May 2012
4 posts
Two videos that make me hopeful about interaction...
http://vimeo.com/42053193
http://vimeo.com/41796732
Please don’t advocate learning to code just for the sake of learning how to code. Or worse, because of the fat paychecks. Instead, I humbly suggest that we spend our time learning how to …
Research voraciously, and understand how the things around us work at a basic level.
Communicate effectively with other human beings.
These are skills that extend far beyond mere coding and will help...
Link bundle
http://www.swiss-miss.com/2012/05/the-ten-commandments-of-teaching.html - All of these are fantastic; in particular: 1, 8, and 10.
http://bokardo.com/principles-of-user-interface-design/
http://www.peterme.com/2012/05/04/user-experience-is-strategy-not-design/ - “UX adds value by bringing design practices to strategic endeavors. This means generative and exploratory user research,...
I was grabbing lunch nearby and decided to check out a deli that seemed inauspicious, but it’s been there for a while - so maybe there’s something to it.
Overall there was nothing remarkable about the place, but one small thing stood out to me. I was paying for my sandwich and the woman behind the counter handed me some napkins. The detail that stood out was that the napkins were from...
April 2012
2 posts
“A “bad critique” is one of the most valuable things a designer can receive,...”
– http://www.ac4d.com/2012/04/30/do-you-want-critique-or-a-hug
“Merely because you have got something to say that may be of interest to others...”
– http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/04/you-must-deliver-marketable-goods.html
March 2012
4 posts
How Gearbox's 'Truth Team' outwitted Borderlands... →
Armstrong and Puri were careful to explain that the Truth Team doesn’t just ignore focus tester feedback. Rather, it analyzes the intention behind that feedback for the most effective solution.
“In that example, the problem wasn’t that there were too many Skags, it’s that the pacing was bad,” Armstrong said. “But the tester might not have known how to say...
“There’s a risk to saying no, but it’s a risk worth taking; a good editor is...”
– http://momentnyc.com/b/2012/03/08/aiming-for-a-new-target-the-perfectly-featured-product/
The folks at Moment are putting some great content up on their blog. Highly recommended.
February 2012
1 post
January 2012
8 posts
“In light of the Stanford study I’d take Clay Johnson’s argument...”
– http://thewirecutter.com/2012/01/happiness-takes-a-little-magic/
Excellent read from Brian Lam on what’s important in life.
“12. I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my...”
– http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/i-am-lousy-copywriter.html
Do STEM Faculty want more undergraduates in the... →
It’s a good question to ask - are the right incentives there in the first place?
“Back in 1984, our initial success at Disney was based on the ability to tell...”
– http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/11/some-thoughts-on-our-business.html
Highly recommend reading the whole thing, but especially the first 8 pages of the memo (don’t worry, it’s not that long - they were faxed pages, the text is also available underneath the scans.). I found myself...
Why Students Leave the Engineering Track →
After reading this New York Times blog post, I wonder if the reason there aren’t more engineering graduates is because of how it’s taught. I was reading this article about Sebastian Thrun leaving Stanford to start an online university called udacity and this piece caught my eye:
Thrun was eloquent on the subject of how he realized that he had been running “weeder” classes, designed...
November 2011
2 posts
October 2011
3 posts
June 2011
4 posts
“But sabermetrics comes with an important drawback. Because it translates sports...”
– Great read, and totally applicable for anyone using metrics/quantitative data for design and product decisions. Data’s important, but don’t forget the other stuff you can’t measure.
from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/the-sabermetric-bias/
“Do experience designers shape how users feel or do they shape with respect to...”
– Oliver Reichenstein (via putorti)
Steve Jobs in 1994: The Rolling Stone Interview →
“In my 20 years in this industry, I have never seen a revolution as profound as this,” says Jobs, with characteristic understatement. “You can build software literally five to 10 times faster, and that software is much more reliable, much easier to maintain and much more powerful.”
Steve Jobs talking about object oriented programming. Funny how you can take that quote...
