About Face 4th Edition, the Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin, and Christopher Noessel. Many years ago an interviewer asked me who my influences are. My answer was pretty lame. He generously gave me a list of books to read. I read them and dozens more. Three particular books formed…
A Big Problem #boycottSafari
Note: This post is fairly technical, using (without explaining) many marketing concepts. It has a big impact, but may be complex for many people, especially designers. Many people in the world would prefer that everything online be free AND that their privacy is ironclad. The problem is that this ignores the economics of how everything…
All Roads on Twitter Lead to Hitler
I try hard to avoid Twitter. I use it (and LinkedIn) to publicize my blog posts. I click publish and voila! Insta-tweet. Sometimes, I will tweet a little joke or pun, but I hardly ever participate in the normal Twitterverse. The main reason is that every time I get into a conversation on Twitter, I…
Why is Adobe XD taking so long on basic things?
Designers are one of the worst markets to make products for. We are fickle/disloyal and we are picky beyond reasonableness. I feel badly for people who design products for us. With that said, I have grievances and need to air them. Adobe. What the heck is going on over there? I am going to point…
Figma UI Refresh – Apr 2019
Figma just released a new aesthetic to their design tool. I use Figma every day for several hours, so I care about any changes. Normally, I love change. Change is good. Even when it’s bad. In this case, there are some things to like, but overall, I think they made a mistake. Bottom line: I…
New-ish Band: Billie Eilish
I heard a new band on the radio named after the singer Billie Eilish. It’s a cool mix of jazz, dubstep, and dance. The singer’s voice has an interesting tenor, similar to Mazzy Star or maybe Billie Holiday. The song Bad Guy has a nice hook to it. It was released on YouTube a week…
Flipping it on its Head
We all have context. Every product you design, every job you do, every email you write all have something that came before it. None of us live and create in a vacuum. All too often, the things we design, do, and write are basically copies of things that have done in the past. We don’t…
Ironic Almost Truth
April Fools. Got you. UX Rule #91: Everything cool eventually becomes lame.
Video: You Go High, We Go Low
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAbab8aP4_A&feature=youtu.be Great Video of our Current Politics Poorly drawn and animated, but great narration and storytelling. I enjoyed it and learned a little something about group psychology. Also, Im testing out my new WordPress theme to see how embedded videos work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAbab8aP4_A&feature=youtu.be Great Video of our Current Politics Poorly drawn and animated, but great narration and storytelling. I enjoyed it and learned a little something about group psychology. Also, Im testing out my new WordPress theme to see how embedded videos work.
Recruiting Trip to Indiana University
The story starts with a chain of serendipity. Here is a quick summary of how I was invited to Indiana University. I interviewed a woman named Jin (a terrific person) for a PM role at Engagio 4 years ago. We hit it off, but didn’t end up working together.Jin asked me to guest lecture at…
UX Candidate Design Challenge – v5
UX Candidate Design Challenge – v1UX Candidate Design Challenge – v2UX Candidate Design Challenge – v3UX Candidate Design Challenge – v4 Designing a design challenge is really difficult. There are so many different things you are looking for. Recently, I have been cycling on a few different ones, but I think I want to retire…
Pie Charts are (almost always) Bad UX
Every enterprise tool out there has a pie chart somewhere in it. Yet, these visualizations often are confusing, hard to read, and a waste of space. let’s look more closely at the notorious pie chart. Where do Pie Charts go wrong? More than a dozen slices make me crazy. These are pure monstrosities. Any designer…
Designers: Stop using Wix and SquareSpace
I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMVMbmQBug Speech from Network I keep looking at designer portfolios. One after the other, after the other, after the other. ALL OF THE PORTFOLIOS ARE THE SAME!Glen, Mar 1, 2019 When I see a portfolio, I can describe them all pretty specifically.…
Poor Designer Case Studies
I’m reviewing many design portfolios these days. For those of you who don’t know; when a designer works, they sometimes keep track of a whole project from start to finish. They put it on their personal website almost like a school book report. They include pictures and different versions of the design. This is a…
Advice for Hiring Managers
I’ve given advice to candidates, but this advice is for myself and other hiring managers. One key reality is that candidates often have multiple offers and you need to create a great experience for them. The goal is to make the candidate WANT to work for you. You have to stand out. Here are some…
The UX of CanuMeet and Google Appointment Slots
Use Case: You are a hiring manager or recruiter and you want to set up lots of screening calls with lots of candidates. You could email them back and forth, but that is error prone. It’s better to have an automatic system. I had previously reviewed Calendly and Apooint.ly. Here are a couple of others.…
ToldYouSo Use Cases
The more I work on my mobile app idea ToldYouSo, the harder it becomes. It’s like I am trying to figure out how people who disagree can resolve their differences. It’s daunting. I think it would be useful for me to write down the use cases. Initial Version (MLP) Solo PredictionA single person makes a prediction.…
Advice for New Designers 2019
I am hiring 4 designers this year, approximately 1 per quarter. Therefore, I’ve been reviewing dozens of portfolios. I spend a little more time than average on them, because when I was looking for new jobs, I hoped hiring managers gave my work more than a cursory glance. Unfortunately, most design websites are fairly poor.…
Personality Test 2019
I am recruiting new product designers these days and one candidate put her personality tests on her About page. I saw the test and (on a whim) decided to fill out the form. It just takes 5 minutes or so. Here are my results: The Architect INTJ, -A/-T My 2019 Results The text is generally…
How Hollywood has Trained us to be Bad People
Hollywood sells drama. They do not give it away and they are not a charity. They sell a product in the form of movies and TV shows that can either get direct payment in a theater or indirect payment through advertising or subscription. They are a business, plain and simple. So to maximize their profit,…
