Our information graphics team does a lot of terrific interactive charts at NYTimes.com, but this one is particularly effective: a simple and somewhat bone-chilling look at how housing prices have fallen in twenty major American cities since 2000.

“Did you really want someone’s first experience with your work to make them hate you? That installer, the process of getting bits to where they should be is the very first interaction someone one has with your actual code, and yet, too many of you out there give it less thought than clean socks!” An IT professional offers eleven ‘commandments’ of good practice for software installation. Somewhat profanely delivered, but unimpeachably right.

“The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and scrapping the changes made to a flagship product, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice. Redesigned packaging that was introduced in early January is being discontinued, executives plan to announce on Monday, and the previous version will be brought back in the next month.”

What a disaster, though I think the reversal is clearly needed since the new packaging is virtually useless for shoppers. The root of this problem — and this is for a much longer blog post for another day — has less to do with PepsiCo than with the design and branding industry in general, I think. Not every client who thinks they need a redesign really needs a redesign.

Macworld editorial director Jason Snell on his experiences running Mac OS X on a US$350 MSI Wind netbook: “But the Wind is most definitely a system that isn’t intended for heavy use. It could be an appealing second (or third, or fourth) computer in a household, the kind of computer you keep under the couch so that you can pull it out and look up some actor’s name on IMDb. It’s the computer you buy for your kids with little fear of what they’ll do to it. If all you’re doing is reading email, surfing the Web, and maybe writing some basic documents, you’ll probably never notice. But if you try to do more, you’ll probably regret it.”

In an Op-Ed article from today’s newspaper, the principals of the well-regarded design studio No. 17 lament that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences still fails to recognize a critical contribution from the design community. “There’s an Oscar for pretty much every aspect of filmmaking, except one: the title sequences… Titles have become wonderful bridges from reality into the cinematic world and back out again. At their very best, they are themselves innovative, emotional experiences, microcosms of their movies.” I wholeheartedly agree, but that would be a technical Oscar, if I ever heard of one.

According to a report from iPhone metrics company Pinch Media, “of the users who download free applications from the App Store, only twenty percent use the app the next day, and far fewer do as the days pass. For paid applications, the return rate is only slightly better: thirty percent of people use the application the day after they buy it. The drop-off rate for paid applications is about as steep as for free applications after the first day.” If accurate, this research could upend a lot of the thinking around the viability of mobile applications. Based on my own experience at least, it seems plausible.

A serious blow to the well-liked media software: “Two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from Boxee. We tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on Boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it.” A blog post at Hulu offers an earnest if not particularly detailed acknowledgment that this is an unfortunate situation for users of both Hulu and Boxee; no real explanation is given, other than Hulu’s content providers asked for the removal. To be honest, I doubt if I will have any use for Boxee unless this situation is remedied somehow.

Four newspapers from Europe and one from Mexico take prizes in this prestigious, thirtieth annual creative competition. Some of the sample layouts from the winners (seen most easily in the embedded slideshow at the bottom of this page) are gorgeous; most are highly illustrative, and many are so visually ornate that they’re almost indistinguishable from magazine design. For me, they make for such interesting — and enjoyable — contrasts with the relatively austere aesthetic of The New York Times.

In other news, this year’s best designed horse-and-buggies should be announced soon. Kidding! Oof, I’m in trouble.

Courtesy of the school’s Masters in Interaction Design program, an interview with the well-known creative mind behind The Feltron Annual Report. In this dialogue, he touches on the problem of the designer as an author: “In a larger sense, the Annual Reports are an outgrowth of a search for content to use as a source for design. As long as I’ve been a designer, I’ve searched for ways to design personal content.”

On 11 Mar, Felton will be appearing on a blockbuster bill of fellow speakers — Jen Bekman, Rebekah Hodgson and Jason Kottke are the others — at one of the program’s well-attended Dot Dot Dot lectures in New York. If you’re looking to go back to school or to deepen your expertise in interaction design and you’re not already considering this program, you should be.

The design writer William Bostwick offers and explains five points for designers who need to express themselves in written form: “Write about yourself, write a story, write real words, don’t write too much.” Excellent article recommended for any designer serious about his or her career.