sign off immediately, or will you end up with a design concept named “Final-Version-21.sketch”? And that is the problem; you just do not know, which makes project planning and budgeting extremely difficult.

Testing Makes the Design Process Predictable

People tend to consider testing a design as a lUXury that a project cannot afford. They see it as too time-consuming and expensive. However, in truth, it brings some much-needed predictability to a project that can, in many cases, make things quicker and cheaper.

Yes, if everything goes smoothly with design sign-off, design testing can slow things down and cost a little money. But, that rarely happens. Usually, a design goes through at least a few rounds of iteration, and occasionally it has to be thrown out entirely.

Rarely is this because the design is terrible. Instead, it is because stakeholders are unhappy with it.

By contrast, testing creates a framework for deciding whether a design is right, that is not based on personal preference. Some quick testing could approve a design without the need for further iteration or at worse would lead to some relatively minor amendments if the designer has done their job.

In most cases, this proves faster and less expensive than an endless discussion over the direction. However, even when it does not, it is more predictable, which improves product planning.

Testing also has another related advantage. It changes the basis upon which we assess the design.

Testing Encourages the Right Focus and Avoids Conflict

The design has a job to do. In most cases, it has to connect with a user emotionally, while also enabling them to use the website as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, most design is not assessed on this basis.

Instead, we often evaluate a design on the simple criteria of whether or not the client likes it. It is this conflict between the role of a design and how it is evaluated that causes disagreements.

By carrying out testing on a design, you refocus the stakeholders on what matters because you build the test around those criteria instead.

That has another advantage as well. It helps avoid a lot of the disagreement over the design direction. That is especially true when many people are inputting on the design.

Because design is subjective, the more people who look at it, the more disagreement there will be. The way this is typically resolved is through a compromise that produces a design that pleases nobody and is often not fit for purpose.

Testing provides an alternative to that. It leads to less conflict between stakeholders and also ensures the integrity of the design, which ultimately leads to a better product.

Testing Improves Results

By using testing to avoid design by committee and focus stakeholders on the right assessment criteria, it almost guarantees a better design in the end.

However, there is another factor that ensures testing produces better design; that is the fact that we, as designers are not infallible.

Sometimes we misjudge the tone of the design or the mental model of the user. Sometimes we fail to spot how an image undermines the call to action or that the font is too small for an elderly audience. Testing helps us identify these issues early, while they are still easy to fix. Updating a mockup in Sketch or Figma is a lot easier than on a working website.

So hopefully now you see that design testing is a good idea for all parties concerned. The next question then becomes; how do we carry out design testing?

How to Implement Design Testing

Before you can test how well a design concept is working, you first need to be clear about what you are testing. Earlier I said that a design had two jobs. It had to connect with users emotionally and enable people to use the site as efficiently as possible.

With that in mind, we want to test two things:

The brand and personality of the design, which is what dictates whether a design connects with the user emotionally.

The usability and visual hierarchy, which enables people to use the site more efficiently.

It is important to note as well that for the sake of this article, I am presuming all we have is a static mockup of the design, with no interactivity.

So, let’s start by looking at how we test brand and personality.

Test Brand and Personality

Before somebody is willing to act on a website, they have to trust that website. Users have to form a positive first impression.

In a study published in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology, they found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage. What is more, these decisions have a lasting impact.

According to a study in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology you have 50 milliseconds to make a first impression. (Large preview)

In that length of time, the user is judging the website purely on aesthetics, and so we need to ensure those aesthetics communicate the right things.

We have three ways we can test this, but let’s begin with my personal favorite.

Semantic Differential Survey

A semantic differential survey is a fancy name for a simple idea. Before you begin designing, first agree on a list of keywords that you want the design to signal to the end-user. These might be terms like trustworthy, fun or approachable.

Once you have created the design, you can now test whether it communicates these impressions in the user by running a semantic differential survey.

Simply show the user the design and ask them to rate the design against each of your keywords.

You can use a simple survey to understand whether a design is communicating the right message. (Large preview)

The great thing is that if the design rates well against all of the agreed words, not only do you know it is doing its job, it is also hard for stakeholders to reject the design because they don’t like some aspect of it.

You can use this method to ascertain the most effective approach from multiple designs. However, there is a much simpler test you can also adopt when you have more than one design concept.

Preference Tests

A preference test is what it sounds like. You simply show several design concepts to users and ask them to select which approach they prefer.

However, instead of just asking users to select which design they like most, ask them to select a design based on your keywords. You can ask users to select which design they feel best conveys the keywords you chose.

You can also apply the same principle of comparison to your competition.

Competition Testing

You can run precisely the same kind of preference test as above, but instead, compare your design concept against competitors’ websites. That will help you understand whether your design does a better job of communicating the desired keywords compared to the competition.

A preference test can be used to see how your design compares to the competition. (Large preview)

The advantage of both types of preference testing is that it discourages stakeholders from adopting a pick-and-mix approach to design. In other words, it encourages them to compare designs in their entirety, rather than selecting different design elements from the competition or different versions, and asking you to combine them into a Frankenstein approach.

By combining both semantic differential surveys and preference testing, you can build up a clear picture of whether a design’s aesthetics are communicating the right impression. However, we still need to ensure it is usable and that people can find the information or features they need.