Slack’s New Logo (YP vs MP)
I hate the be such a Negative Nancy, A Debbie Downer, or A Bummer Brian. However, this new logo really rubs me the wrong way. Not for aesthetic reasons exactly. Let me explain. First look at the change: Old Version 2016-2018 Animated Logo in App New Version 2019 The new version lacks the personality and…
Asus MX34VQ 34″ UQHD Monitor and Scaling
I was using a LG 34UM68-P ultra wide monitor, but I was having some trouble seeing the edges of the screen. They literally were so far away that they turned blurry to my old eyes. Previously, I had been using a LG 34UC80-B 34-Inch 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD IPS Monitor and I really appreciate the…
2019 Predictions
Generally, I like to write these down so I have a record of predictions made. Here we go, 2019 will see the following occur: (in no order) Trump will not be impeached. There will not be enough support from Republicans and Democrats will fear a backlash. However, his foundation and businesses will get a lot…
Holiday Electronics Reviews 2018
I upgraded many of my electronics this holiday season. It’s only been a few days, but here are my initial reactions. iPad Pro 2018 I use my iPad for games, movies, light email, and reading news. I don’t want to draw with it or use it as a laptop replacement. It’s basically a big version…
Wishes for 2019
Most Important Wish I wish fervently that Rush Bader Ginsberg has a happy and HEALTHY 2019 and 2020. She recently fell and broke some ribs. The x-ray noticed some bad tumors in her lungs. Thank God, they found it early and she is currently recovering. Stay healthy RBG. We need you! Design Tool Wishes Figma…
Cognitive Dissonance 2018
Yesterday, congress passed a bill with bipartisan support to reform the justice system to make it more just. Specifically, it changed sentencing guidelines that have led to an 800% increase in prison inmates since 1980. It retroactively fixed the fact that there was a 100:1 ratio between sentences for crack cocaine vs. powdered cocaine. The…
Making Things Worse
No one has the intention of making things worse. All designers have positive intent. However, in reality, there are plenty of services that get worse with upgrades. Recently, I have had a few upgrades that feel like downgrades. Feedly iPad App I am not sure what prompted such a big change, but I am completely…
New WordPress Editor 2018
WordPress has released a new editor. It’s very different than the previous one. This is a little meta, but I am going to review my first impressions of the editor in real time. I will also try out a bunch of the features. Drop cap is cool, I guess, but it looks like ass without…
UX Suggestions for Scoop
Scoop is a carpooling/ride-sharing service. Basically, I put in when I want to leave and it matches me up with people who want a ride near my work/home. They pay $6 and I get $5 of that per trip. The service in general is greatly appreciated, but the experience leaves much to be desired. Here…
Turn your Data into a Story
The essence of data visualizations is to tell a story. There are some great charts like Napoleon’s march to Moscow and Florence Nightingale’s chart on the causes of deaths in the Crimean War. Recently, my oldest son pointed out the following chart to me. Both are an image of Washington DC. The first shows the…
Maybe I’m a …
I never really thought about this until recently, but my first job as a product designer came when I was 32 years old. Maybe it’s best to backtrack and show the progression of what I thought I was. In 2nd grade, I made a sculpture of my father’s head. It looked better than the other…
Uncomfortable Chairs
I spend a good deal of my life sitting in an office chair. It’s a good bet that you do as well. The chair at my desk; I have adjusted to have the right parameters of height and position. However, it’s still fairly uncomfortable. When I get up, I find it hard to stand up…
Rank Choice Voting
Sometimes I imagine the whole world is a simulation and you could change one single variable to see what happens. What would life be like without John Wilkes Booth? What if Franz Ferdinand didn’t get lost that summer day in Sarajevo? What if Alexander the Great had died in his first battle? (He almost did)…
Capturing Imagination
I love that phrase, “It captured my imagination”. It makes me think of my imagination as a wild animal. I’m hunting it, stalking in the shadows, staying downwind. I am trying not to scare it away. My imagination is quick and nimble, like an antelope or an ibex. (Hudsucker Proxy!) I must be stealthy to…
UX Candidate Design Challenge – v4
UX Candidate Design Challenge – v1 UX Candidate Design Challenge – v2 UX Candidate Design Challenge – v3 As I am now hiring more people on the design team, I came up with a new design exercise. However, to jump to the end, it was too damn hard. So I only used it about 6…
Thoughts on Creativity (2018)
There are lots of threads/books/posts/podcasts on the topic of Creativity. Here is a sampling of my thoughts on the subject. Creativity is combining two unrelated items to form a new thing. I imagine our brains as a home office. We have our desk where we work on things. We have file cabinets with old memories,…
The UX of Waze Carpooling and Scoop
I tried very hard to make CalTrain work, but I had to give up. It took too long, with too many transfers. I would have to buy a scooter or bring my bike on the train. Ultimately, driving was way easier. Goodbye reading. 🙁 So driving takes between 30 and 50 minutes depending on when…
Design Tools Roundup Sep 2018
Preface: Designers are a terrible audience. We have no real loyalty to anything. A new tool comes along and we abandon our old tools in a moments notice. Right now, Sketch + Invision is pretty popular, but I think these new tools are far superior and people are already swapping them out. Let’s dive in……
What is America’s Role in the World?
A fairly straight-forward question, with an impossibly hard set of answers: When something is bad in the world today, what is the role of the United States? First, let’s agree on some facts: Human rights abuses, Genocide, and Natural Disasters are Bad One country taking over another country is Bad People should not be judged…
What I Look for in a Designer Portfolio 2018
Disclaimer: My own site isn’t perfect. There are much better portfolios than mine. I have done a terrible job of showing the problem, iterations, and case studies for the work I have done over the past 205 years. I put plenty of energy into this blog, but not as much into the portfolio section. With…