Ferdinand Vogler

Hyrox Lap Pace Calculator

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0100

1. Enter your target pace in minutes per kilometer

Target pace in minutes per kilometre (format: mm:ss, e.g. 04:45)

2. How much laps is each run?

In the most races, run 1 and 8 tend to be a different length and have a different amount of laps than run 2 to 7.

Amount of laps: Run 1

Amount of laps: Run 2–7

Amount of laps: Run 8

3. Result

Your time for each lap: 0:00 min/lap

Run 1

0 km

0:00 min total

Run 2–7

0 km

0:00 min total

Run 8

0 km

0:00 min total

Total laps to run: 0
Distance per lap: 0 km

These results automatically update when you change the inputs above.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know the amount of laps for each round?

A few days before the event apps like Roxfit publish the amount of laps for each of the eight runs. Plug these numbers in above.

How do I use this data in my race?

I usually start tracking when I have a fixed point on the race track. For this I like to use the OUT arch. When I run through the OUT arch (and therefore my next run starts), I start the lap timer on my watch. When I pass the OUT arch again, I check my pace to see That is what I do and I’m sure there are better approaches. Let me know in the comments!

How do I keep track of my pace during the race?

By writing the following times on the arm or hand, where you also wear your smartwatch, way you can easily compare your watch and your target lap time. Take a sharpie and best write down:

Time per lap
Total time for each run

You’ll be busy enough with racing at the limit of your physical abilities, you don’t want to start calculating and thinking about your times. So write it down.

Should I not just run as fast as possible?

Since Hyrox is a sport where you combine cardio and muscular fatigue, since you’re running 8 × 1 km as fast as possible, but still want a high quality throughout the 8 stations. If you run the kilometer too hard, you arrive at the station already “in the red zone” and your first minute becomes recovery instead of work at the station. A consistent run pace helps you start stations immediately.

A steady pace makes sure you can work continuously, not in bursts interrupted by a forced recovery, because your legs feel “blocked” and you need to catch up with your breathing.

Because of heat, dehydration and fatigue your heart rate tends to creep up over time even if you’re running at the same pace. If you start too fast, you will hit that drift earlier and end up in survival mode for the last third of your race. This is why knowing and keeping a consistent pace can help you perform the best at your next race.

Can’t I use GPS from my watch?

Your GPS will be inaccurate and often Hyrox events are indoors, so the signal will be patchy. So you can’t rely on the GPS signal and the pace your watch is telling you.

The Focussing Illusion Explained

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0200

Ever read a horoscope? Some of them might seem shockingly accurate. “You’ve proven to flexible in situations where people wouldn’t have expected it from you.” You start thinking and this seems to fit – you have been suprisingly flexible when people didn’t expect it from you!

If you’re building a product it seems intuitive to talk to potential customers if you’re solving their problems. You ask: “Is X a problem you have at your company?” – “Yes, X is a problem for us.” Great, let’s continue building! You’re solving your customer’s problems.

A few months later it’s launch day. Your product hits the light of day, there are people visiting your website, your onboarding works. Still nobody buys. But why? Didn’t you identify exactly the problems that need to be fixed?

You focused on one problem and let a potential customer confirm it. You weren’t looking to change your mind. Yes, Problem X might be something they’re bothering with. But in the rank of all their business problems, Problem X will score the lowest.

When talking to potential customers, always let them talk. If you’re proposing a solution to a problem, ask them how that problem ranks against others they are facing at the moment. Ranking those problems, zooming out and seeing the whole picture will let you know about your customer’s willingness to spend money on your product.

Why good communication is really hard

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0100

Imagine a couple. One of them opens the fridge, takes out some food, smells it and then asks their partner “How long has this been in the fridge?”

I bet you have the next sentences already in your mind.

“What do you mean? I just cooked it yesterday. Are you saying that I leave food in the fridge to rot?”
“I just wanted to know how long this has been in the fridge.”
“One day. You can still eat it, it’s fresh.”
“But I don’t want to eat it, I just want to make sure we have a clean fridge.”
“So you think our house is dirty?”

“Well, that escalated quickly” you might think. This couple obviously has some hidden conflicts which aren’t taken care of. But communication theory can try to explain what’s actually happening here and how we can learn to become better communicators.

What you say is not what others hear

Some think that human communication is similar to how machines work. A package of information is sent and it gets processed exactly how the sender intended it to.

With humans it works differently: with everything we say, there are multiple ways to interpret it. You could say the same thing to three people and it would be understood differently by each person.

In 1981, German psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun came up with the “Four Sides Communication Model”. This model explains that there are four ways in how each message can be said and heard. This builds upon Paul Watzlawicks “Five Axioms”.

“Every communication has a content and relationship aspect such that the latter classifies the former and is therefore a metacommunication.”
All communication includes, apart from the plain meaning of words, more information. This information is based on how the speaker wants to be understood and how he himself sees his relation to the receiver of information. Paul Watzlawick (Wikipedia)

The four layers of communication

Facts
What I’m informing about. Hard facts and data.
Self-Revelation
What I tell about myself.
Relationship
What I think of you and how we get along. This layer is expressed by what words I use, how my intonation is and how my body language matches what I say.
Appeal
What do I want you to do? — I can be open about it (advice) or want to plant an idea in your head to get you to do something (manipulation).

Demonstrated in a real life situation

Imagine a couple eating dinner at home.
A: “A new restaurant just opened across the street.
B: “Does the food not taste good?”

Sifted through the four layers of communication we could view the situation as follows.

A: “A new restaurant just opened across the street.

Facts: A new restaurant has opened across the street.
Self-Revelation: I am unsatisfied.
Relationship: I would like to go out more often with you.
Appeal: I want to try the new restaurant.

B: “Does the food not taste good?”

Facts: A new restaurant has opened across the street.
Self-Revelation: I am insecure of being enough for my partner.
Relationship: I don’t feel appreciated for what I have cooked.
Appeal: We should go to the restaurant because my food isn’t good.

These four layers are present when you speak (sender) and hear (receiver). What makes matters more difficult: each person puts an emphasis on different layers. If you’re in the Military you will probably adjust your ears to the Facts and Appeal layers and not evaluate your relationship with the sergeant when he screams at you to drop on the floor and “give him twenty”.

How can we manage this complexity?

It’s easy to blame others of understanding you correctly. How often have you heard “but I said it clearly that…”? Design your communication so that you achieve the effect you want to have.

Whenever you say something, right in the next sentence, say why you are asking this question. If what you say could be perceived in a wrong way, get those tensions out of the room. Make your intentions clear.

“Could it be that you’re coughing more recently? I’m not asking because I’m annoyed by it, I just want you to be healthy and I’m worried.”

The same applies if you’re hearing something that is unclear to you. If you’re unsure what the other persons really means, ask how they mean it without implying something. Say how you understood it.

Self-awareness is the first step to improvement. If you encounter conflicting situations, then think of the four layers of communication. Successful communication happens when the receiver understands all four layers.

How to block ads everywhere

Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

Ads suck

Browsing the internet feels like visiting a Las Vegas Casino. Advertisements popping up everywhere are a tightrope act for your attention. You know these browser extensions that block ads? They work with varying success. What about your smartphone, tablet and your TV? Or family members that aren’t as tech-savvy and don’t have these blockers installed? Shouldn’t they also profit from a better browsing experience? At best you pay quality content creators, but lets be honest: most ads suck, use up valuable bandwidth and ignore privacy laws. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Meet the device that eats ads for breakfast

Pi Hole solves all that. Its a software, that you install on a tiny computer called Raspberry Pi. This is connected to your Wifi router and blocks ads before they even get sent to the devices in your network. Sounds too technical? I thought the same, but setting it up is easy. I didn’t find an instruction for beginners like me, so I wrote one.

What you need

Hardware

Raspberry Pi 4 (2 GB)
The computer
Raspberry Pi USB-C Power Adapter
Powering your computer
16 GB MicroSD card with NOOBS
Your computer’s memory, specialized Raspberry-Pi-Shops offer NOOBS preinstalled
Any case that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4
Protection for your computer, otherwise you’ll have naked hardware lying around
Ethernet cable (Cat 5E)
Connect your computer to your router
MicroSD reader device
To transfer software from your MacBook to your MicroSD card

Software

Download the following software and have it ready.

Raspbian Buster Lite
The operating system for your Raspberry Pi
Balena Etcher
Software to transfer Raspbian to your MicroSD card

Installation

Step 1

Plug in your MicroSD card and make sure it shows up as an external drive. Open the balenaEtcher application and select the ZIP-file for Raspbian Buster Lite. The target is your MicroSD card. Click “Flash”.

Step 2

Open the MicroSD card from Finder and create an empty file called ssh in the root. This tells your operating system Raspbian that you want to able to access your Raspberry Pi via SSH (command line) → Download this file here

Step 3

Eject the MicroSD card from Finder. Put it into your Raspberry Pi’s MicroSD slot. Plug the Raspberry Pi into a power source. Connect it with your cable to a free Ethernet slot on your Wifi router. Since your Raspberry Pi is now connected to your home network, you can “talk” to it and give it instructions via SSH.

Step 4

Start the macOS app “Terminal”. We will now access the Raspberry Pi via SSH to install Pi Hole on it. Type the following and hit ENTER.

ssh pi@raspberrypi

Enter the default password raspberry. We will change this later.

Step 5

If everything went well you now logged on to your Raspberry Pi. Change the password by typing passwd and hit ENTER. Type your old password and define a new one. Its normal that the characters don’t show up, just pay attention and save your new password somewhere safe.