Test Usability and Visual Hierarchy

A website can look great and give the user the right feel, but if it is hard to use it will have still failed to do its job.

Once you have a fully built website or even a prototype, testing for usability is easy by combining A/B testing (quantitive) with usability testing (qualitative).

However, when all you have is a static mockup of the design, it can appear harder to test. Fortunately, that impression is incorrect. What is more, it is worth testing at this early stage, because things will be much easier to fix.

We have two tests we can do to ascertain usability. The first focuses on navigation and the second on visual hierarchy.

First-Click Tests

An influential study into usability, by Bob Bailey and Cari Wolfson, demonstrated the importance of ensuring that the user makes an excellent first choice when navigating your website. They proved that if users got their first click right, they had an 87% chance of completing their task correctly; however, if they got it wrong that dropped to just 46%.

Fortunately, we can test whether users will make the right first click using an imaginatively named “first click test”.

In the first click, test users are given a task (e.g. “Where would you click to contact the website owners?”), and then they are shown the design concept.

The user then clicks the appropriate place on the concept that they believe is correct, and the results are recorded. It is that simple.

First Click Tests help you understand whether your navigation is clear. (Large preview)

The advantage of running a first-click test from the designers perspective is that it can resolve disagreements about information architecture by demonstrating whether users understand labeling and the site’s overall structure.

However, usability isn’t all about clicking. It is also essential that users spot critical content and calls to action. To test for that, you need a 5-second test.

5-Second Tests

Research seems to indicate that on average, you have about 8 seconds to grab a users attention and that many leave a website within 10 to 20 seconds. That means our interfaces have to present information we want users to see in the most obvious way possible. Put another way; we need to distinguish between the most important and less important information.

Testing this kind of visual hierarchy can be achieved using a 5-second test.

Usability Hub describe a five-second test in this way:

“A five-second test is run by showing an image to a participant for just five seconds, after which the participant answers questions based on their memory and impression of the design.”

It is important to note not only whether users remembered seeing critical screen elements, but also how quickly they recalled those elements. If users mention less essential elements first, this might indicate they have too much prominence.

The great thing about a 5-second test is that it can reassure clients concerns that a user might overlook an interface element. Hopefully, that will reduce the number of “make my logo bigger” requests you receive.

As you can see, testing can help both improve your designs and make design sign off less painful. However, it may be that you have concerns about implementing these tests. Fortunately, it is more straightforward than you think.

Who and How to Test?

The good news is that there are some great tools out there to help you run the tests I have outlined in this post. In fact Usability Hub offers all five tests we have covered and more.

Usability Hub allows me to run all the tests I need to assess a design concept. (Large preview)

You simply create your test and then share the website address they give you with users.

Of course, finding those users can be challenging, so let’s talk about that.

When it comes to testing usability, we do not need many users. The Nielsen Norman Group suggests you only need to test with five people because beyond that you see diminishing returns.

After approximately five users you receive diminishing returns from usability testing. (Large preview)

These users can be quickly recruited either from your existing customer base or via friends and family. However, if you want to be a bit pickier about your demographics, services like Usability Hub will recruit participants for as little as a dollar per person.

Testing aesthetics is trickier because as we have already established design is subjective. That means we need more people to remove any statistical anomalies.

Once again, the Nielsen Norman Group suggest a number. They say when you want statistically significant results, you should look for at least 20 people.

It is also worth noting that in the case of aesthetics, you should test with demographically accurate individuals, something that your testing platform should be able to help you recruit.

Although that will cost a small amount of money, it will be insignificant compared to the person-hours that would go into debating the best design approach.

There is also often a concern that it will take a long time. However, in my experience, you can typically get 20 responses in an hour or less. When was the last time you got design approval in under an hour?

Worth a Try

Testing a design concept will not solve all your designer woes. However, it will lead to better designs and has the potential to help with the management of stakeholders significantly. And when you consider the minimal investment in making it happen, it makes little sense not to try it on at least one project.

(ra, il)

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Via http://www.scpie.org/how-to-test-a-design-concept-for-effectiveness/

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[laurelkrugerr]

How To Test A Design Concept For Effectiveness

About The Author

Paul is a leader in conversion rate optimisation and user experience design thinking. He has over 25 years experience working with clients such as Doctors … More about Paul …

Getting a client or stakeholder to approve a design concept can be challenging. However, testing can make it easier, as well as ensuring you have the right solution.

Most of us are reasonably comfortable with the idea of carrying out usability testing on a website or prototype. We don’t always get the opportunity, but most people accept that it is a good idea.

However, when it comes to a design concept, opinion is more divided. Some designers feel it undermines their role, a view that seems to be somewhat backed up by the famous “Forty Shades of Blue” episode, where Google tested which one of forty shades of blue to use for link color.

Google undermined the role of the designer by placing an overwhelming emphasis on testing. (Large preview)

It is a position I can sympathize with, and testing certainly doesn’t tell us everything. For example, it cannot come up with the right solution, only judge a design that already exists. Neither is the kind of obsessional testing demonstrated by Google healthy for morale, or most companies bottom line.

That said, in this post, I want to explore some of the advantages testing design concepts can provide to us as designers, and demonstrate that we can do it cheaply and without slowing down the delivery of the overall project.

Let’s begin by asking why a designer might favor testing of their design concepts.