Lessons learned from writing code
I’ve blogged recently about my belief that it’s important for designers to understand code, and I wanted to share some lessons I’ve learned in the past few months from writing simple code for Gojee.com.
“It should take 5 minutes.”
One thing I learned pretty quickly is that nothing is as easy as it seems. It’s one thing to ask for a seemingly simple change,...
May 2011
4 posts
Beautiful, thoughtful problem solving.
One (one) two (two) three (three) Too many rappers, and there’s still not enough MCs
-Nas, Beastie Boys [Ft. Nas] - Too Many Rappers
I’ve got to be honest here, I’m annoyed by folks who call themselves designers, but rather than thoughtfully solve visual or interaction design problems, they simply take a recent tutorial they’ve seen online or whatever the current...
Watch“I firmly believe that as a designer if you have an intimate relationship with the manufacturing and the materials that you’re working with that your designs will have more meaning and have more integrity” -John Cho Moore
Great video of the process and thought that goes into his product.
Welcome to Guilt Taste
ruthbourdain:
Welcome to the beta launch of Guilt Taste, the ultimate online destination for your guiltiest food pleasures.
Love the McRib and Gold Label Tenderloin.
Great designers understand code.
Great designers understand code, or more generally, great designers understand how the things they design are produced.
For a fashion designer it’s important to understand the process of getting a garment from concept to a finished product. In this interview, Eunice Lee founder of menswear brand Unis, talks about how in addition to being a designer and brand owner, she is also a production...
March 2011
3 posts
“If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said “a...”
– I’ve seen this quote used as a reason not to listen to your customers, and it bugs me when it’s used that way. It’s true that we can’t blindly listen to our customers, but within their feedback we can discover the problem they would like to be solved. In the case of the Henry...
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher...”
– William Arthur Ward (via jeanphony)
1 tag
WatchLove how David Chang explains the purpose of the Momofuku test kitchen:
It’s a place where we catalog mistakes.
February 2011
4 posts
3 tags
Dan Brown on design documentation →
Great interview on Johnny Holland with Dan Brown from EightShapes. Some really good insight and worth a read. One of my favorite quotes from the interview:
Determine the barest minimum that needs to go into the document in order to communicate the ideas effectively. Try not to do much more than the barest minimum, but definitely don’t do less.
Can’t agree more here - design documentation...
It takes a company to enable a great user...
It takes a village to raise a child -African Proverb
Just like the saying it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a company to enable a great user experience.
As a user experience professional (God, that sounds awful), it’s been my observation that while companies are starting to understand the value of investing in UX professionals, they also seem to put a little too much hope...
Really awesome scrolling/zooming site. →
Caught this today via @konigi on Twitter. Really awesome scrolling/zooming behavior. Scroll to the end for a pleasant surprise.
January 2011
1 post
2 tags
Do They Make Their Teammates Better?
I love the game of basketball. It’s fun for me to watch, play (although not so much recently), and follow because it’s a team oriented game where everyone benefits from working together, and still allows for individual players can really shine (for example). I don’t have a favorite team, I just love watching players perform - it’s a real joy watching Kobe make an impossible...
December 2010
1 post
3 tags
UX Lessons from High School Math and Science
Continuing on the high school theme from the last post, I’d like to talk about lessons a UX designer (or product person in general) can learn from high school math and science classes. I was a math and science nerd in school, and really enjoyed those classes the most, although taking art classes in college definitely changed things - more on that another time. Regardless of whether or not...
November 2010
1 post
What I Learned in High School About UX
For a long time, high school felt frivolous and pedantic, an exercise meant to keep teens occupied before the real learning occurs in college. Of course that is (mostly) untrue - there were lots of things I learned (whether or not I was aware of it at the time), that are relevant skills to any UX designer. Let’s start with English and History…
English - I really disliked English...
February 2010
0 posts
The Traffic Guru →
There was the “traffic world” of the highway, standardized, homogenous, made legible by simple instructions to be read at high speed. And there was the “social world,” where people lived and interacted using human signals, at human speeds. The reason he didn’t want traffic infrastructure in the center of Drachten or any number of other places was simple: “I don’t...