Step 6

Let’s make sure you have all the latest software. Type the following and hit ENTER after each line.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Step 7

Download the installation script for Pi Hole by typing the following two commands. Hit ENTER after each line.

wget -O basic-install.sh https://install.pi-hole.net
sudo bash basic-install.sh

A setup wizard will start that guides you through the installation. Read each screen but you can basically just swift through it by pressing ENTER on each screen.

Step 8

After successful installation you will be shown the IP address of your Pi Hole. Enter this IP address as a DNS server in your Wifi router’s settings. For FritzBox routers you access the admin interface by typing fritz.box in your browser’s URL bar. How to enter the admin interface of your router depends on what model it is. Search it on the internet, you’ll find instructions for that.

All internet traffic will be redirected through this IP address (and by that through your Raspberry Pi running Pi Hole). Pi Hole then tells what internet traffic to let through. If its an advertisement, it gets blocked and it never shows up on your device.

You can access a nice interface in your browser by suffixing your Pi Hole’s IP address with /admin e.g. 192.168.178.10/admin. Here you see how much ads where blocked and you can make further adjustments. If for your work you rely on services like the Google Tag Manager to work, you can allow these URLs again (whitelisting). Its also possible to define device categories that allow these URLs. So your MacBook would still the Google Tag Manager go through, but your mobile devices and your TV won’t.

Remove password in the admin interface

If you don’t want to enter a password each time you go to your Pi Hole admin interface, you can deactivate the password. Beware that this means everybody in your network can access the admin tools and make changes. Connect to your Raspberry Pi via SSH and type:

pihole -a -p

Is your life better now?

If you love your new ad-free internet life, donate to the project. It’s completely open source and the developers spend their own money to make this possible. A cause worth giving back to.

Enter Feature Hell

Fri, 04 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0200

“The ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order.” Steven Pinker

What seems to be true for “life, the mind and human striving” also applies to Product Management. Those “carved-out refuges of beneficial order” are about reducing the areas where you suck and figuring out where your efforts are best placed. You can’t apply the Pareto principle to everything, like if 80% of your product’s value comes from 20% of your features. You need to be truly excellent somewhere. When it comes to solving a problem, somebody should point into your direction and say “these people are 10× better than anything else on the market”. How do you get to that unique position? By loving the discomfort of saying “No” and still remaining popular enough amongst your co-workers.

Slide from a presentation of Jared Spool at AOL Design Summit 2007.

How did this land in our product anyway?

You might think, that adding a little feature doesn’t hurt. You can just make it optional, right? Whoever feels like it can just activate it and start using it. This leads to a thousand deaths by preferences, resulting in a cluttered interface with loads of conditional design. Everything is connected somehow. The result will be all kinds of different states that influence each other and the user has no idea what effects what. Every innocent feature you agree to weakens your product position.

“We’re a calendar management app with automatic invoicing, where you can print your best meetings as motiviational posters, which then get you local discounts at selected coffee stores… soon.”

Taming the beast

Ever wondered why people give away their dog into an animal shelter? Why did they even get one in the first place? Most owners underestimated the time it takes to care for a dog.

Although code can be a beast, of course it’s not comparable to an animal. But the same principles apply in software too. Agreeing to something is easy. Ideas are free and easy to generate. Coding is hard, but maintaining it, marketing it, educating Customer Support and Sales… if you want it now, will you still want it in the feature after considering these aspects? Quality software has no small changes. Even if they are small, most of them will come back to haunt you. The hotfix, that should’ve only taken two minutes will mutate into a two-hour code battle.

Finding the sweetest fruits

As a Product Manager, seemingly good ideas will be brought to you all the time. It’s your job to see through the jungle and find the sweetest fruits — even if you have to march months to get them. More features look good in an itemized feature comparison chart, but if you’re being compared on that level, your product doesn’t communicate what it actually helps people with. If you fall for outputs over outcomes, you’ll end up with a repository of features — not a product.

Symptoms of weak product positioning

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

If you’re running a startup, getting those first customers can be really hard. If a potential customer visits your website, do they immediately know what you do? You might have trouble selling to customers already. Mid-funnel people are re-evaluating if your solution really solves their problems. Selling seems to take forever. A hightened churn rate shows, that customers are ditching your solution after buying it, because you didn’t meet expectations.

People don’t know what you do

If people don’t understand what you do, you’ll get compared to competitors, that might not even be your competitors. You might be struggling already and be desperate for every bit of revenue flowing in. But if potential customers don’t care about what makes your product stand out, tell them it’s not what they need. They’ll thank you later. Meanwhile work on having potential customers realize that by themselves by communicating clearly. If people would have speech bubbles above their heads, your customer should either have a blaring “Hell Yes” or “Nope” floating above them.

What makes your loyal customer’s eyes sparkle?

What are the things that your most loyal customers absolutely love about your product? Focus on that. There are certain features you might have to tick checkboxes with, but that shouldn’t be at the forefront of your communication. Maybe you should even get rid of them if they blur your communication. Would you trust a restaurant serving the city’s best oysters as well as the city’s best cheesecake?

No is a “Go” for others

Having people say “No” to your product is a good thing, as long as you gather equally as much fans around your product. Don’t be the “everything for everybody”, that’s a trap too many fall into since it seems like something you can sell to a large customer base. Lead with the good stuff, since the good stuff sticks.

Startup ideas don’t mean much

Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

“Wouldn’t it be cool if…”

Every startup begins with an idea. That idea can be dangerous enough to have you working on it and believing it’s the right thing. Founders can make anything sound plausible. Think about someone coming to you and pitching you their idea of a social network for pet owners. Y Combinator calls these “sitcom ideas”. Imagine a character on a TV show would start their own business. Since coming up with startup ideas is hard, the writers of the show would probably come up with something that sounded plausible, but in reality turns out to be an entrepreneurial disaster.

So, about the social network for pets (“Tinder for Dogs”) — doesn’t sound too wrong?

“Millions of people have pets. Often they care a lot about their pets and spend a lot of money on them. Surely many of these people would like a site where they could talk to other pet owners. Not all of them perhaps, but if just 2 or 3 percent were regular visitors, you could have millions of users. You could serve them targeted offers, and maybe charge for premium features.” Paul Graham, How to get startup ideas

The problem with this is that your ideal customer (your buddy who owns four dogs and a turtle) might look at this and encourage you to do it. He could even imagine his turtle fan club using it! Until you find out that every launch of a new social network is sending you on a difficult journey. That’s why nobody wants to be on Facebook, still nobody quits (Network Effect).

100,000 decisions shape the product

Give 10 people the same idea and 9 will find a way to screw it up. The idea itself is a spark that can ignite the fire within a team and keep it burning for a long time. Still the idea is never the source of success. Apart from the tricky path to success, you’ll probably need several iterations of the initial idea to really nail the implementation. That’s what makes great startups and the idea itself “worthless”. It’s the skills and alignment of the people behind it. Every single person with a relentless thirst to do the right thing right.

All these intersections of choices are decision points. The sum of these decision points are the adjustments to your trajectory, enabling you to hit your goal. Each time you share an idea and have it challenged by smart people, you increase your chances of success. Seth Godin even wants you to steal his ideas (as long as it’s not his car).

“It’s not my land. It’s ours. And no one is hunting… If anything, we’re farming, and all the cross-pollination going on helps everyone.” Seth Godin, Why I want you to steal my ideas

Ideas are free, easy and fun to create. There will always be more ideas floating around than you can ever build in a lifetime. Get rid of the Non-Disclosure Agreements before meetings. But that cloudy picture in your mind of what could be? Share it, get others excited and make it happen — even if it’s not you doing it.

Talking Design

Sat, 06 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0200

How Design became so important

Riding taxis, renting a vacation home, streaming music. Uber, Airbnb and Spotify are disrupting entire industries — just by providing a better experience for their customers, not doing anything new. CEOs know that their businesses are on the line if they don’t build a design-centered organization. Design is a major differentiator against the competition and that is why it is so important.

Designers aren’t equipped for todays work

“How about you move it a bit more to the left?”

Stakeholders are users too!

Designers see themselves as advocates for “the user”. Somewhat anonymous people using their product represented in Personas. Somebody they have to fight for internally to make sure they get the best experience. A noble approach, but how often do Designers think about project stakeholders as users? Stakeholders as people they also have to understand and provide a good experience for?

Always strive for clarity

Every time projects go south, it is mostly because at least two people fail to speak to another. Missed communication results in missed expectations. Always strive for clarity, even if things seem obvious for you. Make sure everybody else feels that way too. Not everybody speaks up when they don’t understand something. Communicating too much is rarely perceived in a bad way. Communicating too little always.

Handbags, buildings, fingernails, companies?!

Why talking about Design is difficult

When you ask five people what “Design” means to them, you’ll get five different answers. Everybody knows good Design when they see it, but few know how to create it.

Explain how you came up with it

Designers sometimes aren’t fully aware how they came to a Design proposal. That is why it is so important to found your decisions in some kind of explainable logic. Use research to remove subjectivity from the equation. Have a process of getting to results.

Your words become your world

Everyone uses different words. Some people might call a dropdown a “button”, the menu icon a “hamburger” and a progress indicator the “check-out thingy”. Make sure everyone understands the right things when talking about them. Ask what somebody means when there is a new term in the room.

Make heads nod and faces smile

Most Designers are strong at communicating visually. They are experts in Human-Computer-Interaction. But many fail at Human-to-Human-Interaction. Good communicators aren’t born, so it is a learnable skill. Few universities educate Designers how to be mediators in complex problem-solving environments, so it doesn’t surprise me that the perception of Design remains superficial in many companies.

Sharpening your communication skills doesn’t only apply to Designers, but to all people that aren’t making the impact they could be having. Technology is always simple — people are difficult, and difficulty can be managed.