How do we encourage clicks without shady tricks? Meet Click, our new practical handbook on how to increase conversion and drive sales without alienating people along the way. Shipping now.

Get the book right away ↬

Why You Should Embrace Testing Design Concepts

Every designer has stories of being caught in revision hell. Endlessly tweaking colors and adjusting layout in the hopes of finally getting sign off from the client.

It’s not always like that, but every project is a gamble. Will the client, sign off immediately, or will you end up with a design concept named “Final-Version-21.sketch”? And that is the problem; you just do not know, which makes project planning and budgeting extremely difficult.

Testing Makes the Design Process Predictable

People tend to consider testing a design as a lUXury that a project cannot afford. They see it as too time-consuming and expensive. However, in truth, it brings some much-needed predictability to a project that can, in many cases, make things quicker and cheaper.

Yes, if everything goes smoothly with design sign-off, design testing can slow things down and cost a little money. But, that rarely happens. Usually, a design goes through at least a few rounds of iteration, and occasionally it has to be thrown out entirely.

Rarely is this because the design is terrible. Instead, it is because stakeholders are unhappy with it.

By contrast, testing creates a framework for deciding whether a design is right, that is not based on personal preference. Some quick testing could approve a design without the need for further iteration or at worse would lead to some relatively minor amendments if the designer has done their job.

In most cases, this proves faster and less expensive than an endless discussion over the direction. However, even when it does not, it is more predictable, which improves product planning.

Testing also has another related advantage. It changes the basis upon which we assess the design.

Testing Encourages the Right Focus and Avoids Conflict

The design has a job to do. In most cases, it has to connect with a user emotionally, while also enabling them to use the website as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, most design is not assessed on this basis.

Instead, we often evaluate a design on the simple criteria of whether or not the client likes it. It is this conflict between the role of a design and how it is evaluated that causes disagreements.

By carrying out testing on a design, you refocus the stakeholders on what matters because you build the test around those criteria instead.

That has another advantage as well. It helps avoid a lot of the disagreement over the design direction. That is especially true when many people are inputting on the design.

Because design is subjective, the more people who look at it, the more disagreement there will be. The way this is typically resolved is through a compromise that produces a design that pleases nobody and is often not fit for purpose.

Testing provides an alternative to that. It leads to less conflict between stakeholders and also ensures the integrity of the design, which ultimately leads to a better product.

Testing Improves Results

By using testing to avoid design by committee and focus stakeholders on the right assessment criteria, it almost guarantees a better design in the end.

However, there is another factor that ensures testing produces better design; that is the fact that we, as designers are not infallible.

Sometimes we misjudge the tone of the design or the mental model of the user. Sometimes we fail to spot how an image undermines the call to action or that the font is too small for an elderly audience. Testing helps us identify these issues early, while they are still easy to fix. Updating a mockup in Sketch or Figma is a lot easier than on a working website.

So hopefully now you see that design testing is a good idea for all parties concerned. The next question then becomes; how do we carry out design testing?

How to Implement Design Testing

Before you can test how well a design concept is working, you first need to be clear about what you are testing. Earlier I said that a design had two jobs. It had to connect with users emotionally and enable people to use the site as efficiently as possible.

With that in mind, we want to test two things:

The brand and personality of the design, which is what dictates whether a design connects with the user emotionally.

The usability and visual hierarchy, which enables people to use the site more efficiently.

It is important to note as well that for the sake of this article, I am presuming all we have is a static mockup of the design, with no interactivity.

So, let’s start by looking at how we test brand and personality.

Test Brand and Personality

Before somebody is willing to act on a website, they have to trust that website. Users have to form a positive first impression.

In a study published in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology, they found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage. What is more, these decisions have a lasting impact.

According to a study in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology you have 50 milliseconds to make a first impression. (Large preview)

In that length of time, the user is judging the website purely on aesthetics, and so we need to ensure those aesthetics communicate the right things.

We have three ways we can test this, but let’s begin with my personal favorite.

Semantic Differential Survey

A semantic differential survey is a fancy name for a simple idea. Before you begin designing, first agree on a list of keywords that you want the design to signal to the end-user. These might be terms like trustworthy, fun or approachable.

Once you have created the design, you can now test whether it communicates these impressions in the user by running a semantic differential survey.

Simply show the user the design and ask them to rate the design against each of your keywords.

You can use a simple survey to understand whether a design is communicating the right message. (Large preview)

The great thing is that if the design rates well against all of the agreed words, not only do you know it is doing its job, it is also hard for stakeholders to reject the design because they don’t like some aspect of it.

You can use this method to ascertain the most effective approach from multiple designs. However, there is a much simpler test you can also adopt when you have more than one design concept.

Preference Tests

A preference test is what it sounds like. You simply show several design concepts to users and ask them to select which approach they prefer.

However, instead of just asking users to select which design they like most, ask them to select a design based on your keywords. You can ask users to select which design they feel best conveys the keywords you chose.

You can also apply the same principle of comparison to your competition.

Competition Testing

You can run precisely the same kind of preference test as above, but instead, compare your design concept against competitors’ websites. That will help you understand whether your design does a better job of communicating the desired keywords compared to the competition.

