Category: Uncategorized

  • The UX of Buzz

    Three letters.  WTF! Logged into GMail and got (what many of you got) a thing about Buzz.  I wasn’t sure what the thing was but clicked on it.  The next thing it says is: You are following 30 people and a bunch of people are following you. WTF!?  I didn’t want that!  Huh?  What just…

  • Product Idea: Mobile App for Sales

    I had this idea while talking to a friend.  It’s a different spin on a previous idea about competitive analysis and product management. Summary A mobile app that connects to a SaaS service which gives a salesperson a unique view into prospects.   Specifically, helps make social connections with prospects. In Story form A saleswoman…

  • Presentation Review: Avinash Kaushik

    A great friend and mentor, Avinash Kaushik,  presented at Adchemy last week.  Avinash is an analytics evangelist and industry visionary.  He has two books on Analytics and speaks frequently.  I worked with Avinash a few years ago at Intuit where we had a very prolific and fruitful working relationship.   The whole company turned out…

  • 3D Physics in Flash

    http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net/ The challenge is to find places in your application or website, where you can add a touch of this kind of magic.  It’s can’t be gratuitous.  It has to be fun and natural.  I found a place where it will work in the enterprise app I am designing.  I am excited to see it…

  • The UX of the Magic Moment

    The minute I get started on something, I make enormous progress.  Things get accomplished.  The problem is starting to work on something versus procrastinating. Simply stated, I procrastinate…then comes a magic moment, then I make huge progress. What happens exactly in step 2?  Why did the moment start there?  Couldn’t I have started it further…

  • The Little Things

    Updated April 17, 2014 People love the little things in a product.  They also hate the little things. A car is a miracle of modern science, but people like how the door shuts or how the headlights are cool looking.  A person is complex, but we judge their handshake. The psychology is that people can’t deal…

  • The UX of the iPad

    What does UX tell us about the iPad: iPad was a stupid name.  The feminine product hook will remain a joke and bleed for a long time.  (Pun intended) Similar to the Tea Bagger movement.  Dumb name.  Tampod. The iPad will kill the Kindle DX and not the normal Kindle.  Why?  The smaller kindle fits…

  • Communicating with Comics

    I recently read a book by Scott McCloud called Understanding Comics.  You might have seen his work on the Google Chrome comic strip.  Despite the fact that my blog is most text, I have been a huge fan of the image as a superior communications vehicle than text.  A picture is indeed worth a thousand…

  • The Alphabet Trick

    Your subconscious is much more powerful than you may realize.  It remembers everything and it can make quick judgments based on millions of experiences..  It’s a super computer right in your head.  The only problem is that it can’t be accessed in normal ways.  It tells you things in dreams and fragments and feelings.  However, I have…

  • The Jets Fall 2009

    Well, it’s over.  It was a great run, but the Jets did what they always do.  They got my hopes up and then lost at the last possible second.  This time they went as fas as Vinny Testaverde did getting to the AFC championship game in 1999.  That was a miracle season too with Bill…

  • Deja Vu – Jets vs Colts

    The Jets won Superbowl III on January 12, 1969, almost exactly 41 years ago.  It was just before I was born against the Colts and Johny Unitas.  It was the first time they called it the Super Bowl.  Joe Namath was the hero of the show, jogging off the field in the iconic moment with his finger wagging in…

  • Design is Decisions – Part 1

    Design is decisions.  How do you make those decisions?  There are many competing schools of thought.  I’ll break them down and give you my experience with them all. A/B or Multivariate Testing Focus Groups Hallway Testing Consensus CYA Going with your gut A/B or Multivariate Testing Google tested 41 shades of blue in their google…

  • jQuery 1.4 Released

    Big release of jQuery 1.4 today.  This version has alot of new stuff and tons of optimizations.  It should be a smooth upgrade for most people. jQuery was a central part of my daily life for several years.  Recently, I have been doing more UX Design and have fallen off the web developer wagon.  I…

  • The UX of System Friction

    I bought my wife a Kindle for the holidays.  Over the past three weeks, she has purchased and read, 10 new books.  Previous to that, her reading habits were normal, a single book every couple of weeks.  How did this happen?  How did her reading (and purchasing) habits jump so enormously, just based on the…