Good communicators always win, even if there are people more talented than you. Become someone that can speak about what they do convincingly. Generate pictures between their ears. Become the person that makes heads nod and faces smile.

“Yes, we Kanban”

Mon, 10 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0200

At ahead we spend a lot of time improving our process of building our product. We follow a Kanban-influenced approach. We ditched Scrum because there were a lot of time-consuming processes involved that didn’t serve us.

I’d like to share a snapshot of how we build our product. You may find this benefitial if the traditional To-Do, Doing and Done seems too limiting for you and you require more detailed stages.

Doing the right things

The following stages Idea and Research & Validate are handled with ProdPad. This is also where all our customer feedback comes together.

🎈 Idea

Where to product ideas come from?

Gathering feedback from customers (written, verbally)
Reading industry reports
Talking to co-workers that are in contact with customers
Looking at how customers use our product (in-person meetings, usability testings and data)
Coffee machine pitches, “Wouldn’t it be great if…”
Using the product yourself, therefore “scratching your own itch”.
Looking at competitors. Use with caution, every company operates in their unique context.

Gatekeeper questions

Two questions have to be answered to be allowed into the idea box.

What problem does this solve?
What value would it provide if it were solved?

The assumed value is also the hypothesis to test. Problems should be backed up by some kind of feedback patterns emerging. Problems are not solution proposals like “I need a bigger navigation button”.

📖 Research & validate

This stage is optional. Sometimes a problem is clearly understood and the “unknowns” about it are limited. In that case, an idea can go to Start development right away.

Each research method is tailored to the idea it should investigate. If the problem and value aren’t backed up by anything, but we think there might be something to this, we go into further research. Some undertakings remain an experiment and you never know how it will perform until it’s live.

Some ways to research and validate

Usability tests
Prototypes tested by customers
Talk to experts
Research data and eyeball potential impact to the product

Doing things right

If an idea has successfully gone through these two filtering stages, we create it as a user story in Azure DevOps.

🚀 Start development

The user story is ready for our development team to invest time into. They’re ordered from top to bottom from highest to lowest priority.

⏳ Refining

This stage is divided into two parts.

Doing

To be able to enter this stage, the team has to agree on the scope of the user story.
After agreeing on the scope, further refinement work can happen asynchronous. Designers verify prototypes, developers test a new technology.
Depending on the insights we gain above, the story gets further splitted into smaller parts than be shipped.

Done

In addition to a clear problem statement and value proposition, the following acceptance criteria about the user story have been answered and agreed upon by the team.

Feature

Functionality — what can it do?
Validations — is there some kind of user-inputted data that needs to be handled? What happens with confirmations, errors, warnings etc.
Translations — What areas to we have to translate? What’s the best wording to achieve the task?

Impact

Analytics — what do we want to find out with this? How can we prove our assumed value? How do we measure it?
Public website — any pages need an update? E.g. screenshots
Inform customers — how do we introduce this feature to customers. Any “heads-up” needed?

💡 Planned for development

Developers and Designers get together collectively to break a user story down into (technical) tasks. Clarify who will start working on what.

🛠 Developing

Getting our hands dirty! Firing up the code editors. Pair- or mob-programming works best.

🤓 Review

This stage is about getting an outside perspective and assuring quality.

Present to stakeholders. Stakeholders are people that should be updated about new product features. Currently this includes our CEO, sales team and customer success team.
Test if there are obvious usability issues or errors being thrown in our backend. If so, move back to Developing and iterate. Avoid “gold-plating” an idea. What is good enough?
Feedback in the form of additional feature requests or ideas are seen as new Ideas and go through the normal flow.

🎯 Done

Shipped to customers, well done.

How do you work?

How did you adapt Kanban to your team? What would you improve in our flow? This is always work(flow) in progress and I’d love to hear your feedback. Shoot me a message and let’s discuss.

Leadership lessons from a moose

Fri, 31 May 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Once upon a time there was a moose.

He aspired to be the king of the forest. But he didn’t really have the courage to do so.

He was inexperienced.
He knew little.
Nothing he did really worked.

The day of the king’s election came nearer and with every hour the moose got a little bit sadder. He plodded through the woods and from time to time he met another animal that had much larger problems than he had.

There was a rabbit, seperated from his burrow by a river — an insurmountable obstacle. Or the blackbird, whose young just fell out of their nest and who could be eaten by a fox any moment. A little pig surrounded by a fence, dreaming of the freedom it could have in the forest, if it could just get past the fence.

Every animal asked the moose to help them. Shouldn’t he, the soon-to-be king, be able to solve all problems? But the moose kept on saying “I don’t know how to help you. You’ll have to come up with something yourself.”

The rabbit suddenly had an idea and jumped on the moose’s back. The moose then swam through the river and reached the other bank with the rabbits burrow.

The blackbird asked the moose to lower its head, so the desperate young birds could climb onto its antlers and then be raised back into the nest.

The pig asked the moose if he could try to kick the fence with its strong legs. The moose gave it a kick, the planks shattered apart and the pig could walk into freedom.

Everyone got help by thinking for themselves. The moose didn’t understand at first. But the other animals couldn’t be happier that they elected him king — precisely because he let them come up with solutions for themselves. He merely supported them as well as possible. The animals in the forest weren’t dumb subjects, living in constant fear of their mighty leader — they were his allies and fellow citizens.

“A better king”, they said, “we could never have dreamt of!”

Excerpt from “King Elk” by Ulf Stark, 2013. Translated from German to English by me.

This lovely childrens story shows how leaders should be enablers rather than tolerated authority. By making way for personal liberty and autonomy the moose helps others succeed.

It’s your life, “you’ll have to come up with something yourself.”

“It’s not what it looks like!”

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0100

If you have a dark blue button, you’d want the text on it to be white. Leaving those choices up the inexperienced user could create inaccessible color combinations by accident. At ahead we don’t want users thinking about contrast, so we let the machine do this.

Contrast is difficult

Humans perceive brightness differently depending on the color at use. A sharp yellow appears brighter then a mellow blue.

At first we converted the colors to the HSL format (hue, saturation, lightness). We then extracted the lightness value, this ranges from 0–100%, 100% being white. If it was >50%, our color function would return black as the contrasting color. If it was <=50%, it would return white.

Meet relative luminance

Most eyes perceive green shades more nuanced. Blue tones not so much. This has to be put into relation when calculating contrast. This is where relative luminance comes into play.

Y = 0.2126 * Red + 0.7152 * Green + 0.0722 * Blue
The formula reflects the luminosity function: green light contributes the most to the intensity perceived by humans, and blue light the least.Wikipedia

Sounds more complicated than it actually is. This means we have to convert colors to RGB and put red, green and blue into relation according to the equation quoted above.

// Calculate the perceived brightness
@function luma($color) {
  // Convert to RGB
  $R: red(rgba($color, 1));
  $G: green(rgba($color, 1));
  $B: blue(rgba($color, 1));
  
  // (De-)emphasize red, green and blue
  @return (0.2 * $R + 0.7 * $G + 0.07 * $B) / 255;
}

// Find out if the contrasting color is white or black
@function lumaContrast($colorToContrastAgainst) {
  $BACKGROUND: luma($colorToContrastAgainst);
  $WHITE: luma(#fff);
  $BLACK: luma(#000);
  
  $DIFF-WHITE: abs($BACKGROUND - $WHITE);
  $DIFF-BLACK: abs($BACKGROUND - $BLACK);
  
  @if $DIFF-WHITE > $DIFF-BLACK {
    @return #fff;
  } @else {
    @return #000;
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// Usage
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  background: #ffcc00;
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Try it out yourself

See the pen by @fvo

0 °C H₂O

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0100

“Wow, this feels warm!”
I’m trying to trick my body into the water. As the cold pierces into my ancles, everything in my body screams to get out of the element humans were clearly not made for. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat.

Some ice clings to the branches of bleak trees. Nature is resting in a slumber awaiting warmer times. Around me are five smiling faces in swim wear. Some strollers on the other side of the river give us their thumbs-up and start taking pictures. I feel alive, very alive.

Besides the scientifically proven health benefits, going into the cold is active stress management. By playing around with ice, this is what I learned over the past few years.

How to deal with freezing

Body

If you are tense the cold will get to you very quickly. You try to “keep the warmth inside” by flexing your muscles, but if you just let loose and surrender yourself, the cold becomes easier to bear with. You have to be soft, not hard.
Breathe deeply and make sure the outbreath takes as long as possible, count to 10 in your head. As long as your breathe, everything is good.
The first 20 seconds are a mental battle. I loved how a Wim-Hof-instructor told me “give your body the gift of cold”.
Don’t wrap yourself up in clothes right away. Warm up incrementally. Otherwise the blood vessels in your extremities will open up too soon and cold blood will mix with your core. You’ll start shaking uncontrollably, because your body will do everything to keep its core temperature. This is referred to as the “aftershock”.
Read up on the Wim Hof breathing method. This increases oxygen in your body and makes your skin receptors less susceptible to pain. Never do this in the water. This breathing exercise is very powerful and you could faint.
Breathe out slowly when you make the first step in to the water. A long exhale relaxes you.
Slide into the water up to your neck directly. I find it more painful to stay in the water up to my knees and then sink in.
Don’t go into heavy exercise after coming out of the water. Breathe deeply in and out and just move your body around. Stay active but don’t start doing push ups or squats immediately. You can do those later though if you’re still cold after a while.
If you’re hiking outside, keep your hands in your pockets near your stomach. There it will always be warm.
Having a rather empty stomach makes it easier.