A preference test can be used to see how your design compares to the competition. (Large preview)

The advantage of both types of preference testing is that it discourages stakeholders from adopting a pick-and-mix approach to design. In other words, it encourages them to compare designs in their entirety, rather than selecting different design elements from the competition or different versions, and asking you to combine them into a Frankenstein approach.

By combining both semantic differential surveys and preference testing, you can build up a clear picture of whether a design’s aesthetics are communicating the right impression. However, we still need to ensure it is usable and that people can find the information or features they need.

Test Usability and Visual Hierarchy

A website can look great and give the user the right feel, but if it is hard to use it will have still failed to do its job.

Once you have a fully built website or even a prototype, testing for usability is easy by combining A/B testing (quantitive) with usability testing (qualitative).

However, when all you have is a static mockup of the design, it can appear harder to test. Fortunately, that impression is incorrect. What is more, it is worth testing at this early stage, because things will be much easier to fix.

We have two tests we can do to ascertain usability. The first focuses on navigation and the second on visual hierarchy.

First-Click Tests

An influential study into usability, by Bob Bailey and Cari Wolfson, demonstrated the importance of ensuring that the user makes an excellent first choice when navigating your website. They proved that if users got their first click right, they had an 87% chance of completing their task correctly; however, if they got it wrong that dropped to just 46%.

Fortunately, we can test whether users will make the right first click using an imaginatively named “first click test”.

In the first click, test users are given a task (e.g. “Where would you click to contact the website owners?”), and then they are shown the design concept.

The user then clicks the appropriate place on the concept that they believe is correct, and the results are recorded. It is that simple.

First Click Tests help you understand whether your navigation is clear. (Large preview)

The advantage of running a first-click test from the designers perspective is that it can resolve disagreements about information architecture by demonstrating whether users understand labeling and the site’s overall structure.

However, usability isn’t all about clicking. It is also essential that users spot critical content and calls to action. To test for that, you need a 5-second test.

5-Second Tests

Research seems to indicate that on average, you have about 8 seconds to grab a users attention and that many leave a website within 10 to 20 seconds. That means our interfaces have to present information we want users to see in the most obvious way possible. Put another way; we need to distinguish between the most important and less important information.

Testing this kind of visual hierarchy can be achieved using a 5-second test.

Usability Hub describe a five-second test in this way:

“A five-second test is run by showing an image to a participant for just five seconds, after which the participant answers questions based on their memory and impression of the design.”

It is important to note not only whether users remembered seeing critical screen elements, but also how quickly they recalled those elements. If users mention less essential elements first, this might indicate they have too much prominence.

The great thing about a 5-second test is that it can reassure clients concerns that a user might overlook an interface element. Hopefully, that will reduce the number of “make my logo bigger” requests you receive.

As you can see, testing can help both improve your designs and make design sign off less painful. However, it may be that you have concerns about implementing these tests. Fortunately, it is more straightforward than you think.

Who and How to Test?

The good news is that there are some great tools out there to help you run the tests I have outlined in this post. In fact Usability Hub offers all five tests we have covered and more.

Usability Hub allows me to run all the tests I need to assess a design concept. (Large preview)

You simply create your test and then share the website address they give you with users.

Of course, finding those users can be challenging, so let’s talk about that.

When it comes to testing usability, we do not need many users. The Nielsen Norman Group suggests you only need to test with five people because beyond that you see diminishing returns.

After approximately five users you receive diminishing returns from usability testing. (Large preview)

These users can be quickly recruited either from your existing customer base or via friends and family. However, if you want to be a bit pickier about your demographics, services like Usability Hub will recruit participants for as little as a dollar per person.

Testing aesthetics is trickier because as we have already established design is subjective. That means we need more people to remove any statistical anomalies.

Once again, the Nielsen Norman Group suggest a number. They say when you want statistically significant results, you should look for at least 20 people.

It is also worth noting that in the case of aesthetics, you should test with demographically accurate individuals, something that your testing platform should be able to help you recruit.

Although that will cost a small amount of money, it will be insignificant compared to the person-hours that would go into debating the best design approach.

There is also often a concern that it will take a long time. However, in my experience, you can typically get 20 responses in an hour or less. When was the last time you got design approval in under an hour?

Worth a Try

Testing a design concept will not solve all your designer woes. However, it will lead to better designs and has the potential to help with the management of stakeholders significantly. And when you consider the minimal investment in making it happen, it makes little sense not to try it on at least one project.

(ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/how-to-test-a-design-concept-for-effectiveness/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-test-design-concept-for.html

[riichardwilson]

How To Test A Design Concept For Effectiveness

About The Author

Paul is a leader in conversion rate optimisation and user experience design thinking. He has over 25 years experience working with clients such as Doctors … More about Paul …

Getting a client or stakeholder to approve a design concept can be challenging. However, testing can make it easier, as well as ensuring you have the right solution.

Most of us are reasonably comfortable with the idea of carrying out usability testing on a website or prototype. We don’t always get the opportunity, but most people accept that it is a good idea.

However, when it comes to a design concept, opinion is more divided. Some designers feel it undermines their role, a view that seems to be somewhat backed up by the famous “Forty Shades of Blue” episode, where Google tested which one of forty shades of blue to use for link color.

