How do you get people to stop, turn around and look at what you have? One way is to turn something on its head. Case in point: Cee Lo Gren’s Fuck You song. He took an Al Green-like melody and Motown sensibility and sings beautifully, smiling the whole time, telling this girl, “Fuck Yoooooouuuuu”. It’s…
I have a wide variety of risk profiles. In a restaurant, I like to try odd combinations of foods that I don’t know if they will taste good together. On the other hand, I have a much lower tolerance for risk when it comes to driving. In my professional career, I have been open to…
One thing I hate is being called a bottleneck. I work pretty quickly and usually stay ahead of engineers needs. I think I produce designs pretty quickly with a good degree of fidelity and creativity (if I do say so myself). However, there are times when I feel behind. Usually, this is right after a decision is…
“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend” Theophrastus (Greek Peripatetic philosopher and pupil of Aristotle, 372-287 bc) Time is a non-renewable energy source. You can’t unwind the clock. Time is precious, but I didn’t always think so. Time used to seem infinite. Like a refrigerator full of my favorite foods. Now, it seems like…
I had a major UX insight recently. The learning came through my recent phone upgrade. I couldn’t take my HTC Touch Pro 2 anymore. Windows Mobile was just an awful experience. It called people magically from inside my pocket and refused to answer when they called me. Verizon allowed me to upgrade a bit early,…
Many designers I know shun using big fonts. They want the text to be as tiny as possible. Years ago, I used to argue with my partners at Koko Interactive about font-size. Katie wanted Gigantic; Spencer wanted invisible; and I wanted in the middle. I now know, Katie was right. Gigantic is great when you…
Are you a craftsman in your job? Do you look at how other people do it and comb over the details, critiquing or praising each element? Do you consider yourself a student of the game? Someone who is striving to get better each day? Do you read blogs and books on your job subject matter?…
It’s not everyone, but there are alot of people who have particular phrases that they say all the time. Some examples: Kevin, a guy who used to work for me, said “Essentially” about 20 times per sentence. Another variant was “Basically” which several people I know say in every sentence. At least 1 in 40…