Mind

Sounds simple, but… smile! Make fun of the cold. Play with it.
As soon as I walked around with no shirt at –5 °C for an hour—and I haven’t turned into Ötzi lying on the roadside—I start asking myself: “Where else am I limiting myself? What do I perceive to be impossible?”
There will be nothing else you will think about and you will be in the now completely. This can be seen as a shortcut to a meditative state.
Never force anything. It’s not a competition. You have to be able to regenerate heat yourself afterwards.
Don’t go alone, always have someone with you. Understand that low temperatures have great energy but can also be dangerous.

Emotions, a dish best served cold

When I get into the cold, I get the whole palette of primal fears and joys served up all at once. I have to conquer my willpower, I can feel my heart shooting adrenaline through my veins. I get out of the water and feel relief and pride of having done it again. As soon as the warmth comes back, I get a big smile and feel kind of “high”. I wonder if there is a connection between the the popularity of ice bathing and dark winters in the Scandinavian countries?

Too much high-energy-food causes diseases like overweight. Constant warmth and comfort can be put on the same scale. It’s okay to freeze for an hour and then return to our heated homes. This stuff works. Try it!

Design × Entrepreneurship

Sun, 08 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200

“As a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every two hours and cried.” Ben Horowitz

Having studied Design Entrepreneurship at Berne University of the Arts, I look back on a turbulent time of self-doubts paired with excitement, frustration and joy. Learning the hard thing about doing hard things. I’d do it again. Read on.

Nobody cares.

First, let me get your motivation amped up. How was your startup idea born? Is it something you thought would be cool? Is it really that much of a problem for other people? Not everything has to be unique, but is your solution at least three-times better than anything that’s out there? Only then will people consider switching from their current habits. Everyone thinks their startup is special — it isn’t. What can be special is your execution of an idea. Designers approach problems with a different perspective. Our tools and methods put people first. Just that increases your chances of success remarkably. Oftentimes, we start fixing something because it annoys us. At the same time you’re the creator and your first customer. Scratching your own itch.

The birth hour of Nutridelta. Coding through the night at a hackathon in Zurich.

You’re running this!

Maybe you pitched your idea at a Hackathon. You found a curious team and after working together for a weekend you decide to keep going with this little idea. You came up with something that’s just too good to die. Without your pitch, this project would have never come to life. You’re the person that started this. That makes you the leader of the tribe, if you want it or not. Don’t try to know everything and have it all planned out. Communicate early and often. Ask for help, you’re not in it alone. A pair of fresh eyes always helps. Leadership doesn’t mean pretending to be free of doubts and the need for feedback. Share articles on your topic, be the driving force.

Your personal Yoda

Every student has two mentors during the development of their startup idea. After my Bachelor thesis, I continued working on Nutridelta (Video in German). In a team of three we built a database of ingredients that are mapped to food intolerances. By connecting your eating profile to various online platforms, those services can adapt to your needs, thereby getting to know you better and improving your experience. Every time I felt stuck, just talking it out with someone got me notes on how to keep going. Plan the next meeting at the end of each session. You’ll then have a list of actionable to-do’s which will also help bring you forward and continuously make progress. No one wants to appear to a meeting having done nothing all week.

All great digital tools aside: nothing beats bringing something to paper and sorting it with your hands.

Find a project buddy

A project buddy is your weekly “kick in the butt.” I met with Kilian of go(geek) to sit in a room at University each Friday. We talked about current challenges and agreed on a task we want to achieve in the next hour. We’d then sit in front of our keyboards silently and check-in after those sixty minutes to see how far we’ve gotten.

Get your pitch right

I attended the Thought For Food conference in Amsterdam and by chance bumped into an investor. He was about to go to a meeting but seemed interested in what I do. My opportunity to secure a seed investment! After 15 seconds you could see his face going from “interested” to a polite “nice try, buddy.” Learn how to spark curiosity and be convincing in thirty seconds. When describing your startup, have a one sentence description. If it’s met with “Wow, that sounds cool. How does that work?” you just earned yourself some extra time. It’s all about exchanging business cards and concluding a memorable pitch with a handshake. Be authentic and on the border to realistic but dare to go a bit over the top with your idea, explain the details later. Yes, every startup is disrupting the status quo. Don’t be too serious about it and let your excitement come through. The shortest distance between two people is a story. What’s yours?

Drawing your why, how and what can often help.

Have something to show

Create a website outlining why and how you do what. Have a company email address. Suddenly things don’t feel like a project anymore. Don’t fool people, but show a realistic version of where you’re going. No one ever had the perfect solution from the beginning. But make it clear to people where you’re heading.

Finding a name isn’t easy.

“If you like it, then you should’ve put a name on it”

Good names take time. Think about where you’ll go with your project. Does it need to be pronouncable in multiple languages? Does it “look” good and type itself well? Can you keep the name if your company changes directions? How memorable is it? WIPO has a global brand database where you can see if someone already registered your name. Register all top-level domains if it’s still available. That initial investment is better than having to pay thousands to someone holding that domain hostage. For some, there’s a real business behind selling good names.

Crunch some numbers

Do some estimations on your business model. See if what you want to do actually works out in hard numbers. Guessing is hard, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to not guess at all. One of the first questions you’ll encounter is how you’re going to make money. How much does your team cost? Who do you need to hire in the future? How big is your market, how many potential customers do you have? Reach out to someone to have a look at this with you for two hours. I got a lot of help from my mentors on this.

Map out your business model

I had problems filling in the Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder. For many fields I simply couldn’t come up with something. It seemed to be made for businesses that are more established already. I favor the Lean Canvas influenced by Ash Maurya because it’s more focused on stating the problem well. Too many fall in love with their solution. What if it’s not even tech-related? Maybe you don’t need an app? That’s entrepreneurship and problem-solving on a holistic level. Dare to challenge yourself in that way. Your solution will have many variations which you will then evaluate until you reach the glorified product-market-fit: somebody actually wants and needs what you have built. Read Ashs article “Why Lean Canvas vs Business Model Canvas?” and learn what model makes sense for you.

Your chances are little

You probably won’t change the world, but on a local level, everyone can make a difference. You know the saying “act local, think global.” Who cares if your product affects 5,000 or 500,000? You’ll leave the world better than you found it. You can influence your surroundings. Creating something that wasn’t there before, the playful enthusiasm and perseverance of building things, that is entrepreneurship.

Your logo is copied

Fri, 25 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0200

“Wait, I’ve seen this logo before. Why does it seem so familiar to me?”

After a few years in Design you eventually find out that everything has been done before. I figured out where some popular logos might have come from. When does copying become stealing? Is it even that bad?

Source “Airbnb” | Source “Azuma Drive-In”

Source “Beats” | Source “Stadt Brühl” (PDF)

You’ve been copying all along

Design solves problems while adding uniqueness to the end result. That is called creativity. We are bombarded with visual messages all day. Maybe you saw a great design featured on some blog. A few months later you come up with something similar. You might just not remember why you came up with such a solution. When creating, we are recycling impressions all the time without realizing it.

Source “Medium.com” | Source “Metrocraft Publishing”

Source “OMV” | Source “CTV”

Does copying mean stealing?

Some websites like calling out brands for ripping-off or stealing a Design. In many cases there is no differentiation between stealing and copying. I’d like to state how I distinguish between these two terms.

Stealing means replicating a design end-to-end. The company wants to profit from the attributes the design communicates. Stealing is sewing a Nike logo on sweaters to sell them for double the price. Design is an approach that is tailored to each instance it is applied, thereby making it hard to imitate. Stealing often involves a discrepancy between communicated message and content. Self-image and public image are not congruent. Thats why premium brands can’t be imitated easily. Stealing is an insidious attempt at not being discovered.

Copying is different. It’s the way we learn. Think about how babies grow-up and learn new skills: they imitate their parents. Thousands of years ago some iconic Roman sculptures were created by casting exact copies of Greek statues. By copying we are acknowlodging the past and building upon existing knowledge. I taught myself how to program by copying code from other websites and playing around with it. Copying means being influenced by an idea and applying it in a different form and context. It pays tribute to the originator and always challenges the appropriate use for itself.

Source “Von Holzen und Hügin”

Source “Carhartt” | Source “Carlo Cisventi”

A copy of a copy of a copy

Take the concept of Flat Design. It’s a style that Googles Material Design leveraged, but they didn’t come up with it. It’s difficult to find out who started something. Even if you do find the originator, how do you know they weren’t influenced by something they weren’t aware of? Maybe they’re only hiding their source? As you see, we’re quickly getting into a chicken-egg-debate here.

Source “Kaufland” | Source “Knudsen Creamery Company”

Source “Sennheiser” | Source “Seiyu Stores”

Semantics utilize copying

Semantics make the world better navigable for us. We take commonly understood pictograms and alter them to a brand language. Semantics mean you recognize a symbol of which you have learnt the meaning. Think about the fire exit sign, the hamburger icon or the power switch symbol. By embracing this we make our work usable for a wide variety of people. No one would call this stealing. Still, it is copying.

Source “Astra” | Source “Schweizerische Zentralstelle für Flüchtlingshilfe”

Source “Ferrero”

Source “Uber” | Source “Carl Christiansen”

“Things which are different in order to be different are seldom better, but that which is made to be better is almost always different.” Dieter Rams

While reflecting on this I changed the way I used the words copying and stealing. Copying offers opportunity to learn while stealing avoids the hard work. Stealing implicits that all Design challenges deserve the same solution. We don’t have to act like we’re reinventing the wheel every time— even if we might sell it that way sometimes. There are a lot of replicable parts in Design. You must listen and still strive for originality, otherwise you will end up with dissatisfied clients, a bad reputation and zero personal growth.

Do you disagree?

Have you ever caught yourself copying an idea? Were you the one that was stolen from? How did you deal with that? Is anything original anymore? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Remote work on a remote island

Thu, 03 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0200

Maybe you’re thinking about trying that Digital Nomad lifestyle you’ve heard about. Tired of the cold winter months? You see pictures of people sunken into comfy chairs at the beach, laptop on their knees and a cocktail to the right. And you’re still in Europe!

