Sky Confirm Their F1 Commentary Team

It’s looking good. David Croft commentates with a very natural rhythm and his rapport with Anthony Davidson made the coverage of the practice sessions this year. Ted Kravitz is a knowledgable guy who also has a very natural and calm way of adding to the commentary. Of course, Mr Brundle needs no introduction.

The only two I’m not sure about are Natalie Pinkham and Steve Rider. I don’t feel that Pinkham adds anything and mostly just annoys me with her ‘one of the gang but I’m a girl’ thing. And Steve Rider is about as wooden as they come.

But overall, a great line-up. Quite how it’ll fair with the BBC team is yet to be seen but, as Martin Brundle has said, the fact that there are now two broadcasters who’ll be screening the 2012 F1 season can only be good for fans.

Is it 1997 or something?

Simple Branding

A nice overview of the Simple (formerly BankSimple) brand. What I did not know is that the icon is a guilloche:

[…] a complex pattern created from simple, repeated, geometric steps defined by elementary equations. It’s this easily generated, difficult to reproduce intricacy that has led to a guilloche appearing in some form on most of the world’s currency.

F1 Drivers Develop Perfect English In Their Press Releases

This is Pastor Maldonado, a Venezuelan, talking naturally:

This is the same guy in the official press release announcing that he will be staying with Williams in 2012:

“This has been a tough season for the whole team but it has given me personally the opportunity to learn and develop. I am convinced that the steps we have taken to improve our competitiveness will bear fruit in 2012 and beyond. I am thrilled to be part of that and also to represent the people of Venezuela in Formula One.”

Perfect English and nice use of the phrase “bear fruit”.

(Just a bit of fun, you understand. I’m perfectly aware that all press release content is generated by one person — the team’s Press Officer.)

The Cloze Test for Reading Comprehension

A colleague mentioned the Cloze test today, something I had not heard of before. In a nutshell it’s a method by which you can assess the suitability of copy for particular digital environments.

Jakob Nielsen has a useful overview of the technique:

1. Replace every Nth word in the text with blanks. A typical test uses N = 6, but you can make the test easier by using a higher N value.
2. Ask your test participants to read the modified text and fill in the blanks with their best guesses as to the missing words. Each person should work alone.
3. The score is the percentage of correctly guessed words. Because you’re testing comprehension rather than spelling skills, synonyms and misspellings are allowed.

If users get 60% or more right on average, you can assume the text is reasonably comprehensible for the specified user profile employed to recruit test participants.

Of particular interest to me was the difference in meaning between ‘readability’ and ‘comprehension’ regarding the copy being tested.

Here is an example of the technique. (I scored 100% but had to remind myself that it simply meant the copy being used was comprehendible, rather than indicating that I was a literary genius.)

Susan Kare’s Sketchbook

An intriguing insight into the sketchbook of Susan Kare as she was developing the original Mac icons. All hail checkered sketchbooks.

Fascinating and delightful. And I did not know that the ‘command’ symbol (⌘) was meant to be a castle as viewed from above.

Address Is Approximate

This stop motion video is just awesome:

A lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View.

The Train Is Leaving the Station

I’m not going to spoil it. Just read this.

Barack Obama Website Redesign

I missed this when it went live but the website for Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012 is rather nice. It uses Jubilat from Typekit and contains 100% responsiveness.

First Williams, Now McLaren

Joe Saward reports that Auto Motor und Sport are running a story about McLaren trying to arrange an engine deal with Honda. The deal would see McLaren use a Honda V6 turbo from 2014 onwards.

First Williams Renault, now (apparently) McLaren Honda.

All aboard the retro bus!