Google undermined the role of the designer by placing an overwhelming emphasis on testing. (Large preview)

It is a position I can sympathize with, and testing certainly doesn’t tell us everything. For example, it cannot come up with the right solution, only judge a design that already exists. Neither is the kind of obsessional testing demonstrated by Google healthy for morale, or most companies bottom line.

That said, in this post, I want to explore some of the advantages testing design concepts can provide to us as designers, and demonstrate that we can do it cheaply and without slowing down the delivery of the overall project.

Let’s begin by asking why a designer might favor testing of their design concepts.

How do we encourage clicks without shady tricks? Meet Click, our new practical handbook on how to increase conversion and drive sales without alienating people along the way. Shipping now.

Get the book right away ↬

Why You Should Embrace Testing Design Concepts

Every designer has stories of being caught in revision hell. Endlessly tweaking colors and adjusting layout in the hopes of finally getting sign off from the client.

It’s not always like that, but every project is a gamble. Will the client, sign off immediately, or will you end up with a design concept named “Final-Version-21.sketch”? And that is the problem; you just do not know, which makes project planning and budgeting extremely difficult.

Testing Makes the Design Process Predictable

People tend to consider testing a design as a lUXury that a project cannot afford. They see it as too time-consuming and expensive. However, in truth, it brings some much-needed predictability to a project that can, in many cases, make things quicker and cheaper.

Yes, if everything goes smoothly with design sign-off, design testing can slow things down and cost a little money. But, that rarely happens. Usually, a design goes through at least a few rounds of iteration, and occasionally it has to be thrown out entirely.

Rarely is this because the design is terrible. Instead, it is because stakeholders are unhappy with it.

By contrast, testing creates a framework for deciding whether a design is right, that is not based on personal preference. Some quick testing could approve a design without the need for further iteration or at worse would lead to some relatively minor amendments if the designer has done their job.

In most cases, this proves faster and less expensive than an endless discussion over the direction. However, even when it does not, it is more predictable, which improves product planning.

Testing also has another related advantage. It changes the basis upon which we assess the design.

Testing Encourages the Right Focus and Avoids Conflict

The design has a job to do. In most cases, it has to connect with a user emotionally, while also enabling them to use the website as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, most design is not assessed on this basis.

Instead, we often evaluate a design on the simple criteria of whether or not the client likes it. It is this conflict between the role of a design and how it is evaluated that causes disagreements.

By carrying out testing on a design, you refocus the stakeholders on what matters because you build the test around those criteria instead.

That has another advantage as well. It helps avoid a lot of the disagreement over the design direction. That is especially true when many people are inputting on the design.

Because design is subjective, the more people who look at it, the more disagreement there will be. The way this is typically resolved is through a compromise that produces a design that pleases nobody and is often not fit for purpose.

Testing provides an alternative to that. It leads to less conflict between stakeholders and also ensures the integrity of the design, which ultimately leads to a better product.

Testing Improves Results

By using testing to avoid design by committee and focus stakeholders on the right assessment criteria, it almost guarantees a better design in the end.

However, there is another factor that ensures testing produces better design; that is the fact that we, as designers are not infallible.

Sometimes we misjudge the tone of the design or the mental model of the user. Sometimes we fail to spot how an image undermines the call to action or that the font is too small for an elderly audience. Testing helps us identify these issues early, while they are still easy to fix. Updating a mockup in Sketch or Figma is a lot easier than on a working website.

So hopefully now you see that design testing is a good idea for all parties concerned. The next question then becomes; how do we carry out design testing?

How to Implement Design Testing

Before you can test how well a design concept is working, you first need to be clear about what you are testing. Earlier I said that a design had two jobs. It had to connect with users emotionally and enable people to use the site as efficiently as possible.

With that in mind, we want to test two things:

The brand and personality of the design, which is what dictates whether a design connects with the user emotionally.

The usability and visual hierarchy, which enables people to use the site more efficiently.

It is important to note as well that for the sake of this article, I am presuming all we have is a static mockup of the design, with no interactivity.

So, let’s start by looking at how we test brand and personality.

Test Brand and Personality

Before somebody is willing to act on a website, they have to trust that website. Users have to form a positive first impression.

In a study published in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology, they found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage. What is more, these decisions have a lasting impact.

According to a study in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology you have 50 milliseconds to make a first impression. (Large preview)

In that length of time, the user is judging the website purely on aesthetics, and so we need to ensure those aesthetics communicate the right things.

We have three ways we can test this, but let’s begin with my personal favorite.

Semantic Differential Survey

A semantic differential survey is a fancy name for a simple idea. Before you begin designing, first agree on a list of keywords that you want the design to signal to the end-user. These might be terms like trustworthy, fun or approachable.

Once you have created the design, you can now test whether it communicates these impressions in the user by running a semantic differential survey.

Simply show the user the design and ask them to rate the design against each of your keywords.

You can use a simple survey to understand whether a design is communicating the right message. (Large preview)

The great thing is that if the design rates well against all of the agreed words, not only do you know it is doing its job, it is also hard for stakeholders to reject the design because they don’t like some aspect of it.

You can use this method to ascertain the most effective approach from multiple designs. However, there is a much simpler test you can also adopt when you have more than one design concept.

Preference Tests

A preference test is what it sounds like. You simply show several design concepts to users and ask them to select which approach they prefer.