Here’s my summary of a month in the beautiful city of Las Palmas on Gran Canaria. These are my impressions and tips for you if you’re planning something similar. Of course you don’t want to fry in the sun all day but really use this change of environment to create.

Connect with locals and expats

I think it’s easiest to connect with people through sports. On Meetup.com you can find a lot of groups for all kinds of interests. During my stay there were weekly volleyball and football teams playing at Las Alcaravaneras beach. If you’re into Crossfit I recommend you check out CrossFit Las Canteras. All coaches explained the workouts for me in English. After totally exhausting yourself you can jump right into the Atlantic which is more or less at the gyms doorstep.

Thursdays are usually reserved for Tapas night in Vegueta, the old town of Las Palmas. A bunch of bars are opened, the narrow streets are packed with people. Tapas are small snacks from which you can choose right at the bar. For a few euros you can try different things in combination with a drink. I very much enjoyed La Azotea de Benito, a rooftop bar with a stunning view over the historic buildings of Vegueta.

Giving my “Busyness ≠ Business” speech at TheRoof.

Organize events yourself

To become better at something, start teaching others. You might think that you have to become an expert first to “be allowed” to share your knowledge. In contrast to the worlds best you probably consider yourself a bloody beginner — but what kind of unrealistic standard is that? Compared to people who want to learn your skill you’re already an expert. You can already make an impact. Go out there and start your own tribe. Since I’ve been doing speaking workshops in Switzerland, I started Las Palmas Public Speaking which quickly grew to 50 members. Over the course of a month I moderated four events at Las Canteras Beach. Participants would try out games and methods to improve their public speaking skills. At the end everyone had to deliver a spontaneous two-minute-speech about a topic I assigned them.

Public Speaking Workshop at Las Canteras Beach.

Fresh produce from the island

Here in Switzerland I buy avocados from Peru. At the checkout I try to forget the horrible ecological footprint these fatty treats leave behind. To my surprise a lot of exotic fruits and vegetables are grown directly on the island. A reason why I probably ate over 20 avocados in a month. There’s a huge variety of melons, bananas, mangos or dragonfruits stacked in the shelves. You can find them in the supermarkets but be sure to visit the local city market Mercado Central. There you’ll find the freshest quality and it’s where locals go.

Small moments of joy: opening a perfectly ripe avocado.

Drinking tap water?

Can you drink tap water in Las Palmas? There’s a debate about this. Some say you can, some only recommend bottled water. Locals don’t drink from the tap. According to Expatica Las Palmas ranks on third place in terms of tap water quality in Spain. Decide for yourself. I was told that Firgas and Agua de Teror have a delivery service in glass bottles. Try to buy water from the island and avoid plastic by buying the large bottles.

Finding a place to stay

I booked an apartment over Airbnb. There are plenty of offers but pretty expensive. Afterwards I figured out that over various Facebook groups people often post offers for a spare room. If you’re traveling on a budget and sharing a place with others is your thing, then that might be an option for you. I also got to meet the guys that run Columbus Hostels. A former Industrial Designer from the UK founded this place with his friend — that means a large part of the furniture was built by themselves.

¿Hablas español?

Besides dabbling around with some language apps I didn’t speak a word of Spanish. Not a lot of people outside of the “digital realm” speak English. It’s definitely a plus if you refresh your Español vocabulary. If you’re staying longer you might even consider taking some classes. There are many great teachers out there. Speak with some people and ask them for recommendations. I didn’t take classes, but I got to know Spanish teacher Laura Leon, who was incredibly helpful in showing me some spots on the island.

Exploring the island

I recommend to rent a car to get around the island. Cicar offers an easy rental process. All insurances included, just bring the car back with a full tank. The narrow mountain roads sure are an experience. Be prepared for steep inclines and cars honking when driving around the curves. The landscape certainly reminded me of the Grand Canyon sometimes.

Roque Nublo (Location)

“How’s the weather?”

Las Palmas certainly has a special climate. It changes a couple of times per day. In the mornings it might be gray skies, two hours later the sun is shining only to be followed by a quick rain shower. It’s not sunny all the time since the clouds don’t get past the mountains in the middle of the island and “get stuck” in the city. That also means that the majority of tourists don’t stay in Gran Canarias largest city. Most foreigners stay in the south near Maspalomas where sunny weather is pretty much guaranteed. In general the Canary Islands are a warm place to stay all year.

“La meccanica delle emozioni”

Somewhere (Location)

Getting work done

I found it refreshing to switch environments. So I set out to also rent a desk at a co-working space. Since I often have calls in the morning I spent that time working from home. After lunch I headed to CoworkingC. I set myself up there since I was told it is the place with the most people. Summer is considered the “off-season”. Overall it was pretty quiet. The place hosts the most coworkers during the winter months. Definitely check out Restation, Cocoworking and Go Coworking as well. Find the place and community that suits you best. Many of them offer a free trial day.

This is by no means a complete guide to every place to visit in Las Palmas. How could it be? Others do that much better. See it as a glimpse of things that I noticed during my month there. Something that I would have liked to read beforehand. I hope you found this useful. Share it with someone who might be planning the same.

Busyness ≠ Business

Sun, 14 May 2017 00:00:00 +0200

Deine Aufmerksamkeit ist deine Realität

Wir haben fast nichts unter Kontrolle. Ich kann auf meine Gesundheit Einfluss nehmen durch Ernährung, Bewegung und eine positive Geisteshaltung, aber letztendlich ist immer etwas Glücksspiel dabei. Meine Aufmerksamkeit ist einer der wenigen Dinge, über die ich voll und ganz verfüge. Jeder läuft mit seiner persönlichen Filterbrille durch die Welt. Welche Inhalte sollen mein Leben und Denken bestimmen? Der Pförtner zur Auswahl dieser Inhalte ist die Fähigkeit, seine Aufmerksamkeit lenken zu können. Meine Realität ist, worauf ich meine Aufmerksamkeit richte.

“Bei gleicher Umgebung lebt doch jeder in einer anderen Welt.”Arthur Schopenhauer, “Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit” (1850)

Ändere die Perspektive entsprechend deinen Vorstellungen eines “guten” Lebens. Damit meine ich nicht, alles schönzureden. Niemand braucht Illusionen. Es wird Zeit, diesen gedanklichen Muskel zu trainieren, damit wir wieder Herr (oder Herrin) im eigenen Haus werden.

“Be water, my friend.”

Ich stelle mir gerne vor, dass ich am Tagesanfang mit einem vollen Glas Aufmerksamkeit aufwache. Jegliche Beschäftigung kostet tröpfchenweise ein Stück meiner Konzentration. Manchmal ist das Glas schon um drei Uhr Nachmittags leer, weil ich mich in den Untiefen von Sinnlosinhalten verloren habe. Daher die Frage: “Ist es dieses Panda-Video auf Facebook wirklich wert, dass ich heute Abend beim Essen mit Freunden geistig nicht mehr voll da bin?”

“Vielleicht gewinne ich ja beim nächsten Mal?”

Apps sind nicht das Rückgrat unserer Gesellschaft

Viele Anwendungen auf unserem Homescreen spielen eine wichtige Rolle in unserem Leben. Stell’ dir vor, wie es wäre, wenn wir kein Google Maps hätten? Kein WhatsApp, Netflix, Spotify, Wikipedia oder YouTube. Diese Werkzeuge haben einen riesigen Nutzen und sind eine Bereicherung, solange wir sie kontrollieren. Wir dürfen jedoch nicht vergessen, dass dahinter private Unternehmen mit Profitabsichten stehen.

“Aufgrund der ausschließlichen Finanzierung über Werbeeinnahmen ist Facebook weniger daran interessiert, die Nutzer ausgewogen zu informieren, als vielmehr sie möglichst lange auf der Seite zu halten. Und dieses Engagement funktioniert nachgewiesenermaßen besser über Inhalte, die Emotionen ansprechen — selbst wenn es Wut ist. Oder über Dinge, die krasser sind als das, was ich sonst so zu sehen bekomme.” Axel Maireder, Leiter des Social Media Forschungszentrum der GfK in Wien im Interview mit der brandeins, Ausgabe Mai 2017

Unsere Verweildauer ist der Saft, mit dem die Werbemaschinerie läuft. Dafür gibt es sogenannte Attention Engineers, die sich aus der kompletten Trickkiste des Glücksspiels bedienen. Dazu gehören auch Designer. Diese Berufe sorgen dafür, dass wir erstmals so etwas wie einen digitalen Juckreiz ausbilden konnten. Das Unbekannte übt auf uns einen großen Reiz aus — vielleicht verpassen wir gerade etwas wichtiges? Das merkst du an dem unterschwelligen Kribbeln in dir, sobald ein kleiner roter Kreis an der Ecke des App-Symbols erscheint. Wie ein kleiner Schmutzfleck ist er ständig im Blickfeld, nur damit wir die App öffnen und uns endlich von der Benachrichtigung befreien können.

“Autopilot, bitte übernehmen Sie.”

Vertraue deinem Autopiloten

Archimedes war ein griechischer Mathematiker, Physiker und Ingenieur. Vor etwas über 2000 Jahren lag er gedankenverloren in der Badewanne. Wie vom Blitz ergriffen kam ihm die Lösung zu einem Problem, was später das Archimedische Prinzip begründete. Nackt und noch nass tropfend sei er damals durch die Straßen gerannt und habe “Heureka! Heureka!” gerufen: “Ich habe es gefunden!”

“Heureka!” (Ich habe es gefunden!)

