I’ve been a Google Inbox user for a few years now. GMail felt absurdly outdated and unpleasant, so I switched. Recently, Google splashed a new can of UX and features onto GMail. I would say without doubt it is an improvement, but there are still some flaws compared to Inbox.…
In talking with lots of folks, I have been using Calendly.com to help coordinate schedules. The back and forth of scheduling is a real pain and these systems make it much better. I tried three today. For language sake it can get confusing, here is a legend: Host = Person…
For the last couple of months, I have been talking with different companies about my next position. It’s a fascinating experience for me because I have been on the other side of the table for the last dozen years. Specifically, I am fascinated by how different people approach talking with…
As I’ve written before, I believe Storyboards are the best way to communicate early designs, while Prototypes are better suited to later stage usability tests. A graphic spec is a different thing. This week I was using Google Slides to see if I could replicate my technique from Microsoft PowerPoint.…
My youngest son and I just returned from visiting London for a week. Here are a few thoughts and highlights: Money Apparently, everyone in London takes credit card. We didn’t find one thing that required cash. Next time, I won’t bother with Pounds and instead just use Mastercard on my…
For the last half-year I was working with a stealth startup. Unfortunately, it did not work out as hoped. It’s an interesting space, but team dynamics is always a crucial factor. In this case, the ingredients in the crock-pot did not yield a pleasing taste. (Too much salt!) So, I…
We are trying Blue Apron. It’s a service that sends you fresh ingredients and the instructions on how to cook it. We are trying the once a week plan. The first problem was that Blue Apron sent us too many boxes at first and then sent one late. The scheduling…
Short 1 min video showing how fairness is baked deep into our psyche. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ui97YPPsg Notice the monkey getting the grape. He seems happy. It doesn’t seem unfair to THAT monkey. It’s the monkey who gets the cracker that gets pissed off. I have privilege coming out of my ears. I…
Its 4am. I woke up from a dream. It was an idea for a story. Here is it. Title: Auto Opening scene, close up of an eyeball with the reflection of a screen in the iris. Zooming out, you see people seated watching TV with blank looks on their faces.…
I was just talking with a friend who is in marketing. They are trying to hire someone and we were brainstorming different marketing techniques to land the candidate. We noticed a pattern. Recruiting is exactly like Marketing. The parallels between them is striking and it made me wonder why we…
Sometimes I wrote a whole post and then delete it. This is one of those. It was about gratuitous violence in mainstream movies and TV shows like Altered Carbon and the hypocrisy of Hollywood liberals who star in movies which glorify torture, mutilation and murder and then say mass shootings…
TL;DR Product specification has a point of diminishing returns. Like most things in life, a nice chart makes it easier to understand. Time flows from left to right. The green line is how complete a specification is and the red line is how hard it is to make the green…
Kindness. Empathy. Civility. I feel like the world is moving in the wrong direction on this. Maybe it’s the anonymity of the internet where you can say vile things to people on Twitter and feel no consequences. Even in a car, we yell at people, screaming that they are bad…
Figma had been doing a decent job of letting me specify the product I am working on. However, there were some pretty serious gaps. Performance was a constant problem. First time load: 20 seconds. Freezing the screen, about 20 times a day. Community is ridiculously slow to load/use Strange behavior…