A pretty flower called “Ma.gnolia”

I just noticed someone tagged me on Ma.gnolia as a “possible designer”.
If wishing would make it so.

Which made me think two things – one, how to get in touch with this chap to say “sorry, no I’m not a designer”? I can put you in touch with some great designers, and I wish I was a designer, but I lack the ideas. All of a sudden I had the feeling I was living in a fishbowl with people looking in and making assumptions about me, and me having no recourse to set them straight. So nothing new there – people have been making assumptions since the caveman next door went “oooh! fire!” – it just struck me that instant is all. I blog, lay my life out for all to see, yet somehow I get surprised when I stumble across misconceptions.

Then again, if he’s tagged me once, it’s possible he’s reading the site. In which case – Hello 🙂 *waves* Sorry, I’m not a designer.

The second thing I thought was – I need to sign up to Ma.gnolia. I used to use del.icio.us a lot, then… I stopped. It got too slow and buggy on me, and I just didn’t need it. I no longer have the nomadic life between computers that I did last year, so static bookmarks work fine. Now most of my browsing is through sites with RSS anyways, and if I find something I like, I just subscribe. A good 90% of the time the only things I bookmark are sites for the Sunday Roast, and they get deleted at the end of the week to start over.

I can’t see Ma.gnolia fitting into my browsing life right now, but I still have this urge to play with a new toy. Anything to get me out of writing things for the blog (setup is not ideal at the moment due to a breakdown in communication between laptop and wireless keyboard). And the interface is just so pretty! That was always del.icio.us’ downfall for me. It worked and did things great, but it was a bit… plain. Plain works too, appearances aren’t everything an’ all that, but clearly I am more superficial than I like to admit. It’s 2006 – elegant and simple is one thing. Looking like I’ve just fallen through a time vortex to the mid 1990’s is another thing altogether – it was all those blue hyperlinks you understand. *shudder* So I like things to look good. Does that make me a horrible person? I just believe that form often-times is as important as function. Why deliberately make something ugly when it is just as easy to make it a pleasure to look at as well as use?

Which got me thinking on interface design and the number of times I’ve looked at a site and been turned off in about three seconds flat. And the other times I just look at a site and drool, wishing that I could make Bright Meadow look like that. I couldn’t quantify what I like, nor do I have the foggiest idea how I would go about changing this site, but I do know I am not happy with what I’ve got. I know it could be better just… Maybe inspiration and skill will strike overnight? Probably not. As I said, I’m not a designer. I don’t have the ideas.

Then I had a fourth thought – what gave the impression that I might have been a designer in the first place? I had a quick gander at the about page thinking it might be that. Writing, jewellery design, and quilts yes. Web design, no. My content? Sure I brush on the topic because it interests me, but I’ve never once lain claim to any skill in the area. At least I don’t remember doing so… Perhaps it is the company I keep? I won’t deny a lot of the sites I read and link too are by designers and/or are about design – but that’s more because they are interesting people than because of what they do to pay the bills.

So I have no idea really why I’ve been tagged as a ‘possible designer’ but I’m glad I had a look in my referrer stats now, because I was wondering what I was going to blog about tonight 😉

Of course, now I’m also wondering what other misapprehensions about me people are labouring under? Scary thought, that…

ma.gnolia, del.icio.us, designer, assumptions, misconceptions, interface design

9 thoughts on “A pretty flower called “Ma.gnolia”

  1. ma.gnolia is awesome, you should definitely give it a try – even if you don’t need it, you’ll find loads of great links on there. The groups are the best. Just try it! Satisfaction or your money back. 😉

  2. Hmmm. Enjoying playing around with it, but delicious is kind of cool in its simplicity. Like those 1950s kitchen units which are making a comeback in some kitchens across the world. I like the way you can click to display 50/100 etc. links. Magnolia has yet to convince me, but I haven’t spent a lot of time on it yet. I also don’t like the way all the featured linkers are dead important cool people. Who aren’t me. :p

  3. oh and can I just clog up your comments section a bit more with an observation that ma.gnolia is pretty buggy itself: if you have a couple of tabs open showing different parts of the site, it seems they will eventually synchronize. Which is hella annoying. If I want to browse groups while I edit my bookmarks, ma.gnolia seems to frown on this and puts all my tabs at groups after a few clicks or vice versa. I may just be imaginating again. I hope so.

  4. Arg! One person says yes, and one person says no! How can I cope?! Well, seems like I have to go have a play now, if only so I can make my own mind up.

    And JB, you can clog up my comments any time you like sweetie 😉

  5. Oh you flirt!

    And I wasn’t imaginating – if you have two pages loading on to different pages from each other, they synchronize.

    Ach well. Stick with it. The groups are fascinatingly useful. So far.

  6. I tried not to post the comment, but I just couldn’t – my inner flirt wanted to come out and play. Sorry.

    Just signed up. If I remember to play with it, I will let you know how it goes 😀

  7. Thanks for checking us out, Cas. Now that you are a member, you can actually write to the person that tagged you as a possible designer if you’re so inclined – it’s just a matter of finding the bookmark, viewing the profile of the person who marked it, and writing a message from within Ma.gnolia.

    JB, is right about the groups – they’re designed to draw in the absolute best bookmarks on given subjects, compiled by people who care about that subject. Groups will be a big part of our focus in the coming month or two, so keep checking in there for new stuff.

    JB, I also wanted to ask about the bug you found with multiple tabs. Can you write us at support@ma.gnolia.com to help us reproduce (and then squash) the bug?

  8. Thank you Todd for stopping by and leaving that tip – it’s useful to know. Thank you also for the compliment. Made my morning 😀

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