Der rettende Einfall kommt meistens, wenn es am wenigsten erzwungen wird. Das Unterbewusstsein arbeitet weiter an Problemen, obwohl wir uns nicht aktiv damit beschäftigen. Nicht umsonst gibt es vor wichtigen Entscheidungen den weitverbreiteten Rat, man solle “eine Nacht darüber schlafen.” Die Langeweile ist quasi ausgemerzt, dadurch dass eine aufregende Welt nur noch einen Griff zum Smartphone entfernt liegt. Wenn wir uns mit ständiger oberflächlicher Beschäftigung davon abhalten, in uns zu kehren, so kündigen wir unserem inneren Kompass. Lassen wir ihn die Arbeit machen. Autopilot, bitte übernehmen Sie.

“Aus Mangel an Ruhe läuft unsere Zivilisation in eine neue Barbarei aus. Zu keiner Zeit haben die Tätigen, das heißt die Ruhelosen, mehr gegolten. Es gehört deshalb zu den notwendigen Korrekturen, welche man am Charakter der Menschheit vornehmen muss, das beschauliche Element in großem Maße zu verstärken.”Friedrich Nietzsche, “Menschliches, Allzumenschliches” (1878)

Treffen sich zwei Fische. Sagt der eine: “Na, wie ist das Wasser?” Fragt der Andere: “Was ist Wasser?”

Wie merke ich, wenn ich unaufmerksam bin?

Wie soll man merken, dass man unaufmerksam ist, wenn man unaufmerksam ist? Es führt nichts darum eine eigene Achtsamkeitspraxis zu entwickeln. So kann ich mich bewusst dabei ertappen, wenn die Technik mich benutzt. Meditation ist sicherlich ein guter Weg. Das ist die Fähigkeit, sich selbst beim Denken beobachten zu können — und dabei nicht wertend zu sein. Es kann hilfreich sein, über den Tag verteilt Statuschecks einzuführen. Anfangs meinetwegen mit einer Erinnerung im Smartphone. Wie atme ich gerade? Wie ist meine Haltung? Was passiert um mich herum? Benutze ich die Technik oder werde ich benutzt?

Geschäftigkeit wird als Indikator für Produktivität benutzt. Wie viele Aufgaben konnte ich heute abhaken? Wurde jede Mail beantwortet? Es mag naheliegend sein, unseren Posteingang als To-Do-Lieferant zu sehen, um Tasks ad hoc abzuarbeiten. Dabei verlieren wir jedoch schnell den Fokus auf die Substanz unseres Schaffens. Niemand bekommt mit dem neuesten iPhone eine Gebrauchsanleitung, in der erklärt wird, wie wir unser Telefon in Gesellschaft verwenden oder was das mit unseren Gehirnen macht.

“Either you’re the creator or you’re the audience. Either you’re waiting your turn or you’re taking it.” Seth Godin

Nutze Technik mit vollem Bewusstsein.

Die Digitalisierung birgt für uns viele Chancen. Kannst du der Versuchung widerstehen, in jedem Moment von einem Gerät abhängig zu sein? Finden wir es heraus, wir sind es uns schuldig.

Anzeige

Nach dem Aufwachen trinke ich gerne Kaffee mit Butter und MCT-Öl (z.B. Primal Fuel), um nicht aus Kohlenhydrate Energie zu gewinnen, sondern durch Fett. Fast kein Hungergefühl aber maximale Klarheit im Kopf. Besonderns hilfreich auch, wenn man in Intervallen fastet.

Leseempfehlung
“Fokus wie ein Laserstrahl: 7 Hacks, um deine Konzentration zu steigern”

Busyness ≠ Business

Fri, 12 May 2017 00:00:00 +0200

Klingelnde iPhones und zwitschernde Timelines: Unterhaltung war nie günstiger, hat aber ihren Preis. Auf dem Spiel steht die Qualität deiner Arbeit. Geschäftigkeit wird zum Indikator der Produktivität. So wird aus deinem Business zunehmend ein “Busyness” mit langfristigen Konsequenzen. Ein Plädoyer für weniger Oberflächenbeschäftigung. Dein Ansporn für mehr Herzblut und Fokus auf die Substanz unseres kreativen Schaffens.

Digitales Maß

Ich möchte nicht die Errungenschaften unserer modernen Welt schlechtreden. Sehe ich mich in der Welt um, dann sehe ich Menschen, die sich mit Bildschirmen von der Außenwelt isolieren — der Ursprung von Wortkreationen wie dem Smombie. Aus diesem Grund hat die Stadt Augsburg an Tramstationen Ampellichter im Boden installiert, weil die Menschen gedankenverloren über die Schienen eilten. Technik ist bereichernd, wenn wir sie wie mit vollem Bewusstsein benutzen. Ein Glas Bordeaux auf der Couch kann wunderbar sein. In vollem Genuss und ganz bei der Sache. Sobald ich jedoch Schnaps auf der Arbeitstoilette verstecke habe ich ein Problem — und wieviel Leute nehmen ihr Smartphone mit auf die Toilette?

Schlafen ist wie arbeiten

Damit meine ich nicht, dass wir bei der Arbeit schlafen sollten oder beim Schlafen arbeiten sollten. Wer bedeutungsvolle Kreativarbeit leisten möchte, sehnt sich nach Flow.

“Flow bezeichnet das als beglückend erlebte Gefühl eines mentalen Zustandes völliger Vertiefung und restlosen Aufgehens in einer Tätigkeit, die wie von selbst vor sich geht—auf Deutsch in etwa Schaffens- bzw. Tätigkeitsrausch oder auch Funktionslust.”Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Wikipedia

Genau wie erholsamer Tiefschlaf vorangegangene leichte Schlafphasen erfordert, so bewegen wir uns durch leichte Arbeitsphasen, bis wir im Flow-Zustand florieren. Niemand kann auf Knopfdruck komplexe Probleme lösen.

Foto: Benjamin Child

Das Büro

Wir mieten eine teure Fläche in zentraler Lage. Anschließend möbelieren wir diese Fläche für noch mehr Geld. In diesem Raum sollen Mitarbeiter jeden Tag ihre beste Arbeit erledigen. Fragt man Menschen jedoch, wo ihre besten Ideen enstehen, dann ist die Antwort selten “das Büro.” Ich befürworte keine full-remote Unternehmenskonzepte, aber für bestimmte Phasen eines Projektes ist die ortsunabhängige Arbeit ein Bonbon für Qualität und Produktivität. Wer in seinem Unternehmen kein Home Office erlauben möchte (“wegen den vielen Ablenkungen zuhause”), traut seinen Mitarbeitern wenig Selbständigkeit zu. Remote arbeiten ist nicht das Problem.

Jeweils 60 Minuten.

Eine Stunde ist nicht eine Stunde

Öffne deine Kalender-App und scrolle durch die letzten paar Wochen. Wie sahen deine Tage aus? Hattest du öfters längere Zeitabschnitte nur für dich und deine Problemlösung? Stille 60 Minuten ohne Unterbrechung? Oder bist du in 15-Minuten-Blöcken durchgetaktet? Hüte dein Kalender, du musst nicht in jedem Meeting sein.

Aktive und passive Kommunikation

Heutzutage arbeiten wir oft in Großraumbüros. Kurze Kommunikationswege, flache Hierarchien, spontane Kollaboration. Das führt dazu, dass wir uns ständig mit kurzen Fragen und Geplauder beschäftigen. Wir sind eben menschlich, wir unterhalten uns! Wenn in einem Büro nie Regeln aufgestellt werden für die Zusammenarbeit, dann führt das dazu, dass wir immer wieder aus einem Gedankengang gerissen werden.

Beispiele für aktive Kommunikation: “Hey, ich habe dir gerade die E-Mail wegen dem Ding da weitergeleitet”, “Weißt du gerade wo das Druckerpapier ist?”, “Heute Mittag Thailänder?”
Beispiele für passive Kommunikation: E-Mail und Messenger-Apps. Diese können ebenfalls ablenkend sein. Ich entscheide jedoch, wann ich diese Ablenkung erlauben möchte.

Die eine Form ersetzt nicht die andere und das ist auch gut so. Wir brauchen jedoch klare Regeln, damit sich Mitarbeiter auch zurückziehen können, um konzentriert arbeiten zu können. Wir brauchen eindeutige Signale, wann jemand unterbrechungsfrei arbeiten möchte.

“Wir müssen uns auf das Machen besinnen. Wir müssen es bewusstmachen und bewusst machen.” Otl Aicher

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Leseempfehlung
“Fokus wie ein Laserstrahl: 7 Hacks, um deine Konzentration zu steigern”

Informed food choices start with technology

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0200

If you’ve ever shopped for food online you probably know this: there’s a whole lot of products to choose from. If you’re looking for a new camera online, you’re used to applying filters to the abundance of search results. Be it picture sensor resolution, optical zoom or pivotable display — not a problem. You can configure the online shop in a way you’ll find the perfect camera. Why is that not possible for food yet? Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds and current solutions often fail. Good to know that there’s a new approach and solution waiting.

How do you find the right food?

Almost every serious online supermarket has a gluten- or lactose-free section. The downside is: you will only find products from the so-called “Free From” category. Those are often modified foods that claim to imitate the original. Not always the best choice from a nutritional standpoint. There are still many foods that never make it into your scope if you just shop inside of this category. Take cucumbers or milk for example — gluten-free right? It gets even worse if you have multiple intolerances. Good luck finding the right products for you.

It’s not only about allergies

Even if you can eat everything, you probably pick your food with some kind of filter in mind. Maybe you don’t like onions, prefer no additives, eat mostly organic or you only want to buy food containing no palm oil (that’s crippling the rainforest by the way).