However, instead of just asking users to select which design they like most, ask them to select a design based on your keywords. You can ask users to select which design they feel best conveys the keywords you chose.

You can also apply the same principle of comparison to your competition.

Competition Testing

You can run precisely the same kind of preference test as above, but instead, compare your design concept against competitors’ websites. That will help you understand whether your design does a better job of communicating the desired keywords compared to the competition.

A preference test can be used to see how your design compares to the competition. (Large preview)

The advantage of both types of preference testing is that it discourages stakeholders from adopting a pick-and-mix approach to design. In other words, it encourages them to compare designs in their entirety, rather than selecting different design elements from the competition or different versions, and asking you to combine them into a Frankenstein approach.

By combining both semantic differential surveys and preference testing, you can build up a clear picture of whether a design’s aesthetics are communicating the right impression. However, we still need to ensure it is usable and that people can find the information or features they need.

Test Usability and Visual Hierarchy

A website can look great and give the user the right feel, but if it is hard to use it will have still failed to do its job.

Once you have a fully built website or even a prototype, testing for usability is easy by combining A/B testing (quantitive) with usability testing (qualitative).

However, when all you have is a static mockup of the design, it can appear harder to test. Fortunately, that impression is incorrect. What is more, it is worth testing at this early stage, because things will be much easier to fix.

We have two tests we can do to ascertain usability. The first focuses on navigation and the second on visual hierarchy.

First-Click Tests

An influential study into usability, by Bob Bailey and Cari Wolfson, demonstrated the importance of ensuring that the user makes an excellent first choice when navigating your website. They proved that if users got their first click right, they had an 87% chance of completing their task correctly; however, if they got it wrong that dropped to just 46%.

Fortunately, we can test whether users will make the right first click using an imaginatively named “first click test”.

In the first click, test users are given a task (e.g. “Where would you click to contact the website owners?”), and then they are shown the design concept.

The user then clicks the appropriate place on the concept that they believe is correct, and the results are recorded. It is that simple.

First Click Tests help you understand whether your navigation is clear. (Large preview)

The advantage of running a first-click test from the designers perspective is that it can resolve disagreements about information architecture by demonstrating whether users understand labeling and the site’s overall structure.

However, usability isn’t all about clicking. It is also essential that users spot critical content and calls to action. To test for that, you need a 5-second test.

5-Second Tests

Research seems to indicate that on average, you have about 8 seconds to grab a users attention and that many leave a website within 10 to 20 seconds. That means our interfaces have to present information we want users to see in the most obvious way possible. Put another way; we need to distinguish between the most important and less important information.

Testing this kind of visual hierarchy can be achieved using a 5-second test.

Usability Hub describe a five-second test in this way:

“A five-second test is run by showing an image to a participant for just five seconds, after which the participant answers questions based on their memory and impression of the design.”

It is important to note not only whether users remembered seeing critical screen elements, but also how quickly they recalled those elements. If users mention less essential elements first, this might indicate they have too much prominence.

The great thing about a 5-second test is that it can reassure clients concerns that a user might overlook an interface element. Hopefully, that will reduce the number of “make my logo bigger” requests you receive.

As you can see, testing can help both improve your designs and make design sign off less painful. However, it may be that you have concerns about implementing these tests. Fortunately, it is more straightforward than you think.

Who and How to Test?

The good news is that there are some great tools out there to help you run the tests I have outlined in this post. In fact Usability Hub offers all five tests we have covered and more.

Usability Hub allows me to run all the tests I need to assess a design concept. (Large preview)

You simply create your test and then share the website address they give you with users.

Of course, finding those users can be challenging, so let’s talk about that.

When it comes to testing usability, we do not need many users. The Nielsen Norman Group suggests you only need to test with five people because beyond that you see diminishing returns.

After approximately five users you receive diminishing returns from usability testing. (Large preview)

These users can be quickly recruited either from your existing customer base or via friends and family. However, if you want to be a bit pickier about your demographics, services like Usability Hub will recruit participants for as little as a dollar per person.

Testing aesthetics is trickier because as we have already established design is subjective. That means we need more people to remove any statistical anomalies.

Once again, the Nielsen Norman Group suggest a number. They say when you want statistically significant results, you should look for at least 20 people.

It is also worth noting that in the case of aesthetics, you should test with demographically accurate individuals, something that your testing platform should be able to help you recruit.

Although that will cost a small amount of money, it will be insignificant compared to the person-hours that would go into debating the best design approach.

There is also often a concern that it will take a long time. However, in my experience, you can typically get 20 responses in an hour or less. When was the last time you got design approval in under an hour?

Worth a Try

Testing a design concept will not solve all your designer woes. However, it will lead to better designs and has the potential to help with the management of stakeholders significantly. And when you consider the minimal investment in making it happen, it makes little sense not to try it on at least one project.

(ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/how-to-test-a-design-concept-for-effectiveness/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/619990939858026496

[scpie]

How To Test A Design Concept For Effectiveness

About The Author

Paul is a leader in conversion rate optimisation and user experience design thinking. He has over 25 years experience working with clients such as Doctors … More about Paul …

Getting a client or stakeholder to approve a design concept can be challenging. However, testing can make it easier, as well as ensuring you have the right solution.

Most of us are reasonably comfortable with the idea of carrying out usability testing on a website or prototype. We don’t always get the opportunity, but most people accept that it is a good idea.

