I am watching the NBA All Star competiton. While I wait for the slam dunk content, I was checking out old slam dunk offerings. Some of these are just awesome. I love the 1986 contest that Spud Webb won. I love when a 5’6″ short guy wins the slam dunk contest. I love when short…
My general theory of arguments/disagreements it that they occur for one or more of the following reasons: One party knows something the other doesn’t. One party is making an assumption the other isn’t One or more parties is feeling an emotion that instigates disagreement. The first reason is the easiest to solve, although it isn’t…
What is the difference between User Experience Design and Product Management? Additionally, should product management come out of the marketing department or the engineering department? This issues are coming to the fore recently at work as we start to mature our process and organization. I have seen it both ways. Both ways are bad. Reporting…
Katie and I voted this week. They used a new kind of electronic voting machine with some serious UX issues. To give them the good news first, they solved one of the most important issues. Before voting, the machine gave a PAPER version of your votes for your approval. It was under glass, but you…
Great article on the psychology of voting. This is exactly how you have to be thinking about your web applications. Drill down deep into the mind.
I have been working more on the book. The chapter I am working on deals with specific UI elements, like menus, buttons and other controls. It is amazing to me how many details there are in just a simple button. Bill Scott calls these “interesting moments“. For example in a button: At rest: The button…
I notice that I often avoid certain large tasks because I know I don’t have time to complete them. If I have a meeting in 30 minutes, I don’t want to open up PowerPoint and design the next generation of business intelligence tools. All that will happen is that I get things set up, start…
There is a product development philosophy that I strongly believe in, especially for the Software-As-Service world (a.k.a. Extranet). I call that philosophy the “Pendulum”. The pendulum oscillates between features and quality in a product. A feature is a new thing that the product should do. Quality is a catch-all for improving the performance, removing bugs,…
I just recently saw this posting by Eric Meyer on how browser makers and big companies interact and how browsers (and developers) are put in a bad situation. The short version is: Browser makers want to update their browser to follow standards. Terrible developers complain that their f**ked up HTML and JS will break if…
Every Sunday, I have extr time with the kids. We want to go into town nd do little shopping. Yet, every Sunday, I forget that most stores are closed. Our favorite Sushi place is closed. Even Guitar World (we needed to buy some picks) was closed. Why is this? The weekend is the one part…
I remember the 2000 primaries. Al Gore was battling Bill Bradley. I don’t remember all of the details, but specifically, I remember feeling guilty after the election. I thought, Bill Bradley would have been a better candidate. Right now, I am having deja vu. Is Barack Obama the new Bill Bradley? Will I feel remorse…
Forums have led a strange existence on the web for a long time. I have seen the evolution from AOL and bulletin boards to more sophisticated technologies with lots of features. The problem is, I feel that forums have not evolved and become more useful. My favorite type of forum is Experts Exchange. By using…
Recently, we got the Wii for the family. It has been a really interesting and well designed experience so far. Alot of great innovations are baked into this thing. The last week, we added a few new features. First, I downloaded the internet channel. The Wii connects to our family Wi-Fi network just like a…
Apparently a very old post of mine is on StubleUpon. Wow, this is from December of 2005. This link drove almost 200 visitors to the page. I haven’t ever used StumbleUpon before. I know what it does, but I just haven’t had the energy to try it. It’s amazing to me that so many people…