I’m not only talking about allergies and intolerances. We all eat differently and there’s not a “one size fits all” solution when it comes to your diet. Ingredients and products are well listed, tagged and cataloged — the data is available. All we need to do is use it in a intelligent manner.

The (not so) simple solution

So how does this work? Just create a huge tag cloud that matches the ingredient list? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Let me explain you why.

“A technically gluten-free product can still contain gluten.”Jürgen Schmidtlein, founder of “Zöliakie Austausch”, personal interview.

Although the ingredients may contain no hints of gluten you’d have to consider where the food was produced and by whom, since there’s always the danger of contamination. Organisations supporting people with coeliac disease (the condition you have when you can’t have gluten) give out a regularly updated list of producers that are especially educated in this matter. These lists have to be considered into the selection process as well.

Product recalls

Let’s say your favorite granola bar was accidentally processed with a batch of peanuts that were dumped into the production machine. Things like that happen. Wouldn’t you like to be informed about this when shopping? At the moment these recalls are published on separate websites, usually in some kind of blog format. But who reads those every day? Why not have this information directly displayed where it really concerns you? This would dramatically improve food safety and spare some people from the ER.

Product recall warnings where they make sense for the customer. Mockup of leshop.ch

This is our mission

Nutridelta is building a filtering technology for online supermarkets so they can find the products from their inventory that are relevant for you. This will integrate directly into the shop. Think of it as a smart extension of your shopping experience. In this way we make sure the supermarket is always in control of their food data so you can trust the information you see. In this case you don’t have to rely on other websites and apps. Those deal with fragile user-generated content, don’t take daily-updated food warnings into consideration and don’t handle multiple filtering options well.

“But I prefer shopping offline!”

If you enjoy going to the “real” shops (and you have every reason to) you would still be able to get an overview of things you could eat. Maybe you’ll even discover things you’ve never tried before. Got a nut allergy and don’t want to consume additives? What if there’s a full-organic pesto without cashews? The possibilities are tremendous once you configured your eating profile.

Supermarkets, it’s time to upgrade

Supermarkets will increase their revenue, encourage a customer to come again and — if a customer decides to receive newsletters — propose products that are highly relevant to them.

“[In online food shopping] it is crucial who can serve the customers individual needs best, from order to delivery.”Dominique Locher, CEO of LeShop.ch in Migros’ annual report 2016.

Shopping for food online is a fairly new field but ever-growing. Studies and trends show that people reflect on their food choices and strive for what’s best for their wellbeing. Making this as easy as possible for customers is not only a way to improve the numbers. It’s a business-promoting way to tell your customers you really care.

Tripping in a float tank

Sat, 18 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0100

“Psychologists stuck 19 healthy volunteers into a sensory-deprivation room, completely devoid of light and sound, for 15 minutes. Without the normal barrage of sensory information flooding their brains, many people reported experiencing visual hallucinations, paranoia and a depressed mood.”

This is some of the stuff you can read online, when people experience the absence of noise. Joe Rogan, a UFC commentator and comedian, mentioned in his podcast that he regularly spends time in his isolation tank to “reboot”. I’m not into drugs but always curious about the vast potential each person can access when working on their inner selves. The body is the mind and vice versa. Long story short: I signed up for a 90-minute floating session. You get into a light and sound absorbing capsule filled with salt water that has the same temperature as your skin. Besides not seeing or hearing anything, your body doesn’t put up any energy to regulate its temperature. You float weightlessly. The theory is: you are left alone with nothing else but the sensations that your mind delivers.

Flashing lights, wild hallucinations

I went into the capsule without any expectations. I thought it would be a very quiet place for about an hour. And it was… exactly that. No mind games, trips to parallel universes or encounters with extraterrestrial entities. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Instead of stomping out of the capsule and demanding a refund for the missed mental rollercoaster I felt very relaxed and deeply focused. Like a shortcut to a peaceful state that most people only achieve after a lot of meditation practice. Half an hour in I underwent some interesting experiences. Everything was pitch black and I couldn’t tell if my eyes were opened or closed. I did see morphing shapes of color. Just like the afterimage you see after looking into the sun, only much more subtle. Maybe you know that feeling of hearing your body when you wear ear plugs. You feel the regularity of your breathing. I suddenly became aware of the sound of blood rushing through my veins, stomach, spine, my joints — with every heartbeat my body is performing and operating. I am a biological system.

90 minutes later

90 minutes have passed and dimmed lights awaken my zero-g snoozing. I open the lid and sit in the shallow water for a moment. Suddenly I know what people mean with “being in touch with yourself”. I take a icecold shower, get dressed again and leave the institute. The streets are jammed with cars, it’s rush hour in Zurich and the weather is freezing. Compressed air escaping from the bus hydraulics, howling winds, cars honking, smartphones buzzing, beeping and that distinctive WhatsApp whistle. I have become sensitive to even the slightest sounds. This is what we deal with everyday? Maybe there really is something to creating your own quiet place — be it in salty water or sitting on the floor of your apartment. I found it to be very benefitial. Try it for yourself but don’t expect any miracles.

float Zurich
Röschibachstrasse 71
8037 Wipkingen
float-schweiz.ch

Ausreden sind alle.

Sun, 22 May 2016 00:00:00 +0200

Kaum klettern die Temperaturen über zweistelliges Niveau, wabern hunderttausende Menschen durch Parks, Uferpromenaden oder mitten durch die Betonwüsten der Großstadt. Dich packt der Ehrgeiz und jetzt werden die Vorsätze vom Jahresanfang erst recht umgesetzt. Trotzdem siegt die innere Faulheit und eigentlich sind 15 Grad ja noch echt frisch und außerdem passt die Übergangsjacke auch nicht mehr so richtig.

Kommt dir das bekannt vor?

“Als Erstes muss ich meine Laufklamotten raussuchen, mich in den Krempel reinzwingen, dann die Laufschuhe schnüren. Vorher noch gut aufwärmen und dehnen, kann mir ja keine Verletzung leisten. Danach muss ich abkühlen bevor ich überhaupt duschen gehen kann. Ich würde ja gerne…”

Redest du wiederum mit jemanden, der Laufen liebt und routiniert sein Sportprogramm abspult, dann klingt das in etwa so.

“Laufen? Easy ! Aus der Haustür raus und ein Ründchen drehen.”

Was war das denn?

Wir machen in unserem Oberstübchen vermeintlich simple Dinge kompliziert. Dinge, die wir gerne tun, fallen uns leicht und erscheinen mühelos. Auf einmal wirst du dich ertappen, wie dein Gehirn sich dauernd vermeintlich plausible Ausreden zusammenreimt, um dein schlechtes Gewissen zu besänftigen. Was hat es mit einem Marathon auf sich? Ein Fuß vor den anderen setzen und nicht aufhören, bis du nach 42 Kilometern mit alkoholfreien Gerstensaft, Müsliriegeln und Applaus überschüttet wirst. Klingt nach einem Spaziergang? Fast . Leichter wird es dadurch natürlich nicht. Dennoch ist das genau die Sichtweise, die eine Bezwingung von Herausforderungen erst möglich macht während andere in Lethargie und Ausreden versumpfen. Diese Denkfalle wird dir auch im Geschäftsalltag begegnen.

Was machst du dir unnötig schwer und kompliziert? Der Großteil der Menschen redet so und ist sich nicht bewusst, dass sie sich damit nicht nur selber herunterziehen, sondern auch ihre Umgebung vergiften. Jedes Wort hat eine Wirkung, lass das nicht auf dich abfärben. Was ist eigentlich ganz einfach, wenn du nur deine Perspektive darauf veränderst? Gestalte das Problem wieder so, als müsstest du nur aus der Tür springen und ein Ründchen drehen.

“Zwei Gefangene sahen durchs Gitter in die Ferne: der eine sah nur Schmutz, der andere die Sterne.” Dale Carnegie

Was wird aus Designern?

Tue, 26 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0200

„We have reached a saturation point at which the high pitched scream of consumer selling is no more than sheer noise. We think that there are other things more worth using our skill and experience on.”

Ken Garlands Manifest „First Things First” ist vor 53 Jahren geschrieben worden. Damals war der visuelle Lärm die Anzeigenwerbung der wirtschaftlich blühenden 60er Jahre, heute ist es die konstante Sinnesüberflutung auf allen Kanälen: online, offline, digital und analog. Eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der nächsten Jahre wird es sein, diese unerschöpflichen Datenkaskaden zu strukturieren und zu verstehen. Die Startupszene floriert. Es war nie einfacher, ein eigenes Unternehmen zu gründen. Nebenbei sprießen alle zwei Wochen redundante Hotel- oder Flugbuchungsportale aus dem Boden. Banale Geschäftsideen und ein verklärender CEO schaffen es, Wagniskapital in Millionenhöhe zu generieren. Gesellschaftsrelevante Gestaltung muss jedoch nicht immer nur wohltätigen Zwecken dienen. Krankenhaussoftware, Steuern, öffentliche Verkehrsmittel, Autointerfaces, Bankautomaten, Orientierungssysteme — zu vieles ist aufwendig und inneffizient, weil Designer entweder garnicht oder zu spät im Entstehungsprozess zurate gezogen worden sind.

Unsere Branche befindet sich im Umbruch. Das Web ist nichts Neues mehr und Unternehmen können heute mit kleinen Budgets austauschbare aber letztendlich funktionierende Standardlösungen bekommen. Wie muss sich der Beruf des Designers folglich entwickeln, um nicht in einem übersättigten Markt obsolet zu werden? Ich möchte in Zukunft nicht nur produzieren; das Produkt soll auch bewegen. Designer werden zunehmend beraten und Prozesse ganzheitlich lenken. Dazu gehört auch, sich mit wirtschaftlichen Themen auseinanderzusetzen. So definiert sich der Designer zunehmend zu einem Optimierer und zu einem interdisziplinären Vermittler.