However, when it comes to a design concept, opinion is more divided. Some designers feel it undermines their role, a view that seems to be somewhat backed up by the famous “Forty Shades of Blue” episode, where Google tested which one of forty shades of blue to use for link color.

Google undermined the role of the designer by placing an overwhelming emphasis on testing. (Large preview)

It is a position I can sympathize with, and testing certainly doesn’t tell us everything. For example, it cannot come up with the right solution, only judge a design that already exists. Neither is the kind of obsessional testing demonstrated by Google healthy for morale, or most companies bottom line.

That said, in this post, I want to explore some of the advantages testing design concepts can provide to us as designers, and demonstrate that we can do it cheaply and without slowing down the delivery of the overall project.

Let’s begin by asking why a designer might favor testing of their design concepts.

How do we encourage clicks without shady tricks? Meet Click, our new practical handbook on how to increase conversion and drive sales without alienating people along the way. Shipping now.

Get the book right away ↬

Why You Should Embrace Testing Design Concepts

Every designer has stories of being caught in revision hell. Endlessly tweaking colors and adjusting layout in the hopes of finally getting sign off from the client.

It’s not always like that, but every project is a gamble. Will the client, sign off immediately, or will you end up with a design concept named “Final-Version-21.sketch”? And that is the problem; you just do not know, which makes project planning and budgeting extremely difficult.

Testing Makes the Design Process Predictable

People tend to consider testing a design as a lUXury that a project cannot afford. They see it as too time-consuming and expensive. However, in truth, it brings some much-needed predictability to a project that can, in many cases, make things quicker and cheaper.

Yes, if everything goes smoothly with design sign-off, design testing can slow things down and cost a little money. But, that rarely happens. Usually, a design goes through at least a few rounds of iteration, and occasionally it has to be thrown out entirely.

Rarely is this because the design is terrible. Instead, it is because stakeholders are unhappy with it.

By contrast, testing creates a framework for deciding whether a design is right, that is not based on personal preference. Some quick testing could approve a design without the need for further iteration or at worse would lead to some relatively minor amendments if the designer has done their job.

In most cases, this proves faster and less expensive than an endless discussion over the direction. However, even when it does not, it is more predictable, which improves product planning.

Testing also has another related advantage. It changes the basis upon which we assess the design.

Testing Encourages the Right Focus and Avoids Conflict

The design has a job to do. In most cases, it has to connect with a user emotionally, while also enabling them to use the website as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, most design is not assessed on this basis.

Instead, we often evaluate a design on the simple criteria of whether or not the client likes it. It is this conflict between the role of a design and how it is evaluated that causes disagreements.

By carrying out testing on a design, you refocus the stakeholders on what matters because you build the test around those criteria instead.

That has another advantage as well. It helps avoid a lot of the disagreement over the design direction. That is especially true when many people are inputting on the design.

Because design is subjective, the more people who look at it, the more disagreement there will be. The way this is typically resolved is through a compromise that produces a design that pleases nobody and is often not fit for purpose.

Testing provides an alternative to that. It leads to less conflict between stakeholders and also ensures the integrity of the design, which ultimately leads to a better product.

Testing Improves Results

By using testing to avoid design by committee and focus stakeholders on the right assessment criteria, it almost guarantees a better design in the end.

However, there is another factor that ensures testing produces better design; that is the fact that we, as designers are not infallible.

Sometimes we misjudge the tone of the design or the mental model of the user. Sometimes we fail to spot how an image undermines the call to action or that the font is too small for an elderly audience. Testing helps us identify these issues early, while they are still easy to fix. Updating a mockup in Sketch or Figma is a lot easier than on a working website.

So hopefully now you see that design testing is a good idea for all parties concerned. The next question then becomes; how do we carry out design testing?

How to Implement Design Testing

Before you can test how well a design concept is working, you first need to be clear about what you are testing. Earlier I said that a design had two jobs. It had to connect with users emotionally and enable people to use the site as efficiently as possible.

With that in mind, we want to test two things:

The brand and personality of the design, which is what dictates whether a design connects with the user emotionally.

The usability and visual hierarchy, which enables people to use the site more efficiently.

It is important to note as well that for the sake of this article, I am presuming all we have is a static mockup of the design, with no interactivity.

So, let’s start by looking at how we test brand and personality.

Test Brand and Personality

Before somebody is willing to act on a website, they have to trust that website. Users have to form a positive first impression.

In a study published in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology, they found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage. What is more, these decisions have a lasting impact.

According to a study in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology you have 50 milliseconds to make a first impression. (Large preview)

In that length of time, the user is judging the website purely on aesthetics, and so we need to ensure those aesthetics communicate the right things.

We have three ways we can test this, but let’s begin with my personal favorite.

Semantic Differential Survey

A semantic differential survey is a fancy name for a simple idea. Before you begin designing, first agree on a list of keywords that you want the design to signal to the end-user. These might be terms like trustworthy, fun or approachable.

Once you have created the design, you can now test whether it communicates these impressions in the user by running a semantic differential survey.

Simply show the user the design and ask them to rate the design against each of your keywords.

