I hired a new UX Designer who is in the process of learning about the company. It got me thinking about how many people go through this same process. I am sure there is a bell curve of people who have ample time to learn and others who are thrown into the deep end on…
Punchline: Yes! Business-to-business applications should have a sense of humor just like consumer applications. Enterprise users are human beings. They have Facebook accounts and Twitter accounts just like you do. They watch sports and sit-coms on TV just like you do. They laugh, they cry and have emotions just like everyone else. Enterprise users have…
Years ago, Bill Mirbach suggested I read the book When Prophecy Fails:A Social and Psychological Study of A Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. The book was about a group in the 50’s that predicted the end of the world. Several academics joined the group and studied it from the inside. The basic…
I’ve noticed that topics I might write about here, I ended up writing on Quora. (Actually Atanasio noticed it, but still, the point is the same.) Hmm, not sure where that is going. An interesting question about how designers deal with frustration. Here is my answer: I take the product I design very personally. If…
I think I am highly subject to fads. I used to use the jQuery mailing list every day. Then it was Experts-Exchange.com, then UXExchange.com, then UI.stackexchange.com and most recently it’s Quora.com. I am generally hooked into the UX, UI, Design topics. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks. Here are some of my…
Every now and then, one is surprised by something and then forgets about it. I do my best to remember the things that surprise me. I try to linger on the things that make my eyes open up a little wider and make my mind work a little harder. I believe this is good for…
As an American, I am willing to live with… Reduction of the size of the military by 50%. The cost is enormous and we would be just fine with a reduction in forces to half of what we have today. We would still be spending more on military than most other countries. Reduction of nuclear…
Technical Debt is a fairly common metaphor used in software development. (Nice write up.) Ward Cunningham first drew the comparison between technical complexity and debt in a 1992 experience report: Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite… The…
Real Artists Ship – Steve Jobs When you are working on a product, feature or even service there are two competing ideals. On the one hand, you want the product to be perfect and work well with no bugs. On the other hand, you want to just ship it, to let it go to market…
When you only have a few items to look at, you can pay alot of attention. I have lots of items begging for my attention. Emails, RSS feed articles, critical alerts from systems, feature requests, ideas, bug reports, summary emails and more all vie for our daily attention. When there are only a few items, it is…
I have been a Microsoft guy my whole life. I used DOS, Windows 3.1 as a kid. I beta tested Windows 95, Windows 98, NT 4, 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7. I also beta tested every browser they have ever shipped from the first version of Internet Explorer as well as every version of…
jQuery 1.5 was released today. jQuery was one of the most important breakthroughs for me as a designer. I was an expert in HTML and CSS, but I was not able to program. My career aspirations were pointing towards design and jQuery was the perfect lever to get more out of the web. I spent…
A story from a friend, but it probably sounds familiar to many of you. It is related to the magic triangle of Scope, Resources and Time. You can only focus on one. Trying to focus on two or three is a fool’s game and inevitably leads to failure. Here is an illustration of trying to…
Ben Nadel’s website uses a particular User Experience technique that I think is absolutely brilliant. Let’s call it “names and faces”. The idea was originally in a book “Made to Stick” by Chip & Dan Heath. Summary of the story: The Daily Record, founded in 1950 by Hoover Adams, has a simple core idea: local coverage.…