Klassische Gestaltung wird immer wichtig sein und den Unterschied zwischen mittelmäßig und hervorragend ausmachen. Dennoch muss sich dieser Beruf der Evolution von wirtschaftlichen und menschlichen Bedürfnissen anpassen. Designer sind die Unternehmer von morgen — wenn sie sich trauen.

Featured image by Federica Campanaro

All aboard the trend train!

Wed, 16 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0100

Usability and responsive design mark the fundamentals of good design and aren’t a trend to adopt. Many thoughts are correct but still I’d like to comment on some areas.

4. Hidden menus

“Hidden navigations that appear out of nowhere depending on the user’s actions will soon be the norm.”

Stuff that “appears out of nowhere“ is never good. If you’re running a portfolio website with four navigation items, there’s also no need to hide them in that fancy “off-canvas SVG transform” template you found on Codrops.

6. Modular and infinite scrolling

“What is the latest move in the whole modular trend? Modular scrolling. Meaning every module on a website may scroll on its own, independently from the other modules.”

I’m only begging you to do one thing: ask yourself three times if this really serves your content or if you’re trying to polish something with sandpaper. Just don’t mess with the native scroll behaviour of my trackpad and we’ll be friends. Look up scroll hijacking. Some of the most popular sites on the world today, like Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook already use it, so why shouldn’t everybody else? Depends on what kind of webpage you are designing for. For large newsfeeds where information just doesn’t stop dripping in it might make sense (Twitter). I personally enjoy the contentment that comes with having gotten to the end of an article and not loading the next article automatically which has got nothing to do with what I just read.

7. Material design

“So expect to see those long, solid shadows virtually everywhere.”

Please no.

8. Flat design

“With a lot of big brands adopting flat design in the last few years, mass audiences are more and more aware of the fact that less is better when it comes to visual style.”

Flat was a necessary evolution of webdesign and is more or less a recollection of the very fundamentals of design. But with redesigns such as Google or Verizon logos are also becoming less unique and memorable. I must add though that I really admire the engineering thoughts that went into Googles logo — they managed to shrink the file size down from 14,000 bytes to roughly 300 bytes. But, these developer background infos don’t reach the normal consumer and therefore impress only a small percentage. What’s more, flat web design has another UX advantage: image files weigh less and do not add an unnecessary burden to page load time. What has flat design got to do with image file sizes? Are you referencing to the fact that flat design doesn’t try to mimic real life surfaces such as wood or leather and therefore you can spare redundant background images?

11. Cool Typography

“One thing that a good infographic almost always has is one or two cool fonts.”

How do you come to that conclusion? Typography has to serve a purpose. Here you’re better off choosing a typeface that does this through great legibility and a clear display of numerals. If you’re making a illustration — fine, go crazy on typefaces. But infographics already have their purpose built in their name.

“[…] since Google Fonts is a big reason more people have ditched Arial for cooler and newer fonts (though Lobster is already overused; please stop it now, thanks).”

Typefaces like Garamond, Baskerville or Caslon go back until the 16th century and still work today. Just because a font is “cooler and newer” doesn’t make it better. If the typeface Lobster serves your content and the emotion you want to convey best, then go with that. But don’t ditch it because it’s subjectively overused.

Kurz erklärt: Block Element Modifier

Sun, 15 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0100

Besondere erzieherische Maßnahme — dafür steht BEM bei der Bundeswehr. Trendige Webentwickler von übermorgen kennen die Abkürzung unter Block Element Modifier. Klingt wie zwei verschiedene Welten? Nicht unbedingt, denn ein wenig erzieherisch ist die Namenskonvention auch.

So ähnlich ging es wohl den Kollegen der russischen Suchmaschine Yandex. Wie sah zu der Zeit ein typischer Webentwicklungsprozess aus? Der Designer tüftelt mehrere Mockups aus. Zur Wohltat aller Beteiligten kann dieser sein Design auch gleich umsetzen in HTML und CSS. Die Dateien werden an den Entwickler überreicht, der dem Ganzen mit einer serverseitigen Programmiersprache Leben einhaucht. Tausende Zeilen Code in Granit gemeißelt, um bis zur Erscheinung von HTML18 nicht mehr angerührt zu werden — genau dort liegt das Problem. Die alte Leier: Webseiten sind nicht mehr statische Layouts sondern eine flexible Anordnung von Komponenten. Warum wird nicht so programmiert? Wer kann schon von sich behaupten, dass er sich sofort in einem sechs Monate alten Projekt zurechtfindet? Was macht eigentlich die Klasse .arrow-oben-btnInhalt? Warum ist hier alles voller IDs und warum liegt hier eigentlich Stroh?

Designer und Entwickler sprechen mit BEM eine gemeinsame Sprache.

BEM ist lediglich eine gemeinsame Einigung auf eine bestimmte Namenskonvention. Es ist kein Framework, hier gibt es nichts zu installieren. Die Vorteile sprechen für sich:

Einheitliche Codebasis
Wartbarkeit und Wiederverwendbarkeit wird verbessert
Abhängigkeiten der Klassen untereinander werden reduziert
Schnelle Einarbeitung neuer Team-Mitglieder
Auf Designänderungen kann leichter reagiert werden
Namensfindung für neue Klassen wird einfacher

Der Block ist eine unabhängige Einheit mit eigener Bedeutung im Gesamtlayout und repräsentiert ein abgegrenztes Teil des Interfaces. Das Element ist immer Teil eines Blockes und ist funktionell als auch semantisch an diesen gebunden. Es hat keine Bedeutung außerhalb seines zugehörigen Blockes. Blöcke wiederum benötigen nicht zwingend Elemente. Trennung mit zwei Unterstrichen. Modifier sind Kennzeichnungen, die Blöcken oder Elementen zugewiesen werden können. Sie definieren Eigenschaften oder Zustände. Trennung mit zwei Bindestrichen.

Der Name einer Klasse sagt ihre Verwendung im Interface.

Schreibt man statt haus__fenster lediglich fenster so kommt die Frage auf: Was für ein Fenster? Ein Bootsfenster? Ein metaphorisches Fenster in eine Fantasiewelt? BEM schafft hier Ordnung, auch wenn es anfangs etwas mehr Schreibarbeit erfordert.

Für Klassen, die lediglich eine bestimmte Aufgabe erledigen, muss die BEM Methodik natürlich nicht angewandt werden. Eine sogenannte “utility class” wäre beispielsweise…

.uppercase {
  text-transform: uppercase;
}

Im Netz kursieren viele Konzepte für Namenskonventionen. Manche halten BEM für unnötig ausführlich und ich stimme zu, dass es nicht der heilige Gral ist. Ich selber kombiniere Elemente aus BEM mit Ansätzen aus SMACSS. Ein Designer erstellt seine Arbeit systematisch und begründbar mit Rastern und Hierarchien, er bedenkt Faktoren wie Skalierbarkeit und Langlebigkeit. Das unterscheidet den Profi vom Laien. Diese Gründlichkeit muss auch hinter den Kulissen im Code angewandt werden.

.gehirn–an

Wichtig ist nur, dass du dir beim Programmieren bewusst bist, warum du die jeweilige Klasse nun so benannt hast und wie sich das Objekt im großen Ganzen einfügt. Für Teams ist es hilfreich, eine “Codingrichtlinie” schriftlich festzuhalten. Das bedeutet anfangs etwas Arbeit, aber zahlt sich definitiv aus, wenn euch am Ende nicht die gesamte Codebasis um die Ohren fliegt und ihr !important Flags wie Bonbons an Karneval verteilen dürft.

Weiterführende Links zum Thema

BEM: Offizielle Dokumentation
SMACSS: Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS by Jonathan Snook
“MindBEMding — getting your head ‘round BEM syntax” by Harry Roberts
“A New Front-End Methodology: BEM” by Varvara Stepanova

Ferdinand Vogler

Hyrox Lap Pace Calculator

1. Enter your target pace in minutes per kilometer

2. How much laps is each run?

3. Result

Run 1

Run 2–7

Run 8

Frequently asked questions

How do I know the amount of laps for each round?

How do I use this data in my race?

How do I keep track of my pace during the race?

Should I not just run as fast as possible?

Can’t I use GPS from my watch?

The Focussing Illusion Explained

Why good communication is really hard

What you say is not what others hear

The four layers of communication

Demonstrated in a real life situation

How can we manage this complexity?

How to block ads everywhere

Ads suck

Meet the device that eats ads for breakfast

What you need

Hardware

Software

Installation

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Remove password in the admin interface

Is your life better now?

Enter Feature Hell

How did this land in our product anyway?

Taming the beast

Finding the sweetest fruits

Symptoms of weak product positioning

People don’t know what you do

What makes your loyal customer’s eyes sparkle?

No is a “Go” for others

Startup ideas don’t mean much

“Wouldn’t it be cool if…”

100,000 decisions shape the product

Share your ideas

Talking Design

How Design became so important

Designers aren’t equipped for todays work

Stakeholders are users too!

Always strive for clarity

Handbags, buildings, fingernails, companies?!

Why talking about Design is difficult

Explain how you came up with it

Your words become your world

Make heads nod and faces smile

“Yes, we Kanban”

Doing the right things

Where to product ideas come from?

Gatekeeper questions

Some ways to research and validate

Doing things right

Doing

Done

Feature

Impact

How do you work?

Leadership lessons from a moose

Once upon a time there was a moose.

“A better king”, they said, “we could never have dreamt of!”

“It’s not what it looks like!”

Contrast is difficult

Meet relative luminance

Try it out yourself

0 °C H₂O

How to deal with freezing

Body