You can use a simple survey to understand whether a design is communicating the right message. (Large preview)

The great thing is that if the design rates well against all of the agreed words, not only do you know it is doing its job, it is also hard for stakeholders to reject the design because they don’t like some aspect of it.

You can use this method to ascertain the most effective approach from multiple designs. However, there is a much simpler test you can also adopt when you have more than one design concept.

Preference Tests

A preference test is what it sounds like. You simply show several design concepts to users and ask them to select which approach they prefer.

However, instead of just asking users to select which design they like most, ask them to select a design based on your keywords. You can ask users to select which design they feel best conveys the keywords you chose.

You can also apply the same principle of comparison to your competition.

Competition Testing

You can run precisely the same kind of preference test as above, but instead, compare your design concept against competitors’ websites. That will help you understand whether your design does a better job of communicating the desired keywords compared to the competition.

A preference test can be used to see how your design compares to the competition. (Large preview)

The advantage of both types of preference testing is that it discourages stakeholders from adopting a pick-and-mix approach to design. In other words, it encourages them to compare designs in their entirety, rather than selecting different design elements from the competition or different versions, and asking you to combine them into a Frankenstein approach.

By combining both semantic differential surveys and preference testing, you can build up a clear picture of whether a design’s aesthetics are communicating the right impression. However, we still need to ensure it is usable and that people can find the information or features they need.

Test Usability and Visual Hierarchy

A website can look great and give the user the right feel, but if it is hard to use it will have still failed to do its job.

Once you have a fully built website or even a prototype, testing for usability is easy by combining A/B testing (quantitive) with usability testing (qualitative).

However, when all you have is a static mockup of the design, it can appear harder to test. Fortunately, that impression is incorrect. What is more, it is worth testing at this early stage, because things will be much easier to fix.

We have two tests we can do to ascertain usability. The first focuses on navigation and the second on visual hierarchy.

First-Click Tests

An influential study into usability, by Bob Bailey and Cari Wolfson, demonstrated the importance of ensuring that the user makes an excellent first choice when navigating your website. They proved that if users got their first click right, they had an 87% chance of completing their task correctly; however, if they got it wrong that dropped to just 46%.

Fortunately, we can test whether users will make the right first click using an imaginatively named “first click test”.

In the first click, test users are given a task (e.g. “Where would you click to contact the website owners?”), and then they are shown the design concept.

The user then clicks the appropriate place on the concept that they believe is correct, and the results are recorded. It is that simple.

First Click Tests help you understand whether your navigation is clear. (Large preview)

The advantage of running a first-click test from the designers perspective is that it can resolve disagreements about information architecture by demonstrating whether users understand labeling and the site’s overall structure.

However, usability isn’t all about clicking. It is also essential that users spot critical content and calls to action. To test for that, you need a 5-second test.

5-Second Tests

Research seems to indicate that on average, you have about 8 seconds to grab a users attention and that many leave a website within 10 to 20 seconds. That means our interfaces have to present information we want users to see in the most obvious way possible. Put another way; we need to distinguish between the most important and less important information.

Testing this kind of visual hierarchy can be achieved using a 5-second test.

Usability Hub describe a five-second test in this way:

“A five-second test is run by showing an image to a participant for just five seconds, after which the participant answers questions based on their memory and impression of the design.”

It is important to note not only whether users remembered seeing critical screen elements, but also how quickly they recalled those elements. If users mention less essential elements first, this might indicate they have too much prominence.

The great thing about a 5-second test is that it can reassure clients concerns that a user might overlook an interface element. Hopefully, that will reduce the number of “make my logo bigger” requests you receive.

As you can see, testing can help both improve your designs and make design sign off less painful. However, it may be that you have concerns about implementing these tests. Fortunately, it is more straightforward than you think.

Who and How to Test?

The good news is that there are some great tools out there to help you run the tests I have outlined in this post. In fact Usability Hub offers all five tests we have covered and more.

Usability Hub allows me to run all the tests I need to assess a design concept. (Large preview)

You simply create your test and then share the website address they give you with users.

Of course, finding those users can be challenging, so let’s talk about that.

When it comes to testing usability, we do not need many users. The Nielsen Norman Group suggests you only need to test with five people because beyond that you see diminishing returns.

After approximately five users you receive diminishing returns from usability testing. (Large preview)

These users can be quickly recruited either from your existing customer base or via friends and family. However, if you want to be a bit pickier about your demographics, services like Usability Hub will recruit participants for as little as a dollar per person.

Testing aesthetics is trickier because as we have already established design is subjective. That means we need more people to remove any statistical anomalies.

Once again, the Nielsen Norman Group suggest a number. They say when you want statistically significant results, you should look for at least 20 people.

It is also worth noting that in the case of aesthetics, you should test with demographically accurate individuals, something that your testing platform should be able to help you recruit.

Although that will cost a small amount of money, it will be insignificant compared to the person-hours that would go into debating the best design approach.

There is also often a concern that it will take a long time. However, in my experience, you can typically get 20 responses in an hour or less. When was the last time you got design approval in under an hour?

Worth a Try

Testing a design concept will not solve all your designer woes. However, it will lead to better designs and has the potential to help with the management of stakeholders significantly. And when you consider the minimal investment in making it happen, it makes little sense not to try it on at least one project.

(ra, il)

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source http://www.scpie.org/how-to-test-a-design-concept-for-effectiveness/