My kids (and many others) often complained about homework and education. “Why do I need to know this?” They were avoiding homework. As a kid, I didn’t do any homework. I had a 2.2 grade point average in high school. I went to community college and then University of Hell, I mean Buffalo. On my…
Last year, I tried to switch to a newer icon collection. We researched hundreds of different collections and chose one by Axialis. We thought our requirements were this: Looks nice and modern Lots of variety in shapes Big sizes (up to 256) We then went about converting the icons in the system to Axialis. Unfortunately,…
We have had the same couch for almost 20 years. It looks pretty ratty at this point and needs to be replaced. We have been searching around at different places and stumbled upon Monarch Sofas. Really interesting and counter-intuitive UX. The website looks cheap. Made us think it was a discount place, when in reality…
This year was Superbowl XLIX or “49” to us normal people. Next year, is 50, therefore Superbowl L. Doesn’t quite have a ring to it, but 50 is a milestone. The institution has held up over the years and not turned into a joke that is painful to watch. You know who I am talking…
I have a terrible affliction called “Old”. It is fairly common for people born before 1975. The symptoms are fairly broad. Weakness in the joints, inability to heal quickly, weight gain, hair loss and vision degradation, just to name a few. Seriously, this thing is worse than any disease I have ever heard of. Many…
Are you a fledgling designer? Just graduated from General Assembly or CMU? Well, I am hiring. But wait, I don’t want to hire you yet. You don’t know what you are doing. Here is a challenge to help you get off the starting blocks. First, Redesign your website. Check out these awesome UX portfolios. Or…
I play alot of tennis. It is my favorite pastime and I feel I am pretty good at it. MY USTA level is 4.0. The best part of my game is my serve. This is virtually the only physical exercise I get on a weekly basis. Last September, I played mixed doubles one fateful night. …
Apparently CES, the big electronics show is happening today. This means there are announcements all day about new great laptops. I can’t buy one now. I need to wait until they ship in February. In the meantime, I need to get something to replace the broken Samsung Series 9 that I bought in June 2011.…
Every few years, one of my various computing devices becomes old and breaks down. This is what happens to old things, like me. Getting old sucks. Anyway, in this case, it’s a lightweight ultrabook. I have narrowed it down to a few choices. I’ve made some little comparison tables way down below. It’s not comprehensive.…
I’m not a big fan of the personality tests like Myers Briggs and Colors. I feel like I could answer the questions either way almost every single time. Also, I feel like the results are always generalities like “You have a long ‘love-line’” that you get in palm reading. I’m a skeptic and believe I…
I spent a few minutes filling in the early archives of Commadot.com, specifically 1996-1997. My predictions were sometimes incredibly accurate and other times … not so much. My writing style was also fairly immature. My spelling was atrocious. The worst thing was the font: Comic Sans. What was I thinking? It brought back some memories…
I just upgraded to the new WordPress 4.1 with a new theme Twenty Fifteen. I think it looks nice, but more importantly, it is the most responsive theme I have ever used. It has many breakpoints and changes shape as the browser gets smaller. (Try it out) However, on very large resolutions (1920×1080 on my…
I was in a discussion with a young designer about whether serif or sans serif is easier to read. I was about to go over the pros and cons, but then I found this info-graphic on serif vs sans-serif. Brilliant. I’ve made a copy of the graphic below. I think it covers the subject completely.…
When we first designed and built Marketo, we started out with a client-side framework (ExtJS) that was cutting edge and awesome. Version 0.33 alpha. How cutting edge is that!? Then over time, it because 2.0, and then 3.0 and then 4.0 and now it’s up to 5.1. It’s no longer cutting edge. It’s a great…